Social Media Marketing

A clear vision and a defined process for product information management prevents mistakes and ensures merchants can effectively manage product offers — no matter where they pop up. By ensuring the quality and integrity of product information, merchants stand to grow both their businesses and preserve their relationships with consumers at the same time.

The arrival of Google Buzz represents the latest twist in an already confusing landscape for social media. Can it displace or aggregate our existing hubs of social networking, like Facebook for personal friends and LinkedIn for colleagues? Regardless of the success or failure of Buzz, there are three major implications for marketers.

When it comes to cross-channel marketing, PETCO is at the top of its game. The specialty pet products retailer sells its merchandise in more than 1,000 brick-and-mortar stores across the country and an e-commerce website, regularly using its online channel to bring customers into its stores and vice versa. But the buck stops in the e-commerce department.

The jury will be out for some time on just how much money can be made directly from social media. But retailers rooted in stores, catalogs and the web have worked diligently to explore ways they can squeeze incremental revenue from this emerging channel.

Most retailers use the wrong metrics to measure the success of search programs. They focus on tactical measures, such as return on advertising spend or keywords moving up and down in rankings. These measures are like sports statistics — they explain the final score but don't decide success or failure. The final score does that. In business, profits are the final score and sales tell you how good or bad the blowout can be.

Social networking is certainly the rage today, but I'm advancing the theory that most direct marketers don't use it to its fullest capacity. A few weeks ago, I spent about four hours looking at Facebook sites for my favorite retailers, catalogers and online merchants. Many were good at initiating conversations and trying to build brand loyalty. Very few, however, followed the basic tenets of direct marketing by using that communication to either build their databases or encourage purchasing. Social networks are places to build community. But that can go hand in hand with marketing and selling.

We've reached the final issue of 2009 for All About ROI, certainly a year most of us are happy to see end. As we look forward to a better 2010, I'm pumped that there are some positive signs out there showing a recovery is on the way. It may take a little time, but it's coming.

Today's teens have been inundated from their earliest recollections with advertising, be it on TV, online, in their favorite video games and movies, and the list goes on. To effectively sell to this generation of consumers, Under Armour studies what makes it tick. What are teens thinking about? How do they behave? What motivates them to purchase?

I don't know about you, but I get pumped at the prospect of having a chance to win a giveaway every day. It certainly piques interest among folks following Amy Reed's tweets (@chickdowntown).

Engagement marketing happens when people become a part of the product they're buying or consuming. Many marketers think it begins and ends with sites on which visitors create the content — Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc. They think a simple product mention on these sites will drive traffic and make their 
sales soar. But the evidence says otherwise.