Erik Bartz Erik Bartz

Online retail sales to hit $34-billion in Canada by 2018

Online spending will account for 8% of overall retail in this country in five years, but Canadians are still deterred by longstanding hurdles such as expensive shipping costs and a paucity of shopping choices

Slowly but surely e-commerce is coming into its own in Canada.

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Erik Bartz Erik Bartz

Why 2013 Is The Year You Need To Get Serious About Tumblr

Guest post written by Hayes Davis Hayes Davis is founder and CEO of Union Metrics, which provides Twitter and Tumblr analytics tools. Hayes Davis Social media is undeniably crucial to branding and marketing efforts, but in a multi-network world every marketer has to carefully decide to where to spend her resources. The thinking […]
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Erik Bartz Erik Bartz

5 Reasons to Start Bidding on Branded Terms

Here is a great post giving a run down on the arguments for bidding in your branded terms in AdWords. I’ve had the debate several times in my own career and I think this article does a nice job explaining some of the pros to the strategy. 

Regarding people’s arguments against because its a waste of the marketing budget; I’ve always found the branded ad groups to be significantly cheaper to run. Its minuscule and I believe offers way more upside than not.

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Erik Bartz Erik Bartz

Gamestop to J.C. Penney Shut Facebook Stores

Last April, Gamestop Corp. opened a store on Facebook to generate sales among the 3.5 million-plus customers who’d declared themselves “fans” of the video game retailer. Six months later, the store was quietly shuttered.

F-commerce has been described as the next big thing in online commerce, but this article from Bloomberg shows it may not be all we thought it could be. Though Facebook is the most visited site on the web, its also fairly specific in it’s use of ‘hanging out with friends’. Retailers have found this environment doesn’t work well for selling, plus consumers seem to find the actual websites a preferable shopping experience.

The article quotes Wade Gerten as saying “It was basically just another place to shop of all the stuff already available on the retailer websites.”

But what is one of the top rules in social media? Customize your message to the medium. Replicating your store on the network isn’t customization, brands need to consider how to extend themselves and their online shopping experience to Facebook. Imagine if the stores used Facebook for a pop-up shop to showcase a new product line before it hits the regular store, or a limited edition product run that will be available no where else.

Give the fans something special.

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Erik Bartz Erik Bartz

Content Marketing Tactics Now Critical to All Businesses [INFOGRAPHIC]

I bumped into my good friend Chris Baggott from Compendium yesterday at the Online Marketing Summit.  Every conference we run into each other at, Chris pulls me aside and says, “Joe, here we are at…

It’s kind of a huge infographic, but that only means its chuck full of great information. I know some B2B companies don’t think online marketing is relevant to their business, but perhaps reframing the conversation as ‘content marketing’ would make the conversation more relevant and insightful.

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Erik Bartz Erik Bartz

Paradox of Plans

Plans are a paradox. On the one hand we have "Failing to plan is planning to fail". And on the other side we have 37Signals atriculating plans are just guesses. 

Both are correct. A business jumping into Twitter or Facebook without a plan could lead to utter chaos, or worse a PR blunder of nightmare proportions. But a business spending months and months planning to get onto Facebook, still won’t be on Facebook while their competitors are grabbing all the fans. Plus, with the rate of innovation on the social network, by the time the plan is ready the fundamentals may have greatly changed and the planning will need to start all over again.

I’ve now worked in both situations. 

In one example, we had a “guess” about a possible new revenue stream. I didn’t know the size of this particular market, but I knew it was going to materialize and I wanted a piece of the action. I don’t know when either, as this was an opportunity born out of new legislation, but one could reasonably assume we had 2-6 months to prepare. And I also knew I had next to nothing I terms of budget to work.

In there lied the plan. I knew the what, sort of the when, and the how was restricted entirely to inbound marketing practices since my budget was essentially zero. And it worked! The team was able to jump into action, having the end goal in sight and our collective strengths combined to meet it. By the time the legislation passed, we ranked number one in search and had a pipeline filled with ready leads.

I think you can guess how the other example goes. In that situation, the team and opportunity were squandered for months while waiting for plans to be made, discussed and approved. Good ideas, both internal and external were sidelined waiting for “the plan” to transpire and save us all. The team became increasingly disgruntled and immobilized; while partnering companies became disgruntled and uncooperative. Not to mention the competitors who were plowing ahead forging new relationships and the customers who were forgetting our brand with ever greater results.

Plans are important, but one must recognize they are just guesses. Guesses where the market will be, guesses in how our brand will perform, and guesses in the dynamics of the tools and marketplaces where we work. And because of this, our plans can never be concrete or the sole factor in our success. Don’t underestimate the power of your people who are inspired and empowered to realize a company’s mission. Who ever said the best ideas come in boardroom meetings with dim lighting and ugly art on the walls?!

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