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Best practices to increase loyalty and retention on your Web site Do you need a formal loyalty program to boost customer retention and customer loyalty? Don't assume so just because your competition has one. Recent research indicates that some focused Web site improvements and carefully constructed e-mail campaigns can have a very positive impact on loyalty just by improving the overall online experience. Here are some best practices that can make your online offering more relevant to customers' interests and needs, building retention and loyalty while avoiding the costs of developing and running a formal

Three experts offer key pointers on Web site hosting, e-loyalty programs and advanced search engines. These days, catalogers reach more customers via the Web than ever before, and a growing number of them now receive a majority of their orders online. So in this technology focus, we've grouped together three articles to help marketers 1) better manage their e-commerce businesses, 2) use the Web and e-mail to keep customers loyal and 3) revamp their sites with advanced search capabilities. 1. Might it be wise to switch to a hosted software solution to better manage your e-commerce business? Some

Loyalty programs have a fairly straightforward purpose in the customer relationship. A virtual bribe, the loyalty program serves to entice the customer to come back to you time and again, write experts at MarketLive, an e-commerce technology firm, in a recent whitepaper, “Five Keys to Building Customer Loyalty.” Here are some tips on developing and maintaining a successful online loyalty program. as shared by the authors: 1. Don’t make enrollment too easy. At first glance, free enrollment may seem like the obvious choice. But “customers who sign up for free have invested little, so they don’t stand to lose much if they go elsewhere,”

Loyalty programs have a straightforward purpose in the customer relationship. A virtual bribe, the loyal program serves to entice the customer to come back to you time and time again, write officials at MarketLive, an e-commerce technology firm, in their recent whitepaper, “Five Keys to Building Customer Loyalty.” Some tips on developing and maintaining a successful online loyalty program shared by the authors: 1. Don’t make enrollment too easy. At first glance free enrollment may seem like the obvious choice. But “customers who sign up for free have invested little, so they don’t stand to lose much if they go elsewhere,” writes MarketLive.

By Donna Loyle Unique merchandise, exceptional visual branding and a textbook e-commerce strategy give Boston Proper a leg up on its competition. Boston Proper CEO Michael Tiernan calls it "The Billion-Dollar Opportunity." His vision encompasses a multichannel strategy targeting affluent, self-assured, baby boomer women — a generation notorious for its conviction that it will stay vibrant and sexy long into old age. Tiernan's Boston Proper catalog and e-commerce site offer unique, fashion-forward and sexy apparel, shoes and accessories to well-educated and busy women primarily in the 35-to-55 age range. They may have children, husbands and

By Bill Spaide Need a seamless interface from e-commerce through order management to physical fulfillment? Here's how to get it. Online retail sales continue their year-over-year surge. Web consumers' expectations for the range of services and ease of online shopping also are increasing. As a result, Web and fulfillment technology solutions available to direct commerce marketers have undergone several changes during the last few years. What's been happening, why, and how can you take advantage of these noted trends to improve your multichannel sales and customer service efforts? In this article, I'll look at how converged software solutions

Those e-merchants who can save customers time and/or make online shopping easier are in line to build customer loyalty, writes Ken Burke, founder and chief executive of MarketLive and author of “Intelligent Selling: The Art& Science of Selling Online.” Following are four action steps to take: 1. Offer advanced search. “Searches that use Boolean operators and multiple keywords can be powerful ways to allow experienced users to find what they want more quickly,” Burke writes. And it can incentivize shoppers to visit your site vs. a competitor’s site. 2. Send e-mail confirmations. Detail what they bought, total cost and shipping data, Burke suggests. 3.

The ongoing threats of spam, identity theft and data security breaches hang heavily in the air at the close of 2005. Headlines detailing these dangers have made sure your customers are more aware than ever of the perils of buying online. In fact, 48 percent of Americans avoid making purchases on the Internet because they’re afraid their financial information may be stolen, according to a survey conducted earlier this year by the Cyber Security Industry Alliance. So what’s a responsible online merchant to do? Following are tips to not only ensure your Web site adequately handles customers’ data, but also make it undeniably

Thumbnails are out. Collections are in. That was the mantra offered by Ken Burke, president and CEO of MarketLive, an e-commerce development and technology company, during his talk “Innovate or Stagnate” held during the New England Mail Order Association’s fall conference in Groton, Conn., last week Collection selling for an apparel merchant would include offering entire outfits on one screen on your Web site, similar to what you do in your catalog, said Burke. He suggested that catalogers try sorting merchandise in new and innovative ways. For example, let customers shop by: ¥ activity (sport or hobby); ¥ event (work apparel or evening wear); ¥ theme (movies from the

There’s so much to learn in online marketing -- where do you begin? Speakers at the Annual Catalog Conference held in Orlando last week offered up a few ideas you can put to use: 1. Address information overload: Stephen Spencer, founder/president of search engine optimization firm Netconcepts, said during the “Meet the Speakers” brunch that information overload “threatens our very existence,” and that marketers should be concerned about consumers being overloaded. “These days, you can’t just go online, see e-mail, get a little information and be off,” he said. “People have to find a way to get beyond that data smog, and you must help