Interviews | Internet Marketing Blog

Standard Life's Sharon Shaw on strategy and planning

Developing a new digital strategy can be a daunting experience, especially considering the lack of case studies and benchmarks out there.

We spoke to Sharon Shaw, e-commerce manager at Standard Life, and Avenue A/Razorfish's Adrian Gans about their experiences of strategy creation, including budgets, KPIs, incentives and structures.

by Richard Maven 30 October 2007 11:06am 0 comments

Interview with Philips online sales VP Gilles Domartini

Consumer electronics giant Philips has just launched a major redesign of its consumer website to improve usability and help shoppers “fully experience and interact with products as though they were right in front of them.”

The firm says it’s its biggest upgrade for three years. New features include a Google Maps mashup showing the location of retailers' outlets, as well as tools to allow greater interactivity on product pages. Philips also deployed technology to improve communication with retailers about stock availability and lead generation.

We spoke to Gilles Domartini, Philips Consumer Electronics’ VP & GM of online sales and marketing, to find out a bit more about how the company's e-commerce strategy is changing as brands seek to interact more closely with consumers.

by Richard Maven 24 October 2007 12:29pm 2 comments

Hotel Chocolat’s Chris Bishop on affiliate marketing

Hotel Chocolat online marketing manager Chris Bishop is in a good position to discuss both the risks and rewards of affiliate marketing programmes.

Affiliates helped Hotel Chocolat grow its internet business by over 30% last year, but the retailer was also recently forced to crack down on sites breaking its PPC terms and conditions.

We asked Chris for his thoughts on how to get the most out of affiliate strategies - including his 'Love and Respect' theories. Read on for more...

by Richard Maven 16 October 2007 13:23pm 1 comment

Q&A: Max Jennings, Co-founder, welovelocal.com

Welovelocal launched in June this year, and provides local listings for the London area, though it plans to expand its coverage to the rest of the country by the end of the year.

Unlike more established local listing sites, such as Yell.com, welovelocal.com provides more context to the search results by displaying user reviews and allowing local businesses to add information to their listings.

Welovelocal was created by eMomentum, a privately-funded internet company based in London. We caught up with Max Jennings, co-founder of welovelocal.com ...

by Graham Charlton 09 October 2007 13:59pm 2 comments

Interview: Timo Soininen, CEO of Sulake

Timo Soininen is the CEO of Sulake Corporation , the Finnish digital media group that owns virtual world Habbo Hotel, as well as other online games and social networks.

We asked him about the risks and rewards for brands targeting online communities, as well as the company’s plans for the future.

by Richard Maven 02 October 2007 12:46pm 2 comments

Q&A: Capital One's Justin Basini

Capital One's European head of brand marketing Justin Basini talks about the challenges of resourcing and measuring multi-channel campaigns, as well as ways in which the web has affected how consumers research and buy financial services.

by Richard Maven 25 September 2007 12:38pm 3 comments

Interview with persuasion expert Bryan Eisenberg

Bryan Eisenberg is the co-founder of Future Now and the creator of some devilishly clever techniques to help web businesses improve their conversion rates.

Along with his brother Jeffrey, Bryan co-authored the bestsellers 'Waiting For Your Cat to Bark?' and 'Call to Action'. He also publishes the GrokDotCom blog and was voted one of the world’s top 10 usability gurus in our recent User Experience Report.

Here, he talks about the ancient Greek philosophy behind persuasion and suggests why the roots of web design can be traced back to the fifth century BC. Oh yes...

by Richard Maven 18 September 2007 10:59am 4 comments

Interview: Steve Nicholas, assistant director of e-commerce at Guess

Steve talks about the challenges of multi-channel retailing, especially for a well-known brand in the fashion sector and one that has both wholesale and retail businesses to think about.

by Richard Maven 12 September 2007 12:18pm 3 comments

Q&A: David Heinemeier Hansson explains Ruby on Rails

Ruby on Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson - named Hacker of the Year in 2005 - talks about the web development framework's growing popularity among businesses (including E-consultancy - we have a new Rails-powered site under development) and the problems of managing an open source community.

by Richard Maven 04 September 2007 13:12pm 0 comments

Q&A: Jeanette Angell on Penguin's user-centred redesign

Publishing brands Penguin and Dorling Kindersley, both part of the Penguin Group, recently completed a project to relaunch their websites and improve interaction and navigation for users.

The revamp was pretty far reaching - the team took a user-centred approach, with extensive usability testing and planning, and found new ways to think about marketing books via the site.

The group is also set to launch new sites to increase its engagement with customers - one is a youth-oriented site called spinebreakers.co.uk, which is employing teenagers in its development.

Here, Penguin and DK's online development manager Jeanette Angell speaks about the reasons behind the project and the techniques it used.

by Richard Maven 29 August 2007 11:47am 0 comments