http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com The coolest way to shop is the internet Tue, 22 May 2012 06:52:38 BST en http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/treatment-for-chafing/ Tue, 22 May 2012 06:52:38 BST hendrinjohn General 1 http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/treatment-for-chafing/ http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/content-trends-six-things-everyone%E2%80%99s-talking-about/ COPE, as in Create Once Publish Everywhere. Originally this phrase was simply a sell for clever publishing software. It’s now become shorthand for planning and creating content that can be published and re-used across many platforms, ideally cutting the cost of creation, production and (especially) translation and localisation. Lately we’ve heard it bandied about a lot in editorial meetings.
Obviously if you are going to publish the same content (or elements of the same content) across many platforms, you’ll need to indulge in some pretty sophisticated content planning work first.
If your company operates in a series of content silos, with one team ‘doing email’ and another responsible for ‘social’, you’ll struggle to get this off the ground. But if you can join your internal content owners up to develop a truly inclusive content strategy, then COPE may well prove efficient for you.
On a practical level, for written content, this will usually mean coming up with highly adaptive modular copy formats that everyone signs off on and subscribes to. Cue stakeholder pistols at dawn… 
2. Post-Panda SEO for peanuts?
You can’t stuff your content with keywords any more. So what now? Those whose businesses stand or fall on their search results are out there trying to source content that will both keep customers engaged and satisfy a Google algorithm that rewards content quality. But how much are they willing to invest in it really?
As far as we can see, the SEO copywriting market has polarised. While we can report a recent large influx of clients prepared to invest in quality copywriting, along with the editorial planning, format work and quality control that requires, we also notice a proliferation of extremely low-cost content providers.
There will always be people prepared to churn out repurposed gobbledegook for buttons (£6.50 for 700 words, anyone?) and also those who insist that software could “seriously, like, replace Shakespeare”.
But the truth is that anyone who is prepared to write you an on-brand, optimised, customer-facing, usable piece of content, mapped to your business objectives, legally compliant, sub-edited and proofread for a fiver, is either living in a country where that’s a day’s wages, living off a trust fund or has repurposed it from someone else’s work.
Really good content costs. Sorry.
3. Micro-content fixes
The rise of the copy nudge. The double-dip has forced companies to focus even more on the bottom line. So what content gives the greatest return on investment?
Last year we started suggesting that budget-strapped content owners identified quick copy fixes with high ROI. After all, if your conversions increase as a result of your emails, then why not focus on a more compelling email sign-up, or on messages which dissuade customers from unsubscribing?
Re-working a key call to action, a button, or split-testing the benefits on a product page is quick to do, requires minimal design input and can produce instant results.
The king of all quick copy fixes is the online form. We have case studies showing up to a 35% increase in conversions from fixing the reassurance and instructional text in transactional areas.
So maybe instead of that big ambitious content migration, you should simply ‘sweat the small stuff’ instead?
4.  Mobile, tablet and yet more mobile
Making content mobile and tablet friendly is definitely what’s keeping content owners up at night. Last year, Jakob Nielsen revealed that content is twice as hard to understand on a mobile device. "When reading from an iPhone-sized screen, comprehension scores for complex web content were 48% of desktop monitor scores," he reported.
So what is the answer? In short: write short, clear sentences. What’s the problem? This is very hard to do well, especially when summarising the terms and conditions of a home contents insurance policy.
And what about tablet? While we’re still in learning mode as to what works best, certain content issues are already pretty clear. Overly-long lists and menus, information ‘too small to tap’ and serving up splash screens are all out. It appears you do need a distinct content approach for tablet after all…
5. Govern or be damned
"Quality is doing it right when no one is looking," said Henry Ford. Unfortunately, all the best editorial set-ups rely on lots of people looking. Looking, editing, checking, and then looking again in fact.
While most content teams weren’t initially set up with anything like this kind of QA process in place, we are seeing a rise in demand for content training and guidelines which support governance and help benchmark content quality.
For many clients this is ensuring that (a) best-practice samples and execution guidelines exist for each content typeand (b) someone is making sure they actually get followed. For others, this means regular content auditing followed up by training and mentoring.
It’s fantastic to finally see the old-school rigour of print publishing being embraced by the digital world. Better content should come of it.
6. Content ideas brainstorm boom
The trend to embrace content marketing as a discipline in itself continues apace. But this is primarily an editorial endeavour. And great editorial depends on an ongoing flow of high-quality ideas. When the ideas run out, it’s all over.
As original ideas can be hard to find (especially for the more complex B2B brands), the ability to brainstorm clever content ideas, formats and executions has become powerful content-marketing currency.
What marketers are after is ‘ideas with legs’, workable series of content that can be replicated week after week without flagging. Content mapped to customer needs and interests that is truly useful, usable and builds long-tail relationships.
In his post-Panda blog post  Google fellow Amit Singhal advises content owners to avoid ‘mass produced’ content that is ‘shallow in nature’, and to strive for high-quality ‘original content’. He urges us to produce articles full of ‘interesting information that is beyond obvious’ and remove low-quality content from our websites.
And this is the biggest content trend of all: the culling of poor-quality content is finally beginning to happen. And we can’t wait to see the results...
  ]]> Sat, 19 May 2012 01:35:12 BST External General 8 http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/content-trends-six-things-everyone%E2%80%99s-talking-about/ http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/is-google-selling-leads-in-the-uk/ A search for “voucher codes” presents a paid ad for a well known UK voucher code company and below the ad the consumer is presented with a pre-filled email data capture field with an accompanying “Get Offers” button.


Yes, that’s right the email field is pre-filled so no extra heavy lifting for the casual browser that can’t quite manage to find the energy to click through onto the site to look for any specific offers!
Once you hit the “Get offers” button you then see a simple confirmation appear in the same place on the ad.
 


For anybody that might be concerned about privacy and how your data might be used by an advertiser or Google themselves then don’t worry because Google of course has this covered off with a handy “privacy link” in the ad.
When clicked a pop up box appears helpfully informing the cautious form filler that “When you submit this form, your email address will be sent to the advertiser”. Phew, thanks Google!
If this is something that is going to be rolled out across the UK it raises some very interesting questions.
Is Google really planning to charge per lead for these enquiries? If so, is it really sacrificing clicks for leads? How much are leads likely to cost? Will more data fields be captured in the future? How do these site extensions affect click through rates? Is the consumer contact opt-in for the advertiser only or for Google as well?
There are also more prosaic lead gen specific questions such as is there any validation on the leads? Do lead buyers pay for all leads or just valid ones? Are the leads time-stamped and sent to the advertiser in real-time (as recommended by IAB best practice) or are they batched up and sent sporadically?
Whatever the answers to these questions, it seems like yet more evidence that Google are getting very serious about online lead generation. As they increasingly go head-to-head with Facebook for precious advertising dollars, moving down the funnel from clicks to leads might help to consolidate their place as the real online advertising super power. ]]> Fri, 18 May 2012 01:35:37 BST External General 14 http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/is-google-selling-leads-in-the-uk/ http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/pinterest-joins-the-billion-dollar-club-with-100m-funding-from-rakuten/ According to Raukten CEO, Hiroshi Mikitani:

While some may see e-commerce as a straightforward vending machine-like experience, we believe it is a living process where both retailers and consumers can communicate, discover, and curate to make the experience more entertaining.
We see tremendous synergies between Pinterest’s vision and Rakuten’s model for e-commerce. Rakuten looks forward to introducing Pinterest to the Japanese market as well as other markets around the world.

Although Pinterest is one of the hottest new social media players to emerge in recent years, and is, according to Experian, the third largest social network in the United States, some will naturally point to a $1bn valuation for Pinterest as further evidence that we're in the midst of a huge bubble.
Yes, such a valuation would appear to be frothy, but if there's one hot startup that everyone agrees has the potential to develop a solid revenue model, it just might be Pinterest.
Many of the images that Pinterest's users are pinterested in are products, and the company has built an audience with a very appealing demographic. For online retailers, that's apparently translating into more than just potential. According to a recent report, Pinterest revenue per first click beats Facebook and Twitter by 27% and 400%, respectively, making Pinterest a potential game-changer for social commerce.
The big question for Pinterest is how well it can execute a monetization strategy. The company must take care in adding commercial aspects to the service, lest it upset users. And the social media darling will want to ensure that the backing doesn't limit its potential to work directly with all retailers.
If it can do all this, the future would appear to be bright for Pinterest. Whether the company's possible trajectory justifies a $1bn-plus valuation is another matter altogether but for the Pinterest team, taking advantage of the current market conditions to obtain such a valuation is probably pretty cool. ]]> Fri, 18 May 2012 01:35:34 BST External General 8 http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/pinterest-joins-the-billion-dollar-club-with-100m-funding-from-rakuten/ http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/how-will-the-new-%E2%80%9Ccookie%E2%80%9D-tracking-regulations-affect-email/ Before I go any further, I must point out that the Directive covers more tracking than just cookies. In fact, it includes most types of tracking that track the individual at a personal level.
The regulations (and the need for them) show marketers that there is a perceived lack of transparency and trust surrounding tracking used on the internet and what data is used for. It is this lack of transparency that needs to be addressed, regardless of the technology used to track the individual. 
Modern internet marketing can be a sophisticated beast, focused on delivering the most relevant content and best experience for the user. The problem is, the majority of the general public may not realise this, in fact some might view marketing tracking as some sort of dangerous spy software, poised to sell you something, when you are least expecting it.
And even if they don’t see the way they are tracked as particularly intrusive, do they understand how tracking is benefiting them and helping to improve their experience on the web?
Information is the key. The clearer you are about how you plan to use data and the more accessible you make this information; the easier it will be to educate the internet user, and the more “informed consent” could be implied.
What about email?
For almost as long as email marketing has been around, marketers have been tracking the opens and clicks of the campaign recipients.
They have also more recently been using post click tracking to inform the success of the campaign, either using third party solutions such as Google Analytics or solutions served directly from the website domain. Because of this, some of the tracking used in email marketing may be affected by the directive.    
That said, email is different from web visits, as the recipient has requested the email communication from the marketer. However, this “difference” does not exclude email tracking from the regulations, and give the marketer “carte blanche” to use the data for all forms of use.
It’s fairly safe to say that most people, who sign up for marketing emails, will have some expectation that what they open or click will be tracked by the organisation sending them.
It would also be safe to say that they would expect you to be doing this to track campaign performance, as well as to ensure the campaign delivery.  This can all be taken as a given, as long as the information required by the recipient, is readily accessible from the data collection point, and written in a clear manner.
It also follows that if the use to which the tracking and data is being put goes beyond that which the recipient is likely to expect or understand, a higher level of information and consent would be required.
This is not quite as onerous as it sounds. As email marketers we always obtain consent before we send marketing emails anyway. The initial sign up process is an ideal place to engage with the potential recipient and offer information on data use and tracking.
The DMA, in conjunction with the IAB, have recently issued guidance that sets out a number of opportunities to comply with the regulations.
Various studies recently indicated a clear link to the privacy policy and transparent disclosure actually makes people feel better about signing up for marketing emails. So, for the email marketer, the new regulations should be seen as another opportunity to build trust with customers, not a barrier to business.
For consumers there has always been a love/hate relationship with direct marketing. When we get it right, and deliver relevant and timely material, they love us; when we spam, they don’t.
It’s up to the marketers now to inform their customers about the efforts they go to deliver more of what the customer wants, and less of what they don’t. ]]> Fri, 18 May 2012 01:35:34 BST External General 10 http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/how-will-the-new-%E2%80%9Ccookie%E2%80%9D-tracking-regulations-affect-email/ http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/j-c-penney-shows-the-danger-of-the-discount/ Unfortunately for J.C Penney and its shareholders, the new approach isn't producing the expected result. Last Wednesday, the company reported its earnings for Q1 2012 and the numbers were ugly. Same-store sales dropped nearly 19%. Online sales plummeted 28%. All told, J.C. Penney reported a net loss of $163 million, or 75 cents per share; analysts had expected a net loss of just 8 cents per share.
Not surprisingly, the results have sent J.C. Penney shares reeling. They're down more than 20% in the past week, and the company has suspended its dividend to save cash. And it appears things might get worse as reports say that the retailer is looking to wholesalers for steep discounts.
The cause of J.C. Penney's disastrous quarter isn't hard to identify: shoppers aren't liking its new pricing. As C. Britt Beemer, chairman of consumer research firm America's Research Group, told the AP, "Consumers want deals, and they're willing to wait for them...When you train customers to shop at big discounts, that customer is not going to change".
In other words, J.C. Penney might be offering merchandise to customers at great prices, but they simply won't recognize that they're getting a good deal because, for better or worse, there's no, well, "deal." The result: they don't buy.
For his part, Johnson believes he made the right move, and is confident that in time, J.C. Penney customers (or, more accurately, former customers) will come to their senses. Clearly, Wall Street's reaction to the early results indicate that investors aren't so sure about that.
There's a timely lesson here for companies using the internet to acquire new customers or reward existing customers. Whether you're promoting a daily deal on Groupon or offering a coupon for a Facebook 'Like', discounts usually carry a cost. When customers come to expect those discounts, the cost is easy to significantly underestimate.
This, of course, doesn't mean that all discounting is bad. Coupons and deals are valuable tools when applied appropriately. But when a brand becomes known for its discounts, as was the case with J.C. Penney, it can be very, very painful to separate The Brand from The Deal. ]]> Fri, 18 May 2012 01:35:25 BST External General 12 http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/j-c-penney-shows-the-danger-of-the-discount/ http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/online-shoe-fitting-app-reduces-returns-by-23/ According to Running Warehouse CEO Joe Rubio: 

Anything that improves the shopping experience for the customer is a huge bonus. Shoefitr increases the confidence customers have in ordering a product correctly, thus making the buying decision easier. It also has helped decrease our return rate which positively affects our bottom line.

The Shoefitr app uses a database of internal shoe measurements, acquired using 3D imaging technology, which allow it to compare the size and shape of a shoe a shopper is currently wearing, to one she wants to buy.
The app is embedded into Running Warehouse's product pages: 

It then asks shoppers to enter details about their current running shoe, so the app can compare the fit:

The results the recommend the best size, and the customer can then see more detail about the fit, and compare it with other sizes:

Buying shoes and clothes online can never quite match the in-store experience, and one of the main issues with this is that it can be hard to gauge the fit and feel of products. 
According to stats, the average returns rate for online fashion retailers ranges from 17% to 25%. For Zappos, with an easy returns policy it's 25%. One of the major factors is sizing. 
There is plenty retailers can do to minimise the problem, such as offering detailed images, videos and information which allow shoppers to form a better picture of the fit. 
Online 'fitting room' tools are one way to do this, such as the one used by sojeans, though they aren't always successful.  ]]> Thu, 17 May 2012 01:35:48 BST External General 7 http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/online-shoe-fitting-app-reduces-returns-by-23/ http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/monday-morning-panic-stations-18-checks-to-make-when-your-sales-are-down/ 1. Was the site down during the weekend?
Put in a call to your hosting company, agency or the person managing the site for you to find out if there were any problems.  

Customer services is often a good source of information to advise if there were problems or downtime. Check your analytics suite also to see if there was a drop of traffic during a set time frame.
2. Was the payment portal working correctly?
Check transaction logs over the period in question and see if there was a lack of orders and during what period.  
Analytics should be compared also, if traffic was still being sent to the site yet your conversion rate dropped massively then there may have been a problem with payment methods.  
Follow up with payment providers as this may well have been the case. If using a third party security company to vet transactions. Check whether they were over-cautious or if there was a system fail.
3. Was checkout working, postcodes, address, shipping, payment methods?
Many sites use automatic postcode lookup, did you run out of credits so the postcodes were not delivering results? If so, make sure you set up automatic billing.  
Were your customers able to access PayPal portal? Was the link to the secure cart working correctly? if it was broken over the weekend its likely to still be broken.  
It is also worth checking that people can add shipping to the order, I have seen small changes made back-end that have stopped shipping being added to basket, which prevents checkout. A simple but drastic mistake people make.
4. Were categories published correctly?
Did you set up a new "Special Offers" category? Did it actually get published? did it have any products assigned to it? Were images used and not products, were the clickthroughs from banners working, or did the code get missed out?  
If so, the likelihood is that the category was created, but not actually set live with products.

5. Was search delivering results?

Did your search function fail? This is maybe not so bad if you only have a few products on the site, but for sites with hundreds of products this may have stopped people finding the products.  
The other consideration here is whether or not the search function was delivering intelligent results. For example, searches for 'shorts' which deliver results for 'shirts' will soon put people off.
6. Were products published as zero stock? It happens...
There are two ways of checking this:

Was all stock set to "0", especially if manual stock uploads are added to the site? If using manual uploads check the last upload file. If using a till system to upload directly to site then check with IT what was sent by the feed.   
It's also worth checking whether individual products had all the sizes added to the database. If key sizes were missed when setting up a product shell then regardless of stock update they wont publish online.
7. Was there stock of key products / best sellers?
This is slightly easier and quicker to check. Checking with merchandising or looking at the product history in the till system / CMS will soon make you aware of the shortfalls.
8. Did products have images?
Products rarely sell online if they don't have images, as people will struggle to check what you are listing meets their needs without a picture.  

It has been seen on many sites where the thumbnail image is missing and there is just a description. Generally, I find this occurs when the publishing team add the product and in a hurry forget to save the image to the CMS.
On the other hand, they may have removed the image from the image bank meaning to replace it but forgetting to do so. If using affiliiate feeds, this may also have an impact on referrals from your affiliates.
9. Has something changed on the copy?  Bad reviews?
If a product or service has had a bad review listed then this really could affect sales. Customers expect and deserve genuine reviews but if this is the only review of your product then this could cause problems.  

If you do get a bad review it's worth checking out the product so you can amend descriptions or rectify faults. It's also worth ensuring reviews and queued before publishing.
10. Has a competitor changed pricing of key products?
Competitor analysis of key products can often identify pricing issues online. For example, has Amazon now listed the product £10 cheaper than yours? Has a major retailer launched a sale?
It can be hard to reduce prices dependant on business margins and pricing, especially if you're a multichannel retailer.  You may not be able to immediately reduce products due to policy, but you can let the buying and merchandisers know so they can act if they feel they should.
11. Have affililates stopped sending visitors?
Have one of your key affiliates stopped sending you traffic? Check your affilate program dashboard to monitor sales and look for unexpected dips. If you can identify a drop in sales from an affiliate its worth just checking their site is still active or giving them a call to see what's happened.  
You could find it's a simple feed issue to their site or that they are being offered better commission from competitors. 
12. Do your landing pages have incorrect products or prices? Have they lost search engine position?
Its worth checking key landing pages are still listed in the search engines. Also, when opening the landing page check whether the information is correct and showing relevant products.  
I have often found that people assign incorrect products to the page.  
13. Was traffic down or consistent on the site?
By checking your analytics package you can easily identify if there was a massive drop in traffic to the site.  
If there was then it's worth looking at the visitors and campaign sections to see where the shortfall was. Being a bit more technical, you could break down the analytics to see if it was device or browser specific. 
14. Did a planned email send fail to deliver?
Unfortunately, this does happen with the best planned campaigns.  
15. Were last year's sales impacted due to a specific reason?
So Alexander McQueen died in 2010, sales spiked in one day and we had almost sold out of every item of stock showing sales of 300% sales increase for the same week last year.  
That looks good on the stats for that week and for the rest of this year but next year this will distort the figures, as the 300% increase will be budgeted into the forecast.
Always record key events on the sales figures where spikes happen, things like Easter holidays, Black Friday, Mega Monday, etc all effect like for like week trading.
16. Have customer services received any logged issues about site performance?
The best point of call for identifying many issues on the site. They are normally emailed or called about issues, whether it be pricing, postage, checkout, site down, stock outs or even bad publicity.
A quick call can save a lot of time.
17. Has a social network group started an anti campaign?
In our ever-changing social world negative publicity, like the United Airlines broke my guitar campaign, can hit sales. This is more likely to affect the larger retailer but can affect anyone.
18. Promotional codes
Promotional codes make the world go around online, and everyone looks for a bargain, so check out your promo codes if sales are lower than expected. 
If a new code has not worked then check whether it was case specific. Perhaps it was due to complex, confusing key characters, or published as live but with an expiry date in the past.    
If an existing code has suddenly failed, it often comes down to either being unpublished, expired or deleted in error.
 
The key message here is that every member of the team can help to identify a problem... ]]> Tue, 15 May 2012 01:35:32 BST External General 12 http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/monday-morning-panic-stations-18-checks-to-make-when-your-sales-are-down/ http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/how-to-create-mobile-friendly-landing-pages-part-two/ Usable vs. Useful
There is a clear difference between mobile sites that are usable, and those that are useful. Usable sites may load fast, have easy navigation, and a clear hero image that fits nicely on the page, but developing useful mobile pages that take advantage of the user's location and provide immediately actionable information are more effective.
Just like you can’t judge a book by its cover, you also can’t judge a customer by their device. Mobile adds valuable texture to the universal truths of how landing pages convert, and in order to improve mobile conversions, marketers have to take advantage of everything they know about their customers. The fundamentals of making pages usable matter more on mobile than they ever did before, and a generic landing page that ignores its users and their context will most likely be useless.
Why is this important? As we previously discussed, mobile users may be browsing your mobile site in a store, on a train, or at a restaurant to kill time while waiting for their date to arrive. It is very important for this context you know about the user to factor into your overall mobile design and user experience.
Geography Matters
Understanding the location of the consumer when they are engaging with your brand from a mobile device presents a big advantage for marketers.
For example, many shoppers frequently use their mobile devices during the in-store browsing and purchasing processes. Given this common behavior, it’s marketers must make it easier for in-store shoppers to find the information they’re looking for. One way is to allow shoppers to scan barcodes with their phones and find reviews, ratings, and other information without having to search around the mobile site. According to the National Retail Federation’s Mobile Retailing Blueprint, making it easier for mobile shoppers to make an informed decision can help close the sale faster.
Perhaps more interesting than the user’s actual geography, however, is their proximal geography, meaning how close they are to something. One of the blessings smartphones present to marketers is that you know exactly where the user is with greater accuracy than the traditional way of identifying location based on an IP address.
Did the user arrive at your mobile landing page from a geo-targeted AdWords campaign? Are they near your competitor’s store? Are they near your store? If so, give them a targeted offer to purchase from your store to discourage them from hopping over to Amazon to buy a similar product.
The Right Technographics 
Mobile screen real estate is precious, and every inch represents selling space just like floor space in a store. To improve your likelihood of converting, you better use that real estate effectively.
Another important variable to consider when optimizing mobile landing pages is connection speed. We all know that the length of time it takes for a page to load has a direct correlation on its effectiveness to convert. So focusing on whether a user is browsing from an iPhone or Android device is less important than knowing whether the user is in their living room with a strong Wi-Fi connection or on a plane using a 3G signal, where the page will take up to 10 times longer to load.
In order to convert more effectively, use what you know about the user’s connection speed to progressively disclose content so headlines and the above the fold image are the first things to load and additional supporting information loads later.
Beyond the Landing Page
The most important question to ask about a mobile landing page is: Does it actually address the needs of your users? And since conversion doesn’t happen on the landing page alone, you need to help distracted mobile users stay focused throughout the entire session.
If a customer finds that other pages on your website are loading too slow, they will look elsewhere and all your hard work to optimize the landing page will be lost. Mobile users are distracted and have limited time to complete a task, which is why you have to make their shopping experience as seamless and efficient as possible.
If the user session doesn’t end with a conversion on the landing page, maintain consistency in terms of the user experience and your offers throughout. Make sure that the offer the customer received in an email or paid search ad is consistent from page to page and don’t include links to non-mobile optimized pages.
And whatever you do, if you’re selling the user something, don’t send them to your shopping cart that’s not mobile optimized and be surprised when they don’t convert.

The Bottom Line: Test

The evidence clearly shows that consumers are using their mobile devices to access your website. However, mobile optimization now is comparable to space flight in the 1950s. While we may know the basic rules, this is all very new and nobody has enough real-world experience to make universal statements at this point.
The only way to learn what works best for your brand is by constantly testing. Blaze some trails within your organization, challenge assumptions, and realize that you may discover something new by testing.
The more you test, the more you learn. And the more you learn the more you will earn. ]]> Sat, 12 May 2012 01:35:25 BST External General 7 http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/how-to-create-mobile-friendly-landing-pages-part-two/ http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/facebook-launches-its-own-app-store/ As one might expect, it features directories of apps broken down by categories, which include Games, Lifestyle, Music, Sports and News, and each app that's in the App Center has its own developer-populated page showing details about the app as well as screenshots.
The App Center is more than just an app directory, however. In an effort to entice developers into developing apps beyond social games (and increase the number of ways Facebook can profit from its ecosystem), Facebook is beta testing paid apps.
These Facebook apps, like apps sold in Apple's App Store and Google Play, will require users to pony up cash (most likely in the form of Facebook Credits) before they can be installed.

The world's largest social network is also focusing on driving the growth of apps through mobile. As Facebook's Aaron Brady explained,

The App Center is designed to grow mobile apps that use Facebook – whether they’re on iOS, Android or the mobile web. From the mobile App Center, users can browse apps that are compatible with their device, and if a mobile app requires installation, they will be sent to download the app from the App Store or Google Play.

This may prove to be the most important aspect of the App Center. With more and more users accessing Facebook from mobile devices, mobile presents huge opportunities for Facebook. But right now it's also the source of frustration for the soon-to-be-publicly-traded company, which yesterday amended its S-1 to further highlight the challenges it faces in monetizing mobile usage. And monetization isn't the only problem: a growing number of companies that once focused on social games are shifting their attention to mobile games.
Ensuring that the App Center is mobile-friendly won't immediately solve Facebook's mobile problems, but it hints that the company will increasingly treat mobile as a first-class citizen when developing new features. ]]> Fri, 11 May 2012 01:35:10 BST External General 8 http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/facebook-launches-its-own-app-store/ http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/harry-potter-is-coming-to-amazon-the-kindle/ The launch of her Pottermore venture was big news for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that it put booksellers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble in a very tough spot. Amazon, which isn't used to finding itself in the position of least leverage, was forced to do without selling Harry Potter books through its website. When Pottermore launched, the Harry Potter books became listed on Amazon, but the 'buy now' links took customers away from the Amazon site to Pottermore to complete the purchase.
That, apparently, will be changing. Today, AllThingDigital's Tricia Duryee is reporting that various Amazon pages, including the homepage of the Kindle eBook store, are promoting the fact that "Wizardry is on the way." The implication: soon, Amazon customers will be able to purchase Harry Potter titles directly through Amazon.
While it's clear Rowling doesn't need Amazon (she may be the most financially successful author of all time and Pottermore saw more than £1m in sales in its first three days), allowing Amazon to sell Harry Potter ebooks on its own could prove beneficial to Rowling. After all, Amazon will almost certainly promote it more heavily under this scenario, and Harry Potter titles will be eligible to appear on Amazon's bestsellers lists, providing more exposure.
The question is just how much Amazon will really benefit. There's a very good possibility that the ecommerce giant is giving Rowling stellar terms, and one might even argue that it could afford to give her most if not all of the revenue in an effort to bolster its Kindle ecosystem. While Amazon's business is in selling content - not e-readers and tablets -- the significant slowdown seen in Kindle Fire sales must be disconcerting to Amazon executives. So disconcerting that they'd bend over backwards to gain the ability to sell most popular book series ever directly to Kindle owners? It's not out of the realm of possibility. ]]> Fri, 11 May 2012 01:35:07 BST External General 13 http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/harry-potter-is-coming-to-amazon-the-kindle/ http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/the-role-of-social-media-in-financial-services-marketing/
Though the panelists did mention communication on all platforms, a lot of the issues they are facing aren't about where the conversations are taking place. It's rather that financial institutions need to put customers at the center of their decisions as well as enable their employees to do the same.
Below are a few of the key takeaways from each of the panelists. These points could be taken across any organization, especially those who have to deal with compliance issues and regulatory bodies:
Clara Shih, CEO, Hearsay Social
There are two main things that Shih highlighted about how social media is shifting the way financial services market themselves:
1) Proliferation of online identity where people freely sharing what they do, who they are, etc. is very valuable for the financial world. When people get married or have a career change, these are great triggers for financial services discussion and this is when financial advisors and institutions need to reach out to customers.
2) The online social graph (social networking) shifted us from a base founded in search. Today the way we get information is discovery based with more links coming from social media than Google now. Shih stressed that Twitter is mainly used for retail, customer service, offers and deals, Facebook is a perfect place for retail cards and insurance and LinkedIn is used most by ultra high worth individuals. It's more than a social graph, it's a decision graph. We need to figure out how consumers use connections and rich information to make the best choice for them and give them the facility to do it.
Most importantly, we have to find a way to enable the advisors, whatever the device they are on and wherever they are. We've seen this movie play before many times before. There was a time when it took convincing to get employees to get computers and email. We've proven what can be done with technology so once we can ensure compliance, we have to look at ROI.
Kara Segreto, CMO, Prudential Retirement
Segreto is seeing a real trend to shift to more thought leadership with the generation of enough content to completely regenerate and be one step ahead. You also need to commit as a whole institute or it won't work. There has been a shift from spending time with sales and product to spending more time with technology and tech law and compliance. There's also been a shift in media mix and spends and financial institutions need to have an integrated approach to the market place.
Audrey Hendley, General Manager, New Customer Acquisition, American Express
Social Media has provided a greater opportunity for deeper engagement with customers at American Express. Social media amplifies brand messaging across different customer touch points and aids with customer service, engagement and retention. It is looking to engage more with small businesses and American Express puts on Small Business Saturday once a year to engage with customers and the community. Hendley stressed that it's important to know who you are talking to and and correlate your messaging and content to that audience. The more connected customers are to the brand, the more they will use it.
Sean Belka, SVP Fidelity Center for Applied Technology, Fidelity Investments
The goal at Fidelity Investments is to help customers achieve big goals. 20 years ago meant calls and mail, then web and email. Social media is part of the large evolution to be where the customers are. We need to look at technology and try to figure out how that will help your customers. Think - is this going to help them in their financial lives? It's less about the channel and more about what the customers need.
People want to aggregate multiple sources when making a financial decision instead of a single source like they did in the past. How do we enable that and bring that all together in a low cost way? One of the things Fidelity brought to market in the last year, was to enable customers to deposit checks through their mobile. This way the company can be where the customers are, make it easier for them and create new opportunities.
Frank Eliason, SVP Social Media, Citi
For Citi, social media shifted the control. Now the control is more in hands of the customer and the hands of your employee. This is changing the culture at all companies and we're forced to be more open. This openness will help build the trust that is lacking in the financial world at the moment.
The huge thing that is under discussed is how we can help facilitate conversation. How can financial institutions listen in the space and understand what is happening in all brands in the marketplace. They then need to take this information to see where they can change things internally. Also how do you build that trust and build those communities? Traditionally, financial services was about community and relationships and that is what social is. Ultimately, you have to find ways to connect the dots. It's not about the brand, it's about finding out more about your customers.
In the financial services world, we need to shift from the product perspective and look how customers are using it and doing it. All social spaces are different. First, you need to listen in each space and then ask customers where to communicate, what they want and then keep adapting as the platform adapts. At first everything may be cool with how a platform is used and then elements may not, so you need to adjust accordingly.
A big problem is that most financial firms push messages out and no one cares. We have to remember it's about human dialogue. When you're dealing with compliance, traditionally it'd take 3 days to have approval but taking three days to approve something makes for really funny Twitter conversations. To help with this, Citi has 2 social lawyers.
As for trying to stop employees from speaking online, you can't. They are speaking there and they are connecting to other people. This is not a bad thing, we just have to start doing it in the right way. Regulators are just as confused in this space as financial services are so we need to have the conversation with them. This is important as the real world has changed since the time regulatory laws were first created in 1929. Now is the time to rethink them. ]]> Fri, 11 May 2012 01:34:59 BST External General 12 http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/the-role-of-social-media-in-financial-services-marketing/ http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/alternative-payments-used-in-11-of-online-purchases-in-the-uk/ Today APs account for €165bn of global e-commerce transactions across the world (22% of total transactional value) so e-tailers that only accept credit or debit cards are potentially missing out on a huge proportion of global customers.
However the market is extremely fragmented, so which options should merchants consider?
WorldPay predicts that eWallets will increase market share in the AP industry from 36% to 43% by 2015, while real time bank transfers will increase from 12% to 20%.

To pre-empt this trend, MasterCard and Visa have unveiled their own eWallet products in recent months. Visa initially unveiled its new payment system, V.me, last year but this week announced the first beta of its service with online retailer Buy.com.
Not to be outdone, MasterCard announced that it was expanding its mobile payment service PayPass into a larger eWallet service called PayPass Wallet Services.
But in truth they are both playing catch-up with PayPal, at least in the UK and US.
WorldPay’s stats show that PayPal owns more than half the AP market in the US and around 45% in the UK.
However in other major nations the market is far more fragmented (click on the image to see a larger version).

The use of AP also varies significantly when looking at different industries.
The figures in this table give an indication of the usage of AP in each vertical, however WorldPay says that due to the fragmented nature of each industry the statistics have an error variance of 6%.

When looking more closely at the UK, the report found that AP equates to just 11% of total e-commerce transactions.

With total UK e-commerce revenues standing at €142bn at present (almost matching the rest of Europe at €157bn), even a comparatively lowly 11% warrants further investigation.”

WorldPay recommends that online retailers should definitely consider integrating PayPal, as well as other AP methods.

A combination of the paper based, eWallet and bank transfer schemes outlined above should be the aim for anyone looking to ensure that their payment bases are covered in the UK.

Offering alternative payment methods makes sense for retailers. While many are clearly happy to use credit or debit cards, there are potential online consumers that would prefer to use methods such as PayPal as they have concerns about fraud, or have no credit or debit card due to debt issues. 
Retailers such as Kiddicare and Firebox have sensibly covered all bases, and allow provide plenty of payment options for customers. 
On Firebox, customers can even pay cash (via a PayPoint at a local newsagent) if they prefer: 

But while major global online retailers may consider different payment options, the dominance of card payments and PayPal in the UK means that we are unlikely to see a rush to AP methods in the near future.
WorldPay’s data was collected via online research among 1,820 merchants operating online in the USA, UK, Australia, Canada, France and Germany. 
In-depth interviews were also conducted with 40 global merchants and 10 payment experts. ]]> Thu, 10 May 2012 01:35:15 BST External General 15 http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/alternative-payments-used-in-11-of-online-purchases-in-the-uk/ http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/pinterest-drives-more-sales-than-facebook-stats/ Furthermore, Pinterest users spend more than twice as much as Facebook users ($180 vs. $85), and the site drives higher numbers of new customers.
86% of visits from Pinterest are new to Boticca compared to 57% from Facebook.

However Pinterest users didn’t trump Facebook in all areas of e-commerce, as the social upstart has a 51% lower conversion rate than Facebook.  
And looking at time spent on site and the number of different pages visited, Pinterest users are less engaged than Facebook users.
Boticca CEO Kiyan Foroughi said he puts Pinterest’s impact on sales down to users’ disposition and demographics:

On Pinterest users are in discovery mode, looking for the best, most interesting products and designs the web has to offer. On Facebook, people are primarily looking to socialise with friends and consume video and photo content.

Boticca sells unique accessories from independent designers, so the visual product discovery offered by Pinterest lends itself better to sales.

For an ecommerce site such as ours focused on fashion accessories, Pinterest's demographic, which is mostly female, affluent and in the US (where we already make 30% of our sales) is ideal. The better matching demographic results in higher sales.


But as Pinterest focuses on sharing images, it is surprising that engagement is lower than for Facebook users. You would perhaps expect Pinterest users to browse more products looking for more images to share.
But Foroughi says that a majority of Pinterest users will immediately leave Boticca if the pinned item they initially clicked on is not of interest.

That results in higher bounce rates and lower average time on site and conversion rates than other channels, therefore less engagement.

He said the company has put in place several methods that have helped to mitigate this, including pop-up offers for Pinterest users with a special offer in exchange for subscribing to a newsletter, as well as retargeting.
Boticca’s success in driving sales using Pinterest will be a useful case study for the social network as it seeks to monetise its service. And it’s not an isolated event.
Last month we reported statistics from marketing technology company Converto which showed that Pinterest represents 17.4% of social media revenue for e-commerce sites, a figure that was predicted to grow to 40% by the end of Q2 2012.
We have also highlighted 11 ways to use Pinterest as a brand.
But as we have seen with a study from Eventbrite, Facebook still remains a powerful sales advocate in the event industry with each Facebook share worth £2.25 compared to £1.80 on Twitter (although Pinterest wasn’t included in that study).
And as Foroughi says, the real challenge that remains for e-tailers is making sure new visitors from Pinterest continue to become new conversions.
There are ways of doing this, such as optimising landing pages and using targeted offers, details of which can be found in Econsultancy's Conversion Rate Optimisation Report.
But it will be interesting to see whether traffic from Pinterest retains its value to e-tailers as the social network evolves and ramps up efforts for monetisation. ]]> Wed, 09 May 2012 01:36:38 BST External General 7 http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/pinterest-drives-more-sales-than-facebook-stats/ http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/how-to-survive-the-transition-to-digital-direct-response/ Sound familiar? You could replace the words LinkedIn Group with trade show booth and you get my point. Branding is not enough to create sales. Nor is branding—or its "kissing social cousin" engagement—able to produce customer behavior (e.g. business leads). Why? Because they are rarely executed as processes aimed at producing behavioral outcomes.
Branding and engagement use tools like creativity to create, at best, brand name recall and preference. Hence, direct response must be added in to social engagement campaigns for leads and sales to manifest. It doesn't "just happen."
It's What Has Always Worked
The Web and social media are built for direct response and that's where we're heading as an industry. In fact direct response is where the ecommerce action has been since day one. Witness the multi-billion dollar affiliate marketing industry, Google Adwords. These innovations fueled rapid growth of ecommerce in the early days.
"We're all direct marketers now. The Web is one big direct marketing machine and everyone is invited to the party," says Mike Moran, formerly of IBM, a distinguished engineer and author of Do it Wrong Quickly, who says marketers come from two distinct backgrounds:

Brand marketers are the ones whose work you see on TV. They are all about branding, brand image, brand awareness—use whatever word you want—and their success has made Coca-Cola and many other consumer products into household names. Direct marketers are decidedly less sexy ... constantly searching for the next idea that increases response. They are all about sales, and couldn't care less about brand image as long as the cash register rings.

Moran says social engagement marketers with an interest in driving sales have much to learn from the practice of direct response marketing. David Ogilvy said this too. In short direct response works and it's never been more needed by those of us with things to sell online.
Customers Expect Proof, Upfront, for Free
Based on my own research while writing my book I've come to discover that people are buying in business-to-business and business-to-consumer contexts using social media. Yes, they're buying as a result of content marketing. However, customers only purchase when the business behind the content is willing to prove the effectiveness of the product or service (in some small but meaningful way) prior to the purchase. Executing this requires use of direct response.
What I'm getting at here is "engaging content that provides value" does not work nearly as well as engaging content that delivers a result before the sale. That translates to solving a related problem, or giving an actual sample of a unique experience. It's the difference between telling a customer you're the best choice and proving it to them. It's the difference between ascribing characteristics to your brand as bait for customers and letting customers' actual experiences create your brand for you.
"We develop brands to help customers achieve outcomes that they can’t achieve through products and services alone," says Brian Phipps, an independent brand strategy consultant.
"Thus, a 'brand'  is much more than an identity, a stylized sales stimulant, a promise or a reputation. It's a deliverable that acts as a supra-product method of creating value, limited only by the brand imagination of the company."
Results in Advance
This idea of being less artsy, creative or funny (branding) and more useful (content-rooted direct response) is what's fueling the success of Frank Kern and his clients. The concept begins with you/your brand giving materially useful things to prospective customers---like tools and utilities that solve problems for them. This often includes multimedia, educational content that proves your worth, builds trust. In the end, prospective buyers factor the seller's ability to actually produce a result for them into consideration when the call-to-action arrives. 
In this context your product is nothing more than an extension of benefits customers already received from you (for free). Your product suddenly becomes a chance to solve a prospect's nagging problem, avoid a risk or exploit an opportunity. Good deeds (deliverables) using helpful tools, advice, free samples of experiences all help buyers see your product as a logical investment rather than an expense.
By providing what Mr. Kern calls "results in advance" we marketers can do something remarkable. By moving prospects closer to their goal before we ask them to buy anything we bring customers closer to joy... so much so that they appreciate what we've given them and WANT to pay us to reach their ultimate goal.
What do you think?
photo credit: gnackgnackgnack
]]> Wed, 09 May 2012 01:36:29 BST External General 6 http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/how-to-survive-the-transition-to-digital-direct-response/ http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/qa-vc-bill-earner-on-how-startups-should-pitch-for-funding/ So how can London’s entrepreneurs secure Connect Ventures’ backing?
To find out, I asked Earner what he looks for in new investments and what he thinks of the London tech scene.
What trends do you see among tech startups at the moment?
We are seeing a lot of gaming and e-commerce companies.
There’s a lot of innovation around e-commerce business models and how they actually sell products.
We also see a lot of startups talking about big data and how they can offer a solution to bring meaning from massive data sets.
How does the London startup scene compare to other European countries?
London has a great startup scene, there’s a lot of good innovation going on.
There are a number of good clusters around Europe, but London is the biggest and most established.
Berlin is also thriving, but London is probably a bit more developed.
What do you look for when investing in a startup?
Since we are looking at companies that are early stage we look at the team of people involved.
We want them to really explain what problem they are solving and what the product vision is.
We like them to be very product orientated - they need to have clearly thought through the problem and the solution they are offering.
Also, in this day and age with the technology we have available you expect to see either proof of concept or a sample product.
The days of just showing us a PowerPoint presentation are gone.
How should startups approach you?
We try to be very approachable, we are happy to talk to entrepreneurs.
At the moment it’s just my partner and I and we are reachable via social media, email or telephone.
We even had an entrepreneur drop by the office earlier today.
If someone fails to get funding, what advice would you give them for their next pitch?
It’s the nature of venture capitalists that you say no more than you say yes.
We try to be constructive with our feedback most of the time, and generally entrepreneurs take it quite well.
But obviously every company is different so it depends on the specific case.
A lot of the time our reasons for not investing are to do with the product vision and how it maps to the problem.
What is the most common mistake startups make when pitching?
The most common mistake we see is that they haven’t thought about their potential customers.
Often their ideas are very high level and non-specific about who is actually going to want to buy the product.
How many startups do you plan to invest in this year?
We haven’t got a specific number that we want to invest in this year, but over the life of the fund we want to have around 15 to 20 investments.
What’s the ratio of startups you see compared to the number you actually invest in?
The general rule of thumb for VCs is around 100 to one.
However in early stage investments the ratio might actually be bigger. ]]> Fri, 04 May 2012 01:36:14 BST External General 7 http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/qa-vc-bill-earner-on-how-startups-should-pitch-for-funding/ http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/what-ive-learned-from-writing-2000-blog-posts/ There are so many different areas and disciplines in digital marketing, that it can be overwhelming if you feel you have to be knowledgeable about everything. 
Instead, it's best to focus on a few areas that you are interested in and can be knowledgeable in.
In my case, thanks to reading our reports written by people like Dr Mike Baxter, I focused on e-commerce and user experience, as well as being fascinated by SEO, email, mobile, social media and more. 
This doesn't mean you should ignore all other topics (as Editor, I do have to know a little about affiliate marketing, online ad networks, etc) but it's better to specialise where possible, and it's more enjoyable to write about topics you care about. 
Learn from the experts
Fortunately this industry is full of talented people who know their stuff and are prepared to share what they have learned. 
As well as my colleagues at Econsultancy, industry experts such as Craig Sullivan, Andrew Girdwood, Matty Curry and many more have been willing to lend their opinions and the odd quote when I've needed it. 
In addition, I've learned loads from some of the excellent speakers at Econsultancy events such as the Future of Digital Marketing and JUMP. There are some other great conferences out there too, including - most recently - BrightonSEO. 
Don’t rely on spellcheck
I'm as guilty as anyone for making mistakes on blog posts, and in the early days I placed rather too much faith in spellcheckers. They're great for catching obvious mistakes, but there's no substitute for checking things yourself. 
Even better, a second pair of eyes can find the mistakes you may have missed even after reading a few times. Check and doublecheck, then check some more.
Keep it simple
There are some complex concepts in digital marketing, and it would be easy to baffle readers with terminology like RTB, demand-side platforms, and so on. 
Of course, some terminology is useful, and industry jargon is unavoidable to a certain degree, but I've always tried to avoid too much this and explain ideas to readers as clearly and simply as possible. 
Avoid jargon 
Although I'm guilty of using some at times, I really hate jargon, especially since it's normally possible to convey meaning in plain English. 
We do have a list of banned words in our blog style guide, including such crimes against language as: 

Leverage
Synergies
Learnings
Holistic
Actionable
Kill them with fire. 
The importance of headlines 
Headlines are key when writing for the web. A good headllne can make the difference between hundreds and many thousands of page views, and can give you a real advantage in the search rankings. 
A few key points for headline writing: 


Use adjectives. This turns a dull headline into something that will catch the eye and get people clicking. For example, '25 brilliant examples of Facebook brand pages' is about the most popular post of the last year or so on this blog, and this is thanks to the combination of a popular topic, useful examples, and that adjective. Oh, and it's a list.  

Lists work. Chris Lake explains this in more detail here, but list posts work because of a number of factors. They're easy to scan and read, people want to know what did and didn't make the list, and it forms the basis for debate in the comments.  

Consider search. We try to make sure headlines will rank well and try to secure a spot in the rankings for phrases which relate to our reports and content, like 'checkout optimisation', 'SEO best practice' and so on. It makes sense to check Google first to see what people are searching for and, within reason, adapt your headlines accordingly.  

Make headlines descriptive. You often have just one chance to convince people to click a headline as they see it in their Twitter feed, in the SERPs, or in a newsletter. The headline should describe what the article is about:
 


Keep the length of headlines down. Headlines need to be short enough to work as email subject lines, allow for easy retweeting, so they appear in full in search results, and so on. We have a 65 character rule for headlines, which is the perfect length. 
Internal linking
Internal linking is very important, especially if, as on Econsultancy, you have an archive of useful content. 


It's useful for readers. If someone has come to your site attracted by an article on a particular topic, then it makes sense that they may want to read related content, so give them some ideas for further reading. It may be that you have written a news article on a topic which you have covered in more detail previously.


Internal links reduce bounce rates. If people arrive at an article and you give them some related content and somewhere else to go once they have read it, then it gives them a reason to stay on the site a little longer. For us, we not only want to show visitors our other posts, but also for them to see our reports, details of events, training and so on.  

It helps Google to crawl your site, as links are a great way to help Googlebot through your site. Here's Matt Cutts on the subject.  

They can help you to make a point. For example, if I'm writing about checkout optimisation, and I want to refer to the reasons customers bail out of purchases, then I can link to a post like this one. Normally I'd use better anchor text but that's another story... 

They send traffic to older posts. A decent chunk of our blog traffic is generated by archive posts, and now and again older articles do the rounds on Twitter, as someone discovers them via search or a link from a newer article and decides to share them.  

It helps you to rank for certain keywords. You can use anchor text contain a key phrase you'd like to rank for when linking to older posts. For example, I can link to an interview with the ICO using the keyphrase EU cookie law in the hope that this will help bump it up from position 18 in Google. 
Create readable content 
Even if they have been enticed to your post by the title and subject matter, readers can still be deterred if the article is badly formatted. 
Huge swathes of text with huge paragraphs, little formatting, and no images would be enough to make most readers bail. 
Instead, you need to break up blocks of text with headings and sub-headings, use short paragraphs, highlight key points and stats, and use images and charts, both to illustrate the points you are making, but also to make the article easier to read. 
For example, this post on how marketers can target tablet users is almost 3,000 words, a bit on the long side for a blog post. To counter this, I've used headers, sub-headers, lists, charts and highlighting to make it seem less of an effort to read it: 
 
Original content works best
There are thousands of marketing blogs out there, and lots of them are just writing the same articles, which are often straight write ups of the same press releases which reached my inbox. 
This is not to say there's no value in press releases, or that we never just write about a survey or a piece of news we've seen, as these posts can be useful sometimes. 
However, the best content, and that which is most popular on the blog, and keeps traffic coming in long after being published, is that which is original. 
If you look at the 25 most popular posts from this blog last year, you'll see a mixture of curated lists (top ten e-commerce infographics etc), great stats, and original posts full of useful tips, such as Kelvin Newman's Ultimate guide to the Facebook algorithm.
Link to other bloggers 
Of course, you want to promote your own content, but it's also important to link to other bloggers, to give credit where it's due, and to share some of that link juice. In return, you are far more likely to get links back from other sites. It also allows you to debate issues and bounce ideas off each other.
For example, while looking for more reasons to link internally for this article (I could only think of four) I found this great post full of blogging tips on SEOMoz.
Do lots of reading
I have to write a certain number of posts and reports, but it's vital that you keep some time aside just to read and digest as much information as you can. 
When I started, I worked my way through Econsultancy's best practice guides, but you also learn a lot by reading other bloggers. 
For example, as someone who likes to write about e-commerce and user experience, sites like Smashing Magazine, UX Booth and Get Elastic's blog are fantastic resources for inspiration and insight. 
Dealing with the trolls
Fortunately, though we do get plenty of comment spam, we don't get too many trolls on this blog. This is how to deal with them:

Listen to feedback
I love to hear feedback, good and bad, on blog posts. Well, if I'm honest, good is much better, but you should learn from both. 
This helps you to avoid making the same mistakes again and again, and helps you improve as a writer.  
Don’t blog for the sake of it
This is a tricky one. Some days you just have fewer ideas for blog posts than others and you're tempted to write anything just to get something up on the site. 
Far better to wait until you have something better to write about, and to make a note of the ideas you have when you're in the mood, so you have a reserve to fall back on. 
It’s about quality not quantity
It's very important to keep the articles coming to give people a reason to keep checking your blog, and to give Google's spiders some fresh content to crawl, but this shouldn't be at the expense of quality. 
I'd rather see one or two detailed and insightful posts than a bunch of quick articles published just to keep the numbers up.  
The value of social media 
Social media is massively important for bloggers in three ways: 

Getting ideas for new posts. 
Encouraging debate around your blog posts. 
Promoting your content. 
To take Twitter as an example, I get plenty of ideas for posts from the people I follow sharing news, stats, and ideas, while I can always ask a question or two and get some useful background for posts. 
We also promote posts on social media, and a good deal of our blog traffic comes from social sites. 
The importance of analytics for blogging
It's not always about numbers for us, if we have just a few hundred people view a post, but a decent proportion then go on and download a report, then this can be more valuable than getting 1,000 retweets and buckets of page views.
However, we do like to know what works and what doesn't, and looking at the figures from analytics and learning the lessons is important. 
For example, the stats below show a variety of bounce rates and time spent on site.
The post on Zeebox and Dancing on Ice brought the traffic in thanks to people searching for news about the ITV show, but the bounce rate was 97.5%, meaning that these people probably weren't looking to visit an internet marketing blog. 

Timing is everything
The time and day you publlsh a post can make a big difference, and this is something we try to learn from. Generally speaking, posts will do better for us when published late in the morning and midweek, which is partly why this post has been published at 12pm on a Tuesday. 
Different posts will work well at different times though, so we'll publish something we think is of value to UK and US users a little later for maximum exposure. 
It's also why we'll publish lighter posts, such as this one showing 10 easter eggs hidden on websites, on a Friday when people are thinking of the weekend.  
Comment on your own posts
I like to see comments on our posts. If nothing else, it reassures you that something is actually reading them. 
If you can get a good debate going, as on this post on the 'cookie law', then it means people are coming back to check replies to their own comments, they're more likely to be tweeting about it, and you can learn something from the comments people leave. 
You can help to encourage this by joining in, answering questions and asking some of your own. 
The value of timesaving tools and apps
This is worthy of a post in its own right, so I'll just mention a few, but there are plenty of tools out there that make my job much easier.  


Screenshot tools such as imgur are great, especially for reviewing websites.
Twitter Search, for all its faults, can be very handy for real-time research. 
Flickr Creative Commons is great for sourcing images. 
Q&A sites like Quora or LinkedIn answers are great for finding elusive stats and case studies. 
If you're interested, here are the other 1,999 articles if you have a spare month or two... ]]> Thu, 03 May 2012 01:36:08 BST External General 10 http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/what-ive-learned-from-writing-2000-blog-posts/ http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/tablets-the-opportunity-for-marketers/ One trend that has been emerging is that tablets, and the iPad in particular, are delivering conversion rates that are closer to desktop than mobile, and higher in some cases. In addition, average order values tend to be relatively high. 
Of course, this will vary between sectors and between different types of retailer, but the stats do make sense. 
Though the iPad and other tablets deliver a very good user experience, it’s not the device itself that is behind these strong conversion rates and average order values. 
The major factor at play here is the demographic that buys and uses relatively expensive tablet devices. They tend to be a higher income, and therefore less price-sensitive group. This effect may become diluted as cheaper tablets come to market, but it is significant for the time being. 
In addition, the usage habits of tablet owners, often in lean-back mode during leisure time, lend themselves to casual buying and browsing. 
There are a number of stats on e-commerce and the iPad in particular which show the potential value of the tablet for retailers. 
According to stats from Affiliate Window, taken from 81.9m visits to merchants and 1.57m sales, the average conversion rate for iPads was 3.82% in August, compared to 1.9% for desktop (i.e. non-mobile).
As far as average order values are concerned, the iPad is king, with an AOV of £69.94, compared to £65 for desktop (i.e. non-mobile). 

The iPhone (£48.34) does a little better than Android (£43.76), while Blackberry and other devices are way behind, a reflection of the relative user experience and ease of purchase on the different devices. 
It’s important to remember that the volume of sales via iPads, though growing, is still a small percentage of total online sales. For example, Affiliate Window’s stats show that, of the 1.57m sales generated by affiliates in August, just 27,551 were via iPad, which equates to 1.75%. 
Stats from eBay, quoted in our M-commerce Innovation Briefing, echo this trend, with the company stating that tablet users spend 50% more than PC users. 

Data from US e-commerce technology company Monetate, whose clients include several Internet Retailer 500 firms, found that, of website visits from Thanksgiving to ‘Cyber Monday’ 2012, tablets accounted for 4.68%, up from 1.06% in 2010. 
Conversion rates from tablets were 4.95% on average, compared with 5.39% for desktop, and 2.32% for mobile.   
Of course, conversion rates and average order values aren’t everything, and retailers need to consider the percentage of traffic and sales from tablet users. 
How are people using tablets? 
According to a Google survey from March 2011, people are generally using their tablets at home. 82% said they primarily used their tablet device at home, followed by 11% on the move, and 7% at work. 

In addition, 62% said they used their tablets more frequently in the evening. 

Though activities such as playing games, looking for information and email were more popular, 42% said they used tablets for shopping online. 
More recent IAB/Sparkler stats paint a similar picture. They show that more than 50% of tablet interactions were found to take place in the late evening (between 7 - 12pm). 
51% of tablet interactions take place while watching TV, and tablet users are 50% more likely to use their devices in this way than mobile or laptop users. 
This in itself provides opportunities for marketers, as the iPad provides users with a quick response mechanism to TV advertising. 
Taken together, these stats suggest that tablet use takes place most often in leisure time. So, though people are using tablets on the move, the location element is less significant than on mobile phones. 
Tablets and user experience
In general, most websites work well on tablet PCs, and the user experience is certainly better than on top end smartphones. 
However, most websites are designed to be navigated using a mouse and keyboard, and touch screen devices can cause various usability issues. 
In order for retailers to provide the best possible user experience on tablets, and therefore maximise conversions, they should be testing their websites with tablets to find out the potential pain-points for consumers.  
Here are a few areas where e-commerce sites could optimise for tablet users. 
Small font sizes
Though great for browsing the web, tablet screens are still smaller than those of most laptops and PCs, so some text can be hard to read on them. 
This means that text-heavy pages, such as Amazon's product pages, can be hard to read without zooming.  
Drop-down menus 
Since you can't hover over links with a mouse when using touch screen device, some aspects of websites don't work at all, or else very poorly. 
On many e-commerce sites, drop-down menus on the homepage are a pain to use on tablets. They only flash up for a fraction of a second, meaning that you cannot use them to find a quicker route to sub-categories. 
On the M&S and ASOS websites, the drop-downs don't stay there long enough to be of any use, and instead take the tablet user straight to the category.
This means that online retailers need to offer alternatives to browsing via the drop-down menu. 
Links too close together
A mouse is a precise tool for clicking on links, but on touch screen devices, clicking on links accurately can be a problem. 
One common problem is links that are placed too close together, making it very difficult to select the desired option, as is the case with the navigation options on the left hand side of Amazon’s UK site. 

There is also a problem with the promoted products on the homepage, as small links don’t provide a very big target for users’ fingers and thumbs.  
This problem of links smaller than the fingers attempting to select them is what Jakob Nielsen calls ‘fat finger syndrome’. It’s one of the most common usability issues with touchscreen devices.  
Use of Flash
Given Apple's aversion to it, sites that rely on Flash too much are not going to work well on the iPad.  
Since the iPad currently dominates the tablet market, this is an important consideration for retailers. Here, much of Ikea's homepage isn't visible:

There are other reasons not to rely on Flash; it isn’t great for SEO, and also won’t work on many mobiles. 
If you have a lot of Flash on your site, then the tablet user will see blank spaces. This doesn’t look good, but may also make the user assume an error on the site. 
Cluttered websites don't work well 
The more elements and text you place on a page, the harder it becomes to read and navigate on a smaller screen. 
For example, this product page from Tesco contains a lot of text and imagery. This means that tablet users have to work harder to read the text and move around the page. 

Too much clutter also makes it more likely that users will accidentally click on the wrong link. 
Product photos and videos
Flash is often used for product display, whether through videos or pictures, and these elements don't work on the iPad. 
I'm not suggesting that retailers should avoid Flash for this purpose, but it's worth considering if you have a decent amount of traffic from tablets. 
Forms
Forms should be designed for tablet users, and data entry should be kept to a minimum. 
Tablets aren’t great for data entry, and a long form could lead users to abandon in favour of their desktop PC or laptop. Indeed, in a recent whatusersdo study of the Thomas Cook site on iPad, forms were a major irritation for testers. 
Don’t use long, daunting forms, and present plenty of shortcuts, such as postcode lookup tools and copying billing data to the delivery address. 
Buttons
Calls to action should be big enough to be visible, and easy to click on. 
There is room for testing and experimentation here, and buttons and other navigational elements can be tailored to tablet devices. 
For example, this call to action for the Direct Line’s iPad-optimised site uses the slide action instead of a traditional call to action button. 

This change led to a 9.2% uplift in online registrations for car insurance quotes.  
Do retailers need to optimise for tablet users? 
This question should be answered using a combination of traffic data and user testing. 
First of all, are tablets driving a decent volume of traffic to your website? If so, then the opportunity is there to make the most of this traffic by improving the user experience and making the purchase journey as smooth as possible. 
As Belron Customer Experience Manager Craig Sullivan says, the iPad may be worth optimising for, but only if you have accounted for mobile first: 

If you have a lousy mobile site, don't think that making a cool iPad experience will give you a better conversion lift, especially if your traffic from other devices is higher. For me, it's all down to the traffic figures, how much improvement you can make to the experience and the conversion rate you might attain.

In summary: iPad conversion rates may be higher than mobile, but the latter may be delivering five times the traffic that tablets do, and may represent the bigger opportunity. 
However, if you have accounted for mobile traffic with a well-optimised website, or the tablet traffic is significant, the next step is to look at the user experience of your site on tablets.  
There are a number of ways to do this, and the first step is to look at how you site works on iPad, though testing with a number of users will help you to identify areas for improvement.  
Though there are some potential usability issues, the browsing experience on a tablet is generally far superior to that on a smartphone, though it does fall below the desktop/laptop experience.  
According to a recent Econsultancy / Toluna survey of 2,000 online consumers, the user experience for tablets, rated across five sectors, was generally good or excellent. 
 
For retailers that already have a mobile optimised of their website, the temptation may be to serve that version to people using tablets. However, in most circumstances this would be a mistake. 
In general, people would prefer to use the normal website with the full range of features, rather than a simplified version. 
If retailers are serious about catering to tablet users, then it is necessary to test the site using iPads and other tablets to see what the problem areas are. Depending on the site, producing an optimised version for tablet users may be simple.  
Do you need an app or an optimised site? 
To appeal to the broadest possible audience, and to make it findable via search, then a website optimised for tablets has to be the priority.  
This doesn’t mean an app is not worth considering, but I think apps need to do something different to the standard website to be effective. 
For example, Net A Porter has an iPad app which presents its magazine content in interactive form. People can click on the products and buy them, but it is a different product to the main website, or its mobile site. 

This blend of content and commerce, which Net A Porter does so well, is very well suited to the tablet format, but would suit other retailers who use print magazines and catalogues. 
The combination of the catalogue format and tablets can be a powerful tool, potentially offering the best of both worlds for retailers. 
When used well, catalogue apps combine the lean-back experience of the print catalogue with the interactivity and fast route to purchase of the web.
The Figleaves.com iPad app is a great example of this. Like a catalogue, you can browse through page by page, but it also provides plenty of alternatives for people to find products quickly. 
 
While Figleaves has managed to blend the catalogue style with e-commerce best practice, such as detailed product pages and a well-designed checkout, other retailers, such as Next have simply used existing mobile apps, which don’t work so well. 
If retailers are going to do something different with an app, and design it specifically for tablets, then this can work well. However, this is more useful for appealing to existing customers, giving them reasons to shop again. 
Since new customers are far more likely to arrive at your site through search than by downloading an app developing a version of your site optimised for tablets is the best strategy. 
How can marketers use tablets? 
Apart from the obvious value for retailers, tablets offer plenty of opportunity for marketers.
Here are a few suggestions…
Branded apps
Branded apps have been popular on the iPhone, and there are a number of success stories, in terms of downloads and reach. 
Apps provide a way to gain more coverage for the brand, but the best apps go beyond simple advertising, and actually provide products that are useful for people.  
These are the sorts of apps that will be used time and time again. Nike’s Football+ iPad app is one great example of this. It’s an app aimed at football coaches, which provides training schedules, video demonstrations, and tools to analyse players’ performance.  

Branded apps like this are more useful and reusable, and can play a more integral role in the consumer’s life. 
Display advertising
Whether delivered via the internet, or through apps, tablets are well suited to display advertising. Advertisers can create attractive and compelling ads, while the device allows users to quickly interact with ads. 
Advertisers can recreate magazine-style full-page ads with quality photography, but can also grab users’ attention with animation, video, and other interactive features. 
Email marketing 
Unlike when users access email via laptops and PCs, there may well be fewer distractions for tablet users, since it isn’t primarily a work machine, while users can only view one application at a time. 
Also, email is easy to view and read on a tablet, so it offers an excellent experience for the user, who is likely to spend more time reading emails as a result. 
Email marketers need to think about how they will tailor emails for tablet users. Since it is a touch screen device, placement and size of links and call to action buttons need to be large enough for users to select. 
In-app advertising
The iPad has been seen as a potential saviour by publishers eager to find new ways to monetise their content, and a number have already launched apps for the device. 
This provides opportunities for advertisers too, as there is the potential for advertisers to be more creative with ads on iPad apps, and users can quickly be sent to a landing page to complete a purchase or registration. 
So far, the stats are promising for marketers. According to mobile ad exchange network operator Mobclix, iPad apps have a five times higher ECPM than iPhone apps, while a textPlus report found that ad interactions on iPads are about six times longer than comparable desktop interactions. 
Search advertising  
People will be using search engines on tablets just as they do on the web in general, so the same opportunities exist for marketers who can get their brand to the top of natural listings or appeal to users through paid search.  
Since many tablet owners will be using the device on the move, there are opportunities to deliver highly relevant results and appeal to users through geo-targeting. 
Again, Apple’s aversion to Flash means that videos within search results, as well as landing pages, need to be optimised for the iPad.  
TV advertising 
With more than 50% of tablet interactions taking place in front of the TV, and the greater propensity of owners to use their device in conjunction with the television, this provides opportunities for TV advertisers.  
A tablet on the customer’s lap is a great quick response mechanism if the user is interested in your ad, and wants to find out more about the product and service on offer. 
By using clear search calls to action, or easy to remember URLs in ads, as well as optimised landing pages, advertisers can make the most of any tablet traffic driven by TV ads. 
Video advertising
Whether on the YouTube app, through the browser, and via apps, marketers can target tablet users through video advertising. 
Tablet screens are well suited to viewing videos, and videos can easily be embedded into ads within apps. The lean back nature of the device means that customers may be more receptive to viewing video.
Indeed, stats suggest this, as 67% of iPad users complete video ads compared to 53% of desktop video viewers.
 
How is marketing or to tablet users working for you? Are you experiencing high traffic or AOVs from tablet users? Have you created optimised sites for iPads? Please share your insights below... ]]> Tue, 01 May 2012 01:35:24 BST External General 15 http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/tablets-the-opportunity-for-marketers/ http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/this-weeks-top-six-infographics/
Will shoppers share more information for a better experience? (via Lemon blog)

Infographic of infographics (via switchedonmedia)

The blog tree (via Eloqua)

User reviews and small business (via Milo.com)

The incredible shrinking Yahoo (via HighTable)
]]> Sat, 28 Apr 2012 01:36:22 BST External General 9 http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/this-weeks-top-six-infographics/ http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/user-tests-how-well-does-thomas-cook-work-on-ipad/ Users had to search for and book a summer holiday for themselves and their family, stopping at the last moment before purchase. 
They were then asked what one thing would have prevented them from making a purchase.
The tests were carried out using a range of devices. There were five users, two on iPads, three on other tablets. 
The first four videos here show users on iPads. It seems that more high priority issues were uncovered on Apple's devices.
Since this device dominates the market right now, these are perhaps the most significant tests. 
Summary
Overall, users managed to complete the holiday purchase task, and many commented positively about the use of photos and choice of holidays.
However, several users encountered issues which would lead to abandonment normally. These problems included: 

Technical errors, such as the site being slow, images not loading and the system freezing with an error message.
Problems with pages not refreshing as expected.
Problems with the navigation, including use of the browser back button.
Some users could not read the full Ts and Cs as there was no means to scroll through them on their tablet.
Interacting with the calendar proved difficult for many users.
A number of these problems were categorised as high priority, i.e. they were likely to make customers abandon the website: 

The high priority problems in detail
Difficulty clicking on links
As the video shows, this user is having difficulties selecting the correct link from the drop-down menu: 

This becomes more frustrating, as the user's attempts to zoom in to make the links clearer lead to the menu disappearing. 
In general, the size of links and the space around them is a problem issue on tablets, and adapting to touch screen devices and the 'fat finger' problem is one area where sites can improve. 
Elsewhere on the site, the links to choose from different hotel rooms are too small and too close together, meaning that it is too easy to make a mistake. 

 
Viewing Flash content
This user is unable to view photos of the hotel and video content on her iPad. If she cannot view photos of the hotel, then making a decision is much harder. 

According to the tester: 
The website failed to download photos of the hotel and when I tried to return to the previous screen it crashed altogether which was frustrating and meant that I had to return to the search page and start again. I would have considered dropping out at this point
Users cannot scroll T&Cs on iPad
In the exact questionnaire, the tester cited this as an issue which would have stopped the purchase, as she would have to check them on a PC later, and may then end up on a different site. 

Server identity error message
In this video, just as the user is heading towards the payment page, she gets an error message saying the identity of the server cannot be verified.
As the tester says, outside of the test environment, she would abandon the process after seeing such a message. 

Website errors
This may have nothing to do with the fact that a tablet is being used but, whatever the reason, it's a conversion killer. 

Form filling
This is one area where many sites can improve for tablet users. Input areas are often too small, drop-downs can be awkward to use, and if options are too close together, then users can easily make mistakes. 
In fact, this was cited as a reason to abandon the purchase by the tester: 

The lack of attention to detail on the forms the inputs were far too small and it didn't bring up shortcuts like the correct keyboard etc. Some of the information could have had an auto population feature also.

Conclusion
While most e-commerce sites do work reasonably well in iPad, and the relatively high conversion rates are proof of this, there are areas where retailers can improve.  
Retailers should be looking at their visitor numbers, as an upward trend in visits from tablets may indicate the need to optimise. 
After this, they should be seeing how their website works on an iPad, by trying it themselves, conducting user tests like this one, and looking at abandonment rates for tablet users. 
In the case of Thomas Cook, though most of the site works well enough on an iPad, there are enough problems here to cause users to abandon purchases. When this is a holiday for £2,000, then you can see how an investment in testing and optimisation could pay off.  ]]> Fri, 27 Apr 2012 01:35:58 BST External General 19 http://www.acoolwaytoshop.com/General/user-tests-how-well-does-thomas-cook-work-on-ipad/