Learning from an example of how one startup failed
Ecomom was a small startup internet retail company selling earth friendly mom and maternity products including food, toys, apparel, and other baby related items. With headquarters in Las Vegas and San Francisco and a third-party fulfillment in Los Angeles, any volume could be shipped within 24 hours. Founded in 2007, by 2011 it had turnover of just over $1 million, but a further round of investment of $12 million required further growth, but at what cost?
Business Insider describes the story of the eventual failure of the company in 2013 With hindsight it's difficult to understand investment in the company, but perhaps this was buoyed by the success story of Tony Hsieh building Las Vegas-based Zappos into an online shoe and retail business that Amazon acquired for $1.2 billion. Of course, investors, require growth and Ecomum did achieve revenues of nearly $4 million in…
Why you need to jump on the Facebook Exchange Bandwagon right now
In a previous post, Remarketing using Facebook’s Ad Exchange, we gave a quick briefing on Facebook Exchange. I looked at the basics of FBX, factors in choosing a partner and how to target your audience.
In this follow-up, I’ll provide you with a more in-depth and advanced look at retargeting with Facebook Exchange, some early performance numbers and why you need to take advantage of FBX right now.
Conversion Numbers, Off to a strong start
If you haven’t been paying attention to Facebook lately, it’s time for a wake-up call. The early conversion numbers on Facebook’s new ad exchange, FBX, are going to cause some jaws to drop in Internet marketing land.
FBX is bought on a dynamic CPM basis, and if you want to…
Our roundup of research insights and best practice advice from the month
Doesn’t time fly? On the 30th April 2013 the WWW was officially twenty years old. How it’s changed and what a “wild ride it’s been” as someone @replied when I shared this. We certainly owe a debt of gratitude to Sir Tim Berner’s Lee, not only for the invention, but also his dedication to keeping it open through his work with the The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and other non-commercial organisations.
As always, this summary is based on updates in 5 key areas of online marketing.
Strategy and planning
The evolving skills of the modern marketer - one of most popular posts this month shows in a visual way what success on today’s WWW requires, particularly with integrating with other channels of course.
…
Hubspot survey shows challenges and even greater opportunities for Inbound Marketing
Value: [rating=4]
Recommended link: Inbound Marketing Research, Update European Edition Now Available
Marketing in Europe? Hubspot have just released their European report on Inbound marketing, after gathering insight from over 400 Marketers in Europe to find out the key tips and strategies of how Inbound Marketing is successfully adopted, priorities and challenges this year. It also shows comparisons between marketing in Europe Vs the US.
Top 3 sources for lead generation for European Marketers is Social Media, SEO and Blogs!
Inbound Marketing is no longer the latest ‘buzzword’ since companies have been implementing it for years now since digital and social media marketing channels have been available. The question is: how effective is it? The notable shift from ‘interruptive…
A case study of marketing for start-ups with low/no budgets
In our current and future enterprises, we all have the duty and obligation to generate new customers for our services or products. To maintain our dream and vision, unfortunately, despite being an absolute truth, the main barrier for start-up companies is the lack of capital for investment. Case studies of how Nike, Sony and McDonalds invest in brand marketing isn't too relevant - although you are also aiming to build your brand! However, facing this financial limitation, we can use online marketing in our favour to take the first steps in overcoming the investment barrier.
Here are some ideas based on our experience of creating an online presence on a shoestring budget.
1. Initial contact to start building contacts
Building initial contacts on an email list is what our initial success was based on. These were our 'Early adopters.' To begin with, we do…
How are companies managing content marketing today?
Lee Odden gave a great webcast on Creative Content marketing for Smart Insights on the 12th April - thanks if you attended and many thanks Lee for your great insights! If you want to catch up on Lee's advice and examples you can review it at the end of this post.
A couple of quotes from Lee to live by in your content marketing that I picked out are:
@leeodden's formula for successful #contentmarketing: "Ask people to share something, then recognise or reward them: ow.ly/k02xK
— Dr Dave Chaffey (@DaveChaffey) April 12, 2013
and
"Successful #contentmarketing is Creative + Social + Optimised" @leeodden of @toprank
— Dr Dave Chaffey (@DaveChaffey) April 12, 2013
I also wanted to share the results of some of the polls that Lee and I devised for the webcast. These Votes are good for increasing the…
5 ways of encouraging Disruptive Innovation
Disruptive innovation is no longer the exception, it’s becoming the rule as category incumbents are swept aside by new entrants. Just look at Blackberry, Blockbuster, Borders, Kodak and even Polaroid – all erstwhile “innovative” companies that somehow missed opportunities to leapfrog to the next big thing in subsequent innovation that is often digitally fuelled.
Memorex can be added to this infamous listing, once darling of the US stock market, when its innovative pipeline under a new CEO ran dry in a most spectacular way embarrassing its entire board.
This is by no way an isolated example. If we’re not proactively driving disruption in a systemic manner, we’ll eventually need to react to it or confront reality. Most Leaders however, aren’t prepared for the challenges of leading through such prolonged periods of uncertainty and the often accompanying…
Strategic Marketing Planning Reviews – Using simple frameworks to answer ‘where are we now?’
The start to any strategic process must be an appraisal of the current state of play. When answering the ‘where are we now’ question, key activities need to take place. These activities have been enhanced through digital technology and the information explosion that has resulted from the valuable resource that is the World Wide Web. However at the same time, this availability of information and data does not necessarily mean anything unless you can use this information to create insight.
In this post, I will focus on 4 aspects of digital strategy that should be reviewed in the crucial first phase of strategic marketing planning. The majority of this activity you can argue would occur as part of any internal analysis, however in exploring opportunities and threats it is essential to consider these four areas in terms of…
The key developments in digital marketing in February 2013
It’s not every month a new currency is launched. In February Amazon announced a new virtual currency called Amazon Coins (a genius moniker) and an interesting promotion where customers will be given money (virtual). Watch out from May onwards. Some are calling it the Bank of Jeff…
Image credit: Mashable
Strategy and planning
Did you notice the emergence of the term “growth hacking” for describing a “new” marketing approach in 2012 and continuing into the start of 2013? I initially dismissed it as a fad most relevant for SaaS (Software as a Service) / single product startup businesses. But recently, I’ve noticed some new job descriptions in this area which prompted me to take another look. In particular, I noticed that The Guardian is currently advertising for a Head of Growth Hacking…
Examples showing how to help conversions after shoppers click Add to cart or Basket
When you run an ecommerce website, marketing doesn’t stop when your customer clicks the “Buy now” button. According to research by the Baymard Institute, the average online shopping cart abandonment rate is 66.22%.
In order to encourage your online customers to input their credit card information, and complete the purchasing track, you need to keep marketing to them throughout the entire process.
Here are 5 tips on how to convert your online customers
1. Use informative product pages
The more information you provide on your product pages, the more likely your customers will complete their sales. Check out this product page from ModCloth and the wealth of information it provides to the customer:
An engaging product description with a tab containing additional details.
Information on product…
