I have been buying my mom these hand-carved wooden Santas over the years (the past couple I actually haven’t because I forgot their name & couldn’t find them…more on that later) from Great American Collectibles.  This is the kind of kitschy stuff you see at the mall in places like Things Remembered.  Only Great American pays fine attention to detail & their variety of Santas is the best I’ve found.  It’s the one gift I know I will nail each time.  Buying is simple (as all online shopping should be) – browse through the collections by year, pick what you want, add it to your cart, & check out.  I received my confirmation email & then nothing else for a couple weeks.  After I contacted them via email, I received the following…

You most certainly cannot control spam filters.  However, you can ask recipients (in the order confirmation email) to add your email address to their trusted sender list or Address Book.  It’s also possible to monitor email blacklists & your email server &/or web site domain are not on them.  Perhaps you should contact someone (like me) to help you with growing your business on the intertubes.  You’re impossible to find in search (unless you search exactly for Great American Collectibles) & don’t seem to get the basics of online customer service.

There is nothing more frustrating than a failure to execute the fundamentals.  This becomes even more important in the face of difficult financial times (R.I.P. Circuit City).  You have to go out of your way to acquire new customers & retain existing.  Now is not the time to blame things you think are out of your control.

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This starts with your boss & possibly his/her boss. When you don’t have direct channels to the top-level decision makers, it’s important to have your voice represented by someone who does.  If you’re afraid your boss is going to take credit for your work, it would be smart to talk to the person to whom your boss reports.  This is also good if your boss is an idiot or inept. 

Numbers make decisions very easy.  The more data you have to support your thinking, the better your odds at convincing your company to approve it become.  If you’re looking to increase site traffic, are your campaigns consistently driving more people to your site?  Do these visitors spend more time on the site than the average visitor?  Are they converting at a higher rate?  Have they signed up to receive emails from  you or are they looking at things like the store locator?

Building on that, you are going to want to show your campaign’s visitors are converting on the site.  You will want to see if they are spending more per order than your site’s current average.  The more people you bring in to your customer retention pool, the better your chances for driving sustained, incremental revenue.  More sales proves that you have the ability to make more money for the company, making stockholders very happy.  See what you just did…the man appreciates that.

As long as you are making the decision for you company very easy, you stand a great chance of being heard.  Try to anticipate the questions they will ask after reviewing your analysis.  Whenever possible, you want to provide information directly to the source.  The side benefit of this is that you have gained great experience in presenting to the powers that be & establishing new connections.  Most successful people will tell you this is your foundation for success.

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This is all about opening up the lines of communication with the people responsible for managing & executing what makes your business go.  Consider them the gatekeepers of your success.  Marketing initiatives often take a back seat in the ecommerce world; projects aimed at improving site conversion, order attachment, cart abandonment, & navigation are more important than implementing tracking codes or producing banners for your campaigns. 

These things take time & resources & competitive pressures make timing & speed to market a crucial variable.  This is likely to cause a backlog of projects as most technology companies are constantly looking for good IT people.  A backlog plus limited manpower equals slim pickings for you, Marty Marketer.

So, how do you justify that request for a larger marketing budget?  You connect yourself with the right people, across the company, regardless of regional location.  We all can be more sophisticated with our marketing & relationship development/management, but too often get consumed within our own workload & don’t bother to actually meet & talk to people. 

Get familiar with the people I have listed below, especially if they’re in the same building or campus.  If they’re elsewhere schedule time when you travel to meet them.  Don’t travel?  Think of something that will get you out there.  Or beg; it doesn’t cost much for your company to provide airfare, hotel, & food/gas expenses compared the negative cost of failing or stale campaigns.

Merchandisers: Quite possibly the most important people as it relates to you driving incremental sales. 

• They know what sells & why & so do their vendors. 
• Seasonality, product launches, in-stock vs. out-of-stock are but a few things you need to be plugged into.

IT: These guys & gals cover a wide variety of things you need. 

• The product & web development folks will keep you up-to-date with upcoming site changes, enhancements, & functionality.  It’s important for you to be aware of new landing pages & URL changes to eliminate or minimize campaign downtime. 
• You know how your project got denied for implementation anytime within the next 4 months?  Besides escalating through your department, if you’re actually nice to these people, they might help push your projects through in half the time required or less. 
• And don’t forget your help desk people.  That one to two day turnaround to get your laptop, Treo, printer, or phone fixed can turn into mere hours.  Don’t forget to repay them for favors; food & alcohol go a long way.

Creative: Anything you are going to publish graphically online should look good. 

• If you want your media campaign to drive as much revenue as possible; you need to make sure what’s produced for you is legit. 
• It’s so easy, but too many online retailers fail miserably in this department.  It’s not because the personnel are bad; they just don’t have the right direction.  Help them & be clear about what you need.

Public Relations: Being on top of company announcements will allow you to create new campaigns or be prepared to react to news, whether it’s positive or negative. 

• Crisis & issues management is vastly underutilized in the online space. 
• Too many brands are not aware of what’s being said; by the time they figure it out, it’s too late.  You are key in eliminating or minimizing crap like this.

Customer Service: If you’re smart, you are monitoring the online chatter specific to your brand. 

• Whether positive or negative, feed it to customer service; they can facilitate things for customers & improve their experience or at least somewhat appease an irate customer.  We all know the damage one bad opinion with motivation to tell all can do.

Front Desk: From routing calls to them being one of the few people you see this often, they can make your life easier & more pleasant.

If you or someone you know is not listed here, but you feel they’re just as important, I would welcome the feedback.  As you can see, I am not opposed to communicating.

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The client is pissed & the agency is left to pick up the pieces internally while externally determining what is necessary to reassure the client that everything will be just dandy.  Usually, an amicable resolution can be reached.  Objectives & goals may need to be reset, strategy & tactics are adjusted &, consequently, the client gets what they need.

Waste of money…on both sides.  The agency eats the time they spend finding a resolution & will most likely credit the client for time spent on what did not work.  The client misses opportunities to build/promote their brand, drive more sales, respond to negative press in a timely manner, etc.

Over the next few weeks, I will delve into the bulleted topics below.  I feel there is a lot a client can do to set themselves & their agency up for success.  Yeah, I know this works both ways; read on.  This series will be mainly geared towards ecommerce (one of my specialties), but the astute reader will be able to draw parallels across the entire digital space. 

• Getting Yourself Connected – At least one person on your marketing team should have a reliable contact on the following teams: Merchandise, IT (web development, help desk, product development), Creative, PR, Customer Service, front desk (if for only the fact that you see this person more than most people you love)
• Aggregating & Analyzing Data – Become one with it; everyone above you has a background in concrete numbers & has planned & made decisions according to what the numbers tell them.  Think they’re wrong?  Prove it…with numbers.
• Internally Selling Upward – Both yourself & new ideas
• Effectively Leveraging Available Resources – We are all strapped for time; understanding how to get what you need when there is seemingly no help will set you apart from everyone else.
• Evaluating & Changing Process – There is nothing wrong with occasionally kicking the tires. 

The underlying theme is communication that enables client & agency to make informed decisions in the most efficient & effective manner possible.  It’s a lot of work, but this industry is not for the faint of heart.

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What I find new & interesting is this latest eMarketer article which talks about high gas prices possibly boosting ecommerce sales.  It makes sense, on the surface; people don’t want to drive so they buy what they want online.  Although, if you ask most retail clients in the industry right now, sales are down.  Cut budget, get a better return on investment, and drive more sales.  Can we get more for less?  Please turn that magical dial on our paid search campaigns…I can continue to get a 10:1 return on my marketing spend if I dump a million more dollars into Google, right?

Sorry, mini-rant.

If gas prices are boosting ecommerce, is this something that is sustainable?  Sure, in the short run, higher gas prices may keep people from driving to the store.  But, how do those products get delivered?  Trucks & airplanes are the most common mode of transportation for FedEx, DHL, UPS, etc.  Last time I checked, those vehicles use gas. 

 So my question is, will this increased cost in gas negatively affect shipping companies & will they, in turn, pass this cost onto online retailers?  If they do, does that cost get passed along to the customer?  Granted, the customer will probably have no idea…but it’s something worth thinking about.  Everyone LOVES free shipping; ask anyone which of their promos consistently works the best & they will tell you it’s FREE SHIPPING.  Will online retailers be more reluctant to offer free shipping if they are losing too much money on it?

Ps. eMarketer…can we get on board with the 21st century & remove the hyphen from ecommerce?  No one calls email e-mail anymore unless they’re from a third-world country or come from the direct response or retail catalog industry.

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Financial pressures, shenanigans, repositioning, layoffs…

• Sharper Image – I can’t believe it took this long. How many people really need over-priced massage chairs or TVs that cook you breakfast?
• Movie Gallery – Who?
• CompUSA – The Marshalls of computer hardware, software, & accessories.
• Ethan Allen – Doesn’t make me think “quality furniture”; I feel like it’s more of a footwear catalog…with lots of brown & green shoes.
• Sofa Express – Because there aren’t a whole lot of places to buy crappy furniture.
• Levitz – Still using “You’ll Love it at Levitz”…I’m pretty sure that’s almost 30 years old. Do you still hear Gap saying, “Fall into the Gap”?
• Macy’s - Doesn’t count; closing 9 stores this year, but opening 11 to 13 more over the next 2 years.
• PacSun – Too many places to buy this crap.
• Kirkland’s Home – uuhhh
• Fashion Bug, Lane Bryant, & Catherines – Completely disorganized internally.
• Talbots Kids & Men – They have these for kids & men?
• Sigrid Olsen – Resort wear?
• Jasmine Sola – Scandalous! Sexual misconduct taking down a 38 year old upscale women’s clothing retailer. I must find out more…
• Krispy Kreme – Don’t care. None of their stores are easily accessible to me & for that I believe they deserve to suffer.
• Starbucks – This shouldn’t affect me; I can’t see them closing any shops that are in or near well-populated areas…which is where I tend to live.
• 84 Lumber – Rats; now I’ll just have to get my wood from Home Depot or Lowes.
• Home Depot – Was almost worried there for a sec. But, it’s only call centers; doesn’t really count (except for the poor 950 people losing jobs).
• Pep Boys – Laying people off as a strategic plan to change its product mix & add “smaller neighborhood service shops.” I love words & apparently so do most corporations that lay tons of people off while trying not to freak out investors by verbally acknowleding they’re in financial doo-doo.
• Rent-A-Center – Every time I see commercials or think of this place I laugh. Sometimes it’s more like cracking up. Not sure why, but I think it starts with renting this kind of stuff. How is this acceptable? Seriously…quit being so cheap & BUY IT! Is everyone you hang out with cheap, too?
• Rite Aid – CVS is better.
• Sprint Nextel – Losing out to Verizon & AT&T. Whatever. None of those 3 carriers get reception in my apartment (& I refuse to get a land line).

There’s no shortage of news specific to struggling retailers. It will be interesting to see how they adapt through innovation, technology, sound decision making & solid execution.

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