Amazon.com the hidden empire
May 15th, 2011 // 9:09 pm @ Taki Tsaklanos
Category : Best practices &Blog &Digital &Insights &Online marketing &Strategy
Facts you probably didn’t know about Facebook
January 3rd, 2011 // 3:05 am @ Taki Tsaklanos
Category : Best practices &Blog &Insights &Online marketing
Conversion optimization: some tips & tricks
November 14th, 2010 // 10:30 pm @ Taki Tsaklanos
KISS metrics is one of those sites that publishes only quality information. One of the most recent articles “Conversions vs traffic” offers a lot of simple but effective tips.
The central thesis of the article is that you better first work on conversion optimization, before going too hard with traffic building.
The conversion optimization tips & tricks in the article (summarized):
- search marketing > calculate the conversion on keywords, drop the ones that are not profitable and refocus efforts on the ones that are converting
- copy > the wording needs to be phrased in a way that eliminates potential concerns from (potential) customers
- funnel > make sure that there are no extra or unnecessary steps, otherwise said “make sure your customers have the most direct route possible to actually complete their purchase.”
- video > some content can better be offered in a non-textual way
- buttons > be aware of the size, shape and color of buttons
- don’t rush > make sure that, prior to the decision, enough steps are offered so that users don’t feel pushed
- remove buttons or functionalities that get visitors to remove their shopping basket or form completion
These were mostly smaller changes. In the article, KISS metrics suggests to also test with structural changes, mostly totally different (landing) pages. On a site like abtests.com, you’ll find some results of testing different pages. Quite remarkable, but nothing new actually.
Category : Best practices &Blog &Digital &Insights &Online marketing &Strategy
Multivariate testing: some tips & tricks
November 13th, 2010 // 8:30 pm @ Taki Tsaklanos
Some nice examples (tips & tricks) about multivariate testing and landing page optimization.
Category : Best practices &Blog &Digital &Online marketing
Key success factors for a start-up
November 13th, 2010 // 8:09 pm @ Taki Tsaklanos
I came across this extremely interesting presentation of Alexander Osterwalder. The summary of his story is to be found on this one slide:
This is the full version of the presentation. Great stuff!
Category : Best practices &Blog &Insights &Strategy
Social key in digital strategy of Starbucks
July 29th, 2010 // 1:07 pm @ Taki Tsaklanos
Starbucks appears to be the most engaged brand in the digital area. Very strong social presence, with more than 10 million facebook and most tweeted brand name.
Let’s have a look at the digital marketing director’s presentation and make some notes / conclusions out of it.
Category : Best practices &Blog &Digital &Online marketing &Strategy
Doritos chooses winner of King of Ads contest
July 28th, 2010 // 11:57 pm @ Taki Tsaklanos
The online contest King of Ads, organized by Doritos UK, has come to an end. Check out the winner on Doritos’ microsite.
While I absolutely like the creative and social aspect of this competition, I am still wondering how the competition relates to Doritos’ marketing objectives. The competition will attract mainly creative people (who can make / participate / edit an ad). Nevertheless, I was really surprised when I saw the results of the competition: on the Youtube channel you see 2.000 submissions, resulting in some 425.000 video views. So on average there were some 210 video views per submission.
Not sure about my conclusions, but I think the number of submissions is quite high with the social (viral) effect is weak. On a “higher” marketing level, I don’t think Dorito reached the target audience they needed (wanted) to reach, but I can’t say for sure as I never saw the creative brief 
Category : Best practices &Blog &Online marketing &Strategy
Some innovative ways to use Twitter
July 18th, 2010 // 11:12 am @ Taki Tsaklanos
I wrote yesterday about a smart way that the city of Edinburgh uses Twitter to spread traffic updates (via @edintravel). By coincidence I stumbled today upon another very smart example of a company using Twitter. It is an initiative from Best Buy, a US retailer (if I’m not wrong). They have been using Twitter more intense to answer the questions from their customers, as well as more general tech advice, via a separate account @twelpforce. The account is complementary to their generic @bestbuy, where you find promotions and offers. Now the really smart part of this case is this BBYFeed website they set up, where they collect all the questions and answers given, in order to build a kind of a knowledge base. Imagine how much information and knowledge you can build up by doing this in a persistent way, and how much efficiency they could bring in the customer service centre (but even in the whole company) in the longer run.
Now if you do that in a structured way over a longer period of time, that’s what I call a smart and innovative way to use social media (in particular Twitter).
I found some other examples of using Twitter in an innovative way in this article on nevillehobson.com. I am not really blown away by the first three examples, but definitely the H&R Block is an intelligent one. To a lesser extent I consider Dunkin Donuts also a good case.
By the way, referring to a lot of articles I read on the web, I don’t really like these terms like Twitter marketing or Facebook marketing. It creates a wrong perception, in my eyes, that social media platforms are isolated and that they stand on their own. It creates a perception that the Twitter or Facebook activity is disconnected from the rest of the marketing activities. It’s a matter of wording, but my misinterpreting it you can take seriously wrong strategic decisions.
Category : Best practices &Blog &Digital &Online marketing &Strategy
Social commerce: why is it difficult to realize it
July 5th, 2010 // 7:53 pm @ Taki Tsaklanos
I really like the idea behind social commerce, as explained in this presentation by Paul Marsden.
The first question that pops up with myself: how difficult is it to reap the full potential benefits? I think most companies will be struggling, mostly because of their internal structure. The roll out of these kinds of projects, imply that there is one single online team, that controls e-commerce, e-marketing, e-crm, e-support. Most companies have these area’s across different departments. Here again I see the power of centralization of decision making in the digital area, and the potential if you do it right!
Category : Best practices &Blog &Digital &Insights &Online marketing &Strategy
