Training Marketer

Consumers want and expect e-tailers to provide personalized shopping experiences and make product recommendations based on shopping behavior, according to a recent MyBuys/e-tailing survey.

The study also found that online merchants are not living up to consumer expectations and have not made the investment to create personalized product recommendations.

Some interesting findings include:

• Three out of four consumers are willing to provide some meaningful amount of personal information in exchange for a more personalized, relevant shopping experience.
• 77% of consumers say they have made additional purchases after encountering personalized product recommendations online.
• 36% of consumers are more loyal to online merchants who offer personalized shopping experiences.
• 41% of online merchants say personalization is an upcoming initiative.

The power of personalization sets the few sites that offer it apart from the thousands of others who are behind the times. Consumers have high expectations and it is the responsibility of the seller to try and reach the high bar consumers set.

Natural search is the best tactic for generating online leads and outperforms almost all other types of online marketing, according to a recent study out of the U.K. reported by eConsultancy. Meta-tag descriptions are a small piece of the SEO puzzle that can be easily overlooked, but can help search rankings even for non-text files.

“Meta-tag keywords and descriptions become more important when the search engines are not able to determine (or have a difficult time determining) the “aboutness” of a file, such as a video file. In this situation, a keyword-focused meta-tag description can make or break search engine visibility.”

While meta-tag descriptions have been devalued in the past, some major search engines still use metadata when displaying a page’s listing.

Meta tag descriptions should have three goals:

1. To encourage searchers to click through to your page
2. Reinforce the existing content on the page
3. Help achieve top search engine positioning in results that use meta tags to determine relevance

Meta-tag content alone will not make or break your search engine results, but is still an important factor to remember. Organic, natural search traffic requires a broad knowledge of SEO best practices including (but not limited to) how your site is set up, internal linking structure, page construction and quality content.

Purchase anxiety – that feeling you get when you’re thinking about buying something, but not completely sure you want to spend the money on it. The feeling is usually attributed to a large purchase or buying something on the internet.

Online shoppers tend to feel more purchase anxiety than offline customers, according to Derek Gehl at Entrepreneur.com. Spending a lot of money on something you can’t hold in your hand, by a person they’ve never seen before may cause serious purchase anxiety for online customers.

The goal of your website is to help customers overcome anxiety and feel comfortable enough to make a purchase. Gehl outlines a few elements you can add to your site to reassure visitors that you are a reputable seller with a quality product.

Here are a few of his tips to make customers comfortable enough to click the checkout button:

Show proof that you value and will protect customer privacy. Include a privacy policy, clearly displayed on your site to reassure customers that you will not share their personal information. Process purchases through a secure server and include “security seals” on your site to let customers know you have done everything to keep your site safe from hackers. Popular security seals are VeriSign, TRUSTe and Hacker Safe.

Use testimonials. We know you think you’re the best company out there, but we want to know what everyone else has to say. Post a few testimonials from valued customers who can vouch for the quality of your product or service. Try to include as much information on the testimonial provider as possible.

Include contact information. Show that you are open to customer calls by providing as much contact information as you can on your site. Create a contact information page and link to it on every page on your site.

Don’t forget to follow up. Even after the purchase, customer anxiety may develop into “post-purchase anxiety.” Be sure to thank the customer for their purchase and keep them updated on their shipment status. It is your responsibility to keep the customer informed until it has made it into their hands.

For the full list of tips, please see Gehl’s article on Entrepreneur.com.

Forget the chickens and listen to a little marketing advice from a real expert …

When customers and you sales team are telling you to lower your prices, remember what Seth Godin says - there’s “no such thing as price pressure.”

“You need to increase your value. If people don’t want to pay, it’s because you’re not delivering enough value for the money you’re charging.”

More important than price, companies should feel pressure to increase value for the customer. Lowering your prices may also mean lowering perceived value and could turn customers away.

A little marketing wisdom from Savage Chickens.

While some airline companies are nickel-and-diming their customers with the economy down, others like Southwest airlines refuse to charge for peanuts and keep their focus on superior customer service.

I came across a post today (I admit it was the picture that caught my eye) on Church of the Customer about how Southwest Airlines is dealing with recent negative industry news by focusing on their core values.

The picture is of a man holding a “birthday cake” his innovative Southwest crew created on his fight to Baltimore. The birthday cake was creatively made from a roll of toilet paper, topped with candles and a SWA happy birthday message. The passengers even sang him “Happy Birthday” during the flight. How’s that for in-flight entertainment?

Though times may be bad in the airlines industry, Southwest has stayed focused on customer service and has come out on top. While keeping fuel costs under control has helped tremendously, Southwest Airlines does hold the U.S. title for being the only profitable airline during the first quarter of the year. They are even considering growing their fleet and have no plans to charge for extra bags or in-flight beverages.

According to Herb Kelleher, Southwest’s president and chief executive officer, taking good care of customers is a top priority. He has said,

“We are not an airline with great customer service. We are a great customer service organization that happens to be in the airline business,”

It’s a great lesson in customer service during a time when including “great customer service” and “airline industry” together in the same sentence can be a tough thing to do.

HRmarketer.com published their “Trends in HR Marketing” report, providing information on trends and best practices for marketing to human resources professionals and on HR buyer purchasing behavior.

The reports can be downloaded for free from HRmarketer.com (after filling out a quick registration form).

It is usually the person in the HR role who is purchasing the training products for their company, so knowing their buying behavior can offer insights on how best to market your product. This report could help you market more effectively, by knowing the best tools and methods to reach your target audience.

Covered topics include:

• Use of Internet search engines by HR buyers
• HR and Web 2.0
• How important is exhibiting?
• How often do HR buyers go out to bid for various products and services?
• HR “pain points” for the coming year
• How HR buyers “go shopping”
• Where should HR vendors spend their marketing and PR dollars?

The ability to tell a good joke is a skill that few posses and many aspire to have. Some people believe they can tell a funny joke, when in fact, they fail miserably every time they try.

Developing and delivering great marketing works in the same way you would deliver a joke. Unlike a joke, your branding and marketing messages may not be funny, but they must be effective.

Thanks to the authors of the Ubereye Marketing Blog, who were creative enough to make the connection and generous enough to share their tips with the rest of us. Breaking down the steps to telling a good joke can help us deliver an effective marketing message.

Before you start talking, know the joke from memory. Consumers know when a company is not fully connected to the message they’re sending. Know your brand and marketing message before trying to sell it.

Know your audience. Some jokes may be inappropriate in certain settings. Not every consumer out there will like your brand or buy your widget. It’s your job to find the target audience most inclined to listen to your message.

Don’t tell your audience how funny your joke is before telling it, because they’ll start off skeptical. It’s like saying you have the best, most innovative and effective product on the market. Any savvy consumer will have their doubts about your egotistical claims. If what your selling is the best, people should know already by word of mouth.

Jokes should follow a direct, simple and sequential story line. Keep your brand message simple enough for someone to understand in the first few seconds they land on your site. Your marketing message must also tie into the overall message of your brand.

Commit to your joke and follow through to the end. More than knowing it by memory, your company must commit to your brand and marketing message completely.

How effective your joke or marketing message is (or isn’t), will be left up to your audience to decide. Everyone has the ability to tell a good joke or deliver a powerful marketing message if you just remember a few simple tips, test your message and keep trying.

Whether you’re looking for new web design ideas or just a good Friday afternoon laugh, Web Pages That Suck can help you out. Instead of learning from your own mistakes, why not learn from others’ pitfalls?

Amazon described the author’s first book by saying, “Unless you’re abnormally gifted, the best way to learn a craft thoroughly is to learn not only its central tenets but also its pitfalls.”

“Biggest Mistakes in Web Design 1995-2015” is a must read on the site, including these major mistakes:

• We’ve designed our site to meet out organization’s needs (more sales/contributions) rather than meeting the needs of our visitors.
• It takes longer than four second for the man from Mars to understand what our site is about.
• Our site looks like we’ve never seen another web site.
• We use design elements that get in the way of our visitors.
• Our site doesn’t make us look like credible professionals.

A couple of the top “worst” sites of 2007:

Tally-Ho Uniforms & Accessories

Usability Net

When was the last time you looked at the “Read Me” file or manual for a piece of software you just installed on your computer?

Probably never, or rarely.

But, I’m sure you can remember a time when you were taught how to use a complicated piece of office software. Either in a group training setting or one-on-one, someone had to show you the shortcuts to using all those tricky programs on your desktop.

Well, times are changing. There is a new movement in the business software world to “consumerize” the technology, with a goal of making software intuitive, engaging and free of training.

According to those at the New Learning Playbook, the consumerization of business software will have a “tremendous” impact on employees in today’s workforce.

With more youngsters like Gen Y and the Millennials entering the workforce, employees will expect workplace software to be as easy to use as Facebook. The days of training courses and software manuals will be rightfully left in the past. New software will be engaging, fluid and fun.

“Take a moment to think about the software your department uses, can you say this? Often the norm is one where employees endure lengthy training or spend hours poring over reference manuals only to be more confused than when they first downloaded the program.”

Business software had been purchased in the past by senior executives focused on automating business processes, never thinking about the solution being user-friendly or fun for their employees.

Today’s world is driven by the Internet and Web 2.0, with consumers who know how to use it and use it well, according to Shiraz Datta on Data by Da{t}ta.

“[Employees’] expectations are that the software they use at work will be equally powerful, simple and engaging.”

SuccessFactors, a provider of performance and talent management solutions, is one company leading the business software consumerization movement.

Seemingly inspired by the functionality of Facebook, Ebay and Amazon, one of their creations called SuccessDirectory uses a Web 2.0 approach to online work collaboration.

“Let’s assume for the moment that you work on a global team and collaborate everyday with team members across the globe that you have never met in person. Wouldn’t it be great if you could create a profile here where you could share your educational background, work history, post a photo of your choosing, list your professional training, languages you currently speak, ones you want to learn over next few years, books and music you enjoy, hobbies and some information about your family? In fact, creating and sharing your profile, could really help you get to know your virtual team members better and may even lead to doing your job better.”

The consumer software world has advanced so well that a manual is rarely needed, usually only when you encounter an error. Consumers install and dive into software, expecting the process to be easy enough to figure out as they go. Business software must catch up, with everything else they expect in the office, Gen Y is demanding it.