Off Madison Ave provides recommendations to enhance holiday online sales Firm’s Interactive Division Outlines Tips for E-Commerce Surge

Phoenix, AZ
September 20, 2007

As fall has arrived and the holidays will soon be looming on the horizon, Off Madison Ave (www.offmadisonave.com), a full-service collaborative marketing communications firm, is offering a series of tips for improving e-commerce results and customers’ Web shopping experiences during the 2007 holiday shopping season.

“While it’s still too early to plan for decorations, festive foods and holiday parties, it is never too early to prepare your Web site for the impending surge in online shopping during the holiday season,” said David Anderson, president and managing partner of Off Madison Ave. “Our online marketing group, Mighty Interactive, compiled their best practices and tips to share with e-commerce outlets in the name of enhancing the online results for retailers and improving the shopping experience for customers.”  

For retailers relying on their e-commerce engine to keep up with the deluge of forthcoming holiday transactions, the firm advises that before investing valuable marketing dollars into a full-blown online campaign, take stock in your current e-shopping capabilities and assess where you are as an online retailer and where you want to end up after the frenzied buying season. The firm’s recommendations for refining Web shopping functions follow:

Off Madison Ave’s Holiday Tips for E-Commerce Retailers

1. Find Out What Makes Shopper Click: Conduct offer and message testing now with email and search advertising
Take this opportunity during the fall months to find out what your customers want to hear. Learn what encourages them to purchase. If possible, conduct split testing with email lists and paid search ads to determine what elements will lead to an online purchase. Such revelations can help you get holiday promotions off to a stronger start. 

2. Try to Break Everything: Perform exhaustive quality assurance on the site
Broken links translate to busted reputations and lost sales for online retailers. Conduct a thorough check of all your Web site links, forms, shopping cart steps and verify your content for accuracy. Also, be sure that your last day to ship before certain holidays is communicated clearly. This can be the difference between a long-term, loyal customer and a dissatisfied dissident.

3. Deliver on Promises: Ensure all back-end technology matches up with your inventory
You probably have no doubt that you will get sales, as you should. However, be sure that you don't make promises you cannot keep. Does your supply of live inventory match up with what you are currently offering on the Web site?  Do you have measures in place to pull products off the online shelves if you are running low? Is there an established process for procuring more product if necessary?

4. Keep It Consistent: Synchronize catalog mailer call to action and look/feel with Web site 
Effective integrated marketing has one common thread - consistency. Communicating with prospects via traditional means such as direct mail, print advertising, broadcast, etc. can lead to online results. To improve effectiveness, be sure that all of your creative elements are consistent across multiple venues. Present one unified look, feel, tone and message to users. This will help your site visitors know they are in the right place once they arrive at your Web site and set expectations accordingly.

5. Nothing Says “Holidays” Like Keywords: Optimize for holiday search phrases and include them in your PPC (pay-per-click) campaign
Several online merchants carry seasonal products later in the year, and others offer items year-round that are typically purchased more often during the holiday season. Regardless the scenario, conduct research on seasonal keyword phrases and implement them in your campaign. If you sell scented candles, experiment with "christmas candles,” or if you own a gym, try "gym membership gift.” 

6. Track Online Behavior Early and Often to  Identify products That Are Selling
Web site analytics can be used to tell the story of a holiday campaign. Review traffic spikes from online and traditional media placements to determine when traffic is occurring during the day and throughout the week. It is important to assess which Web sites and search engines are referring the best quality traffic. Use your analytics program to learn about what products are more popular with shoppers than others, and adjust your promotions, pricing and placement strategy accordingly.

7. When is Your Prime Time? Day segment to increase efficiency and communicate with shoppers
Find out what times your visitors are buying during the day, and if possible, graph it out or place this important information in a chart for careful analysis. Once you determine when visitors are most likely to buy, adjust your online marketing campaigns (search, online advertising, email, etc.) to generate traffic during those times.  If implemented correctly, this strategy can improve the efficiency and ROI of your campaign.

8. Include Up-Sell Cues Throughout the Checkout Process 
During or immediately after the online checkout process, look for additional ways to entice eager shoppers with promotions and offers for complimentary products and/or services. For example, if you sell tires, offer rims, an air pressure gauge or tire cleaner as well. Use special incentives such as discounts or free shipping to encourage visitors to take action. All these messages can be included on "thank you" pages, sale confirmation emails and in your shopping cart.

9. Collect Email Addresses for Remarketing Throughout 2008 
The holiday season cannot only provide immediate sales, but also methods of garnering invaluable contact information for future online marketing efforts. Whether visitors decide to purchase online or not, take every opportunity to promote your email program. Collect email as part of the checkout process and tie this information with purchase history if possible. This data can be used to provide details on products in which specific email recipients have interest. A well-designed email opt-in process can translate into long-lasting, tenable revenue from existing customers.

10. Create a Strategy to Mitigate and Respond to Shopping Cart Abandonment
It happens. Your site visitors will place items in their card and/or suddenly leave. Do your best to win them back.  You can include special features throughout the Web site to instill user confidence such as live chat and security certifications like HackerSafe. For those that abandon your shopping cart, try instituting programs that display pop-unders with special offers on products the user had placed in the cart. To recapture attention from visitors who have visited your site without converting to a sale, try a retargeting campaign, which allows you to place a cookie on visitors' machines that will display your online ads to those same visitors when they visit various Web site networks and content providers. 

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Off Madison Ave uses arsenal of social media tools to engage audiences and enhance client awareness

Phoenix, Arizona
September, 17 2007

Off Madison Ave, a collaborative marketing communications firm, is deploying a full portfolio of online social media tools. The firm is producing measurable results from these applications for clients and its own operations by posting blogs, uploading videos and photos, creating company profiles and bookmarking industry news sites.

The perception that each social media site will result in people coming directly to a company’s Web page and making a sale is somewhat misleading. Rather, it is a comprehensive process of remaining visible and active on these various sites to systematically augment the reputation of a company and keep it at the fingertips of people searching for its products and services.

“We have all witnessed the prevalence of social media programs in the last couple of years, and their potential to spread messages and reach new audiences is immense – the impact on relationship building and brand recognition is undeniable,” said David Anderson, president and managing partner of Off Madison Ave. “After researching, testing and assessing the results of different programs for the agency’s use, we have begun to roll them out where most compatible and beneficial for our clients’ marketing needs, products and services.”

While social media has actually been around for several years and is demonstrated in various formats, it is now being employed in a way it was meant to be used – as a two-way communications tool. Off Madison Ave has been doing that over the past year, establishing a presence with several notable social media sites, each with the goal of hearing from others and engaging in dialogue rather than making others hear them.

“It is essential in our industry to keep pace with all new media, particularly with what we’ve seen in the Web 2.0 era,” said Jason Baer, senior director of interactive services at Off Madison Ave. “Social media applications were created for the benefit of broadening awareness and reputation, so we continue to execute these programs as a valuable complement to clients’ traditional marketing strategies.”

An outline of Off Madison Ave’s social media applications follows:

1. Blogs: The firm maintains two blogs, one for Off Madison Ave (www.offmadisonave.com/blog.php), geared more toward traditional advertising and public relations services, and the other for Mighty Interactive (www.mightyinteractive.com/blog.php), which focuses primarily on Internet-oriented stories and issues. Posting blogs has allowed the agency to network with other industry blogs, increasing additional traffic and conversions, resulting in a 60 percent increase in Web site visits from the same time last year.

Blog Fact: There are 94 million blogs indexed by Technorati.

2. MySpace: While many businesses use MySpace as an extension of their commercial Web site, Off Madison Ave uses its pages (www.myspace.com/offmadisonave, www.myspace.com/mightyinteractive) to recruit college students for internships and recent graduates interested in employment. The site features photos of the agency, events and career opportunities and has received nearly 500 views in the just a few months.

MySpace Fact: MySpace is the sixth-most visited destination on the Web according to Alexa.com.

3. LinkedIn: Considered the “MySpace” of the business world, the agency maintains a profile (www.linkedin.com/in/offmadisonave) that outlines its history, successes and clients, serving as a transparent platform for prospective employees, clients and vendors to make connections with the agency and ascertain the types of services it provides.

LindkedIn Fact: There were 13 million registered users on LinkedIn through August 2007 according to its figures.

4. Flickr: As the leading free online photo-sharing Web site, Flickr provides new opportunities for businesses to use images to enhance their brand recognition and create description tags to optimize search engine capabilities, thus harnessing increased traffic to their Web site. Off Madison Ave has posted photos of their clients’ products and activities that have received several hundred views in a few months.

Flickr Fact: Flickr has more than two million registered users and nearly 100 million photos have been posted on its site according to USA Today.

5. YouTube: As the most widely used online video service, YouTube presents new opportunities for interviews, commercials and demonstrations to be posted for enhancing a client’s exposure and branding efforts. The agency’s compilation of commercial reels have been viewed more than 2,000 times in six months, and a local television interview with Off Madison Ave co-founder Roger Hurni was viewed nearly 600 times.

YouTube Fact: YouTube is the fourth-most visited Web site according to Alexa.com.

6. Del.icio.us: While maintaining online bookmarks has become a common practice, Off Madison Ave created a collection of useful sites (del.icio.us/offmadisonave) for anyone interested in advertising, public relations or online news, trends and issues, even if the information doesn’t come directly from the firm.

Del.icio.us Fact:  Del.icio.us has more than two million registered users, according to its figures,  thus increasing the possibility of people finding your company through networks of people who bookmark sites regularly.

 

About Off Madison Ave

Off Madison Ave, a Phoenix marketing and advertising agency, redefines what it means to be an agency, not just on paper, but by delivering collaborative and results-focused strategies. As a full-service Phoenix marketing agency and business consultant, Off Madison Ave is the only firm in Arizona that is a member of the Worldcom Public Relations Group (www.worldcomgroup.com). Off Madison Ave develops and executes comprehensive communication strategies helping to raise clients' brand awareness and revenues.

Named one of the "Best Places to Work" in 2006 by the Business Journal of Phoenix, Off Madison Ave specializes in marketing and business consulting in the areas of new media, strategic planning, interactive, public relations, advertising, market research and strategies, and media. In 2005, Off Madison Ave acquired Interactive marketing firm Mighty Interactive, to provide its clients with industry-leading interactive marketing services. Off Madison Ave is heralded as the No. 1 public relations and Internet marketing firm, and one of the top two advertising firms, by Arizona Business Magazine. A sampling of clients include: Coldstone Creamery, Nike, Vitabath and Claire Burke, The Arizona Republic, DMB Associates, Inc., APS/Pinnacle West Corporation, Cruise America, Arizona Highways, Farnam Pet Products, Fairytale Brownies and many more. Visit www.offmadisonave.com for more information.