Third-party shopping comparison sites such as Shopping.com and Shopzilla can get products to consumers who aren’t visiting brands’ sites directly. However, these sites pose challenges: they have different audiences, data requirements, bidding requirements, and capabilities.
Mercent, a Seattle-based company founded by former Amazon execs, has built a platform to help marketers sell across a range of third-party sites. I chatted last week with Mercent CEO Eric Best and several marketers from specialty retailer Brookstone.
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MarketingSherpa members got a preview of our 2009 Social Media Marketing and PR Benchmark Guide last week. An executive summary, table of contents, and some great charts and analysis were released to them in PDF form.
The complete guide will be released the week of Feb. 9. Here are a few interesting nuggets for all of you to contemplate right now. Read more…
Granted this is just one consumer’s complaint, but it’s something to think about. A consumer named “Rob” recently was quoted in a Consumerist post about how Amazon ruined his wife’s surprise Christmas gift this year by sending email recommendations about the present after he purchased it.
His wife actually saw a subject line referring to the surprise gift (a TomTom GPS) on the couple’s shared Google homepage enabled with an iGoogle email widget showing recent emails.
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For our money, PETCO has always done a good job with their online marketing, specifically in email. And that’s part of the reason why it was intriguing to see their most recent email campaign where John Lazarchic, Vice President of Ecommerce, for the pets products eretailer, penned a short letter truly in the form of a personal email. Read more…
Am I the only sports fan to notice how more and more TV analysts in the niche are talking about individual athletes’ and sports teams’ as “brands”? Of course, they have always been, quote-and-unquote, brands. That’s real-world talk among marketing professionals.
But to protect the fans (or “customers”) from the game of marketing, this stuff was not supposed to be discussed in public. At least, that is the way it used to be. Yet, times have changed. Read more…
The BlackBerry Bold has been unveiled, and many folks compared it at launch to the iPhone. For what it’s worth, I think that’s a good thing for BlackBerry marketers.
Because, no matter the brand, smartphones are not going anywhere.
There will be more brands entering this particular technological fray; some might actually outdo both the iPhone and the BlackBerry Bold. And they will drive the wireless market further into the future.
Before you know it, the smartphone will be akin to the television set in the late 1970s. Absolutely everyone will have one, and the picture will likely be in color (if not high-definition).
Of course, they will be more affordable than ever, too.
As you might have read in an earlier blog, I have been looking for a marketer who has tested mobile-dedicated links and landing pages in their emails. Well, I have found one.
Stay tuned for a how-to article in the coming weeks. You’ll learn that marketing to smartphones now is a no-brainer – if you want to get ahead of the competition.
There was an interesting article in a recent print edition of The Wall Street Journal about how there may be tough times ahead for the more than 300 advertising networks on the Web. The online edition of TWSJ is not a freebie, so I will summarize. Read more…
Of course, marketers have known forever how a celebrity can impact sales for their companies. My earliest recollection of this idea was of Joe Dimaggio and Mr. Coffee TV spots from the early 1980s.
Well, I happened to call Zappos.com the other day to talk about sending back some shoes I had bought, as they were a half-size too small. Who was I greeted by? None other than CEO Tony Hsieh at first. A CEO making an automated appearance? Big freaking deal, right? I agree. Read more…
I recently talked with Kevin Ertell, SVP E-Business, Borders, who pointed out some very interesting ways that the retailer is integrating its offline and online channels.
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Right now, classic demographics such as ‘Men aged 18-24’ just won’t cut it anymore. I’ve asked MarketingSherpa’s research team to conduct a formal study examining the changing demographics of our fair nation in the face of this seemingly endless series of economic crises. You can expect new demographic reports to appear in future Sherpa newsletters.
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