Cover Story: The 50 Best Tips of 2014

Affiliate Marketing
1. One Kings Lane, a flash-sales site for high-end home goods, has taken a different approach to building a high-quality affiliate program. Its solution is to block coupon, loyalty or any other nonbrand relevant sites from its affiliate program. This puts all affiliates on a level playing field, making the program very attractive to those affiliates who drive top-of-funnel orders and brand awareness. At the same time, it preserves the One Kings Lane brand.
Bob Glazer, Acceleration Partners, "Why 'Last In' Affiliate Attribution Needs a Second Look," Jan. 9, ROI Report

B-to-B
2. Try SlideShare for lead generation. One of the best ways to create and share free content is by building a presentation for SlideShare. You just need to create a PowerPoint presentation and upload it to the SlideShare network under your branded page. Once uploaded, you can title and tag the presentation for search engine optimization purposes and even set up a lead-generation form to be added to SlideShare. Giving away content (e.g., downloadable whitepapers, e-books, webinar recordings) for free and then asking for contact information can help you accomplish the following: build very high-quality leads; reach more people with your content; create social shareable content; and create blog content.
Dave Bascom, Fit Marketing, "The Best Social Channels to Use for B-to-B Marketing," Feb. 21, ROI Report

Catalog Marketing
3. Isolate your one-time web-only buyers from PPC, SEO and affiliate programs and develop a repeat purchase strategy. Often these buyers can be "item" purchasers vs. catalog shoppers. You might find that this group of "new" buyers doesn't need to be mailed as frequently.
Stephen R. Lett, Lett Direct, "Catalog Marketing Strategy for the New Year," Jan. 9, Print-Plus blog

4. Don't bet the farm on a test. It's not necessary to do true A/B splits, where half gets the test and half gets the control. This is particularly true if management is worried about the test. It's fine to test say 10 percent and send the control to 90 percent as long as the test panel is big enough to generate statistically significant results.
Susan J. McIntyre, McIntyre Direct, "Catalog Testing: Whys and Hows," Feb. 11, Catalog Doctor blog

5. Omnichannel brands are flooded with data about sales coming from various marketing messages and contacts. Attributing sales is a universal problem for catalogers. Simple holdout tests are an invaluable measurement of the incremental value of catalog mailings. Make sure that you bake these tests into your catalog circulation plans.
Jim Coogan, Catalog Marketing Economics, "Measuring the Incremental Value of Catalog Mailings," July 21, ROI Report

Content Marketing
6. While some content should be consistent to ensure a unified brand, content marketing should be localized in order to provide a more targeted experience rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. By making content marketing efforts region-specific, marketers are seeing significant improvements in site engagement, lead generation and revenue.
Noah Logan, Clickability, "Global Means Going Local in Today's Digital World," Sept. 9, ROI Report

7. Own your niche — become authoritative. Decide to "own" a category and be an authority. Leverage unique assets such as a teammate with a strong following, unique competitive differentiation, or existing offline and online marketing assets that can be repurposed. You'll find that when you commit to develop quality content and publish it consistently, you'll see your customers engage and drive tangible benefits.
Skip Besthoff, InboundWriter, "From Soup to Nuts," January/February, Retail Online Integration

Customer Acquisition
8. Be a socially conscious brand. Millennials are concerned about reducing their carbon footprint and investing in the long-term care of the environment. They will favor brands that are ethical, have authentic moral credentials and support causes. This will also play out in some of their retail behaviors.
Shilpa Rosenberry, Daymon Worldwide, "A Strategy for Marketing to Millennials," April 14, ROI Report

9. Put a bigger focus on your value proposition. Value is vastly different from price. While price will continue to be the only important variable for the bottom third of the market, value for money (and time) spent has bubbled up as a decision point for consumers. The challenge for retailers is shifting from a price strategy to a value strategy. The two are related but are very distant cousins. A properly executed value strategy is much more beneficial to the bottom line than a low price strategy."
Jeff Weidauer, Vestcom International, "Why Retailers Should Focus on Value, Personalized Service and the Local Market," July 1, ROI Report

Customer Service
10. Retailers spend weeks preparing messaging for the holiday shopping rush and then gasp with relief when it's all over. But the words matter just as much — if not more — when the shopping's done. Spend the time to update scripts, live chat canned messages and knowledge bases in preparation for questions about returns, gift cards and refunds. Do a global search for the phrase "that's our policy," then delete them all.
Ross Haskell, BoldChat for LogMeIn, "When the Shopping is Over," Jan. 3, ROI Report

11. Re-evaluate your IVR system. How many steps does it take to reach a real person? Can the steps be shortened? Can you do away with IVR altogether (do the math on this and see if your business can support a live operator)? Reaching a live person to direct your call has become the exception rather than the norm. Can you give your brand an edge by going back to live?
Jim Gilbert, Gilbert Direct Marketing, "Making a List and Checking it Twice," July/August, Retail Online Integration

E-Commerce
12. Understand the fees. All payment processors charge a small percentage of each transaction, but some also charge monthly maintenance fees, merchant account set-up fees, PCI compliance fees, downgrade fees and 1099 fees. While some of these charges may seem nominal at first, they can accumulate into thousands of dollars over the course of a year (or decade). Find a payment processor that charges no fees, hidden or otherwise. That way you'll know the true cost of your sales while saving on your operations.
Sean Edgar, 2Checkout, "5 Tips for Merchants on How to Choose a Payment Service Provider," Feb. 14, ROI Report

13. To create a true sense of urgency, demand should be transparent. Showcasing the number of current observers and recent purchases instills a feeling of scarcity in consumers and encourages them to buy now. Recent purchase information acts as a type of best-sellers list, causing people to flock to popular items and validating the purchase decision.
Graham Cooke, Qubit, "Personalization: Bridging the Gaps Between the Clicks and the Bricks," May 15, ROI Report

14. Summarize the best reviews. Aggregating and averaging star ratings is helpful and common, but shoppers want to quickly dig into the underlying details. Merchants should provide a summary sampling of the most popular comments so that shoppers can quickly scan to get the gist of opinions. The summary should be representative of the entire body of reviews for the product — good and bad — while showcasing the reviews deemed most helpful."
Ken Burke, MarketLive, "Keeping Pace With the Explosion in Popularity and Innovation of Online Consumer Reviews," Aug. 11, ROI Report

Email Marketing
15. Use order confirmations to drive future sales. Order confirmations are an underutilized marketing tool. You know what the email subscriber bought, so use this information to recommend other products they might like right in the order confirmation email. Once the rules are in place and the automation set up, it's an ongoing tool for driving additional sales and revenue.
Jeanne Jennings, JeanneJennings.com, "From Soup to Nuts," January/February, Retail Online Integration

16. Consolidate your customer data. If possible, integrate your email service provider with your CRM or online shopping cart provider so you can view all of your customer data in one place. This makes it much easier to segment messaging (e.g., by purchase or browsing history) to inspire new, tailored communications. It also helps you track purchase activity that comes from your email program so you can easily measure return on investment and adjust your strategy as needed.
Christopher Lester, Emma, Inc., "Making a List and Checking it Twice," July/August, Retail Online Integration

International Commerce
17. Think digital and physical. Launching an e-commerce site in an international market before opening a physical store can often be a lower-risk and lower-cost way to dip your toes in the water to see if the demand is there for further investment.
Jim Fielding, Claire's Stores, "How Claire's Stores Has Grown its Brand Internationally," Jan. 15, ROI Report

18. Tailor your website to international markets. If all your content leads to a .com domain, with pricing in dollars and U.S.-only contact information, your website will give overseas visitors the wrong message. While a one-size-fits-all approach rarely works, a more elegant solution is to build a separate website for each key market.
Christian Arno, Lingo24, "5 Best Practices for Marketing to International Consumers," June 6, ROI Report

Inventory Management
19. Leverage advanced shipping notices (ASNs) to communicate when new merchandise is on the way. Once the inventory is received, the fulfillment provider needs to electronically communicate inventory receipts along with any future adjustments to ensure inventory is in sync. Optimized product distribution also allows your organization to reduce the labor costs required to shift inventory to different locations while helping to minimize multiple shipments to fulfill an order. By maintaining seamless, real-time visibility into inventory, it's easier — and cheaper — to allocate the right products to the right locations.
Maria Haggerty, Dotcom Distribution, "3 Ways to More Efficiently Manage Inventory," Jan. 24, The Art of Delivering Style blog

20. Consider returns in setting pricing and product assortments. While you can't eliminate returns, you can at least compensate for them. In product categories with significant return rates, make sure your initial markup is high enough to deliver acceptable profit after the full cost of returns (including processing costs and write-off of nonusable returns) is considered.
Joe Palzkill, Direct Tech, "Here They Come Again!," January/February, Retail Online Integration

Management/HR
21. Write new job descriptions and hire from outside your industry. There are skills that you need that you don't have in-house. When it comes to e-commerce and web infrastructure, look beyond the traditional retail resume, especially for email marketing, data analytics, web development and the like.
Marti Tedesco, Baynote, "The Modern Retail Landscape," March 20, ROI Report

22. Underpromise, overdeliver. This is a philosophy that all retail companies should live by, not just startups. Etailz.com creates two budgets every year — one for its bankers and board of directors, and the other for its internal staff. The budget for the bankers and board of directors is more conservative and created with the idea that it will be more attainable to beat; the internal budget is more aggressive in terms of sales and profit growth. The internal staff only sees the more aggressive budget, so they're motivated to perform at their best.
Josh Neblett, Etailz.com, "10 Dos and Don'ts for Online Retail Startups," June 1, ROI Report

Manufacturer/Retailer Relationships
23. Suggest consumers buy from retailers. Manufacturers’ websites should explicitly recommend that consumers visit a retailer's website or store, especially if a given product is out of stock. In a product category such as apparel, for example, a manufacturer's website could suggest the following: "Want to see it in person?" and offer a map of local retailers selling the garment.
Andy Lloyd, NetSuite, "Manufacturer/Retailer Relationships: Friend or Foe?," September/October, Retail Online Integration

Merchandising
24. To group is sometimes to distract: A dedicated section that groups similar products as a segment can do a great job at increasing that segment's sales. On the flip side, it can also distract shoppers from the larger aisle and, instead of increasing total aisle sales, it can actually depress them. It's a fine line to walk and one that might take a little trial and error. The challenge is testing until you find the right balance.
Mark Hardy, InContext Solutions, "How to Optimize Product Placement and Get the Most Out of In-Store Marketing," Feb. 3, ROI Report

25. Develop web merchants. While your marketing team may want to automate all of your company's web merchandising, an algorithm can't listen to a customer. In that same vein, online product reviews are a key tool enabling web merchants to listen to their customers. Web merchants should be passing along the insights gained from these reviews to their product suppliers.
Frank Oliver, Gardener's Supply Co., "Tips for More Effective Merchandising," March 13, ROI Report

Mobile Marketing/Commerce
26. Keep it boring. Think of your website as an ATM for smartphones — people don't go there to be wowed, they go there because they're trying to get something done. Your job is to let them.
Tim Ash, SiteTuners, "Are Smartphones Bad at Conversions?", March 12, Designed to Convert blog

27. Optimize for weekends and downtime. Mobile usage peaks on weekends and holidays, so offer mobile-exclusive content and sales during this time. For example, iPad usage tends to peak in the evening when consumers are relaxing at home, so consider running a flash sale on your iPad app during this time frame.
Jason John, Gilt Groupe, "Mobile-First Approach Drives Gilt.com's Digital Success," May 2, ROI Report

28. Feature shallow navigation. Reduce depth in your navigation stack. The average number of steps back a mobile user takes is one. Very rarely does a user switch departments/categories by navigating multiple levels back.
Danielle McCormick, Skava, "From Soup to Nuts," January/February, Retail Online Integration

Omnichannel Integration
29. Integrate in-store locations into your e-commerce strategy. Use consumers’ love of "webrooming" to your advantage through transactional marketing. For example, place a "try it on" button next to a blouse, which would then link the shopper to the nearest store that sells that blouse.
Anthony Nicalo, Donde, "Transactional Marketing is the Future of Advertising," Feb. 18, ROI Report

30. Align your whole organization with proper structure, incentives and domain expertise in the right places. Instill an understanding among all workers that it's one ecosystem working together that leads to growth in all channels.
Julie Bornstein, Sephora, "Top Women in Omnichannel Retail," March/April, Retail Online Integration

31. Be fluid, stay future focused. Iterate, test, learn, roll out. Nothing is stagnant; the world is ever changing in omnichannel retail. Therefore, flexibility and a test-and-roll mind-set are critical to future success. That and strong IT partners!
Jen Sey, Levi Strauss & Co., "Top Women in Omnichannel Retail," March/April, Retail Online Integration

Operations and Fulfillment
32. Geo-mapping effective logistics clusters: The value of close proximity to a strong customer base and a sophisticated workforce may well be worth the higher costs. Moreover, logistics clusters located directly outside city centers can have easy access to customers via highway and public transportation.
Craig Meyer and Kris Bjorson, both of Jones Lang LaSalle, "5 Challenges and Opportunities Facing Retailers Establishing a Global E-Commerce Supply Chain," March 11, ROI Report

Search
33. Weekly or even daily reports on top search phrases can guide your decisions on what products to focus on for merchandising. Reports on "no results" pages can uncover products people want that you may not have, but could start offering in response to demand.
Geoff Brash, SLI Systems, "How Your Search Box Can Inform Marketing Strategy," Feb. 6, ROI Report

34. Don't listen to Google. A Google consultant may call you, but don't answer the phone. You'll also get "recommendations" when you log into Google AdWords; do not click accept. Why? Because while it may appear that Google is trying to help your business grow, you know more about your business than it does.
Sara Shikhman, Bedroom Furniture Discounts, "Don't Listen to Google and 9 Other Google AdWords Tips to Increase ROI," March 5, ROI Report

35. Create "floating refinements" paired with infinite scrolling. Infinite scrolling has become commonplace on many websites. Content such as more search results will appear automatically as users scroll to the end of the page, eliminating the need to click on "next page" links. If you're using infinite scrolling for search results, consider adding refinements that float (i.e., remain persistent) as users scroll through results. This feature helps shoppers remember that they can refine search results when needed, which means they can find the right products in less time.
Tim Callan, SLI Systems, "5 Tips for Building a More Relevant Site Search Experience," April 4, ROI Report

Security
36. Use social data as your secret weapon. To get more advanced, you should consider social data. It's easy enough to do a social search based off an email address — you can see whether someone has a Facebook or LinkedIn profile and whether it matches a verified email address they gave you. A long-standing social profile that matches their name and email address is an asset they have that's difficult for a fraudster to synthesize.
John Canfield, WePay, "Don't Let Fraud Losses Surprise You," Jan. 27, ROI Report

37. Implement multifactor authentication. The use of multiple authentication factors (e.g., second password, security image, challenge questions, etc.) can create a digital fingerprint for the customer, making it more difficult for attackers to pose as legitimate users.
Daniel Ingevaldson, Easy Solutions, "EMV Cards Won't Stop a Target-Like Data Breach, But These Tips Will," March 4, ROI Report

Shipping
38. Enable your customers to make a shipping cost decision based upon time of transit, not specific carrier service mode. Use a carrier management system to determine the lowest cost based upon dimensions and weight/zone that includes your negotiated rates with ancillary costs considered.
Gordon Glazer, Shipware, "What the 2014 USPS Pricing Changes for Shipping Services Means to Retailers," Feb. 26, Shipping Insights blog

39. Offer multiple delivery service levels. Retailers should offer, and charge a premium for, options such as one-hour or two-hour delivery windows, or two-person delivery for larger items. A properly executed and priced multiservice offering may well offset the cost of same-day AM/PM service, allowing you to offer it for a fraction of the actual cost. All of these different delivery types require unique technology both on your website (e.g., selecting delivery time windows) and on the part of your carriers, who are your indispensable partners in confirming and scheduling the deliveries.
Rob Howard, Grand Junction, "Same-Day Delivery: From Competitive Advantage to Must-Offer Service," April 11, ROI Report

40. Know up-to-date carrier cutoffs. Keep open lines of communication with your carriers to ensure you know the last possible date and time customers can put in orders to ensure that packages will arrive on time. This is especially important during the months leading up to the holiday shopping season.
Maria Haggerty, Dotcom Distribution, "5 Ways Retailers Can Compete With Amazon's Same-Day Delivery Model," August 12, ROI Report

Social Media
41. Users don't "like" bait. Posts with "Share This," "Like" or "Please Comment" will be downplayed by Facebook. Through research, Facebook found that while these kinds of posts get more eyeballs, they tend to be less relevant than other content.
Jim Gilbert, Gilbert Direct Marketing, "How to Avoid Facebook's New Feed Spam Trap," April 29, Return on Intelligence blog

42. Establish social media policies for employees to clearly communicate an employee's responsibilities as it relates to their social media activity. There are numerous retail examples of inappropriate online postings from employees that unfortunately travel with lightning speed around the social media universe. Retailers must have the ability to quickly identify truly damaging content and respond to it immediately before a small distraction escalates into a truly harmful incident to the brand.
Liz Ebert, The North Highland Company, "Social Listening Must-Haves for Retailers," May 27, ROI Report

43. Let customers vent. You can't please everyone, although it should be your goal as a retailer to try. Don't delete or ignore customers’ posts on your social media accounts. Doing so will only make things worse.
Diana Adair, Zazzle, "5 Tips to Survive a Social Media Crisis," June 16, ROI Report

Store Design
44. Small is the new black. For retailers, small formats, in both emerging and developed markets, represent an opportunity to get closer to their customers. Smaller formats can also help retailers channel their investments into more locations to maximize reach. Although a straightforward per-square-foot rental and development cost calculation may not skew favorably towards urban locations, the potential for higher traffic can put those investments in the black. For all this to work, however, it will have to be backed by a strategic approach to site selection, category/assortment and customer experience.
Suresh Bharadwaj, Infosys, "4 Best Practices for Retailers Entering Emerging International Markets," Jan. 24, ROI Report

Technology/IT
45. Retailers can take control of their infrastructure by deploying monitoring systems to help identify problems and even pinpoint potential issues before there's a customer impact. Whether it's a network switch, a server or an access point, retailers should be able to see what normal operations look like and immediately know when a piece of equipment is acting outside defined parameters.
Casey Murray, SevOne, "Who's Minding the Connected Store," Feb. 20, ROI Report

Video Marketing
46. Whether it be a funny video that's low on branding but likely to be shared or an informative video introducing your business, products or services, make sure the video is easy to find and not too long. Eighty-three percent of consumers say the ideal length of a video to inform a purchase decision is five minutes or less.
Brad Jefferson, Animoto, "3 Steps to Incorporating Video Into Your Marketing Strategy," April 7, ROI Report

47. Learn to "storysell," not storytell. When creating a video story around your brand, be sure to create a brand voice on camera. Cultivate an expert who can establish credibility and affinity with your brand. You'll want someone who people will come back to again and again. They need to be trusted partners.
Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, Joyus, "3 Video Lessons From Start-Up Joyus," June 13, ROI Report

48. Open new video channels at low cost. Since video is the most persuasive storytelling medium, it makes sense to expose as many people as possible to your brand or product story. One oft-overlooked yet extremely low-cost channel is email. Embedded video in email drives, on average, 35 percent more video plays compared to video linked from email that plays on a retailer's website, according to VideoEmail.com.
Justin Foster, Liveclicker, "From Soup to Nuts," January/February, Retail Online Integration

Web Design/Creative
49. Create style sheets. Detailed style sheets provide creative direction for your product images and go a long way toward improving the visual consistency of your online catalog. The most important issues to address in your style sheet are the desired background (which can be included in the photo or generated digitally) and lighting requirements (e.g., flat light, directional light, shadows, etc.). The more details you provide in your style sheets, the easier it will be for creative professionals to produce consistent, high-quality photos for your brand.
Maria Haggerty, Dotcom Distribution, "Tips for Effective E-Commerce Photography," Feb. 18, The Art of Delivering Style blog

50. Reformat images. An incorrectly formatted image can be several times larger than it needs to be. Rule of thumb: Photos should be in JPEG format, complex graphics should be in PNG-24 format and simple images with few colors should be in PNG-8 format.
Tammy Everts, Radware, "10 Things You Can Do to Speed Up Your Web Pages," May 14, ROI Report