PV Media Group

21 E-Commerce Resolutions for the New Year

By Lee Goldberg, Regional Vice President Now that the holiday season is winding down, it’s time to reflect on what worked and what didn’t for your online store so that next year can be even better. As we head into 2010, make it your New Year’s resolution to improve your conversion rate and user experience. Here’s 21  quick best practices that you should strive to achieve in the New Year:

1.    Make sure you have unique product descriptions – Each product should have a unique description  – Not just a list of feeds, specs, etc., but actual benefit-driven copy that’s unique to your store

2.    Have a tight keyword focus on every page – Every page (products, categories, etc.) should have a laser-tight keyword focus, and should have unique copy, title tags, meta tags, etc. Be sure to perform keyword research to see what people are actually typing!

3.    Use static URLs – This is crucial for SEO, and semantically nicer for users who bookmark your pages. Try to include the product name in the URL (i.e. www.MyStore.com/nikon-digital-slr-camera.aspx) 

4.    Show multiple product images – A picture is worth a thousand words! Show us multiple images of the products, from different views, zoom angles, etc. For products that have attributes such as color, show us each color and variation!

5.    Mine your internal search data – This is crucial! You need to look at what your customers are trying to find but can’t. Mine this data for each of your category pages – Your customers may be calling your products something different than you are.

6.    Offer a variety of filtering options – Be sure to give your users the ability to search/sort thru long product lists by price, most popular (crucial – takes the risk out of the decision about which products are best), alphabet, etc. 

7.    Be sure to include a value proposition in the header – Tell us what makes you better than the 10,000 other retailers that sell the same thing. Low price guarantees, in business since 1950, free shipping, etc. all add credibility and a reason for the user to shop with you!

8.    Include ONE primary CTA per page – If your goal is to sell products, the primary call to action on the product page should be the add to cart button – Not a webinar signup or a newsletter form. It’s OK to have multiple CTAs, but prioritize with color, size, shape, etc. to place emphasis where it belongs.

9.    Have a functioning, updated XML feed – This is crucial for getting all of your pages into the engines. This should be sent to Google Webmaster Tools, Yahoo Site Explorer, and Bing Webmaster tools 

10.  Insure that your Google Base Feed is up to snuff –This is a great source of free traffic in Google’s product search and in universal search. The feed should be generated every 30 days, and automatically FTP’d to Google base.  

11. Categorize your HTML sitemap – Crucial, not only for search engines, but for users that use this as well (yes, people do use these). Break out your sitemap by product category, with no more than 50 links per page

12. Make registering for an account optional – Why add friction to the conversion process?

13. Offer multiple payment options – Don’t limit users to just credit cards – Offer PayPal, Google CheckOut, BillMeLater – Give me choices!

14.  Try “Add to Cart” Instead of “Buy Now” – We’ve multivariate tested this extensively – Add to Cart works better because it implies that the user has an option to remove the product from the cart if they decide not to go thru with the checkout

15.  Clarify your checkout, and don’t always assume that One Page is the answer – Despite what you may think, one page checkout isn’t always better. Regardless, be sure to tell me how many steps there are from the onset, and don’t ask users to repeat information that I just gave you. 

16.   Limit the options during checkout – Get rid of distractions including header navigation – Keep it zoned in on just getting people thru the process. 

17.    Make sure discount coupons actually exist – If there is an option during your checkout, make sure coupons actually exist; otherwise you’re just frustrating the user and basically telling them to leave to go find a coupon! 

18.    Use breadcrumb navigation – This is simple enough to set up and a major convenience to users and Search Engines 

19.    Use related products strategically – offer them on the product page, not during the checkout – Don’t distract me when I’m ready to give you my money! 

20.    Get your security seals in line – Place them on the checkout, right under the “proceed” button – Verisign, SSL verification, BBB, etc all add credibility. 

21.    Test, Test, Test – And then test some more – This is the most important suggestion. Don’t be afraid to try new things. The great thing about the web is that you can learn to be wrong quickly. Just because your conversion rate has improved doesn’t mean it can’t be better still. Use free tools such as Google Website Optimizer to try new designs, page copy, and images to improve your conversion rate

So there you have it – 21 things to keep in mind for the New Year. If you are diligent about seeing that these best practices get implemented, you’ll not only improve your site’s user experience, you’ll also improve your bottom line.

It's Holiday Season Already??

By David Neuman, Web 2.0 Supervisor, Prime Visibility

It seems like only yesterday we were celebrating Halloween.  Now we are only six days away from Thanksgiving and the holiday season, often the most profitable time of year for businesses, is vastly approaching.  Christmas is only 35 days away and Hanukkah, this year falling on December 11, will start in 21 days.  According to Google, as of October 5th, 45% have already made holiday purchases while 58% have already started holiday shopping / researching.  There's no doubt that this number has increased significantly since then.

If you haven't started your holiday promotion yet you've already missed out on a large amount of potential consumers.  However, there is still time to have a successful holiday season (especially since Black Friday and Media Monday have yet to come and go).  Below are some quick strategies that can be implemented that will help to provide a successful holiday season.

Coupon Codes - Offer a coupon code for holiday shoppers.  This can easily be distributed to your e-mail list, Twitter followers, Facebook fans, direct mailing list, etc.  Given the economy, it is essential to promote the hell out of this as people are consistently looking for any sort of discount or bargain. All that is required (besides the promotion of it) is adding the functionality to your shopping cart.

Feature a Product On Your Website: Online shoppers want to find what they are looking for as quickly as possible.  Any item that is expected to be a "hot seller" should be featured on your homepage. 

Run a Google Adwords Campaign: You can have a Google Adwords campaign up and running within 24 hours.  First, use this keyword tool to research keywords related to your products that have a high search volume.  If people aren't searching for a keyword, it shouldn't be included in your campaign.  Create individual advertisements for specific products through Google Adwords.  Clicks can run extremely cheap.  As long as you are bidding on the right keywords and properly managing your Adwords it can serve as a great revenue boost for this holiday season.

Facebook PPC: Facebook also has a PPC advertising platform that allows you to taget individuals based on their profile data.  If you sell guitars, for example, you can target users on Facebook who list "playing guitar" or "guitars" as an activity or interest.  Pretty cool huh?  If a certain demographic has been known to purchase a specific product, you can gear this advertisement towards this user.  Facebook allows you to target each advertisement by country, state, city, age, gender, interests, favorite activities, people's birthdays, workplaces, relationship, sexual preference, pages / groups / events / applications users are connected to, friends of users who are connected to a page / group / event / application.  You obviously do not want to make your audience too specific otherwise you are missing out on potential consumers, but the appeal of using Facebook advertisements is the ability to focus only on individuals who would potential purchase your products.

Create an E-mail Blast: If you have an e-mail list, be sure to send them information on any of your holiday promotions taking place.  Send a reblast to increase overall exposure.

Target Last Minute Shoppers: Help out those last minute shoppers who are frantically trying to get a gift at a last minute.  Offering free next day shipping to shoppers who purchase a couple of days before Christmas is an effective way to target last minute shoppers.

Prime Visibility in Newsday

A great article featuring Prime Visibility CEO Andrew Hazen has been published in Newsday: http://www.newsday.com/columnists/other-columnists/growing-li-firm-focuses-on-search-engine-optimization-1.1568656

Combating Twitter Overload

By: David Neuman, Web 2.0 Supervisor, Prime Visibility

When Twitter was first established, it seemed like a fairly simple concept.  You could post 140 characters relating to whatever you wanted and if people liked what you had to say they'd follow you.  However, as Twitter evolved, thousands and thousands of different applications were developed piggy backing off of its success.  Simply put, Twitter isn't just Twitter anymore. You have TweetDeck to monitor multiple accounts, Tweet Beep for e-mail notifications, Twitterberry for your Blackberry, HootSuite for your analytics tracking, TwitterButtons for your website, Social Oomph for the lazy tweeters who want to schedule updates for a certain date, bit.ly to shorten your URLs, not to mention thousands and thousands more.  If you have about a week to spare you can view even more here: http://www.squidoo.com/twitterapps

These applications / tools can be great time savers and enhance your overall Twitter experience...if utilized properly.  People (and businesses) often make the mistake of signing up for as many Twitter  applications as possible until they experience Twitter overload.  The key is narrowing down a select few tools that will help your "Twitter productivity".  When doing this remember to....

Assess what your end goals are:

Are you using Twitter to drive sales, increase brand awareness, as a customer service tool? All applications that you utilize should have something to do with your marketing objectives.  Simply using an application because it's "cool" isn't effective from a productivity standpoint.  Why use social oomph, a tool that allows you to schedule tweets later, if you're trying to make your account customer service oriented?

See where there is overlapping:

All applications are different in some capacity, but there is also a lot overlapping in terms of features.  A lot of people use TweetDeck as a way to organize who they are following by category type.  Did you know you can do this now directly on Twitter.com through Twitter lists (picture shown on the left)?  Analyze why you are using a particular Twitter application and get rid of any clutter.

Analyze what metrics you are measuring:

I personally believe that you can't just measure your total number of followers when determining the success of your Twitter account.  I'd rather have 1,000 followers who actually pay attention to what I have to say then 10,000 followers who never have seen an update I've implemented (it's scary how many people actually disagree with this).  When I analyze my overall Twitter success I take in an account various metrics (which I'll explain in a few), but not everybody views this as essential.  If your boss wants you to test Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn and report to him in a couple of months about which is driving the most sales, you can simply do this by looking at your e-commerce stats within your Google Analytics (or whatever your analytics program of choice is).  No need to analyze bit.ly clicks, brand mentions via tweetbeep, or Mr. Tweet's growth stats if at the end of the day your boss is just looking at sales figures. 

I'm going to digress a bit (probably should save this for another post, but oh well) and discuss what I generally use to measure Twitter success.  This does vary depending on the type of Twitter account, but for the most part these represent how I determine if what I'm tweeting is having an impact.

Twitter Traffic: This isn't as simplistic as it sounds.  You have 1,000 visits from Twitter this month...so what? What impact did that truly have on your business? Don't get me wrong, the amount of unique visitors is very important and should be analyzed, but there should be other metrics involved.  How long are these visitors staying on your website? What's the bounce rate? Did they purchase anything / fill out a form? As corny as it sounds, it's not just about the quantity of traffic, but also about the quality of traffic.

 

Retweets /Replies: Retweets and replies to your updates signify that people are actually engaged with your account / brand.  I like to also assess the context of each retweet / reply as well.  If I get a "Follow Friday" and notice that the user recommended everybody and their mother's Twitter account, I do not view this as having any impact on my brand whatsoever.  I weed out these "no impact" replies and analyze whether the number of quality retweets / replies have increased over time.  This, to me, is an effective way of analyzing brand engagement as it relates to Twitter.

Leads / Sales: I am one of those people who believe that you can never fully track ROI through Social Media.  Social Media is about building relationships...which cannot be tracked from an ROI perspective.  However, it is still important to analyze this data. If you noticed that Twitter has been driving $200 in sales daily and then on Friday produced $2,000, it is essential to analyze your Twitterstream to see what you could have tweeted that day to cause this unusual spike.  Sometimes the spike is directly correlated with a more influential tweeter posting about your company.  Even though I believe you can't make this statistic the lone determent of Social Media success, it is still imperative to analyze this data regularly.

Brand Mentions via Twitter Search: I'll search for Prime Visibility (or whatever brand I'm monitoring) through Twitter's search engine as a way to see how many people on Twitter are currently discussing my brand.  It is important to note that if you are tweeting more often, there will be more search results.

Bit.ly Clicks: I'll often post links to other resources that provide some industry insight.  Since I obviously don't have access to their analytics, I'll check my bit.ly stats to see how many people have clicked on my link. An argument here might be that other people are distributing the same bit.ly link as well.  How I combat this is by creating a custom tracking code at the end of the URL (see screenshot below).  This will create an individual bit.ly link for the URL I'm disbributing.

 

Followers: Nothing is more of an ego booster than waking up the next day to see 500 or so new followers.  Who are these people though? Having 500 spammers as new followers is the equivalent of having ZERO new followers.  As the number of my followers grow, I look for growth in the aforementioned areas as well:

• Traffic from Twitter
• Retweets / Replies
• Sales / Leads from Twitter
• Increase in brand mentions (via Twitter's search feature).
• Bit.ly clicks

Deciding the most what are the most important metrics and applications is a matter of opinion (and often requires a lot of testing).  Once you narrow down what's important you'll be able to increase your overall Twitter productivity and accurately assess the results of your Twitter campaign.

We're All Fruit

Originally published on the MediaPost Online Publishing Insider
By: Kory Kredit, VP Marketing, PV Media Group

In the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" the father of the bride, Gus Portokalos, takes a moment during a pre-wedding feast to wax philosophic about the differences between the Portokalos family and the groom's family, the Millers. He explains that Portokalos means orange (like the fruit) in Greek, and the root of the word Miller means apple in Greek. The conclusion he draws from this nugget of Grecian trivia is that "We're different, but in the end, we're all fruit." Classically brilliant.

While attending the OMMA AdNets conference last week, I was reminded of the simple truth of Gus' words as I tried to discern the differences between the ad networks represented there. There were vertical networks, horizontal networks, behavioral networks, mobile networks, networks that collect and sell audience data, display networks, search networks, network exchanges and even networks that don't call themselves networks because they prefer to be known as "platforms" (as in the Disney advertising platform -- aka, an ad network). There was talk of agencies trying to become ad networks and ad networks trying to act more like agencies.

Whatever niche, category or business model a network fits into, at the end of the day, they are all very similar. They are all fruit -- in that they are all in the business of capturing online advertising dollars, directly or indirectly.

This fact was pointed out by the conference panelists, who agreed that ad networks have become a commodity. Jordan Rohan, Founder of Clearmeadow Partners, noted that when he conducted a search on Crunchbase for ad networks that have raised over $2 million since 2005, there were 27 pages of results. While that statistic highlights the oversaturation of ad networks in the market, it also points out the market demand for ad networks that led to the infusion of investment dollars in the first place.

I'm confident that a large percentage of those networks initially listed in the 27 pages of results, no longer exist, However, due to their ability to offer advertisers increased efficiency, reach and targeting, ad networks as a whole have become a significant link in the online advertising ecosystem.

After listening to a full day of panels and presentations from experts representing most every corner of the ad network industry, there were a few key points that I came away with. First, each network needs to differentiate itself in a sea of sameness among all of the other fruit, which is getting more and more difficult as competition increases and competitive advantages can disappear overnight.

Second, the industry must continue to build upon the foundation of superior technology and data gathering capabilities that set it apart from traditional media. Several panels discussed the shift from advertisers targeting content or specific publisher Web sites, to targeting specific audiences based on behavioral and demographic data. Ad networks that aren't investing in technology and audience data are going to get left in the compost bin.

The final takeaway from the conference relates to the tenuous relationship between ad networks and agencies. As advertising budgets began to shift online, agencies have had to play catch-up in the digital space. As a result, they have had to rely on ad networks to supplement their online media buys, which cuts into the media buying fees that they charge their advertisers. Many of these same agencies are moving quickly to recover lost ground, potentially cutting out ad networks and reclaiming their media buying profit margins. As this tug-of-war continues, ad networks must continue to find new ways to add value to the process or risk being replaced by a new breed of digital agencies.

We're different, but in the end, we're all fruit. The question is, can the advertiser vine that we are attached to support us all?

The Power Of One

Originally published on the MediaPost Online Publishing Insider
By: Kory Kredit, VP Marketing, PV Media Group

We live in an economy of reduced marketing budgets and increased pressure to reach our audience using fewer resources. While I would welcome a larger budget and a handful of marketing geniuses at my disposal, I was reminded over the past week of the power that one individual could have, given a compelling story and the passion to communicate it.

It’s not likely that you’ve ever heard of Brian Wurzell. He’s not an editor for an online media publication. Brian is not a marketing executive for a fortune 500 brand or a creative director at an ad agency. You won’t ever see Brian’s name featured in MediaPost’s weekly “People on the Move” list or challenging Ashton Kutcher for a popularity contest on Twitter (he currently needs 2,648,546 more followers to catch up to the cinematic genius who gave us “Dude, Where’s My Car?”). 

 Brian is a lot of things including a talented musician, a passionate leader and a man in need of a good shave, but he’s not a media powerhouse. This didn’t prevent him, however, from reaching an online audience of tens of thousands of people across the globe to rally them around a cause that touched him deeply.

On June 29, Brian found out that his friend’s 5-year-old daughter, Kate, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor that would require immediate surgery. The shockwaves of emotion that swept over that family, and those close to them, spurred Brian to take action to mobilize a community of online support for Kate and for his friend.

While Brian didn’t have access to a digital agency to launch a viral marketing campaign or a list of media contacts that could produce and distribute a touching human-interest piece, he did have compelling story to tell, a passion to tell it and access to the same online publishing tools that anyone with an Internet connection can use.

Over the next several days following the diagnosis Brian began sharing Kate’s story online. Brian and his wife Promise (OK – so he had some help, but work with me here) produced a short video interview with Kate’s parents and uploaded it to YouTube. They also posted some photos of Kate on their blogs along with her story. Using email, Twitter and Facebook, Brain began to reach out to friends and his network of contacts online to rally support for her. He also hosted a live streaming video prayer vigil for Kate on the day of her surgery.

As a result of these efforts, Kate’s story has been spread across the globe touching tens of thousands of people from Dr. Phil, who posted the video on his blog, to a talented singer/song writer Audrey Assad who wrote a song for Kate and countless others reaching from Australia to Amarillo, TX, from Kenya to Queen Creek, AZ.

In the six days since the video was posted on YouTube, it has been viewed over 42,000 times. The live streaming prayer vigil, which has continued to play on a recorded loop, has now been viewed almost 35,000 times. Audrey’s song for Kate has been listened to more than 6,100 times. As the message spreads, people have begun to flood to Kate’s blog to follow her story and offer their messages of support and encouragement.

All of this happened because one person was able to leverage a collection of online publishing tools and social media platforms to communicate a story they were passionate about.

What is the story you are trying to tell? Is it compelling? Interesting? While the stories we craft for our companies most certainly will not be as gripping as this one, Brian was able to illustrate how one person with limited resources can reach an audience if there is a story worth telling along with the willingness and resourcefulness to use new tools and mediums to communicate the message.

In the days to come, as you are crafting your story, take a moment out of your busy workday, away from your marketing meetings and creative brainstorming sessions to think of Kate as well. The challenges we are faced with in a down economy quickly fade away when compared to the difficult road that lies ahead for this precious little girl.

Evolutionary Or Revolutionary?

Originally published on the MediaPost Online Publishing Insider
By: Kory Kredit, VP Marketing, PV Media Group

Technically speaking, the difference between evolutionary and revolutionary is just one single letter. When speaking of technology, however, the implications of each word are worlds apart. While an evolutionary product is a step forward from where you currently stand, a revolutionary product forges an entirely new path. It is different, bold, and risky -- and also has the potential to be highly rewarding.

There are, of course, inherent risks involved in taking the evolutionary approach as well. An evolutionary product can often be duplicated by a competitor or even surpassed by the next step in the evolutionary time line. When you produce the 7-minute abs workout, for example, the 6-minute abs workout is just around the corner, as Ben Stiller pointed out in "There's Something About Mary."

When Microsoft recently launched Bing, its new search -- I mean, decision -- engine, it was a step forward, but far from revolutionary. In a recent MediaPost Search Insider article, Gord Hotchkiss took a deeper look into Bing's evolutionary advances, but also lamented that there was nothing truly revolutionary about it. Alternatively, Google took a revolutionary leap with the announcement of its new Wave technology. While Microsoft was hard at work plotting the next step in the evolution of search, Google chose to throw away the drawing board instead of simply going back to it. Rather than reinvent search, the company took a bold new path to revolutionizing the way we communicate online.

As I pondered these product launches from Google and Microsoft and their respective approaches, I applied the same filter to the online advertising arena. While the evolution in online advertising continues, we seem to be falling short when it comes to revolutionary ideas.

The display ad unit has evolved in size options, creative content and targeting capabilities. We've continued to see the emergence of unique variations on the display ad unit, like the advertising embedded photos from Pixazza, the social media ad unit that Digg recently announced, and a new entry from Premium Access Media (full disclsoure: this is a PV Media Group company) called the Anchor Ad, among others. While the evolution of online advertising is significant, has there been anything truly revolutionary in our industry over the past year? Two years? Three years? Looking back, the last really revolutionary advertising vehicle online was the launch of paid search, and that hasn't changed dramatically since its inception.

For online advertising to continue to grow and potentially overtake traditional media as the medium of choice for both brand and direct response advertisers, do we need another revolutionary idea -- or can we continue to move forward along the evolutionary time line? Is there a new social media advertising model out there just waiting to burst on the scene? Will video sites like Hulu and YouTube be able to create a new standard to successfully monetize both professional and user-generated video content? Is there another team of geniuses like Google's Lars and Jens Rasmussen hidden away in a back office somewhere, developing the next "wave" of online advertising solutions that will lead our industry into the Web 3.0 world?

If I had the answers to these questions I most likely wouldn't be spending my time writing a column that referenced the cinematic genius of Ben Stiller in "There's Something About Mary," which is why I prefer to turn the tables and solicit your expert opinions. Where do you think we are headed? What's the next big idea that is waiting to be discovered online advertising?

A Peek Into The Phoenix Suns' Online Expertise

Originally published on the MediaPost Online Publishing Insider
By: Kory Kredit, VP Marketing, PV Media Group

Growing up as a basketball fan in a couple of small towns in Iowa back in the '70s and '80s, my access to news and information about my favorite teams and players was limited to a handful of box scores in the local paper, a periodic feature story in Sports Illustrated and an occasional game on NBC. It was kind of like trying to suck a chocolate Frosty out of that tiny straw at Wendy's. What little you were able to siphon out of that yellow cup of frozen goodness was extremely tasty, but not nearly satisfying enough -- always leaving you wanting more.
 
Fast-forward 30 or so years and that skinny red straw has been transformed into a raging fire hose of digital information. Thanks to team Web sites, fan blogs and social media applications we now have access to more content then we could ever consume, and I love it!
 
To get a behind-the-scenes look at what the digital revolution looked like from the inside of a  professional sports franchise, I reached out to the Phoenix Sun's Vice President of Interactive Services, Jeramie McPeek.

Jeramie began working for the Suns 17 years ago as an intern while he was a journalism major at Arizona State University. After graduating in 1995 he was hired full-time and worked in the team's publications department, overseeing the team's monthly magazine, Fast Break.
 
Kory: How Did the Suns initially begin to leverage the Internet as a communication tool?

Jeramie: The NBA launched NBA.com and all of the team Web sites in 1995. I still remember getting the memo explaining what the league was planning to do in putting up this portal on the Internet Super Highway, and I had no idea what they were talking about.... I quickly fell in love with it, though, and thought it was really fun and cool to see the stories that I had written for the magazine also go up on the Web site.
 
Around 2000, I made the proposal to kill the Fast Break magazine and focus our efforts on Suns.com. We were spending around $200,000/year on the magazine and our season ticket holders would get it six weeks after we had written the articles. The content was outdated as soon as they got it. Our executive staff loved the idea and that was the turning point for us in terms of putting all of our efforts towards our digital products.
 
Early on the team Web sites consisted of the rosters and the team box scores. It took the teams quite a while to figure out how they could use it and it took the league a while to figure out how much they wanted to allow teams to do. I think we were the first team to really take advantage of our website and put a lot of effort towards it in the late '90s. We now have an interactive services department and an ecommerce / emarketing department that manages all of our digital media.
 
Kory: How has social media changed the dynamics of what you do online, and how you communicate with your fan base?

Jeramie: The change has been pretty dramatic. Back when MySpace started to get popular, there were a few teams in pro sports that got on MySpace and YouTube initially. My thought at the time was that Suns.com was our bread and butter. That's where we want everything. We don't want to dilute that and start to put out content on these other places because it takes away our page views & impressions from our Web site.
 
Some time in late 2006 or early 2007 I started to realize that you have to go fishing where the fish are. We've got all of these fans that are out there on MySpace and YouTube, at the time, who might never come to our Web site, but they consider themselves Suns fans so we started to change the way we thought about things.
 
We thought that maybe we needed to go where the fans were and connect with those people to build that relationship and hopefully be able to draw them back to Suns.com for certain great pieces of content that we have.
 
There was no reason that we couldn't put out content on some of those sites to communicate with those fans to engage them and grow that fan base. Ever since then we've been expanding what we do and now we're everywhere from iTunes  to YouTube to MySpace, Facebook, Twitter  and Flickr. We're trying to reach fans wherever they are. We also built our own official social network during that time period. We launched PlanetOrange.net in the fall of 2007, where fans can create their own profiles, blog, upload photos and video and make comments on all of the content as well.
 
One of my favorite stories is about a group of about 10 Suns fans from Australia and New Zealand. None of them knew each other until they got on PlanetOrange.net and connected and became friends on the site. They planned a trip from down under to come overseas and follow the Suns on a road trip for five games from Toronto to New York to Boston and Atlanta and ended up in Phoenix. That was an exciting thing to see that these fans met on our site, became friends and are such huge Suns fans that they decided to follow the team around the world. They blogged about it and uploaded photos on PlanetOrange.net documenting the trip.
 
Kory: Is there one medium that has been more effective that the other?

Jeramie: YouTube has been really effective for us. Our largest fan base is on Facebook with a little over 42,000 fans on our Facebook page. Twitter has quickly become the one network where we seem to have the most influence in the social media space and the most engagement with fans. I think that is because it is instant. We can send out updates, notes or quotes from our players and we get such an immediate response from fans replying or retweeting or asking questions. We've only been on it for six months now, but it's been the one that I think has had the biggest impact for us up to this point.  
 
Kory: What is the most innovative thing you've done online?

Jeramie: Our virtual locker room, SunsLockerRoom.com, that we launched two seasons ago might have been the most innovative thing we've done. We worked on that for a period of about six months and got all 14 of our players, our coaches, alumni, dancers, mascot all on green screen for video shoots for our expansive virtual locker room where our fans could click around the locker room to go into the training room, the players lounge, the coaches office, even the shower. We actually won an Emmy award for that site.
 
Kory: Has there been any resistance to the type of access that you provide online from players or management?

Jeramie: Not really. We've been really fortunate that we've had such great buy-in from upper management. They really see the big picture and understand the value of what we do. They let us go into closed-door practices and the draft day war room. During the playoffs we've traveled with the team and shot video on the team plane. Everything that is closed to the media, we've been given access to.
 
Kory: How do you deal with filtering content that might not be appropriate or does not support your brand?

Jeramie: On PlanetOrange.net, since that is our official social network and it is one of our sites, we do watch that one a little more carefully. We want fans to be able to express their opinions and feelings, but we ask that it be done respectfully.
 
As far as Twitter, we can't control what people are saying there obviously. Although, we did launch a site back in April called SunsTwackle.com. We partnered with Octagon digital to build a Twitter site, which aggregates and displays all Twitter messages related to the Suns. It's also got some great filtering that keeps out people talking about the actual sun in the sky. That site is pulling in all kinds of positive and negative tweets about the Suns. We do have the ability to remove tweets there or block a user if something is really out of line. We try to let the fans talk about and discuss the team honestly and share their opinions as long as they don't get inappropriate with their language.
 
Kory: How do you leverage your digital media outlets to drive revenue?

Jeramie: We've done a fantastic job selling our digital properties, Suns.com, PlanetOrange.net, SunsLockerRoom.com. All of those sites have dozens of sponsors integrated throughout them.
 
The majority of those inventory items are sold as part of a larger package with the Suns that a marketing partner comes in and buys. They get TV spots, signage in the arena, have a promotion on court and then they also have some kind of promotion online that could be banner ads, pre-roll spots before the behind-the-scenes videos or sponsoring our online take show. We have flash intros that incorporate sponsors and our virtual locker room had 12 or 13 marketing partners throughout the locker room. There was a Gatorade cooler sitting on the counter next to a player's locker. There was a Verizon BlackBerry Storm sitting on Alvin Gentry's desk where you could click and read Alvin's latest tweets, and a Subway sandwich on a table in his office. The majority of these online sponsorships did bring in incremental revenue or were part of a larger package, but the online piece was a key element of that package.
 
In terms of social media, that's an area where we are still trying to wrap our arms around and figure out the best way to monetize our social media efforts without annoying our fans or ruining their experience engaging with us.
 
Our other big channel of revenue is ticket sales. We try to utilize all of our digital platforms as best we can to create revenue streams for the organization, while at the same time focusing on the fans and giving them the behind-the-scenes and exclusive access and coverage they want for our team.
 
*******
 
It's clear that Jeramie and the Phoenix Suns have grown into a leading edge digital media powerhouse capable of turning on a fire hose of online content for hungry Suns fans across the globe. Speaking of hunger, I could really go for a Frosty right now. Who's with me?

Interview with Andrew Hazen

WebmasterRadio interviews Prime Visibility CEO Andrew Hazen at the 2009 Search Engine Strategies conference in New York. Listen to the interview below:

Online opportunities for your offline network

Published on the Long Island Business News
By: Andrew Hazen

We’re all aware that strategic networking can significantly increase our business while allowing us to meet and help others. But it is shocking to realize this kind of networking really only exists offline, which leaves tremendous Internet and other electronic networking opportunities unexplored.

Traditional networking involves people getting together to discuss objectives, such as potential new customers, and searching for ways to help others attract business. Those that excel at networking are continuously seeking out new methods to assist others, such as asking existing clients if they are interested in the products or services of others in their network.

In addition to in-person events, marketers need to consider how Internet marketing can play an integral role in a successful networking campaign. Take the following case, for example: Dr. Greenberg, a very well-known cosmetic surgeon, is launching a new product line called Cosmetic Surgeon in a Jar. In searching for ways that Dr. Greenberg can effectively and efficiently promote the launch, here is how the strategic Internet networking component comes into play.

First, Dr. Greenberg must identify his target audience. Upon deciding that it is females ranging in age from 25 to 75, the best strategic path would be to provide the following key elements.

An introductory offer sent via e-mail

Such an e-mail enables the doctor to test offers such as discounts, free shipping and the ever-popular “buy one item and get another at a special price.” But first, he must determine who will receive the offers. Again, Internet networking comes into play. Given Dr. Greenberg’s target audience, he contacts New York-based LoveMyShoes.com because its customer base represents the perfect demographic for his product line’s introduction.

The company’s e-mail list contains nearly 200,000 names and addresses of women aged 20 to 45 who buy shoes on the Web. The bonus is that these women are already experienced in purchasing online, so they should be comfortable acquiring Dr. Greenberg’s product line at CosmeticSurgeonInaJar.com.

Dr. Greenberg can encourage LoveMyShoes.com to distribute his information for free by either cross-promoting the site’s products in his e-mail blasts or on his site, or by offering to compensate the company on a cost-per-acquisition basis. For example, for every order that Dr. Greenberg receives based on the e-mail blast, he might compensate LoveMyShoes.com to the tune of $15.

Many other online networking opportunities exist for Dr. Greenberg. Shawn Elliott Luxury Homes & Estates sells high-end homes with values exceeding $1 million. Thus, its e-mail list is a perfect fit for Dr. Greenberg. The same goes for Lucille Roberts’ gym e-mail list, which contains hundreds of thousands of names and addresses for fitness-minded women who want to look great too.

A display ad or promotion on a strategic partner’s Web site

In addition to introductory e-mails, acquiring real estate on networking contacts’ Web sites also works extremely well by putting businesses in front of their ideal audiences.

Take Metro Candy, for example. Prior to the Halloween season, it networked with HalloweenScene.com. The two Web sites promoted each other via display ads and promos. The partnership offers a prime example of Internet networking at its finest – both a trick and a treat that gives customers looking for Halloween costumes access to a huge stash of candy.

Networking affiliates

Does establishing networking affiliations entail paying other parties to be included in their e-mail blasts or on their Web sites?

Not if I can help it. I avoid the exchange of money in online networking relationships, preferring free, mutual cross-promotion instead (i.e. cross Internet networking) among related brands to achieve strong results.

The other acceptable alternative, mentioned earlier, is the cost-per-acquisition model.

When networking, it pays to take the extra step of exploring the many existing online opportunities within your circle. Think of it as profitable social networking for your business.