The Dealer Impact Blog

How To Keep Your Website on the Cutting Edge

Published: October 03 2008

By Adam Michelson

The web is changing, and your ecommerce site needs to change with it. Here’s the low-risk way to implement innovative ideas that will drive increased ROI.

As many ecommerce sites celebrate their 10th birthdays, web stores are facing the reality that the internet is changing and current sites need to be refurbished. From left-hand navigation and search to product catalog and product detail, from the cart and checkout to the general design and format — most sites are in desperate need of a makeover. With changes in web innovation being accompanied by drastic changes in the economy, no major vertical has more to gain than ecommerce.Many new ideas are emerging all the time — including social shopping — that not only drive traffic, increase conversion and decrease abandonment, but also increase brand loyalty and provide customer feedback directly to merchants. Ecommerce is changing at a rapid pace. Projects are getting funding, action is taking hold, and innovation is being born.There is considerable pressure to innovate and grow. However, retailers are hesitant to prematurely invest in anything that may harm their current ecommerce sites, which is the basis of the business. The fact that new ecommerce ideas have not yet become part of standard commercial ecommerce software does not calm fears, but the rapid pace of ecommerce innovation makes retailers nervous to stand by and wait.

The testing grounds of microsites

  The hesitation to adopt new concepts fuels the relevance of the microsite. Microsites are testing grounds for new retail concepts, technologies and architectures with unique business models. These sites explore new ideas and brands within their own URL, often only loosely associated or not associated at all with the main ecommerce site.

One of the most important things new retail concept sites must prove is return on investment. In order for this to be successful, the investment and risk involved must be low to protect the main ecommerce site. If the risk and effort remain relatively low, a microsite is the perfect way to explore new retail concepts, brands and technologies.

Let’s take a look at some retail concepts that leverage this technique.

Using RIAs to drive conversion and brand loyalty

 Rich internet applications (RIAs) can be used to enhance customer experience and address the rapidly growing expectations of online shoppers. For example, many ecommerce sites now feature a left-to-right navigation in place of the traditional top-down navigation to reflect the changing shape — from taller to wider — of screens. Sites are also using drop-down carts that keep the shopping experience moving and help increase the average order size.

Another innovative technique — made possible through RIAs — that is being adopted by companies is a smooth outfit configuration tool that uses a dress form as a virtual subject. The feature gives potential consumers the ability to drag and drop various clothing to assemble outfits. Some sites even have features where interactive models spin and twirl as customers mouse over them to show off the looks. Not only are customers able to see what the clothes look like paired together, but many of these tools also allow customers to price the outfits and add them directly to their cart.

American Eagle Outfitter’s site Martin + Osa has these features and more — including models that prance in and out of the frame when a customer filters through collections. This clever, unique and fun feature gives customers a more complete feel for the outfits. Martin + Osa also features a highly effective zoom capability. When zoomed, a product takes up the entire product-detail page and the informational and transactional product detail is opaquely layered on top of the zoomed image.

While this is an interesting take on the zoom feature, it is also highly controversial. Nothing should distract or hinder the customer from purchasing from the product detail page. Interlacing the product zoom image behind product information and order-taking functionality is perfect to attempt first on a retail concept site, but would be considered blasphemy on a major ecommerce site.

Social shopping

  Social shopping is a major focus for retailers today. Most of the current social shopping ideas are derivations of allowing users to put links or very simple widgets on social sites, or they are copycat social networking sites with some basic ecommerce built in. However, the addition of merchant blogs drives search engine optimization and customer loyalty. Additionally, allowing customers to refer to retail products through sites like Facebook, Delicious and Digg has become popular. Despite how mainstream these concepts have become, retailers still struggle with measuring the ROI associated with the techniques.

Done right, social shopping has tremendous monetization. However, most ecommerce solutions do not take into account how customers make their ecommerce decisions. Typically, information architects have a keen understanding of the mindsets of users and can construct optimal user interfaces for them. They worry about how the program is used, how easily information is found and the feelings the program elicits. In order to optimize the social shopping experience, information architects need to begin thinking about this new social state of mind and gain a general understanding of the desired behavior of the group. Retailers have mastered understanding and guiding consumer behavior for in-store shopping; however, their online counterparts are not as in tune.

Some of the successful standard principles in social shopping seem to be that users want to be anonymous, but not alone, creating buzz, but not annoyance. Any feeling of belonging or exclusivity is a good thing. It is a generational phenomenon driven by a younger generation that craves having an online identity. Keeping these characteristics in mind, it is important that the social mindset is identified first and then the features and functionality are created to fit the desired experience.

An example of this is a concept called private event retailing (PER). The events are first-come, first-served, and run for a limited time with a limited inventory. Shoppers are given exclusive access to premium goods at private sale pricing. Being offered a special deal via a limited time event, like in PER, the experience becomes even more exciting because of the exclusivity, setting the stage for a frenzied shopping experience. Updating the site in real time, to show items as they are sold out, drives an emotional mindset for the group. It is a retail concept that spreads virally and effectively taps into crowds.

Retail Convergence, a company with a portfolio of ecommerce sites, wanted to create an invitation-only, event-based ecommerce site. RueLaLa.com was developed in response to this. The social shopping concepts integrated into the site are innovative and branded specifically to enhance the PER experience.

In addition to the standard ecommerce functions — product catalog, product detail, shopping cart and checkout — RueLaLa.com focuses on features like how the invitations are sent and how the events are created. Almost all of the effort involved in constructing RueLaLa.com was spent on the unique retail concept because the back-end ecommerce capabilities leverage services that already exist within Retail Convergence. Time was not wasted on building baseline ecommerce functionality.

Driving a unique brand

  A wide variety of sites are created to drive unique brands. The fundamental idea behind all of them is to push products over a variety of retail concept sites by leverage existing merchandising capabilities, with each one focusing on a different customer demographic. For example, Anthropologie’s site is targeted to a very different audience than its parent company, Urban Outfitters, and Arizona Jeans has a very distinct look and feel from its parent company, JCPenney.

Each site effectively targets different demographics. Both JCPenney and Urban Outfitters are selling their products in very different ways using these distinct digital properties. They are doing so through the use of their core abilities to merchandise products on their sites.

How to build microsites

  Now that we’ve discussed retail concepts, it is time to build the microsite. The effort’s primary focus should be the user interface, with only 20 percent of the effort being devoted to back-end functionality. Do not create a new back-end for your retail concept because it is too hard to maintain. If the previously existing main retail site has the basics — such as checkout, pricing and promotions engines, tax and shipping costs and order management — it should be used to build a new retail platform.

User interface engineers need an interface that can be altered and adapted quickly, with little to no architectural hindrances. If the existing retail platform cannot readily support the back-end ecommerce features, then a lightweight service-oriented architecture (SOA) can be put in place. The SOA can handle the translation of the new retail concept user interface to the back-end of your existing retail store. This should eliminate any difficulties presented by previous back-end features.

With this perspective, a retail concept site provides IT owners with a realistic path to evolve the existing application architecture to a far more agile one — while simultaneously allowing retailers to readily meet the innovation demands and achieve measurable ecommerce growth via retail concept sites.

Adam Michelson serves as the director of ecommerce at Optaros Inc.

Source: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/marketing-channels-websites-how-to-keep-your-website-on-the-cutting-edge_20685.html

How Do You Say Thank You?

Thank you. They are arguable the two most important words in a sales business. They tell the customer or prospect that they matter and that you appreciate them. Saying it is important… but nearly as important is HOW you say it.

So how do you say it, with a card, a phone call, a fruit basket, or flowers? We want to know how you tell your customers thank you. Use the comments section below to tell us how you say it.

D. Jones
Marketing Strategist/Creative Consultant
SmackDabble, LLC

Staying In Touch

The easiest customer to bring into your dealership is one that’s done business with you before and had a good experience. Ensuring that your past customers come calling when it’s time to buy a new ride means staying in touch with them over the 3-6 years they may go between vehicles.

According to Fortune.com, Guinness World Records’ top salesman sold 13,001 individual cars (six cars a day) in 15 years at a Chevy dealership near Detroit. Every month he mailed cards to his customers that read simply, “I Like You.”

How do you stay in touch with your customers? Use the comments section below to tell us how you do it.

D. Jones
Marketing Strategist/Creative Consultant
SmackDabble, LLC

Fail Faster

These troubled economic times are wreaking havoc on a broad spectrum of industries and are certainly having a dramatic effect on consumer spending. Especially on large ticket items like cars. This has caused the fight for the few real prospects that are out there to become even fiercer than usual.

Success in that fight means finding the new and interesting marketing tactics that turn consumer heads and drive real sales. The key to finding those tactics and strategies — fail faster. That’s right… now is the time for failure (as long as you do it quickly).

Failing fast means quickly turning over new ideas… trying lots of new things via pilot programs and test marketing. The more ideas you churn through, and the faster you eliminate the unworkable ideas, the sooner you’ll hit on that truly remarkable idea that drives the few consumers that are out there toward your dealership.

D. Jones
Marketing Strategist/Creative Consultant
SmackDabble, LLC

What is Branding and How Important is it to Your Marketing Strategy?

By Laura Lake, About.com

The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines a brand as a “name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers.

Therefore it makes sense to understand that branding is not about getting your target market to choose you over the competition, but it is about getting your prospects to see you as the only one that provides a solution to their problem.The objectives that a good brand will achieve include:

• Delivers the message clearly
• Confirms your credibility
• Connects your target prospects emotionally
• Motivates the buyer
• Concretes User Loyalty

To succeed in branding you must understand the needs and wants of your customers and prospects. You do this by integrating your brand strategies through your company at every point of public contact. Your brand resides within the hearts and minds of customers, clients, and prospects. It is the sum total of their experiences and perceptions, some of which you can influence, and some that you cannot.

A strong brand is invaluable as the battle for customers intensifies day by day. It’s important to spend time investing in researching, defining, and building your brand. After all your brand is the source of a promise to your consumer. It’s a foundational piece in your marketing communication and one you do not want to be without.

Source: http://marketing.about.com/cs/brandmktg/a/whatisbranding.htm

Start Taking Search Seriously

Paid search is a proven winner, yet some marketers don’t take advantage of its full potential. Here’s why you need to put SEM at the heart of your marketing strategy.

Search engine marketing isn’t a perfect marketing medium. But compared to every “innovative” marketing methodology that’s come along in the past five years, search is a hands-down winner. This is why Google has become a multi-billion dollar powerhouse and why hundreds of marketers are reaping ROI, increased market share and branding benefits from being active participants in search.

The reasons SEM has taken off are both elementary and revolutionary. As a marketing channel, it offers the following strengths: 

1. Paid search campaigns happen in real-time, making it possible for marketers to obtain almost instantaneous marketing ROI. Search’s real-time nature provides for the ongoing fine-tuning of all variables in the campaign in a continuous process of optimization, which means that marketers can learn and improve their campaigns over time.
2. Paid search advertising is by its very nature the most unobtrusive way of getting the word out about one’s product, service or brand. Instead of pushing a messages in the face of an uninterested and possibly unwilling audience, SEM is a low-key “pull medium,” responsive to the user’s intention to engage. Therefore, calls to action are more likely to be heeded because users perceive them to be relevant to their intent.
3. The data generated by paid search campaigns can have enormous value to marketers, in terms of providing business intelligence, extending CRM efforts and scouting out audience segments that may have been neglected by existing marketing plans. Given that search behavior is highly responsive to non-search marketing efforts (both on- and offline), such data can provide a reliable indication of the effectiveness of all other marketing efforts.
4. Paid search is still a relatively inexpensive medium and search campaigns can be dynamically scaled up or down to accommodate varying needs. Applying targeting and segmentation technologies can dramatically reduce (although not completely eliminate) the problem of non-converting clicks.

Unfortunately, each one of these strengths comes with major caveats. The fact that search happens in real-time provides both opportunity and risk. Minor campaign errors can quickly result in significant financial losses unless they are quickly corrected, so the onus is on the marketer to continually monitor search campaigns to ensure peak performance.

The mere fact that search provides the ability to systematically test campaign elements doesn’t ensure that such steps will be taken. Nor do many marketers actually use the rich data from search to inform their non-search marketing efforts. Teams can be overloaded with data, and many function in departmental isolation where they are insulated from high-level marketing strategy conversations.

Finally, while paid search is inexpensive relative to other media, media management costs are proportionally higher. Unlike other channels where the media is expensive (such as television) but media management costs are low (because the media is easy to buy), search presents the exact converse. The media (keywords) are cheap but the costs of managing campaigns may be significant — especially for sophisticated search campaigns.

Given these difficult issues, many marketers choose to simply outsource some or all of the search campaign process to an outside agency, either one that already handles their online media buying or a specialized search shop that does nothing else but search. In my view, there are definite risks with going the big agency route, because big agencies rarely have access to the sophisticated technology required to deliver top-performing search campaigns. Nor does their economic model (which depends on marking up media bought in big chunks such as radio/TV buys) favor intensive work on search. You can’t really blame big agencies for regarding search this way, because it’s only natural for agencies to focus their efforts on media buying opportunities where the profit potential is greatest.

Specialized SEM agencies provide an alternative to the big agency route, but once again, marketers need to exercise care before committing their search budgets to such organizations. Many SEM agencies are new and don’t have more than a few years of operating experience behind them. While many promise to deliver unparalleled campaign results using “proprietary” technology, the fact is that many of them license the same off-the-shelf campaign management tools used by the big agencies, limiting their ability to provide truly customized solutions.

As there are no industry benchmarks for evaluating such agencies, a good selection rule is to look at the agency’s client list, seek out positive, unbiased testimonials from those who have used them in the past and, perhaps most importantly, examine how much their existing clients have grown since the agency took over their accounts.

However the work gets done, marketers need to understand that search isn’t just another marketing channel, but a fundamental organizing method by which users and marketers can find each other in the terabytes of data constituting the digital world. While it’s attractive to think that search can just be bolted onto existing media plans, it is far better to regard search as an integral element at the heart of the marketing strategy, because the demand that you drive through your media efforts is all harvested in the search process.

Source: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/20470.asp

SEO vs SEM – Part One

September 13th, 2008 | by Paul Rushing Published in SEO

• Is search engine marketing (SEM or PPC) really a wise investment of marketing capitol?
• Is a dedicated search engine optimization (SEO) investment worth the money and effort?

The obvious answer to both is a resounding yes. But first you need to define your goals before starting on either one. They both have their place but they two very distinct purposes.

To often though is SEM used as a crutch to make up for deficiencies in SEO.

You should not have to buy your money terms with pay per click advertising. Money terms meaning your stores name, and your brand and location combination’s. Ranking for these keywords is child’s play in the grand scheme of things, if your site is properly optimized and you obtain a few relevant back links.

Only 25% of your of your websites search engine presence is determined by your on site efforts. The other 75% is determined by the number of votes it gets from other sites, back links. However the 25% factor may make a huge difference on how effective the other 75% is and how long it takes to see results.

Key elements to be concerned with on site.

Meta Data

Meta tags tell the search engines what users will find when they arrive at your site. Think of it as how your site is cataloged in their index.

1. Page title: This is the most important element. The title is what describes what your page is all about very much like a book title. It is also what people see in the search engines in the results pages and in the browser bar. It gets more weight than anything from the search engines when they index your site.
2. Page description: It is a summary of your page and is what shows for a description of your site under your title in some of the search engines. It is very important to include your main “money terms” in your page description.
3. Keywords: It was once the most weighted of all meta data but as people discovered this it was the most abused. People would stuff as many keywords as they could imagine to describe their site to the search engines many time even if they were not relevant. Now they do not give them as much weight however most SEO experts will agree because the search engine spiders still scan them and if your content matches they do provide some weighting. Having more than 8 keywords is a waste of energy and more than six is probably over kill and may even sandbox your site.

Website vendors should give you access to manipulate these items to help you build the relevance of your site. No one can describe your business better than you so it should not be left up to them. I laugh when I see websites by vendors that basically have broiler plate meta descriptions with just minor changes for dealer name and location. It is like they just fill in the blanks. Each page on your site should have unique meta data. Each page delivers a different message let the search engines know what you are showing your visitors.

Heading Summaries:

Heading summaries are sub headings on your site. These tags help people read your web page but also help the spiders understand more about your page is targeted too and what its the most important parts. For example you will see different sections of this post show different headlines through out the post. This is through the use of head tags. <h2> is a second level title and
<h3> a third level title. Heading summaries above is an <h2> element.

Image summary:

The search engine spiders cannot see images like your website visitors can. So you have to tell them what the image is or says especially if it is an image mostly comprised of text.

Source: http://ismintraining.com/seo/seo-vs-sem-part-one/

Don't Blend

There’s a common type of feedback I get from clients when presenting new marketing and creative ideas. It goes something like this: “This doesn’t feel like a <insert client’s industry> ad. Let me show you what my competition is doing and we can mimic that.”

I hear this all the time. And itss the single most common form of misguided feedback I receive. Why? Because the point of marketing isn’ to help you blend in — it’s to help you stand out. I’ll say that again… The point of marketing isn’t to help you blend in, it’s to help you stand out.



Striving for anything short of standing out is a waste of time, money and effort.





D. Jones

Marketing Strategist/Creative Consultant

SmackDabble, LLC

There is Nothing Tricky About Permission

There’s an increasingly popular trend among advertisers that think they have to trick consumers into paying attention. They do it with too-good-to-be-true offers, flashy production and bait-and-switch techniques. Does it work? Yes, sometimes it certainly does. But it’s the most expensive, invasive and difficult sort of marketing to pull off. So why try?

Instead, consider just asking your customers and prospect for permission to talk with them. And once you have that, begin an open, honest, straightforward dialogue with them about who you are and how you can serve them. It’s inexpensive (darn near free, actually) it’s totally non-invasive and it works better than interruption marketing.

So who do you have permission to communicate with?

D. Jones
Marketing Strategist/Creative Consultant
SmackDabble, LLC

Cloud Computing and Cars: A Web Services Primer

By Bridget Townsend

Keeping up with shifting technology is an uphill battle when marketing in the automotive vertical. See how web services can help you focus on promotion, rather than your infrastructure.

Web services are not a new invention, but only recently have we seen them gaining acceptance in many industries, including automotive. If you consider the nature of a vehicle, combined with the exploding number of consumers heading online to research and shop for vehicles, this makes sense. Because a vehicle can have over 10,000 options and pricing configurations, ensuring that an automotive selling site has the most up-to-date and accurate information, and that it has the tools that consumers demand (such as allowing consumers to build their own cars by adding options, colors, etc., and then comparing them to other models) is a monumental job. Enter web services. 

What web services can do
Before we delve deeper into how web services can benefit a wide range of industries, let’s step back and explain more concretely what they are and what they do. Web services are interfaces that exchange information between an application and a remote data source. They allow software applications to access and use functionality and data created by another provider, or multiple providers. This is an abstract concept, so let’s make it tangible with an example of web services, courtesy of the website XML.com: a music CD. If you want to play a CD, you put it into a CD player and the player plays it for you. The CD player offers a CD playing service. You can replace one CD with another, or take your CDs to a friend’s house and play them on their player. No matter what music is on the CD or what player you use, you can listen to it because the systems talk to each other. This works the same way as web services do. Without web services, every CD would come with its own player and the two would not be separated. This sounds odd, but it’s the way many software systems have been built. In effect, building a software system has been like re-inventing the wheel every time, with all the development time and costs that includes. With that basic definition, let’s circle back to how industries are using web services, and why they would want to. Let’s take Google as an example. Google has popularized web service utilities for businesses and for the general public. Groups ranging from non-profit organizations to book clubs use their Google Groups and Google Docs to share information and stay in touch. Another example is cdyne, which applies web services to a specific domain or demographic. Their demographics web service delivers enhanced census data, which their clients use to target customers or neighborhoods for their own services and products.

Web services for automotive
In the automotive industry, this same concept is applied to a vertical market. Online vehicle shoppers want quick and easy access to the most up-to-date and detailed vehicle data. A vehicle manufacturer or portal site could re-invent the wheel by developing its own configuration and comparison tool to combine raw data with available options, but the creation is time-consuming and requires sophisticated programming skills and constant data updates.  Using web services, they create a simple consumer-facing interface and flow data through it from a data provider. They don’t have to create an infrastructure or manage data updates; the provider takes care of that.  Every interface is customized for look and feel so every website retains individuality. Check out Vehix.com and Sam’s Club Auto Buying Program for examples. Both use web services to deliver vehicle data, but each interface is customized and unique. And neither company has to worry about updating the data or keeping the service running; the web service provider takes care of that.  They’ve increased their capability without having to invest in a new infrastructure, derail their development team or invest in new personnel. Why they work
To continue with the “why” of web services, reduced cost and development time are key. A basic example to illustrate this point: a Microsoft Word document. When you go to write a document, you would never dream of starting by developing your own word processor. Microsoft has already done that, and done it well.  They’ve provided the platform and they are responsible for managing it, updating it and releasing new versions. You only have to use it. 

Web services follow the same logic. An expert in the space has already developed the platform; customizing it is much cheaper and faster than developing it all over again. Consider the example of cloud computing, which allows developers to exploit functionality without having to implement a full-blown application. Because this practice is cheaper, and because the internet is increasingly more reliable, more companies are adopting this approach. Early adoption within a handful of Fortune 500 companies, including Proctor & Gamble and General Electric, sets the stage for cloud computing to go mainstream. This “cloud” allows companies to more efficiently and cost-effectively store, manage and share data without any hardware or software to download, install or maintain. Their customers can focus on their core competencies, not the infrastructure.

Another benefit of using an existing web service is access to the innovations of that implementation. As we all know, technology is never static; changes are happening every day and trying to keep up with new functionality can derail a development team from focusing on the core competencies that result in immediate revenue. 

As an example from the automotive industry, many companies need to be able to decode vehicle identification numbers (VINs), but they generate revenue by creating consumer-facing websites that help consumers find the their perfect vehicle. They don’t need to build a VIN decoder, they need to buy one. What they’re presenting to the consumer is key, not what is happening on the back-end. 

Conclusion
If you are developing websites for your clients, or are tasked with bringing all the providers together who are essential for functionality and deployment, you should consider taking a closer look at web services. By using an off-the-shelf solution and then building on that platform, you can save your clients time to market and significant funds and give them access to groundbreaking innovations. As a result, you have more money left in your budget for marketing and promotion, and your clients can get a head start on generating more revenue. 

Bridget Townsend is director of engineering, product and client services for Chrome Systems, Inc.

Source: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/20362.asp