A lot of online merchants have blogs.  It’s a great way to easily add depth and credibility to your brand on a daily basis, but a lot of business blogs go unused or they become an endless succession of product announcements, leaving readers cold and squandering their interest.  Of course our clever marketing team would never let that happen.

When we were designing and developing Voguette.com, the client requested that we create a landing page for the site wherein they could share tidbits about their products’ appearances in the media.  We suggested that we implement the landing page as a mini wordpress blog, allowing them to update regularly and control the content with ease.  Thus, Voguette’s “As Seen In” page was born.

By giving the blog a specific central idea and placing in the context of the store, rather than as a separate entity, we avoid some of the pitfalls related to business blogging.  There’s no expectation that the blog and its content should stand on its own and the end result is deeper brand-building than could be accomplished on a traditional blog.  The constantly-updated content contributes directly to the shopping experience and adds credibility to the brand.  It’s an elegant solution to a long-standing retail problem and a great way for any merchant to begin to get a handle on their social media campaign.

Worst Domain Name Ever

When preparing to launch any sort of web endeavor, one of your first acts will be to choose and obtain a domain.  While that is easily the most remedial observation we’ve ever made on this blog, apparently there are still those out in the world that don’t yet understand the importance of that first step.  As evidence, we offer exhibit A: www.twti-ls.vpweb.  In all fairness, we must point out that the address in question actually is a .com address, but apparently these fine folks ran out of “C” stickers, so they just decided to cut their losses and wrap it up.  Regardless, there are a world of bad choices here before the missing .com even enters the equation.  We had plenty of time to consider all of those mistakes while we were stuck in traffic behind www.twti-ls.vpweb. this morning and we decided to share our thoughts with you to help you avoid making the same errors.  Check out our ramblings after the jump…

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There is no more overused phrase in this industry than “A/B testing”.  Our previous post is testament to that.  However, that doesn’t mean that all the attention is undeserved.  A/B testing is a truly valuable tool in the hands of skilled web professionals, like Brand Labs, for instance.

We have a well-established track record as effective online marketers.  Our reputation in this arena is matched only by our reputation as skilled web designers, which is a good thing because you need both skills in order to build and maintain a strong A/B testing program and to react properly to the results.  Oh… speaking of results, it helps if you’re Google Analytics experts like we happen to be.  That way, when you see the results you’ll know what to do with them, which is good because knowledge without action is like Hall without Oates; useless.

After the jump we have some recent examples of A/B successes and some tips if you’d like to follow our example.  Hit the link below to check it out…

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In case you’re unaware of it, we recently introduced AutoResponderMax – a collection of customer outreach apps that automatically send emails based on trigger events, like cart abandonment or purchases.  Not only is it effective and affordable (cheap, frankly), but it’s getting better every damn day.   Today, we’re happy to announce two delightfully simple changes that are sure to make AutoResponderMax an even more effective eCommerce tool for any Volusion Merchant.

First, we’ve made an addition to the abandoned cart app that’s included in the collection.  Now, we all know that abandoned carts are a huge problem for eMerchants.  No one wants to leave any money on the table if they can avoid it and there are piles of research demonstrating the effectiveness of timely emails sent to customers who have recently walked away without completing their purchase.  Our abandoned cart app was already an effective revenue generator and this latest update will surely bring even more potential sales back to your site like a little, automatic conversion machine.

Shortly after abandoning their cart, a registered customer will receive an email.  What that email says is totally up to the merchant in question… an offer of help checking out, a discount or just a little reminder of the incomplete purchase.  This has always been a great way to retrieve lost sales and now it’s even better.  With our latest update, that email will now include a thumbnail image of the item (or items) left in the cart – reminding the customer of what they came close to buying and urging them to return.  This simple visual reminder is a fantastic way to cut through the email clutter and bring ‘em back in.

Check out the second exciting update after the jump.

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It turns out that many major corporations may not have any conscience whatsoever.  We’ll pause here for a moment while you pick your chins up off of the floor.

Yes.  Apparently, old-style business ethics have no place in the world of online marketing.  As Exhibit Number One, we present this Wall Street Journal article, that (in summary) explains that after seeing Chrysler’s wildly popular “Imported from Detroit” commercial that aired during the Super Bowl (previously featured here), GM marketing chief Joel Ewanick immediately ordered his team to corner the market on the phrase “Imported from Detroit” when used as a Google search term.  The article goes on to explain that GM also placed high bids for “Darth Vader” in order to divert some of the traffic that would otherwise have (rightly) gone to Volkswagon as a result of their hugely successful ad featuring a child playing the part of the classic villain.

… funny that they never saw the parallel as they slipped to the dark side.

More after the jump…

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Okay… so this isn’t the second best Super Bowl ad ever, but, it does (like our other recent Super Bowl ad post) feature everybody’s favorite Detroiter, Eminem… and in the closing shot you see Brisk Iced Tea’s Artists’ Series of can designs.  Among them (just left of center) is a design by famous graffiti artist and former Detroiter, Tristan Eaton – a man who still holds the banner high for the D.

It seems like Super Bowl week is hometown pride week for Detroit.

… by the way, Detroit is awesome.

We love Detroit. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. We love Detroit.

Google Shopper has been a wildly popular Android app since its introduction last year, but until yesterday iPhone users were left out of the game.  All of that changed when the Mac app store started offering Shopper as a free download on Tuesday.

Of course, there are a million ways to find and buy whatever you’re looking for these days, but Google shopper is one more step toward that total ease-of-use that turns browsers into buyers.

With Google Shopper, you don’t even need to know the specific brand of what you’re looking for.  If you’re standing in front of it, take a picture.  Shopper will do its level best to locate that object and offer you a variety of ways to buy it, both online and nearby in the real world.

But let’s say that you’re not standing in front of the thing you want to buy… you just know that you need a cast iron skillet (as shown in the screen shot).  Just say “cast iron skillet” into your iPhone and Shopper will return a variety of choices.  You narrow them to the one you want and that’s when the Comparison Shopping Engine kicks in.

…. which was our whole point in the first place.  If you’re not using Comparison Shopping as a part of your overall online marketing strategy, you need to be.  There are literally millions of sales that are passing you by and you don’t even know it.  We can help you get in the game and capture some of that revenue you’re losing as you read this.  Give us a call.  We’ll set you up.

We saw yesterday that Practical eCommerce posted this article on the power of triggered emails.  With our recent launch of AutoResponderMax.com, we couldn’t resist linking to and dwelling on this post for just a moment.

The general upshot of the post is that triggered emails are a critical tool, but that it can be difficult or expensive to set up a campaign.  We agree wholeheartedly with the first part, but couldn’t disagree more about the second part… at least for Volusion merchants.  Our new ARMax is completely affordable, easily customizable and a breeze to set up and manage.

The post also treats triggered emails as if they are a “next level” sort of action, and to a certain extent, they are.  Instituting an email-based marketing program can be messy and hard to maintain, putting the option out of reach for many smaller retailers… right up until the moment we released AutoResponderMax.  At that moment, event-triggered, automated, multi-function consumer outreach became one of the easiest and most affordable ways to boost your bottom line and keep in touch with your best customers.

… but enough about us and our super awesome new tool, AutoResponderMax.  You should really go read that article.  It’ll do the rest of our sales pitch for us.

(via Volusion’s twitter feed)

Brand Labs is proud to introduce the first full-featured, plug and play auto responder system built specifically for Volusion merchants: AutoResponderMax.

AutoResponderMax is easily one of the best marketing values in the eCommerce world.  For only $49 a month you’ll have access to the entire menu of ARMax apps.  Each one is worth its weight in marketing gold, but together, they form a complete customer outreach and marketing program that’s entirely automated… but you get to set the parameters.

Check out all of the details after the jump..

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