Some retail, e-commerce, and e-mail marketing links that I’ve like to share with you today:
First up, clothing retailer Gap and deal of the day website Groupon teamed up yesterday to offer customers $50 of Gap merchandise for $25. This is the first time the deal of the day website partnered with a national retailer and reports are that over 400,000 coupons were sold in one day. Excellent day, I’m sure, for Groupon.
Bronto Blog has a roundtable discussion on 5 Ways to Get Your Newsletter Deleted. As usual, great advice and tips for anyone concerned with e-mail marketing strategy.
With the bankruptcy of several national retailers, retail vacancies are on the rise. Here in New Jersey, retail vacancies are at the highest point in the last ten years. This shouldn’t be too surprising since the area has been hit especially hard with the loss of chains like Linens ‘N Things, CompUSA, and Circuit City as well as store closings by Office Depot and Boscov’s.
And finally, Zippycart has a good advice for retailers, looking to drive traffic to their store, in their post 13 Ecommerce Link Building Tactics fr Your Online Store.
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Read more about: asbury park press, bankruptcy, bronto blog, e-commerce, E-Mail Marketing, e-mail strategy, gap, groupon, link building, New Jersey, newsletter, office depot, Retail, retail vacancy, seo, zippycart
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The Bronto Blog dissects a H&R Block e-mail campaign, talks about the season life cycle of an e-mail campaign, and illustrates the dangers of overmailing. If you are an e-mail marketer, there is good insight to be read there.
About two weeks ago, Visa announced a deal to acquire payment processor Cybersource for $2 billion. Now, Practical eCommerce has an interview with Cybersource CEO, Michael Walsh, which outlines some of the strategy behind the deal and where he seems Visa taking Cybersource.
Want to write better blog posts? If you are just joining the blogging game or someone who has been at it for a while, the always insightful Copyblogger has a great post worth reviewing: 17 Easy Steps to Brillian Blog Posts.
The Retail Email blog has a roundup of this morning’s e-commerce email blasts with attention being paid to today’s email from Saks. The e-mail, entited “8 Great Reasons to Shop Saks.com“, calls attention to some of the new and improved functionality that the retailer has added to their site. Great way to call attention to improvements on the site that may have been implemented over a period of time or that the users may not have realized are there. I think it gets them to explore new areas of the store that they may not have been aware of before.
StorefrontBacktalk has some of the early numbers from this year’s National Retail Federation annual show. Registration and exhibitors are down from last year, but international vendors who will be at the show.
In more NRF news, PredictiveRetailer has a recap of Day 1′s social media happenings. It’s a great review of blog posts and tweets referencing the day’s different sessions. Looking foward to seeing the recap for the rest of the sessions!
For those not attending the NRF Big Show, don’t forget you can use Twitter search to follow the NRF keyword to keep up to date with what’s going in in New York this week. There’s a bunch of attendees who are on Twitter and there’s been some good ideas and comments being posted there. I’ll be Tweeting from the Expo Hall tomorrow.
Wednesday
November 26, 2008
Over at ecommr, we’ve been adding e-commerce elements related to Black Friday. Head to ecommr to see a roundup of the different banners, homepage landing, and e-mails that retailers are using to promote their Black Friday specials. More will be added as we come across them.
As a related note, it appears (to me) that retailers are being more aggressive in their marketing for Black Friday, with earlier campaigns and with more detail. Normally, promoting specific price points for comes right before Thanksgiving. But this week has been filled with “online previews”, television commercials, and e-mail marketing that seems to be more aggressive and detailed than years past. Retailers are trying to step up their game in order to capture a larger piece of the shrinking sales pie.
Walmart and Target both have their Black Friday ads online and featured prominently on their homepages. Kohl’s even has an entire section on their site that allows customers to browse the Black Friday ad and make a printable shopping list.
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Read more about: advertising, Black Friday, e-commerce, E-Mail Marketing, ecommr, Kohl's, marketing, promotions, Target, thanksgiving, walmart
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Thursday
November 13, 2008
Some stories that are on my radar this morning:
McDonald’s is testing no-brand marketing in Japan by opening a store without any of the colors, logos, or branding of their traditional stores. Supported through non-traditional marketing such as hand outs, viral campaigns, and a unique website, the store offers two menu choices and that is it. Intriguing concept and I wonder how long it is until we see that more often in the United States. Jon Sykes also shares his thoughts on this campaign.
Linda at Get Elastic has a very informative post about the benefits of pushing educational content, rather than sales promotions, in e-mail. In Should Retail Email Sell or Inform? An A/B Split Test Case Study, she provides a look into an study into different types of e-mails that were sent out from a retailer and provides concrete information on ROI, conversion rates, and sales results. Summary is, content is king and the e-mails that were focused on educational content and information performed better than the sales oriented e-mails. Good information for all retailers.
Over at CNBC, Cindy Perman writes about the impact the economy is having on second hand and consignment shops. Some intriguing sales numbers from Goodwill and quotes from consignment store owners that reflect the uptick in sales and traffic they are seeing this holiday season. At least someone is seeing positive gains this season.
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Read more about: Branding, cnbc, consignment, E-Mail Marketing, email, marketing, mcdonalds, promotions, retail sales, retail tips, ROI, viral marketing
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