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Bob Garfield calls this the "Listenomics Age." In typically modest fashion, he calls it "the future of everything." In this age, he writes in "The Chaos Scenario," "survival means institutionalizing dialogue with all of your potential constituencies and sometimes total strangers for the purpose of market research, product development, customer relationships, corporate image and transactions themselves." Of all of these, he prioritizes the last, "because when you sell goods or services, you get money." In short, if you optimize highly targeted digital direct response campaigns and conversations, and other aspects of related buy cycle functions, you are the future. To read more on the future of digital marketing and targeting, click on the link above. Read the full article

It’s September and the holiday season has already begun for merchants and shoppers. In a recent Practical eCommerce webinar entitled “Ten Ecommerce Strategies for Holiday Success,” Make-a-Store CMO Derek Stringfellow offered 10 tips merchants can apply now for more sales this holiday season. His suggestions are based on annual Make-a-Store observations of strategies used by Make-a-Store customers, as well as market leaders like Zappos, QVC, Netflix, and Amazon. Among the top tips are: (1) Have an infrastructure that can sScale dynamically to handle the spikes in holiday traffic; (2) Centralize the management of multiple channels and platforms; (3) Make site navigation easier and (4) Offer wish lists and gift registries. There are another 6 tips you need to read. Click the link above to get to the full article.
Read the full article at Practical ECommerce

The heart of behavioral targeting, or behavioral marketing, starts with measurement. That measurement can take place online, where businesses can obtain robust segmentations and behavioral data, or can take place using surveys, media segmentation, or by simply breaking down the composition of the body of individuals with access to your message. By understanding who may see your message, you can better predict those that will effectively digest it. For more on how marketers are using behavioral targeting – both offline and online – click the link above.
Read the full article at ClickZ

83% of US consumers shop online at least once a week, according to a new study from Compete. Meanwhile, consumers’ use of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to aid online shopping significantly increased from Q3 2009 to Q2 2010. Thirty-one percent of consumers visited Facebook fan pages and/or Twitter feeds of retailers in Q2 2010, almost twice the percentage who did so in Q3 2009. The Q2 2010 Compete Online Shopper Intelligence Study was compiled from a survey of 3,119 online purchasers between May and July 2010.Read the full article at Retailer Daily

With the 2010 holiday season looming, many merchants are wondering where mobile fits into their marketing and selling strategies. Tom Davis, VP of eCommerce at Kenneth Cole says the single most important goal for merchants is to become familiar with m-commerce and understand what it can do for them. “It’s all about learning what people are doing,” he says. “You need to use the data from this six-week period this year to plan a mobile commerce strategy for 2011 and 2012. The mobile landscape is going to change so fast that I am hesitant to drop a lot of investment in it this year. But you will benefit by having a solution out there and getting on the wave now.” Forrester Research analyst Patti Freeman Evans urged retailers to concentrate first on relatively simple mobile efforts. “Simple, clean and good is good for a mobile experience this year—but not next year,” she says. “This year you have to learn who your mobile customer is, what devices they are using and how they are behaving. Then you can learn so you can set a mobile strategy and figure out how to execute that strategy.”Read the full article at Internet Retailer

David Carr of the NYT bemoans, “Television, which was once the brain-dead part of the day, had become one more thing that required time, attention and taste.” But Carr notes that this has changed. “In the dawning era of an always-on database of television, even shows I missed on purpose now find me. The media world today is less the paradox of choice than the inundation by options. My DVR is groaning at 79 percent of capacity, My iTunes library [will] not fit on my new iPad because I have about 75 gigabytes of music, 20,000 songs or so, many of which I have yet to hear. Our ability to produce media has outstripped our ability to consume it.” Carr concludes “We don’t watch TV anymore as much as it seems to watch us, recommending, recording and dishing up all manner of worthy product.”
Read the full article at NY Times

Only 42% of Americans in 2010 said they felt that a television set was “a necessity,” according to a telephone survey conducted in May by the Pew Research Center. The proportion of people counting a TV as a must-have has shrunk by one third since 2006, when 64% of Americans said they needed one. This year, more people prized their microwaves than their televisions. More people valued their landline phones, their clothes dryers, and even their air-conditioners. However, these numbers do not mean that Americans are throwing away their televisions (more than half of American households have more than 3 TV sets). Rather, they suggest a decline in the perceived status of the television set, as other devices — like computers and smartphones — edge into its territory and take over TV’s functions.
Read the full article at NY Times

Marketers will spend $1.8 billion on location-based advertising in 2015, a huge increase from the $42.8 million projected to be spent this year. “For a number of companies, especially ones with physical stores, the value in knowing a prospect's location is the opportunity to drive that person to a store, and thus increase foot traffic,” said Neil Strother, research analyst at ABI Research, adding that the industry is now “seeing the first shoots” of location-based advertising being commercialized. “Once in store, the retailer has a high probability of converting that visit into a sale, which is the ultimate objective.” Marketers' options in the location-based advertising space are also becoming more clearly defined. For instance, mobile shoppers have “check-in” services available to them through platforms such as Loopt, Gowalla, Foursquare and now Facebook with its “Places” page for consumers who opt in and “self-identify.” Stay tuned.Read the full article at DM News

Retail Wire Editor-in-Chief George Anderson, offers his thoughts on how retailers are using IT to meet expanding expectations of the modern shopper. According to Anderson, “Consumers don’t like shopping in stores as much as they once did and that’s a problem for retailers with most of their dollars invested in brick and mortar outlets. [Meanwhile] shopper satisfaction at retail stores is declining upwards of 15% a year.” Anderson interviewed John Ross, president of Shopper Sciences who noted that “The role the store is playing is changing. Ross, who was CMO at Home Depot before joining Shopper Sciences believes “Shoppers are walking up with a different set of expectations.” Meanwhile, Matthew Smith (Best Buy VP of Marketing) notes “We think consumers have more opportunities than ever to bridge their digital and physical shopping experiences, particularly through smart phones and mobile technology.” Stay tuned.Read the full article

With all the recent controversy surrounding online privacy settings, marketing agency Upshot conducted an experiment to see if online privacy is really an issue with today’s consumers. The short answer is no. It’s not an issue. Three service concepts were presented to more than 600 consumers (half with an intro about personalization, the other half got an intro on online privacy). “Consumers thought the benefits of personalized services—like deal finding alerts—outweighed their privacy concerns. So when it comes right down to it, as long as programs add value for consumers, they’ll participate,” said Lionel Knight, SVP of Planning at Upshot.Read the full article