The eTail Blog

How to Convince Your Team that Less is More in Mobile Marketing

Kelly Hushin — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:05:28 +0000

It’s a common flaw of marketers to want to shove everything possible in front of their customers. The more opportunities I give them to buy, the more likely they’ll do SOMETHING, right? We think, wrong. By now you probably agree. But it’s easy to fall back into that trap, especially when you’re designing your mobile site and there’s 10 things you want it to do but you can only choose one.

As we know, mobile marketing means sharing bite-sized chunks of information, so your internal team needs to think about the practicalities of smart phone viewing. Screens are small, and attention spans are short, so marketing teams have to send out brief messages packed with meaning. Also, marketing teams have to pack messages with value so that they train their customers to respond. Here are a few of the common elements of mobile marketing that your team should be aware of and understand the “less is more” mantra when designing:

Mobile Optimized Websites

Scanning a QR code, responding to an SMS or clicking a link in a tweet often takes customers to websites or landing pages. Those pages have to be quick to load and easy to see on a small screen. Therefore, marketers have to make sure that they pare down their websites for mobile customers, hitting only the high points of what they would offer on their full sites. If sites are too cluttered or slow, customers will move on to the next thing. Make sure your mobile site has easy to read menus without too many options. If there are lots of categories of goods on your main website and you’re a clothing retailer, for instance, combine them into more general categories like “women” or “men,” so visitors are hit with fewer options.

QR Codes

There’s still debate about whether QR codes really work, but one thing’s for sure: they’re short and sweet, so whatever they lead to should be too. QR codes on print advertising or signage can lead customers to different online offers. For instance, marketing teams can provide coupons or web landing pages via a QR code that contains special promotions or supplemental information. Mobile customers want to scan the code, get their nugget of information or exclusive offer, and be on their way. They do not want to be bogged down with a mountain of content or other distractions.

SMS

Short Message Service is another way of saying text messaging. By its nature, the cell phone screen is small, and text messages can only utilize a certain number of characters. So, when utilizing this kind of mobile marketing vehicle, you should keep messages succinct. Customers should be able to text back a code for more information, link to a website or enjoy an exclusive offer with every text message. Every text message should be to the point and value-packed.

Social Media

Twitter is the epitome of the less is more philosophy. With only 140 available characters, tweets have to deliver maximum value in a small package. Many other social media outlets like Facebook also have mobile apps so that smart phone users can stay in contact with their friends, but none are like Twitter in its quest to keep things brief. But status updates on Facebook should also be short and direct, or customers will not pay attention.

As a general rule, no matter what vehicle you’re using for mobile marketing, keep your messaging short, and don’t try to load your landing pages (be they from a QR Code, an SMS, a social media link) with too many options. In mobile marketing, you can’t be everything to everyone so just learn how to say no!

Super Bowl Poll – Who’s Your Pick??

Kelly Hushin — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:55:23 +0000

It’s a simple question, but we are dying to know where your hearts are for this weekend’s big game (or maybe where your money is??…Not necessarily the same!)

Seeing that we’re based in NYC you can probably guess where our hearts are, but we won’t judge – promise.

Ok maybe just a little…

Click your pick below!

Create your own sms poll at Poll Everywhere

No related posts.

Mall Of America’s Digital Brand Pro on ‘One Thing She Can’t Live Without’

Kelly Hushin — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:54:06 +0000

It’s that time again – time for a “One Thing I Can’t Live Without” installment. This time, we’re bringing you answers from one of our speakers at the upcoming eTail West conference. Her name is Lisa Grimm and she is the Digital Brand Manager for Mall of America.

With more than 400 stores and a whole host of attractions from an aquarium to Nickolodeon Universe complete with roller-coaster, this mall is not your average collection of shops, and naturally has a good reason to attract a social media following. Lisa monitors how the brand is being talked about online and makes sure to keep the brand images where it should be. That’s why her “One Thing I Can’t Live Without” has to do with managing the online community surrounding the brand. Take it away Lisa…

Lisa Grimm

1. As an online marketer and retailer, what’s something you can’t live without? And we don’t mean coffee. We mean anything from a technology tool to a partner to a cool trick you do on Excel to a coworker.

This question is just as bad as asking me what my favorite movie is; practically impossible to answer. Since part of my eTail presentation focuses on community management, I’ll choose Boxcar as my tool I cannot live without.

2. Can you explain what this is – if necessary?

Boxcar is a nifty notification and search query app for iOS. Knowing what is being said about your brand at all times is crucial these days, and Boxcar is an amazing solution for the community manager on-the-go. Through the app, you’re able to enter which Twitter accounts (and several other social sites and RSS) you’d like to receive notifications for. This differs from the many other Twitter apps available because it allows the ability to query information. In Mall of America’s case, we want to know when people mention “Mall of America or “MOA” and other popular brand phrases in order to keep a pulse on brand sentiment and how people are experiencing the Mall.

3. Why can you NOT live without this?

Reputation management and our online communities are very important to us at Mall of America®. MOA™ sees 42 million annual visitors, so there is a lot for us to glean from monitoring conversations that are happening in real-time.

4. How often do you use it and how long have you been using it?

I’ve been using it since 2009 and I use it every day.

5. If lightning struck tomorrow and you suddenly didn’t have this one thing, what would you do to improvise?

I’d rely on our SCRM (social customer relationship management) platform, which is great, but nothing is as fast and easy-to-use as Boxcar when you’re mobile.

6. How can other people get this too?

Go to the app store on any Apple product and download the app. There is a desktop version of the app, but I don’t use it.

BONUS: And what’s the non-work related thing you can’t do your job without? This is where the coffee, or anything else comes in…

Chad and Hank – my husband and dog.

A New Wave: Dynamic Creative Optimization for Targeting & Personalization

etailblog — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:28:44 +0000

Today’s advertising experience is more dynamic than ever before. Companies specializing in dynamic creative optimization are helping businesses to understand the way that all elements of their advertising (including copy, product, image and call-to-actions) play to the micro-segments of their customers. Instead of just re-marketing across the board, companies are catering their messages to individual customers.

But targeting consumers can lead down some sticky paths. How do you do it and not be transparent? How can you really personalize ad messages without the consumer seeing right through you? It’s a thin line to walk across but the digital marketplace has basically made it impossible to compete if you don’t at least try.

Targeting and Personalization Challenges

Companies that want to create targeted advertising tackle issues of scalability and measurability. For instance, companies may have no problem identifying their marketing segments, but creating unique ads for each segment would result in an extraordinarily high ad spend. Also, companies need to know which parts of their advertising are resonating with their customers, not just what the click-through rates (CTR). That way, they will know how to recreate the experience in future ad campaigns. With dynamic creative optimization, companies have the tools they need to overcome these obstacles.

Different Strokes for Different Folks

Dynamic creative optimization allows companies to break apart online ads into their separate elements and then customize those elements to the individual customer. A travel agency, for example, instead of using generic copy about saving money on flights, could look at a customer’s geographic location or flight history and suggest trips to locations that will appeal to the user. A hardware store could use the customer’s IP address to identify the closest branch of its store and display the address and phone number to the customer. Copy, in these examples, changes according to customer data. Customers get a tailored message that makes them much more likely to buy.

Designing Ads that Click

Targeted advertising increases CTR rate significantly. Some statistics show that CTR jumps more than 100 percent when dynamic creative optimization is used instead of non-optimized advertising. Cost metrics drop an estimated 60 to 70 percent. That’s an eye-popping return on investment for any business, and it’s one of the major benefits of creating a dynamic campaign. Expect this exciting way of targeting advertising to be one of the top new developments in online marketing.

Get Excited for…Live Streaming @ eTail West (including Guy Kawasaki)!

Kelly Hushin — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:48:15 +0000

For the second year in a row, eTail will be live streaming some of its super informative and engaging sessions as they take place in Palm Springs. (At the JW Marriott, Palm Desert, to be exact.)

Guy Kawasaki

We first tried this at our eTail Boston show in August of last year, and people loved being able to tune in, whether from home or even as they were watching it onsite. The live streaming player, provided by Watchitoo, has some really cool features where you can chat with other viewers, send questions in for the panelist(s) and integrate social media platforms into the whole experience. We’re excited to stream many of the sessions on both the first and second days of the eTail West conference.

And as a special addition, we’ll be live streaming our awesome guest speaker, Guy Kawasaki, who will speak on the third day of the conference, Thursday, March 1st at 8:10 a.m. Guy is the former Chief Evangelist at Apple and is well-known for his uplifting ideas, business methods and best selling books, the 10th of which is called, “Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions.”

His blog, “How to Change the World,” discusses things like creating enchanting business plans, pitches and forecasting. The session streaming can be found on the homepage of the eTail West site, or right here on the blog. Be sure to tune in, chat with your fellow viewers and ask questions of those being streamed – we’ll field those questions onsite and make sure you get answers!

3 Steps to Better Optimize Your Tablet Strategy

Kelly Hushin — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:24:38 +0000

By Jason Taylor

Special to the eTail Blog

A recent study found that 87% of tablet owners used their devices to browse and purchase gifts this holiday season. As consumers are becoming increasingly confident using tablets to browse, shop and purchase from retailers online, it is crucial for brands to view tablets as a key part of their overall online sales and marketing strategy. Understanding the tablet shopper as well as the features that make the devices unique is the first step to successfully integrating tablets into a broader multichannel strategy. Further, retail businesses must develop a tablet experience that works for all users, and incorporate similar branding and messaging to maximize potential traffic and revenue.

The New Tech-Savvy Tablet Shopper

The 2011 holiday season made it easy for retailers to recognize and understand the power of tablets. According to data from Monetate, 4.5% of all website visits between Black Friday and Cyber Monday came through tablet devices. Displaying the power of tablets as a sales channel, these users converted at a rate of 5.1%, only a .3% difference from desktop traffic. Additional data from Zmags found that 49% of tablet owners plan to shop via their devices moving forward, representing a significant opportunity for retailers to optimize their tablet shopping to maximize this increasing traffic and set themselves apart from competitors.

Taking Advantage of the Tablet’s Unique Features

When optimizing an ecommerce site for tablet users, retailers must take into account the device’s unique features in order to create the most engaging experience for the consumer. For example, leveraging the device’s screen size and multi-touch capabilities empowers brands to become creative when looking for ways to more deeply engage with its customers. Incorporating tap-tap-zoom, finger swipe, and video features into the browsing and buying experience helps to both effectively maximize screen real estate and create a fun and engaging tablet shopping experience.

Optimize for all Tablets, Big and Small

A successful tablet experience is one that works for all users, regardless of what device they choose. The ever-growing tablet landscape requires brands to develop a device agnostic strategy with the ability to reach all tablet users and maximize all potential revenue opportunity. Don’t get lost in the “everyone has an iPad” idea, because not everyone does. Additionally, optimizing a site for a tablet requires an agile platform that instantly recognizes the type of device used and delivers the same high levels of performance and support shoppers are accustomed to on the desktop in order to ensure a positive user experience.

Creating a Consistent Brand Experience

Tablets should be viewed by brands as a valuable channel that will drive traffic and increase revenue. However, to successfully integrate an effective tablet strategy into overall multichannel efforts, it is crucial that retailers incorporate the same branding aesthetics and core functionality on tablets that consumers experience with the brand’s existing in-store, online and mobile presence. Looking forward, the tablet’s influence on retail will continue to grow, forcing brands to view devices like the iPad, Kindle Fire, Nook, and others as essential consumer touchpoints that require a consistent brand experience. In fact, if retailers don’t get their tablet strategy right over the next several years, they run the risk of becoming irrelevant in the eyes of today’s tech-savvy consumer.

Jason Taylor is the Head of Platform Strategy and Innovation at Usablenet, New York, Italy and UK based company that offers a technological platform for transforming and optimizing web content for any device.

New Series Alert: 5-Year Old Conceives (Charitable!) E-Commerce Site

Kelly Hushin — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:50:41 +0000

You know the tide of commerce is turning when a six-year old can come up with an e-business idea and it’s, well, good.

Bethany Sawyer was your average five-year-old (now six) who loved to draw, when she came up with an idea for how she could turn her art into a proper business. Ok, so admittedly, she wasn’t really the one pushing a business concept, but because her parents owned Image76, a printing and mailing company in Massachusetts, she thought, why can’t we print my artwork and my friends’ artwork on shirts and sell them…and give some proceeds to charity? Doesn’t every toddler think like this?

Perhaps not. But with advancements in technology, children are becoming more savvy about how the world of commerce works. Computers, iPads, iPhones and the like are changing the way children learn, and in some cases, like Bethany’s, it can be the kids, not the parents, who get the business moving.

The Giving Goose is an online store that sells clothing and gifts bearing the artwork of children like Bethany, and invites other children to submit their own art. A judging panel votes on the art and the winners’ pieces are screen printed on various clothing and gifts and made available for sale. The final site, launched September 1, 2011, is a combination of Bethany’s idea and her parents’ business acumen. Although her parents have run their successful printing business for more than a decade, they had a lot to learn about the world of online commerce as they dove headfirst into the site.

Unexpected Hurdles

“There was a huge learning curve,” said Nancy Sawyer, Bethany’s mom. She and her husband often found themselves asking their partners, “What do you mean you can’t make it work like that?”

The Sawyer’s worked with a local ecommerce provider called Design Principles to help create the site and see through Bethany’s vision. One very important aspect would be the link between the purchase and the charities. Having worked with several non-profits, Bethany has charity in her blood and wanted to make sure she was giving back. So one request was that rather than having a coupon code, as many e-commerce sites do, the site would have a “Giving Code,” which would be a drop down menu where customers could choose the charity to which they would donate. Ten percent of the proceeds from each purchase are set to go to said charity, per the Sawyer’s business plan. But this was not an easy task and took time to figure out. Still, the Sawyer’s were pleased with their partners’ ability to work through the challenge.

The Big Online Marketing Challenge

Image76 has been a successful business for Nancy and her family, but much of that success has come from word-of-mouth and referrals. That’s how she gets new clients. In the online world, she found herself on a small ship in a very, very large sea.

“Coming from a background where it’s been lots of face to face sales and connections – that part is not nearly as difficult,” said Nancy. “But to take that leap into a big cyberspace online thing and figure out how to make a connection with a consumer…I didn’t realize it would be so hard.”

Still, Nancy is confident that The Giving Goose is in the right place. While she had thought about wholesaling the clothes, she came to the conclusion that the brand and the idea, not just the product, really belonged in front of the consumer.

Next Steps

The Sawyers are excited by the challenges that await them and are currently interviewing for additional help with some of the activities that will surround the business. Nancy says she also is excited to learn more about what she doesn’t know, since the online world is one packed with ideas and knowledge that doesn’t exist in the offline retail space. SEO is one thing she will be reading up on, as well as how to more seamlessly integrate her partnerships with non-profit organizations who will benefit from products sold on the site.

In the end, she wants to stay true to Bethany’s vision: to let kids be famous for a day when their original artwork lands on a shirt, and more importantly, to help others when those pieces are sold.

This is the first of our monthly new online retailer series, where we will be profiling a new(ish) online retailer and/or new technology for multi-channel retail. If you have any ideas for us, please feel free to send along as your idea of a great new online retailer might be the next feature! Send all ideas, questions, etc., to kelly.hushin@wbresearch.com.

Brooks Brothers: Email Marketing & Segmentation’s ‘Low Hanging Fruits’

Kelly Hushin — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:42:26 +0000

When we spoke to Jacquelyn Wosilius, Manager, Online Marketing Strategy, Brooks Brothers, she’d only been a month on the job and already had some AWESOME advice to impart about email marketing.

Why such a pro, so fast? She has a secret weapon up her sleeve: she comes from the “other side.” That is, the vendor side.

Jacquelyn learned quite a lot about the ins and outs of email marketing, how to manage large databases and how to effectively arrange and market to various segments.

At eTail Boston, she sat down with me to talk about how she is bringing her skills and knowledge as a former vendor to the retail side. It’s a unique perspective as not many marketers can say they’ve worked on the vendor side, and makes her knowledge highly appealing. In the brief video below, she reveals:

– The low-hanging fruit for successful email marketing
– The future for the channel
– How to avoid “Analysis Paralysis”
– How to capture email addresses in-store

Enjoy!

How to Recreate the Luxury Brand Experience Online

etailblog — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:37:42 +0000

Many of today’s top luxury brands are delivering an online experience focused on reminding shoppers of why they love the brand in the first place. The good news for luxury brands, even in today’s economy, is that most wealthy Americans aren’t curbing their spending. Luxury clientele are avid consumers of new technology, and luxury brands are adopting their digital platforms as they move forward into 2012. These are some of the ways the successful ones are doing it.

Atmosphere

A major component of luxury branding is creating an online atmosphere that meets with the customer’s expectations of the brand. Hyatt Hotels, for instance, allows clients to ask questions of a 24/7 concierge via its Twitter accounts. In addition to asking questions, guests can book dinner reservations or spa sessions through Twitter.

Exclusivity

People who use luxury brands like to feel that they have something one-of-a-kind. The online experience, therefore, should be dynamic according to the market segment of the shopper. Ralph Lauren placed QR codes on the exterior of its stores that customers could scan with their smart phones. The codes took customers to exclusive web pages that allowed them to enter to win U.S. Open tickets and an exclusive Ralph Lauren wardrobe.

Narrative

Successful luxury brands will create a story that engages their clientele. Tiffany & Co., for example, deployed a microsite called “What Makes Love True” and recorded a 20 percent increase in sales. Instead of just marketing engagement rings, Tiffany sold an online narrative to go along with the rings. When customers see the luxury brand story as part of their own story, they will be more likely to buy.

Emotion

The luxury brand companies that are most successful online understand the emotional response that their brand invokes in customers. Burberry, for instance, broadcast a fashion show live on Facebook and set up a “click-to-buy” button so that users could immediately be part of the emotional experience. Every luxury company’s first product is emotion, and the online experience should evoke the feelings for which the brand is known.

New Series! Tell us about Your Favorite New Online Retailers…

Kelly Hushin — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 20:03:57 +0000

The beauty of launching a business today is that you need little more than a computer, an Internet connection and a pretty brilliant idea.

Gone are the days of actually needing real estate to get your products sold – and hence, tons of nifty new retailers are cropping up everywhere on the www.

We are honoring those newbies with a new series that’s all about the new kids on the block: who they are, what they’re doing and why it’s interesting.

We have a few lined up, but tell us who you know about too! We value your opinion on who and what to watch so give us a shout and the scoop. Comment here or send an email to kelly.hushin@wbresearch.com.

And stay tuned for the start of the series…