If you’ve considered e-Commerce,  this recently published statistic will open your eyes to the opportunity: more than half of US Consumers plan to to their holiday shopping ONLINE in 2009.  Over one fourth say they will purchase more gifts over the Internet than they did last year.

The results of the “2009 Mindset of a Multi-Channel Shopper” survey show an increasing trend as consumers elect to do more shopping on-line than ever before.  Last year was the first year that the web surpassed “Brick and Mortar” stores as the preferred way for multi-channel shoppers to purchase holiday gifts, the e-tailing group reported.

Social Media gains in importance as a tool to drive traffic to your eCom site; it was cited as influencing the purchase for 37% of the audience, compared to 24 % last year.

Concerned that creating an e-Commerce site is expensive? Almost 90% of online shoppers are willing to pay full price for hard-to-find items

85% cite convenience as their primary reason for turning to Internet e-Commerce

Wish lists are becoming increasingly important

Top product categories purchased online are books, clothing, music, toys, consumer electronics and gift certificates

Free shipping is highlighted as a compelling offer – the number one reason consumers elected not to make an online purchase was cited as high shipping charges, by 62% of the respondents.

Out of stock?   Seven out of ten loyal shoppers will go to your competition if you don’t have the item.

Offering pick up at the store location is important with 60% of the shoppers.

Mobile phones for price checks, stock checks and promotion redemptions is important to 33% of your shopping audience.

About the survey:  The research included a poll of more than 1,000 consumers about their shopping habits and plans for the upcoming holiday season.

To visit two of our most recently launched e-Commerce stores, visit:

www.pubshops.org

www.aftercareplanning.com

Beneficial Bank is a full service bank that has been serving the Delaware Valley community since 1853. Headquartered in Philadelphia, PA, the company has 70 neighborhood branches and provides a modern work environment for over 1,000 employees.

Beneficial previously had an Intranet, but it was primarily made up of static HTML files. Every time Beneficial wanted to add or edit content it required the department managers to write tedious HTML code, which took a great deal of time. Consequently, the Intranet was not being kept up to date.

Another downside of Beneficial’s Intranet was that its look and feel had not kept pace with the bank’s branding so it looked out of synch with the public website and the bank’s marketing materials.

Beneficial Bank’s senior management decided to use Microsoft’s SharePoint server for the new Intranet. As SharePoint experts, we were chosen to customize the Intranet to meet the bank’s needs. Beneficial had learned about WWWC from management who had previously worked at Commerce Bank, whose entire Intranet, used by the bank’s thousands of employees on a daily basis, was developed by WWWC.

WWWC first set up the SharePoint portal server. Taking advantage of SharePoint’s built-in security, content management, and document management features, WWWC was able to establish sites specific to each department. This allowed department managers to maintain their own Intranet content without the need to know HTML or other programming technologies.

Beneficial’s new Intranet looks nothing like a traditional SharePoint website. With workflow, departments, and permissions in mind, WWWC started with a planning stage before the software was installed and followed the process all the way through configuration. By writing actual tutorial documents with screen captures, WWWC showed Beneficial Bank how it could configure departments by using the software. WWWC also set up a branded interface, which required the bypassing of the pre-made templates offered by SharePoint.

Some of the benefits Beneficial is now realizing with its new Intranet include:

• Customized and optimized employee-centric software for the company’s needs
• Improved standard template layouts and user-friendly, branded interface
• Accessible tutorial documents on configuration for bank employees for easy updating
• Improved and streamlined department collaboration for increased productivity

Salesforce makes it easy to set up new AdWord campaigns right from your Salesforce account. Salesforce also makes it easy to link your existing AdWords account to your new CRM program. This integration gives you even greater control over managing your ad campaigns and maximizing your leads.

While Google makes it easy to review each AdWord campaign and determine the most efficient use of your advertising budget, Salesforce gives you targeted feedback relative to your marketing campaign. With Salesforce, you can see the exact leads generated through each Google AdWord campaign, providing you with a thorough view of your marketing plan from the click point on a website to active clients.

Salesforce also gives you a comprehensive look at organic lead generation through integrated lead tracking software. Where Google AdWords helps you better organize your marketing campaign, the organic lead tracking programs help you visualize how individual clients found your site via search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Not only does this help you determine your company’s exposure online, you can use it to improve existing pages on your website to attract even more organic search hits.

The revenue tracking programs in Salesforce also help you determine the return on investment (ROI) for your marketing plan through Google. Salesforce gives you a complete overview of what’s working and what needs to be changed. Since the Google programs are incorporated into the Salesforce marketing model, all of your revenue statistics are recorded in real time, giving you even greater control over small and large changes for the immediate future. The Salesforce model also lets you fully customize your dashboards to track the success of your marketing strategy.

By integrating Google resources into the Salesforce package, Salesforce has created a streamlined process to help any business maximize the potential of profitable internet resources. This unique combination of programs improves communication with associates and customers, streamlines collaborations within your business, and provides immediate targeted feedback from online marketing campaigns. With Google applications, Salesforce raises the standards of business development and provides any company with the tools they need to build a successful future online.

Salesforce also lets you link these doc files to existing records or other Salesforce files, giving you greater ability to organize and crosslink clients and information. This integration also gives you the ability to search for Google Docs within the system and even helps you create quotes and proposals that you can post to Google Docs for use in collaboration with partners and associates. You can also use spreadsheets with this software feature, giving you even more flexibility for sharing information.

Google Calendar makes it easy to plan and organize important events and deadlines, and Salesforce helps you synchronize and exchange all your calendars through one convenient system. Simply update an event in Salesforce and set it to synchronize with a Google Calendar to share the events with others. You can also create timelines and deadlines for projects to help you visualize your workload.

Salesforce also allows you to customize your Google Start Page by displaying important dashboard components right when you open your browser. This feature gives you a fast, overall view of your Salesforce progress, deadlines, or task lists without having to open Salesforce separately.

Next article will discuss Salesforce and Google Adwords.

No longer is it safe to put your advertising for the product on television, radio, newspaper, magazine… then sit back and wait to “monitor” the results in sales.  No longer can we identify our demographic in broad strokes, such as femailes 18 to 35.  There is just too much information available to and from our customers for advertising agencies, publicists and marketers to take that dangerous approach.

If we are not monitoring our brand – what’s being posted or said about us on the Internet, we run the risk of negating any paid advertising that we do.  In fact, the example of Pizza Hut, where a couple of employees created a video that disrupted our concept of the brand, brings to light the accessibility and availabilty ‘new media’.

So, what’s a marketer to do? 

 First – be aware of channels where the brand can be mentioned, either positively or negatively.   In the case of Comcast. there is a team involved to monitor customer complaints, and take quick action to respond to them.  Other companies are jumping on that bandwagon.  Can you afford not to?

Second – take advantage of new media opportunities.  Are you on Twitter?  Do you have a business page on Facebook?Are you writing articles about the company? Does the company have a blog?

Third – Join communities and monitor the conversations.  Join in the conversations. Humanize the company. 

The days of faceless giant corporations are coming to a close – those are the dinosaurs that face extinction; much like taking the corporate jet and asking for taxpayer dollars.  Today the customers are vocal and they want to be heard. They want to interract, and they want their opinion to count. 

Can you afford not to listen?

In a nutshell, Twitter is used to broadcast and to monitor.  In “broadcast” mode, you can use Twitter to announce new products, share existing services, highlight case studies, ask for information or resources, and generally market your business.  In “monitoring” mode, you will be able to respond to positive or negative mentions of your brand or company, keep updated about news in your market, analyze your competition, maintain links with  your suppliers, and understand customer service concerns.        

Twitter is also about dialogue not one-way broadcasting.  It’s important to respond to inquiries for information and show the Twitterverse that you are a human, not a ‘bot.  To do this, you should respond to others and create dialogue as appropriate.   To this end, a “social media policy” should be established for your organization which determines the type of information that can be shared as well as appropriate and inappropriate dialogue that the company finds acceptable.  More on a social media policy in another blog to follow.  

One of the most important functions of Twitter is as an information and news source.  Even the most respected television stations, radio stations and newspapers understand that they need to use Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms.  There is something about having the ability to communicate directly with the radio personality or the television news announcer that is undeniable.  CNN has been very smart about setting up Twitter accounts for their announcers, even reading Twitter comments in real time on the air.  

News is more of a two-way street than ever before.  True journalists are ‘keeping an ear to the ground’ by watching what’s being stated via Twitter statements.  If it’s important to the news, then certainly it’s important for you.

In future blogs, we’ll examine how to use Twitter to gain credibility and also how to develop a Social Media Policy.

Last week, I tweeted  the following: that for the first time ever, a “social media” is changing the course of history.  I understand this sounds melodramatic, but the reality of what is transpiring in Iran is an amazing example of the power of the micro blog.  While the Iranian government was scrambling to shut down all communication from inside, the Twitterverse responded by requesting that Twitterers all over the world identify their account as being in Tehran, Iran.  The reason this made sense was to disguise who was Tweeting from inside Iran.  By cluttering the ability to identify who was sharing info from outside, Twitter was able to help the information that was able to be shared outside of the country from those within.

Apparently this worked well enough that the Department of Defense requested that Twitter postpone maintenance from the middle of the night our time (middle of the day in Tehran) to the middle of the day our time (the middle of the night in Tehran).  The ability to gather intelligence from the Tweets coming out was that important.

But what does that mean to you?  You may not want to read about Harry blowing his nose, or George having tuna for lunch.  I agree with you.  However, with the way media is changing due to the rapidity of information gathering, it’s impossible to ignore the power of this tool.

Recently I had the pleasure of moderating a panel for eWomen Network on Social Media and how Traditional Media is reacting to the changing environment.  It’s no secret that newspaper circulation is down, radio listenership is down, and television news audiences are down.  Many people are turning to the Internet for their news.  All three of the panelists, representing TV, Radio and Newspaper were consistent in their recognition of the need to incorporate social media as a way to reach their audience and to gather information.

As a business person, how would you use social media to effectively supplement your marketing programs and reach the audience?  I’ll address this question in the next post.  Stay tuned!

Gmail is one of the most trusted email programs available today.  In order to maximize consumer and associate communication, Salesforce combines Google’s user-friendly system into the Salesforce business model.  With this combination, you can automatically copy emails to your Salesforce sources to help you keep better track of important correspondence.  Furthermore, integrated Gmail buttons make it easy to send emails from your business Gmail account from selected customer pages on Salesforce.  These same buttons also appear next to any email address in the Salesforce system, making it even easier to keep in touch with important clients and associates.

Google Talk is just as easy to use as Gmail, and Salesforce has integrated this instant messaging system right into the Salesforce programs.  You can assist clients, collaborate on sales calls, and coordinate with partners without leaving the Salesforce system.  The Talk button appears right on the Salesforce page, making it easy to find your partners without leaving Salesforce. 

Next article will discuss Google Docs and Google Calendar.

Imagine how easy traveling would be without your luggage! Luggage Ahead will ship your luggage to and from your destination, allowing you to move through airports without the cost and hassle of lugging and checking your bags.  Your luggage, sports equipment, and business materials will be waiting for you when you arrive, guaranteed. Luggage Ahead can pick up your bags at your home or office and ship to any US location and most countries. Simply book your order online or call 1-888-395-4410.

Luggage Ahead’s new website can be viewed at http://luggageahead.com/.

Comment sections and Forums are another way to drive traffic to your site.  While some forums and blogging sites discourage links in comment sections, they’re usually permissible if you’re also providing useful content.  Consider setting up usernames on consumer sites where you’re likely to find a motivated customer base and start participating in discussion boards and forums.  If you sell wine glasses, consider joining informative consumer wine sites.  If you give informative and interesting feedback in forums, comments, or discussion boards, other visitors are more likely to click on links you include in your text.

Tight budgets don’t have to mean less advertising.  The internet if full of opportunities to target and teach motivated consumers.  By creating blogs and articles and posting links on related sites, you not only create a free marketing program, you also lure educated consumers who are more likely to purchase your products or services regardless of the economic climate. 

Designed and hosted by World Wide Web Communications, ACSNJ’s’s website features a great deal of information about the organization, which is located in Belmawr, New Jersey.

Whether you are looking for volunteer opportunities, an internship, program schedule, news, employment opportunities or how to donate – you will find the information on the website.

Over the years the face of HIV/AIDS has changed and new challenges have emerged. Today, 74% of those living with HIV/AIDS in New Jersey are 40 years of age or older – many of whom have children, spouses, partners or extended family that need their support. Unfortunately, many individuals living with this life-altering disease face a multitude of challenges related to caring for themselves and their loved ones. These include homelessness, unstable housing, inadequate food, lack of financial resources, discrimination related to disclosure of HIV status, depression and chronic fatigue to name a few. ACSNJ helps clients address these and many other issues and provides meaningful opportunities for them to manage the disease and continue to contribute to their families and the community.

The mission of the ACSNJ is to provide comprehensive support services for people infected or affected by HIV/AIDS, in Burlington, Camden, Gloucester and Salem Counties of New Jersey, through leadership and community collaboration. ACSNJ’s new website can be viewed at http://acsnj.org/.

In addition to content building such as articles and blogs, you might also want to consider link exchanges and affiliate programs with related companies.  For example, if you sell wine glasses, consider building a relationship with a winery or wine dealer.  You can set up a traditional affiliate program with incentives or you can simply ask to exchange links in order to help drive traffic to your respective sites.  Large businesses usually require a formal partnership or affiliate program while smaller businesses are more likely to set up a basic link exchange. 

Designed and hosted by World Wide Web Communications, MESCO’s website features a bold new nautical design that lets the viewer know precisely what it does as soon as the site pops up in the browser.  Besides providing the standard information about the company, the site takes advantage of several new features such as Google Maps to display its location, a password-protected “Dealer Cove” section for its distributors and an interactive feedback form for easy lead generation.

MESCO’s new website can be viewed at www.mesconet.com.

For example, if you have a company that sells wine glasses, you may have one blog that talks about your business and what you do, another blog that specializes in educating consumers about how to choose a wine glass, and a third blog that focuses more on wine.  While each targets a slightly different market, all of them would have links leading back to pages on your site.  While some links might direct traffic to your home page, others could link to specific pages within your site to give the consumer even more information.  In this case, consider building pages in your site that educate not only existing consumers but new ones as well. 

Link building refers to the ability to post links on websites that direct traffic to other websites.  These links can be basic links on websites that refer directly to your business or they can be hyperlinked words in articles, discussions or blogs.  In general, the more sites that link to your company, the better.  Keep in mind that in order to create the most effective free advertising campaign with links, you’ll need to carefully consider where and how you post your links.

Places to Post Links

l  Articles in directories like ezinearticles.com

l  Blogs about your company and services

l  Informational blogs that educate but don’t advertise your website

l  Affiliate businesses

l  Online networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace

l  Comment sections of blogs that target your market

l  Forums, Comments, and Discussion Boards on consumer sites

Salesforce provides internet partnership portals that you can customize to look and feel like your company’s website.  You can use a single portal or tailor separate online portals to target and attract select groups of potential partners.  These portals also allow individuals or companies to automatically register with your system, giving you time and flexibility to approve and build these partnerships at your own pace.

As part of the Salesforce system, the Channel Management options let you route incoming partner applicants to appropriate individuals or teams.  Simply set up territories to accept incoming partner applications and assign these territories to designated team members.  Once partners have been approved, your associate can provide them with targeted action plans and online marketing tools to help each partner drive more customers to your site.  You can also add new programs and upgrade partners based on their performance.

The same Salesforce tools used to manage customers can also be used to manage partners.  You can organize partners into territories and send out messages to one, all, or selected groups of individuals based on your marketing needs.  Detailed tables, analysis, and data sheets let you evaluate the progress of each relationship and measure the performance of every marketing strategy.

With Salesforce’s network of data you can easily track your partnerships and develop milestones for future partner relations.  With targeted tailored marketing relationships you’ll be able to reach a larger motivated audience and maintain happy partner relationships using the Salesforce system. 

By giving managers the ability to group clients into territories, Salesforce makes it easy to redirect, move, and rearrange your business at any time.  Each territory can then be moved as a whole, or your managers can select individual units to move separately outside of the group.  By enabling your managerial staff to categorize customer data, you also give them power to assign different security preferences to specific groups of customers.  This can help manage individual and team access to specific data and customer accounts.

This same tool makes it easy for managers to analyze customer groups based on demographics, regions, industry, and relationship with your company.  By automatically assigning new leads to specific categories, managers can set up a system through Salesforce that directs new sales leads to the appropriate team member.  This means that new customers will be automatically connected with a knowledgeable sales associate who can assist with relevant information about how your business can satisfy the customer’s unique needs.

By organizing clients and customer data into territories, Salesforce CRM gives your sales managers the ability to analyze and compare each group as a separate entity.  This allows the managers to set unique goals and deadlines for each sales team and territory.  The online Salesforce system also gives you access to real-time data so you can immediately analyze growth and redirect resources for the immediate future.

In combination with the territory management model, these forecasting programs let your company forecast and set goals based on region, territory, manager, sales representative, product, and more.  You can compare, combine, and contrast all different sets of data in order to get the most accurate assessment of future growth.  Salesforce also gives you access to currency conversions and customizable timetables so that you can tailor every sales prediction to your company’s needs.  By implementing Salesforce in your business, you create an opportunity for maximum productivity from your sales team and the potential for unlimited growth.

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Whether you’re a big company with hundreds of employees or a new business with only a handful of sales associates, the Salesforce Activity Management programs help your team juggle large amounts of data with relative ease.  CRM systems like Salesforce give individuals instant access to relevant customer and business data through multiple channels.  You can easily set up these systems to work though email and even through mobile devices.

In fact these interconnected email and mobile programs are an essential part of the versatile communication channels available through CRM programs such as Salesforce.  Some of these programs allow you to create a library of pre-approved email templates that your sales team can use to effectively communicate with customers.  Not only will this give your team more time to spend with each customer, it also gives you more control over the online sales dialog.  You can also use some of these same tools to track customer response to email notices and compile data to analyze the effectiveness of these online tools.

The CRM Communication Management tools in Salesforce also allow you to implement your own letterhead into online graphics and emails, giving your clients visual reminders of your business while maintaining consistency in the appearance of your emails.  These same email tools give you access to relevant up-to-date customer data you can easily attach to each transaction.

In addition to communication tools that enhance company-customer interactions, Salesforce incorporates similar programs into tools that employees can use to communicate more efficiently with one another.  For example, the time management tools in Salesforce integrate data, reminders, and alerts to help keep each member on task and focused on short and long term goals.  You can set these Salesforce tools to automatically assign tasks to specific sales associates with activity templates to help the associate track progress.  These same tools can be used to help sales members collaborate on projects and schedule necessary meetings at any time.

The Salesforce CRM is also set up to help your company schedule reminders and set appointments.  Some of these tools work much like online calendar sharing in which you can post activities and permit selected individuals to view them.  Unlike these online calendars, however, the Salesforce calendars are directly connected to the CRM tools and allow you to automate task and project deadlines by linking them through the Salesforce system.

Larger companies can use CRM tools to divide their sales associates into teams and designate tasks and representatives for each team.  Each team can have representatives through the system and each member of the team can have separate security settings for specified access to data and information.  In addition to security, the team management tools allow managers and executives to easily analyze the overall productivity of each team and detailed activity history, both of which can help in planning for future sales.

CRM programs such as Salesforce are ultimately designed to give you all the tools you need to run your business faster and more efficiently.  By giving your sales team tools that promote better communication with the customers and each other, you help build a dependable, consistent system that can grow with your company.  The flexibility of CRM programs is beneficial to both you and your employees.  Easy tools means that sales associates can be more productive, and improved productivity means a more efficient business.

This is the fourth in a series of articles about CRM. Next week: The Advantages of CRM for Sales Managers.   

The online format also gives you greater control over your Internet marketing and advertising plans.  Salesforce CRM, for example, incorporates tools that allow you to manage Google Adwords, email marketing, organic web searches, and affiliates on a real-time platform, giving you easy and immediate access to ad management programs.  These programs can also help you determine which ad campaigns were beneficial and which were not.   You can also use these same tools to forecast campaigns and profits for future weeks or months.

All of the CRM tools can be used in small or large businesses since their applications can be tailored to fit the individual needs of your company.  The interactions between all of the software tools make it easy to manage both clients and employees and provide any business owner with a user-friendly program designed to maximize efficiency and minimize costs.  With an online versatile CRM tool like Salesforce, you can upgrade and add software tools from the same system as your company grows and evolves for years to come.

This is the third in a series of articles about CRM.  Stay tuned. 

If you have written high quality content, you will not need to use keywords in these tags.  In fact, it is sometimes best if you let your article speak for itself.  Instead, use theses invisible words to tag your article with phrases or terms that may have been overlooked on your page.  Tagging your article with misspellings and abbreviations of your keywords and phrases can also help increase organic (or natural) traffic from a variety of sources.

Keep in mind that not everyone knows exactly what keywords to use to find the information they need.  While quality content will help target your audience with organic search engine ranking, you will also need to consider the other terms or phrases people will use to find your web site.  If these words are not included in your article, don’t try and stuff them in where they don’t belong.  Instead, include them in your metatags so search engines still associate your article with these terms without disclosing them to the reader.

You do, however, want to put your keywords or phrases into your Meta description.  This is what search engines use to summarize your page on their search results list.  You will always want to keep these concise and targeted to your audience.  After all, with Meta descriptions you have less than five seconds to grab their attention and let them know your site is not only relevant to their search, but worthy of visiting.

Generally speaking, Google and other major search engines redesigned their software to give higher ranking to pages with better content.  And, since consumers are usually searching for information, Google automatically made it easier for consumers to find exactly what they want.  If you supply your target audience with quality content (that just happens to be SEO compliant), they’re more likely to stay on your page and click through your site.

In the past, consumers found pages with high keyword density but not necessarily the information they needed.  Not only were these pages useless, they were also difficult to read because of keyword-stuffing.  With higher quality articles, you provide your customers with the information they need.  This, in turn, builds trust between you and your audience.  This trust then gives them a reason to stay on your site and potentially purchase your product or service. 

The people who see your site and appreciate your content are more willing to share that content with others.  While they can just as easily email links to friends or colleagues, a lot of people find it easier to post links on blogs or forums.  Links to your site will not only appeal to search engines, but also improve and maintain site traffic.  An increase in traffic results in higher rankings with Google, making it easier for others to find your site.  As long as you continue to post quality content, your site’s popularity will grow with both search engines and your consumer base!