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Mobile shopping has yet a long way to go to become mainstream, but mobile programs gain momentum fast to make Internet retailers pay close attention to their influence on ecommerce. Ongoing gradual customer adoption of mobile phones into everyday life has touched consumer behavior in a number of ways that are to be watched and utilized by online merchants. Some of the scenarios might not directly involve making a purchase through the phone or convert online after using a phone. Nonetheless, “the mobile state of the situation” has a significant impact on the buyer decision-making process or conversion life cycle.

According to Retrevo’s survey,

- 55 % of US mobile phone users (within 18-24 age group), 52 %  (within 25-34), 36 %  (within 35-44) and 17 %  (aged 45 and up) used a mobile phone to research products, compare prices and deals or find retailers. 

- Moreover, the majority found this experience rather positive and enjoyable: 59 % searched for deals, found them and got the best price; 46 % found the use of mobile making shopping easier and much more fun; 18 % did not find any deals, but will try again and only 8 % of those found it useless.

Thus, having an m-site for a major brand manufacturer that sells online and offline or even a web-only retailer, becomes a competitive advantage. Consider the following scenarios recently observed by buyer behavior experts:

1. Shoppers, while in brick-n-mortar stores access ratings and reviews more often through their phones to get a closer look at the item in consideration. 80 % of shoppers, according to Shop.org, use product reviews to make decisions and looking for them on sites. Those, with Internet access on their smart phones, will be/are looking for the same info too, so why not conveniently make those available in a phone friendly format?  Simultaneously, for those who already purchased your products for the first time and currently are resolving their post-purchase dissonance, why not deliver the-sought-after confirmation (reviews in mobile form through search text/hybrid ads for example) to reassure the decision and thus invest into your customer retention efforts?

2. Shoppers, while in stores or away somewhere still pondering on the item of potential purchase, use their time and a mobile device in hand to conduct product research through texting using a text message service RetrevoQ that spits out the needed info in a text message, why not build this mobile program in addition to an m-site or in lieu of it at the moment?

3. Shoppers, while in the brick-n-mortar store access your site again to check on prices and deals, and supposedly you know that they researched the item on your site before (through your web analytics data/customer cookie capture if login is required for example) - why not follow up with a text message right there again with some enticing offer?

4. Shoppers, while in stores, take pictures of products of interest and conduct their search on mobile devices right on the spot. Why not offer this visual search functionality on your site, make sure it is integrated with visual search app, etc. to capture the demand?

How much does an m-site cost? It depends, but generally it falls within 10-50K ballpark, depending on the vendor. Personally, I would choose a specialized company due to the complexity of the space and rather frequent technical innovations to ensure a fair bet that it can actually deliver revenue-generating solution today vs. tomorrow.

It is ironic how things in life come back to you in a spiral manner sometimes. The same happened to me in relation to the KPI topic. I have explored it briefly in 2007, and today I am able to share a few more good practices that any emarketer will find effective. 

So what are the top 3 things you need to know, or rather do to make the most of your KPIs?

1) Clearly distinguish a KPI from all other metrics you collect.  Many of times, it gets confusing with all the data we pull from a web analytics tool, to what focus on, because every count brings out a unique information piece. Simultaneously, the raw data is much easier to grasp rather than the one hidden through a formula. Thus, any metric can become a part or a standalone KPI depending on your objective. You probably would think now - “Well, that’s not making it any easier to understand!”. Which is exactly the same thought that tortured me for about a week till I discovered work by Steve Jackson so generously shared with all of us in his Cult of Analytics book. I felt like Amerigo Vespucci on that day - cause I cracked (found) the definition of a KPI. His 4 attributes on p. 50 served me very well to progress further while developing new and refining the old.  “Every KPI should have the following attributes:

1) The metric has a timescale associated to it (is reported weekly, monthly, quarterly).
2) The metric has a benchmark.
3) The metric has a reason to be reported to the actor.
4) The metric has an associated action that can rectify the situation.

…Most of the times it is a ratio.”  Now, that makes it much easier to set the KPI definition in stone. And though, you can still show your site performance from the user interaction through visits, clickthroughs,  add-to-cart clicks and ultimately all the way down to the placed orders, adding the ratios contributes so much color to the overall picture. If both are displayed separately - it creates more unnecessary questions, while placed together (general sequential metrics and ratios) allows for focusing on the right piece of data (a ratio KPI) while the raw data next to it, validates its accuracy.

 2) Slice and dice your KPI - aka segment it by campaigns, traffic source, etc. This advice is not new and has been declared many times to anyone who faced data analysis.  At the same time, it is also not very much followed. Similar to the exercise prescription in addition to the diet, data segmentation gets a lower follow through. But, if you do it once, you will never take data any other way! By segmenting, you are able to find trends since you put data in a context.

3) Get to know your KPIs better on all levels to learn what is normal and what is not in terms of their behavior. In this respect, you view your KPIs as predictable subjects. In the same manner as criminal investigators or psychologists observe people and get to know what behavior is normal for a given individual and what is out of the line, you can practice the same with your KPIs to get the most out of your reporting. Avinash Kaushik has a great insight on how to do just that - use the statistical tools of upper and lower controls to define the normal playfield for your data.

The only question that I am yet to resolve is - what are the best practices of calculating those controls for various KPIs and metrics? Some suggest to use 3 standard deviations to calculate controls, some make sense to use just 1 (as in Visits per Page as a Lower Limit possible). If I use 3, I will be expanding a range of behavior too wide if my data fluctuates frequently. If I use 1, it creates a too narrow field.  I hope to get the answer very soon and for now I plan to watch all three scenarios.

When tasked with optimizing ecommerce site, many of efforts will be included in the entire project. At the same time, if we start with the main objective of the site, which is to sell, it pays off to start with laying the foundation - optimizing the shopping cart and checkout flow. So what are the basics to adhere to or run a diagnostics on?

While sifting through abundant expert advice available online, these 10 principles stuck in my mind and became a valuable framework:

1. Shopping cart as an icon - must be visible at all times to help users go smoothly throughout the shopping experience. It should provide the customers with options to make a decision at any moment they are ready, at a search page, at a product page and more.

2. Action to add to cart - must be visible too. But make sure that action will not send your customer away from the current page (be that search or other), you want them be “on the same journey”. Usually, AJAX allows that to happen. It also helps to somehow visibly note that the addition just took place and it was successful. The more the experience resembles in-store shopping the better your users’ online shopping experience.

3. Always disclose costs - as those are the key information a shopper needs throughout the evaluation process of other items to add. If not shown, you cart might trigger confusion and proclivity to be abandoned. You do not want that, do you? This one especially relates to shipping costs and tax details that might very much change the shoppers’ desire to have the item.

4. Provide control to your online shoppers, with tools for “save for later”, “wishlist”, “email a friend”, “share’ and “print” to prevent the abandonment caused by the total high price or unexpected shipping costs (# 1 reason of abandonment) or some other reason. You can even add options of color change, functionality upgrade right at that moment. It would also pay off if you enable them with multiple shipping and billing functions, email the order confirmation themselves, split the order into multiple shipment groups and on.

5. Show any loyalty programs benefits and build the relationship. Re-assure your shoppers on the future benefits they will get while buying from you. Who would ever want to leave your cart after that?

6. Make customer help obvious, prominent, and usable - if you have a “click to chat” option - make sure it works flawlessly and there is someone there to be for the customer 24/7. Show other alternatives to answer last minute questions that could be so minor, but so influential to contribute to your sale. Explain within the UI (ability to hover over as an example) the shipping charges and return policies. Be generous with service and information upfront.

7. Throughout the checkout experience, make sure your customers know at all times where they are - make sure the visual cues are consistent in the main navigation and in the checkout pages. Imagine yourself in the real store, where top signs say “Bedding” and you find yourself clearly in the “Cleaning Supplies” aisle.

8. Provide “smart” links, popups with clear messaging on free shipping, gift cards, coupons and ways to save before shoppers confirm the order. Make the online experience thrilling and enjoyable when users see that they can save and get a deal. Promotions are highly effective in driving order completion. Place those properly at various points. Make them easily visible (above the fold).  Make sure that users can also go back and change the coupon codes. Do not deactivate that option once they added one coupon and it appeared incorrect. This pet peeve of mine sent me away from the sale so many times!

9. Use conventional user-friendly icons and nomenclature - make it easy for us to shop. Do not teach us a new way of online shopping even if you have the coolest site built on the latest technology.

10. Welcome new users without getting personal upfront - if you able to fulfill the sales without registration, please do so. First time and casual shoppers will be more inclined to complete a sale if you make it fast and low commitment for them right there. You can still capture their email (openly) by communicating future incentives if the cart was abandoned.

Wish to go beyond the top 10? Check out these great publications “eCommerce Roadmap” by Palmer Web Marketing and “20 Surefire Ways to Increase Sales Using Zen Cart” by Eric Leuenberger. Both are very worthwhile reads!

Usually, I write about ideas and experiences from the 3rd party perspective, but this month was very much consumed by my own online shopping, searching and finding the basic necessities of an urban lifestyle, driven by my recent move from Seattle, WA to Dallas, TX. Thus, my only observations of what got me sold in ecommerce are derived straight from the source - my own experience as a customer. So, what drove my purchasing decisions and resulted in my smooth transition from NW to SW?

1. Retargeting (re-messaging) online display ads that appeared “miraculously” on various online destinations that I went afterwards - Facebook, Google Maps, Reader, email, news sites - kept my attention sharp on the items I wanted and got me to buy them within a week from the point of initial search to a purchase. Granted, I did abandon the cart a few times (intentionally and not), but it was followed up with  coupon discount offers in emails and re-messaging ads, thus overstock.com managed to win my business.  To get the fundamentals of its effectiveness, see my prior post -”Why Should You Care About Retargeting“.

In sum, I had limited time, resources and attention like any other average consumer. But, my needs were destined to be met after a through mix of intelligent personalized advertising that I did not mind (as my brain was set to pay attention to the items in demand), availability of online “usage stats and opinions, aka reviews” and referrals from my social capital.  Overall, my shopping process resembles a pretty mainstream buyer behavior pattern that is easy to utilize these days. So, what are you waiting for? Go ahead and replicate!

“Speeding makes money?” - you ask. It does, if you think of the value of speed when it comes to online sales. “Speed sells” trend marks the entire issue of Internet Retailer this month.  Simultaneously, the speeding comes in different flavors:

1) Speed of page load - the faster it is, the less you challenge your customers. At the same time, all those social media widgets and bandwidth clogging features (video, zoom, animated content) are also demanded by savvy online shoppers.  What to do? Regardless of this double sword situation, online retailers become resourceful and find new ways to accelerate site performance by:

      a) Exploring the caching resources of their ecommerce applications (from looking into internal applications, utilizing the web browsers capabilities to store commonly used elements of the page or opting for content delivery networks to do the job).

     b) Cutting on the “extra” (from multiple Java script libraries to style sheets that can be compressed and finally to slimming the images based on their performance).

     c) Using lower cost connections when possible with a flexibility to route traffic to the best performing pipe.

2) Speed of shipping - the more options you offer and the faster you can execute on the delivery, the more chances you have to close the sale.  Even Amazon, the online giant, recently started providing same day delivery. And if this offer becomes standard, imagine its effect on bricks-and-mortar stores. The instant gratification need is very much solved by this move and more companies will emulate this strategy in the near future.  So in sum, this is illustrated by:

     a) Providing same-day delivery option (as above). Will that make you buy today and now? It surely will!

     b) Backing free shipping through automating labor intensive transactions (returns) allows to keep the order volumes high enough to afford the free delivery benefit for end-customers.

     c) Managing efficiency of shipping carriers (through various software) and choosing the most cost-effective or customer-chosen option. This is especially critical in current times, when carriers stopped providing best rates based on volume.

3) Speed of making your shoppers decide to purchase now.  In other words, using all those “accelerate” road signs that put your customers into action - online discounts, coupons, groupons and all that turn that “recession-irritated” buyer’s remorse into a savings practice! The last tactic is very much enjoyed by smaller retailers that shine in creativity when it comes to promotions run to beat the big dog. Examples of the most common ones are:

      a) 110% price guarantee (a coupon valued at 110%  of the difference if your shopper reports a lower price within 3 days).

      b) 20 to 50% off retail prices, 10% off second orders within 60 days. Stimulates come backs (loyalty)!

      c) 100% low-price guarantee plus 10% on next purchase, 90-day “hassle-free” returns.

Indeed, online coupons and groupons make it easier for us, expense-conscious consumers, get to enjoy the luxuries we used to afford effortlessly before. A great many coupon driven marketing services have been growing to cater to this trend, providing marketers with clever promotional programs to drive both volumes through the actions of end-users (by making it enticing to share the coupon to get the great rate and onboarding 5 to 10 other consumers to enjoy a product or a service, implemented through Facebook or Twitter).

Thus, all in all, speed rules the online shopping today. So go ahead and speed up your site, your delivery or the purchase decision of your customers!

What makes a site an ecommerce site? A simple functionality of selling products online? What makes one successful selling online? Those kinds of questions ran back and forth in my head all month, which brought me to come up with a simple framework. 

And though, each site is almost like an individual patient with its own case and history, in very broad terms, a fully functional and thus healthy ecommerce site is based on the three fundamentals = an optimal combination of (1) site performance (SP) (backend ecommerce platform and widgets) + (2) intuitive user experience (iUX) (to guide your users to close the desired action) + (3) live pipeline of site traffic programs (PST) (to bring those users on site, new and repeat).

So, while making an assessment of how to drive conversion rate up and make the most of it, one has to study the entire system and choose priorities based on the situation. Should we do a simple “face lift” or prep for “an open heart surgery”? - All that would be evident if we look closely at all three pillars if you will, in the actual process of their coexistence.

Every piece of this simple summation should function well to make the entire body, in our case, a site, work. Thus, favoring one over the other two can lead to imbalance and performance issues. So care and pamper each ingredient specifically and pay attention to overall combination. 

And so, you’ll ask - what are the methods of treating each pillar? Thank God and our industry fellows, there are plenty of ways to do so - my special favorite - a recent ebook by Justin Palmer - “eCommerce Roadmap” - where you will find 192 ways to optimize your site.

Persistence, most of the times, pays off in life. The same applies to advertising. Your audience might be at various points of consideration for your product and it is only natural that it can lose its attention for some time due to other events happening simultaneously. A savvy medieval merchant always knew the value of early engagement and a continuous courtship of a potential patron. He knew that someday this fearless young boy that irritates his parents today with his fiery temper, would become a courageous fighter tomorrow…So the merchant let the lad play with the real sword today …seeding the wanted affiliation and desire to have it for the future…chances were very favorable that a matured gladiator would come back to this very merchant when the time was right.

Re-marketing to your audience, based on already known interactions (level of engagement) expressed through your online advertising analytics, represents a modern method of a future customer courtship. You track your site user through cookies and target him/her elsewhere with a content that speaks to the level of interest based on the latest point of interaction. In the industry, re-marketing is also known as re-targeting or re-messaging.

Why should you care about re-targeting?

1) If you are selling anything online, you battle with the wicked abandonment rate, trying to figure out how to catch the fleeting shoppers…and retargeting ads help you re-catch them! You will need to have a sizable budget to enhance your online advertising “nets”, on average of approximately 30K a month, as Adam Boalt shares with us in his post. At the same time, if your ads return at almost $10 ROI, you will accelerate your online sales not just cover the costs. Plus, if we choose to re-engage with the known average of 98% of your audience that leaves without becoming a customer, imagine the potential uplift in your other online marketing efforts - SEO, PPC & search!

2) Arm your customer loyalty program. Your product was already passing through the customer minds, so why not re-introduce yourself again. Or your own customers, who made a purchase before, but got distracted and then became exposed to competitive “apples of knowledge’, are now wondering in temptation! According to the article of Janet Hoffman and Eric Lowitt, Strategy & Leadership Journal, on “A better way to design loyalty programs“,”85 percent of the “loyal” customers are willing to shop elsewhere if properly enticed.” By supplementing your advertising mix with re-targeting, you have all the ammunition necessary to re-conquer your customers’ challenged loyalty. Remind them about the benefits they receive, provide them with appealing discount offers and your efforts will pay off in repeat business - Amen!

3) Your product/service requires longer purchase cycle -”…retargeting leverages sequential advertising to reinforce your message as the consumer goes through the research and consideration process prior to completing a purchase.” In other words, it helps you do the expected ”white glove holding” online and be present at every stage of your customer consideration process, especially if it takes on average 7 different contacts (touch points) with the company for a prospect to convert (purchase).

If you are responding to either one reason above, you should revisit your online advertising budget to find a spot to drive return conversions. Again, like with display ads, complementing search, re-targeting only works best when combined with other advertising initiatives that drive traffic to your site. 

And the industry is opening up with opportunities for easy implementation. Though, re-targeting is a growing trend in online advertising, there are a number of well-established players that provide specifically this service.  At the same time, most online advertising platforms started to work on providing this solution or already doing so. Simultaneously, web analytics industry players are also getting into the space.  This, all in all, creates a healthy competition and a number of quality choices for online marketers, like you and I!

Retailers are hurting! People are not spending as much regardless quite appealing discounts, but online business is still doing well according to Forrester report for 2009. What fuels it? Can you believe, if I say, it is good marketing, in the form of rich media ads or experiences, well-targeted email marketing, paid search and enabling mobile shopping opportunities? At the same time, it is not quite as odd as it seems - without marketing and advertising your online business might lose its running fuel and vanish. Bringing the traffic to your site is very vital and transferring it into purchasing crowd even more so. It does require more effort than before due to the normal environmental intricacies of online shopping and additional challenges of reduced spending. So what are the secrets of steady online business?

Through browsing the latest ecommerce guides, I distinguish the following factors contributing to present online success:

1) Rich media application through online shopping experience - making your product appealing to your audience. While selling online, it is critical to recreate a close to “real life” experience and rich media does just that. It allows maximum engagement opportunities (high definition demo, reading reviews while browsing, moving a picture/product, deep zooming it in/out, changing color, seeing the product in a number of suggested backgrounds (a whole outfit for apparel or a furnished bath for specialty appliances). Once you manage to deliver this optimal selection/consideration experience, enhanced with visualization tools (pictures, interactive video) at a privacy of one’s own home (where the “mall buyer’s remorse” is weakened thanks to the latter), you got your conversion, sealed by the sales transaction.  Examples of using rich media are: perfect car finder with Kelly Blue Book; Fathead.com with its popping answers to shoppers’ questions and literally bringing the product to life when images leap from video into the page; or Disney digital ad (my favorite), that truly immerses viewers into the product consumption reality (seeing a movie). And there are more of those! Check your own experience next time you browse your favorite brand or notice an ad about a product that you have already considered!

2) Targeted email that motivates buyer behavior. You might say - “Oh, that is not new!”, but I would encourage you to look closely at the best practices and keep refining your email strategy. The most successful email marketing program delivers products consumers want, when they want them. Thus, at the point of customer acquisition you should offer a number of product specific notifications and then cater only the information of interest in separate messages versus all-in-one for everybody on your list.  Plus, it helps to study the best responses for each acquired customer and test the optimal frequency, because ultimately you are building relationships.  Finally, spend some time offering the sign-up opportunities for your email programs everywhere on your site or ads.  Or to dress it up even more - provide incentives for your potential customers to sign up and keep the pipeline growing!

3) Mobile shopping becomes a competitive channel to boost sales. Putting your stores, literally into your customers’ purses and pockets can bring you a significant boost in sales. And the growing adoption of smart phones confirms the importance of this so called “fourth channel” - 95 % of all mobile traffic to m-commerce sites comes from smart phones! A shopper in a brick-and-mortar store might lure to your site to verify the prices on the spot. A busy multitasker will greatly appreciate your way of letting her order an item on the go via a text. Plus, think about the potential of texting - mobile selling without internet (especially to young consumer who grew up texting in his cradle!), when a delighted customer shares the love with friends and family (shares the info on the deals and promotions). Finally, we also have mobile applications/application stores to add to the equilibrium, which offer a richer shopping experience and an opportunity to purchase a product through the phone application itself (needed data can be drawn from a retailer’s web server). Not a bad alternative!

4) Search, search and again search  - one cannot win online only with SEO when it comes to converting the eligible traffic to sales. Search marketing has become one of the most popular tactics due to its direct measurability to sales and natural integration in the consumer shopping behavior. “Paid search is very quick and responsive, and that’s in its favor in a volatile market.” When we want something, we go online and start the search. Then, it is up to the advertisers to compete for our attention and gradually our dollars. Oh, and sometimes, you have “to flirt” with us, shoppers, when we are comparing prices! In addition, even if you are sold on investing into search - do not forget other channels. I see that some marketers falsely abandon other channels and start chasing the “hottest” paid search.  But if you think again from the buyer perspective - to make me search for you and your product - I need to become aware of it and be exposed to messages about it. Thus, it is only common sense to view your effective paid search campaigns supplemented and augmented by other marketing programs, be those display ads, product placements or social media engagement campaigns.

So, what are you waiting for? Need more convincing evidence? Read my prior post “All You Need To Know About Selling Online Today From Top 100 Online Retailers.” Or, go and implement some ideas above!

Recession…a word that everyone these days has had at least once on their minds. Changes in our personal lifestyles and even professional directions could not help but happen. There is not so much freedom of realizing our plans and dreams. There is not so much passion any more in things that fueled us before.  At the same time, the show must go on and if you are an observant marketer or a simple consumer, you must have started witnessing the following consumer trends driven by these challenging times.

1. “Sellsuming” - the increased need for cash prompted most consumers become “sellsumers” as the folks behind April’s 2009 trendswatching report named them.  Consumers become very creative in selling “extra” space, services or products.  Great examples include: renting space (residential and even parking), reselling unwanted clothes, furniture, jewelry, providing expert advice or extra help in gardening and on.  What have you done recently?

2. Fishing for low-cost entertainment - spending more time than money on entertainment, or getting entertained at home becomes another common pastime for recession-councious consumers. Some turn to online gaming, which is free and easily accessible, some arrange for more movie/favorite show nights using hulu.com or renting a bunch of DVDs on Netflix or elsewhere.  According to emarketers’ analyst Paul Verna, “comScore’s measurements (up 27% more unique visits and 42% more total playing time in December 2008 than in December 2007) highlight the ongoing shift from high-cost, console-based gaming toward free, browser-based alternatives.”

3. If affluent, buying more online with discretion - people with extra money now flock on web to keep their shopping lifestyle in a more discrete way.  According to emarketers’ article, affluent shoppers comprise of one fourth of all US internet audience, mostly focusing on buying PCs and mobile devices.  Online merchants - this is your audience to court these days!

4. Increased online services and social media usage - increased unemployment and job “insecurity” causes many people spend more time online while looking through the classified ads for jobs, services and then “some”.  According to the Pew Research Center, the use of online classified advertising Websites doubled from 2005 to 2009. Emarketer also points out that “Twenty-two percent of US Internet users went on the sites in 2005, and in 2009, the proportion climbed to 49%. Daily use went from 4% to 9% in the same timeframe”. The “some” represents becoming more engaged in social networking sites to collectively share ideas, connections and any other information that simultaneously adds flavor to the trends # 6, 9 and 10.

5. Smart shopping - looking for bargains offline and online becomes more usual pastime in efforts to economize on price and value, while trading in more time. Internet shopping again becomes a more preferable channel to accommodate this buying behavior. Do you use any of the shared secrets to get your best deals?

6. Increased propensity to social harmony - our natural inclination to re-prioritize our values in “cold and severe” economic climate drives us to spend more time with our families, friends and loved ones. We tend to turn to our families to get through the tough slides on the way.  Companies that cater to these emerging “quality time” experiences can bolster loyalty and engagement of their existing customers and gain a number of new ones!

7. Increased value of health - focusing on health as the “real wealth” motivates increased popularity of engaging into various sports activities to maintain this “somewhat” controllable asset we all have. Finding happiness in health of bodies versus stock market is much more feasible and tangible. While gyms owners might ponder on this trend, consumers can still choose from a variety of free alternatives, including jogging, walking and biking.

8. Skills enhancement and training - laid off or not, people tend to become more genuinely interested in continuing their education to add value to their employability, or to cope with the reduced resources to maintain their career or a small business or to get distracted from the “depressed job market”.

9. More love and dating - who knew that recession induces romance? According to NYTimes, “Online and offline matchmakers are reporting that dating interest is up, way up. Match.com, for instance, had its strongest fourth quarter in the last seven years, and brick-and-mortar outfits like Amy Laurent International, a matchmaking service with outposts in New York, Los Angeles and Miami, say business is up 40 percent among women over the last four months.” The reasons vary from more time on hands due to being unemployed or underemployed, more affordable way to meet singles online to seeking comfort in relationships during the difficult times (closer to trend # 6)!

10. Cooking from scratch to save and have fun - less money as discretional income translates into less often dining out and more cooking at home choices. Simultaniously, the propensity to cherish relationships and social affiliations drives consumers to arrange for more cookout get-togethers. Sharing a meal made from scratch both provides quality dining experience and befriends all engaged participants!

I am sure there are more peculiar trends out there that define the recession market these days. If you know of any that I missed and you see their popularity rising - share with us and add your comments!

If you are constrained with time and resources, but need to create a compelling piece of marketing collateral that serves its purpose naturally, instantly and with ease of engagement, what would you choose - a one page guide, a white paper, a site or a video? My recent observations on the effectiveness of marketing content pushed out to the masses, (or seeded towards, be those targeted or not), compel me to pay a tribute, or to confess in love, as you will, to online videos that meet all our secret marketing needs!

Why videos? Well, let’s see.  If we start with 5 common sense reasons why online videos are effective in engaging your target viewer, we will find:

1) Ease of use - it is so easy to view a video versus to read an article - so much less effort and attention needed to decipher the message.

2) Entertaining factor - for long, we have been primed to be entertained by TV ads, movies, TV programs, etc. that it becomes a second nature to get into that state of expecting a show worth of our attention.  No wonder why all the mentioned media strive to entertain us first to utilize that captivated attention.  Hence, when it comes to video content, we are more likely to engage into viewership on the premise of the anticipated “show”.

3) Message interpretation accuracy - “even though visual communication is a less direct way of communicating, most people rely on this form of communication and wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world! Visual communication adds another layer of information in our communication with each other, and perhaps that is why we cherish our vision so much.” Numerous studies, books, articles emphasize the importance of body language or visual memory in communications. The referenced article by Debbie Jensen explains why visual memory precedes all others - a simple reflex or function of our mind to organize information beyond one point - the law of continuation. So if we see the message, we are better off comprehending it.

4) Longer life in audience memory - people remember better in pictures than words. How many times you recalled something faster because it had an association with the name of your home town or some other event? How many times you were able to achieve something because you visualized it? You simply gave a command to execute the vision to your mind. Imagine what it can do for your call to action - it can be easily presented in action to your audience.  In other words, videos are visualized messages that you can more effectively plant into your customers’ memories!

5) Wide range of channels to place those wonderful “communication machines” for free - isn’t that something? Usually, you do not need to worry about media placement costs, run of time and on and on…the key “details” that rank up your marketing spend when it comes to TV ads, or product placements.  Plus, a myriad of “audience-heavy” user-generated sites from YouTube to MySpace provides you with various options on where to seed your videos.  So, go and use them…wisely!

On the other hand, if we browse the latest industry trends on online video usage, we will support the above 5 reasons with the following facts:

1) Overall, the average US online video viewer watched 327 minutes of video in March, nearly 5.5 hours - according to emarketer, online video ad spending in the US will pass the $1 billion mark in 2011. Go and capture your audience right there, right now, when it browses YouTube or its online newspaper sites.  A good video marketing strategy can produce stellar results for your brand!

2) In total, 138 million Americans - approximately three in four US Internet users - viewed online video - according to comScore. And that was measured in November 2007 - imagine what it is now (or conservatively stay within the same data point) and use it to support your marketing web strategy rationale to invest in video production.

3) Private studies show that awareness and purchase intent grow significantly as a result of online video views - according to AdAge author Kevin Nalty. Though, there is no reference to study results, the statement makes sense even from the personal shopping experience - yes, I will more than likely buy an item that I saw in action in a video.  Moreover, if that video was shared by my respected Facebook friend, I am to invest more thought into the buying process.

So, are you convinced to produce some “kick-ass” videos? Your marketing strategy might get a well-deserved lift!