“I am thrilled to be working with MJM Ecommerce to reach out globally to promote healthy skin. ‘Beautiful skin is a matter of choice, not chance.’” – Danuta Mieloch.

We’re very excited to be working with Danuta, Kim Zimmerman and the Rescue team to make their online beauty products store a great success!

- Julian

**Updated 8/23/10***

Congratulations to Rescue for winning Best of Philly 2010!

• 28% of mobile users are at least somewhat interested in text alerts
• 8% are extremely or very interested in text alerts
• Respondents who want alerts are mostly interested in coupons and promotions from grocery stores and restaurants
• 37% of US mobile phone users think location based alerts could be useful
• Placecast reports low opt-out rates among recipients (this could be due to the difficulty in opt-ing out!)

Foursquare and Gowalla were mentioned as check-in apps with a broader potential audience.  Users of those apps are bringing business into the location based social network world whether business owners like it or not.  One piece of advice – be proactive and start engaging the users in Foursquare and Gowalla. Search for your business on those networks and you’ll likely see that people are already checking in.  Engage them and see how quickly they share your business info with their friends.

When you visit Main Line Cycles you’ll find a great selection of road, mountain, hybrid, commuter, kids and cruiser bikes from Specialized, Jamis, Eastern, Niner and Ridley.  You’ll also find a collection of staff selected cycling apparel and accessories, the fastest turnaround on repairs, custom bike fitting, cycling clinics and a testing area behind the store.

Visit Main line Cycles at www.mainlinecycles.com

Finally, Google released the Chrome SEO Extension! Now, its not the most perfect SEO tool out there, but, it definitely provides enough info to make the Chrome transition a lot easier.  Here are some features:

• Shows you the Pages Indexed in Ask, Bing, Google and MajesticSEO.  Clicking ‘Show More’ brings up Baidu and Yandex which also display ‘Coming Soon’
• Backlinks in Alexa, Google, MajesticSEO, Majestic SEO( Unique Domains), Open Site Explorer, Yahoo (site wide) and Yahoo (This URL)
• Bookmarks in Delicious, Digg, DMOZ and StumbleUpon
• Traffic and Rank in Alexa Rank, Compete, Google Ad Planner, Google PageRank, Quantcast and Technorati
• Cached pages in Archive.org, CoralCDN, Google and WebCite
• On Site shows you if thre’s a sitemap and robots file
• Domain Details includes DNS, IP Address, Serve Location and Whois

There’s also the Google Keyword Tool built in! You can also see NoFollow links and pop out the extension so you can use it independently of the browser.  This extension definitely makes Chrome a more usable browser for SEO professionals and for ecommerce professionals who want some insight into the competition.

Georgette Pascale, president and CEO, has fashioned the company into a leading PR firm that is focused on healthcare-related clients including pharmaceuticals, medical devices and other related health organizations. Their PR experience spans all facets of the pharmaceutical and medical device lifecycle, from pre-launch, through post-launch; it also spans other related healthcare industry including non-profit organizations, clinical practices, etc. Pascale Communications has the experience in diverse sub-specialties such as ophthalmology, dermatology, neurology and hepatology, among others. With combined backgrounds in medical writing, event planning, both trade and consumer public relations, and integrated marketing campaigns, the Pascale Communications team understands the intricacies of a well-run healthcare brand. With extensive knowledge of the medical industry, the team at Pascale Communications, LLC garners quality press results beyond their clients’ expectations. Since its inception in 2005, Pascale Communications, LLC has utilized this broad range of knowledge and experience to successfully grow from two employees overseeing two clients, to a team of ten managing over twenty clients and products.

A focus solely on healthcare PR, coupled with their ability to cultivate and maintain relationships with the people that matter most, is what differentiates Pascale Communications, LLC from other PR firms. They net more press with more interesting story angles, and by delivering article ideas outside the normal scope of the media kit and pitch, they build stronger relationships with key opinion leaders and physicians as well as with editors of both consumer and trade publications.

Visit Pascale Communications at www.pascalecommunications.com.

• IDC reports 174.2 million units were shipped in 2009, a 15% increase over 2008
• IDC reports smartphones accounted for 15% of all mobile phones in 2009, a 13% increase over 2008
• 55% of American adults connect to the internet wirelessly, either through a WiFi or WiMax connection via laptops or handheld devices like smartphones.

Recently, I was looking at a client’s Google Analytics reports to understand where traffic and sales were coming from. Among many things I wanted to learn about their visitors, I wanted to see how many were using mobile devices to browse the site and make a purchase. To see mobile device usage of your site, go to Visitors > Mobile > Mobile Devices. This client’s site is relatively new, yet, I was surprised to see the activity coming from mobile devices…not to mention the sales. This report allows you to see the operating system (iPhone, Android, Blackberry, etc.) of the smartphone. The iPhone is the leader for this particular site and when you add in the iPod numbers its even higher. Take a moment to log into your Google Analytics account to see this information for your site.

Seeing this information, I created a high priority to-do list to create a mobile campaign in AdWords and you may want to do the same. First, get an idea of the keywords used by mobile device users. In the Site Usage tab, you’ll see Operating System and to the right of that another drop down that says None. Choose Keyword from that dropdown and download the list of keywords. Study these keywords to discern patterns and user intent (if possible) then segregate them into your keyword buckets.

Next, setup your Mobile campaign in AdWords. Under ‘Networks, devices and extensions’ choose ‘iPhones and other mobile devices with full Internet browsers’ only. Its important to do this so you target only mobile users to enable future learnings and optimization for this user group. In the beginning, you might not have a lot of visitor data (as is the case for this client) to go off of so you’ll create a campaign with a broader focus (that is, targeting all operating systems on all carriers). As you gather data, you can optimize your mobile campaign to target users of specific operating systems and specific carriers.

Your keyword list will likely mimic the keywords you use to target desktop users. Be sure to include terms that convert into sales/leads and be aware of user intent. Follow the same campaign architecture as you created for desktop targeted campaigns, but, add the word ‘Mobile’ in the Campaign/AdGroup name. Carry over the same negative terms. As the campaign matures, use the ‘See Search Terms’ feature to see the actual queries and add (or exclude) them from the campaign/adgroup.

When building out your ads create two versions. The first version will be like your desktop targeted ads. Start of with the ad(s) you know performs best. The second version is a WAP browser optimized ad. WAP browsers are still out there and there’s limited space for your ad, but, you can include your business phone number. This is a great feature because the user can ‘click’ on the phone number to immediately place a call to your business. This is perfect because in many cases users may want to talk to your customer service reps instead of browsing your site on their device. These WAP optimized ads require more creativity because ad space is small.

As your campaign matures, watch analytics to see what mobile visitors are doing on your site and optimize the campaign to meet your business objectives.

Other considerations when targeting mobile users:

• Alert your customer service team, and, if possible, use a unique 800 number for mobile ads
• Create a mobile browser optimized landing page. Better yet, serve up a mobile optimized version of your entire site. Magento offers iPhone optimized sites
• Think about where mobile users might be looking for your site. Look at existing terms and look for patterns of intent and build on them

Email List Building
Some say email marketing is dead, but, its really not and it requires a savvy marketer to drive revenue from this valuable online marketing channel. Building your list now is important because you’ll need it for your big holiday sales. Here are some ideas to build your email list:

* Subscribe Now and Save on First Purchase: convince your customers to subscribe now by giving them an incentive to save on their first purchase with you. Try offering a 10% discount or free/discounted shipping.
* Weekly drawings: hold a weekly drawing in which the winner receives a gift. Its best if you can offer a product of high perceived value, but, one that costs very little to you.

Boosting AOV and UPT
You can take some steps to boost your average order value (AOV) and units per transaction(UPT) through promotions, but, don’t overdo it (read above). Take a look at October and November’s AOV and UPT metrics and compare it to October 2009 actuals and November’s forecast. Estimate a feasible percentage increase for both metrics and put some promotions out there to achieve those goals. We’ve seen 40 – 50% increases when implementing promotions designed to increase these metrics. This also sets a good base for when you decide on what promotions to run during peak.

* Free Shipping: let’s say your AOV is $50 and you want to bump that up 25%. That brings you to $62.50, but, round it out to $65. Simply create a promotion where customers can qualify for free shipping on orders of $65 or more. Be sure you make restrictions clear such as free ground shipping only and the qualifying dollar amount is based on product sub-total (that is, order total before taxes). Don’t be surprised if your AOV on this promotion is 40 – 50% higher than your normal AOV. People love free shipping. Use a unique promotion code to help with tracking.
* Buy X units, Get Y Free: let’s say you’re sitting on a ton of inventory of a specific product that is costing you money in inventory expenses and your boss is constantly bugging you to move the product. Let’s say your average UPT (use same date points as above) is 2.5 and you want a 25% increase. That brings you to 3.1 UPT, but, round it to 3. Now, create a promotion whereby if a customer buys 3 units of a certain selection of products, they get Y free. ‘Y’ is that product sitting in inventory that your boss is bugging you about. Assume those 3 products retail at $50 a piece…you just sold $150 and you are moving ‘Y.’ at the same time. That effectively boosts your AOV as well. Again, people like free stuff.

Other Promotion Ideas

* Create some timed specials and advertise it through email, PPC, social, etc. For example, run a Free Shipping Wednesday promotion each Wednesday of the month. Some online stores see a decrease in order/shipping volume in the middle of the week and this is a nice way to boost orders and keep your fulfillment team busy. Another example is running a special from 8am to 3pm (think of your West Coast customers…this becomes a 5am to noon special). Be sure to alert your loyal followers of this at least the day before.
* Create your own event to spur demand. Make one day Official Widget Day and create a story around it to get people’s interest. Broadcast this across email, PPC, social, landing pages, in-store signage, etc. Strategically merchandise a selection of products to make it a no-brainer for people to buy.

Then there’s Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday to get you rolling strong into the holiday season. We love brainstorming sessions so drop us a line with some of your ideas/challenges and let’s see what we can come up with. Drop us a line!

Medium
Paid Search (PPC/SEM)

Solution
The MJM Ecommerce team proactively sought to optimize the campaign to increase traffic and conversions while controlling total cost. Data from the campaign and third party sources provided data for optimizing this campaign. In addition, software used to manage the campaign provided multiple dimensions of data to further the optimization effort. After analyzing the data, the team split the campaign into 4 buckets to address unique requirements and allow for compartmentalized management. The four buckets segregated terms into business critical (branded terms), geographic, generic and test. The last bucket, test, was designated for new unproven terms that have to meet strict requirements before moving into one of three buckets. This segregation of terms allows the team to manage the campaign on different metric goals while achieving total campaign efficiencies.

Results
Month over month data shows significant improvements despite what is historically supposed to be the slowest period of the year for the business:

• Traffic: increased 28%
• Cost: decreased 20%
• Conversions: increased 133%
• Cost per Conversion: decreased 23%

On retailer sites like Amazon, Wal-Mart, Target, look for information like:

* ISBN-10
* ISBN-13
* ASIN
* Item Model Number
* Item #

Don’t forget to add the product’s name and manufacturer ID in your list of keywords/phrases. Let’s use the Garmin nuvi 780 as an example:

* On Garmin’s site, you’ll see Part Number: 010-00657-05
* On Amazon’s site, you’ll see ASIN: B0011UEUNG and Item model number: Nuvi 780. If you’re savvy enough, you’ll also pick out the unique identifiers in the URL.
* On Crutchfield’s site you’ll find Item #150NUVI780.

For one product on three sites, there are at least three unique identifiers (I’m not including the Item model number from Amazon). While these may generate small amounts of traffic (and typically a very low CPC) in your campaign they may convert more often. The Internet is ultimately a research tool and many people will research a product before buying. The buying decision may be based on several factors including price, taxes, shipping costs, etc. The more often you appear in the search funnel the more likely you are to convert a visitor into a customer.