Life of an Internet Entrepreneur

They say that during a recession, people flock to education to survive. In that spirit, I’ll be covering topics in my marketing glossary in the coming months. Today’s topic is one of my favorite, because it is very powerful when used properly, and doesn’t require any upfront costs.

One of the hardest jobs of a marketer is to find a targeted audience for his/her message. After all, the odds of someone outside the targeted audience buying are very low, and probably not worth the communication and sales effort, until you have exhausted all likely buyers.

JetBlue has always had creative marketing programs, like its customer bill of rights. JetBlue is back at it again, and has sent out a press release detailing its “Promise Program“. Under the Promise Program, JetBlue will refund your ticket fare if you lose your job (with some additional terms attached, of course).

This is an effective marketing program, because many people are hesitant to purchase tickets in the future at a time when the “future” is so uncertain.  This takes out some of the risk to the ticket buyer which is at the root of the problem for many customers.

Jackie Huba, of Church of the Customer, and author of Creating Customer Evangelists recently had a funny video about customer feedback which illustrates the importance of companies not just hearing customer feedback, but also making it clear when customer feedback has been the cause of a change to the product or service.

Please watch as Jackie describes what happened:

Summary of the Video:

Jackie buys goat milk from Whole Foods, and the milk needs to be shaken each time before use. However, when she shakes it the milk flies all over the place because the carton lacks a tight seal.  The next time she visits Whole Foods she notices the milk carton has a cap, and has text right near it stating “Customer Requested”.

If you run an e-commerce website then you likely are tracking metrics such as: total sales revenue, how many total purchases were made, and general visitor stats. Today, we’ll look at a few other metrics you can (and should) use in order to get your e-commerce website performing at its best.

Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate

Definition: The percentage of shoppers who place an item in their shopping cart but do not successfully complete checkout.

Causes:

• Anxiety over having chosen the right product
• Fear over the security of giving out credit card details
• Confusion about how to checkout

Each year, I play a fun guessing game on which day(s) will be the biggest online selling days of the year. My “bet” for this year is going to be mid-day Dec. 12th -13. Why that particular day and a half? Allow me to explain:

Paycheck syndrome

In bad economies, we are less likely to have cash sitting around. This particular recession is no exception, and because this recession is partially caused by the credit crunch, we are certainly less likely to have cash. Therefore, we are more likely to spend based on our paycheck date. We are especially more likely to purchase something expensive near the time we are getting a paycheck (thursday evening) in anticipation of having the money, or when we have an actual paycheck in hand (friday).

The BrandingWire blog had an excellent discussion about auto dealers, and how to improve the customer experience. Few topics conjure up instant feelings like thinking about car dealerships, and I am often fascinated by what occurs in that retail location. One response by a commenter named Janet, was particularly interesting, since it was written from a car dealer’s point of view.

If I might, I’d like to explore Janet’s comments.

It’s easy for either side to complain – dealers about customers, and customers about dealers.

It seems that nearly every week there is an automotive article griping about a lower sales outlook. Many times the writer of the article or the interviewed auto industry representative blames the economy. While the economy has certainly had an effect on car sales figures, there are a host of other reasons why new car sales are dropping that I don’t feel are being discussed much.

Marketers have always wanted to know what you are thinking, and thanks to several tech companies, they may have just gotten a step closer to having their wishes fulfilled. In December of last year, the Wall Street Journal reported on how Emsense sensors were being used to extract feelings toward candidates in the political race.

That same company, Emsense Corporation, has used their technology to give marketers a step up on the competition (such as other advertisers – and you, the consumer).

A while ago, I attended a networking event for business owners organized using Meetup.com. I always enjoy meeting new people, and if they are business owners it is an additional bonus.

The topic of the day happened to be a marketing one, and a common question I found myself fielding was, “everybody always says networking is important, but I don’t really get anything out of it, got any tips for me?”

Seth Godin put up a great post about how Borders Books has cut inventory yet increased sales. Borders accomplished this by carrying less titles, but showing them in a more creative way. Essentially, Borders quit trying to show you what you can buy, and started helping you make that decision by showing you the books it was most likely to convince you to buy.

It was a smart move by Borders (not just because of my fabulous 20/20 hindsight), because they realized that their brick n’ mortar store could never compete on the dimension of variety with online bookstores like Amazon. Instead of chasing a dream, they decided to use one of the huge advantages a brick n’ mortar store has over the internet – better control over what you see.