Leverage lifecycle Ecommerce marketing to build a consistent and engaging customer experience to be a true winner in the eCommerce gold rush. Businesses whom fail to provide a great customer experience while listening and engaging with their customers will never develop passionate, vocal and lifelong customers. Consumers are attracted to and passionate about brands that they love and enjoy. Take note of these three lifecycle marketing tactics to ensure your eCommerce efforts are growing passionate customers.

1. Focus on the entire customer experience

The first touch a customer may have with your store may not even be your website. Maybe someone tweeted that they bought something from your store and a potential customer went to your twitter page to check you out. Or maybe someone posted a picture of what they bought from you on Facebook and then your potential customer went to your Facebook Page to check you out. It is important to be aware of and optimize for the entire customer experience. Below are examples of common touch points to optimize for:

• Social Media pages


• Website Homepage


• Website Social pages


• Product Pages


• About Pages / Terms and Conditions


• Shopping Cart


• Purchase Page


• Online Receipt


• Confirmation of Purchase Page


• Follow Up email for purchase


• Packaging of products


• Printed Receipt included in package


• Marketing collateral in package


• Follow up email after confirmation of delivery

There are other touch-points that will vary per business. Make sure you spend the time to map out the entire process and optimize a great customer experience all the way through. Watch this webinar on Consistent eCommerce Branding for Increased Customer Loyalty to learn from the customer experience experts over at Moosejaw.

2. Invest time and resources into connecting with customers on social media

It should be no surprise to you that your customers are online and on social networks. The explosion of social media over the past several years has been well documented, most recently by Michael Stelzner of Social Media Examiner with the 2011 Social Media Marketing Report. It is not enough to just have an account on Twitter and Facebook to be successful. You have to be engaged, active and actually care about the customers and prospects you communicate with. Don't look at your twitter followers or facebook fans as simple numbers. Treat these people as if they were actual shoppers in your store or excited customers visiting your shop in a large marketplace.

The best examples of successful social media channels generally have a dedicated resource or team of resources with essential tools to operate them properly. Ensure that your company has either a single dedicated resource (eg. Social Media Manager), an agency to help you get started or tools to help your existing teams better utilize social media (eg. HubSpot, SEOmoz, Raven Tools). The investment in positive customer and prospect social media experience will have a long lasting effect on your business.

3. Reward regular and passionate customers

Regular customers are those that have purchased at least once and returned to buy again. Passionate customers are advocates of your products and brand and will spread your praise to their networks through social media and word of mouth advertising. Social and word of mouth advertising should be one of your primary goals as a marketer. Passionate customers that turn vocal in praise is the absolute best (and cheapest) form of marketing imaginable. These customers should be very valuable to you, so reward them! Here are some ideas of how to reward and encourage passionate customers:

1. Loyalty program


2. Reward points program


3. Feature customers in social media


4. Fun contests


5. Free stuff!

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Do you want to know why longtail keywords are better for eCommerce? It’s all about getting pertinent results through descriptive search results.  Google's main goal is to show the most relevant searches the most often.  The use of descriptive longtail keywords will help you rank higher and more often on Google.   Think about it, when you want to get information about something, anything really, what do you do? If you have a Smartphone, or a computer, you’d more than likely use a search engine to find your answer.

The same strategy applies to prospective customers who are looking to get their hands on the next cool gadget. They kind of know what they’re looking for, but they still know how important it is to go through a search engine in order to find exactly what they want at the best price possible. This common strategy of ecommerce link building is precisely why longtail keywords work.

Whether you are an old pro to ecommerce, or a neophyte, you are probably aware that there’s a massive amount of ecommerce sites out there, and that within each site there is the potential for numerous pages. This is where having a strong longtail keyword strategy coupled with focused ecommerce link building can help funnel the right traffic to the item for which they are searching.

What Are Longtail Keywords?

Are you wondering what longtail keywords are? Longtail keywords are distinctive, maybe even unconventional words or phrases, 3 or more to a group, that drive traffic to your site using the most direct route possible. When choosing these words it is important to be as specific as possible in order to attract the right audience. If your keywords are only scoring a handful of hits per month, or if they are getting searched too many times but not producing results, it may be time for more research, or the shortening of your keyword string.

In order to reduce competition, it is good to keep in mind that longtail keywords tend to change. What is popular today, may not be tomorrow. Ongoing longtail keyword research can help lower search volume, and therefore the cost associated with your chosen Adwords, while producing more specific results. Also, it is good to know that using proper names, titles and/or dates is an inexpensive way to boost traffic with the minor inconvenience of having to change them often in order to keep them current and effective. Remember, it’s not who lands on your site, it’s what they do once they get there. Keeping your keywords current can give you a competitive edge.

Why Use Longtail Keywords?  Because They Work.

If you are still wondering why longtail keywords are better for ecommerce, there is one exceptional reason: They work. A customer visit to your site is the result of a successful search. Successful search results happen because of the search words you choose to represent your site to the world of search engines. Longtail keywords can help consumers find the niche you’ve created, while keeping advertising costs to a minimum and maintaining a higher, more effective ranking with the search engines. In short, a little diligence goes a long way in regard to keeping your keyword strategy fresh and effective.
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To create an effective social media commerce program, you first need to understand your customers.

• Where are they on the web?


• What are they looking for?


• What does the decision process look like for them?


• What influences their decision?


• Which social media networks do they visit and trust the most?

A social media research study completed recently by Pingdom gave us insight as to what social media sites correspond with what age group. The highlights of that data include:

• The average social network user is 37 years old.


• LinkedIn, with its business focus, has a predictably high average user age; 44.


• The average Twitter user is 39 years old.


• The average Facebook user is 38 years old.


• The average MySpace user is 31 years old.


• Bebo has by far the youngest users, as witnessed earlier, with an average age of 28.

This data pretty much sums up the fact that your consumers are probably on at least one of the major social platforms.  But how do you know which ones?  Well, besides researching data on the web, you can ASK THEM!  Build the relationships with customers and prospective customers. Listen to what they have to say before you tell them what you think they want to hear. Surveys, polls, customer feedback are all great ways to get started.

Once you have a better understanding of their decision making process and how they think, you can continue crafting your social media strategy to keep them in the loyalty loop.

Some other methods to consider integrating into your initial plan:

Write a Blog – you or one of your “experts” can write a dialogue that continues the dialog and also helps to be a trusted relationship with your consumers. You can then integrate your blog onto other social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

Reward your Social Media fans and friends – offer them free shipping, a discount coupon or BOGO offer through social media. Make it special and distinctive for them. Not only will it get them buying and increase your web traffic, but they are likely to share it with friends, thus doing some of your work for you.

Finally, don’t be afraid to course correct along the way. Follow the stats provided to you by the various sites and see what’s working. Also, don’t forget to look at what your competitors are doing and where they are in the e-world. Read More

The new year is the perfect time to bring innovative ideas to your eCommerce plan for 2011. Set professional goals for your business and create a plan to increase clicks, attract new customers and grow sales.

Here are 3 social media commerce tips that are easy to execute and will offer solid results:

1)   Tap into the Peer Network. Consumers rarely make purchase decisions on their own anymore – whether it is through Facebook, Twitter or Groupon, they are looking for input. Judging by Groupon’s popularity - see similar companies: BuywithMe, Rue La La, etc- and ability to raise close to $1B in VC funding, this phenomenon isn’t going away anytime soon. You can join in by posting a limited time deal on Groupon. Or create a giveaway on Facebook for people becoming a fan or run an instant promotion on Twitter to drive folks to your site with a discount code. Be creative with this audience and give them something to talk about because…

2)  They will talk. And tell there friends: what they found, how the found it and how much they paid for it. So make it easy and encourage them to do so: add social media buttons to your site and emails so people can “like” something, “share” with a friend or “retweet.” And give them incentive to do so – bonuses and referrals for getting their friends to sign up, make a purchase, etc. It will pay tenfold in dividends.

3)  Engage your customers. Don’t just push product at them, participate in a two-way conversation. Give them a forum to let you know what they are looking for, what they like (and don’t like) and how things are working. User reviews, including the ability to upload pictures of your product in use is a great forward-selling point. Read More

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Alot has happened since my last post on How I Became an IMC at HubSpot.  Most notably, the controversy started over a website I built on the HubSpot CMS called YelpBadges.  The following is the story of how I built a website, was sent a Cease and Desist Letter, and retired the website -- all within 7 days.  I will be on HubSpotTV tomorrow to discuss LIVE at 4PM EST.  Be sure to tune in!

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My journey to HubSpot began when I was up late one night searching for something to read on my Kindle and stumbled upon Brain Halligan and Dharmesh Shah's book Inbound Marketing: How To Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs .  A light bulb went off inside of me while reading the pages and I suddenly had the clearest vision (epiphany-esque) of my new career path: Inbound Marketing.

I read the book in a couple of days and could not stop talking about Inbound Marketing.  My friends all thought I was a total geek -- but I couldn't get enough of it! I took the book to heart and began practicing what it preached by starting this blog, Ecommerce Inbound Marketing. I signed up for a Twitter Account (inboundcommerce), made a Facebook Page, and was off to the races!

I wrote my first article on the 5 Steps to Inbound E-Commerce Marketing Using The 6 Sigma Process.  I then quoted Brian Halligan in my 5th article entitled E-Commerce Marketing?  Easy as 1, 2, 3. I reached out to him on Twitter to tell him as much. To my surprise, he responded to me in less than 12 hours congratulating me on a job well done. I was immediately hooked and inspired to learn and write about eCommerce Inbound Marketing while searching for a career in the field.

As I continued to write articles and promote them on Twitter, I saw a tweet from HubSpot advertising open intern positions available. I wanted to make money by starting a new job, but REALLY wanted to get on board with HubSpot however possible. So I applied for the internship. I received an email several days later explaining that I would be better suited for a position rather than internship. I was stoked and immediately applied to be an Inbound Marketing Consultant.  I then began a Twitter search for "hubspot" on Tweetdeck and started following what everyone was saying about the company. It was here that I found @kylejames.

Kyle's profile said that he worked at Hubspot and was a huge Atlanta Braves fan. I also am a huge fan of the Braves, so I started engaging Kyle about the teams ups and downs and just started talking baseball with him. We got along really great and had some good ol' chop talk convos. I felt like I actually had a good connection and friendship brewing with this guy I found on Twitter who happened to like the Braves and actually worked at the company that I idolized in Inbound Marketing.

After a couple of weeks of no response to my application with HubSpot, I mentioned to Kyle that I had applied and to keep an eye out for my application. He asked me to send my resume over to him.

8AM the very next morning I get a call from HubSpot asking for a telephone interview. Things went well over the phone, and I was asked to fly to Boston to interview.

Everything has just fallen into place from there.  I found a renter for my house in Atlanta, moved to Boston last week and started work at HubSpot Monday August 2nd, 2010 as an Inbound Marketing Consultant.

I am thrilled to be apart of the company that is transforming world, one inbound lead at a time. Read More

Your eCommerce Inbound Marketing Optimization Strategies should start and end with your customers in mind.

When a customer orders a product from you, you need to Reward, Interact and Thank them:

"Americans will Spend 9% More With Companies That Provide Excellent Service - But 2/3's Feel Companies Are Not Doing Enough To Earn Their Business" - CNBC 7/7/2010

1.  Immediate Reward

American consumers simply expect more faster, cheaper and better than ever before.  And we are pissed when we don't get a reward for whatever we do.  When a new customer places an order with you, throw in something for free that they were NOT expecting.  Do not use this freebie as your selling tool... just make it an extra reward for buying from you.  Remember when you were a kid of 8 years old (or 28..) and begged your mom or dad to buy a certain brand of cereal purely because you knew that they had great toys inside?

Take advantage of this feeling by offering a free product to your first time customers as a "Thank You" for shopping with us.  If you sell T-Shirts, consider throwing in a t-shirt with a cool design and your logo on it for your first time customers.  Or include a coupon for a Free T-Shirt -- no strings attached -- of their choice.   Go the extra mile for your customers with an Immediate Reward.  You will thank yourself when they go to their social networking sites (Twitter, Facebook, ect.) and brag about their new free toy.  You may even be lucky enough to attract a few links from the tech savvy customers whom operate their own blog.

2.  Creative Engagement Promotions

Create buzz about your company by encouraging customers to interact with your products.  Follow up their order with an email explaining a special promotion only for customers who post pictures of themselves using your products.  Chick-Fil-A used Twitter to encourage interaction with their brand when the Peach Milkshake debuted.  They held regular contests to give away free peach milkshakes to the 10th person who uploaded a picture of themselves drinking a peach milkshake.

Small businesses need take note and encourage their customers to do the same.  Encourage your customers to upload a picture of themselves using the product they just purchased to your Facebook Fan page and receive 25% Off their next order.  Be creative and offer value.

3.  Use Your Manners

The best kind of a thank you note is not an email, it is hand written card with a special message just for the receiver.  I realize that not everyone has the time to write a handwritten "thank you" note for every purchase from your store.  But I do realize the power of it.  Pick one customer a day and write them a handwritten thank you note signed by the owner of the company.

It may be a southern thing, but I truly believe that customers not only appreciate the small things, they support the companies that understand and engage in 'em.

The Review:

Always be thinking about your customers and how you can keep them.  It is 10 times more difficult to attract a new customer versus keeping an existing one.

Give your customers immediate rewards, get creative with your engagement strategies and always say thank you. Read More

The current state of Social Media Business is alot like the NBA Free Agency situation of the league’s premier superstar, LeBron James.  If you have tuned into ESPN Sportscenter within the last couple of weeks, you will have noticed that the sports world is riveted on the Free Agency of Lebron James. I have decided to have a little fun and offer you, my loyal reader, a fun take on the matter with a spin on Social Media Business.

LeBron James has been courted by several major cities, each hoping to land the superstar and the massive amount of money he will bring with him.  The University of Illinois at Chicago economist John Skorburg has estimated that the city of Chicago could add up to $2.7 billion dollars if he plays as a Bull for 6 years.  Other large cities such as New York with the New York Knicks have done their own studies and concluded that the city of New York would benefit $58 million in one year if LeBron James takes his team to a NBA Finals and wins.

Similarly, major Social Media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, MySpace and several others have been seriously courting big business over the past several years – each with a major cash bonus of their own if they become the number one home for big businesses.  Big businesses such as HBO, Home Depot, and Walgreens for example have been “talking” with each of these platforms by creating accounts and testing their respective markets.  Facebook has been all the rage over the past several months and may come out as the fore-runner, but you cannot ignore the popular micro-blogging platform of Twitter, the fledging but News Corporation owned MySpace Inc., or the hot new app and geolocation based company of FourSquare.

Lets take a look at the major courters of LeBron James and how the major Social Media platforms are similar.

Cleveland Cavaliers = Twitter

1.      The Cleveland Cavaliers is LeBron’s home and where he has been building his legacy since the start of his career.  Twitter was the first major social media platform where big business started creating accounts and engaging with their communities.

2.       Similar to Cleveland’s situation with LeBron James, Twitter is still the home for the vast number of businesses engaged in social media.

3.       The city of Cleveland has experienced enormous growth since the emergence of the superstar LeBron.   Twitter has experienced equal growth since major businesses have joined and seriously advertised and engaged their accounts.

4.       Both Cleveland and Twitter have some serious competition in the likes of new suitors.

Chicago Bulls = Facebook

1.        Chicago Bulls have young superstars and lots of cap room to attract LeBron James to the city of Chicago.   Facebook has millions of young users and an advantage of Facebook Advertising that is bring in loads of extra dough.  Facebook revenues are projected at $1.2 billion in 2010.

2.       Chicago has a legacy of fans generated from the dominance of another NBA Superstar, Michael Jordan.  Facebook has Mark Zuckerburg, the founder of Facebook, who became a household name when he turned down an astonishing $1 billion acquisition offer from Yahoo.  This offer in the summer of 2006 really put Facebook on the map and validated Facebook’s emergence into the world of Social Media for Business as well as the value of their large fan base.

3.       Facebook has been the fastest growing home for businesses since the emergence of Fan Pages and the Like Box.  Likewise, the Chicago Bulls have been growing with the additions of young talented stars Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah.  All are great additions and have poised each organization for spectacular growth and success.

MySpace = New York Knicks

1.       The New York Knicks were one of the first NBA teams established in the NBA and one of only two teams still located in its founding city because of their tremendous success in their early years.   MySpace is one of the founders of the social media platform and has enjoyed much success and dominance in its field until only several years ago with the emergence of Facebook and Twitter.

2.       Like New York Knicks, MySpace has sucked for the past several years and is desperately trying to reshape and invigorate its floundering platform.

3.       The Knicks signed free agent Amar’e Stoudemire – a “4 out of 5 superstar”, who will bring a big impact to the team.  By doing so, the Knicks have left their options open if they do not land LeBron James, but also leave a tantalizing offer for him to come to New York.  MySpace is similar in that they have focused on the musician segment of the social media audience while still leaving the door open for alternative business growth.  MySpace is the most popular platform for musicians and attracts a large number of views every month from their “4 out 5 superstar” (the musician/artist segment base).  Yet recent acquisitions by MySpace such as Photobucket, Inc., Imeem Inc. and iLike Inc. in 2009 ensure continued business growth over the following years and position the company to attract more major business.

Miami Heat = Foursquare

1.        The Miami Heat has pretty much cleared their entire roster to make room for the salaries of huge superstars such as Dwayne Wayde, Chris Bosh and LeBron James.  In many ways, the Miami Heat represents a fresh start to an NBA team.  FourSquare is similar in the aspect that it is newer than both Facebook and Twitter and thus fresher and still attaining large amounts of growth.  FourSquare is one of the hottest start-up companies in the New York technology scene and could be a vital place for Big Business to make its home in the coming years.

2.       The Miami Heat are taking a gamble and could come away from the Free Agency full of All-Stars, or it could come away empty handed if all the All-Stars decide to go to other franchises.  FourSquare has choosen to take additional venture capital money rather than pursue talks with Yahoo regarding an acquisition.  This is also a gamble and could prove to make FourSquare look like a brilliant company with amazing foresight, or a company down on its luck after placing a large bet and losing.

3.       The Miami Heat has an awesome superstar in Dwayne Wayde and are using him to attract other big name players to their team.  FourSquare is similar in that they have big businesses such as HBO, Bravo and Zagat on board and are using them as proof to other big businesses that FourSquare is no joking matter.

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I don’t know which NBA team LeBron James will end up on, but my guess is that he will stay with Cleveland.  The only problem with my analogy here is that I think Big Businesses will find the most success on Facebook.  Luckily for Big Businesses, they can play for every team and will be involved with every platform mentioned here.

I may have left out some great analogies and maybe some of the teams I picked will match up better with other social media platforms.  Tell me whether I am spot on or dead off.

Let me hear your opinion! Read More

If you have read any online marketing article in the last 6 months, you already know the power of Ecommerce Inbound Marketing and have heard the many reasons why you should be engaging immediately.  But the engagement part is not always so easy, especially for small to mid-size companies.  The limited resources to dedicate to blogging, social media marketing, link building, and keyword optimization can be especially hard to accomplish because of the lack of dedicated personal available.

Below are 4 Easy Steps that will help small companies engage in Inbound Marketing Tactics to successfully utilize their resources and win the ultimate goal:  generating more profits.

1.  Map Out The Terrain

Any tactician knows that the one of the most important elements to winning a battle is knowing the terrain you are fighting on.  Map Out your Inbound Marketing Terrain by compiling a list of all the sites and communities you can engage with.  Twitter and Facebook are the obvious ones.  You need to expand your reach by identifying where your customers are.  If you sell light duty truck parts, you may want to research community forums where people post photos of their customized trucks and engage with the communities.  Search Google for terms like “Custom Truck Forums” and you will see a list of 10 on the front page.  Make a list of every site your customers are at, then rank them in importance from 1-10.  Pick out the top 3 or 4 and start commenting in the forums and engaging with the communities.  Your goal is to create a map of your social media engagement.  For ultimate results, create your own forum and encourage you EXISTING customers to engage in YOUR forum!

2.  Prepare Your Troops

Invest in training for your employees and develop procedures that allow extraordinary things to be accomplished by ordinary employees.  Your Inbound Marketing campaign is war.  You have to infiltrate your customer base and win their dollars.  Properly preparing your troops through programs such as HubSpots Inbound Marketing Certification is a great first step in winning the war.  Make sure your employees are not bringing a knife to a gun fight.  Prepare them with online marketing guns through proper training.  The more you put into your employees, the more you will get out of them.  HubSpot’s training can take as little as a blocking off several hours a week for 2 weeks. Pick two or three of your most internet savvy employees and have them get certified.

3.  Target Small Groups

When you first start engaging with services such as Twitter, you will quickly discover that there are millions of people tweeting every hour.  It is impossible and unproductive to target every user on Twitter.  You need to use services such as TweetDeck or HootSuite to search for terms being tweeted to define your market.  If you sell mobile storage, then you might want to target terms such as “moving services”, “portable storage”, “mobile storage”, and “moving help”.  These terms are more likely to be used by your customers and will start to define a smaller and targeted audience for you to engage with on Twitter.

4.  Fight The Easy Battles

One of the most overlooked groups for Inbound Marketing success is right under your nose with your EXISTING CUSTOMERS!  These people have already found your store and thought enough of you and your products to spend their hard earned money on your products.  Reward them with incentives to purchase more of your products.  Make sure you are including a card or flier in their package with a special coupon code for their next order.  Encourage your customers to signup for newsletters that are primarily coupon based.  Be creative.  Tell your customers about Facebook or Twitter contests you hold regularly that include prizes of free products or super discounts.

Nothing is ever given to you in war.  You have to earn everything.  You have to hustle to win.  You have to the heart, the determination, the will-power, the strategy, the fortitude, and most importantly - the people to win.  Your primary investment has to be in your employees whom are prepared and focused on generating profits through Inbound Marketing. Read More