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“To say that Gilt.com is on fire may be something of [an] understatement,” says Rohit Bhargava at the Influential Marketing Blog. “The site, which features daily special sales of luxury products at discount prices is on track by some estimates to pull in $400 million in sales for the 2010 calendar year.”
According to Bhargava, smart marketing has played a critical role in the company’s success—and you might learn a thing or two from techniques such as these:
Setting the stage with amazing photography. High-quality images create a compelling visual experience for Gilt.com customers. “More than that,” he says, “the images are changing every day, which demonstrates that there is fresh content all the time and that the site will be worth visiting again and again.”
Nurturing an atmosphere of exclusivity. While there are ways to skirt the rule, new customers may only join the site when invited by an existing customer. “It doesn’t pay for them to actively prevent people from becoming members,” notes Bhargava, “but they work hard to make their current members feel as though they are part of an exclusive club.”
Creating a sense of urgency. When online shoppers place items in shopping carts, they have only 10 minutes to complete the purchase before an item returns to the virtual shelf. “The aim,” he explains, “is to limit the amount of time you can hold onto a product that someone else may want to purchase.” But it also converts browsers to buyers with lightning speed.
With 2 million members, Gilt.com is doing something right—meaning some of its techniques might work for you.
Source: Influential Marketing Blog
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Marketing experts often tell you which features your website absolutely must have. But for a post at the HubSpot blog, Kipp Bodnar created a list of items you should delete as soon as possible from your site. Here are a few items that deserve immediate elimination:
Complicated animation. There’s little upside to Flash-based wizardry that hinders the visitor experience and impedes search engine optimization. “Perform a test,” he advises. “Remove your animation for a set period of time and see how it impacts metrics like lead conversion and time-on-site.”
Industry jargon. Whatever your specialization, you start to assume everyone understands industry-specific language. This is a mistake. “Look through your website and highlight terms that are not commonly used outside of industry circles,” Bodnar says. “Delete the highlighted words and replace them with more common explanations.”
Images. Every website needs images—but you might have too many. Excessive images slow download speed when visitors click on a page, and search engines consider this a negative factor in page rankings. “Websites that have been around for a while can often collect lots of images, and some of them no longer go with the content of the site,” he explains. “Keep some images, but go through and remove all images from your website that don’t help tell your company’s story.”
“Contact Us” forms. While you must provide contact information, Bodnar believes a generic contact form is more likely to attract spam than qualified leads. He suggests landing pages with dedicated forms for specific offers: “For example, if you have a form connected to a free assessment, you clearly know that submissions from that form are related to potential customers who want a free assessment.”
Sometimes less at your website is more—both for your customers’ user experience and search engine optimization.
Source: HubSpot
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In a post at Email Marketing Reports, Mark Brownlow presents a screenshot that looks like a page from a 19th-century novel: lengthy paragraphs filled with sentences of uniform length.
That, he notes emphatically, is not how your email messages should look.
“In fact, you wouldn’t read the words if that was an email,” he says. “The wall of text is a barrier that few will bother scaling. No matter how good the writing, how valuable the information, how trusted the source, response is sacrificed because the paragraph length demands more reading effort than some are prepared to commit.”
It’s all psychological. The same information that looks ponderous in two paragraphs appears easy-to-digest when broken into five paragraphs. In other words, the rules you learned at school about fully developed paragraphs simply don’t apply to online communication.
Here’s what you need to do:
Write paragraphs that occupy as little as one line but don’t exceed six lines. “This … issue becomes more pressing as screen displays narrow, thanks to the spread of smartphones, netbooks and other mobile devices,” Brownlow notes.
Reduce the sense of monotony by varying the length of your paragraphs and sentences. “Throw in the occasional one-line paragraph or a three-word sentence and you may annoy your English professor,” he explains. “But you give the reading landscape contours and diversity. The content looks like a melody of words, not a dirge.”
Write the words and the music. Engage your readers with lyrically arranged text that gives your message visual appeal.
Source: Email Marketing Reports.
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At least once a day, writes Joe Pulizzi at the Junta 42 blog, he receives an email asking how much content marketing (print and online) should cost. The short answer: It depends.
“Look at it this way,” he says. “I can pay $12 dollars to play eighteen holes of golf at a Sandusky, Ohio, golf course.” The course is poorly maintained, drinkable water is scarce and you’ll have to walk since the golf carts are notoriously unreliable. “I can also pay three-hundred dollars at Pinehurst in North Carolina,” he continues, where the course is immaculate, knowledgeable caddies abound and you might see a celebrity.
Which course he chooses to play will depend on his goal. “There are times for each situation (just like content),” he says. “If I just want to swing the club, the $12 course is perfect. Exactly what I needed. If I want an experience, or want to share an experience with someone else, I may take the rare occasion to play Pinehurst.”
In other words, a situation might call for “cheap” content, or it might call for “premium” content. “Just like playing golf where they both have 18 fairways and greens,” says Pulizzi, “500 words is 500 words. What happens with those 500 words is where the price difference comes in.”
So if you hire someone to write 500-word blog posts for $15 or $25 a pop, you’re going to get $15 or $25 blog posts—written quickly, with minimal research or editorial oversight. A solidly researched piece that has gone through a traditional vetting process will cost more.
As you budget for your content marketing, remember that you’re going get what you pay for.
Source: Junta 42.
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In today’s marketplace, the customer is in control and companies are being held to a whole new level of accountability, Paul Chaney notes in an on-demand seminar at the MarketingProfs site. Today’s skeptical consumers are downright resistant to advertisers—and “the pressure is on to improve targeting to achieve relevance and minimize waste,” he says.
What’s the best way to connect with today’s picky consumers? Through social media, Chaney says—even if it’s the last thing on earth you want to do!
In the seminar, Social Media Slowpokes: It’s Not too Late to Connect With Your Customers Online, Chaney offers great guidance for social-wary marketers, including step-by-step tips for engaging customers on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Among his practical instructions:
Facebook: Set up a personal Profile; develop a Fan Page to pull supportive customers in; create and advertise Events; form Groups to engage in ongoing conversations; move into creating and running ads; effectively use the “Like” button.
LinkedIn: Create that all-important Profile first; import contacts to find existing LinkedIn members among them; use LinkedIn Answers to demonstrate your expertise; pull in your Twitter and blog feeds.
Twitter: Monitor what is being said about your company, products, services, industry and competition; gather valuable feedback about products or services; offer proactive customer service; promote events; drive traffic to your website or blog.
By following step-by-step how-to’s, even the most reluctant among us can develop an effective social-media presence, Chaney argues. And in today’s digital marketplace, staying anti-social is not an option, he concludes.
Slow and steady wins the race. “Be easy on yourself,” Chaney advises reluctant social-media marketers. Take one step at a time—and, to get off to a great start, “buy a state-of-the-art mobile device.”
Source: MarketingProfs.
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“One click between email message and e-commerce is so ingrained for all of us—as both buyers and marketers—that it’s almost nostalgic to think of using email solely to promote offline purchases,” writes Stephanie Miller in an article at MarketingProfs.
But that’s exactly how Scotts Miracle-Gro—a company with no direct online sales channel—uses its email-marketing program. During the registration process, subscribers provide their grass type and postal code; then, once each month during their region’s growing season, they receive a Scotts Lawn Care Update newsletter with content tailored to their needs.
According to Kip Edwardson, the senior manager of Interactive Marketing at Scotts, the company’s newsletter has a clear mission: to take the guesswork out of product selection for any lawn in any season in any location.
“We’ve learned that knowledge equals revenue,” Edwardson tells Miller in the article. “We are guiding them through the lawn-care lifecycle, and that education encourages them to not only buy more product but to feel confident and gratified by their purchase. We take very seriously that customers gave us a permission grant, and we want to provide something of value.”
Subscribers can also register for Consumer Information Alerts that offer advice on coping with adverse weather conditions or anything else that might harm their lawns.
“We cull through our call center, retail feedback, and website for spikes in activity—say, a freeze in Florida or heavy moss in the Midwest,” Edwardson explains. “We then proactively alert subscribers and the retail-store managers in those regions with tips on how to address the issue.”
A good email program can grow more than subscriptions. Scotts gives its in-store sales a significant boost by offering real help to customers via its email messaging.
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In an article at MarketingProfs, Dean Rieck says a direct-mail campaign might be just what you need to drive targeted online traffic to your website. “According to the 2009 Channel Preference Study by ExactTarget,” he notes, “direct mail influences 76% of Internet users to buy a product or service online.”
Here are some of Rieck’s tips for successful integration in your print/online campaign:
- Give direct-mail recipients a good reason to visit your website. Tempt them with an offer for a whitepaper, a free seminar or a coupon. “It must be something they want,” he notes, “not just something you want them to see.”
- Remember that they have to type the URL into a browser. Email subscribers who want to learn more simply click on a link; in a direct-mail campaign, however, they must enter the Web address manually. “The shorter and easier it is to spell, then, the easier it will be for people to visit your page.”
- Provide clear instructions in your call to action. If you’re offering a $100 coupon for participation in a customer survey, tell recipients exactly where they should go to take the survey and claim their coupon. “People are more likely to respond when you specifically tell them what to do,” Rieck says.
- Drive traffic to a landing page created for the direct-mail campaign. When you have a specific call to action, send customers to a page that facilitates that specific action. “By creating a unique landing page and driving people to that page, you can control the message, track response, and collect information for follow-up and future direct marketing efforts.”
Old and new media aren’t necessarily oil and water—when blended properly, they can pack a potent punch.
Source: MarketingProfs.
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If you live in the United States or Canada, there’s a chance you’ve used Groupon to receive discounts on a variety of products and services. “Since launching in November 2008, the Chicago-based deal-a-day website has sold over 7 million online coupons in 70 cities,” notes Jackie Huba at the Church of the Customer Blog.
Groupon’s success hasn’t gone unnoticed, however, and it has spawned competitors. But the company has a plan for staying in the lead: a fanatical commitment to excellent customer service.
Even if coupons aren’t a central component of your marketing strategy, you’ll find inspiration in Huba’s report from a recent visit to Groupon’s headquarters. Here are some of the things the Groupon folks do well:
Flaunting the fine print. You’ll reduce the chances of customer anger or disappointment by clearly outlining what they should (or should not) expect. “Groupon features terms and conditions in large type in a clearly labeled section right beside the deal highlights,” Huba says. “You can’t miss it.”
Offering an ironclad money-back guarantee. Unscrupulous customers might abuse Groupon’s liberal refund policy, but the company believes its generous approach builds trust with the majority of its honest clientele. And it works: Only a small percentage of customers request a refund.
Instituting a two-way rating system. When everyone knows they’re up for a critique, everyone stays on their best behavior. “Customers can give awards to merchants that they like or flag a merchant for a poor experience,” says Huba. “Merchants can also rate loyal customers or good tippers, and can flag unfriendly customers.”
Transparent, pro-customer policies are a great way to differentiate your business from the competition—and keep customers coming back for more.
Source: Church of the Customer Blog.
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Today’s consumers are “eager to use mobile devices to inform in-store decisions,” says Target’s Kris Roberts in a recent article that quotes experts on the subject at Knowledge@Wharton. Digital innovations, the article argues, are transforming how people shop.
As mobile networks improve, it’s becoming easier for retailers to target customers based on where they live or shop, and to communicate with them in real time. And location-based social networks (think Foursquare), which essentially ask users to share their retail patterns with friends, are offering vital new ways for brands to link to communities, the article notes.
But retailers aren’t adapting so well to the new reality, Roberts warns: “They continue to view online shoppers and customers at retail stores as two separate entities.”
So, to help sellers better meet the demands of today’s wired buyers, the experts quoted in the article offer a few must-do action tips. Among them:
- Update your organizational systems to better integrate in-store operations with Internet retailing. This is a daunting task, Roberts admits, and could require “a generation or two of management changeover.” But it’s vital to achieving the next point.
- Break down your silos, and get your teams working across channels—from stores to online to mobile and social media—to maintain branding and service at each customer touchpoint.
- Get shoppers more involved in decision-making. While the “primal” experience of in-store shopping is unmatched, so is the Internet’s ability to provide shoppers with information, Roberts notes. As consumers move between the two, they are playing a more active role in shaping their own shopping experiences. Find new ways to engage with them.
Integrate your teams—in-house, online and in-store. The 21st-century marketing team works in real time across all channels—and in partnership with wired and savvy consumers.
Source: Knowledge@Wharton.
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It’s one thing to market to people just like you. But what if you have nothing in common with your target audience? How do you get inside their head? In The Experience Effect, Jim Joseph offers a practical suggestion: “Read a book or go to a movie that depicts the customer—especially a book or movie that the target marketing is embracing,” he says. “You’ll get an incredible glimpse into their lives, their emotions, and their preferences.”
When Joseph—then a single man in his twenties—began marketing Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, he knew nothing about babies. He’d never even held one in his arms.
“So like every other new-mom-to-be,” he says, “I read the classic book What to Expect When You’re Expecting to see for myself what pregnant women are thinking about, worrying about, and purchasing as they go through the cycles of their pregnancy and as they make decisions for their baby’s arrival.”
But that’s not all. When his pregnant friends would go to the doctor for a check-up, Joseph would tag along to observe mothers interacting with their newborns in the waiting room.
He adopted a similar approach when marketing to another demographic he didn’t fit. “I used to watch Dawson’s Creek and Beverly Hills 90210 religiously when I was a brand manager on Clean & Clear teen skin care at Johnson & Johnson so that I could learn about teenage girls and their lives.”
Now the question: What can pop culture teach you about your audience?
“Good marketing comes from turning theory into reality,” writes Joseph, “so let’s make our consumers real people, not just a collection of data.”
Source: The Experience Effect.
“To say that Gilt.com is on fire may be something of [an] understatement,” says Rohit Bhargava at the Influential Marketing Blog. “The site, which features daily special sales of luxury products at discount prices is on track by some estimates to pull in $400 million in sales for the 2010 calendar year.”
