Recently in Real World Examples Category

Don't worry, this isn't a marketing blog gone political and you won't find any endorsement in here [cough * vote for whoever you like, just vote * cough] instead this is about the marketing and product offerings that have accomplice this "historic day."

 

 

Driving through the Berkeley hills this evening I spotted an oddly colored tree - only after slowing down [safely of course] did I realize what the color was - Christmas lights. While 2 days after Halloween feels early for Christmas decorations and probably is for most people this shouldn't be a huge shock - target has been selling lights for weeks and Costco has had gift baskets and other holiday items up for what feels like a month, maybe more. Of course things aren't limited to offline world; I've begun receiving holiday emails from all sorts of companies. Here's a quick look at what's come in...

I'm sitting in the airport right now on my way to Las Vegas for DEMA, the annual Scuba Diving industry convention. My involvement in the dive industry started in the very late 90s when I, along with 2 partners, launched ScubaBoard.Com, a forum community, as a part of a large dive network. At that time communities were a new concept for most people and certainly something the dive industry, like many others, was struggling to understand. Still, we were late starters compared to other sites and faced fairly strong competition with both "basement startups" and major publishing companies already running successful forums. Just a few years later ScubaBoard was the largest diving community online and has since gone on to become the most visited site in the industry. So how did we do it? Features.

I've written several times about the need for good error pages and messages but after a recent incident with a financial services provider it seems like a good time to bring up the issue again. Rather than go on and on about what you should do, here's a simple example of what you shouldn't along with suggestions for improving each step of the process.

This is part II of my holiday marketing series.

Getting holiday sales is more than just looking the part, many of us have little if any idea what we're looking for when it comes time to buy a gift so ideas are crucial to capturing sales. This of course means editing the content you have as well as creating new materials and even features all designed to help educate customers browsing around. And content isn't just for wandering visitors, even people with a good sense to what they want will be looking for more focused product information as well as ideas for other gifts - many people come for the ride and stay for the adventure.