Social Media Solutions for Your Small Business Intranet

Posted on June 20, 2011 by David Kemick

We talk a lot about how important developing a social media strategy is for small businesses as an invaluable inbound marketing platform, but have you considered using an internal social media solution to boost communication and information flow throughout your organization?  It’s a lot easier to do than you’d expect.  More and more businesses are integrating a social element into their company’s intranet, allowing employees to interact with each other like never before via blogs, RSS and even podcasting.  Below you’ll find some free and easy-to-use ideas for starting your own internal social network.

Facebook Groups

There’s a good chance your employees or co-workers are already using Facebook on a daily basis, so an excellent starting point for small businesses looking to adopt social media as an internal communications tool is by creating a Facebook Group.  A Facebook Group can be setup to be accessible via invite-only, and all communication within the group is restricted to the group itself, meaning none of your correspondance can be seen by your friends that aren’t group members.  With Facebook Groups you get the same familiar Facebook functionality such as the ability to share pictures, videos and links while maintaining privacy.  Groups is probably best used as a tool for a small amount of people, but if you’re looking to get a larger group of people interacting there are other great free services for that, such as…

Grouply

Grouply is a free alternative to the paid service Ning which lets you create your own hosted social networking website.  Much like Facebook, Grouply lets you manage media like images and photos, has an events calendar and includes a chat functionality (along with the standard affair of social media status updates and blog posts).  One cool feature about Grouply is that if you had a Ning network, Google Group or Yahoo Group they can automatically import all of your past data so you lose nothing in the transfer.  Add on top of all of this the ability to skin your network with a beautiful theme and you have a great internal social networking solution!  One downside of Grouply is that it’s a hosted solution, meaning you’ll be given a “yournetwork.grouply.com” style URL.  If you’re looking for a solution you can host yourself, as part of your company’s intranet for example, there are great open source projects for you to take advantage of like…

Elgg

Elgg is one of many free open source social networking projects that a developer with a bit of know-how can download, modify and deploy to their own server.  The upside of Elgg is that, much like WordPress, there are a ton of plugins and themes already created to enhance the look and functionality of your social network.  Want to add Facebook-style like buttons to your Elgg network?  Just download the plugin.  Interested in skinning your network to make it look just like Facebook?  You can do that too!  The themes and plugins are extensible, meaning you’re free to modify and improve them to your heart’s content in most cases.  Much like Grouply, Elgg has features for interacting with friends via status updates, a blogging feature and many other standard social media features.  Best of all, you can host your Elgg social network at your own URL if you already have access to web hosting.

One downside of the Elgg open source project is that it does require a bit more technical know-how than the previous two solutions do.  It’d be a good idea to consult with a web developer before deploying an open source social networking solution if you don’t already have one in-house.  With that said, the technical barrier gives you a lot of freedom to create a social network that works exactly the way you want it to!

So there you have it, 3 different solutions for getting the ball rolling internally with social networking.  We’ve always encouraged folks to talk about their small business on social media websites like Facebook and Twitter, but it can be a productivity tool for your internal operations as well!  Using one of the solutions above is also a great way to introduce social newbies to the fundamentals of social networking before entering a public arena like Facebook or Twitter.  Has your business successfully deployed a social intranet, or do you have different ideas for free or open source alternatives to Facebook Groups, Grouply or Elgg?  Let us know in the comments!

Posted in Social Media | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Publicizing Your Small Business With Free Video Services

Posted on May 9, 2011 by David Kemick

Video is probably the most under-utilized media when it comes to small businesses attempting to reach new customers online, however it might be the most compelling route to take from a consumer’s standpoint.  There’s no better way to highlight a product or service than with video, and although there is a little more work involved than with writing a blog post or recording an audio podcast, ultimately your potential return is huge.  Of course everyone knows about the power of websites like YouTube, but there are some other great free video sharing services that add even more functionality that you might not have considered!  In this blog post I’m going to run down a few of my favorites, including what makes each of them attractive from a small business standpoint.

As always it’s important to remember that if you try to connect to your audience via social media, video, blogging or in any other way, content is king.  You might not have the budget or knowhow to shock your audience with insane production value, but if your content shares useful or compelling information that makes folks want to come back over time you’re heading in the right direction .  So then, let’s start off with the 800 pound gorilla in the room: YouTube.

YouTube

Nine times out of ten the best place for a beginner to start sharing their video is on YouTube.  This primarily has to do with Google’s acquisition of YouTube which nets you some nifty search-friendly functionality right out of the gate, such as your YouTube videos being featured alongside Google’s normal search results when someone types in a keyword.

Additionally, it turns out Google owns not one but two popular search engines as YouTube itself has actually become the second largest search tool used by web users with 2 billion views everyday.  If you’re not convinced about the popular of web video sharing sites, that’s up over 50% since 2009!  That’s not all though – YouTube offers some handy channel customization tools which let you skin your video homepage to match your business’s existing brand, much like you would a Twitter homepage.  On top of it all, YouTube is working on rolling out a new live video streaming service much like UStream.TV which will let you broadcast events live to your followers.  With all of those features at the low, low price of free who wouldn’t want to get their Steven Spielberg on?

Vimeo

With all of the positives about YouTube, why would anyone choose Vimeo?  The number one reason is that they don’t limit the length of videos out of the game like YouTube does.  It also provides more customization issues when it comes to the video player and has a generally cleaner user interface overall.

It has also been cited that Vimeo holds a certain share of brand quality that YouTube doesn’t have – if you put your videos on YouTube you will undoubtedly be seen alongside some silly or unusual content.  Because Vimeo hasn’t seen the huge amount of success YouTube has, and because it’s been so widely adopted by people creating intriguing content in the tech community, there’s a little less of the “cruft” you’d find on more popular sites.  I’ve read folks refer to YouTube as the web’s video playground whereas Vimeo is for folks serious about things like varying video resolutions.  To support this, Vimeo offers a paid version of the service called Vimeo Plus which upgrades video storage space, removes advertising from your uploads and gives priority upload speeds (among other nice features).

Viddler

Viddler is probably the most interesting of these three web services.  Right out of the box they advertise their service as the video platform for folks looking to grow their online brand.  They let you track and analyze views and embeds of your video, and even have cool features like being able to embed your own logo overlay on your video, which when clicked links back to your website directly (not a Viddler site).

My absolute favorite feature of Viddler is the ability to comment on videos.  I’m not talking about a list of comments below the video – these comments appear right in the video itself at a given point chosen by a commenter or the video uploader.  Say someone were to make a video of themselves skateboarding, and 30 seconds in they take a spill to the ground.  They could have comments overlaid on the video appear at the 30 second mark.  You can even overlay another video on top of the video to further incite a discussion.  It’s cool technology that’s a great way to engage with your audience!

If you’re truly serious about maximizing the potency of your brand online through web video I’d say Viddler is the route to go.  The good news is that there’s nothing wrong with uploading your videos to more than one service, and since all 3 of the ones I mentioned today have free accounts available you should try them all out!

Posted in Inbound Marketing, Social Media | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Facebook’s EdgeRank Decides If Your Fans See Your Updates

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Donny Kemick

For years we have been working hard to get the best Google Page Rank possible so that our products and services appear when a prospect is looking for our offerings.  It’s time to add Facebook’s EdgeRank to our efforts.

A couple weeks ago at the Facebook F8 Conference, 2 of the engineers took on the task of explaining the very important News feed in Facebook.  A very important aspect of the News feed is the algorithm that decides what shows up for you.  This is also vital for marketers using Facebook because you want your content and updates to be seen!

The News Feed Shows Your Business Updates

As you likely know, the news feed is the very first thing a  user sees when they login to Facebook.  Your news, updates, photos, videos, etc… appear in your Facebook fans’ news feed.  Or do they?  You may have noticed that you have 100s or 1000s of friends on Facebook, but you don’t see the vast majority of their updates.  Why is this?  Well, there’s an algorithm for that, but I’ll talk about that later.

Top News and Most Recent News

You may have noticed that when you view your news feed, at the top-right there are 2 options:

By default, you see the Top News.  Friends and fan pages with a high EdgeRank show up in your Top News feed.  Those that have low EdgeRanks may not even show in the Most Recent feed.  To test this, take a look at your entire list of Friends, then click on Top News, then Most Recent.  You will notice that a very small percentage of your friends’ updates actually appear in either feed.  This is determined by EdgeRank.

We Want Your Brand To Be In The Top News Feed

Just like page 1 of Google search results, we want your updates/content/photos/videos to show up in your Facebook fans’ Top News feed.  If they don’t, they won’t get seen.  You put a lot of time and effort into these updates so having them go unseen is not acceptable.  To ensure they are seen, we need to increase our EdgeRank.

What The Heck Is EdgeRank?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that the graphic above didn’t do much to clarify the concept of EdgeRank for you.  Me either.  Let’s breakdown the parts a bit.

Content/Updates/Pics/Video Are All Objects to Facebook

To keep all of the items you can share on Facebook as generic as possible and to express that they are all treated the same, Facebook calls status updates, links, pictures, albums, videos, etc… ‘objects’.

While certain objects have a higher likelihood of being “edged”, an object is an object is an object.  They are all the same as far as Facebook is concerned.  This means we won’t be sucking up to Facebook by using more photos than links, etc… they don’t care what you share because they are all just objects.

By Interacting With an Object, You Create An Edge

As we work towards understanding what goes into an EdgeRank, we need to understand what an Edge is.  According to Facebook, every time someone interacts with an Object (pic/link/update/vid) they are creating an Edge for that Object.

Some examples of creating an Edge for an Object include Tagging someone in a Photo, Leaving a Comment on an Object, Liking an Object, etc…  These actions are all consistent with what we as marketers are trying to get our fans to do now anyways.

It should also be pointed out that creating an object also creates an Edge for that object which is why the object can show up in your News Feed before they are Liked/Tagged/Commented on.

Affinity Score of an EdgeRank

Referring back to the equation above, we need to first look at the Affinity Score.  As the equation indicates, the affinity score is between the viewing user and edge creator.  More simply put, an affinity score is based on the interactions you have with the friend or fan who published the object.  So, friends/fans that you interact with more on Facebook have a higher Affinity Score.

Anytime you “like” something a friend or brand posts, you increase your affinity score with that friend or fan.  The affinity score is a one-way thing meaning I can’t increase your affinity score for my brand by liking your posts/pics/vids and commenting them.  That will only increase your affinity score to me.  Then, I will see more of your updates, etc…  The friend or fan needs to interact (as defined above) with your Objects (also defined above).

The Weight Of An Edge

All interactions with an object are not weighted equally.  Interactions such as leaving a comment take more effort by a user than simply clicking the Like button, thus Objects that receive comments are more likely to appear in a News Feed than Objects that receive no interaction or are only Liked.

Timeliness Of An Edge

Old news doesn’t help anyone, so old Edges lose their importance.  This keeps those 1-hit wonders from staying at the top of your news feed forever.  For instance, when it was announced that Bin Laden was killed, there was an enormous spike in Friends and Brands talking about it.  If timeliness didn’t play a role, those status updates/pics, etc. would probably appear at the top of our news feed forever.

NFO – The Goal Remains The Same, Encourage Interaction

Yes, we now have another acronym to join the countless others in our industry, NFO.  News Feed Optimization is simply the act of posting Objects that encourage more interactions (Edges) than those that don’t.  It sounds simple, but if you have posted Objects in the past, you know that it’s not at all easy.  There are techniques that can be used to increase the likelihood of getting Edged and thus showing New Feeds more often.  We can help you optimize your Objects and Optimize Your New Feed visibility.

More On EdgeRank

I plan on sharing more incites on EdgeRank over the coming weeks so please check back.

Posted in NFO - Facebook News Feed Optimization, Social Media | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Mobile/Social Are Key Components To A Web Strategy, Ask Walmart

Posted on May 3, 2011 by Donny Kemick

Last week Walmart, who needs no introduction, purchased a mobile-social commerce firm called Kosmix, further legitimizing the importance of both mobile and social media marketing.

Eduardo Castro-Wright, Walmart’s vice chairman said, “Social networking and mobile applications are increasingly becoming a part of our customers’ day-to-day lives globally, influencing how they think about shopping, both online and in retail stores. We are excited to have the Kosmix team join us to accelerate the development of our social and mobile commerce offerings.”

Mobile and Social Are A Big Part Of Your Customers’ Lives

If you really take a look at the simplicity of the statement that Castro-Wright made, you see that Walmart is simply trying to accommodate their customers and be where they want them to be.  This concept is certainly not a new one, and businesses have been doing it for years.  I think that one of the issues small businesses have been facing is the lack of realization that the web is just as much of a “place” for their products and services as the storefronts that carry their products or the trade shows that are targeted to their industry.

The web, both mobile and desktop, is a place that consumers spend a great deal of time.  Your presence and attention to it should reflect that.  If they don’t your customers notice, and they will find providers that do provide the convenience of the web.

Mobile and Social Really DO Go Hand In Hand

A Pew Internet study in January of 2011 found that 23% of Americans use a mobile device to interact with social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.  This number is conservative in my opinion.  If you consider the volume of texting that happens from a mobile phone, it should not be much of a surprise that status updates, check-ins, and comments happen frequently as well.

How Do You Address Your Customers’ Needs?

The question then becomes, how does YOUR company address the need for a mobile experience that is heavily integrated with your social presence?  First, you have to have at least some mobile-optimized pages on your site.  Even if you just make a mobile version of your homepage and add some device detection so a mobile phone is automatically directed to a mobile version, you will be in better shape than serving your desktop site to a mobile device.  I won’t get into the reasons here as we’ve covered them in the past.

Second, your business has to be involved with the major social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) in a committed way.  Not just by posting random one liners a couple times a week.  Rather, by commenting on applicable updates by others and including links to your site where acceptable.  If the links are clicked on by a user on a smartphone, your link will ideally go to a mobile friendly page through device detection.

Third and last, you must have an ongoing plan in place to better your mobile experience and social involvement.  It’s not going away, and it is much more fluid than a standard website.  Get used to it and make the decision now to keep grinding.  Comeback stories are not going to be as easy in this generation of the web.  You need to move now, and we can help.

Posted in Mobile, Social Media | 2 Comments

Twitter to Announce Tweetdeck Acquisition?

Posted on May 3, 2011 by David Kemick

Any serious Twitter user, whether for personal or business-oriented, knows all about the search for the perfect Twitter client. At protocol 80 we’ve tried our fair share, whether it be the official Twitter client, Seesmic, Hootsuite or Socialite. More often than not though we’ve come back to the mainstay of social dashboards applications – Tweetdeck.

Rumors have it that Twitter will announce their acquisition of Tweetdeck in the coming days for around 50 million dollars.  If true, this won’t be the first time Twitter has ponied up for a popular third-party application, not long ago they did the same by adapting much-loved Mac and iPhone versions of atebits’ Tweetie application which is now the official Twitter application on those platforms.

ChromeDeck

With the success of Tweetdeck’s in-browser web app built specifically for Google’s Chrome web browser, nicknamed ChromeDeck for its seemlessly-integrated representation of the native desktop version of Tweetdeck, it may be that Twitter is attempting to brand an official application for Windows and Linux users to compliment the Tweetie redux available on Apple’s hardware.

Running ChromeDeck, especially in Google Chrome’s fullscreen mode, is the most feature-rich way to interact with not only Twitter but Facebook, Foursquare, and Google Buzz from one application.  My hope is that if Twitter does announce a Tweetdeck acquisition they allow the Tweetdeck team to continue their work on the multi-platform version of the app.  One of the most compelling reasons to use Tweetdeck in the first place is because it’s your one-stop shop for managing your social media initiatives.  Therefore if its functionality becomes limited to Twitter I think myself and other loyal Tweetdeck users will switch over to other free alternatives like Hootsuite that offer similar feature sets.

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Social Media Patience Is A Virtue

Posted on May 2, 2011 by Josh Curcio

It can certainly be frustrating to get excited about bringing social media to your business and have it take off slow. You hear over and over how fast word travels on Facebook and Twitter, but word is still not travelling about your business. Your message is being sent into space and you are getting really good at one-sided conversations. I am sure you have asked these questions to yourself…how long does it take before I start seeing the fruits of my labor, when do I know it’s working, and am I even doing this right??? Don’t get frustrated just yet, it takes time and patience.

Social Media Patience is a Virtue

5 Tips for Social Media Patience

  1. There is no magic number. Some businesses can make an impact after a month…some after a year. It is impossible to give a concrete number because everyone’s level of participation is different, everyone’s message is different, etc. But in reality it is not about time, it is about participation. I would rather see you measure activeness in terms of “per/500 Tweets” vs “days since started”.
  2. Set aside a small amount of time to be active. Not only on your page or Twitter feed, but on other’s as well. Scott Stratten, author of UnMarketing, recommends using 5 minutes each day to do nothing other than replying-to and retweeting people. Start some GOOD conversation!
  3. Don’t be too sales focused. If you communicate like a sleezy used car salesman all the time, people have no reason to follow and communicate with you. Take an interest in what others are saying before promoting your product or service. If you catch someones attention through regular conversation, they follow a link from your profile. Talk about yourself sometimes…just not all the time.
  4. Set some achievable goals so you feel like you accomplished something. Don’t make your initial goal out of the gate “I will have 50k followers in 6 months”. Make your first goal something like, “I will send 100 tweets this month” or “I will reply/retweet 5 new people each day”.
  5. Avoid looking at social media success in terms of volume. Yes, you want sales and interest in your business, but you can have the same amount of “business” success with 100 loyal followers as you would with 10K casual followers.

Yes it does take time, and we all know that time does not flow like water. But if you want to be successful in the social world you need to give it time. Not necessarily from a stance of 5 hours a week or a solid number like that, but understand that your success will come quicker if you are more involved. If you can only dedicate 30 minutes a week to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and so on, don’t expect the world in 6 months. After real participation, you will get the hang of social media and you might even like it.

I am not a patient person myself, so I understand your anxiety. I check UPS tracking numbers 10 times a day when I am waiting for a package…So trust me, I understand your anxiety! If and when you get involved in social, take your time, have fun, make friends, have great conversation…then sell.

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Social Media Spend Increasing By Most Marketers This Year

Posted on May 2, 2011 by Donny Kemick

This probably comes as no surprise, but as the title indicates, most marketers are increasing the social media spending this year according to Effie Worldwide and Mashable.  More specifically, 70% of the marketers surveyed intend to increase their social media investment by 10% or more.

For marketers, Facebook Likes were at the top of their lists followed by growing their mobile presence.  On the mobile theme, 80% of the marketers surveyed indicated that they were planning on doing an iPad application or iPad advertising.

Exemplary Use Of Social Media

The poll cited 4 major US brands as being the “top-dogs” in social media effectiveness including:

  • Old Spice
  • Pepsi
  • Starbucks
  • Ford

Ford, as you may recall even launched a vehicle, the new Ford Explorer through social media.  I have previously written about Starbucks and Josh has touched on the Old Spice campaign.  One of the greatest ways to see what’s effective is to analyze the success stories.

In-House In Conjunction With Agency Support

The study also showed that roughly half of the responders said that they rely on a marketing/web firm with help from an internal team to handle social media outreach.  The remaining 50% varied between fully handling social media in house and fully using an agency.

The mix-model jives well with our opinion of the best structure for social media involvement by small businesses.  As marketers, we can help set the direction, create the tools, and educate on effective use of social media.  To truly keep it personal, we feel that it’s vital for brands to commit their own resources to social media involvement.

Planning To Focus On Social Media?

If you are planning to increase your focus on social media, we can help to ensure you start on the right foot, and that you start with a measurable framework focused on growing your business and brand.

Posted in Inbound Marketing, Social Media | Tagged , | Leave a comment

What Are You Doing To Urge People To Check In?

Posted on April 27, 2011 by Josh Curcio

If you aren’t a brick and mortar establishment, you can ignore this post for the most part. If you are…do you urge people to check in at your location? Do you understand the power? The risks?

First, What am I Even Talking About?

While you should probably be aware of many of the check-in services, I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of small business out there ignored them. Basically a check-in service is a form of social networking that allows the users to “check-in” at locations they are currently at. This can be anything from a restaurant, retail store, horse stable, NASA, Medieval Times…you get the point. Johnny McSocial arrives at his favorite bar, wants his friends to know where he is, checks-in, gets a coupon, becomes mayor, leaves a review, etc. Some of the more popular mediums for check-in currently are Foursquare, Yelp, Gowalla, Facebook Places, There are many reasons to check-in, the important thing for you to remember is that people DO check-in…sometimes they just need a little push.

Urging Them To Check In

As verified earlier in the post, your are likely a brick and mortar establishment. Put up a sign or decal.

Even something that doesn’t specifically say, “Check-in” can at least remind someone to check-in or let them know that you are a participating establishment. Take this Yelp sticker for example:

Yelp is heavily a review based site. Word of mouth referrals are the best sales pieces you have. Even if someone doesn’t use Yelp they might at least take a look at your reviews there. It could be the deciding factor whether someone visits your establishment, or the one next door.

Facebook is an important check-in service because of the volume of people that see it on a consistent basis. If someone with 500 friends checks in at your location, that is 500 new people that can hear about your place. Keep in mind, those people can also ask how their visit was. It is very easy to put up a sign, even if it is something you create on your own.

Ask Them to Check-In

You likely have a website…or at least a Facebook page or Twitter account. Tell people that you’d like them to check-in and review your business. Let them know your special offers for people that check-in. It is an easy way for them to get a small reward, while spreading the word about your business.

Remind Them In Person

If you are the owner, remind them if they check-in they can receive a special discount. Your customers will appreciate the opportunity, even if they don’t take you up on it. You can probably guess that a 95 year old man is less likely to pull out an iPhone and check-in than a 20-something or 30-something, so  you don’t have to tell everyone. Keep in mind, although you are offering a discount, you are building loyal customers that have turned into marketing for you!

The Risks?

You need to pay attention to what people are saying. If you get a bad review, you need to address the situation. If you have a Yelp profile that has 50 bad reviews and only 1 good review, you are doing something wrong. This issue is not with Yelp or any of the other check-in platforms, the issue is with your business. You may want to fix the internal issues before you are urging people to read the bad reviews.

You may have been avoiding these services for awhile. Now is the time to go and claim your listings and get social. Turn your customers into marketing while letting them have fun and be happy!

Posted in Location-Based Services, Social Media | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Amazon Gets You To Buy – It’s Not Rocket Science

Posted on April 26, 2011 by Donny Kemick

If you have an internet connection, you have heard of Amazon.com.  Haven’t heard of them?  Close your web browser.  For those of you still with me, you probably now the ginormity (yup, I made that word up) of Amazon.  They have products in every category imaginable, sell apps for smartphones, have movie rentals, MP3 downloads, and even offer staple grocery buying.  Whats more, they have the cheapest prices the vast majority of the time, ship their products at the speed of light and have been around since the birth of the net for commercial use.  When you think of ecommerce, you should think of Amazon.

Their Website Knows You, The Customer

If you have an account on Amazon (refer to the first 3 sentences of this post if you don’t), you have no doubt witnessed the phenomenal job they do recommending products to you based on your likes/dislikes.  All of this is done by mining tons of data about you, the products you view on their site, the products you add/remove from your cart/wishlist, and ultimately the items you buy.

With this data, they use algorithms to see what you are interested in and make offers to you.  It’s like a store that was built just for you and only you.  Who wouldn’t want to shop there?  Add the free 2-day shipping with amazon prime, and low prices, and you have no reason to leave your desk!

On The Verge Of Buying?  They’ll Up-sell & Close The Deal.

If you have visited Amazon’s site in the past and added things to your cart that sit there for a day or so without a purchase, Amazon sees you as a lead that needs converted.  They will go to great lengths to get you to pull the trigger.

A Recent Personal Experience

Back story…
Recently, I was shopping for a new cordless drill.  Pretty simple and strait forward.  The drill I was looking to replace was a lower end drill that served it’s purpose, but I have had it for almost 10 years and it is starting to smell funny when I use it (burning smell) and occasionally the motor smokes.  Can’t be good.

Having just built a house, I noticed many of the contractors used Dewalt tools and swore by them.  In fact, many of them made fun of me with my little Black and Decker drill while I was wiring for Internet/TV/Phone.  I had the opportunity to use a couple of their Dewalt tools, and I was utterly amazed at the quality and power of the cordless products.

Shopping
Needless to say, I started looking at Dewalt drills immediately.  I added a couple of them to my cart so I could read reviews and compare them (right on Amazon), and ended up getting pulled away from my computer for one reason or another.

The next day, I received this in my email with a subject “$25 Gift Card with Dewalt Purchase”:
I though to myself, heck yeah, I’ll take 25.00 when I buy a tool!  They even put Add to cart buttons right in the email.  I clicked through the email and visited the site, adding and removing items in my cart.  Again, I didn’t buy anything.

The next morning, I had another email from Amazon with the subject “One-Day Sale on a Dewalt Cordless Drill”:
I clicked through, decided I didn’t want that particular drill, looked around a bit more, and left again.

Guess what happened next?  I received the following email with the subject “Up to 50% Off Combo Kits”:
This one really sparked my interest as I definitely lack in the power tool department.  I again clicked through.  This time however, I removed the drills I had in my cart, and added a couple combo kits so I could read reviews and compare them.  The total was larger than if I bought a drill only, but I saw the value in the kits, and the price break was even better than on the drills.  It was a bigger buying decision, so I had to think about it.

The next morning, I received an email with the subject “FREE Dewalt Battery 2-Pack with Combo Kit Purchase”:
It’s like they knew that I was almost sold, but needed one more thing to sweeten the deal.  At this point I had fully caught on to what they were doing.  I decided to add the batteries to my cart to see if they were indeed free.  They were not.  I had to remove the kit I was looking at and add the same kit – sold directly from amazon.  The initial kit I looked at was $6 cheaper, but sold by one of their affiliates.  The batteries were a $95 value, so I quickly swapped the kits.

The next morning, I received the following email with the subject “Up to 50% Off DeWalt Accessories”:
In looking at the combo kit I was planning to buy, many of the accessories looked like something I would eventually need.  I ended up adding an extra charger to my cart.  I figured with 4 batteries in all, I could use another charger.  I decided to wait another day…

The next morning I received and email with the subject “Up to 50% Off Porter-Cable”:
Instead of pushing more DeWalt items on me, they decided to offer me another decent quality power tool brand that is cheaper.  That day, I bought the DeWalt items in my cart.

They Made The Sale By Being Persistent

The greatest part about their persistence was that their emails were all automated.  This sounds like a very difficult thing to do.  It’s not.  Consider your own business.  Most of the businesses that we work with don’t sell an entire shopping mall’s worth of products.  They sell their own set of products/services.  This makes it much easier to account for the possibilities and target buyers even easier.  All Amazon did was take a look at what was in my shopping cart and make offers to close the deal.  e80, our ecommerce platform, stores shopping cart contents in a database that would easily allow us to send offers to the shopping cart holder if needed.  The process is quite simple.

The key to Amazon’s process was that they never gave up.  What’s even better is they never even spoke to me.  They simply sent me highly targeted emails every day that I showed interest (also very easily trackable)  by browsing the category they were marketing to me.  Eventually, the closed the deal and upsold me.

Data Analysis

One of the services we provide is the gathering, analysis and reporting of web analytics data.  We often hear responses to us offering these services that dismiss the value, such as “We can view Google Analytics data whenever we want.”.  Our follow-up question is almost always, Do you know how to act on the data?  An even simpler question is, What is an acceptable bounce rate and time on site for companies in your industry?  Often, the prospect or client doesn’t even know what a bounce rate is, let alone how to use that data.

In this Amazon example, they are not only using general web stats that you would get from Google Analytics, they are also using their own data to spark events.  For example, the data they have on unprocessed shopping carts in certain product categories for certain periods of time can spark the event to send email promotions to get that shopping cart order closed.  It’s a much more active sales process and most of it is automated.

If you’d like to evaluate some options for automated offers and using data points to grow sales on your website, please contact us.  We’d be happy to meet with you to look at the options and do some brainstorming.

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Facebook Adds New Send Button

Posted on April 25, 2011 by David Kemick

Today Facebook added a new sharing feature in the form of a send button which will replace the previous “Email to a Friend” functionality.  The new Send button works similarly to the Like button – whenever a user clicks one a small Facebook popup window will appear allowing the user to share a page to their Facebook friends, Groups or by email.

One important thing to note about Facebook’s Send option is that sends will count towards a page’s like total.  For instance, if you put a Facebook share widget on one of your website’s pages the Like total will represent not just the number of people that clicked the Like button but also the number of shares, comments and Facebook inbox messages containing a particular page’s web address.

The ubiquitous Facebook Like button has been around for a year now, and it might be the case that in another year’s time Sending is just as popular as Liking!  To create your send button head on over to Facebook’s developer page.  They’re easy to create and only take a few lines of code to get started: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/

You can also make a standalone Send button here: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/send/

And while you’re here why not test out the Send button below?  Let your friends and associates know about all of the Facebook Sendification they’re missing out on!

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