Sure, I’m on Facebook every day. Whether I am checking to see if an old friend’s baby was born yet, telling everyone I know about the most brilliant/creative thing (in all of history!) that my toddler just did, or looking for my free bagel coupon from Einstein Bros., my day is not quite complete without a quick glance at Facebook on my iPhone, or on the good ol’ trusty computer. Almost every mother I know would say the same. Or would they?

Click here to read her full article in iMedia Connection.

Honestly, I was a little negative about the idea of ratings extensions when they first started being syndicated. How will we manage the bad feedback? Will the swamp of reviews associated to aggregators ruin small-to-mid level advertisers’ chances to benefit from this extension?

Click here to read his full article on Search Engine Watch.

1. “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.” – Monitor your competition. What are they doing? Capitalize on their mistakes, and learn from their successes and failures. Find out how they position themselves. Can you meet their service levels or even offer something better?

2. “Round up the usual suspects.” – While odd problems do crop up, check the typical offenders, first. A decline in organic traffic? Ensure your content is fresh and visible to search engines. No activity through your PPC campaigns? Check your budget caps. Analytics package showing strange results? Make sure everything is tagged properly.

3. “My momma always said, life was like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.” – Just because our audience behaved a certain way last month doesn’t mean they’re still doing the same thing today. From creative tests, to landing page tests, to conversion optimization, as effective performance marketers, we must evolve. Compare the performance of “Sale on Widgets” to “Widgets on Sale.” Don’t assume you know the answer. Test, test, and test some more. Along those lines …

4. “You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.” – Being able to draw accurate and actionable conclusions takes time. If you’re trying a landing page conversion test, don’t assume that Page A is better based on one day (or week, or month) of data. Be sure you have statistically relevant results before making sweeping decisions.

5. “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” – or a bigger budget, or a better tool. Time and again, I’ve seen companies invest in a solution, program, or product, and stubbornly refuse to switch courses even in the face of compelling reasons to adjust their initial plans.

6. “You can’t handle the truth.” – As you test, be prepared to get surprised. Who knew that ad copy with text speak (like ‘LOL’ or ‘OMG’) could convert? Texting-happy teenagers!

7. “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.” – Use demographics of existing customers to find new ones in creative places. Does a 43-year old woman fall within your target market? Perhaps you should consider advertising within or alongside a social game, specifically tailoring your creative message to speak to her. Even better, can you include an incentive to purchase, such as a FarmVille or Mafia Wars gift card?

8. “Elementary, my dear Watson.” – Progress is crucial; however, we must also keep a keen eye on the basic principles of marketing. Who is our customer? There may be a spiffy new pilot program but does it reach our target audience? What does our customer want? If they’re shopping for widgets but all of our materials try to drive them to sprockets, prospective shoppers are going to take their dollars elsewhere.

9. “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.” – Communication is vital in any relationship, including the one we have with our customers. From a consistent branding message, to clearly delineating our latest offering, we must communicate. When an ad says “Free Shipping” but in reality it’s free shipping only at a certain price point, consumers are justifiably disgruntled.

10. “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” – There are so many great resources out there; bloggers sharing their experiences with testing in PPC campaigns, emerging social marketing techniques, and how algorithm changes impact search engine optimization. It impresses me, because they’re putting information out there for all of us to use – even competitors!

Did you recognize all the movie quotes? Bonus points if you did! Now I’m curious — Did your favorite movie teach you anything about search engine marketing? I’m off to see if I can structure a test to prove the worth of showing a movie every afternoon in the conference room. Don’t worry; “I’ll be back.“

Key findings include:
- The affluent purchase path is showing definitive signs of shortening, with 88 percent of total purchases occurring within three clicks in 2010. This reflects a 17 percent increase in “short-term” conversions versus 2009.

- Affluent shoppers continued searching online for luxury products throughout the economic downturn, but are displaying significantly increased interest in luxury brands versus a year ago. Customers seeking luxury products more fervently was evidenced with an increase of 20 million search impressions for the brands studied. (Nov. 2009-April 2010 versus Nov. 2008-April 2009)

- Customers are spending more per transaction on luxury goods than a year ago. The most recent holiday season showed average order values growing about $20 per order, or six percent. (Nov.-Dec. 2008 over Nov.-Dec. 2009) And the total number of orders for the 2009 holiday season increased almost 25 percent, with revenue for luxury retailers’ sites increasing 32 percent during this timeframe.

The whitepaper also detailed key findings for specific luxury verticals, including fashion, multi-category and beauty, as well as providing luxury retailers with the “New Rules for Luxury Retailers” in the form of key strategies to employ in 2011 and 2012.

“During the economic downturn, many industry ‘experts’ declared that luxury shoppers would never again be willing to by fully priced luxury goods or that ‘luxury was dead.’ Well, we are happy to report that neither of those predictions proved accurate,” said Vic Drabicky, Director of International and Vertical Market Development for Range Online Media. “While the economic recovery is not even close to complete, this research signals that affluent and aspirational consumers are already shifting their behavior in favor of the luxury brands they’ve coveted during the downturn. They are seeking and purchasing more luxury goods, and in a shorter timeframe from first click to purchase than they were during the height of the economic downturn.”

The study analyzed data from 424 luxury retail brands marketed within the company’s client base. Included in the analysis were the metrics of impressions, clicks, click through rate, CPC, cost, revenue, orders, conversion rates and average order value for November 2008 through April 2010. The Luxe Groupe also examined key economic indicators, such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average, in conjunction with this luxury client data. The client names and data specific to individual brands were not released due to proprietary and contractual limitations.

Please download the entire whitepaper, and read our findings about economic indicators for the luxury retail marketplace.

In the world of online, luxury brands often get a reputation as late adopters. Here goes the stereotype: They were cautious to launch ecommerce websites. Then, they were cautious to market them and let everyone know the site exists. However, with every stereotype, there are exceptions.

What intrigues me most about luxury brands is how brands have longevity at such an elite status. Most brands have been around for several decades if not longer. They have evolved with changes in media and survived tough economic times. All of this tells me that they must be doing something right.

How these brands approach their brand equity and image is applicable on many levels….which brings me to my personal variation on Robert Fulghum’s All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten:

All I Really Need to Know I Learned Marketing Luxury:

1. Be True to Yourself. Luxury marketers are the best at staying true to their brand. They are very cautious in their marketing strategy to ensure brand image.
2. Respect Your Friends. Luxury buyers are loyal. As brands are expanding into new channels, they are very conscientious of their customer base. They respect their friends (read: customers) by developing “insider” groups and lists to keep the most loyal “in the know.”
3. It’s About Who You Know. We’ve all heard this one before, and it’s no different with prestigious brands that revel when a celebrity name-drops their brand. They take the buzz and make it work for them in their marketing strategies.
4. “Don’t Be Evil” says Google. Luxury brands fight evil everyday by policing their brands to maintain their quality online through trademark infringements and gray marketers.
5. Enjoy Quality, Not Quantity. Marketing strategies for prestigious brands involve quality placements for quality products.
6. Balance Is Key. Luxury brands continue to implement strategy that includes a cross- channel, diverse media mix. They understand the need to reach consumers at all steps of the buying process.

Luxury retailers are hesitant to get involved in the social space because it is a platform for 2-way communication with consumers—the type of marketing luxury brands typically shy away from. Social media is a playground for spreading unfiltered and opinionated information by uneducated consumers across the web, and this lack of control is the top turn-off for luxury marketers. And really, can you blame them? Luxury retailers are hyper-protective of their brands, almost to the point of remaining distant from average consumers, towering over regular joes via lofty billboards and high-society events. You might think this is elitist, but elitism is part of why they’re luxury brands. However, a few high-end retailers are participating in social media and initiating a conversation with consumers using social media sites. For example, in May 2009 Louis Vuitton released a limited edition bag available exclusively to their Twitter followers. Hooray for incremental sales, but more importantly, this gave a new platform for Louis Vuitton to engage in the conversation with consumers.

Another reason luxury retailers are not participating in the social space is because of the myth that the luxury demographic does not spend time on social sites. A recent study by eMarketer says that affluent internet users will grow from 43.7MM in 2006 to 57.1MM in 2011, while in February, Facebook identified its fastest-growing segment as women over 55, up 175% since November 2008. Luxury customers are online and participating in social media, but there is another crucial demographic influencing and participating in social media: future luxury customers. 52% of Facebook users are between the ages of 18 – 25 years old, and they will determine the future of luxury brands within the next 30 years. Luxury retailers should be communicating with the next generation, those who aspire to luxury brands as soon as they can afford them, say when they’ve graduated college and landed there first real job. And when the money does come, consumers will purchase from the brands they have built a relationship with since their teens and early twenties.

Lastly, if luxury brands do not participate in social media it likely means there is an uncontrolled brand presence being directed through unofficial groups, posts and images. Luxury brands are supposed to have all the characteristics that mass market retailers do not: customer service, unrivaled quality and an exclusive price point. If luxury brands’ products, employees and reputations are solid shouldn’t it be trumpeted from Facebook’s News Feed?

• Keyword: (random 7-term keyword)
• Impressions: 1
• Clicks: 1
• Cost: $.25
• Conversions: 1
• Revenue: $1,256.37
• ROI: Hahahahahaha

It may be the only impression that particular keyword gets for the next 6 months. But if you can create a campaign that reaches out effectively enough to reach customers looking for very specific things, these one-click wonders can easily leverage investment in wider ranges of nonbrand keywords – i.e. make you look super smart.

With a solid SEO program and smart keyword selection, you can accomplish the same thing – only exponentially larger, given the volume of clicks that natural results drive versus paid ones. All it takes is a readable site and the time, patience and courage to see it through (though having an award-winning SEO department at your back can really help), via opportunities like:

• Taking your meta data beyond single-word targets based on what you’ve named your categories or products
• Taking your product names and descriptions beyond what your branding team or manufacturers provide you
• Taking your internal linking beyond a three-clicks-to-a-product mentality and finding ways to get engines from your most authoritative pages to your most valuable content faster

Combining these efforts will open up your site to the ability to rank for a much wider range of keywords, in much the same way that a six-digit keyword buildout can, with much the same effect – only without those pesky click costs!

My personal feeling is that it has lost shelf space to things like ‘social marketing,’ which are not nearly as immediate and are much more expensive. So how do we approach local search?

1. Get a comprehensive feed for your brand listing all properties that includes the following information:
   • Physical Address
   • Phone Number
   • Official Property Name
   • Property Page URL
   • Property ID
   • Amenities (if available)
   • Rate Per Night (if available)
2. Submit to your feed to the engines at least once a week, and definitely submit it immediately if there are major changes in the property list. Also be sure to contact your engine rep to see if there is any way they can help accelerate changes and fixes.
3. Utilize a third party aggregator to disseminate your feed throughout other web properties. There are hundreds of outlets for local listings to be shown aside from just the big 3 search engines. There are companies out there who will submit your feed in any and all formats those outlets require for a nominal fee and even report back on traffic and other metrics. Well worth the investment.
4. Monitor on an ongoing monthly basis.

Now all of the above sounds complex, but it’s really not. The result? A much more comprehensive approach to local search that doesn’t break the bank and allows for much greater coverage across many smaller local outlets.

This tells me that luxury retailers/brands should cater their major initiatives to ‘refinement of living, indulgence, enjoyments of comforts and pleasures’. As such, shouldn’t the online experience be as comforting and pleasurable as the product itself? Doesn’t it make sense that a buying a luxury brand’s product should be easier and more enjoyable than a buying a discount product from a mass retailer or discounter? So why is it so difficult to even find the luxury official website? Most of the time, I never see an ad where I frequent online and I rarely see search listings (paid or natural) when searching for products (or sometimes even the trademark name) in the search engines. And when I finally find the site, I still have to navigate through flash, wait for video to load, experience a confusing site search and endure a clunky process just to order something. That is not a luxurious experience; it’s a trip to the DMV.

Luxury retailers are highly protective of their brand. Why not treat their customers with similar diligence and care? If your luxury brand’s purchase process has more in common with a trip to municipal court than Monaco, you might want to try the following:

• If you’re going to have beautiful images through flash/video ads to remind me of the brand and show me the beautiful new products, have them where I spend time online. Better yet, make them clickable right to the product I want to buy, or at least interactive so I can hover /explore, then go to the site when I’m ready to purchase.
  • STRATEGY: Have a strong presence on major networks. Use re-targeting and behavioral targeting to reach your customers/potential customers. Creative test/use multiple messages to ensure your audience is getting the ad units they like best.

• You’re present in the engines, so be there like you mean it. When I’m looking for a product like yours, make it easy on me to find you. When I’m looking for you by searching for your brand name…be there. Every time.
  • STRATEGY: Have a strong presence, both from a brand and non-brand presence, both from a paid listing and natural/organic standpoint. Make the creative and meta-description clear by telling me who you are and why your brand is special.

• When I finally end up on your site, make it easy on me to purchase. Let me see the beautiful, large images of the products I am interested in, show me descriptive words to describe the product, and when I’m ready to buy, let me be able to do that quickly and painlessly. Better yet, thank me for doing so and make me want to come back again and again.
  • STRATEGY: Use large multiple images. Use descriptive and detailed copy. Remember me if I’ve registered with your site before so I don’t have to re-enter all my personal information. Test! Use conversion optimization tools to target and refine the most customer friendly purchase paths and website organization.

I think it’s very fair to say that most luxury retailers and luxury brands do a tremendous job of making beautiful and luxurious products. It’s the basis in which all their efforts are based. Catalogs and image ads are gorgeous and classy, and so is the typical in-store experience. So why is it that luxury retailers are usually the last to make the online experience as luxurious and comforting as possible? Why is it the mass discounters and retailers of the world are the ones that make the online shopping experience comfortable and convenient? Online works amazingly well for most advertisers, and it’s trackable. That’s no secret. Focus on making that entire online channel as luxurious and comforting as that handbag or skin cream your customer loves you for, and you’ll have me coming back again and again. Or at least on payday.

One of the most significant factors for determining online behavior is age. Chances are a business’ products won’t provide the same service for a grandmother as they will her grandchild. As such, age stratification is a practical tool to use for finding your audience. Focusing on a consumer’s age when choosing social networks on which to place ads and shopping engines to offer your products is a vital tactic for growing your business.

Believe it or not, young, online consumers are bargain hunters. Although teens and young adults want to have exactly what their friends have, they are also (generally) aware of the depth of their providers’ wallets. Increasing visibility of Comparison Shopping Engines (CSEs) has led to an increase in online research before a product is purchased. A recent study performed by Platform-A and Information Resources, Inc. found that 51% of 18 to 24-year-old shoppers indicated they would be very likely to use coupons presented to them online.

The go-to phrase of businesses recently, “in these economic times”, remains a valid reason for a marketers to increase their presence on CSEs and offer more bargains when pursuing a younger demographic. High school graduates and college students returning to school are under pressure from their parents to find better deals. Whether it be PCs, digital cameras or back-to-school clothes, the term “budget” is creeping its way in to the vocabulary of these young people.

Where do you go from here? Obviously no one sells every product a young person wants or needs, but for those that do, paying attention to the economy’s effect on Generation Y has its benefits.