By now, many online retailers should be familiar with the abbreviation “RFM,” which stands for recency, frequency, and monetary value. For a refresher, here’s my explanation from 2002.

Over the past several columns, I’ve examined conversion rate basics. This week, we continue our study of the basics with an updated look at RFM.

Recency represents the number of days since the customer last completed the action you’re profiling. Frequency represents the number of times the customer has completed this action since the…

...continue to read "The Power of RFM"

So apparently the Internet Advertising Bureau is dissatisfied with search-based Internet ads.  Seems they want to “overcome perceptions of ‘creative shabbiness’ in online media, and to help prevent the slide toward a ‘performance-based’ Internet advertising economy.”  Ouch.

While I can’t help but shake my head at the elevated nose and depressed intelligence of a dying attitude that associates “performance-based advertising” with creative shabbiness, that’s not what really bothered me about this piece.

What bothered me was two-fold:

1)  …

...continue to read "Let’s Get Rid of Performance Based Marketing, Huh?"

Last year we won a SEMMY award for the post “How A Pretty Face Can Push Visitors Away“. This year we are flattered to be nominated again for Three Reasons Your Visitors Don’t Convert to Leads. We are in good company in the design and usability category.

Can I ask you to please go ahead and vote? it doesn’t take more than a couple of minutes to read these great articles and vote. Voting is open now, and will close at…

...continue to read "A “Semmy-Finalist?” Could I Possibly Win?"

When something goes wrong with a product or service and you’re looking to request an exchange, return or be compensated somehow for the inconvenience, you probably expect a fight when contacting the vendor. This is a result of companies missing the mark on successfully meeting our customer experience basic expectations.

I had to laugh at myself when I found myself in this exact situation. I had my boxing gloves on and I was ready to duke it out, expecting the worst. I…

...continue to read "Ecommerce Alchemy: Turning Disgruntled Customers Into Brand Advocates"

Here are the top 10 converting websites for December 2008*. These are based on Nielson Panel data and are calculated by toolbar user to final conversion. Conversion-rate data is based on visitor conversion rates, not session conversion rates: i.e., No. of unique customers/No. of unique visitors.

1. ProFlowers 31.1% 2. LL Bean 25.7% 3. Amazon 23.7% 4. VitaCost 23.0% 5. Coldwater Creek 22.4% 6. QVC 21.1% 7. Roamans 20.4% 8. Office Depot 20.2% 9. LandsEnd 19.3% 10. Victoria’s Secret 19.2%

*Source: Nielsen Online / Marketing Charts

According to Coremetrics…

...continue to read "Top 10 Online Retailers by Conversion Rate: December 2008"

If you’ve been to one of our trainings over the past few years, or seen any of us present at a conference, you’ve probably heard the line about the average tenure of a Chief Marketing Officer being less than the gestation period of an elephant.  Well, it’s time for some new material.  New research from executive search firm Spencer Stuart shows that CMOs are making it into their 3rd year with the same organization, on average, based on a…

...continue to read "On CMOs, Customer Service, and Birthing Elephants"

Maybe? But today, January 27, 2009 at 12PM EST, you can join me and the rest of the MarketMotive Master Certification Faculty at a live web event – a unique offering, even by Market Motive standards.

The description of this final project–a live panel review gauntlet–reads like a wild fusion between American Idol, a PhD dissertation defense, and a lightning-round news roundtable show.  Candidates will vie for faculty endorsements under the scrutiny of a live audience and a few surprise marketing…

...continue to read "Could You Be Certified?"

Hot on the heels of a recent comScore report, we hear the interesting news that product videos views are up some 40%, year-over-year basis last October.  Now, that was done on a single rather small sample, but still this speaks to the increasing influence video will exert on product marketing online.

We’ve commented any number of times on GrokDotCom that rampant poor product imagery represents a consistent loss of sales for online businesses. Most retailers just end up using the low-quality,…

...continue to read "Video Views Up, When Will Sales Follow?"

There are only so many ways to stand out and become a leader in any market. You can be lowest price driven, operationally excellent, channel dominant, or focused on customer intimacy. Many companies excel at two or three but it is nearly impossible to excel at all of them.

Here are 5 strategies companies use to become market leaders.

Operations that let them be more efficient than you at getting order picked, packed and delivered so that…

...continue to read "5 Reasons Competitors May Be Doing Better Than You"

The funnest part of releasing something new and innovative is watching people’s joyful reaction to it. The hardest part is explaining it! After all, we’ve lived and breathed it for months [years?][decades?], and naturally everyone else should just “get” it, right?

Well, we’re finally out of the bottle when it comes to our newest software offering, OnTarget™. We knew what the OnTarget software-as-a-service is; why it’s so different from everything else; how OnTarget works on your website; and even what kind of client results…

...continue to read "Outside the Bottle, Stay OnTarget™"