Knowledge Is King!

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Dearest Nuffies,

I am afraid that I have a confession to make. Today is my last day as Nuffie. Why telling you guys so late? I just want you guys to continue to feel of my presence even though we are working apart in future. Leaving Nuffnang is not something that I am happy with (In fact, I’m not bear to leave you all). To be honest, I am proud to be part of Nuffie! Nuffnang is a very special company for me and will always be. Working at Nuffnang is just like working at Google for me. (PS: Although I have never work in Google before, but I had done a lot of reading about their working environment. Besides, my ex-colleague had shared with me how great it is to work for Google.) You guys are simply awesome!

Well, I am an open minded guy when comes to opportunity. In the past, I had never rejected any interview session. Since I was working here, I had rejected 2 interview sessions from different MNC companies. Although I never apply any job after I joined Nuffnang only God knows where they get my resume from. This is so not me. But, it shows how highly I regard Nuffnang in my heart.

First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to the management team for giving me an opportunity to work in Nuffnang. Tim has demonstrated that a young guy could have all the necessary traits to be a successful leader. One thing I really like about Nuffnang is the effort of management team had put in to minimize office politics. I can see how much effort Tim had put in for this matter.

I am absolutely grateful to Tim2, for teaching me so much in Web development technologies. I have never met such a good programmer in my life. His strength lies in continuous self improvement and no nonsense attitude when comes to quality of work. I salute you, Tim2! In Chinese said, “If you become my master for one day, I will treat you as my father for the rest of my life”. So, I guess you won’t mind I call you Papa Tim, rite? Well, you are the one who started to call me Penny afterall

At first impression, I thought Vernice is a very serious gal and could be hard to communicate with. When Tim2 called her Verynice, I was like, ehhh are you sure? After sitting beside her for a few months, I totally agree with her nickname! Thanks for being such a good neighbour for me, Vernice.

Karen and Michelle are the Nuffies who dare to “bully” me after joining Nuffnang for less than a month, gosh! Karen is always cheerful no matter in what sort of bad circumstances. I like this characteristic a lot. Sometime when I was stressed, I would try to annoyed her and have some fun out of it. But it always turn out to be a wild goose chase (-_-) . Karen you win! I think Michelle is having fun making relationships with bloggers now. Yeah, any sort of “relationship”. I wish you to continuously have fun with them! Opps, she is going to kill me…

Robb, he has transformed from a stucked up gay guy to become really good in his PR skills. It’s not easily to change personality. So, I think he deserved my respect for having the mental strength to improve something which is so hard to change. Sometime, I would wonder whether or not he is a bi-sexual, because the interns he hired are mostly hot gals! Not only hot, but smart as well! In addition, he has a lot of characters, in which has become to backbone for so many successful Nuffnang events.

Rina is arguably one of the hottest Nuffies. She has everything a man would dream of, namely pretty and hot appearance (who can bend like Megan Fox), sweet voice, good in singing and soft spoken. Well, too bad, I don’t date colleague…

David is one guy I would love to hang around a lot! He is everything I am not and I am always wanted to be. David is simply cool! I heard that you are good badminton player. One day, I would like to play with you. I love playing with strong opponents. They make me feel EXCITED! Thanks for sharing so many experience of yours with me. Experiences in sports, entertainment, sales, gal hunting, etc!

Rumors say that Jestina is the female version of David (Wong). Well, it’s not entirely her fault for breaking so many guys’ heart. It’s just her… nature, I guess. She has a mature personality who always serious and dedicated in her work. That impressed me a lot!

Next, would be “The Khoo(s)”! Linda and Sara Khoo from the cool side of the office. Well, how cool they are? Linda has a cool nickname in Froggy Broon (probably stand for Princess of the Frog and god knows why frog.). Whereas, Sara Cool boyfriend is “Datuk Lee Chong Wei”. For those who doesn’t know who is that, Google it! Well, somehow, I am not sure why I had become the imaginary bf of Sara… Well, it sounds fun, so I just go along with it. But, why me? Puzzle…

Yuen Yi is similar with Karen. Always happy and grinning. She loves good foods!  Especially seafood! Please don’t forget to give me a shout for your next eating out!

Jacquelyn (Victor) as I like to call her is a caring gal. I always wonder whether she can sings like our Malaysian Pop Idol. Please show us your talent next time ya!

Let’s talk about “The Nic(s)”. Nicholas Chay apparently is a “Si Lai Killer” who attracted a lot of female (married) bloggers for his fatherly and charming figure. Whereas, Nicholas Gan is a Manchester United fan like few of us here. Both Nicholas are quite hairy on their faces which is so funny .

Fresh is a type of gal who I had never met before… Recently, she has been dressing up nicely. I believe her “Spring” won’t be far away from her now.

Rachel is a combination of smart and wild gal. In work, she is fully making use of her intellect and charm to sort things out. In club, she will show you how an OL can transform to a “Lady Gaga”! Catching all the attention around her and killing a lot of film. lol

Yu han has a goodie guy look. He had managed to send me a message recently that, all Nuffies are born to be wild!

Firdy is a freaking good web designer with a lot of passions. I am surprised that he was not a computing graduate. He is so skilful until he has been fixing our IE bugs for fun. This shows us how determination can make difference. Firdy you rock! Let’s go for some Bak Kut Teh next time

Shun Yau is not officially from Nuffnang, but he stationed at KL office. After working with you for a few months, you had demonstrated how a good programmer can pick up skills with ease and excel on it. I would like to thank you for your guide in Zend framework. You had helped me a lot.

Raff is a soft spoken and religious guy. A kind of guy I know I can share a room with for a few days without having any sort of “worry”. I enjoyed our chatting sessions during our trip to Singapore. If I happened to go to Nilai, I will give you a call

Soon Tak is like a friendly teddy bear! He is powerful (in coding) and friendly! Please have fun with him. Watch out, he might prank you back!

During the interview of Veen Dee, Karen asked me to check her out. Karen said “Penton, check out the hot gal in the room ” . Opps, I had exposed Veen Dee secret admirer lol. I believe you will enjoy your internship in Nuffnang and pass it with flying colour, Veen Dee.
I was really looking forward to work with both Pinky and Nikki in Nuffnang KL but too bad… I hope our path will cross again. Perhaps Pinky could take a leadership role in the future for her leadership capability. Nikki, next time introduce your bf to us ya! I wanna see who is the naughty boy who went into your room (For those who are unaware, Nikki wore a top with the following words: Naughty Boy Comes to My Room).

Wow! Such a long email… Sorry guys! But I guess I’m going to shorten the email for the rest of the countries colleagues. Let’s start with SG.

Ming is a kind of boss who always loves to give advice, which suite me well as I love to learn from leader. He is a straight forward guy who shouldn’t need to worry about him stabbing your back. He just stabs you from front lol. I would like to thanks him for his advises and kind offers.

When I found out that Hui Wen was going to become the country manager of Singapore, I was really happy for her. She is the youngest and hottest country manager I have ever met so far. After taming the “Valentino of Nuffnang”, she has getting hotter lol.

Raine is another gal who I thought she’s very serious and cold. Apparently, she is a cute young gal who makes me feel like talking to my own younger sister when hanging out with her. She had really made my Singapore trip an enjoyable one.

Elise, I don’t know you much. I just know that you hate Manchester United as much as we hate Liverpool. Too bad, Liverpool might going to miss out Champions League football next season. With that, Torres and Gerrard will be history. I would welcome them to M.U. with my both hands. Well, just want to annoy you for the last time as Nuffie

It was nice working with you for the Jipaban project, Elaine. I love Malacca and had been visited it once a year. All the best for the Jipaban project. Please don’t forget to give me a discount when I sign up a package ya (hehe).

Is Esther still going to Church every week? hehe! Maybe she could be good friend with Yu Han here. Both goodie goodie type and they are both accountants.

I had heard about Clara months before I met her at Singapore. I would be over the top of the world if I were walking side by side with both Clara and Rina to a ball…dreaming… keep on dreaming… still dreaming…

Eric seems like a patience boss who I would enjoy working with at daily basis. He is so easy going. Fetching him to places was like fetching a friend instead of a boss. Cool!

Carlos, my buddy! You are so cute and dedicated in work! Please give me a shout in your next trip to Malaysia. We could hunt for nice food together!

Judd is like another Valentino of Nuffnang. I heard you went to Chow Kit road (red light area at KL) for a few times during your short stay last year. Have you manage to find what you are looking for? lol. Please help me take good care of Hannah ya!

It was a pleasure to work with you, Patty and Anne. Anne is a soft spoken gal who always gets bullied by us and Patty will bullies us back. lol just kidding. Patty, please make sure Carlos is staying away from your cute sisters ya.

Well, this email is getting far too long by now. I better stop now. You guys had made my Nuffies life so enjoyable and I will never forget about you! I am sorry for unable to mention everyone in Nuffnang. I bet it will takes another day for me to finish this email if I want to cover everyone . Gosh! There’re simply so many of us!

Please feel free to contact me if there’s anything I could help, I am just a MSN away.

All the best!

Best regards,

Penton

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Below I present to you a list of the major ranking factors in Google Products, in no particular order. I’ve not done enough research to determine which are more important than others:

Title

Having your keyphrases placed strategically in your title tag can help you rank, just like with regular SEO.

Price

If you sell a product cheaper than your competition, you stand a better chance of ranking higher than places which sell it more expensively. Capitalism ftw.

Description

Having a well-thought-out and keyphrase rich description is important. As far as I can see, Google doesn’t crawl the URLs you submit to them for any ranking factors – they take all the information from your data submission, so a description can help you rank for long-tail phrases which you can’t cover in your title tag.

Data-Stuffing

Data stuffing is so the new keyword stuffing. What do I mean by data-stuffing? Well, in Google Base you have the options to upload data for all kinds of fields. Only the bare minimum are essential, and most are optional. In my experience, however, I’ve seen that adding more data-fields helps you rank higher and for more varied queries.

Fresh Data

This is actually a ranking factor which Google recommend to get higher rankings, so it would be remiss of me to not include it in this list!! Fresh data, as in updating your feed as often as possible or setting the scheduler to crawl your feed frequently, helps both your rankings and the accuracy of your data. Since Google doesn’t crawl your pages, it’s important to ensure your feed is up to date with the latest descriptions, prices and names.

Positive Reviews

Notice how I’ve not included pagerank (or mR) on this list? That’s because I’m not sure how important it is to have a trusted domain in the traditional SEO-sense. More importantly, I think, is having a trusted domain in the traditional sense of the word. How does Google measure that? With reviews. Getting positive reviews for your site helps a lot with Google Local, and it’s the same principle for Google Base. Although I’ve not listed these tips in order of importance, I think this is definitely one of the strongest ranking factors, particularly for competitive queries. So, to help you out with your Google Base rankings, I’ve listed below all of the sites which Google permits as review sites for use in Google Base. Before I list them though, I should point out that there’s one site which Google seems to favour above all others for trusted reviews. There’ll be no prizes for guessing who it is…. Yep, Google Checkout.

In my experience and research, Google Checkout reviews seem to count for more than reviews left on 3rd party sites. This does seem to make sense since these reviews are presumably more trusted by Google (since it controls the spam filtering and authentication) than 3rd party reviews. That said, it does mean you have to have Google Checkout enabled to profit from them!

An interesting aside here: it’s not something I’ve tested, but if I were building a ranking algorithm based on reviews, I would make the raw number of reviews count as a ranking factor, positive or negative. Why? Because this signifies trust and brand awareness. The more people that are leaving reviews about you, the bigger your brand is. Given Google’s shift towards brands recently, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a factor so bear this in mind when getting reviews.

Anyway, if you can’t get Google Checkout reviews, try some of the sites on this list (separated by US and UK sites, as they’re different!).

US Google Base Review Sites

dealtime.com
pricegrabber.com
cashbaq.com
epinions.com
flamingoworld.com
mrrebates.com
readprint.com
resellerratings.com
shopzilla.com
rateitall.com
reviewstream.com
mouthshut.com
pricespider.com
dooyoo.co.uk
mtbr.com
viewpoints.com
merchant-reviews.com
couponclock.com

UK Google Base Review Sites

pricegrabber.co.uk
reviewcentre.com
shopzilla.co.uk
ciao.co.uk
dealtime.co.uk
truste-marketing.co.uk
webuser.co.uk
maxxsave.co.uk
dooyoo.co.uk
resellerratings.com

From analysis of the top sites across many different searches, these are the sites which Google is reporting as trusted review sites. I’ve reviewed over 50 Google Products searches and probably at least 100 domains, and this is a list of all the review sites listed. There are probably others but they’re either very small sites or aren’t particularly trusted. These are the major ones.

There are plenty of ways of gaining reviews for your site, and I’m not going to go into detail on them here, but David Mihm has a solid post on getting local reviews and the process is exactly the same for products. Check it out, he links out to some great sources there too.

In conclusion, if you’re selling something, you should definitely be investing some time in Google Base as it can bring some great results pretty quickly.

Random Musing: by the way, while researching Google Base, I noticed that you can submit all kinds of stuff to them, from jobs to recipes to events to cars. As far as I can see, most of these uploads won’t net you much benefit, but I think it can only be a matter of time before we see Google Base results ranking in the main results for job queries, events and all manner of other queries. How long before getting reviews for your site becomes an integral part of the SEO process?

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Bloggers and webmasters are constantly wondering why Google is such a bully to some websites and why they are so positive toward others. What are the keys to building a successful presence on the search engine results pages? What are the most important SEO factors for getting your site discovered by Google’s search bot and how can we get in on the action?

If you’ve been wondering these things then this article is exactly what you need. Listed below are the 30 most important SEO factors. Pay attention to these factors and you’ll see a drastic improvement in your listings on Google, Yahoo and Bing.

THE 30 MOST VITAL & IMPORTANT SEO FACTORS

Don’t just debate which factors are the most important. Make it your goal to be the best that you can be in each of these 30 SEO factors.

1. Keyword anywhere in the title tag. Having a keyword or phrase in the title tag is the first step to letting the search engines know what your page is all about.
2. Keyword used as anchor text from external links. Inbound links from other domains that use your keyword as the anchor text are essential for SEO.
3. Authority of the domain. Google recognizes domains that have built a strong online presence and weighs their articles higher by default than others.
4. Genuinely high-quality, unique content on a page. This SEO factor is vital. The key to success at your blog is to create awesome content that people enjoy.
5. Page Rank of the domain. Domains with higher page rank are a sign that Google’s algorithm recognize that domain as having a strong online presence.
6. Keyword near the beginning of the title tag. It can be enough to simply place the keyword in the title tag. It can be even better to have it at the beginning of it.
7. A fresh, recently created page. Search engines are working to provide fresh, relevant content. Often old articles will eventually fade off of their listings.
8. Keyword anywhere in the domain name. Sites often rank well for the keywords that are contained in their domain name.
9. The number of external links to a page. Every link to a page is like a vote. The more links that your site gets, the more popular Google knows that your site is.
10. Keyword anywhere in an H1 tag. Google knows that the most important information on the page is in the heading tag. Take the time to make yours count.
11. Diversity of external link sources. It’s great to have a dozen links from another site. It’s even better to have one link each from a dozen sites.
12. Links from social media sources. Search engines perk pay attention when they see you creating content that your followers enjoy so much that they share it.
13. Keyword as anchor text in in your internal links. It’s great to use other pages on your site to link to the page in question using your keyword as the anchor text.
14. A good ratio of text vs. html. Google is looking for content to give to their users. Not just html. Write great articles with real content.
15. Keyword as anchor text to outbound links. Search engines like to see you linking to other relevant sites. Your keyword as the anchor text is a great way to do it.
16. The page rank of the page. The Page Rank of a page is the numerical representation of the overall authority that Google views your page as having.
17. Keyword used within the first 100 words on the page. Those concepts and terms that are used early in an article are viewed as the most essential.
18. Length of the remaining domain registration. Spammers often register domains for very short periods of time.
19. Keyword in the page URL. Google pays attention to sites with keywords in their permalinks. Make yours contain terms that describes the content of each article.
20. Relevancy of external sites linking to the page. Links from other sites that are on the same or similar topics are more valuable than random links from anywhere.
21. Keyword in smaller headlines like H2 – H6. Although these are less important than the H1 header tag, they are still very important.
22. The existence of a meta description for your page. Providing a meta description is a great way to show Googler’s what the page is about.
23. Keyword as the alt text for an image. Using a key phrase as the alt text of an image is a tried and true way of earning better listings.
24. A page that is HTML valid to W3C Standards. Some independent studies have shown that Google favors valid code.
25. Keyword repeated throughout the content. Have the same phrase repeated throughout an article makes it clear what the page is about.
26. Links to trustworthy external pages on the domain. Search engines like it when our articles are filled with links to good, reliable resources.
27. Keyword in the and tags. Words and phrases wrapped in these tags are considered as more important than standard text.
28. Internal link popularity. A page must be important if dozens of articles across it’s own domain are pointing toward it.
29. Keyword density. How often is your keyword used in comparison to how much text is on the page?
30. The presence of an XML sitemap. Google likes it when you provide them with an easy-to-read overview of all the pages on your site.

Reflecting on the Most Important SEO factors

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SUMMARY: Need inspiration for your next email test? Here are five examples of successful tests shared by presenters at our recent Email Marketing Summit.

Read on for five ideas you can incorporate into your 2010 testing plans. Includes tests to help improve:
o Opt-in tactics
o Personalization
o Design and layout
o Video links
o Frequency
It’s still early enough in the year to plan a series of tests that can improve the effectiveness of your email marketing programs. To get you started, we’ve compiled five test ideas to consider, which were shared by a presenter at our recent Email Marketing Summit in Miami.

Some tests focus on simple changes, such as personalizing “from” lines and subject lines. Others require a little more work, such as email template changes and frequency tests. But each test described below delivered meaningful improvements in a marketer’s key metrics, such as opt-in rates, open rates, clickthroughs and revenue.

Here are five tests to consider:

Test idea #1. Opt-in incentives

Although your email newsletters, alerts and other programs should provide enough value to attract subscribers, you also can offer an immediate reward for new opt-in registrations.

Consider providing a tangible incentive for new opt-ins, such as a coupon or free gift. Adrian Olvera, Sr. Marketing Consultant, Dell, and his team tested the impact of a coupon incentive for new opt-ins during the holiday shopping season.

They offered 20% off select products for new opt-ins. Result:
o 14x lift in average opt-in rate during the holiday season

Test idea #2. Personalization

Multiple speakers at the Summit reminded attendees about the value of personalizing email communications. The closer marketers can get to creating a sense of one-to-one communication with their email messages, the better the response is likely to be.

To know for sure, test personalizing your messages for both the sender and the recipient.

John Mast, VP Marketing, Expedia CruiseShipCenters, shared the results of his team’s personalization tests:

- First, they began sending emails from a real consultant in their travel agent network — i.e., from “Cathy Cruiser” rather than the from the generic Expedia CruiseShipCenters email address.

Results:
o 5.5% higher open rate
o 23% higher clickthrough rate
o Less likely to be unsubscribed, or flagged by subscribers as spam

- Next, they personalized the subject line with the recipient’s first name — “Dave, Your 7 Day Alaskan Cruise Awaits.”

Result:
o 10% lift in open rates

Test idea #3. Call-to-action placement and button size

Email design and layout tests are another prime area to find improvements. Moves as simple as increasing the size, shape or color of buttons, and the placement of those calls-to-action, can often deliver a meaningful boost in key metrics.

Shinn Chen, Marketing Manager, Salesforce.com, shared the results of his team’s template redesign. As part of a broader redesign, they made two changes to highlight the calls-to-action:

- Call-to-action was moved from a small box on right side of messages to just below the message’s headline and subhed, in line with the rest of the body copy.

- Clickable buttons were made much larger (see Creative Samples below).

- Results:
o CTR increased 26%-27%

Test idea #4. Video links

Video content is an important element to test in your email campaigns. Watching online video is one of the most popular activities on the Internet: In 2008, there were more videos watched online than there were searches on Google, according to MarketingSherpa’s “Marketing with Video Report.”

Technical issues and deliverability hurdles make embedding video directly into email a significant challenge for marketers, but you can still promote video content in your messages by:
o Displaying a screenshot of the video
o Embedding a link for video playback

Rick Chin, Solutions Marketing Manager, Interactive Intelligence, described how his team has been including video screenshots and playback links in their email newsletters. The new content has proved exceptionally popular with subscribers:
o Video links receive double or triple the number of clicks as text links

Test idea #5. Email frequency

Many marketers establish their email frequency based on assumptions and industry best practices, such as monthly newsletters or weekly product offers. But best practices are a starting point for further tests — not necessarily the best approach for your programs.

Testing can determine the optimal frequency for a specific email program: The point at which you maximize revenue from those messages without increasing the rate of unsubscribes.

Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, Director, MarketingExperiments, described a test his team performed with an ecommerce partner selling special-occasion gifts:

- They identified a highly motivated and loyal segment of the partner’s email list for the test.

- Over the course of 60 days, they tested various message frequencies to that segment, ranging from one message every other day to one message every three weeks.

- They monitored monthly revenue from email along with unsubscribe rates.

- Results:
o Sending an email once every other day increased revenue 3x compared to sending email once a week
o Unsubscribe rates on a per-message basis did not rise significantly

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Why should we spend time optimizing products for Google Base?

Let’s start by discussing why we should even bother with using Google Base. First and foremost, let’s look at the placement of Google Onebox Results when compared to organic search results. OneBox results are actually placed above the organic search results. As far as page real estate goes, this is extremely significant in terms of the number of impressions and clicks you will get on your product listing.

It is also important to note that Google Base uses the information from Base listings for more than just Google OneBox results. This data may also be displayed in Google Product Search (previously Froogle), organic search results, Google Maps, Google Image Search and more. That adds up to a variety of exposure your site could potentially receive from a single Google Base listing.

How to Optimize your Data Feeds
Now we will get into some specific guidelines that will help you increase the effectiveness of your product listings and thus increase your product conversion rates.

Do Your Keyword Research: Before filling out any information on your data feed, use Google’s Keyword Tool External to find out what people are searching for. You can then optimize your product title and description accordingly. This is very similar to SEO for title and Meta tags. Limit your title to about 65-70 characters and your description to about 160 or so. Also be sure to include your desired keywords, about two or three of them, in both your title and description.

Automate Your Data Feeds: Schedule to have your data feeds automatically sent to and updated in Google Base. Create an xml or txt data feed on your website and then simply supply Google Base with the location of this file. You can then specify how often (daily, weekly, or monthly) you would like Google to update you product listings based on the information from this file. To create the xml or txt data feed for your products, try using shopping cart add-ons such as this one for Drupal or this for osCommerce.

Product ID: Each product in your data feed will have a unique product id. Be sure to keep this id consistent when updating your data feeds.

Product Type: Google Base uses product taxonomy to categorize your products. Be sure you use the correct categories and are as specific as possible. You can view the taxonomy structure here.

Include Relevant Information: Be sure to provide as much relevant information as possible. Google Base has three categories of product attributes; mandatory, recommended, and optional. Include all of the mandatory and recommended attributes and as many of the optional attributes as possible.

Important Attributes: There are a few product attributes that are very important to include in your listings. The first is tax and shipping information; Google Base will often give better listing placements when these two attributes are clearly defined. The second is a quality picture for the same reason. Do not include a general picture or company logo. Finally, include the Manufacturer’s Part Number (MPN) or Universal Product Code (UPC) when possible. This will assist people who search for a very specific product.

Target Country: Make sure you select a target country for your listings. This will both increase the relevancy and quality of your traffic as well as lower your bounce rates.

Custom Attributes: This is extremely important for achieving good results on Google Base. You can define any custom product attribute you want that will help customers find your products. For example, if you are selling an LCD TV you could define the following attributes; model number, screen size, resolution, aspect ration, brightness, response time, etc. That way when someone searches ‘LCD TV 52” 1080p’ your product will have a better chance of coming up versus other listings that have not included this information.

Data Feed Format: Make sure your data feed is formatted correctly. Simply review Google Base Help for formatting guidelines to be sure you don’t have any errors in your data feed.

Track Your Listings: Make sure you track your items through Google Analytics. You can then find out what is successful and what is not. Be sure to adjust your listings based on feedback from Google Analytics. You can find information on tracking your products with Google Analytics here.

Build Up Your Seller Rating: Simply put, Google Base will give priority and higher rankings to products sold by a seller or store with a lot of positive ratings. One suggestion would be to encourage your customers to leave feedback for your store on Google. Offer them a small discount or free shipping on their next purchase if they leave a review.

Final Thoughts:
By providing Google Base with a lot of specific and quality information, your products will tend to rank for longer tail keywords, such as ‘Samsung LCD TV 52” 1080p.’ When searchers are typing in these longer tail and highly specific keywords, they are more likely to be in a position to buy the product rather than just browsing. This is what will separate product listings that do ok from the ones that absolutely kill it with very high conversion rates. Now that you have a basic guideline, you are ready to optimize your Google Base data feeds.

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SUMMARY: We wanted to know how organizations allocated their online marketing budgets for each of the following tactics, including personnel, media and other direct costs. This is what we learned.
By Sergio Balegno, Research Director

Social Media’s Share of the Online Marketing Budget

Social media, which would have accounted for a very small increment of the “Other online marketing” slice just a few years ago, is now garnishing 11% of the average online marketing budget. Based on other trends indicated in this report, social media’s share will continue to increase in the year ahead.

While email and search have been online marketing’s workhorse tactics in recent years, Web sites have become the hub of marketing strategy for many organizations. As such, the majority of content stored on a company Web site is created as the destination point for visitors arriving from email, search and other marketing campaigns. Nonetheless, the cost of creating this content is often allocated to the Web site, resulting in the largest slice of the online marketing budget pie.

For additional research data and insights about social marketing, download and read the free Executive Summary from MarketingSherpa’s 2010 Social Media Marketing Benchmark Report.

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SUMMARY: There is often reluctance to fix a machine that’s not broken. But when the machine is wasteful, minor tweaks can bring greater efficiency without sacrificing performance.

See how a menswear retailer brought their catalog circulation issues under control, realized huge savings, and invested in customer acquisition. Includes six lessons from their experiences.
Like almost every marketer last year, Scott Drayer, Director, Marketing, Paul Fredrick, and his team had to focus on cutting costs without sacrificing performance.

The professional menswear retailer relied heavily on catalogs to reach customers, so the team looked for savings in that channel. They analyzed customer data to identify segments that could receive fewer catalog mailings without depressing sales. As a result, they’ve saved almost 30% on catalog spending, with some customers receiving up to 50% fewer mailings per year.

The team then invested the savings in customer acquisition, lifting acquisition rates by more than 20%. And, according to Drayer, they still have some money left over to offset the effects of the recession.

Here are the six lessons Drayer’s team learned by cutting back on catalog mailings and investing elsewhere:

Lesson #1. Overcirculation is an opportunity

Drayer’s team sent a large amount of catalogs — up to 10 per quarter for some customers.

“We need to be there communicating with our customer the day he goes into his closet and finds one shirt with a coffee stain, another missing a button, and without any shirts to wear,” Drayer says. “He’s not shopping. He’s filling a need.”

This strategy worked when times were good, but when the recession hit, the team worried about costs. They had never conducted a detailed analysis of customer data to estimate how often catalogs should be mailed, so they knew that if the process found ways to reduce catalog frequency, it presented a tremendous savings opportunity.

Lesson #2. Strong customer data is required

In order to estimate how customers would respond to fewer mailings, the team needed a significant sample of customer data to analyze — about four to five years of purchase history.

Information vital to this effort included:
o Data maintained on a customer level
o Purchase channel
o Advertising channel that drove the sale
o Advertising combinations that reached the customer before the sale

Drayer’s team was diligent about capturing and storing data, but they were less adept at analyzing it for trends and insights.

Lesson #3. Use an analyst

Since they did not have one in-house, the team needed to hire a specialist to analyze data, look for trends and make recommendations.

The analyst’s role was to spend three to four weeks looking at the data to identify customer segments that would perform equally well if sent fewer catalogs, and to recommend appropriate reductions in frequency for each segment.

The team identified three customer segments that relied on catalogs to differing degrees when making a purchase:

- Catalog customers

These customers typically ordered products over the phone from a catalog. The data clearly showed that catalogs drove their sales. The team did not want to decrease mailings to this group.

“The whole point is that the people [who respond] best to catalogs are still going to be getting them,” Drayer says.

- Transitional customers

These customers were likely former catalog customers who showed a growing propensity to order products through other channels, such as the website. These customers represented a moderate opportunity for decreased mailings.

- Loyal online customers

The final group of customers would likely continue to order from Paul Fredrick with a sharp decrease in catalogs. These loyal customers often purchased through the website, and provided the strongest opportunity for decreased mailings.

Lesson #4. Accept some risk

The hardest part of this effort was accepting “the possibility that it didn’t work and you just cost yourself a lot of money,” Drayer says.

Drayer was convinced that potential benefits greatly outweighed possible drawbacks, and decided to move forward with the effort. He has no regrets.

“Our results have been more than favorable. It was worth the effort, most definitely.”

Lesson #5. Hedge your bets

Although the team had confidence in their analysis, they did not want to overexpose themselves.

They tested some of the analyst’s suggestions, cutting catalog frequency by 25% and 50% for certain segments, even though the analyst suggested cutting catalogs by up to 75% for some groups.

“We played it a little more safe than sorry,” Drayer says.

Continued monitoring of sales data will determine whether the team can further cut frequency for some segments, Drayer says.

Lesson #6. Reinvest in acquisition

The team saw substantial savings in its catalog mailings with negligible impacts on performance. They used some of this money to offset recession-based setbacks. But they invested the majority in customer acquisition.

Catalog savings alone have helped the team:
o Test television and radio advertising
o Expand paid search marketing
o Launch a retargeted banner advertising effort
o Invest in testing software for their website

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SUMMARY: We asked more than 2,300 social media marketers how they thought important challenges to social marketing effectiveness would change in 2010. Here’s what we found.
By Sergio Balegno, Research Director

Challenges Becoming Increasingly Important in the Year Ahead

The learning curve has been steep during the past year and marketers have overcome many previous challenges to the effectiveness of social media marketing.

Going forward, the increasingly important challenges are those related to key performance indicators like ROI and conversions. Two years ago, a popular marketing myth was that ROI for social media programs could not be easily measured. Marketers have dispelled this myth by proving that not only can the ROI of social media programs be measured, but the return on social marketing invest is exceptionally high.

Marketers are learning that social media does not perform effectively as a standalone tactic. As social programs are strategically integrated into the marketing mix, fans and followers who are learning about brands in the socialsphere are following the trail of breadcrumbs back to Web sites and conversion pages where they become leads and ultimately customers. This conversion from social media user to customer is becoming increasingly important as marketers become more proficient at it.

For additional research data and insights about social marketing, download and read the free Executive Summary from MarketingSherpa’s 2010 Social Media Marketing Benchmark Report.

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