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eCommerce and the user experience: what can we learn from the activewear industry? We’ve all heard the quote, “good artists copy; great artists steal.” While this is not something to be taken literally, it’s an idea that has some credence in the world of marketing. There is nothing wrong with mirroring the efforts of those who have found success. A recent report from Digital IQ titled “Sportswear 2015” offers an intriguing look into how activewear, which did not suffer the same slump in sales as the apparel industry saw in 2014, is marketed on...
Make a great first impression – after the fact with 15 ideas for post-purchase emails In a white paper created by Silverpop, titled Ultimate Guide To Post-Purchase Messages: 15 Ways To Build Loyalty And Drive More Revenue After The Purchase, the editors there said, “If you think of customers in terms of a simplified lifecycle, with customer acquisition first, initial purchase second and repeat loyalty third, it’s easy to see how a first-purchase focus could leave precious little time for surprising and delighting existing customers.” And Silverpop would know. As a leader in marketing automation, it...

October 20, 2014 Written by NetSphere Category: Marketing
Insight from Nielsen shows print marketing as far from dead It’s safe to say retailers are aware that there’s more to digital selling than just creating a website. There are handfuls of social channels to manage, various types of devices to consider and an ever-winding path to purchase to follow.   These various touch points were the focus of a recent Nielsen study titled “Today's Empowered Shoppers and Opportunities to Reach them.” In it, Nielsen researchers said that the digital channel, of course, plays a big role in affecting the consumer’s...
Ratings and reviews c/o the International Retailer Conference & Exhibition The International Retailer Conference & Exhibition took place at Chicago’s McCormick Place more than three months ago. Oh how time flies. Regardless of the time that’s passed, however, the team at NetSphere Strategies is still benefiting from the networking and educational opportunities provided there. Long story short, if we were to give the event a rating and review, we’d be sure to bestow it with a high number of stars as well as a comment indicating the caliber of speakers who...

August 11, 2014 Written by NetSphere Category: Marketing
15 reasons to use crowd-sourced photos for eCommerce In the whitepaper titled, “From Ripple to Wave: The Ascent of Authentic Visual Content,” the editors at Olapic, a company focused on visual content, brought to light the flood of customer photos that are being taken every day. They also focused on the benefits that can come from taking advantage of all of those selfies and pics shared on Instagram on eCommerce websites.   “Customer photos are the most authentic and compelling brand assets available today,” the editors said. “Thanks to the...

July 24, 2014 Written by NetSphere Category: Marketing
4 strategies to help companies rise in the Google rankings SEO can be a tough nut to crack and especially so when Google unleashes new ranking algorithms without warning – unless you’re one of those businesses fortunate enough to have a full-time SEO. And yes, for those readers that aren’t in the know, SEO isn’t just the process of improving digital visibility, it’s also a job title: search engine optimizer. The emergence of this position goes to show you just how prevalent the practice of SEO has become.  For many businesses,...

July 21, 2014 Written by NetSphere Category: Marketing
SEO forecast: The future lies in search experience optimization On July 17, 2014, Searchmetrics hosted its Visibility_14: Search Experience Optimization conference in Chicago. Tom Schuster, the CEO at Searchmetrics, kicked off the event with his forecast of SEO from a business perspective. During his opening remarks, Schuster commented on the obvious things that are happening in the digital revolution: mobile, social and data. But the obvious things that are happening were not his focus.  Instead, his keynote speech focused on the not-so-obvious transitions that are happening with SEO today: the...

July 16, 2014 Written by NetSphere Category: Marketing
The six-pronged approach to marketing automation The term “marketing automation” sounds like something that you can set and forget. Or, at the very least, it sounds like something that a tech-savvy intern can set up and monitor from time to time. As most folks know, however, that is definitely not the case.    Marketing automation isn’t something that can simply be put on autopilot. Instead, it’s something that must be carefully managed in order to increase brand awareness, enhance engagements and produce results. So what is marketing...

June 23, 2014 Written by NetSphere Category: Marketing
Harnessing the power of cart abandonment e-mails In a back issue of Real Simple, a popular monthly magazine for today’s modern woman, the editors presented readers with tips and tricks to “outsmart the Internet.” With the goal of getting what you want when and how you want it, Real Simple explained that online shoppers should play hard-to-get. In the article, readers were clued into the idea of abandoning a cart in hopes of getting a follow-up e-mail that would offer a discount if they went back to the...

May 02, 2014 Written by NetSphere Category: Marketing
Takeaways from IBM’s State of Marketing survey According to IBM, “in the United States alone, roughly US$83 billion is lost each year as a result of poor customer experiences. That’s more than the revenue for the entire U.S. e-commerce retail sector. Many businesses have yet to unlock the potential of information, technology and customer engagement to stem these losses.” IBM’s statement might seem like a harsh critique for marketers – especially for those businesses that have invested in and are embracing marketing technology. But the fact of the...