How to use Google Voice to increase reorders
I just received an email from nutritional supplement retailer Jigsaw Health, about a new program they offering their existing customer base.
After speaking to President and Co-Founder Patrick Sullivan Jr, I learned that 80% of their monthly revenue comes from returning customers (and they don't even offer an auto-ship program).
How? By setting up Google Voice so that repeat customers can place orders via text message. Let's take a look at how this works...
Ad wars: AT&T forced to fight Verizon on its own
When Verizon went after wireless competitor AT&T with a "There's a Map for That" commercial showing AT&T's inferior nationwide 3G coverage in the United States, AT&T was caught off guard.
Its response: file a lawsuit. The justification: AT&T believed that the map was deceptive and that consumers would not understand that its map excluded areas where 2G coverage is available.
Ignore the top of the funnel at your own risk
It's easy to see why search advertising is so popular online. Many brands focus on search because it has proven ROI — according to the IAB, 62% of all online revenue came from paid search in the first six months of this year. Meanwhile 8% of all internet users account for 85% of clicks on display advertising. Numbers like that often keep advertisers pouring money into search and holding onto dollars that might have gone toward brand advertising online.
But while search advertising may have the most proven business model in online advertising, businesses that ignore other areas and methods of increasing sales online do so at their own peril.
That was a recurring theme at Econsultancy's Masterclass in London yesterday, where Ian Dowds, vice president of Specific Media, put it like this:
"At the top of the funnel, there are a host of big brand advertisers standing like nervous tourists, dipping their toe in the online sea, debating the temperature and then turnng and running away every time the water laps above their ankles."
Eyeblaster: Video ads don't work in social media
Online video may be providing some much needed ROI for advertisers desperate to reach online viewers, but video ads do not work universally across platforms online. According to ad server EyeBlaster, video ads are not performing well in social media.
Why is that? Well, for starters, people don't spend enough time lingering on specific pages in social to view them.
Can Tim Armstrong make AOL king of content by 2010?
AOL's new CEO Tim Armstrong has been quickly buying up talent and increasing AOL's media properties in the lead up to the company's tkt from parent Time Warner later this year.
At the Roosevelt hotel in New York today, Armstrong went into AOL's continuing strategy.
AOL's CEO announced that online content can be "much better."
"That's why we are making such a big bet there," he said during a keynote appearance at the annual Media and Money conference, hosted by Nielsen and Dow Jones.
It's true that content online has a long way to go. But is AOL the one to make it happen?
Holiday shopping 2009: five tips for online retailers
The holidays are right around the corner and that means that online retailers are gearing up for what is usually the busiest shopping season of the year.
This won't be your typical holiday season, however. Although one might argue that the global economy is in a better place than it was at this time in 2008, times are still tough for a lot of people and that means that retailers will need to go into Holiday 2009 prepared for another challenging year.
Coupons and discounts sustain etailers
The economy has been making some hints at ressurgance in the past few months, but it's nowhere near a complete rebound, and according to ComScore today, most of the bright spots in third quarter are only relative to the dismal results that occured last year. During its quarterly report "State of the US Online Retail Economy," ComScore chairman Gian Fulgoni characterized a generally dismal third quarter for retailers.
However, it's not all bad. Amid struggling revenues and rising unemployment, some retailers are increasing conversion rates and site visitations. What's their secret? Low prices and reliable online experiences. And there is promise in the fact that young, upper income earners are opening up their wallets again.
Salon bets on ecommerce for Black Friday and the future
As media sites around the internet contemplate erecting paywalls to make up for lost revenue, Salon.com is moving in the opposite direction. Long a proponent of the subscription model, the politics and culture site today announced a redesigned website that backs off of its subscription model in favor of more engaged advertising and shorter content. The company is hoping to increase its readership with shorter, faster posts and make up for lost revenues in a new place: ecommerce.
Starting the day after Thanksgiving, Salon will launch a permanent online store that sells retail items the publisher thinks will dovetail with its readers' interests. While it's not clear that Salon will be able to counter recent revenue losses, the move represents a step that many media companies are likely to make: revenue diversification.
IAB: Media companies need to make a "triple play" for digital business
Everyone online is trying to shift business online. But there are more than a few reasons why the digital shift has hit speed bumps. According to a new study by the Internet Advertising Bureau and Bain & Company, media companies need to offer a true triple-play service model — from direct response to awareness to high impact brand engagement — if they want to earn and keep digital business.
How can companies go about achieving that? Well, there are a few options.
YouTube introduces "skippable" video ads. Uh oh.
Well it was good while it lasted. While television networks and advertisers morned the introduction of commercial fast forwarding on television, they have found solace online, where consumers have consigned themselves to sitting through pre-rolls and interstitials if it means streaming high quality video content.
YouTube is trying to change all that. The video giant today announced today that it is launching "skippable" pre-roll ads on some of its videos. The move will help YouTube create better ads, charge better rates for the ads that are seen and improve its ad model. It could also lead to further erosion of video ad views overall, which networks won't be happy about.
The good news: networks won't have to worry about that for a while.
Social media: the best and worst of 2009
Email marketing: six steps to improving customer engagement in 2010
Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
