The pace of technology, business, and even life means that everything is changing at a more rapid pace. Entire business segments are both created and made obsolete more quickly than any other time in history. Competitors come from seemingly nowhere and opportunities can be taken advantage of in a way not experienced before.

Image: Tambako the Jaguar

As such, we can’t be hypnotized by the status quo. It’s so easy to continue to do the same thing and too often organizations create or permit cultures where people become more concerned with protecting their turf than growing the business.

You don’t have to look any farther than Blockbuster to find a company where the status quo was doing quite well but they neglected to recognize the winds of change. As a result (and the excellent execution of Netflix), the company is in serious trouble.

The best way to avoid the danger of the status quo is to create a culture were the norms are challenged, creative thinking is encouraged and risks and opportunities are continually being evaluated. Departments needs to coordinate and collaborate, and leaders need to be required to look not just at what’s right in front of them but also what could be coming further down the road.

You can’t be certain what change is coming, but you can be assured that some type of change will arrive.

It happens because sites like Facebook and Twitter are often under the domain of an organization’s marketing or public relations department and there isn’t sufficient coordination with the customer support group.  The problem is that your customers have and will increasingly turn to websites like Twitter or Facebook to air grievances and seek resolution.

Your customers don’t care which department is responsible for “social media oversight” or your organizational structure.  When they tweet you or post a comment on your Facebook page, they expect the same type of results (if not better and faster) as if they picked-up the phone and dialed your phone center (or emailed or contacted you via online chat).

Given the public nature of social websites, prompt and effective customer service on Facebook, Twitter and the like is extremely important.  Not only should you want to take care of your customer, but because your response is seen by prospects, other customers, vendors, and partners, it also impacts your brand.

Here are a few tips to help provide excellent customer support on social websites like Twitter and Facebook:

1. Understand that even if you don’t have a Twitter profile or Facebook fan page for your company, your customers will still voice complaints about your organization on those sites and you need to be prepared to react.
2. Develop a process to handle customer service issues that are communicated via sites like Facebook and Twitter.  Include all relevant groups within your organization and make sure that you treat the posted complaint like an email, phone call, or chat - in others words, be proactive in contacting the person who originated the issue and be ready to help them.
3. Have social monitoring in place so that you can respond quickly to issues.  If you are still developing your process, you can use social monitoring to get a sense of how many issues you might encounter on a daily or weekly basis.
4. Don’t forget that social media time (especially Twitter time) elapses at a much quicker pace.  Just like 1 human year equals 7 dog years, 1 real world hour equals something more like 7 twitter hours.  Responding in 48 hours isn’t seen as being prompt in the social media realm.
5. Be strategic about when you communicate publicly and privately.  Not all communication with the customer needs to happen via public comments.  The initial contact should be public so that others are seeing you are being responsive but often the follow-up (getting specifics, etc.) is better done via email, phone calls, or direct messaging.
6. Even though we live in a digital world, sometimes the best way to diffuse a situation is by talking the disgruntled customer over the phone.  The extra effort can go a long way and is usually appreciated by the customer.
7. Make sure there is some process to provide a summary report of complaints and issues back through the organization. The best way to handle customer problems is to prevent them in the first place and complaints and reported issues should be valuable feedback to sales, marketing, engineering, research and development and product development.
8. Be transparent!  Don’t, and I mean never, try to diffuse a situation or defend your company through a response where you pretend or give the allusion that you are just another customer or unbiased community member.
9. Don’t think that only ‘big’ companies need to worry about customer support on the social media sites.  People use the web do research on all types of companies (big and small, national and local).
10. Obviously, don’t forget that anything you post publicly can be viewed by everyone.  Think about how your response will be perceived by others - don’t be dismissive or defensive.

Is there anything that I missed?  What suggestions do you have for companies to be successful in addressing customer service issues via websites Twitter and Facebook?

My wife has an address book that she has kept for as long as I can remember.  She has hundreds of names, but many of the people listed are ones whom we have lost touch with.  We don’t know what is going on in their lives and we wouldn’t be invited to a birthday party, wedding, or graduation party they hosted.  In fact, a large percentage of addresses and phone numbers probably aren’t valid anymore.  We certainly can’t count everyone listed in that book as a friend, even if their information is still current.

The same holds true with your online marketing lists.  People may have signed-up because of a contest, by mistake, or were once interested in your product.  The reality is a significant portion of many companies’ customer lists are disengaged.  It happens - people lose interest, move on.

So instead of focusing on how big your list is, focus on how many people you can really get engaged with your company, brand, service, or product.  That is the number that really matters.

Online marketers often focus so much energy on driving new visitors to their website that they often overlook the activities on their website that are most critical to converting and growing loyal visitors and customers.  Consider internal site search – According to a Google report on internal site search, 90 percent of companies report that search is the No. 1 means of navigation on their site and 82 percent of visitors use site search to find the information they need.  Given that 80 percent of visitors will reportedly abandon a site if search functionality is poor, enhanced internal site search functionality may be your highest return investment opportunity.

The ROI Can Be Compelling

As we noted in a previous entry, Website Redesigns Gone Good, we helped a client to implement enhanced search capability that resulted in a 35% decline in the volume of search abandonment.  For our client that represented over 100,000 consumers each year who were far more likely to make a purchase and who left the website experience more satisfied and more likely to return – also helping to drive a 20 percent increase in web site driven revenues.  eFollett.com, who provides access to over 1,400 online bookstores across the United States and Canada, installed a new site search engine and grew web sales by 23%.

So where to start?

STEP 1: Analyze how visitors to your site use your current site search

No surprise here - given our emphasis on analytics and understanding site behavior.  If configured properly, any reputable analytics solution should provide extremely valuable information.

• Pay particular attention to bounce rates, exit rates, and conversion rates by keyword.
• On the highest volume keywords, what results are presented, in which order, and to which pages did visitors navigate.
• A high volume of search activity on particular categories of keywords can reflect important deficiencies in the navigation of your site.
• Segment your audience and develop an understanding of how different types of users use site search.
• It’s important to remember that in most cases the majority of traffic to your site does not start on the home page.  This can change the context for why someone may do a search.
• This step is often necessary to build the business case for any investment in enhanced internal site search capabilities.

In addition to helping you to identify where your current search and site navigation is falling short, analyzing your search traffic can also help you develop a better understanding of your website visitors.

STEP 2: Research best practice internal site search features

Competitor websites or the websites for market leaders in related industries can often be very helpful in this regard.  Some of the most common enhanced features include:

• Search filtering (e.g. price, product/content type, brand, color, etc) - Over 88% of the top 500 online retailers offer search filtering – those that don’t are primarily due to narrow product offering.
• Search Relevancy/Prioritization – Advanced search tools provide powerful methods for altering the order in which search results are returned.  For example, you may want to give higher priority to high conversion or high margin products.
• Redirects – When you have created a page that has been optimized to address a particular topic or product category, you can have a visitor automatically redirected to that page when they search on a related keyword.
• Keyword Specific Promotions – Much like redirects, specific promotions can be displayed for specific keyword searches.  If, for example, someone did a search on “green golf bag”, the search results page might contain a promotion related to golf items.
• Spelling Correction and Synonyms – Nothing will deter a visitor more than getting a “No items found” search result (and this feature is particularly helpful for a poor speller like me).  A search at Officemax.com on “Digital Overhead Projecter” returns “Presentation Equipment & Supplies” and “Projectors & Accessories” as category options.
• Sorting Options (e.g. price, product rating) – Just providing useful sorting options on search results can increase search effectiveness considerably.

STEP 3:  Identify Opportunities for Specialized Searches

Look for opportunities to develop specialized search capabilities for important product lines or content types.  This necessitates really understanding how visitors search for specific types of products or content.  For example, one of our clients who offers artificial Christmas trees, dramatically increased conversion by providing a more structured search that allows visitors to easily select attributes like the size, color, and lighting of the different trees offered.  OfficeMax offers an entirely different method for searching for printer ink that allows the visitor to select the brand and model of your printer.  You can also significantly reduce customer support costs by providing customer support content via search.

STEP 4: Evaluate SaaS (“Software as a Service”) Internal Site Search Offerings

The SaaS model allows websites to provide powerful search capabilities to your visitors without visitors ever knowing that a 3rd party is providing the functionality.  The SaaS model can provide several benefits, including:

• Reliable and scalable infrastructure
• Lower cost of ownership
• Easier upgrades
• Faster time to market
• Experienced support staff
• Derive benefits of collective development on an ongoing basis

There are dozens vendors in this space, but the following are some of the leaders in the space:
•    Endeca
•    Omniture SiteSearch (Mercado)
•    SLI
•    Celebros
•    EasyAsk

Not surprisingly, each of these vendors (and the others not listed here) has strengths and weaknesses and should be evaluated in the context of the information you gather in Steps 1 through 3.

Follow the steps outlined above and you may see returns beyond your expectations.  Good luck and please contact us if you have any questions.  Also, we would be interested in any examples of high profile websites that you think have especially strong or weak internal search capabilities (let us know in a comment below)?

…you’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?

Harry forced the criminal to pause and think - think about about the consequences.  Too often, I see email campaigns launched without thinking of the consequences - the consequences of not putting the proper time into planning and executing the campaign.  This is partly due to the fact that email marketing is relatively inexpensive and easy to implement (to clarify, I mean that email service providers make the act of creating and launching an email campaign easy, not that it is easy to develop a compelling email campaign).  As such, the perceived risk is low.

Now, the risk to email marketers isn’t as serious as getting your head blown off by a .44 Magnum but there are risks nonetheless with a failed email marketing campaign.  You can alienate your customers or prospects, tarnish your brand, damage your email reputation, weaken customer loyalty, etc.

So, before you hit the send button on your next email marketing campaign, instead of asking yourself if you feel lucky, ask questions like the following:

1. Do I have a clear vision of my subscribers - what they need or want, what drives them, what challenges they face, etc. (as it relates to the product or service I provide)?
2. Am I offering something of value?  Am I thinking of my subscribers and not just of my organization?
3. Have I reviewed past campaigns in order to see what the subscribers respond to and what doesn’t seem interesting?
4. Am I ‘blasting’ the same content to all of my subscribers?  Can I be more targeted?  Can I segment my list to provide a more personal message?
5. Am I confident that all of my subscribers have opted-in, and I don’t have email addresses that were obtained by questionable means?
6. Am I doing something special with those subscribers who haven’t engaged with my email in a long time (e.g. re-engagement/re-activation campaign)?

If you can ask yourself those types of questions and provide the right answers before your next email marketing campaign, you can avoid some serious mistakes.  In fact, the results just might ‘make your day’ (sorry, I couldn’t resist - it was too easy!)

Image: Danilo Rizzuti

Math was one of my favorite subjects in school and my undergraduate degree was in Finance with a minor in Accounting, so needless to say, I like numbers and data. That is one of the reasons why I enjoy immersing myself in tools like Omniture SiteCatalyst and Google Analytics, which are great at capturing the ‘what’ - what happened on your website, what content was clicked-on in your email campaign, etc. As a marketer, however, the ‘why’ interests me a whole lot more than the ‘what’.

Most web analytics, email, search and social marketing reporting tools provide vast amounts of data, but those applications are really more of a means to an end. Knowing that my traffic increased, my email click-thru rate improved, or a Facebook fan page generated significant engagement is useful, but what is immensely more valuable to me is understanding why those things happened. Obviously, if you know the cause of your success, you are much more likely to be able to repeat it. The better you can understand your target audience, the better you can market to them.

Most reporting tools can’t tell you the ‘why’. Humans are still best at that task - turning lots of data into meaningful and actionable insights. The problem is that many companies either don’t have staff with the right type of experience to do it or the staff doesn’t have enough time.  Often, organizations don’t know the right questions to ask.  As a result, decisions aren’t fully informed and opportunity is lost.

If you haven’t yet, make 2010 the year that you dedicate the necessary resources to being able to answer the ‘why’.

If being part of a small company (Shay) while working with an established brand that has a loyal and growing customer base (our client) sounds intriguing, please read on and contact us if you are interested!

Client Online Marketing Manager

Job Description:
Shay Digital helps clients increase the profitability of their online marketing operations by developing online marketing strategies and managing initiatives related to those strategies.  The Client Online Marketing Manager is an important member of the Shay Digital team and will oversee the online marketing operations for a Shay client, a large consumer products manufacturer, and will report to a Shay Digital Founding Partner.

Responsibilities:

• Participates in the development of online marketing strategies for the client.
• Manages the implementation of all online marketing programs for the client’s websites, ensuring goals and objectives are met.
• Prioritizes and manages projects and tasks completed by vendors to ensure successful completion on time and within budget.
• Assists in the definition of online marketing campaigns that will help achieve the client’s business goals.
• Manages the priorities and workload for the client’s Internet Marketing department, and works with Senior Management to adjust priorities and resource plans accordingly.
• Continuously identifies opportunities to improve the productivity, profitability and scalability of the client’s Internet Marketing department.
• Manages the client’s online marketing and operations budget.
• Provides status reports to senior management and other key constituencies on a regular basis.
• Helps measure, analyze, and report the success of online marketing initiatives.
• Assists in identifying ways to optimize online marketing and merchandizing activities.
• Works with other client department managers and senior management to coordinate online marketing initiatives with offline activities.
• Manage the employees within the client’s Internet Marketing department to ensure that they are performing their responsibilities accordingly and they have the resources they need to be successful and grow professionally.
• Provide feedback on the job performance by those in the client’s Internet Marketing department, which will be used by the client’s senior management in performance reviews.
• Keeps abreast of the changing online marketing trends, opportunities, and the online marketing activities of the client’s competition.

Requirements:

• 3+ years experience managing Internet marketing related initiatives.
• 2-4+ years of experience in leading and managing other employees.
• Agency or consulting experience preferred
• Solid grasp of task or project management methodologies.
• Understanding of Internet-related technologies and best practices, including those relating to e-commerce, social marketing, email marketing, and search marketing.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Capability to work both independently and as part of a team.
• Desire to continue to learn and grow professionally.
• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Marketing, Interactive Marketing, or related field.
• Familiarity with dessert decorating and crafting markets is a plus.
• Excellent organizational skills.
• Proficient using word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software programs (e.g. Microsoft Office).

Apply:
To apply, please email your resume and salary history to resume@shaydigital.com

Image: Francesco Marino

As we approach the end of the year and the close the of decade, a number of people and organizations are rolling-out retrospectives on 2009 and the last ten years. If you didn’t do it as part of your budget process (you definitely should have), now is a great time to conduct your own online marketing program ‘year in review’ by looking at what worked and what didn’t.  Remember, you ‘pull yourself out of trees’ so you can see the forest.  In other words, don’t just look at numbers but really give some thought about why some activities worked and why some didn’t.

In looking forward to 2010, consider questions such as the following:

• Have your business objectives changed?
• Have your customers changed - what they want, how they shop, who influences them, what they prioritize, etc.?
• What critical factors are influencing your business?  For example, the economy, social media, mobile, changing values, etc.

In answering those questions, make sure you talk to other departments - sales, customer service, product development, etc, looking at what your competitors are doing and looking at innovators outside of your industry.  Also, don’t forget to challenge current assumptions and policies.  It never fails to amaze me when I ask why something is done, how many people answer, ‘I don’t know.  We have always done it that way’.

Ultimately, every initiative you undertake and ever dollar you spend should be justifiable and correlate directly to a business and marketing objective.  You should be able to explain why you are focusing on one tactic versus another (i.e. alignment with business goals and expected return compared to alternatives).   If you can do that, your chances of having a successful 2010 are greatly improved.  If you can’t, don’t worry -  it’s not too late.

Image: Adam Buteux

As my wife was preparing Christmas cards, she commented on how we are still sending cards to people we haven’t talked to in many years.  Apparently, we add new people but never seem to remove anyone.

Many companies take a similar approach with their e-mail list.  They never think of proactively removing users.  Why should they consider it?  Because, in the end, it is the quality not the quantity of your list that is going to pay dividends.

If someone hasn’t opened one of your e-mails in a year, they aren’t providing any value.  In fact, at some point, you risk that their indifference becomes annoyance and they report you as spam instead of simply unsubscribing.  Furthermore, as ISPs are starting to use subscriber engagement (whether the recipient opens or clicks on an email), sending to the emotionally unsubscribed can damage your email reputation and negatively impact your ability to reach the inbox.  Not to mention, a large group of recipients who you know will not respond makes it more difficult for you to truly measure the success of your program with those who are engaged and test improvements.

Simply focusing on the size of your list and not worrying about engagement doesn’t provide much value - just like someone who doesn’t care to receive your Christmas card anymore.  In the end, you are much better having a smaller list of engaged consumers with whom you can develop a productive relationship.

Corporate blogging can be a great way to interact with your customers, build brand awareness, and attract new prospects, but it requires an investment (more in people time than anything) and planning.

The following are some keys to launching a successful corporate blog:

1. Blog For The Right Reason. Don’t do it just because your competitor is or your CEO read an article about blogging in BusinessWeek.  Set clear objectives and ensure that everyone understands the purpose of the blog - the raison d’etre.  A corporate blog that just hawks product or is another outlet to publish traditional press releases will likely fail.
2. Content Is Still King. Whether it be Twitter, email marketing, or a blog, good content is still the key to success.  Be certain you can provide something of value - insights, hints, etc.
3. Develop A Social Media Policy. Even if you don’t have a corporate blog, it is good to have a social media policy.  A good policy is not about control but instead gives clear guidelines about what employees can and can’t talk about (e.g. competitors, future products, etc.).
4. Make It A Priority. Find someone at a senior level who is going to champion the blog and make sure that the people who are involved get recognized for success.  In most cases, those who should contribute already have a full plate and encouragement and recognition will only help.
5. Cultivate A Stable Of Authors. Sometimes companies are nervous about letting the ‘rank and file’ employees blog so they limit the pool of authors to senior management.  In most cases, I think the more people you can get involved the better. The more authors, the more perspectives, the more the workload is shared, and the more diversity in subjects covered.  The real criteria for someone to post should be that she has something to say of interest to your audience (i.e. blogworthy) and she is going to be passionate about what she writes.  Don’t be shy about recruiting people, as some may need a small nudge to get started.
6. Figure Out the Process. Are authors going to be able to publish immediately or will there be an editor that approves all posts before they go live?  Your process depends on many factors such as who is blogging, how sensitive your material is, and the purpose of the blog.  If you do need an editor, make sure whomever is responsible for that role can be responsive.  You don’t want blog posts setting in limbo for weeks before they are published.
7. Discuss What Makes a Blog Post Good. Don’t assume that because someone has written marketing copy, a press release or a Facebook post, she will inherently know what makes a compelling blog entry.  Get your pool of bloggers together and talk about your audience, the blog’s purpose, and the type of content that people will find interesting.  Share examples of good blogs and discuss what make them interesting.
8. Measure, Learn, and Adapt. Track which posts get high viewership and generate good comments and determine what differentiates them from those that don’t.  Do the successful ones get picked-up by search engines, tweeted, digged, etc.?  If so, why?  You might be surprised what types of blog entries your audience finds engaging.
9. Embrace Comments. Comments are one of the best things about blogging - they help create a real discussion with the audience and you get great feedback.  You do need to decide whether you are going to review (moderate) comments before they are posted live.  Ideally, you will have comments posted immediately because that provides a better experience for the reader.  However, there are valid reasons to review comments first, and if comments are moderated, ensure that comments are reviewed in a timely manner.  Also, make sure the authors know they should respond to comments and they understand the best way to do that (e.g. don’t get defensive).  Also, before the first post is published, discuss how you are going to react to negative comments.  Make sure everyone is clear that you will get some negative comments and those shouldn’t be deleted if they are just critical of the company (vs. use profanity, etc.).
10. Develop a Schedule. I think about corporate blog entries in terms of scheduled and impromptu posts.  Scheduled posts are those that are planned in advance - the topic, author and date are all set.  Scheduled posts help ensure that you will have a steady stream of blogworthy updates (e.g. one a week) and key topics are certain to be covered (e.g. seasonal items).  Impromptu posts complement scheduled posts. They are any blogworthy idea that employee wants to write about.  One of the challenges is to get people thinking “I should blog about that”.
11. Promote Your Blog. Don’t forget to promote your blog and posts in your email marketing, through other social marketing (e.g. Twitter), on your website, in print publications, within your organization, etc.  Also, remind authors to promote the blog and their posts to their own network.

What do you think?  Did I leave anything out?