2011 has been a big year for social – we saw Governments get toppled in part due to social organization, meetups & sharing, President Obama do a town hall via Twitter questions, Facebook announce a digital version of your life story and a half dozen major IPOs that show there’s real money being made. But while all of this attention has really taken social out from behind the shadows to show its importance, it’s also made a lot of people jump to meet sudden expectations rather taking the time to dive in to what it is that makes social so powerful – conversation. Continue reading →

Free Shipping: just about every retailer has it and many marketing tests have shown that even if you reduce the total price of an order by a couple bucks, people still go with the site that doesn’t have that specific line-item or even up their basket to get to the free threshold. Shipping is an afterthought, a line, a fee and like all fees we as shoppers feel like its being snuck in on us. People hate fees.

Yet as ecommerce find overwhelming success in removing one fee, we seem to be adding new ones all over the place in an attempt to keep our base price looking low. All for what? Continue reading →

It’s somewhere between midnight and sunrise and as I pause my Black Friday research for another caffeine break [after more than a dozen destinations spanning two malls and three counties, there’s been a number of those], I’ve found myself asking one question: what is it that has propelled Black Friday to reach almost as much notoriety as the holiday it follows?

What it is that makes people line up 6, 12 even 24 hours in advance? Is it the deal? Being able to claim first in line? Continue reading →

I’m on a lot of email lists, dozens, probably more and years and years I’ve collected emails from the internet 100 down to niche boutiques and specialized services, everyone you can think of and a few that surprise even me. From competition to best practices and trends, it’s a great way to see what’s going on in the industry but not surprisingly I don’t “act” on these messages very often. Still, in 5 years of collecting and tens of thousands of emails no one has ever asked me why. Continue reading →

The sad reality is that we, as consumers, have come to expect our opinions to be practically ignored, to be hard-sold by someone reading off a script with 3 different levels of service and to be brushed aside with generic response. Despite all the talk of being social & transparent, most of customer service is still about getting the issue to a “closed” status rather than actually engaging to understand, acknowledge and learn from the issue.

The truth is you can’t always fix the root problem a customer is having but when you allow your reps to be honest, friendly, informative, and let them decide how to handle a negative based on their expertise doing this hour after hour, you do what customers don’t expect… care. Continue reading →

The chief issue with a like, a retweet, or any other broadcast that is asked of a user is the endorsement behind it. Just as social has a code of conduct for brands engaging with consumers, the same exists for consumers engaging with each other. Posting to the wall and using a strong statement, each “like” is a statement. And not only do you have to get past that hurtle, but under the current feed systems, each action disappears off in minutes to a sea of new updates, photos and other likes leaving little long term connection outside of a smart counter. Continue reading →

Taking a new marketing approach is not limited to Facebook, Daily Deal or Location platforms. Change is not just about building reviews and positive content. As important as those all are, it’s the legacy areas of your programs, the “rules” that have “worked” for decades and decades [read: neglected and yet defended] that are truly the opportunity goldmines.

Nowhere is this more true than remarketing. Continue reading →

For most brands social has grown out of the corners: a motivated marketing coordinator, customer service rep, etc. While this has lead to some of the most authentic and impactful campaigns out there, if you can’t trust an employee with the keys, don’t trust them with the customer. Continue reading →

As the debate over internet privacy makes headlines with Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus all taking center stage around the hotly contested idea of “real identity” marketers face our own privacy battle. For us it’s not about how to open things up but rather looking at what open means for participation with our brands. Casting aside personal opinions and beliefs for the larger privacy debate, one has to realize that not all customers are willing to share all businesses – as themselves – to their own friends – in a way that can be seen forever.

Are the social tools we are using the right tools for our businesses? Continue reading →

For most digital marketers when we think about a term like “conversion optimization” it brings up ideas like one page checkouts, testing new trust marks, button colors and confidence text. While these are important, downright vital, steps every site should go through they’re details and can stop us from forgetting the much more vital question – does the process offer the best experience for the customer?

As ecommerce has become a part of our every day lives not a lot has changed in the fundamentals… the same types of product pages, cart overviews and checkout flowers and while one can say it “works” with very different products from store to store, is works really enough? Continue reading →