Saturday, October 27, 2007
Cheery Outlook for Holiday E-Shopping Season
Online retail sales for this holiday season are expected to increase by 20 percent over sales from the 2006 season, surpassing US$39 billion, according to JupiterResearch's U.S. Online Retail Holiday Forecast for 2007. This growth will be driven not only by veteran online shoppers -- who are projected to increase their holiday spending by 13 percent to an average of $314 per person -- but also by first-timers. As a category, new online buyers are expected to increase more than 6 percent this year, compared with the number of e-commerce newbies in 2006.
The latest growth projections reflect several characteristics of the e-commerce space, report author Patti Freeman Evans said. One is that the online retail market is still not completely mature, so there's still ample room for double-digit growth. Another factor influencing these numbers is the fact that online buyers tend to be more affluent than shoppers who patronize brick-and-mortar stores exclusively.
Indeed, retailers that have no online presence are eyeing the upcoming holiday season somewhat anxiously. The credit crunch following the subprime mortgage crisis is expected to squeeze many consumers' budgets. Also, gas prices still remain higher than retailers would like. Online shopping is less affected by these trends. "It's already been proven that higher gas prices do not affect online sales," Freeman Evans said. "Online commerce is still in growth mode, and the online shopper overall is still a bit insulated from larger macroeconomic trends," she concluded.
Online retailers, for their part, continue to boost their chances of closing sales with the addition of new site features. For instance, more e-tailers are implementing 'quick view' technology that allows a buyer to look at an item without having to click through a number of screens, Freeman Evans noted.
The use of video is also increasing. It has not been broadly implemented yet, she said, but a few retailers -- QVC, for one -- are using it aggressively to apparent success. Unrestricted free shipping is becoming more popular as a buyer incentive. "Less and less are we seeing retailers impose restrictions on free shipping," said Freeman Evans. Search engine marketing has also become an important strategy for many online retailers seeking that elusive competitive edge.
Join Guardian eCommerce, Site Credibility Pays!
The latest growth projections reflect several characteristics of the e-commerce space, report author Patti Freeman Evans said. One is that the online retail market is still not completely mature, so there's still ample room for double-digit growth. Another factor influencing these numbers is the fact that online buyers tend to be more affluent than shoppers who patronize brick-and-mortar stores exclusively.
Indeed, retailers that have no online presence are eyeing the upcoming holiday season somewhat anxiously. The credit crunch following the subprime mortgage crisis is expected to squeeze many consumers' budgets. Also, gas prices still remain higher than retailers would like. Online shopping is less affected by these trends. "It's already been proven that higher gas prices do not affect online sales," Freeman Evans said. "Online commerce is still in growth mode, and the online shopper overall is still a bit insulated from larger macroeconomic trends," she concluded.
Online retailers, for their part, continue to boost their chances of closing sales with the addition of new site features. For instance, more e-tailers are implementing 'quick view' technology that allows a buyer to look at an item without having to click through a number of screens, Freeman Evans noted.
The use of video is also increasing. It has not been broadly implemented yet, she said, but a few retailers -- QVC, for one -- are using it aggressively to apparent success. Unrestricted free shipping is becoming more popular as a buyer incentive. "Less and less are we seeing retailers impose restrictions on free shipping," said Freeman Evans. Search engine marketing has also become an important strategy for many online retailers seeking that elusive competitive edge.
Join Guardian eCommerce, Site Credibility Pays!
Online and Offline Marketing Synergy
It should come as no surprise that the marketing industry is evolving as a whole. Marketing experts and business professionals from around the globe are all trying to figure out the best way to target their audience. For years, marketers have said that the best way to sell a product is to reach as many consumers as possible.
Although reach is still important in today's marketing world, engagement is the key -- which is why marketers are turning more and more to the capabilities of digital and online media. Marketing experts are constantly trying to convince their clients to try the "next best thing." Well, what is the next best thing? Is it hiring a college student to tattoo your brand's name on their forehead? Is it spending some of your marketing dollars online? Is it mobile advertising , starting a blog, implementing a full-page/four-color ad in Better Homes & Gardens or running a 15-second broadband commercial on CNN.com?
Our vote is for all of the above -- well, maybe not the tattoo part. After working in a traditional advertising agency, I have seen several clients hesitate to be the first to jump on board to any new medium, especially online marketing. So many have said, "Well, my national cable media buy has been working for us so far, why should we spend our media dollars in anything else?"
The answer? Consumers are busy. They gather their media information from different sources. You may not to be able to target your consumer in the same ways that have worked in the past. The key to engaging a consumer is to figure out their daily media patterns. Do they listen to a morning radio show on the way to work, gather information on search engines during the day, view out-of-home billboards on their drive home, and then settle down for a prime time television show during dinner?
The key to a successful marketing campaign is to integrate digital media with traditional media. How good is a salad if it only contains lettuce? Not very good. It needs to have the carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, dressing, etc. Yes, I am comparing a salad with a marketing campaign. An effective marketing campaign needs to have a variety of options and/or channels.
There has been a lot of discussion that traditional media such as newspapers, magazines and radio are diminishing. No medium will disappear entirely, but each will have to learn how to adapt. There has been a huge shift from mass reach to targeted engagement. Consumers have taken control of both their entertainment options as well as their media options.
Driven by changes in the media-consumption patterns of today's consumers, online advertising is receiving an increasing share of media budgets today. Online advertising offers greater opportunities to not only target finer segments, but also to optimize messaging on a daily basis. This shift raises the need for advertisers to better understand how online marketing can be integrated with traditional media and marketing practices.
Integrating online marketing and traditional media creates synergy. Using multiple media in a campaign has a greater impact than an individual medium by itself. The more interactions you can engage a consumer in, the greater the likelihood of winning them over to your brand and/or making a purchase.
There are several levels of a buying cycle. Consumers gather information about products and services from different sources before making a purchase. Each impression builds on the other by reaching the consumer at a different time in the buying cycle. If the message is consistent across various online and offline advertising media, the repetition will capture and retain the consumer's attention.
In the early 90's, consumers essentially had five major media options: television, radio, newspapers, magazines and billboards. Today, consumers are faced with hundreds of media options: search engines, Web sites, e-mail, cell phones, podcasts, digital video recorders/TiVo, transit, etc.
Consumers are overwhelmed by media choices and are therefore migrating away from ad-supported media and spending more time with consumer generated media such as podcasts, Facebook applications, MySpace profiles, YouTube videos, etc. They want what they want when they want it -- especially in terms of the media they view. That is why search engine marketing, behavioral targeting, and social media have exploded!
Search engine marketing should be considered an essential part of any overall marketing campaign -- online and offline. Search is the ultimate form of pull marketing. Its marketing value is the ability to put a message in front of people who overtly express an interest in a particular product or service via a keyword. Integrating search into the marketing mix allows you to catch the consumer when they are already interested in your product/service. It also allows you to test your offline messaging before it goes live.
As marketers, educating ourselves is vital. I think it is important to really understand the client's overall goals and objectives. If we take the time to learn how traditional media has worked for them in the past, then we can better incorporate online media into the mix. Who says that your media budget has to be spent either online or offline?
The overall goal for any client is to improve their business. Our job as marketers is to make that happen. Try bringing online and offline media together and see how well it works for your campaigns.
Site Credibility Pays! Get The SSL Privacy Seal, Get Site-Certified Today!
Although reach is still important in today's marketing world, engagement is the key -- which is why marketers are turning more and more to the capabilities of digital and online media. Marketing experts are constantly trying to convince their clients to try the "next best thing." Well, what is the next best thing? Is it hiring a college student to tattoo your brand's name on their forehead? Is it spending some of your marketing dollars online? Is it mobile advertising , starting a blog, implementing a full-page/four-color ad in Better Homes & Gardens or running a 15-second broadband commercial on CNN.com?
Our vote is for all of the above -- well, maybe not the tattoo part. After working in a traditional advertising agency, I have seen several clients hesitate to be the first to jump on board to any new medium, especially online marketing. So many have said, "Well, my national cable media buy has been working for us so far, why should we spend our media dollars in anything else?"
The answer? Consumers are busy. They gather their media information from different sources. You may not to be able to target your consumer in the same ways that have worked in the past. The key to engaging a consumer is to figure out their daily media patterns. Do they listen to a morning radio show on the way to work, gather information on search engines during the day, view out-of-home billboards on their drive home, and then settle down for a prime time television show during dinner?
The key to a successful marketing campaign is to integrate digital media with traditional media. How good is a salad if it only contains lettuce? Not very good. It needs to have the carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, dressing, etc. Yes, I am comparing a salad with a marketing campaign. An effective marketing campaign needs to have a variety of options and/or channels.
There has been a lot of discussion that traditional media such as newspapers, magazines and radio are diminishing. No medium will disappear entirely, but each will have to learn how to adapt. There has been a huge shift from mass reach to targeted engagement. Consumers have taken control of both their entertainment options as well as their media options.
Driven by changes in the media-consumption patterns of today's consumers, online advertising is receiving an increasing share of media budgets today. Online advertising offers greater opportunities to not only target finer segments, but also to optimize messaging on a daily basis. This shift raises the need for advertisers to better understand how online marketing can be integrated with traditional media and marketing practices.
Integrating online marketing and traditional media creates synergy. Using multiple media in a campaign has a greater impact than an individual medium by itself. The more interactions you can engage a consumer in, the greater the likelihood of winning them over to your brand and/or making a purchase.
There are several levels of a buying cycle. Consumers gather information about products and services from different sources before making a purchase. Each impression builds on the other by reaching the consumer at a different time in the buying cycle. If the message is consistent across various online and offline advertising media, the repetition will capture and retain the consumer's attention.
In the early 90's, consumers essentially had five major media options: television, radio, newspapers, magazines and billboards. Today, consumers are faced with hundreds of media options: search engines, Web sites, e-mail, cell phones, podcasts, digital video recorders/TiVo, transit, etc.
Consumers are overwhelmed by media choices and are therefore migrating away from ad-supported media and spending more time with consumer generated media such as podcasts, Facebook applications, MySpace profiles, YouTube videos, etc. They want what they want when they want it -- especially in terms of the media they view. That is why search engine marketing, behavioral targeting, and social media have exploded!
Search engine marketing should be considered an essential part of any overall marketing campaign -- online and offline. Search is the ultimate form of pull marketing. Its marketing value is the ability to put a message in front of people who overtly express an interest in a particular product or service via a keyword. Integrating search into the marketing mix allows you to catch the consumer when they are already interested in your product/service. It also allows you to test your offline messaging before it goes live.
As marketers, educating ourselves is vital. I think it is important to really understand the client's overall goals and objectives. If we take the time to learn how traditional media has worked for them in the past, then we can better incorporate online media into the mix. Who says that your media budget has to be spent either online or offline?
The overall goal for any client is to improve their business. Our job as marketers is to make that happen. Try bringing online and offline media together and see how well it works for your campaigns.
Site Credibility Pays! Get The SSL Privacy Seal, Get Site-Certified Today!
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
The Golden Keys Of E-Commerce
Today, in order to have a commanding e-commerce presence with universal access, domain names must be treated like very special golden keys. Without an effective domain name, the entire exercise of Internet-centric commerce becomes almost useless.
Super success in cyber-branding lies in the sophisticated creation, development and ownership of these powerful and magical keys, so that they may open the door to an undiscovered universe of billions of unknown customers around the world. Without this power and access, what's the point of being in the race for leadership and image positioning? It only takes a minute to establish if one is holding that magical key or just toying with a rusty screwdriver.
Domain Names Matter
Domain management strategies have in fact become ultra-sophisticated, and they are among the most valuable components of any ambitious corporation's strategy for building digital branding assets and intellectual property. Domain names are no longer small issues to be handled by the logo-centric, slogan-happy agencies or Web-tech teams. They now demand powerful strategic, boardroom-level discussions and a commanding knowledge of global domain registration laws and search engine visibility rules.
But in order to be golden keys and not rusty screwdrivers, they also must serve the company's branding objectives. During the dot-com boom, there must have been a million domain names registered each day. Even the most unusual, silly and dysfunctional names were sought-after icons of get-rich-quick dreamers, and 99 percent of them failed.
Dot-Com Graveyard
Exhausted or expired, these names have now disappeared, and along with them, the hundreds of millions of dollars on short-lived Web site campaigns. Today, however, there are some very powerful, universal domain names that have carved powerful, highly lucrative positions. Their superior and exclusive fluidity on the net demonstrates the global power of e-commerce. Smart businesses around the world are aggressively in search of such golden keys.
The best approach to universal domain naming starts with a serious audit to professionally measure the strengths or weaknesses of the proposed names. This process is best served by highly objective views. The primary goal is to achieve power and access for maximum impact. Today, only the very best names will dominate the global marketplace. Weak, confusingly similar, or nearly identical names do not have a chance of surviving the power and ubiquity of e-commerce.
Be Original
The duplication factor alone will bury most names in complex global listings.
The most expensive Web sites are useless and the best campaigns will remain stuck unless there is a deeper understanding of this subject. Then there are alpha-structures, which can kill great Web sites and become a liability to business itself. One must have the knowledge to determine the message, personality and length of the name, plus the choice of alpha characters, as each emits its own unique signals.
General branding exercises cannot be mistaken for these complex naming analyses. The strictest application of the Five Star Standard of Naming guards against such expensive busts.
The Google Test
The hyper-visibility of a universal cyber-name is the main issue. A quick search on Google is an instant test of any name's visibility. To appear on the top or on the first page is the most sought-after position, but only an extremely small percentage can achieve this as most names are poorly structured and remain buried by massive duplication.
With the high cost of promotion and intense global competition, it's a brand-new frontier. A lot of money can be wasted in creating an artificial bounce in traffic to an expensive Web site, but in reality it's only those uniquely designed domains that quickly rise to the top with little effort.
Only an in-depth, highly customized analysis will point to the deep problems and illuminate the latest methods to fix them. Today, it's about global domainization, as multiple domain names create multiple problems in multiple markets. There are highly sophisticated rules to be followed. Be aware that there are too many fancy services offering sketchy global registration and translation services.
The World Is Your Domain
Domains are for the international audience and global customer base, and companies should avoid serious language issues, such as translations or foreign connotations that may be embarrassing to the company or confusing to customers. Cyber branding is an extremely global phenomenon. Mind share is more important than market share. Customers need to allow a name brand to settle in their minds before they give out their cash. As such, market positioning is more critical than profit maximization.
The human mind gravitates toward good names; those that are user-friendly and trustworthy. When trying to process millions of silly and randomly structured names, the mind quickly becomes exhausted.
In conclusion, logo-driven branding has fallen into a deep sleep on these complex matters, and there's no need to wake it up. Currently, with 95 percent of the domain names stuck in traffic jams, a frank and very candid CEO-level discussion is required. Denials and refusal to face up to reality will simply keep a company's e-commerce presence mired in oblivion -- guaranteed. Today, one needs a very special golden key to open the gates of e-commerce. Now, can we throw away that rusty screwdriver?
Go Guardian eCommerce, Get The Seal... Site Credibility Pays!
Super success in cyber-branding lies in the sophisticated creation, development and ownership of these powerful and magical keys, so that they may open the door to an undiscovered universe of billions of unknown customers around the world. Without this power and access, what's the point of being in the race for leadership and image positioning? It only takes a minute to establish if one is holding that magical key or just toying with a rusty screwdriver.
Domain Names Matter
Domain management strategies have in fact become ultra-sophisticated, and they are among the most valuable components of any ambitious corporation's strategy for building digital branding assets and intellectual property. Domain names are no longer small issues to be handled by the logo-centric, slogan-happy agencies or Web-tech teams. They now demand powerful strategic, boardroom-level discussions and a commanding knowledge of global domain registration laws and search engine visibility rules.
But in order to be golden keys and not rusty screwdrivers, they also must serve the company's branding objectives. During the dot-com boom, there must have been a million domain names registered each day. Even the most unusual, silly and dysfunctional names were sought-after icons of get-rich-quick dreamers, and 99 percent of them failed.
Dot-Com Graveyard
Exhausted or expired, these names have now disappeared, and along with them, the hundreds of millions of dollars on short-lived Web site campaigns. Today, however, there are some very powerful, universal domain names that have carved powerful, highly lucrative positions. Their superior and exclusive fluidity on the net demonstrates the global power of e-commerce. Smart businesses around the world are aggressively in search of such golden keys.
The best approach to universal domain naming starts with a serious audit to professionally measure the strengths or weaknesses of the proposed names. This process is best served by highly objective views. The primary goal is to achieve power and access for maximum impact. Today, only the very best names will dominate the global marketplace. Weak, confusingly similar, or nearly identical names do not have a chance of surviving the power and ubiquity of e-commerce.
Be Original
The duplication factor alone will bury most names in complex global listings.
The most expensive Web sites are useless and the best campaigns will remain stuck unless there is a deeper understanding of this subject. Then there are alpha-structures, which can kill great Web sites and become a liability to business itself. One must have the knowledge to determine the message, personality and length of the name, plus the choice of alpha characters, as each emits its own unique signals.
General branding exercises cannot be mistaken for these complex naming analyses. The strictest application of the Five Star Standard of Naming guards against such expensive busts.
The Google Test
The hyper-visibility of a universal cyber-name is the main issue. A quick search on Google is an instant test of any name's visibility. To appear on the top or on the first page is the most sought-after position, but only an extremely small percentage can achieve this as most names are poorly structured and remain buried by massive duplication.
With the high cost of promotion and intense global competition, it's a brand-new frontier. A lot of money can be wasted in creating an artificial bounce in traffic to an expensive Web site, but in reality it's only those uniquely designed domains that quickly rise to the top with little effort.
Only an in-depth, highly customized analysis will point to the deep problems and illuminate the latest methods to fix them. Today, it's about global domainization, as multiple domain names create multiple problems in multiple markets. There are highly sophisticated rules to be followed. Be aware that there are too many fancy services offering sketchy global registration and translation services.
The World Is Your Domain
Domains are for the international audience and global customer base, and companies should avoid serious language issues, such as translations or foreign connotations that may be embarrassing to the company or confusing to customers. Cyber branding is an extremely global phenomenon. Mind share is more important than market share. Customers need to allow a name brand to settle in their minds before they give out their cash. As such, market positioning is more critical than profit maximization.
The human mind gravitates toward good names; those that are user-friendly and trustworthy. When trying to process millions of silly and randomly structured names, the mind quickly becomes exhausted.
In conclusion, logo-driven branding has fallen into a deep sleep on these complex matters, and there's no need to wake it up. Currently, with 95 percent of the domain names stuck in traffic jams, a frank and very candid CEO-level discussion is required. Denials and refusal to face up to reality will simply keep a company's e-commerce presence mired in oblivion -- guaranteed. Today, one needs a very special golden key to open the gates of e-commerce. Now, can we throw away that rusty screwdriver?
Go Guardian eCommerce, Get The Seal... Site Credibility Pays!
