E-Commerce
People On the Move MCM Electronics: Phil Minix has been named president of Centerville, Ohio-based B-to-B catalog distributor MCM Electronics. A member of the Catalog Success editorial board, Minix is a 12-year veteran of the catalog/direct business. He most recently served as president of Astral Direct. Prior to that, he worked at Reiman Publications and J. Schmid & Assoc. Sharper Image: Andrew P. Reich has been named EVP of merchandising. James Sander has been named SVP, general counsel and corporate secretary. Eddie Bauer: Neil S. Fiske, the head of Limited Brandsโ Bath and Body Works, has been appointed president and CEO. Fiske, 45,
Certainly over the years, the retail shopping experience has endured many peaks and valleys โ plenty more valleys than peaks. But the changes Iโve noticed more recently have gone in the other direction, and catalogers need to adapt quickly. Retail shopping ainโt so bad these days. More stores look better. Even the Landsโ End department in a Kmart I visited in July didnโt look so bad. Service has improved, too. So the gap may be tightening on the edge catalogers/multichannel marketers have long enjoyed with regard to service and shopping ease. Certainly, there always have been exceptions to the notion that retail shopping is a
For some reason, I often feel the need to reflect back on my past experience in the catalog/multichannel business when I write these things. Is that typical for these kinds of columns and newsletters? Or at 47, am I just gettinโ old? Hopefully the former, because here I go again. These days, it seems like more and more โrulesโ of cataloging must be changed for myriad reasons: to account for unfair postal rates, to cater to consumersโ reduced attention spans and to accommodate catalogersโ increased reliance on other marketing channels, namely the Web and retail for consumer marketers and the Web, distribution advancements, telemarketing and
Recently, I had a discussion with a B-to-B client about his successful online marketing. The client was very pleased with how many new customers were now coming from his online marketing activities and what percentage of its orders and sales were being received online.
He crowed about how much money he was saving getting orders online vs. over the phone. He sounded like a giddy online marketing manager! On the surface, those are all good achievements. But I couldnโt help but wonder if the focus and attention were on the right things. I pondered the situation for a moment and thought about the
Customer reviews are becoming an increasingly common way to use the online community aspect of the Internet to help convert visitors to buyers. Amazon.com, CompUSA and other sites have been on record as saying customer reviews do lead to increased conversions. Here are four things youโll want to consider: 1. Allow negative reviews? Absolutely. Including negative as well as positive reviews on your Web site makes you appear trustworthy. 2. Are they important? Heck, yeah. Ninety-two per-cent of online customers rated โcustomer reviewsโ as extremely or very helpful (the top-rated Web site feature) in a 2006 survey conducted by J.C. Williams/the e-tailing group. 3. Must they constantly
If youโre confused about what exactly Web 2.0 is, youโre in good company. This often-repeated buzzword has many Web site owners โ not just catalogers โ scratching their heads and wondering what the heck Web 2.0 is and whether their sites need it. Fear not. Web 2.0 actually is a broad term, closer to a concept encompassing a whole cluster of new tools and techniques used on Web sites. You didnโt see them three to five years ago. Itโs not a software package you can buy from Microsoft or build yourself, but rather a catchphrase that denotes your Web site is keeping current with the
If youโre not using Googleโs Webmaster Central, you should start. Google Webmaster Central is a great bundle of free Google tools to help you understand how Google indexes your site. Itโs essential to ranking well in Googleโs natural rankings. And as a bonus of sorts, by fixing problems revealed by Webmaster Central, you often can improve your positioning on secondary engines, too. For starters, you need a Google account. Go to: https://www.google.com/accounts/newaccount. Next, go to (and bookmark) the Google Webmaster Central homepage: www.google.com/webmasters. The Help Center, blog and forums are worth monitoring. These resources provide valuable advice from Google and outsiders for successful
While the sophistication of high-end e-mail marketing tools can be a bit daunting, virtually any cataloger can find an e-mail marketing package that will increase sales without breaking the bank. โAlthough it is often taken for granted, the power of e-mail derives from its ubiquity,โ says David Hallerman, a senior analyst at market research firm eMarketer and author of โE-Mail and Word-of-Mouth: Connecting With Your Best Customers.โ He notes that about 90 percent of U.S. Internet users are regular e-mail users, โclearly an audience that has attained critical mass. Although spam makes it harder to reach customersโ inboxes, e-mailโs personal impact is unmatched
After considering visitorsโ words, I visit The Webmaster Central Page Analysis tab to review my words. Page Analysis reveals the key phrases Google believes characterize your content. For this characterization, it studies the words on your site and the words in external links pointing into your site (โanchor textโ). For example, suppose youโre a widget cataloger who canโt figure out why Google doesnโt display your site for โwidgetโ searches. The Webmaster Central Page Analysis tab can help you see your site as Google does โ the first step to making improvements. Page Analysis shows that my site scores highly for โrimmkaufmanโ and โrimm-kaufmanโ
While many over the years have tried to break down Internet advertising to an exact science, the most effective method is still a combination of luck and guesswork, according to Taddy Hall and Robert Barocci from recently published their book, โThe Online Advertising Playbook: Proven Strategies and Tested Tactics from the Advertising Research Foundationโ (Wiley 2007, ISBN: 978-0-470-05105-4, $29.95). There are a number of ways that catalogers and other multichannel merchants can succeed advertising on the Web. The book contains a bunch of them. Below are several excerpted from it. Create a balance between reaching the right people the right number of times with