Newegg dives into college textbooks
The electronics e-retailer is partnering with ValoreBooks.com for Newegg Books.
Updates from augusti, 2011 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Stefany Moore
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Bill Briggs
Web growth remains steady in Q2 for Gap
Web sales climbed 20% for Gap Inc. Direct, building on 18% Q1 growth.
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Mark Brohan
Q2 Web sales easily outpace growth in total sales for ShopNBC
The Internet accounted for 46% of sales in the second quarter.
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Mark Brohan
Ann dresses up its Q2 web sales
E-commerce grew year over year 30%.
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Magdalena Georgieva
Guess the Marketing Quote’s Author [Quiz]
When we first published our ebook, ”101 Awesome Marketing Quotes,” some readers wrote back to us saying they had printed out a copy and glued certain quotes to their walls or next to their computers for marketing inspiration. Now, almost two months after the ebook’s release, we thought it’d be cool to check how well you can match the quotes to their authors.
How’s this for some Friday afternoon fun? Let’s test your knowledge! (And yes, this is an open-book test, so feel free to take a peek into the ebook):
Free eBook: 101 Awesome Marketing Quotes
Read 101 Marketing Quotes that’ll inspire you and help you become a success story!
Download the free eBook to find out what industry thought leaders say about marketing.
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Drew Fortin
4 Steps to Jumpstart Your Business’ Mobile Presence
This is guest blog post written by Geoff Peterson. Geoff is the founder of Mobile Merger, an online event with 36 sessions of how-to’s, live demos, and rich discussion aimed at helping consumers and businesses “go mobile.”Unless you’re from another planet, you realize that we’re in a mobile revolution, with mobile devices and mobile technologies taking over our lives. Mobile is blending into nearly everything we do, as we carry smartphones and tablets by our side at all times and interact with mobile websites, apps, games, and text message campaigns on a regular basis. And this is only the beginning of the potential for mobile. If you’re smart, you recognize the need to figure out what may or may not apply to you and your business, then get going. If you don’t, you risk getting left behind like many people who still don’t see the value in social media. (And you’re not one of those types, are you?)
Below are four steps you can take to jumpstart your business’ mobile presence.
1) Mobilize Your Website
Most websites will technically display on mobile devices such as smartphones, but how do they look? Most smartphones have 3-5 inch screens. Chances are, unless you have “mobilized” your website to specifically fit a smaller device’s screen, you are missing out on many potential customers. Biggest reason? Too much information and too many graphics jam-packed into a small area.
We, as humans, are not conditioned to squint our eyes for that long at a tiny area, nor do we want to pinch/zoom our way around a bloated website. When most people interact with a mobile website, they are seeking very specific pieces of information (e.g. physical addresses, directions, contacts, phone numbers, or email addresses).
Truly mobile people don’t want the whole dog ‘n pony show with your website; they’d rather find an answer to a question, and they want to find it fast! Mobilizing your website should be your top priority for mobile, and it should be the only step you take if you only take one. There are plenty of companies that can help you here depending on your budget, including Movitas, Netbiscuits, and Mobify.
2) Set Up a Text Message Campaign
Virtually every mobile phone has text messaging capabilities, and the vast majority of people toting a mobile phone have sent and received text messages and understand the technology by now (again, it’s a mobile world we live in). With that in mind, if your profession is sales, marketing, or recruiting, the effective use of text message campaigns can increase your numbers and productivity ten-fold, if done right. To be clear, text message campaigns must be done ethically with 100% opt-in by the end user. People that opt-in are telling you “please send me your updates” straight to my mobile phone. Ideas for text message campaigns can include special offers, rewards programs, or VIP content not found anywhere else. Those ideas usually grab attention as well as legal opt-ins for you to work with. Take a close look at the following companies who make their hay with SMS/text messaging campaign set-up and development: Hipcricket, Impact Mobile, and Textmarks.
3) Implement a QR Code
QR just sounds technical, doesn’t it? It stands for ”quick response,” and I’ll bet the farm you’ve come across a QR code in a magazine, in an ad during TV commercials, on a product box sitting in your house, or in a display on a building. Once a very niche technology, QR codes have now become very commonplace for business. Some smartphones already come with pre-installed QR or 2D barcode readers, and there are several free, downloadable barcode reader applications available for use on others. These readers use the camera lens inside phones to scan the QR code (which is filled with information and mobile website links). After it reads the QR code, you are usually taken to a custom, mobilized website with a special promotion, exclusive content, or the like for you to interact with. One good idea for using QR codes would be if you have a small space to place an ad and wanted to share more content (kind of like an extension of an ad), or another idea for us would be if you wanted to capture information from your audience (such as attendees to your booth at a trade show), asking them fill out a form. Check out the following companies in this space for more: ScanBuy and JAGTAG.
4) Get an App (For Smartphones and Tablets)
An entire industry is being built around applications alone this very moment. Apps are essentially software and programs made available for smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices. They range from productivity tools to condensed news sites to social networking utilities. Major brands have caught on that people are spending more time interacting with apps than mobilized websites and have decided to build apps that replicate the important features and information for their business. Whether you should move forward with app should depend on your business. If you’re a big, well-established brand, chances are, people are already looking to interact with you through an app, whether it be for sales, recruiting, or customer support. For others, apps open a creative and cutting-edge channel to promote your business. In some cases, the app CAN be your business. Either way, explore apps further with providers such as: AppMakr, GENWI, and SwebApps.
Marketing Takeaway
So what does all this really mean to you? In short, you need to get into mobile now to stay ahead of the curve. Start slow. Adopt just one of the four ideas mentioned above, and see how well it fits into your business before moving forward. And again, if you do just one thing, mobilize your website and watch the extra traffic and potential leads you pick up from that alone come rolling in. You’ll thank me later!
Want a chance to win a free smartphone? Join the Mobile Mesh Contest and share success stories of businesses and consumers utilizing mobile technologies and mobile marketing.
Photo Credit: Justus Bluemer
Free Mobile Marketing Kit!
As mobile internet usage continues to grow dramatically, marketers need to invest more in mobile marketing to stay competitive.
Download this kit to learn everything you need to know about mobile marketing!
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Paul Demery
Dealing with the tax man
E-retailers take different approaches to mitigate the impact of collecting sales tax.
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Paul Demery
Dealing with the tax man
E-retailers take different approaches to mitigate the impact of collecting sales tax.
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Zak Stambor
Is Bing more accurate than Google?
It was in July, as Bing users found what they wanted more often.
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Sarah Goliger
How to Optimize Your PPC Campaign Under a Tight Budget
When budget is tight, paid search is often the easiest thing to cut. So we understand the decision to scale back on the amount of money you put into your PPC campaign if you need to find a way to decrease your marketing spend. However, paid search is still extremely important to your SEO, and it shouldn’t just be scrapped or ignored entirely.Below are 4 tips for optimizing your PPC campaign when facing a low budget.
4 Ways to Optimize PPC on a Tight Budget
1. Continue the components that have been successful, and scale back on those that have been underperforming. You definitely don’t want to cut back on the ad groups and keywords that have been performing well and converting at high rates. These are keeping your campaign in motion and probably driving most of the ROI from it. Instead, identify the keywords that haven’t been converting very well and the ad groups that haven’t been meeting your performance goals. Pausing these will allow you to save the money you’re currently spending on them and either put it to better use now or toward an increased budget later.
2. Look for a component of your campaign that you can keep consistent through budget cuts. It’s important to understand which parts of your campaign can be maintained continuously. Think carefully about which ad groups and keywords you want to pause. Perhaps you can pause all keywords except for the exact match ones in order to most closely refine your presence and target your audience. Or maybe you should continue your top five high-performing ad groups, and pause the others. Whatever you choose, try to maintain some consistency in your strategy.
3. Optimize for performance, not volume. This should always be a major part of your overall paid search strategy, but it’s especially important to consider when figuring out how to scale back. There are so many different metrics to look at. Which ones should drive your decision? The answer is, you should be paying less attention to volume metrics (like number of clicks and number of impressions) and more attention to performance metrics like cost-per-click (CPC), cost-per-acquisition (CPA), and conversion rate. These will show you how well each of your keywords and ad groups is doing for the amount of money you’re spending, which can help you decide where to make cuts.
4. Use the time when paused to make changes and optimize for better performance once reactivated. Take advantage of the fact that some of your ad groups are paused, and take a closer look at what you can do to improve their performance. You should be testing different versions of your ad copy, so maybe this is a good time to look at those numbers and revise the versions that aren’t performing as well. Look at the performance of your keywords. Maybe you should delete some that aren’t doing well, and add some new ones. Check out the networks on which your display campaigns are being placed, and choose to exclude the ones that are irrelevant to your ads. Take the time to restructure your ad groups, too. Make sure your ad groups match the offers they promote as closely as possible, and maybe consider adding some new ones!
There’s still tons you can do to keep your paid search campaign up and running, even under serious budget cuts. Use the SEO tools and information available to you to make wise decisions, and always keep optimizing!
Have you had to deal with budget cuts affecting your PPC campaigns? What were the decisions you had to face? How did you restructure?
Free Ebook: Introduction to Search Engine Optimization
It’s about time your business started taking advantage of SEO to increase organic traffic.
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