Bring on the holidays! ...

The holiday shopping season is almost here and strategies incorporating mobile marketing can expand your database, reaffirm customer loyalty and usher in new multichannel techniques to make the most of this holiday season.

Detailed, Segmented Ema...

Now that the dust has settled for many retailers’ email marketing strategy over the busy  holiday season, we’re beginning to see what worked and what didn’t work in terms of engaging subscribers and driving results during the all-important end-of-the-year marketing push. As an interesting case study, home goods and apparel retailer “Cuddledown” decided to go all out during the holiday shopping season with a detailed, highly-segmented email strategy that ended up driving double-digit growth for the merchant over the same period a year earlier. Cuddledown increased its frequency and created specially-targeted offers for different segments of its list, while also integrating a heavy dose of social media promotion and engagement to the mix as well.  As an example, in addition to emailing subscribers on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Cuddledown sent email offers on Saturday and Sunday of that weekend as well.  In addition, the merchant sent two emails per day; one in the morning with the daily offer, then a follow-up in the afternoon with an “hours left” message within the subject line to create a sense of urgency. Cuddledown reported that for the four days from Black Friday to Cyber Monday, the morning email accounted for more sales than the afternoon one, and throughout the rest of the holiday season, sales and open rates were higher for the afternoon emails.  In total, the strategy helped grow its fourth-quarter direct sales by 53% over 2009.  Website visits for the quarter rose 42% and conversions were up 3% as well.  In addition, from Black Friday through Cyber Monday, online sales climbed 121% from the same four-day period of 2009, with site visits up 49% and conversions up 54%. “We’d suspected this holiday was going to be better for us than last year, but we were blown away by the actual numbers,” says Laura Hnatow, Cuddledown’s ecommerce manager.  ”Our primary marketing strategy is based off the print catalog, but this year we figured out a different messaging strategy, and it seemed to resonate.”

Retail Search Advertise...

Kenshoo, a search marketing and online advertising company, recently released its "Kenshoo 2010 Online Retail Holiday Shopping Report," which includes a good number of findings.

Email Marketers Ramp Up...

Now’s the time for email marketers to begin their campaign strategy to capitalize on two of the busiest shopping days of the year; black Friday and — more importantly — “Cyber Monday.” Last year saw record-breaking email volumes surrounding Black Friday and Cyber Monday, with all indicators pointing to this year being no different.  With extreme competition fighting for placement in the inbox, deliverability remains at the top of the list in terms of developing a solid strategy.  On average, 20% of consumer mail doesn’t reach the intended recipient.  Additionally, analysis reveals a 14% increase in email volume in November over October, subsequently increasing the chance for deliverability issues. In the week leading up to Black Friday and Cyber Monday last year, analysis showed a definite and substantial decrease in overall deliverability.  There was a decline of as much as 25% in mail that went missing and wound up as either junk mail or simply didn’t arrive.  Much of this can be attributed to timing, with many marketers blasting out their campaigns at the same time, on the same high-traffic days.  Marketers cause a virtual traffic jam of advertising bound for the same ISPs. In order to deal with that digital mess, ISPs are forced to queue messages as they deal with the backlog and continue mitigating the millions of pieces of spam bound for those same inboxes. Still, statistically speaking, there’s simple yet effective ways to increase deliverability.  Sending your campaign between 8pm and 12am historically achieves higher deliverability rates as opposed to the more traditional 10am to 8pm window, for example, with average delivery rates for traditional timing running between 67%-73% inbox placement, while late night sends see 88% to 92% inbox placement. Competition remains fierce around the busy holiday shopping season, yet it’s one of the best times of year to capture Online sales.  Following standard best practices and thinking outside the box in terms of sending pattern, offers and timing can make a world a difference in making your holiday campaigns as successful as possible.

Diapers.com Launches Fu...

E-retailer and sister site Soap.com hope a "Battle of the Brands" contest on Facebook motivates online holiday shopping next weekend.