The following survey by MarketingSherpa indicates continued improvement in results for businesses from local search for 2009 compared to 2008:

The favorable results for local search from businesses in this survey indicates a continuing and growing trend for using the Internet as a reliable everyday source for information:

• For businesses to be found by specific business, product, service and related qualification criteria.
• For buyers to easily and quickly research and find what they need.
• Local search services continue to enhance support for geotargeting to provide search results specific to the location of the person doing the search.
• Geotargeting is particularly important for retailers and other businesses servicing their local area – their listings and information is more readily accessible and more likely to show on the first page of search results rather than getting lost amongst 1000’s of irrelevant results.
• Geotargeting helps consumers and buyers to quickly find what they’re looking for – when someone searches for “optician” they’re most likely only interested in finding opticians in their local area.

The article Can buyers easily find your local business online? has a lot more details about local search, available services and how to get your business listed.
Copyright © 2010 Ingistics LLC and Marketance™ www.marketance.com

There is growing evidence and data about a significant shift in preferences and priorities in the way people shop and buy goods. There is no doubt that we are in the midst of a long-term fundamental shift in consumer and business buying behavior. Research from The Hartman Group based in Bellevue WA adds further and interesting evidence on this trend and changes for consumers and businesses.

Based on studying people’s shopping habits over many years, the Hartman researchers have identified a growing shift in consumer loyalty from specific products and brands to retailers that provide a shopping experience rather than just a store with a collection of branded goods. Although the current recession has accelerated this shift, it is a long-term trend that is gaining momentum.

Part of the problem is the proliferation of brands and choices has diluted the value of brands. There is so little differentiation between so many brands in a particular product category that consumers don’t develop strong brand loyalty like they used to when there were fewer choices and more differentiation. There are obviously some outstanding and notable brands with strong customer loyalty such as Apple. However, most businesses don’t have the wherewithal to develop a brand like Apple.

There is lots of evidence that consumers appreciate a positive shopping experience over brands. Trader Joe’s, the grocery store chain is a good example. It is a different kind of grocery store with primarily its own brand of products delivered in a unique and pleasant shopping experience with great customer service. Trader Joe’s does no traditional advertising – their primary advertising is a quirky newsprint booklet mailed to target households in each store’s geographic area and word-of-mouth recommendations by customers. Not stocking major brands that carry a huge advertising premium and limiting their own advertising enables them to offer customers different choices of high quality products at much lower costs. Trader Joe’s quickly builds a loyal base of customers within a couple of months of opening a store.

Another example is Zappos, the online shoe retailer – they built a $1bn+ annual revenue business in 8 years by providing customers a great shopping experience with excellent customer service, easy exchanges and enthusiastic staff. And they did it with minimal advertising and marketing expense by using social media and word-of-mouth marketing. Zappos has developed a huge and loyal customer base that has enabled them to expand into other apparel categories. While Zappos does sell brand name products, it’s the Zappos service and shopping experience that attracts loyal customers. Amazon understands what’s going on and acquired Zappos in July 2009.

A CNNMoney.com article ‘Dumped! Brand names fight to stay in stores‘ shows that many major retailers led by Walmart, are removing many brand-name products from their shelves. They’re also limiting the number of brands on shelves and offering their own store brands either as alternatives or exclusively in some cases.

Think about your own shopping habits – do you recognize any part of this trend in changes to how you shop?

Now consider how this trend may apply to your business and how you could capitalize on it for your business:

• This watershed trend presents an unprecedented opportunity for businesses to develop a customer delivery, engagement and service model to substantially grow their business over the coming years.
• Take a look at what is happening in your market. Do you see this customer shift from brands to shopping experience?
• If so, what are you doing to provide a great customer shopping experience and develop loyal customers for your business?
• If not, you have an opportunity to get ahead of the competition by using this long-term trend to your advantage.
• Do some research on companies that have successfully transitioned or positioned their business to this trend and you’ll see 4 common key elements for success:
  1. New models of customer engagement that are conversational – it’s not about selling to customers; it’s about having a continuing conversation with customers.
  2. Employee models that foster enthusiasm and positive engagement with customers in a consistent manner.
  3. Streamlined business processes that make it easy for customers to do business with the company. It’s all about how customers want to do business with you, not how you want your business processes to operate.
  4. Use of Social Media for customer engagement and marketing to develop a participatory and loyal customer community.
• This is a major long-term shift and trend. It requires a serious review and strategic shift for many businesses to be successful long-term. Tinkering at the margins won’t be enough.

There is no doubt that we are experiencing this shift in the way people shop and buy goods. It is time to seriously consider this trend in your business and go-to-market strategy.
All data for this article acquired from public domain sources.
Copyright © 20010 Ingistics LLC and Marketance™ www.marketance.com

We all know that colors play an important role for making a website or other marketing content look more attractive, highlighting something for attention and generally making it more appealing to read.  While we’ve all seen good examples of how color enhances websites or marketing materials, it’s not something that you really notice to stop you in your tracks.  Good use of color just makes the experience better without being intrusive.

On the other hand, we’ve all seen bad use of color on websites and other materials that do stop us in our tracks.  Bad use of color with too many different or conflicting colors for elements such as text, lines, borders, highlights, callouts, etc. is an affront to the visual senses – the website looks too busy and you don’t know where to look for the information you want.  While the designer may have thought it would be eye-catching, it’s more a case of being eye-wrenching and tiring on the eyes.

Color is an important and necessary element of good website design.  But how many colors do you really need?  The risk of using too many colors on a website is much greater than the risk of too few. A good basic rule for selecting colors is to choose one primary color that sets the color theme for the website, a highlight color for emphasis and a text color.  A secondary color to complement the primary color can add a good visual effect if used correctly.

Choosing the right color combinations is a well defined science, not a random selection of someone’s favorite colors.  There are lots of color theory and selection resources available on the Internet.  These are common approaches for choosing a good color scheme:

 
Monochromatic – choose a single color with variations in lightness and saturation. A clean, easy to view approach that sets a subtle color theme for a website.
 

 

 
Analogous – choose a primary color plus emphasis and secondary colors adjacent on either side of the primary color.  The colors are harmonious and look richer than monochromatic.
 

 

 
Complementary – choose two colors opposite each other on the color wheel.  This scheme offers the highest contrast and works well for a primary and highlight color approach.
 

 

 
Triadic – choose 3 colors equally spaced on the color wheel.  This provides a balanced approach with harmonious contrast using 3 colors.
 

 
Color also portrays a perceived meaning such as blue for dependable, red for powerful, gold for expensive, yellow for happy, etc.  These perceived meanings have cultural differences too.  Consider these perceived general and cultural meanings when selecting colors to ensure that the colors selected support the message and meaning you want to communicate.

If you already have a corporate or logo color, consider using that as a starting point for selecting your approach and color scheme.

Are your website and marketing material colors off-putting or welcoming for visitors and readers?
Copyright © 2010 Ingistics LLC and Marketance™ www.marketance.com

We are conducting a survey to research where Web teams report in the organizational structure and whether there are any related meaningful insights for businesses and marketers.

Please take to this survey.  The survey is quick and straightforward – just 4 questions that will take 1 minute for the entire survey.

We will share results and analysis at no charge and no registration requirement on this discussion forum once it is completed.

Thanks for participating in this survey.

A previous article – How to Measure Customer Loyalty for Generating More Sales – recommended asking customers a few additional supporting questions to help analyze where to focus attention for improving customer loyalty and Net Promoter Score (NPS).  I received several follow-up inquiries for suggestions on what type of additional supporting questions to ask.

I’ve completed many surveys with the intention of providing constructive feedback, but after answering the questions, feel that the questions and answer choices didn’t allow me to express my real opinion or provide the intended feedback.  You’ve probably had the same experience.  Most surveys are constructed to get formulaic answers from the perspective of the company, rather than letting customers express opinions from their perspective.

Companies mostly use surveys with multiple choice answers to questions because they are easy to score and analyze.  But a limited choice of predefined answers limits the opinions and feedback customers can provide when responding to a survey.  Questions with open-ended answers are more difficult to score, collate and analyze, but provide significantly better feedback, opinions and insights from the customers surveyed.

Given that background, I would recommend asking customers the following 5 questions:

1. How likely is it that you would recommend [company name] to a friend or colleague?
   This is the question to generate the NPS score as discussed in the previous article.
2. What is one thing you think we do well and should keep doing?
   This question will help you identify what customers really like about doing business with you.  While you may have your own opinions on this, you may be surprised by customers’ opinions on what they consider as your big differentiator and/or unique value proposition.  You obviously want to keep doing these things and ensure continued focus on doing them well.
3. What is one thing we do that you think needs improvement?
   This enables you to get real feedback on areas of your business that need improvement from a customer perspective.  Some of the customer responses may be unexpected, but this is truly valuable insight for improving your business relative to actual customer experiences and insights.
4. What is one thing we do that we should stop doing?
   Businesses hardly ever ask their customers this question.  The problem is that many businesses do things because they think that’s what customers want, or because they’ve always done it, or because someone told them to do it, or it was someone’s cockamamie idea.  This could be something that a company spends resources on but has no or negative value for customers.  Answers to this question provide great insights for improving how you should work with customers.
5. What is one thing we don’t do that we should do?
   There is no one better to ask than your customers – they’ve done business with many other related and unrelated companies and have seen good and bad business practices for how businesses deal with customers.  The feedback from this question can provide invaluable ideas for improving the experience for your customers and/or developing stronger competitive differentiation.

There are three very important points to bear in mind for using questions 2-5 in a survey:

• Only ask for “one thing” in each question.  That makes it easy for customers to respond in an open-ended manner and not ramble on about all sorts of issues without giving you a succinct actionable response.
• Don’t provide prompts or ideas on the type of things they should consider – you don’t want to lead them to any particular responses – keep it completely open-ended and spontaneous.
• You can customize the questions to your business context but keep them short and easy to understand within the four primary areas of feedback indicated by the above questions.  The generic question wording shown above works well for many businesses.

Please share your feedback on using this type of survey format by leaving a comment below.
Copyright © 2010 Ingistics LLC and Marketance™ www.marketance.com

Every business understands the importance of customer loyalty and retention to generate a continuing stream of revenue from existing customers.  It’s always gratifying to see customers returning to buy again, but how do you know whether and how many of your customers are inclined to return?

A major benefit of customer loyalty is referrals from existing customers to other buyers.  Customers who are very satisfied with the product / service / solution from a company are more likely to recommend doing business with that company to colleagues, business associates, friends and family.  Referrals should be a powerful component of every marketing strategy.

Before starting or running any customer loyalty and referral programs, it’s important to measure customer loyalty.  But how does one measure customer loyalty?  Measuring customer loyalty should provide:

• An objective and consistent measurement
• A measurement that is easy to understand and provides a common goal across business areas
• A means to interpret results for improving customer loyalty
• A means to benchmark your performance with your industry and competitors.

Based on previous experience, the Net Promoter Score® (NPS) is a good approach for measuring customer loyalty.  NPS was originally introduced by Fred Reichheld in his 2003 Harvard Business Review article “The One Number You Need to Grow” and his book “The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth”.  It was subsequently developed by Reichheld, Bain & Company, and Satmetrix who hold the registered trade marks for Net Promoter, NPS, and Net Promoter Score.

Determining your Net Promoter Score is relatively straightforward:

• Ask your customers one question – “How likely is it that you would recommend [company name] to a friend or colleague?”
• Customers respond with a 0-10 point rating with 10 being extremely likely to recommend
• You then create 3 categories of customer loyalty based on the scores:
  1. Promoters (score 9-10) are loyal enthusiasts who will keep buying and refer others
  2. Passives (score 7-8) are satisfied but unenthusiastic and will consider competitive offerings
  3. Detractors (score 0-6) are unhappy and/or feel no loyalty to your company.
• The NPS is calculated as the % of Promoters minus the % Detractors.

The logic behind the NPS calculation is that Promoters will keep buying and referring others to fuel your growth while Detractors can damage your reputation and impede growth through negative word-of-mouth.

A NPS of 50% or higher is considered good.  Companies with great customer loyalty have a NPS in the 70-80% range.  However, research shows that most companies are floundering along with NPS in the 5-10% range.

When you do the customer survey, don’t just ask the one NPS question.  Formulate a few additional supporting questions that will help you analyze where to focus your attention for improving your customer loyalty and NPS.  Don’t go overboard and ask too many questions – we all dislike taking surveys with endless questions.

NPS is not perfect and has been subject to some criticism.  However, it is a popular approach favored by many business owners and operators because it provides a straightforward single measure that can be compared with other companies and industry averages.  Just as important – it is one metric in which all functional areas of your business can have a stake and influence.

More details on NPS are available on the Net Promoter website.
Copyright © 2010 Ingistics LLC and Marketance™ www.marketance.com

What does it take to update the content on your website?  Do you have to go through a rigmarole that takes too long and involves technical staff to transform your content into HTML or other code before someone updates the website?  Do you think this is a ridiculous process and that you should be able to directly update your website content without technical assistance?  Absolutely, website content can and should be directly updated by the content owners / providers such as marketers, product managers, business operators, public relations, etc.

Websites used to be developed as static HTML or other code pages where the content was intermingled with the structure, formatting, navigation and other technical aspects.  Any updates to the content would require technical expertise to make the changes and publish the updated website.  Most of us experienced the frustrations, delays and problems with this process.  But that’s history, there is a better way.

Modern websites should be built with a Content Management System (CMS) or more specifically a Web Content Management System (Web CMS).  A Web CMS provides the means to build a dynamic website by separating the content from the other components of a website.  All the website information is stored in a database and the CMS provides content creation, editing, control and website maintenance via a user-oriented web interface.

A Web CMS typically provides the following capabilities:

• A predefined database to store all definitions, content and metadata.
• User management for access and security control for who may create, edit, update, change various areas of the website.
• A presentation layer usually based on templates that define the structure, layout and formatting of the website.
• A navigation layer that defines the menus and navigation of the website.
• Content creation, editing and control via a WYSIWYG interface much like using a regular word processing system.
• Extensions and plug-ins to support capabilities such as RSS Feeds, Polls, Multiple Languages, Calendars, Media, Advertising, eCommerce, etc.
• Most Web CMS provide the necessary capabilities for supporting Search Engine Optimization and Marketing requirements.

And the best part about using Web CMS is that you can get a highly functional, open source system such as Joomla, WordPress, modx, CMS Made Simple and others for free.  This website uses WordPress as its Web CMS – everything on this website is contained and managed in WordPress.

The learning curve to implement an open source Web CMS-based system is quite low with many tutorials and guides available at no or low cost.

How to use this information to benefit your business
If you still have a static website that you can’t dynamically update when and where you want, it’s time to consider moving to a Web CMS for your website:

• Designated end-user content owners / providers can create, edit, control and update the website content when needed without technical assistance or delay.  It’s as simple as the equivalent of a word processing application.
• Multiple people can manage different designated areas of the website.
• The website structure, layout and formatting can be easily updated or changed without impacting the existing content.
• Web CMS provides secure user access control so only authorized persons can update designated areas.
• A Web CMS with available extensions and plug-ins provides expanded capabilities for your website that were previously either unavailable or too costly to consider.
• With Web CMS you can make your website work for your business in the manner you want.  You can keep your website and content fresh and relevant.

Copyright © 2010 Ingistics LLC and Marketance™ www.marketance.com

Your business website on the Internet is the digital equivalent of a physical store.  The impression people get about a business when they walk into a physical store applies equally when people visit your website.  We all like stores that make you feel welcome with a customer friendly layout, clean, inviting, organized, and easy to find what you want.  The same applies to your website – and even more so, because there’s no assistant or manager your website visitors can speak to if they need help.

A business website is the single most important online marketing asset for a company.
Everything you do for your business on the Internet always comes back to your website.  If you have a physical store, your website is an integral part of your business.  Websites have evolved into sophisticated marketing machines that can generate or influence a significant portion of a company’s revenue.

Is your website inviting or annoying for your visitors?
Have you ever tried doing business with yourself online?  Seriously, put yourself in a typical website visitor’s shoes and try to do what you want them to do when they visit your website – find some information, buy something, contact you, etc.  Invite other people not connected with your business to review your website and provide feedback.  Get feedback from customers.  You’ll most likely find some room for improvement.

Does your website attract and captivate visitors?
When someone lands on your homepage or other landing pages for your website, it should be blatantly clear what products/services your business offers and what visitors should do to proceed with taking the next step.  Check your bounce rate of how many people leave your website after viewing just one page.  If the bounce rate percentage is high, you are either attracting the wrong visitors or your website isn’t capturing their attention.

Or does it annoy visitors and send them to your competition?
We’ve all experienced it – you find a website that probably has what you’re looking for.  But it’s difficult to find what you want because the website may have a strange layout, or it uses design elements that are either distracting or just plain irritating.  The website is so difficult or annoying to use and find what you want, that you click away and look for another source.  Remember that people on the Internet visit many websites – if your website design is very different from what they’re used to using and seeing, they’ll go elsewhere.

Do your Internet marketing activities die when prospects or buyers visit your website?
The first major objective of Internet marketing is to attract the right type of visitors to your website using Search Engine Marketing, local search, advertising and other methods.  Once visitors arrive at your website, the next major objective of Internet marketing is to get them to take whatever action you want from your visitors.  This is referred to as conversion – indicating that a visitor has successfully completed an objective of the website or business.  Low conversion rates indicate that most of the Internet marketing activity dies when target people visit a website – why is this happening?

The power of Internet Marketing is available to all businesses, but there are many common website blunders that can damage your Internet presence by annoying your visitors and driving them away.

Get more specific details about these website problems and how to avoid and fix them on your website in our free eBook – 25 Common Website Blunders that Damage Your Internet Presence – no registration required to download, just click the link and the PDF eBook will open in a new browser window.

Check out this eBook today – hopefully you don’t have any of these problems on your business website, but if you do, it’s time to fix it before you drive more potential buyers away and undermine your Internet marketing initiatives.
Copyright © 2009 Ingistics LLC and Marketance™ www.marketance.com

The suggestion box has been around forever.  Many companies used to have a physical box with available comment cards placed in lobbies, employee lunchrooms, factory floors and other areas to encourage employees, customers and visitors to submit suggestions and ideas.  While the physical suggestion box is becoming extinct, there are many online options that make it easier and more effective to solicit, discuss and share suggestions.

Suggestions from employees, customers and prospective buyers are still a powerful way to get ideas for improving business processes and new or improved products/service/solutions.

Here are some examples of customer suggestion approaches other companies are using:

• Starbucks has the My Starbucks Idea to get suggestions from customers and employees.  There’s a link on the Starbucks home page to the suggestion site which is separate from the main website.
• Best Buy has IdeaX for customers to share, vote on, and discuss ideas.  There’s a link on the Best Buy home page to the IdeaX site which is separate from the main website.
• Dell has Ideastorm for submitting ideas, suggestions and feedback.  Although it is not intended to be a support forum, some of the posts deal with regular product issues.

Trying to find good examples of customer suggestion boxes was an interesting exercise.  The first thing that struck me was how many major companies had no suggestion box capabilities.  Most companies have online contact forms which may be okay for small companies with a small customer base, but it’s not an alternative for an online suggestion box.

Some companies use support forums for submitting suggestions, but the suggestions seem to get lost amongst the volume of support issues.  If you’re serious about listening to your customer suggestions, provide a specific and appropriate forum.

Some companies have an online suggestion submission process with usage legalize and other obstacles you have to accept and click through and accept before being able to submit your suggestion.  Seems these companies think they’re doing you a favor by allowing you to send them suggestions.  Why bother trying to help them.

Most companies require some type of registration before you can post suggestions – some more intrusive than others.  I think simply providing a name and email address as part of the suggestion submission process should be sufficient rather than discouraging input with a requirement to first register, create an account or join a community.

Some online suggestion boxes mix employee and customer suggestions.  Employees may have different issues about internal processes, non-public information, future projects and other internal information that you don’t want customers to know about.  Consider having a separate online suggestion box for employees that only employees can access, from the publicly accessible online suggestion box for customers and prospective buyers.

How to use this information to benefit your business

• An online suggestion box can be an excellent source of ideas for your business.  Only consider having one if you have the processes to do something with the input.
• It will require someone assigned to administer it – either part-time of full-time depending on the volume of activity.  Make sure you have the resources to make a commitment to doing it.
• Customers are doing you a favor by offering suggestions.  A courteous acknowledgment for the suggestion and any subsequent feedback should be provided.
• Consider offering a reward to encourage suggestions.  Maybe a monthly drawing for a gift or discount voucher.  Maybe a more substantial reward for really good suggestions that produce significant value for your business.
• There are many software and service solutions available to implement an online suggestion box – just search for “online suggestion box software” in your favorite search engine.  There are many options available to suit any budget including no cost solutions.

Copyright © 2009 Ingistics LLC and Marketance™ www.marketance.com

Many retailers have indicated that they plan to promote and sell their merchandise via social media sites this holiday season.  Most people don’t join or participate in social media networking so that someone can sell something to them.  People join social media networking sites to socialize, connect with friends or business associates, discuss topics of common interest, share experiences, and be part of a community they choose to be associated with.

Most people are online to learn, do research, get information, have fun, be entertained, pass time, socialize, express themselves or advocate for a cause or interest.  People only go online 31% of the time with the intent to shop according to a survey by Ruder Finn.  See the Capitalizing on why people are online article for more details on how and why people spend time online.

It will be interesting to see how various retailers approach prospective buyers on social media sites to sell their wares this holiday season.

Social media is not an Outbound Marketing Channel.
Retailers typically use outbound marketing channels such as TV commercials, print advertising, radio, direct mail, email blasts, etc. to reach prospective buyers.  It’s the traditional push style of marketing that uses intrusion and interruption tactics to broadcast messages to the masses to attract the attention of those who may have a need for what they’re selling.  Retailers who plan to use outbound marketing methods for social media will get disappointing results and annoy or possibly alienate prospective buyers.

Social Media is an Inbound Marketing Channel.
Inbound marketing is a pull style of marketing focused on providing information and resources to help prospective buyers find what they need and help them make a good decision when they’re ready buy.  Typical inbound marketing channels are websites, search engines, blogs, social media sites, videos, etc. Inbound marketing is about creating a presence and positioning for a business/product/service/solution for buyers to find what they need.

Social media should not be viewed as another way to sell stuff – people on social networking sites don’t want to be sold to.  Social media should be viewed from a buyer’s perspective – people on social networking sites may appreciate availability of information and resources to help them find and decide what they need to buy.

How to use this information to benefit your business

• If you plan to use social media sites to promote sales of your product/service/solution, don’t do it by just reusing existing outbound advertising materials in this channel.
• Target relevant social media communities.  For example, Facebook provides many ways to analyze and subset a relevant target audience, Twitter followers are self-selected based on interest, and blog readers are self-selected based on the blog area of focus.
• Provide information and resources in the buyer’s context.  Don’t overtly sell something, rather think about how you can help buyers find what they need and make an informed buying decision.
• Since you are able to target specific audiences with social media marketing, consider tailoring your information and communications to each targeted group.  Speak to the issues and concerns of the specific audiences you are targeting.
• Track activity and analyze metrics to determine how to tune and improve response and conversion rates.

Copyright © 2009 Ingistics LLC and Marketance™ www.marketance.com

The 2009 Top Online Retailers research study by Silverpop, indicates that online retailers are increasing email marketing activity to attract customers. Besides increasing frequency of emails, online retailers are using several tactics to improve and expand their email marketing campaigns:

• 96% of the Top 500 and 91% of the other online retailers now have email marketing programs compared to 94% and 83% respectively in 2008.
• 96% of the Top 500 and 92% of the other online retailers have the email opt-in sign-up area prominently displayed on the home page of their website.
• Many online retailers offer a reward such as discount coupons or entry in a drawing for a large prize, for joining the email list.
• Fewer companies (28% of Top 500, 14% of others) offer opt-in choices for subscribers compared to 2008 (56% and 26% respectively). This is surprising since most research indicates that customers prefer opt-in subscriptions options and may be less likely to completely unsubscribe if they can adjust their subscription options.
• 27% of the Top 500 and 37% of the other online retailers send 1 to 4 emails, and 27% and 21% respectively send 5 to 10 emails in a 30 day period. Too many emails is the second most frequent reason after relevance for unsubscribing.
• Surprisingly only 4% of the Top 500 have personalized subject lines. Various studies show that personalized emails do increase open rates.
• An increasing number of online retailers offer more compelling reasons to buy such as discounts or sale pricing in their email campaigns.
• 72% of online retailers still offer no preference options or alternatives when subscribers click to unsubscribe.

Email marketing is a highly effective and low-cost means to reach consumers. For many retailers email marketing is generating as much revenue as traditional marketing channels such as catalogs, postcards, newspaper inserts, etc. However, many retailers are using email in the same manner they use traditional marketing channels and not taking the opportunity to engage with customers online.

How to use this information to benefit your business

• If your business does online retail, this study offers some interesting insights for reviewing your approach relative to what leaders are doing.
• Although online retailers have made significant gains and improvements in the past year, there is still much more to gain and improve in email marketing for many businesses.
• Remember that consumers are in control – design your email marketing programs to align with your prospective buyer preferences.
• More frequent email is usually not the answer to improve performance – look at subscriber opt-in options, personalized emails and other means to be more effective and less intrusive.
• Watch the unsubscribing trends after every email mailing to identify possible areas for improving subscriber retention.
• Explore ways to engage with buyers and customers online using social media tools in conjunction with email marketing.

Copyright © 2009 Ingistics LLC and Marketance™ www.marketance.com

The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on October 5, 2009 published new Guidelines Concerning The Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, which will become effective December 1, 2009. The new Guidelines reference is 16 C.F.R. part 255 and available for download on the FTC website.

This action by the FTC was prompted by consumer complaints about the lack of disclosure related to websites, blogs and other social media content that pose as product/service reviews and ratings, but are actually paid endorsements. Consumers have no way of knowing whether bloggers or social media authors received endorsement or corporate payments for writing about various products or services such as nutritional supplements, exercise equipment, diet programs, financial services, Internet service providers, etc.

Although the rules in the new Guidelines aren’t really new, what is new is that the same truth in advertising rules that previously applied to TV, magazines and other advertising media, now equally applies to social media sources and consumer generated content. This means that bloggers and other social media content generators must adhere to the same professional standards as other businesses regulated by the FTC regarding endorsements or reviews for which they receive any exchange of value or quid pro quo consideration.

What this means is anyone who receives any type of exchange of value, including free products or services, whether solicited or not, must disclose the endorsement and/or material connections as part of the blog, article or content. This applies regardless of whether the endorsement is negative of positive. If you are receiving any consideration in any form for writing a product/service endorsement or review, you must disclose it in the endorsement or review.

Another aspect is that you must be a bona fide user of the product/service to review or endorse it. Being paid to write a review about a book you didn’t read or a product you’ve never used is considered deceptive and not allowed. However, you can still write a review for a product you own and don’t need to make a disclosure as long as there no exchange of value or endorsement for doing so.

Violators of these new disclosure Guidelines face penalties of up to $11,000 per violation.

How to use this information to benefit your business

• If you or your business receives any exchange of value, whether monetary or otherwise, for endorsing or reviewing a product or service on a website, blog or other social media property, you must provide disclosure of such consideration according to these new Guidelines.
• If these new Guidelines apply to you in any manner, thoroughly review the Guidelines for applicability to your situation and seek legal and/or professional assistance if needed.
• These new Guidelines are effective December 1, 2009 – ensure that you have revised policies and procedures in place to be in compliance.

Disclaimer: This article is just my brief interpretation and communication to make you aware of the FTC 16 C.F.R. part 255 Guidelines (81 page document) and should not be construed as legal or other guidance on dealing with these new Guidelines. The Guidelines are published on the FTC website and should be thoroughly reviewed to determine applicability for your or your business social media and/or blog activity. Please seek legal and/or professional assistance if you have any questions or concerns about these Guidelines.
Copyright © 2009 Ingistics LLC and Marketance™ www.marketance.com