BoostStrapping

Boost Basics Volume 9 - New Tools We're Testing

Top of the morn to ya, BoostStrappers! 

Gotta get back to work on a few client tasks but I just got word from Early B that our Boost Basic vids are finally up (Wish List for Christmas - MORE BANDWIDTH!) and I wanted to get these puppies up for you! 

This week, the Rainmaker and I share four new tools we're testing here in our laboratory.  Perhaps they'll make it to a client engagement near you!  *wink-point-and-shoot*  We also introduce Tatiana "Tat" Hulko, an alumnus of our eBoost Consulting Internship program.  She represents the inaugural class of Alpha Alpha Omega which consisted of herself, Matt "Mamba" Torres, Petar "The Myth" Kralev, Alex "AP" Parshall, and Eric "Dobber" Dobberteen.  We ask Tat about her experience and what she learned...if anything at all...you'll just have to watch and find out, won't you? 

We also introduce Brett "Early B", who is a couple weeks in the internship.  Hey, how's this as a build-up?  An Alpha Alpha Omega intern and Alpha Beta Omega intern enter the same room.  Awkwardness ensues.

Yes, we love our interns here at eBoost!  As we love you, our BoostStrapping readers! 

Enjoy the learning.  Hope you're all having an awesome day!!!
-johnny

 

High-Five!

Five new tools to track conversations online.

Caption: Katy the Kitten demonstrates how painful it is to be left hanging by your co-workers.

Happy Monday BoostStrappers!

Have a good weekend?  Awesome. 

We, at eBoost Consulting, are huge advocates of the "high-five!" (note the deliberate use of the all-too-under-utilized exclamation mark, denoting excitement and vigor).  We lament how it's fallen out of favor in today's efficiency-minded society, replaced by customary emoticons sent via IM.  And when I say, "we", I really mean me since this is something I was thinking about since I was left hanging by Early B last week as I held out my hand for a high-five.  Boy, this younger generation sure grew up different than I...

You feel me.  I know you do. 

Where was I going with this?  Oh yeah.  I do, in fact, have five super powerful ways to connect with your customers.  Consider this my digital version of a "high-five!" to you. 

*slap*

1. Trendpedia.  Identifies and graphs trends in social media.  This helps when setting your online PR plan and outlining your respective news curve if/when creating buzz.  Currently in beta but fairly powerful already.  Another good idea is to post your trendlines on social technology sites such as Delicious, Digg, Twitter or Facebook. 

2. Pipes (Blog Mentions).  From Yahoo! (another brazen company that isn't afraid of the exclamation mark), it tracks blog mentions from places such as Google, Technorati, and Icerocket. 

3. Pipes (Social Media Firehose).  Yep, also from  Yahoo!  Think Google Alerts on steroids.  Grabs mentions from Flickr, Twitter, Friendfeed, Digg, et al.  SUPER powerful. 

4. Alltop.  What else do you expect from Guy Kawasaki?  Nothing but the best.  Alltop aggregates the top blog posts about topics from around the world.  In a time when we have information overload, Alltop clears the noise and filters the information for us.  Excellent resource. 

5. Summize.  Search engine for Twitter.  A simple value proposition that provides a lot of value.

So there you have it folks.  Five tools to track conversations about you on the web.  Getting in the ear of your customers and peers is one of the single best ways to improve your business.  Listening is important. 

You feel me.  I know you do. 

High-five! 

-johnny

Boost Basics Volume 8 - eBoost Learning Expo Takeaways

We learn, we teach, we share. 

...guess who's back...??? That's right, your favorite digital raconteurs, Nick and Johnny.  We are super-stoked and still on a high from our inaugural eBoost Learning Expo last Wednesday.  The team got together, blocked off one whole day and held eight sessions about the latest, greatest, and most delicious tidbits of digital marketing information.  Shout out to El Presidente for spearheading the event as well as Souplantation which kept us healthy on good nutrients by officially catering the shindig. 

Which leads us back to Boost Basics!  Yes, we realize it's been a long time since our last video, but truth be told, we've always done these videos for fun, to share knowledge among the team, and to supply our viewership with a bit of our unique culture.  What we didn't realize is how much viewers wanted us back...(I have email documentation of these requests for those of you who are incredulous...I'm looking at you Petar). 

So...we look to get back on schedule and continue doing what we do weekly.  If you haven't already, subscribe to our Boost Basics feed on YouTube.  Seriously, do it now. 

 

Done?  Cool. 

Here's the latest Boost Basics which features three items we learned at the eBoost Learning Expo and an in-depth interview with Entrepreneur-In-Residence, Jonathan "Mini Micha" Tucker.  It's a two-parter so get your popcorn ready (I'm looking at you, T.O.). 

Thanks for coming by!
-johnny

Part One:

Part Two:

 

Live Blogging from Internet Retailer Post #6

It’s the last day for us Boosters at Internet Retailer 2008, you can read about our KEY TAKEAWAYS from earlier sessions at IRC here: Post #1, Post #2, Post #3, Post#4, & Post # 5. 

Yesterday afternoon Nick and I spent time in the Web 2.0 track and were completely dissatisfied with the presentations. The content and delivery were extremely dry, uninspiring, and we did walk away with any key takeaways that are worth your while. Evan spent some time learning about sourcing and merchandising for online retailers and reported that it was a great track with valuable information. 

This morning we had a group of great presentations from Jack Love the publisher of Internet Retailer, Larry Freed from ForeSee Results, Neel Grover CEO of Buy.com, Bob Young CEO of Lulu.com, and Jeffrey Housenbold the CEO of Shutterfly.

The KEY TAKEWAYS we received from these speakers were:

Niche’s Rule – Upcoming niche sites are the fastest growing retail sites on the web. Some of these include www.greenmountaincoffee.com with $59M in sales and a 250% growth rate and www.diapers.com with $36M in sales and a 227% growth rate.

Supermarkets Drool – Grocery chains are the slowest to adapt to the online space. Supermarkets are the “800 Pound Gorillas” which are NOT investing in online retailing.

Office Supplies + The Internet = $$$$ - Office supply store sales are dominant in the online channel. A whopping 37% of office supply sales now occur on the web. With the current growth rate the online channel will represent over 50% of office supply sales within a few years and be the first category with a majority of their sales online. Office Supplies is the only sector where the top 3 off line retailers (Staples.com, Office Depot, Office Max) are also the top 3 online players.

Opportunity is Abound - Total Retail sales in the us is $2.6 Trillion with only $166 Billion taking place online. The Internet Retailer 500 make up $102B of those sales with Tens of Thousands of other Niche sites making up the additional $64B.  With only 6.3% of Retail sales online there is still a lot of room for growth.

Drop Shipping Rocks – Buy.com does not carry a single product but they sell over 5 Million products on the site! On a side note Buy.com’s CEO was by far the most entertaining presenter of the show so far, he shared the stark contrast Buy.com Y2K at the height of the bubble with the Buy.com of 08 who sported $1.4M of PROFIT in Q1 of 08.

More to come from IRC 2008!

~Micha blogging live from Internet Retailer in Chicago

Live Blogging from Internet Retailer Post # 5

We’ve been delivering KEY TAKEAWAYS from Internet Retailer 2008! (Post # 1, Post #2, Post # 3, and Post#4). This morning’s keynote and first presentations were completely uninspiring and disappointing. We were grateful to have them followed up by good presentations on Video and Social Networking. The speakers for these presentations included Eric Faintreny CEO of Redcats, Sean McDonald Director of Dell, and Heather Dougherty Director of Research from Hitwise.

The KEY TAKEAWAYS we received from these speakers are:

1.) Don’t Discount Myspace! – 95% of MySpace users visit MySpace once per month and although Facebook has been on fire MySpace is still the biggest player in the space. An interesting stat we learned was that 25% of Facebooks traffic comes from MySpace while only 5% of MySpace traffic comes from Facebook.

2.) Capture Early Adopters with Video – Early adopters are the most likely users to engage with Video in the context of eCommerce. This is important to know for manufacturers and retailers as early adopters are the influencers for fast followers and mainstream buyers.

3.) Video Tips – Keep Video relevant to the context of the content it appears with (i.e. don’t show branding videos on product pages or product videos on category pages). Don’t belabor the point with video content; short videos are often the most effective.

4.) Video Examples – For best in class examples of video implementation specifically designed to increase conversion take a look at www.QVC.com or www.MartinAndOsa.com

Stay tuned, more KEY TAKEAWAYS to come LIVE from Internet Retailer!

~Micha via Lenovo x60 @ Internet Retailer in Chicago.

Internet Retailer – Filling in the Cracks from Day 1

Day 1 of Internet Retailer was a blast! I’ve met incredible people, learned new tricks, and seen innovative technology which previously only benefited the Amazons of the world brought down to the small business.

Earlier posts showcased LIVE blogging straight from the convention on Day 1 where I focus on KEY TAKEAWAYS from each session: Post #1, Post #2, Post #3. In this post I’ll fill in the gap with key takeaways provided by Nick and Evan who were in other speaker tracks.

The KEY TAKEAWAYS Nick and Evan reported are:

1.) Email Tips: Subject lines without offers tend to work better than subject lines with offers. eAppend allows you to take physical addresses and cross check them with databases to find email addresses. Send emails when people open them, you should review data on when people open their emails to determine the best send times.  In one example this increased open rates by 10%

2.) SEO: Use awards as a link building tool.

3.) PPC: Go beyond ROAS – Net Profit is a much better metric to use when optimizing a PPC campaign. 

4.) Yahoo! PPC – Don’t discount Yahoo! because of a lack of volume and track lifetime value of customers based on their original conversion source. An example was provided where Yahoo! customers had a significantly higher lifetime value (more repeat business) than any other source.

More LIVE blogging to come from day # 2, Stay Tuned.

~Micha Blogging Live from Chicago @ Internet Retailer 2008!

Live Blogging from Internet Retailer Post #3

I’ve blogged earlier on my earlier KEY TAKEAWAYS from Internet Retailer 2008! (Post # 1 & Post # 2)

Here are key takeaways from the Marketing panel which was right up my alley. Some of the speakers were: Alison Twiner Director of Marketing from Live Current Media, Mike Masse of Potpourri Group, Jamie Stone from iCrossing, and Shari Thurow from Omni Marketing Interactive.

The KEY TAKEAWAYS I received from these speakers are:

#1.) PPC – Don’t drop Broad Searches! – Broad searches help earlier in the buying cycle and provide lift to more specific searches in PPC later in the buying cycle.  The "Specific Search" ultimately gets the credit for the conversion (sale). An example of this is someone searching for "Carribean Vacation" but later converting with "Aruba Hilton reservation". Marketers should be aware of the “lift” impact exclusion of terms have on other terms dependent on where they target customers in the buying cycle.

#2.) Email Optimization – Alison had a great email tip: Segment out users based on ones who clicked through but did not purchase and resend them a better offer. They tested this tactic on a 10% offer then increased to 15% off, Simple Idea = Big Results. As with any other online marketing idea test to see if it impacts your customers.

#3.) Watch upcoming CSE’s – Keep your eye on new CSE’s (Comparison Shopping Engine) to exploit early marketing opportunities as they get more popular. CSE’s to watch include This Next, Style Hive, Pronto, and Kaboodle.

#4) Where to put the $$$$ - Spend money where your customers spend the most time! I know our readers are more than intelligent enough to know this but its worth reiterating frequently ;)

#5.)  Don’t forget image search when you think of SEO. - Image search accounts for more than 15% of searches and can have a big impact on SEO results. We know this also but it’s easy to forget if the data isn’t screaming out “Optimize more Images”!

FYI – Alison Twiner from Live Current ( Perfume.com and Cricket.com ) wins the Rockstar presenter of the day award.  She showed off her cross functional knowledge!  She showed off her knowledge on SEM, Email, and Persuasion Architecture and always advised from a customer centric perspective. She even mentioned NPS surveys in the Q&A which is a favorite tool for us Boosters!!!! 

More Key Takeaways to Come tonight from Nick and Evan and during the rest of the week!

~Micha Blogging Live from Chicago @ Internet Retailer 2008!

Live Blogging from Internet Retailer Post #2

I’m blogging live from Internet Retailer 2008 with KEY TAKEAWAYS from each session I’m attending (first post here). eBoost Consultants are spread out throughout the convention, Nick and Evan will be contributing the top takeaway from each session they attended which will be posted nightly.

The next sessions I am writing about are on Design, eCommerce Technology, and Fulfillment. Some of the speakers included: Sacha Loughton from FastPivot, Seth Newman CEO of Action Envelope, Roman Kagan CEO of Appliance PartsPros.com, Gene Alvaraz from Gartner Inc, Kevin Watts from Organize.com, and Spencer Chesman CEO of iGourmet.

The KEY TAKEAWAYS I received from these speakers are:

#1) Listen to Customers – Keep data on customer service calls from customers and utilize that data to improve the information architecture of your site, improve merchandising, and improve inventory management. One example of this way Action Envelope who added a field for custom quantity because the “Quantity Choices” of 500, 1000, or 5,000 didn’t serve customers who needed quantities in-between. They noticed this by looking through their call center logs and seeing lots of requests for alternative quantities.  After implementing this change call center inquiries decreased and customer experience improved.

#2) Persuasion Architecture is Important but EXPENSIVE! – Improving conversion rates can provide huge returns but can be very expensive. ActionEnvelope.com spent $100k on their first redesign which increased business by over 100% year over year and invested $200k in yet another redesign which increased sales from $350k the month after the first redesign to $950k the month after the second redesign. It was a large investment but if it pays off and provides less than a 1yr. payback I believe its worth it.

#3) Pictures Sell – Clear, Huge, Great Pictures sell and increase conversion rates.

#4) Site Search Attributes are Key – With Site Search capabilities you can’t have enough attributes (like color, material, type, etc). Mercado was recommended as a site search solution.  Mercado has an intuitive dashboard which allows ecommerce retailers to build their own business rules around the search features.

#5) Search Result Pages can make Great PPC Landing Pages! – It was recommended to try a search results page as a landing page rather than a category landing page for PPC campaigns.

#6) AJAX helps conversions – Organize.com successfully uses Express Ship through a AJAX interface to help speed up the conversion process. I’d like to see it in action, if any of our readers have purchased of this site, please comment on your experiences.

#7) Macro Economic influences – The falling dollar was noted as having a huge influence in US based ecommerce sites increasing sales in Canada and Europe. Rising Gas prices are said to have a positive impact on ecommerce as buyers are seeing the cost savings over driving and shopping.

#8) Negotiate with Shippers – Spenser had some great negotiation tactics for shipping fulfillment. If anyone is interested in learning more on this subject post a comment or shoot me an email and I’ll provide greater detail.

More Key Takeaways to Come!

~Micha Blogging Live from Chicago @ Internet Retailer 2008!

Live Blogging from Internet Retailer Post # 1

Nick, Evan, and I are @ The Internet Retailer conference this week learning about the latest innovation in the online retailing space. I will be blogging from the conference this week providing LIVE top level takeaways for our BoostStrapping readers!

Morning Session 1 – 3^rd Party eCommerce Platforms

While Nick and Evan are soaking up the latest in email marketing innovation next door I’m learning about 3^rd Party eCommerce Platforms. Here is the speaker lineup and some top level take-aways from this session:

Speakers: Tom Funk -  VP of Timberline Interactive, Thomas Rath – CEO Rock Bottom Golf, Ken Kikkawa – CEO eHobbies.com

Key Takeaways

eBay – A lot is changing at eBay, they have eliminated seller feedback of customers creating a one way feedback loop and have been changing their algorithm to favor power sellers in the rankings. Tom pointed out that eBay customers tend to me the “most needy” & less experienced online shoppers which for them results in 3 X the customer service needs. (TAKEAWAY – In a multi channel eCommerce environment measure customer service costs, transaction costs, and profitability across each channel.)

Yahoo Stores –Kent from eHobbies.com changed my perception of Yahoo! stores and taught us how customizable the Yahoo! store platform can be is if you leverage their deep developer network. 

#1 TAKEAWAY FOR ME: When running an eCommerce business it is very important to embrace the multi-channel opportunities and not become too dependent on a specific channel such as eBay, Yahoo!, or even SEO. If any referral source for new business represents more than 50% of your new sales it’s time to diversify further.

Thomas gave us a coupon code to use for 10% off @ www.rockbottomgolf.com and I thought I’d pass it on to our BoostStrapping followers just in time for Father’s Day. Code = Chicago2008

~Micha Blogging Live from Chicago @ Internet Retailer 2008!

Nick Urbani & Johnny Chan speak about Persona Driven Marketing!

San Diego Booststrapping Followers rejoice your favorite Booststrapping contributors Nick Urbani & Johnny Chan (Boost Basics!)  will be speaking at SDSIC tomorrow on Persona Driven Marketing. 

The  first 4 Booststrapping readers who email me will get free admission to the event ( micha (at) eboostconsulting.com ).  Sorry for the short notice we've been working on some very exciting things @ The Boost, keep tuned for announcements in the next few weeks. 

Here is the information on the event:

 Buyer "Personas" Can Improve Your Web Site and More
Sales & Marketing BIG
June 06, 2008

Hosted by

Personas are fictitious characters that are created to represent the different user types within a targeted demographic that might use a site or product.

Do you have multiple "buying influencers” in your target companies?   By creating Buyer "personas," you can uncover new insights into your target buyers' needs, wants, and demands.

You'll discover how to use buyer personas to anticipate the way each buyer will react to your product -- and to your website.

You'll learn:

  -   The key elements that really make a buyer persona profile a valuable marketing tool
   -   The steps to creating your own buyer personas
   -   How to use buyer persona information across your marketing and sales efforts
   -   How to translate persona information to improve your website
   -   How to avoid the common mistakes that cause websites to fail

FEE: Member:• register-prepay=$35.00 Pre register only
        Non-member:• register-prepay=$45.00 Pre register only   
TIME: 7:30 am – 8:00 am – Coffee/Registration/Networking
        8:00 am – 9:00 am – Presentation
DATE: June 06, 2008
  PLACE: Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
        12235 El Camino Real, Suite 200