We learned from our recent webinar Jon Stewart or Oprah: What’s Your Website’s Personality Type that different people experience and interact with your website in different ways depending on their dominant personality type.

These 4 buying modalities have been described as Competitive (fast and logical decision-making), Spontaneous (fast and emotional decisions), Methodical (slow and rational) and Humanistic (slow and emotional). (Read this summary if you’re not familiar with the 4 modalities.)

You may have a tendency to make most of your decisions a certain way - that’s just who you are. But different buying situations can throw you into a different mode. For example, a typically spontaneous person must take a slow and rational approach when evaluating software vendors for a major ecommerce project, even though he may download iTunes tracks on impulse several times over the same period.

Personality Types and Email Marketing

If you had an email account that was purely ecommerce offers (no messages from work, friends or Nigerian ambassadors), you would see the majority are vying for your attention like: SALE! UP TO 50% OFF! NEW STOCK! ONLINE ONLY! EXCLUSIVE! FREE SHIPPING!

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Like Vitaman’s Nikki, American Eagle Outfitters is giving a “human” touch to its merchandising. AE has snagged video-blogging vixen iJustine as a spokeswoman for its Spring Break events in Cancun. And you can find her ooh-ing and aah-ing products within an interactive Spring Break packing guide.

Unlike Nikki, iJustine gushes about goodies for both girls and guys when you rollover certain items.

But like the Vitaman valet, she is very enthusiastic in romancing the products:

Guys, trust me. Throw on a polo and a smile and you’ll have every girl’s attention. They’re so great looking and so easy to wear with anything. If you don’t pack some polos, you might as well stay home.

Whether having a human describe products is something customers want to see - I don’t know. Perhaps for high school / college types who’d rather watch the movie than read the book - watching a product description is preferred?

But really, this concept isn’t new. We have the choice to read the newspaper, or watch an attractive anchor read it to us. Why wouldn’t that also apply to ecommerce?

Video is Here to Stay

It certainly takes a lot of time and money to build interactive Flash-based applications. But if you don’t want to go that route, you can still add a human element by adding video content to product pages, like Tiger Direct:

This video sold me on this camcorder, which I purchased immediately along with a bunch of accessories. I found Arno to be knowledgeable, friendly and humorous. Plus this video actually showed me how close you can zoom in with this camera - try describing that with text! With absolutely no background knowledge of camcorders, it really helped to have a virtual salesperson to turn to. Plus it’s nice to refer to the demo to learn how to use the camera when I get it rather than relying on the package black and white insert.

I expect to see a lot more video merchandising (with real people) popping up in the future.

If your company or products are fortunate enough to attract media attention, naturally you would want to highlight this your ecommerce website. Not only does it add credibility to your site browsers, but it can also help new visitors to your website responding to your good press find those featured items quickly.

One store that gets a lot of media love is Rampage. Today we’re going to look at how Rampage leverages its media coverage, and what it can do to take it one step further.

Home Page

The pencil skirt in the image above was recently included in a fashion segment on the Today Show. Rampage includes an “As Seen on the Today Show” link on the home page, so any visitor, whether they have seen the clip or not knows right away the media thinks Rampage is a trend-setting store. Even if you don’t want a pencil skirt, the recognition of the Today Show may boost consumer trust.

The home page also links to a media coverage section — mostly top fashion magazines. There’s 17 mentions from fashion magazines in Winter 2008 alone. Each reference has a thumbnail of the magazine with details of which item was featured.

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We promised a celebrity-inspired session and our own Jason Billingsley and Carolyn Gardner of Sitebrand delivered with “Jon Stewart or Oprah: What’s Your Website Personality.”

Jason and Carolyn matched 4 well-known celebs to 4 consumer-mindsets that you should know.

4 Consumer Mindsets

• Competitive (Jon Stewart)

• Spontaneous (Steve Colbert)
• Methodical (Dr. Phil)
• Humanistic (Oprah)

Some characteristics of each:

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Many of us wonder what the Elf Yourself campaign could have been if it were a bit more focused on sales. Maybe it would have looked a bit more like Irish Spring’s Get Irish Now campaign?

(Due to annoyingness of sound, I have posted a screen shot in lieu of video. You can see the video here).

Yep, that’s me. I’ve Irishified myself - even down to an Irish accent. (Now, if only it could talk like an Irish pirate…)

Do consumers still get a kick out of this kinda thing? Or is this just another “me too” campaign? Irish Spring did do things a bit differently, which might give this a better shot at success:

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In January, Jason Billingsley and I presented a webinar on holiday and special event marketing for online retailers. We also have a number of blog posts related to the topic.

There truly is much opportunity to get creative with special event promotions. Today happens to be February 29, the only day that comes around only once in 4 years. It ain’t no Valentine’s Day, but many creative e-tailers are taking advantage of leap year with $29 deals, 29% off sales and other offers - some using jumping or frogs in imagery. (My favorite is the Container Store’s “Leap year happens every 4 years. Filing your taxes doesn’t. Get organized today!”)

A&E / History Channel

Aeropostale

Bluefly

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Public relations guru and author of Micro Persuasion, Steve Rubel, has taken a lot of heat this past week over his post SEO Shenanigans Pose a Clear and Present Danger to Social Media.

Rubel’s PR firm Edelman dipped into the dark-gray/black area of social media marketing (SMM) a while back - and the blogosphere hasn’t forgotten. Other intelligent comments on Rubel’s post come from SEO professionals defending their industry’s honor.

I don’t want to add to the debate here, but I will say that I agree with Steve that if you are “launching social media marketing programs solely for the purpose of influencing search engines, rather than with the intent of fostering collaboration and genuine communication” you fit the description of an unethical marketer.

But that doesn’t mean expecting an SEO benefit from social media marketing campaigns is evil. I don’t think that’s what Rubel was implying anyway (remember it’s the word solely that was empasized). But I wanted to throw in my 2 cents and clarify which social media marketing activities I believe really help SEO, which have minimal value and which are simply spam.

Social Media Marketing as a Link Building Strategy

The primary way social media or any other site can help your SEO is through attracting links. Social media can drive traffic that may convert, but search engines won’t factor that into their algorithms. So any dabbling in social networks for SEO purposes is essentially link building.

These links can be acquired directly or indirectly. This is what I mean:

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I heard a true story years ago about a telephone service in the UK, where lonely women would call to hear a soothing, pre-recorded male voice say things like “you know what, you’re really beautiful.” Apparently it was hugely popular.

Well, Australian natural male grooming product company Vitaman has put this idea on steroids with its interactive and innovative online store.

Meet Nikki, a leggy Micha Barton lookalike with an Aussie accent. She is your personal shopping valet. When you drag items into your shopping bag, Nikki complements you on your selection with lines like “Mmmmmm, this smells amazing on your skin,” and “Oooh, I love a brave sportsman who puts his body on the line.”

What’s genius is, Nikki changes her outfit for each product category, so that motivates guys to at least check out each product category. Unfortunately, most of the products on the shelf have identical packaging, so it might be a bit better for Nikki to give a quick spiel on each category’s offering and what makes them so amazing. You’ve got a captivated audience, girl, sell!

Another unfortunate is that products must be added to the bag to be rewarded with the purring praise for your selection. This means many overloaded carts filled with products not really intended to buy. But Vitaman makes it easy to remove items from your cart when you’re ready to check out. The best part of the cart is when you view your cart, Nikki says “Are you sure that’s all you want?” Don’t you wish you could say that from your cart page?

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Yesterday we talked about Karmaloop’s SEO success. Today we’re going to talk about its innovative affiliate marketing widget. Most of Karmaloop’s customers and Facebook group members have no clue about what affiliate marketing is. But many are masters of their MySpace domain, or Facebook profile, or maybe even a blog. So they’re qualified to evangelize Karmaloop through these profiles with the widget, while earning “Rep Points” to reward them for their participation.

GET YOUR CUSTOM WIDGET HERE!
Now you can promote your favorite Karmaloop products and EARN REP POINTS on your Myspace page or facebook or website with the Karmaloop Widget. Just fill out the form then copy and paste the code on your Myspace page or facebook or website.

Example:

See the widget in action on Facebook.

Picking up where we left off in discussing Office Max’s “Elf Yourself” campaign (our post Can Dancing Elves Move Product Off Shelves? and Robert Gorell’s How To Elf Yourself Out of Millions), I noticed another nail in Office Max’s coffin in my feed reader today.

Office Max drew much criticism from the marketing world, despite the phenomenal success of its Elf Yourself viral campaign, because it had nothing to do with office supplies. But driving sales wasn’t even the intention, rather it was an effort to bring a human face to Office Max’s brand. If at #2, Avis has to “try harder,” I suppose Office Max - #3 behind Staples and Office Depot - decided to compete on personality rather than price or customer service.

But that’s all for naught if everyone loves your campaign, but attributes it to your competitors - or completely different industries. Robert Gorell noted in his post:

Ask anyone who’s aware of Elf Yourself — and pronounce it carefully when you do — whether they can recall who sponsored the campaign.

Most of the answers I’ve gotten thus far (”Starbucks?”; “Barnes & Noble?”; “Wasn’t that Staples?”) have been guesses.

But this is the kicker: Not even Adweek can recall the sponsor correctly:

Burger King’s online Subservient Chicken from 2004, in which typed-in words triggered the responses of a man in a chicken suit, and Office Depot’s Elf Yourself microsite for the 2006 and 2007 holiday seasons, where people were turned into dancing elves, as well as other unique campaigns are proof that interesting tech tools can create marketing that is fun, engaging and certain to go viral.

D’OH!