Jeff's Online Marketing Thoughts

Facebook vs. Google - The Future Of The Internet

I heard many people talking about setting up an account on Facebook so I had to follow the crowd and see what the hype was about. I had thought of it as one of those sites where kids spend way too much time rather than getting out and talking with people face-to-face, or *gasp* get some exercise. But I have to admit, it is pretty intriguing. While I still have some work to do to get my profile up to par, looking at it from a business standpoint you can see why marketers are exploring Facebook more and more. The ability to connect with people, interact and share with your friends is turning the Web from a "You and the World" model and mimicking real life, your small group of friends that you share, talk and interact with on a daily basis.

John Battelle talked about how Facebook still seems to be turning down offers to purchase the company. This got me thinking in the difference that Facebook has that really gives it an edge over Google. Everyone has tried to take on Google at their own game, trying to improve on the process of search. Where Facebook is a more legitimate threat is that they are changing the game, much the same way Google changed the game when they came along. They are looking at it from the network you have rather than what you as an individual are searching for. After all, are you more likely to trust the results of the vast network of Google servers calculating what you want to see or the recommendations of your friends and family?

Thinking About Changing Your Technology?

I'm sure you have dealt with this question as everyone has these same problems at one time or another. You aren't happy with your current technology provider or they just aren't keeping up with the technology to give you the site your customers expect and demand. In order to stay competitive you need to make a change. This isn't going to be about which technology choices are best, but more about what to consider when choosing a technology.

1. What are you missing? - This needs to be the first place you start because often there is something that isn't keeping you happy, but until you take the time to sit down and document what it is that you are missing you will have a harder time determining what you want to find.
2. What is there that you can't live without? - Often systems aren't the worthless piles of junk they are made out to be. If they were worthless you would have switched a long time ago. What features are there that are very nice and you need to ensure are there in the new system?
3. How long is it going to take to select? - Going through a vendor analysis is a time consuming process, expect to have someone spend the majority of their time contacting prospective vendors, setting up demos, working with everyone that needs to be in on the decision to ensure you make the right choice, selecting vendors, hammering out contracts and negotiating terms. Even if that is a group of people and each have a piece of the responsibility it is going to take time, how does that fit in with your plans? What else is that going to prevent getting done?
4. What is the stability of the vendor? - In this age where companies (especially technology companies) are started, merged, restructured, consolidated, acquired and closed, what would happen if 6 months from now there is a change in the selected vendor's structure? You need to have some sort of understanding to make sure the proper terms are in the contract before you sign. Nobody likes being stuck and scrambling.
5. What is it going to take to migrate? - You've gone through the process to select the vendor, now that you have the system you are going to have to set it up. Make sure you talk with other customers of theirs to understand what it takes to launch. You probably have hundreds or thousands of products, with pricing and content. You not only will have to move that but you have to consider all of the other pieces as well. What about your customer's profiles? Do they transfer over or will they have to setup a new one? Same goes for order history. A plan needs to be made on how to transition.
6. How long will you run two system? - You will run two different systems, there is no way around that. It might be short but even while you are launching your new site you have to maintain the old. Sometimes for an extended period of time. What is the impact of that going to be on your business? Usually it means that there is more work as some things are doubled with the two systems.
7. How will your customers react? - I hope you are doing all this for them, if not then you need to rethink why you are making the decision to change. When you change, what is their reaction going to be? Are they going to like the change enough to ignore the pain? Yes, there is going to be pain. I know you expect a flawless transition where none of your customers know any difference, but that is just not the case. Customers will feel pain. Hopefully not all and hopefully not bad, but you need to expect it and be prepared in how to handle it.
8. Do you trust who you are working with? - This should probably be the first question you ask, because it is often what really causes you to make the choice of selecting another vendor. If you don't trust who you are working with it is not going to be successful.

I would always suggest to try and work things out with your current vendor because as you can see there are a lot of factors to consider. Work with their leaders even if it means going above your current contact to get to the power. Nobody likes to lose business so ask them what they are going to do differently to fix the issues that you have. Then, and this is the key, give them a date that they have to hit. If they can't do it by that time or don't deliver, everyone should know that the change is coming. Also, there is a good possibility that the overall costs will be less to go with your current vendor, but you have to have the data to compare.

At the end of the day though it is a business and if the change needs to be made, make the change and don't look back. Asking yourself the questions above will help you get a clear picture in your mind and to your prospective vendors, what is going to make you successful.

Making Online Marketing Work

I'm in San Jose this week at the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition. It is a great show that is a great source of ideas and an opportunity to network with many talented people. The thing that I've learned this week with the amount of ideas and variety of tools that help take your business to the next level, is the true success comes to those that put the effort in. The different tools or systems or vendors or any of that doesn't matter as much as focusing some of your time and energy to do something with the tools and data that you have.

1) How much of your time is spent reviewing data? How much is spent executing on information gained from reviewing data?
2) How much time do you spend learning about new ideas/technologies/vendors? How much time do you spend implementing one new idea?
3) How much time do you spend thinking about how you wish you knew about your customers? How much time do you spend digging into the information you do have and segmenting your customers?

How much time to you spend thinking and how much time do you spend doing? The companies that are doing are the companies that are successful. The even more successful ones are the ones doing things faster than everyone else. It isn't about the best ideas, coolest features or being on the cutting edge. It is about doing whatever to get better tomorrow than you are today.

Customers Before Search Engines

Search Engine Watch had an interesting post by Eric Enge about PageRank Obsession. I have seen it myself with customers and co-workers that when talking about a sites SEO performance through out the PageRank as the number one cause of their not ranking well, when it is usually lack of fresh, keyword rich content that is the major cause that I see. It isn't surprising, when you have easily identifiable statistics, as Eric states, "We all want to measure the progress of our site(s) in as many ways as we can." People are very competitive by nature, not at all things but at those things that are important to them they are. If someone is in charge of a Web site you can bet they are competitive and measure anything they can.

However, at the end of the day, search engine ranking doesn't matter, it is your site and your customer's experience that matters. All the numbers and metrics don't mean a thing if your customers aren't engaged and convert. I've seen some very search engine friendly sites that are not customer friendly, and I've seen some very engaging sites that search engines hate. Find the balance that works for you and measure the things that are truly important. It is the same thing I tell customers about Web Analytics. I see so many measuring hits, visits and page views, when they don't mean anything to you if you are selling something. If your focus is eCommerce then you need to be worried about getting customers to buy and come back to buy again in the future. More traffic often just means higher hosting costs and other performance problems. It is great exposure, but if nobody buys what does that traffic get you?

I agree with Eric, focus on your customers, they should come first in everything that you do.

Stop Selling and Start Helping Your Customers (2nd in a Series)

The Top 10 Features Every Web Site Needs and Why - Second in a Series

#2 - Articles of Information

Today's customer is less loyal today then at any other time in history. The Internet, shopping comparison sites and search engines make it very easy to find a new company that is willing to sell your customer the same thing you do. How do you stand out? What makes a customer remember you and not your competition? You have to find a way to differentiate yourself from everyone else out there. There are many ways to differentiate: quality of product, service and the one everyone seems to want to cut in order to stay competitive - price. The new way to differentiate is by providing your customers something above and beyond just the products you sell.

The best way to do this is to look at your customers and determine what information they need in order to be more successful and tying it in with whatever you sell. A great example of a company that has been doing this well for decades is Crutchfield. They  are about selling electronics, but they go beyond simply selling and try to have all the information for you to successfully use and enjoy your purchase. What do you sell? What information would be helpful for your customers to have to make them feel even better about their purchase?

If you sell video cameras, how about an article about setting up a birthday party and getting great footage of it?
If you sell ad specialty items companies give out at trade shows, how about an article about ideas to draw people into your trade show booth?
If you sell camping gear, how about an article about the best places for families with preschoolers to camp at?

There is relevant information that your customers need, no matter what you sell. My challenge to you is to get a team together of at least 4 people that understand your customers. Brainstorm for 45 minutes and come up with as many topics as possible for interesting articles. In 15 minutes prioritize and take the top 4 and have each person research and write a one page article with the information. Then if you have a copywriter pull them in, or hire a freelance copywriter to fine tune your article for publication. For a few hours of work you will have some new interesting content for your Web site that gives your customers a reason to come back.

Importance Of Contact Options (1st in a Series)

I apologize that posting has been light lately, life gets hectic at times but it is finally returning to normal for me. I've been thinking about topics a lot lately and have had different requests from customers and readers on what they would like to see. This is the first post in a series based on those requests, The Top 10 Features Every Web Site Needs and Why.

#1 - A Way For Customers To Contact You

I see a number of companies develop Web sites as a way to automate taking orders and simplify the process of dealing with customers. After all, a Web site can handle hundreds, even thousands of requests at the same time, a person can only handle one at a time. You should have 3 things on your site for your customers to contact you:

1. Email Address for Customer Service - If someone has a question, allow them to contact you via a simple method. Everyone is comfortable with Email. The only thing you need to make sure is that you have a system in place to ensure you reply to all customers within 24 hours. If you take longer they will not wait any longer and go find your competition.
2. Phone Number - Nothing beats an 800 number to show that you still care and will talk to customers. Many people are not comfortable giving their email address out, or waiting for an answer. Allowing them to call, and not wait on hold for very long, goes a long way to show you value their business. It also says something about the legitimacy of your business. Potential clients are more likely to do business with you if they feel comfortable with you and don't think your business is a couple guys working out of their garage or basement.
3. Contact Us Form - This is more for comments or any type of feedback. Welcome ideas on how to improve your site, products, service, etc. People today have opinions and love to share their opinions with anyone that will listen. One great way to create loyal customers is to take the feedback that you are given, act on it, and then thank the people that give you that feedback that helped your business.

4 Seconds To Make A First Impression

There is a great article on eMarketer.com that everyone should look at about Web characteristics that annoy users most. It is a great look at things not to do on your Web site, like pop-up ads, dead links and ineffective site search. The most interesting thing is how people's attention spans are getting shorter. If a page takes longer than 4 seconds to load, they are gone. That isn't a lot of time to dynamically generate all the interesting and targeted messages you want to create. It also speaks to people having shorter attention spans, which leads to the importance of good site search, clean navigation and a usable/pleasing design. First impressions are hard to change, and on the Internet, if you don't capture it first thing, they will never come back.

When Is Big Too Big?

I just read an article in Internet Retailer about Amazon now selling auto parts. It got me thinking about how many companies continue to grow and diversify in an effort to continue expanding to satisfy their owners or shareholders. Google is another example of hyper-growth and diversification. I understand that all businesses look to grow. Any that say they aren't are lying. But at what point do they get so big that they lose what made them remarkable in the first place? Do they see the point that the focus is lost and customers begin going to their smaller competitors? What about you, are you growing in the things you are good at or trying many different things and losing focus all of your focus?

Success Is Not Easy

I'm either reading too much by Seth Godin, seeing the same things he speaks of in my own work or a little bit of both. Everyone that has a job has customers and has co-workers. These are smart people, they understand the business they are in and for the most part are good at their job. Why is it that those same people still look for the magic bullet? That easy solution that can make them successful? Why don't people realize that doing your job sometimes requires work? There is no reason that work can't be fun, but it is still work, and it isn't always easy.

Whether your job or business is Online Marketing, helping Online Marketers or anything you can imagine, you must know this: Success Is Not Easy. Here are some of the lessons I've learned that support that:

1. Everyone that is really good at something probably has some natural abilities for it, but they also work very hard at it.
2. Anyone that found success is not an overnight sensation. Anyone that seems to be an overnight hit probably worked very hard for a long time to become that overnight sensation.
3. Anyone that has found success and stopped working hard disappeared very quickly.
4. The one-hit wonders in the world are good examples of people that are probably more lucky than they are good.
5. Don't expect that you can be like a superstar by listening to a presentation from them for an hour or reading something they write. There is a whole lot more knowledge they threw away or held back to help you understand it. If you want to be like them, you probably need to work as hard as they did.
6. To understand your job, business or company to a great depth requires years of work. You can't expect to understand your company to a great depth if you change the company you work for every couple of years.
7. If you expect to get others to share their wealth of knowledge and not put in any effort of your own to understand it, don't expect to get very far. You will also probably need to find a new resource.
8. If you are number one, you need to work harder than everyone else because everyone wants to knock you off.
9. Even if you are in second place, you still need to work hard. All those coming along to knock off number one might come up short but push you further down the list.
10. Success is never easy. Lazy is easy. Average is easy. To find success requires hard work that nobody is going to do for you because they are too worried about their own success to worry about yours.

The choice is yours, do you want to take it easy or do you want to be successful? If you want success, expect there to be work involved.

Multi-Channel Merchants Don't Market Across Channels

An article in Internet Retailer points to a study that says 76% of multi-channel retailers don't coordinate their marketing efforts across their multiple channels. It is something that you should definitely take into consideration because consumers today will analyze you and your product/service across the multiple channels you contact them through. There are simple ways to think about tracking effectiveness of Online Marketing in relation to all aspects of your business, some of which I talked about in a post about Tracking Offline Success. The number one rule I recommend is to think about how your customers will see each channel and ensure that there is nothing conflicting and as much supporting information as possible. This strengthens your brand message customers here.