So what is all the rage of retail blogging and what are you losing as a business if you don’t blog? The answer is a lot! Blogging has become a popular form of online marketing and is saving businesses money that less effective, traditional marketing absorbs. Businesses are starting to make a change in their marketing and advertising expenses as everything is seemingly shifting to online. The return on traditional marketing techniques is not worth the ineffective results they produce. Why not do what works and costs less?

Social media networks and blogs are changing the way traditional ads affect and “sell” customers.  Online consumers are more receptive to “word of mouth” advertising which in turn influences their buying decisions. In 2008, there were 184 million people on the Internet who have started their own blog and 346 million people read blogs, noted by Technorati, many of whom discuss their thoughts on particular brands and products. Why not get online with them and increase your chance of positive brand reputation and feedback. Promote what you want about your brand, establish yourself as an expert in your industry, incorporate authoritative backlinks to product promotions on your site, and get those online influencers talking to you, with you and about you.

Why would you miss out on blogging when its a great way to talk to your customers and out maneuver your competitors? If your company is not blogging and your competition is, you are quickly losing the game and are not cognizant of consumer expectations. As a retailer you know there are several types of customers, some like to know everything about the product or brand and have a sense of trust before buying. Others just want to read what others say about a product (aka “people like me”) so they know they’re making the right purchase.

Give your brand a “voice” through blogging and you will see a change — plus you can measure it through web analytics!

Even though in-store sales are plummeting, the e-commerce industry is seeing a continued growth in online sales. Forrester forecasts online sales to grow from 11 percent to 13 percent in 2009, increasing $156.1 billion. One might question how online retail is one of the only industries not falling during our tough economic situation.

Online retail platforms are serving as a convenient, easy way for customers to shop, saving them gas from driving store to store. Cutting down on transportation costs, online retail also benefits retailers by eliminating the use of paper for shopping bags as well as customer service capital expenses. Today, much attention is being placed on going “green” and online retail platforms help support these practices. As traditional advertising budgets continues to fade, the costs saved on paper materials and printing are now being put toward online advertising. With the accurate measurements Web analytics provide online marketers, retailers are able to analyze conversion rates, improve customer retention and validate ROI which is harder to do in-stores.

So with the increased efforts by online retailers, having high organic search rankings is key to stay ahead through the economic downtime. Triangle Direct Media helps online retailers effectively cut costs and stay on top through new media marketing and social media strategies. With high value techniques to increase online exposure, clients begin to see improvement in search engine visibility and are able to compete more effectively being a step ahead in their given industry.

Responsible for most household purchases, it is a beneficial investment for your retail store to target marketing efforts toward moms. Blog marketing has become a popular, inexpensive marketing strategy that reaches moms through a fast and effective approach. According to consumer data gathered by Forrester, moms are 50% more likely to create social media content and participate in online communities than the average online user.

Moms today are blogging by the thousands and they do so through user-generated conversations on their own individual blog. Reaching these moms on a personal level is important and can be done by sharing content about relevant products tailored toward families. Moms want information about household products before they buy them and today they are turning to the internet to find those like-minded peer reviews. Always looking to get the most for her money, posting coupons online is an effective way to get moms to buy your product over another. Not “pitching” your brand is important, as you want to keep your blog in a conversational, participatory tone. After all, moms want to be comfortable with the products that they are purchasing and know that they can consistently trust and rely on a particular brand.

If you are considering blog marketing or other social marketing strategies to reach and engage moms, please do not hesitate to contact a Triangle Direct Media account executive to learn more about our custom solutions.

With summer now in session, it is the perfect time to revise your college marketing plans before school starts back up. Targeting students can be easy but at the same time it can be very tricky when the minds of college students can easily be drawn into other interests. An article at MediaPost successfully gives some insight into how you can enliven your marketing plan to keep the Gen Y demographic engaged.

Making up 30% of the Internet’s users, the Gen Y demographic is flooding online channels of communication, particularly social networks. What better way than to reach to them through social media and new media marketing? If you get their email through on-campus promotions during the first week of school, take the extra step to add them on FaceBook and Twitter. Use a blog to share student deals and write about the benefits of what you are trying to sell to them. Connecting to them through these channels will give them more of a personal connection and will also give opportunity for customers to recommend your business to their friends.

Make sure your company’s message that you are sending out through these channels are targeted towards this demographic of consumers. Also make certain that it is well defined and consistently carried throughout online and offline marketing strategies. It is also a good idea to make sure that all of your marketing representatives who visit the campuses that you “hone” in on are carrying out the same message to these students and the coveted Gen Y demographic.

 If you have non-web developers maintaining your site’s content, update the content more than once a month, manage it from remote locations or run a blog on your site, then a Content Management System (CMS) is a wise decision for your site. When choosing your site’s CMS it is important to make sure that it will be search-engine friendly. Here are some critical key points, addressed in an article on Search Engine Land, to look for when purchasing your next CMS platform:

Title, Header, and Meta Tag Customization

Make sure that you have control over customizing titles, H1 headings and meta descriptions. Not only do you want to access over these basic page elements, but also make sure that you can enable rules for particular sections of the website.

Alt Attributes

It is important to tell search engines what an image is about, so make sure you have the ability to implement the alt attribute within the site’s image tags.

Anchor Text Flexibility

To ensure your site is optimized, as well as search-friendly, make sure you are able to customize the anchor text

Nofollow, Noindex

To avoid duplicate content, it is important that your CMS supports Nofollow, Noindex tags.

Avoid Hidden Text

Many CMS platforms use CSS “display:none” to create expandable webpage elements such as a drop-down menu. Search engines could possibly misinterpret your hidden text as a spammer. Make sure your CMS avoids hidden text issues so you do not lose your page rank.

301-Redirects

For expired content, pages with a new version, or dodging keyword cannibalization issues, 301 redirects are necessary. A critical feature of your CMS is the functionality for redirecting content whenever necessary.

Keyword-Rich URLs & URL structure

To help solve a common SEO issue, your CMS platform should feature custom URL creation to implement static, keyword-rich URLs. Also, be sure your CMS allows customizable URL structure, as your SEO team should manually sculpt the URL structure of your site, not your CMS platform.

There are many crucial elements your CMS should deliver, these are just some of the most influential on-page and site-side SEO factors. From an SEO perspective, review your current CMS as soon as possible. Or, if you’re looking for a new platform remember these critical factors when deciding if your new CMS will be SEO friendly.  The decision to purchase a search-friendly CMS during the development cycle can reduce future customization costs many eTailers run into when trying to execute and manage a results-oriented SEO campaign.

Now, more individuals than ever before, are participating in the blogging community. As social media networks are rising in popularity, retailers must recognize the importance of connecting with these communities. These groups of bloggers help to create the content of these brands, and in a sense contribute to the future of their image. As a retail business, it is necessary to effectively get engaged with the bloggers, by listening to what they have to say. From adult to youth bloggers, many different aspects can be touched about your business than can help you fine-tune and alter your business practices. At the same time, many aspects may be touched about your business that either are not true or you don’t want portrayed to the online community.

It is important to participate in ongoing dialogues, to help generate good content and a trusted image amongst consumers. Through these you can create a larger conversation to extend the content, especially if it is of good quality, or even to steer it in a positive direction. By keeping customers updated on the latest online or in-store promos, special events, or campaigns through your blog, you can really make money off of creating a retail blog. You take that further step in reaching a whole community of bloggers and you really can increase online exposure and build raptor with your customers. Use your blog to discuss retail trends, marketing ideas, merchandising tips, and other facets of your business or industry to help promote and strengthen your brand.

As a retail business, you want to make sure the content is good and effective, so being proactive in the blogging community is a must. What others say about your brand impacts your business more than what you say about your brand; especially in user generated content circles. You want people to promote your business by blogging about you, your products, and your company without the common sales pitch. While, most retail businesses don’t have the time to comment on blogs and write articles you can find new media and social marketing companies that can integrate these techniques into your online retail marketing practices. These tactics will help deliver traffic to your website as your retail blog will serve as a communication engine, pumping out content to receive higher search engine rankings. It isn’t easy enough for the average, non-tech business owner through, or their staff, so it is best to hand this task over to a company who has the tools to help drive online success for your business.

What are your plans for protecting your online business during the current economic slowdown? According to Internet News, many online retailers are putting customer retention at the top of their priorities in hopes to survive the recession. But the question is how exactly are they going to change their business strategies to retain more customers and at the same time use a cost-effective approach? A new study from Shop.org, an online retailing industry group, found that more and more online retailers are turning to social media and other emerging marketing techniques to cut back on costs.

While many retailers are cutting costs, others have found the economic slowdown as an opportunity to increase market share. According to Internet News, almost half of retailers surveyed have no plans to cut back original budgets, while 24 percent will spend more on their online business than planned originally. Companies that plan to spend more will increase investments in areas of search (80%), e-mail marketing (65%) and social media marketing (60%) to help grow their businesses due to the pullback in consumer spending. Four out of five retailers surveyed said that they thought the web is the best suited channel to survive the recession, with one-third claiming the economic downturn has enabled the capture for greater market share.

To help optimize business strategies for retailers, new tools are making their debut in the industry. In order to withstand the recession, online retailers are learning to make smart spending decisions by doing more with less and taking advantage of new, innovative tools and techniques that have made their debut into the industry. New, innovative tools and techniques are launching to help retailers come out of this recession in a positive manner and effectively tap the power of social media, tribes and networks. The current goal for these online retailers right now is to get their hands on these tools to help accelerate sales, better resonate with prospective customers and thrive in a down market.

Triangle Direct Media proudly sponsored the 2009 Run Walk Festival in Cary North Carolina this past weekend.  The Festival helps the Rotary Club of Cary to fund many important groups in the community.

Triangle Direct Media fielded 2 Runners and 1 walker.

Thanks to all who participated and thanks to Scott for getting the whole event organized in at our office.

STORES Top 100 US retailers report for 2008 reveals some of the changing trends in retail. The list is based on sales volume and includes all types of retailers. As usual, Wal-mart tops the list with the most sales, with $378,799,000 in 2007 revenues. Following this retail giant are Home Depot at number two, CVS Caremark at number three, and Kroger taking number four.

Overall, pharmacies, including Rite Aid and Walgreen are moving up the rankings. We have certainly seen an evolution of pharmacies in the past few decades, and they are continuing to change and offer new goods and services to respond to demand. The chart says that Walgreen has launched a casual clothing collection, and is opening in-store clinics. Pharmacies are bringing in more revenue and opening new stores, despite the economic slump.

Retailers like Dell, Apple Stores/iTunes, AT&T, and Verizon are represented for the first time in this ranking. This certainly reflects the market shifts that are presently taking place and will continue.

You can take a look at the entire ranking here.

We have posted a chart with the top search terms before, but here you can find an updated version from data provided by Hitwise with data through May 2008. It’s worth taking a look at, because it can give you some idea of how the average person uses a search engine, and what terms are searched for most often. It can also give you an idea of what search terms people might use that would lead to your website.

Another resource you can use to find out what keywords are most popular and most widely used that are related to your website is a Search Term Suggestion Tool. With a tool like this, you can enter in a general keyword, and it will suggest other search terms related to that one, and give you the popularity of each.

It’s a good idea to be aware of how most people use search engines in order to see how customers may find your retail site in the vast world wide web.