1. SalesView:

MarketingSherpa released its 2009 eCommerce Benchmark Survey and reminds us that we should be gearing up for what is projected to be an improved holiday season: up 9% over 2008.  Nearly 1,500 eCommerce marketers rated tactics for improving website conversions.

1.  Perpetual shopping carts

These take many different forms:  from a simple note that there’s a product sitting in the cart to dynamic overlays showing images of the product, price, and estimated shipping costs.  The perpetual shopping cart keeps the purchase in the mind of the customer; that psychological anchor helps guide them back to the purchase.

2.  Website search

Consumer research suggests that almost 50% of shoppers prefer internal search over traditional menu options.  This number naturally rises when they have a specific product or brand in mind. 

The first priority is to test your internal search regularly to ensure that it works effectively. Second, examine the different business factors that can be used to optimize internal search results.  Some marketers use a ‘last in-first out’ method to move inventory, while others use their analytics and database systems to sort products by profit margin.  The choices are as broad as your technology and creativity.

3.  Enhanced display

Consumers are enthusiastic about getting multiple, varied photos of a product.   People want to know as much as they can about a product, and even static images can help.  Showing videos how to use products or explaining complex features can bring products to life for the user.

Definition 6 is an Atlanta ad agency and has extensive experience in building and designing eCommerce websites.  We can improve your Search Engine Optimization.  We are experts in Google Search technology and can implement search at your site.  We can also help you with your interactive advertising campaigns and targeted email marketing.  Do you need a mobile advertising strategy?  We can help!

In my continuing research into marketing to the Hispanic consumer, I'm finding great articles from MediaPost that provide good information on why and how to reach this particular audience.  So here is an article by Joseph Kutchera (Why Does Google Send U.S. Hispanics To Foreign Web Sites?) that talks about what Google is doing with search results for the Spanish speaking community and how you can apply similar ideas to your marketing campaigns.

The first thing he points out is that if you search in Google using Spanish words, 50% or more of your responses are going to be for sites outside of the U.S. borders.  So why does this happen and why do marketers miss this target audience?  Kutchera provides the answer.  "Google and other search engines index sites globally while we marketers, agencies and media sellers work within the economic and political borders of the U.S."  When people search using Spanish words and terms, Google is going to return sites that have Spanish content on them.  Does your website have Spanish content?  If you do, you may still be missing out on this audience for a few different reasons.  Kutchera points out the following.  1) Your Spanish site may not be optimized for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) like your English site.  2) Many Spanish speaking Hispanics like to go to sites of their country of origin. 3) Spanish language markets are more likely to spend time on their content, making it more relevant than someone from an English language market who is updating a Spanish language website. 4) U.S. advertisers have been slow to move budgets toward online marketing and therefore not providing the resources necessary to provide the content that is necessary.

So what can you do to reach the Hispanic population:

- Purchase non-U.S. targeted inventory on your search buys along with your U.S. targeted inventory.
- Reach out to Hispanic country-of-origin web sites through ad networks.
- Apply behavioral, contextual, and language targeting to further segment and understand your Hispanic audience.

As a Senior Consultant at Definition 6, an interactive marketing agency with expertise in Web Search Engine Optimization and Search Marketing Consulting, I'm seeing lots of evidence for companies to shift some marketing dollars to specifically target Hispanics in the U.S.  This growing population is getting online at a very fast pace.  There are millions and millions of them out there that could be buying your products or services if they could find you.  Are you willing to let them go to your competitors?  We can help you target them.  We can help you get ahead of the curve.
 

I just got a call from a strategic business partner, and as an Interactive Advertising Agency we stay up to speed on most things in the marketplace, and he was calling me from a break at a conference for his company.  As he said hello, I congratulated him on their company raising another round of VC dollars.  He said "Wow, how did you know that?!"  I told him simple; Twitter!  I was a follower of his company's partner account and at the same time they told the company they tweeted about it.  Interactive communications is so fast, that in less than 5 minutes the word was out!  Now this is a great story because they are an eMail marketing partner of ours, he is a long time friend and the news was good.  We talked about what the investment meant to his company and our partnership, we discussed how online ad agency business was continuing to see good growth this year and that 2010 was going to be a great year, and hung up smiling.

Now what if the news had been bad?  What if they had a meeting that was altering the relationship with partners and it was negative?  And someone had tweeted about it? I suspect our call wouldn't have been the same. 

Let's talk about your online interactive marketing and message management.  Do you have a twitter monitoring policy?  Do you have an account?  Do you follow your partners, customers, employees, competitors?  I do, you should too. Website Development is a very small part of being digital, search engine optimization is only a part as is eMail or even PPC. The big parts are listening, monitoring, and watching the ecosystem and being informed as quickly as possible to make decisions as rapidly as possible.  So next time you are with your Interactive Ad Agency, ask them what they know and when they learned it.  You will be amazed at how fast Digital has become.

Site search is yet another website search engine optimization solution that we help our clients with.  It is a relatively low cost way to improve overall site experience for users and can help drive conversion by quickly getting users to the content they want.  Onsite Search also alleviates website abandonment if users aren’t quickly and easily finding what they are looking for.

How can Definition 6 help?
• Add “Google-quality” search to your company’s public websites
• Brand it to look like your current site design
• Can be done using a SaaS or appliance approach

What can we deliver?
• Branded search box and results on your public website
• 2 hours of training on the search service or appliance admin interfaces

Estimated timeframe for delivery is 2-3 weeks.  Contact us today for more information: http://www.definition6.com/contact-us.aspx

Steve West, a Definition 6 Senior Graphic Designer shared this on blogs...
In 1929 Franklin Roosevelt began delivering his now famous fireside chats while he was governor of New York. After becoming president in 1933, he delivered his first presidential fireside chat on March 12 to talk to the American people about the bank crisis. After that, he delivered 29 more fireside chats until 1944. On November 15, President-elect released his first radio address and posted the same address in video on YouTube talking about the economy.

The Obama campaign brought his presidential campaign to the web in a way like never before. It involved a website that solicited $5 donations, a blog that talked about the campaign as well as an in-depth resource about their stand on current issues. This unprecedented approach brought in more support than any campaign before and brought people closer to the candidate. Now that the election is over, President-elect Obama has taken this same initiative and created a new website, www.change.gov. On there you can read news posts, follow blog posts about the transition, learn about the agenda and look at the nominees.

This new spirit of bringing the oval office to the people is an example that companies can follow. A blog is one way to way to connect to your audience and put a face on your company. In this arena, you can easily discuss what you believe and what your goals are. Subsequently, if you are using search engine optimization marketing as a tactic to drive customer acquisition, having a blog will increase your chances of being ranked with the search engines.  Or if you haven’t updated your news section lately maybe a blog would be a better way to show what you’re doing. Just because you haven’t been in the news doesn’t mean you don’t have anything to say or should be saying.

Lori Willard, a Definition 6 SEO Specialist, recently came across an article in Marketing Sherpa that offered a few excellent pointers on optimizing your videos for internet search engine optimization.

Here are a few key points to take away:

• Host an SEO 101 Class for your video production team. Identify the keywords you would like to incorporate and discuss where they can be included.

• Include the term "video" as a modifier in some of your keyword terms. When people search for videos they will typically include the term "video" in their search query.

• Host each video on its own landing page. This gives you the opportunity to add keyword rich META tags in the html along with a unique URL for that page that includes specific terms related to your video. 

• Write compelling titles and descriptions incorporating targeted keywords that add interest to your visitors.

• Add a transcript or summary of your video in text along with the video itself. This is a great way to add additional content to your page and further incorporate your keywords.

• Add an XML video sitemap to your website. Google will allow you to submit a list of URL's that contain your videos, video titles, along with a brief description.

In closing, video files are not only a great way to add another level of engagement to your website, they also can be an integral part of your websites search engine optimization solutions.

Read the complete Marketing Sherpa article here

Cecilia Barella, a Definition 6 Account Coordinator, recently discussed an article she read on Marketing Sherpa...

Landing page rules typically say that ad-response forms should be as short as possible and require the least amount of information because extra clicks lower conversions. But what was found is that if you create a process that’s user-friendly and that’s tailored to the customer, they’re actually willing to provide you more information. One example of a company using web search engine optimization is Continental Warranty, an insurance company.  The article says they went from using a one page- one step process to a three page process. Using better real time analytics tools incorporated on their advertising they were able to serve their customer tailored landing pages. 

Cecilia focused on a few key points in the article:

1. Before users get to a landing page you can capture the following information:
- Search keywords that drove them to click on an ad and land on the page
- Time of day they arrived
- Day of the week
- Web browser they were running
  
 
2. Determine the first step’s creative: Keywords show what customers are really interested in, so you know which questions to ask on the first page or which creative and graphics to use. (Make the content relevant to the search that got them there.) Time of day and day of the week can dictate how much information you can serve on your landing page, if it is during the weekend, the user might have more time and be more interested in reading detailed content. Second Step creative will be based on the information provided on the first form and third form is optional.  

3. It is important to keep testing the landing pages, this is where your interactive media agency can make a big difference.  Continental Warranty uses a system that automatically tests landing pages based on different user profiles. Pages that are not performing are removed from the rotation; high-performers are used more frequently. They are also constantly pushing new pages or tweaking existing pages based on targeted consumer information that they gather.

Cecilia's concluding thoughts were that search and website integration of both content and creative can enhance the customer experience.  By investing in your online campaign you can not only improve customer experience but also increase ROI and company revenue.
 
The full article can be viewed at: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=30758&pop=no#

Cecilia Barella, a Definition 6 Account Coordinator, recently discussed an article she read on Forrester...

The Hispanic population is one of the fastest growing population in the US however they are still underserved online. Companies should know that while only one-fourth of Hispanics must be served in Spanish, more than half of online Hispanics would prefer to be served in Spanish. Often due to the uncertainty over the benefits of creating a Spanish-language site, many marketers miss out on this market that is full of opportunities in email marketing, search engine optimization, and website development.

Cecilia focused on a few key points in the article:

1. Spanish-preferring online consumers fit at least one of four criteria . The more
criteria they select, the more likely they are to prefer Spanish over English. More than half of online Hispanics fit into one of these four criteria, and 23% of them fit into three or four of them. The four criteria are as follows:
 
• “I am more comfortable visiting Web sites that are Spanish-language.” Thirty-two percent of
online Hispanics agree with this statement.
• “I get more of the information I need when using a Spanish-language Web site.” Almost 30% of Spanish-preferring Hispanics agree with this.
• “I am more likely to trust companies that have Spanish-language Web sites.” Twenty-eight percent of Spanish-preferring Hispanics agree with this notion, revealing that a Spanishlanguage site is not just about reach but is also about brand trust and customer goodwill.
• Spend at least half of their Internet time in Spanish. Twenty-six percent of Spanish-preferring Hispanics fall into this group.   
 
2. Understand your existing and potential customers to see if their needs match your product or service. For example:
• Attitudes. More than half of Spanish-preferring Hispanics would be more likely to research products online if they could do it in Spanish, and they are more concerned about price than English-preferring Hispanics.
• Demographics. Online Spanish-preferring Hispanics have larger households and more children than English-preferring Hispanics, meaning that messaging around kids and family will have high impact with this group.
• Acculturation.  82% of Spanish-preferring online Hispanics are first-generation in the US. Some sites should not only focus on pushing products to this Market but also educating them in certain processes.

3. Make A Multichannel Spanish-Language Commitment.
Make sure that your Hispanic consumers have a seamless experience across all the channels in which they need Spanish.  Also, make sure that the content is culturally relevant and updated frequently.

Cecilia's concluding thoughts were that competition for Spanish-preferring consumers will accelerate, and companies that get in early with a Spanish language site have an advantage when it comes to building greater brand awareness and relationships within the Hispanic community. There are also multiple ways to do this.  Some examples are: using translator services, having a spanish-language minisite, having a landing page, or a second site.  An Interactive Advertising Agency, like Definition 6, can help you create a winning multi-cultural strategy for long lasting results.  The full article can be viewed at: http://forrester.com/Research/Document/0,7211,42066,00.html

As the holiday season approaches, the prospects for record setting sales appear dim for most retailers.  The economy is, well, you know...  Competition is keen and consumers are spending on necessities, if that.  This will make the 2008 holiday season especially challenging for marketers and retailers.  So for eTailors, and those in the electronic commerce space, getting it "right" this year can mean staying in business, or not. 

So I suggest a pre-holiday, eCommerce audit to ensure a successful holiday season.  Make sure your web site is search engine optimized by reviewing page tags, keywords, meta data and header information.  Ensure your home page has a strong call to action.  Are there special promotions prominently displayed on the homepage and above the fold?  There better be, because your competitors will have that nailed!

Have you checked the web channel integration with your inventory application?  Better make sure that inventory purchased on-line is reflected in your database in near real time, as the costs of returns will be higher this year, with gas prices as they are.

Are you planning special promotions and marketing events in your other channels?  Ensure that the web is being leveraged to support and augment those initiatives.  Are your call center employees up to date with your latest web promotions? 

If your website is hosted by a third party hosting provider, have you alerted them to that great new web promotion you are planning?  You'll need to ensure they can handle the anticipated increase in bandwidth.  Those managed services providers might also offer some ideas on how to keep that traffic even by varying messaging by the time of day and even day of the week.  This will smooth out traffic and promote a more consistent user experience.

And let's not forget the all important email campaigns.  Have you segmented your target audience so they can receive offers indicative of the part of your website that got them to opt in in the first place?  Are you promoting higher margin products so you don't generate a lot of traffic and revenue but no profits?  Are you sending emails often enough to keep your prospects engaged, but not too often that they stop opening your emails?  Can you do timely email clickstream analysis to identify which promotions are generating the most traffic, and stop the low performers and supplement the rain makers?

And have you reviewed your search and SEO strategies?  Will you be doing a lot of paid search?  Buying brand terms, category terms or product names?  Do you have a comparison or analysis regimen in place so you can add to the converting keywords and dial down the laggards?  Can you run timely metrics reports to get a good snapshot on how your website is performing on a daily basis?

If you have not thought through all of these interactive marketing concepts thoroughly, 2008 might be the year you learned a lot more about eCommerce than you bargained for.  And the way 2009 is shaping up, that job search will be long, prolonged and difficult.  So contact Definition6 now, and have us perform that eCommerce audit and tune up for you.  You'll sleep better, outpace the competition and ensure that 2008 is a stepping stone to a more prosperous 2009.

When it comes to a search engine optimization strategy, many of our clients are either puzzled by the ever changing algorithms or mislead by the differences between paid and organic search.  Undoubtedly, there is a great deal of misinformation out there when it comes to search engine optimization marketing.

Lance King, a Definition 6 Technical Project Manager, researched the topic and came across an article written by Michael Estrin who addresses some of the most common misperceptions about search engine optimization marketing.  A common thread that Lance sees when talking to his clients about search engine marketing is that they think that if it’s not paid search, that it’s free.  Depending on the website and the campaign objectives, you will want to budget properly for an SEO program.  Just as important, you need a seasoned SEO consultant on hand who not only understands the strategy behind internet search engine marketing but who also knows how to benchmark and measure your SEO successes.  To read the article in its entirety, go to:
http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/19803.asp

I've been in the online marketing space for almost a decade now.  I still remember the days of of brochure-ware and when the website was just an afterthought.  Today, the web has become the hub for most marketing efforts.  In the world of online marketing and website development, one area that marketers still fall short is embracing the real power of interactive...the constant exchange of value for action taken by the end user.  This ebb and flow of reward for activity is where the real power of interactive marketing lies.

As an interactive media agency, it becomes critical to not only understand where the target is and how to find them, but to understand the context in which the message will be delivered.  Only then can a real value exchange be created where the user is reward for taking the desired actions.   Search Engine Optimization solutions are the simplest example of this...creating targeted landing pages designed to be more relevant to the end user based on the specific search made.  Web Application Development also needs to take this into consideration...when asking a user to fill out a form of personal, specific information, that user should get a result that is personal and relevant to them.  Each exchange of information should reward the user and open up the possibility of taking another action with even more reward.

Mike Reese, an Associate Architect for Definition 6, recently initiated a conversation with the Client Services group on how to drive users to a website and how to keep them coming back.  He quoted an article he read on www.websitemagazine.com which says "The best ways to capture a users’ attention and keep them coming back are to strategize and plan your content architecture, leverage technology to assist in the effort, and incorporate the user’s voice."  Mike shared with the group a few of the article’s key points:

1. Keep the initial interaction SIMPLE.  Home pages are often complicated with slow-loading flash movies, informational ads or pop-ups.  By limiting these “bottlenecks”, users see content quickly and will stay on your site.

2. Do the research – review your search engine optimization campaigns as well as your web analytics.  If 20% of your traffic comes from email marketing newsletters or promotional campaigns, make sure you are providing content that is relevant to that 20%.  For example, users who are specifically looking for travel and lodging information have a variety of ways to get to your site.  Third party aggregators such as sidestep.com and kayak.com make up a large percentage of traffic.  It is important to understand where your users are coming from and then modify initial page visits from those sites. Get the user into your purchase funnel as quickly and easily as possible.

3.  Keep content fresh, relevant.  By incorporating rich CMS tools, business owners and marketers have the ability to push timely content.  Leverage blogs to drive online discussions and allow users to interact with the website and with business stakeholders.  It is also important to show that you care about your customers’ opinions.  You can accomplish this by offering online surveys or feedback submission forms.  Put the power in the hands of the user.

In summary, users have a variety of resources to find the information they are searching for.  Therefore you need to provide content in a seamless manner in order to promote engagement.  By creating interaction with the user, you build a level of loyalty and provide a place for their concerns and questions to be heard -- which is very different than the type of interaction they will receive from any third party site or aggregator.  Utilize exclusive web content and leverage your email marketing campaigns to grab customers and keep them coming back for more.

We encourage you to read the full article, titled “10 Ways to Increase Website Stickiness”, at: http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/articles/Increase_Website_Stickiness_10_ways.aspx