It all goes back to Thomas Edison. The relentless desire to invent and innovate is as much a part of American culture as hot dogs and apple pie. Edison is credited with the light bulb, the phonograph, and the vitascope (known as a movie camera, in its most recent iterations). Despite Edison’s many noteworthy and [...]
For years online retailers have had the pedal to the metal regarding customer acquisition strategies. While attracting new customers is still a primary goal for online retailers, for the first time in several years the balance between customer retention and acquisition is tipped in favor of retention. As a result, marketers must shift strategy - [...]
Online retailers looking to differentiate from the competition and gain market share must understand the latest report from Retail Systems Research (RSR), due out August 23, 2010. Despite a host of statistical evidence that personalization is an effective online marketing technique for retailers, the tactic is still, surprisingly, seldom used. Marketers have historically pointed to [...]
Of the many themes that manifested throughout last week's IRCE 2010 in Chicago, one persistent theme that found its way in to virtually every presentation was the need to address the culture of the marketing organization in order to effect positive change for customers. The first keynote to speak specifically to the need for organizational [...]
In the interest of objective candor, IRCE 2010 in Chicago did not hit a home run with every keynote. Some speakers, however, introduced many important concepts and advanced the dialogue of online and direct digital marketing in significant ways. One speaker on day three of the conference, Google’s VP of eCommerce, Stephanie Tilenius, rattled off [...]
As I mentioned on Monday, I am one of the over 6,000 people in Chicago for the Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition 2010. One of the keynote addresses I was most looking forward to was from Imran Jooma, Sears’ SVP and GM for eCommerce. Jooma is perhaps best known for his work with Circuit City. [...]
One of my favorite conferences of the year is finally upon us, the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition in Chicago. Not only is Chicago one of my favorite cities, but few conferences are able to pull off the “something for everyone” approach like IRCE. From top level strategy to tactical pointers, this conference has content [...]
If I were to devote an entire article today to misconceptions in the marketplace about mobile marketing, this would be a 10,000 word post that approximately zero people would read. Honestly, I would not blame them. I probably wouldn't read it either. But there is one misconception in particular that I'd like to address because [...]
Mass marketing is dead. Direct mail is dead. Email marketing is dead. A quick Google search, with each phrase in quotations, yielded 7,050 results, 3,850 results, and 44,300 results respectively. Two quick conclusions can be drawn when analyzing these results. First, the huge disparity between email marketing’s perceived death and the others makes me wonder [...]
Many companies - ranging from large to small across the business continuum - grapple with the question of outsourcing email versus building an in-house solution. Over time, that decision usually becomes less black and white and a hybrid model begins to emerge where the in-house group runs some email programs from the in-house solution, and [...]
