Laura J. Alber became the CEO of Williams-Sonoma in January 2010. In addition to Williams-Sonoma, the San Francisco-based retailer owns West Elm, Pottery Barn, and Pottery Barn Kids. The company has seen sales drop for the last couple of years, but anticipates sales to climb to as far as $3,370,000,000 this year, nine percent more than 2009. The company’s top earnings were in 2007 at $3,940,000,000.
Alber’s strategy for this tough economic time is to expand its moderately priced West Elm chain and improve online sales for the entirecompany. Since there is a major slump in home sales, she is depending on home renovations.
Approximately four-fifths of furniture sales are a result of home renovations. A family that intends on staying in the same home for several years tends to spend more on big-ticket items like furniture.
Internet furniture sales will increase as much as two-and-a-half billion the next five years in the United States. Williams-Sonoma is positioning itself for a large portion of that growth. The company had $943,000,000 in online sales last year, more than three times that of Crate & Barrel. It is the leader of online home furnishing sales.
The company’s B2C model affords a cost-effective option to opening brick-to-mortar stores. The Internet is Williams-Sonoma’s most lucrative channel and hopes that e-commerce, rather than traditional stores, will lead them through an uncertain economic environment.
This poor economy has caused shoppers to avoid enticement by avoiding stores. The Internet keeps shoppers engaged with the company, fumbling frugality with temptation.
William-Sonoma should make their web site more user-friendly. It is not easy to navigate.
Williams-Sonoma can advertising on Facebook via pay-per-click to lure specific demographics to appropriate items on their site. Advertisements with photos of a pre-made Thanksgiving dinners would most likely interest single urban business people, a roasting pan would interest women with children, while a turkey fryer would probably interest 30ish men.
In addition, I suggest advertising in online games, like Farmville and Second City, to attract the generation Y crowd. Second City is so successful that IBM has dedicated full-time employees to promote their products to Second City users.
Another avenue for promotion is advertising in television and movies through product placement. It will increase brand recognition and is subtle and effective.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
Video
In October 2008, T G Daily reported that You Tube had surpassed Yahoo in search queries (Hill, 2008). YouTube is a wonderful opportunity for marketers to get in touch with consumers searching for information about particular products. YouTube can be an influential marketing tool, provided it is an ingredient in the marketing mixture rather than a stand-alone strategy. Video is an excellent form of viral communication and YouTube is an excellent vehicle as long as you remember to treat it like any other marketing channel and keep videos updated. Image is everything.
To promote your video make sure to include keywords in the title and description. Just like blogs, place your keywords as close to the first of the title as possible. The title needs to be short and accurate in describing the video’s content. The description needs to be clear and specific utilizing complete sentences. Your video should be placed in the relevant category.
Promote your web site by showing the URL clearly several times on in the video. Put your brand in their brain.
To promote your video make sure to include keywords in the title and description. Just like blogs, place your keywords as close to the first of the title as possible. The title needs to be short and accurate in describing the video’s content. The description needs to be clear and specific utilizing complete sentences. Your video should be placed in the relevant category.
Promote your web site by showing the URL clearly several times on in the video. Put your brand in their brain.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Podcasts
Listen and learn. The United States Department of Education conducted a study this year that discovered online students out performed those receiving face-to-face lessons. Podcasts are a great way to educate potential customers about your product. They can download a podcast from your website or iTunes right into their computer or MP3 player and listen to it on the way to the office, while walking the dog, or washing the car. You have their undivided attention. Promote your web site by stating the URL clearly several times on the podcast. Commit it to their memory through repetition.
For more information check out my web site at www.DeniseDriggers.com.
For more information check out my web site at www.DeniseDriggers.com.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Start a Blog
Blogs are a simple way for you to let others know you are an expert in your field. You can find free state-of-the-art publishing platforms at www.blogger.com or www.wordpress.org.
Blogs are a core tactic for search engine optimization. Don’t just make one blog. Create a blog for each keyword. Use the keyword in the title of the blog. Place your keywords as close to the first of the title as possible. The title actually gets readers to start reading your post when seen in search engine results and RSS readers. The opening line of your blog is the first impression, drawing the reader deeper into the post. Keywords should be in you blog content, but make sure they are in a natural range. Don’t make it look like you’re trying to cram as many keywords in it as you can. Keyword overload turns a blog from credible to crap.
Get more information at http://www.DeniseDriggers.com
Blogs are a core tactic for search engine optimization. Don’t just make one blog. Create a blog for each keyword. Use the keyword in the title of the blog. Place your keywords as close to the first of the title as possible. The title actually gets readers to start reading your post when seen in search engine results and RSS readers. The opening line of your blog is the first impression, drawing the reader deeper into the post. Keywords should be in you blog content, but make sure they are in a natural range. Don’t make it look like you’re trying to cram as many keywords in it as you can. Keyword overload turns a blog from credible to crap.
Get more information at http://www.DeniseDriggers.com
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Social Media Marketing
Social media is a really big deal. The population of the United States is estimated to be 304,059,724 (Census Bureau, Population Division, 2009). Facebook, for example, has more than 300,000,000 active users (Facebook, 2009). Fifty percent of those active users log on in a day. LinkedIn has over 50,000,000 members, spanning over 200 countries. Every Fortune 500 company has executives that are members of LinkedIn (LinkedIn Corporation). You can use these online hangouts for branding and lead generation. They are the ideal way to quickly promote your business for free, my favorite price. What are you waiting for?
By 2010 Generation Y will outnumber both Generation X and Baby Boomers. Ninety-six percent have joined a social network making social media the simple choice to target that demographic (The Millennials, 2007).
The average age of a MySpace user is 26. MySpace is an excellent place to craft a completely developed company profile and an immense outreach system for B2B.
Twitter’s average user is 31. Think of Twitter as a broadcast medium so you will need about 1000 followers to reap the full benefit. Tweets are text posts that contain 140 characters or less sent to your Twitter followers. Use Twitter to push tweets out to other platforms like Facebook. Personalize Twitter background for branding. A good tool for monitoring what people are saying about your brand on Twitter and track stats is at www.HootSuite.com.
The average age of a Facebook user is 33, however the fastest growing group of users are females age 55 to 65. I’m telling you this just to let you know Facebook is a good medium to reach a wide variety of demographics. Facebook will create a button for you to install on your company site that lets visitors click on it and see your content on Facebook. You can also create a Fan Box Widget that will allow users to view your Facebook page stream. You can link your Facebook page to Twitter. You’ll need at least 100 friends on Facebook to use this medium effectively for your business.
The average age of a LinkedIn user is 39. LinkedIn is great for sending updates to business associates. LinkedIn is a more traditional platform for business networking. Try to put your keywords in your profile and repeat it in your content. To best utilize LinkedIn for your business, you’ll need to accumulate 500 or more connections.
If you need help contact me or check out my web site at http://www.denisedriggers.com/.
By 2010 Generation Y will outnumber both Generation X and Baby Boomers. Ninety-six percent have joined a social network making social media the simple choice to target that demographic (The Millennials, 2007).
The average age of a MySpace user is 26. MySpace is an excellent place to craft a completely developed company profile and an immense outreach system for B2B.
Twitter’s average user is 31. Think of Twitter as a broadcast medium so you will need about 1000 followers to reap the full benefit. Tweets are text posts that contain 140 characters or less sent to your Twitter followers. Use Twitter to push tweets out to other platforms like Facebook. Personalize Twitter background for branding. A good tool for monitoring what people are saying about your brand on Twitter and track stats is at www.HootSuite.com.
The average age of a Facebook user is 33, however the fastest growing group of users are females age 55 to 65. I’m telling you this just to let you know Facebook is a good medium to reach a wide variety of demographics. Facebook will create a button for you to install on your company site that lets visitors click on it and see your content on Facebook. You can also create a Fan Box Widget that will allow users to view your Facebook page stream. You can link your Facebook page to Twitter. You’ll need at least 100 friends on Facebook to use this medium effectively for your business.
The average age of a LinkedIn user is 39. LinkedIn is great for sending updates to business associates. LinkedIn is a more traditional platform for business networking. Try to put your keywords in your profile and repeat it in your content. To best utilize LinkedIn for your business, you’ll need to accumulate 500 or more connections.
If you need help contact me or check out my web site at http://www.denisedriggers.com/.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
E-Mail Marketing
On an average day, fifty-eight percent of all adult Internet users in the United States send or read email (Pew Research Center, 2009). A Direct Marketing Association study found email marketing return on investment outshined other marketing channels with a incredible $43.62 for every dollar spent (Magill, 2009). Now that is a major bang for your buck!
For companies whose main intention is lead generation, email produces the highest response rate, 4.09 percent (Direct Marketing Association, 2007).
The first thing you are going to need to start your email campaign is a mailing list. You can build your own list from existing customers and prospects. Ask their permission before you put them on the list. Keep the opt-in process short, and then validate the email address with a small welcome message. Make sure you keep your email list up to date. Give recipients a preference center where they can update their email addresses, opt-out, note change in interests, changes in format preference, and frequency. Put a link to your preference center on the bottom of every email you send out, even on you traditional emails. Give confirmation that subscription changes are received. Delete bounce-backs from your email list as soon as you get them. Correct misspelled names and invalid email addresses. Whatever you do, honor unsubscribe requests.
Some companies send out “Email Blasts.” The name sounds intrusive and it is. Blasting an email on a one-to-all basis may be cheap and easy, but for many, the email will not be relevant and will lead to attrition. It is better to target and segment your subscribers. This will give you a much higher conversion rate than sending out email blasts.
Less than fifty percent of marketers create email suitably. One fifth of all email campaigns are indistinguishable or unsuccessful due to blocked images (Email Experience Council, 2009). HTML emails are more successful than regular text emails, if they are constructed properly. However, mobile phones are often used by businesses to receive email. When sending email B2B, text messages can be more successful. To cover both bases, send a multipart MIME email. Like I said before, your preference center should let subscribers choose format options. Even if a majority of your subscribers choose HTML, don’t get overly reliant on images, since 50% of the time recipients block them. Display text as text, not images. Make sure to use image tags describing the images accurately and keep the images small. All image and hyperlinks should be absolute links (the complete URL) rather than relative links. CSS does not work in emails. Keep the width of your email at 600 pixels so it’s easy to read. Your call-to-action needs to be in the first 300 pixels of the email. Ensure that the call-to-action has a relevant landing page. Send a test to a trusted group before you send it out. The more eyeballs to proof and test usability, the better.
If you don’t know what a call-to-action, absolute link, relative link or CSS is, you’ll do better to hire a service like Constant Contact, Listrak and Mail Chimp. If you have less than 500 subscribers, Mail Chimp is free, my favorite price (MailChimp).
Finally, don’t go crazy sending email. There is too much of a good thing. Sending an email once a week is enough. Sending once every couple of weeks or once a month is better. On the other hand, you can send emails out too infrequently creating the “out-of-sight, out-of-mind” scenario. Emails sent out on Monday or Friday are less likely to be read. Stick with the middle of the week.
If you need help contact me or check out my web site at http://www.denisedriggers.com/.
For companies whose main intention is lead generation, email produces the highest response rate, 4.09 percent (Direct Marketing Association, 2007).
The first thing you are going to need to start your email campaign is a mailing list. You can build your own list from existing customers and prospects. Ask their permission before you put them on the list. Keep the opt-in process short, and then validate the email address with a small welcome message. Make sure you keep your email list up to date. Give recipients a preference center where they can update their email addresses, opt-out, note change in interests, changes in format preference, and frequency. Put a link to your preference center on the bottom of every email you send out, even on you traditional emails. Give confirmation that subscription changes are received. Delete bounce-backs from your email list as soon as you get them. Correct misspelled names and invalid email addresses. Whatever you do, honor unsubscribe requests.
Some companies send out “Email Blasts.” The name sounds intrusive and it is. Blasting an email on a one-to-all basis may be cheap and easy, but for many, the email will not be relevant and will lead to attrition. It is better to target and segment your subscribers. This will give you a much higher conversion rate than sending out email blasts.
Less than fifty percent of marketers create email suitably. One fifth of all email campaigns are indistinguishable or unsuccessful due to blocked images (Email Experience Council, 2009). HTML emails are more successful than regular text emails, if they are constructed properly. However, mobile phones are often used by businesses to receive email. When sending email B2B, text messages can be more successful. To cover both bases, send a multipart MIME email. Like I said before, your preference center should let subscribers choose format options. Even if a majority of your subscribers choose HTML, don’t get overly reliant on images, since 50% of the time recipients block them. Display text as text, not images. Make sure to use image tags describing the images accurately and keep the images small. All image and hyperlinks should be absolute links (the complete URL) rather than relative links. CSS does not work in emails. Keep the width of your email at 600 pixels so it’s easy to read. Your call-to-action needs to be in the first 300 pixels of the email. Ensure that the call-to-action has a relevant landing page. Send a test to a trusted group before you send it out. The more eyeballs to proof and test usability, the better.
If you don’t know what a call-to-action, absolute link, relative link or CSS is, you’ll do better to hire a service like Constant Contact, Listrak and Mail Chimp. If you have less than 500 subscribers, Mail Chimp is free, my favorite price (MailChimp).
Finally, don’t go crazy sending email. There is too much of a good thing. Sending an email once a week is enough. Sending once every couple of weeks or once a month is better. On the other hand, you can send emails out too infrequently creating the “out-of-sight, out-of-mind” scenario. Emails sent out on Monday or Friday are less likely to be read. Stick with the middle of the week.
If you need help contact me or check out my web site at http://www.denisedriggers.com/.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
According to a recent study done by Global Insight for the Direct Marketing Association, Internet search advertising returns $21.85 for every dollar spent. Optimizing is different for different search engines. In September of 2009 over seventy percent of searchers used Google in contrast to 16.73% Yahoo, 9.28% Bing, and 2.50% Ask.
Logically one should optimize to reach the majority of searchers with Google. Each page should focus on one or two keywords. Use the keywords in headlines and the first paragraph. The keywords should logically and easily flow through the rest of the copy on the page. If your competitor’s site is getting top ranking, see what keywords they are using by signing up for a free trail of Keyword Spy at http://www.keywordspy.com/.
Search engines look at a site the title tag, description tag, keywords repetition, image tags, text content, and a site map. Each page should have a unique title tag containing no more than 60 characters that describes the content on the page. The description tag is seen in search engines to describe your site. It should be less than 145 characters and can be used to distinguish your site from others, while enticing searchers to click on your site link.
There is such a thing as too much of a good thing when it comes to keywords. Back in the olden days you could hide keywords by making them the same color as the background or making them one pixel high so visitors won’t see it, but Google can. Don’t try it now. Google is on to it and tricks like that will get you blackballed. Rather than spamming keywords, put keywords in your image tags. It’s not only good for search results, but good practice for the sake of usability. Just remember to keep it relevant to the image description.
You can generate an XML site map that will help Google and other search engines crawl your web site by going to http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/. The more links you have to your site the more Google feels that you are credible and places your site high in results. It’s another reason to keep content relevant, and updated.
Now you need some external links to your site. Here quality is more important than quantity. You can acquire incoming links by offering press releases and articles for publishing to business media sites. Ask associate companies to link to your site. Put links to your site in your blogs and social media profiles. If you need more help, check out my web site at http://www.denisedriggers.com/.
Logically one should optimize to reach the majority of searchers with Google. Each page should focus on one or two keywords. Use the keywords in headlines and the first paragraph. The keywords should logically and easily flow through the rest of the copy on the page. If your competitor’s site is getting top ranking, see what keywords they are using by signing up for a free trail of Keyword Spy at http://www.keywordspy.com/.
Search engines look at a site the title tag, description tag, keywords repetition, image tags, text content, and a site map. Each page should have a unique title tag containing no more than 60 characters that describes the content on the page. The description tag is seen in search engines to describe your site. It should be less than 145 characters and can be used to distinguish your site from others, while enticing searchers to click on your site link.
There is such a thing as too much of a good thing when it comes to keywords. Back in the olden days you could hide keywords by making them the same color as the background or making them one pixel high so visitors won’t see it, but Google can. Don’t try it now. Google is on to it and tricks like that will get you blackballed. Rather than spamming keywords, put keywords in your image tags. It’s not only good for search results, but good practice for the sake of usability. Just remember to keep it relevant to the image description.
You can generate an XML site map that will help Google and other search engines crawl your web site by going to http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/. The more links you have to your site the more Google feels that you are credible and places your site high in results. It’s another reason to keep content relevant, and updated.
Now you need some external links to your site. Here quality is more important than quantity. You can acquire incoming links by offering press releases and articles for publishing to business media sites. Ask associate companies to link to your site. Put links to your site in your blogs and social media profiles. If you need more help, check out my web site at http://www.denisedriggers.com/.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
