MarketingSherpa Blog

Black Friday and Cyber Monday have come and gone. The holiday crunch has arrived.

As I mentioned previously, consumers are looking for deals this season. That poses a challenge for premium brands that don’t want to discount. One brand, Zappos.com, sells shoes at a discount through its other brand, 6PM.com, to maintain its premier image.

I sent a comment request to Zappos, but did not get a reply in time for the previous post. However, Graham McCulloch, Senior Buyer, Zappos.com, did get back to me last week and elaborated on the topic. Here’s what he had to say:

“Zappos.com is a premier brand and customers choose to shop on Zappos for the premier service. Price is a secondary consideration. In order to maintain the integrity of our brand, we chose to funnel the vast majority of our markdowns through 6PM.com.

6PM.com is price and selection driven. To offer these prices to our customers, we have shorter customer service hours, a $6.95 flat rate ground shipping, and a 30-day return policy.”

On the other hand, Zappos has 24/7, 365 days-a-year live customer service, a 365-day return policy, free overnight shipping and free return shipping. (That is astounding!)

McCulloch further mentions that 6PM.com customers want value, while Zappos’ customers want the newest, most diverse assortment of footwear, apparel, and accessories on the Web.

As you can see, the difference between the two brands goes beyond pricing. Zappos and 6PM have two completely different online strategies, and that give its marketers far more reach than either brand could alone.

Regularly connecting with clients and customers on social networks can be a lot of work. You have multiple accounts to log into, feeds to watch, messages to respond to, etc. Can it be fun? Sure. Can it be tedious? Absolutely.

I stumbled on a free Web-based tool that helps eliminate some of that tedium. Fuser will take all your messages from MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and your email accounts, and put them into one, easy-to-use interface. (Unfortunately, I did not notice LinkedIn as a supported platform)

I just gave the beta service a quick test and it’s definitely fast, easy, and free. Fuser takes your messages–everything from wall posts on Facebook to Tweets on Twitter–and lays them out like emails. You can view and sort all the accounts at once, or select which you’d like to view.

So if you’re struggling to keep up with your business contacts’ online banter, Fuser can help eliminate a few steps. Hopefully it will give you more time to contribute to the conversation.

According to a Nov. 20 article in The Wall Street Journal, eBay Inc. is going to leverage the technology they acquired with the six-week-old purchase of Bill Me Later by testing a holiday credit line for consumer users of their PayPal service. Each consumer in the PayPal system will be allotted credit based on an assessment of their finances.

Like with Bill Me Later, people who use the credit will not have interest accrue on their account for a few months. PayPal was to begin the service on Nov. 21, according to the article.

What does this mean for online marketers? Read more…

Teens are using social network sites, video-sharing sites, online games, iPods, and mobile phones. That’s no news flash.

What’s new is a study of 800 interviews with youth and their parents that has shed light on why young people use digital media. Here are the major findings:

Read more…

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…

Discounts abound at eretail sites this holiday season. The New York Times dubbed the price slashing “holiday price wars” in an article on November 19. The article’s desperate tone underlines what many of us already know: The holiday shopping season is going to be rough.

Every consumer is looking for a discount, which doesn’t bode well for premium brands. Price drops and coupons can diminish a brand’s boutique image. But some marketers are finding a way around this quandary. Read more…

Discounts abound at eretail sites this holiday season. The New York Times dubbed the price slashing “holiday price wars” in an article today. The article’s desperate tone underlines what many of us already know: the holiday shopping season is going to be rough.

Read more…

Marketers can’t afford to offend the powerful force that is the mom blogosphere. The recent Motrin mommy mess-up is a testament to that. 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.