Accerelerating into the “Diamond Age”
I’ve finished reading the book The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. It is a novel about a brave new world that we could face in this century, when nanotechnology is pervasive. I quite enjoyed the book. It is clear that the author really did his homework on nanotech. The book is titled “The Diamond Age” […]
Optimal blog posting frequency
My friend and colleague Toby Bloomberg of Diva Marketing Blog posed an interesting question to me and a small group of other bloggers whom I hold in high regard (Tris Hussey, Paul Chaney, Wayne Hurlbert, Yvonne DiVita, and Dana VanDen Heuvel). Her question was this: What is best practice for scheduling posts? If you’re not […]
MSN and Yahoo! sneaking up on Google
A new study on users’ search engine preferences from Keynote found that MSN and Yahoo! have gained favor with users since Spring 2004: Indeed, the latest survey determined that 81% of Yahoo! users and 61% of MSN users say they would go back to those sites in the future. In May, 72% of Yahoo! users […]
The Problem with Embedding Tracking Codes in your URLs
The problem with embedding a tracking code into URLs to track referrals from particular marketing campaigns or from particular partners is that inevitably those URLs end up in other places, such as in the search engines. Thus your referral numbers become overinflated. Case in point: Google’s “Inside AdSense” Blog. A couple days ago I searched […]
Ecommerce Best Practice Tip #4: The right way to do coupon codes
Whenever I see a “Coupon Code” field on an order form, it ticks me off. I feel like I somehow missed the boat. I feel neglected… like there is a priveleged elite who get special deals and I’m on the outside of that circle. My knee-jerk response is to immediately open up a new tab […]
Ecommerce Best Practices Tip #3: Develop Your Gimmick
A good ecommerce site sets itself apart from the rest. It’s memorable. It has something special about it. For example, woot.com, the hugely popular online retailer, has a very clever gimmick of selling only one product per day, at an incredible price, and selling that product until midnight or until it runs out of stock, […]
Ecommerce Best Practice Tip #1: Where to send your visitors after they click “Add To Cart”
When someone clicks on the “Add to Cart” button on a product page on your ecommerce site, where should that visitor be directed to? The shopping cart page (the first page of the checkout)? Back to that product page? Somewhere else? If you send customers back to the product page, you’re wasting their time IMHO. […]
E-commerce Best Practice Tip #2 – Build confidence and trust with your visitors
I never quite understood the reason for posting a sticker in plain view on your home page saying that your site is “hacker safe” (like this site does). Why would you remind your visitor that there are hackers out there chomping at the bit to get at their credit card numbers? I only see this […]
5 Tips for Multichannel Retailers Entering the Blogosphere
I was interviewed for a piece that just came out in Multichannel Merchant magazine called Defending yourself against the blogs. I contributed some tips for multichannel retailers who are considering blogging. Here’s the full version of my tips (In the published article, my comments were edited down for space): Create a “safe haven” to experiment […]
