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.

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.

I personally have been forced to spend quite a bit more time within this particular analytics tool and to be honest, most of the time I narrowly focus on the bare essentials I need to complete the task. I realize, however, that there is a hidden treasure trove of data for me to uncover. I just can’t seem to find my way through the labyrinth of choices and meanings and links to helpful tips. Never mind that when I finally do get to the meaning of one particular report, when I try and replicate it for another client the meanings and associations might be completely different. I understand that personalization and customization is essential to businesses. But what is an agency to do when there’s no place to turn for help?

Years ago, when I first started managing accounts, I would try to think like a client in order to traverse a particularly twisted and question-riddled road. More often than not, though, the person responsible for the system setup was unavailable or even unsure themselves of how the underlying structure had been built. Or even better, the setup had been put in place 3 years ago and no one can remember where that guy went, but he’s long gone. Being forced into proactivity, I would reach out to the respective Analytics Company’s reps for help.

I’m not pointing fingers, but let’s just say that if my friendly neighborhood analytics provider was a 1-800 suicide prevention hotline, I’d be a long-gone and mourned-for angst-y teen with too much eyeliner.

It’s tantamount to just learning to read and being locked outside the library door. I want to read and be better at it, but I need someone to help me get in first. Maybe even walk me over to the card catalogue. After I have a few proverbial books under my belt, I’ll probably settle in for a nice long stretch. Maybe dig into Beverly Cleary’s oeuvre and then move on to the unpleasant surprises of Judy Blume. Eventually, though, I’ll have to get to the proverbial Dostoevsky, at which point I’ll need some help from an Analytics “professor.” Hopefully there’s one around who has actually read the relevant book.

So, what’s the point of my rant? My clients are paying top dollar for mounds of data, and that data might as well be John Nash’s mad scribbling on the wall. And, as a customer service focused agency, I just have to ask the Omnitures of the world – What’s the point of all this data if there is no filtering, no context and… well… no human being to walk a marketer through it?

This is cause for concern. As the nation’s needs soar and charitable donations plunge, how do nonprofits draw more attention to their needs during this “quiet crisis?” I know that nonprofits’ organizational health is directly correlated to the health of the economy and decreased unemployment, and I also know that what I’m about to propose will likely be a drop in the empty pool of aid these organizations desperately need. Nevertheless, I see some unique opportunities with social marketing for nonprofits to capitalize on. If the nonprofits can appeal to users’ desire for personal uniqueness online and learn from retailers, they can find new ways to reach volunteers and contributors through sources like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter.

Take, for example, Facebook’s Causes and Fan pages as a way to get started:

1. Clarify your voice and your positions: The way you present your organization in social media needs to reflect your brand identity, but also the contributors and volunteers you are trying to attract. You have a brief opportunity at the top of your page to clearly (and stridently) proclaim your positions. Don’t muddy the waters with too much information. Narrow down your major position to 3-4 points, and then use the “description” field to elaborate more. Here is an example from the Stop Human Trafficking organization.
2. Utilize Facebook’s Causes page to the fullest extent: In the Causes template, you can customize your look and feel, share announcements with your members and enable a donations feature on the site. Many nonprofits also set up a fan page to make it easy for members to “become fans” and share this information with friends. Keep in mind, however, thta users can’t make donations from a fan page.
3. Create customization and friendly competition: Social media users typically like to share their causes and concerns with their group of online friends. Make that as simple as possible by using the welcome message when a new member joins to ask them to invite friends to join, share with them dollar-matching programs you have set up or even offer “flair” buttons for your members to place on their personal page. Also, utilize the Hall of Fame function to highlight your top recruiters, donors and fundraisers in the Facebook sphere. This recognition in a social forum goes a long way.
4. Encourage users to download the Causes Bar: By installing the Causes bar, every search a user makes donates a penny to the cause of their choice – including yours. This is currently available for the Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers.
5. Update often: Utilize the media board and announcement board functions to post not just your own organization’s news but also news that your members may be interested in. Each of these updates displays to your members and the “share” button allows your members to exponentially increase the visibility of your posts – viral marketing at its best. You can also upload petitions and pledge drive information to keep your page fresh.
6. Most importantly, continually integrate your channels: At the simplest level, this means placing the Facebook “Join” button on your website. You can also do more:

• Tag your PSA spots with a mention to join your cause online at Facebook/Twitter/etc.
• As long as you are taking donations in both places, update your search copy to mention your Facebook page.
• The UN Refugee Agency is using display ads on Facebook to drive people to join their cause and then utilizing their cause page to encourage cell phone text-to-donate.
• The Nature Conservancy and their sponsor Audi have found multiple ways to continually integrate, including an Audi program that matched dollar-for-member the first 25,000 members of the Facebook cause.

Will Facebook, Twitter or YouTube be the change the nonprofits wish to see in the world? Probably not on their own, but if for-profit marketers are learning during lean times, so can their non-profit counterparts. Now is the time to put the fear of change and the comfort of the old ways aside and test new media methods. For non-profit organizations, now is also the time to let your passionate volunteers, contributors and fans spread the word, attach your cause to their online identity and, most importantly, raise awareness and even funds on your behalf.

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?

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.

Whether he approves of it or not, I think Paolo Nutini’s “New Shoes” (the song from which I stole the title of this article), should be retail’s theme song right now. For the past 9 months, we have had nothing but bad news, predictions of unmitigated doom and gloom about the end of retail as we know it (I even wrote a little rant about it here). True, times have not been good, but we are beginning to see a few shoots of green (as Chairman of the Fed Ben Bernanke likes to say) in the retail market – and no matter how small, I think they are worth celebrating.

Looking at retail results as a whole, the numbers are still down. In May, retail sales dropped about 4% (excluding Wal-Mart who has stopped giving monthly data – but has the ability to greatly shift the actual percentage). Of the top 30 retailers included, 22 showed more year-over-year drops. The last time we saw retail sales grow was in August. For some retailers, May marks 12+ months of consecutive losses. Abercrombie is down for 13 months in a row, Nordstrom for 12 months and Saks for 11 months. Sigh.
Luckily, there are a few rays of sunshine piercing the darkness.

For example:

• Gap is showing its best month in the last year and a half (I like to think it is because Range handles search for the GAP brands, but I digress)
• In the teen market, Aeropostale and Buckle are showing growth north of 10%
• Consumer confidence levels are overall on the rise

While the trend is clear that the retailers that are doing well are doing so on an economical side, remember there was a time not too long ago when even the discounters were losing ground (Ross was down September, October, November and January, but posted a 4% gain in May).

We are nowhere near being out of the woods just yet, but I am beginning to think of it this way: if we all just did what Paolo Nutini said, we would be in the clear… “put some new shoes on and suddenly everything is right.”

The following data points help show how social media can augment email and how email can help build your social file.

• Use a call to action in your email to build your social file.
  • Visit us on Facebook – become a fan.
  • Follow us on Twitter

  Doing this can help build your fan base/reputation allowing you to influence your customers using a medium that is cost-effective. This will help boost brand awareness/morale, influencing customers to purchase at a time they aren’t necessarily looking to buy.

• Cross Pollinate to build your email file.
  • Leverage social media through sweepstakes and promotional offers.

  This is a great way to build your subscriber base, further increasing your new-to-file rates. Not only is this a low-cost way to acquire more names, but also helps build brand recognition.

• Align your messaging
  • Social media provides additional channels for communication.

  Use facebook/twitter to distribute your message (announce sales, in store events). This enables your fans/followers to respond and dialogue with your brand. You may receive additional feedback on products/offers that resonate well with your audience, helping to mold your promotional calendar, or product scope.

• Social media is a bridge for cross channel communication.
  • Email has always been extremely segmented.

  Through incorporating a social media component, you reach your fans and your brand/message goes viral…ultimately bridging the email segmentation gap.

In other words, while the two can exist separately, you’re much better off when they team up—it’s easy to cut through inbox clutter when you have a unified message across multiple channels, because people pay more attention.