As featured on Friday’s home page of Internet Retailer I’m proud to announce that Future Now has completed the 2004 Online Retailer Study for Customer Focused excellence.  A report that measures how well a website meets a customer’s needs from the time a shopped identifies a product to be purchased.

Read the entire 2004 Online Retailer Study for Customer Focused Excellence.

Also check out a highlight of the results at Internet Retailer.  You can also get a PDf of last year’s study.

...continue to read "2004 Online Retail Study for Customer Focused Excellence"

Just a hi-light of a few articles you may have missed over the last week or so.

First, Bryan Eisenberg’s most recent ClickZ article debunks one of the internets biggest myths… Price Is Not King.  Sometimes trying to win the price game will get you nothing but a bunch of parasitical customers who latch on and feed on your profits.  Bryan shows the alternative to offering the lowest price on your site by increasing your site’s personal experience factor.

Our bud…

...continue to read "A Few Things You Might Have Missed"

Price is not king. Not on the Internet, not anywhere.

Now don’t misunderstand. Price is a critical attribute of any competitive product. But let’s not place it on too lofty a throne.

No one wants to pay more than she must to buy what she wants. Who doesn’t seek good value? But a fair price and a good value are entirely different from the lowest price.

Among e-tailers, the argument usually goes something like this: “My visitors are just a few clicks away from…

...continue to read "Climbing Out of the Lowest-Price Trap"

Search engine pay-per-click (PPC) ad prices are rising. If your Web business relies heavily on search engine marketing (SEM), you may already feel the crunch.

Marketers often abandon certain search terms because the cost rises above their ability to achieve a reasonable return on investment (ROI). In-demand terms are often too expensive to be worthwhile. Soon, demand will place many keywords out of reach of everyone excepting those with the deepest pockets.

What about organic SEO (define)? This week, a few tips…

...continue to read "Reconcile Rising SEO Costs With ROI"

It’s a quiet day on the road (right now in Brooklyn prepping for our Persuasive Online Copywriting Workshop ), so we wanted to take a few moments and give a shout out to 3 fine ladies who are also our blogging friends.

Our good friend The Diamond Diva (a faith GrokDotCom reader) blogs about diamonds, diamond jewelry, fashion, and other things for the ladies.

A Future Now faithful Yvonne DeVita and her Lispsticking blog, all about marketing to women.

And Debbie Weil is…

...continue to read "A Shout Out"

Again, seats will be limited. We wanted our faithful blog readers to get first dibs.

You Will Learn Exactly How To Increase Your Conversion Rate

During our two day workshop we’ll work hands on with you to guide you on how to implement techniques that will boost your conversion rate to its maximum, and streamline the shopping experience for your visitors.

The workshop will be January 12-13 2005 in our cool new digs in Brooklyn’s Red hook district.

If you are planning a site redesign in…

...continue to read "eTail Redesign for Conversion Workshop"

As a marketing vehicle, the Internet is multitalented. A strong suit is collecting and comparing considerable amounts of visitor data. Compared to other ad media, the Internet delivers more data about who our customers are and what they actually do, and does so more specifically and quickly than we ever dreamed possible.

Combine such data with the context of site content or a specific ad campaign, and you see accurate snapshots of customer behavior patterns that can be observed, tracked, and…

...continue to read "Persona-lization and Behavioral Marketing"

Bottom Line: Miller’s Magic 7 has NOTHING to do with building a persuasive website. Don’t let your website design decisions be bound by outdated science.

Miller’s Magic 7 has been bandied about in web design circles for years, and many site designs have been conceived under the premise of George Miller’s 1956 article about the ability of humans to retain in a total of 7 plus or minus 2 items in working memory.

In his most recent ClickZ article Bryan Eisenberg lays…

...continue to read "Debunking Miller’s Magic 7 in Web Design"

Your business imperative should always shape the design, development and evolution of your Web site

I’d happily pass out rules right and left on a silver platter. If only I could. But in our business, we live and breath the fine line between “best practices” and “principles.” If we didn’t, we couldn’t help you be effective in your online efforts.

Sometimes practice and principle are a comfortable fit. Sometimes they aren’t. What should you be doing on your Web site? You know…

...continue to read "Considered Choices"