eCommerce/eretail

SUMMARY: MarketingSherpa research has shown that creating content is one of the most effective tactics for improving your site's SEO. Of course, creating content takes time, money and expertise. So, why not ask the true experts -- your audience -- for help?

One e-commerce site increased organic search traffic, conversion rates and time-on-site by encouraging customers to write product reviews. You'll see how the marketers taught customers how to write content-rich reviews and how they got more of them. read the complete case study

SUMMARY: Digital marketing makes testing and optimization efforts easier than ever, with a constant flow of data and relatively low cost compared to testing traditional marketing channels.

Learn how Cabela's has maintained a testing culture over its entire history, alongside details about its digital split testing and optimization program. Plus, get an inside look at how the team combines offline channel data to get a full view of its marketing and optimization efforts.

Tony Uhlir, Internet Customer Experience Manager, Cabela's, will present at the upcoming Optimization Summit 2012 in Denver, June 11-14. read the complete article

SUMMARY: "US online retail sales will reach $229 billion in 2013." "The market will grow at a CAGR of 10% over the 5-year forecast period." view the complete research record

SUMMARY: The traditional marketing funnel is broken, says Joseph Jaffe, marketing consultant and author. Its emphasis on customer acquisition means marketers spend most of their time looking for new customers rather than nurturing the ones they already have.

Changing this marketing paradigm is the call-to-arms of Jaffe’s latest marketing book, “Flip the Funnel,” which officially launched with a keynote presentation at MarketingSherpa’s Email Summit in Miami last week. We sat down with him for an interview following his speech to learn more, and to outline five key strategies for changing your company’s marketing focus. read the complete interview

SUMMARY: This week we look back on one year of consumer-marketing newsletters to highlight three key trends from 2010 -- complete with 10 links to the year's best articles.

Take a look to find social marketing advice from Kodak, a Twitter contest that helped boost sales 150%, and a mobile-page test that cut bounces 22%. read the complete article

While this is just one consumer’s complaint, it’s something to think about. “Rob” recently was quoted in a Consumerist post about how Amazon ruined his wife’s surprise Christmas present by sending email recommendations relevant to the gift he purchased.

His wife saw a subject line referring to the surprise gift (a TomTom GPS) on the couple’s shared Google homepage enabled with an iGoogle email widget showing recent emails.

I suppose one could argue that it’s... read the complete blog post