This ecommerce blog is lovingly brought to you by Linda Bustos and Jason Billingsley of Elastic Path Software: The ecommerce software that helps retailers sell more and work less.
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Wanna spice up your blog marketing? Bloggers can use this list to gain some relevant backlinks to help SEO and boost your exposure through RSS feed promotion. Or if you’re an ecommerce marketer, check out these sites to find bloggers in your niche.
My favorites are in Bold…
Comments(10) If you’ve been following my posts here at Get Elastic, you may have noticed I love doing “roundups” — lists of similar but different services or websites (especially Web 2.0 sites) that give a brief summary of what you can expect if you click through on the pretty little logo. You’ll also notice that I’m on a bit of an mcommerce kick lately, as I find this is such a hot marketing channel that you probably haven’t heard much about.
Last week I posted about the Moosejaw Texting campaign and Slifter, a GPS enabled local / mobile product comparison engine. Just to recap, mcommerce is hot, text messaging (SMS) is a great way to promote your ecommerce OR brick-and-mortar shop, people can now search for products with their mobile phones, compare prices and locations and get directions to retailers that have the product, mcommerce is hot, people are more likely to have a cellphone handy than be at a computer at any given time of the day, over 90% of text messages get read by their recipients, ummm…did I mention mcommerce is hot?
So today I’m providing a quick comparison of some of the SMS marketing solutions out there that can support YOUR marketing campaigns. Some SMS message services like Peekamo don’t allow for more than a handful of recipients at one time and are more suitable for personal use. So I went out and got my hands dirty to find enterprise solutions, and give you a brief comparison of what features they offer, what they cost, geographic coverage and so on.
But before we start, it helps to know what the acronyms and jargon mean:
- SMS stands for short message service. In other words - text messaging.
- MMS is the multimedia version of SMS - video, audio, pictures.
- WAP stands for Wireless Application Protocol which is a mobile-based platform which accommodates the small screens and slow data rates of mobile phones so your pages display properly. Some cellphones support WAP Billing, so they can pay directly through their mobile.
- IVR means Interactive Voice Response and you’ve likely encountered it calling your ISP, bank, phone company or any other number where you wish you got a person instead of some canned options. But IVR actually makes life better, and in this case cooler - enabling mobile survey capabilities, contests and other promotions.
- Short codes are shorter cellphone numbers that are supposed to be easier to remember than longer mobile numbers. These work great for contests, if you’ve ever watched American Idol, you’d know what I mean. You could for example text the word “GETELASTIC” to 493829 (if I were running a contest and if that were my short code.)
OK, now that that’s all cleared up…here’s the roundup.
Comments(1) At Book Expo America in NYC, host Dave O learns how retailers can advertise on popular blogs to reach their preferred demographic. Lanae and Nicole from Blogads.com (Blogads blogs - natch) also explain the myriad benefits to retailers resultant from targeting early-adopters and taste-setting consumers on niche blogs.
Get Elastic host DaveO chats with Lanae and
Nicole of Blogads.com at Book Expo America in NYC
See also:
Book Expo America blog by Event Director Lance Fensterman
Blogads’ blog
Perez Hilton (celebrity gossip blog)
Chris Pirillo - Gnomedex (geeky fun)
Comments(3) View full screen version at SlideShare
Webinar featuring useful tips, tools and best practices for optimizing your ecommerce site for search engine rankings presented by Elastic Path Ecommerce Software’s Jason Billingsley and Founder of SEO firm Netconcepts, Stephan Spencer.
Comments(2) Our friend, blogging for business writer Ted Demopoulos, appeared on the MarCom Strategist Podcast by Diann Huff (her inuagural episode in fact) to talk about the benefits and pitfalls of B2B podcasting. Besides exploring how podcasts can to help sell widgets and/or generate sales leads, they talk about getting a podcast campaign started, how to best utilize content and keeping the momentum going.
Ted throws in a plug for the Get Elastic podcast (thanks eh) and points out a few other quality examples of companies who are using podcasting to promote themselves to other businesses.
Ted speaks at IR 2007 (by DaveO via flickr)
This (brand spanking new) 22:34-long show is well worth a listen (despite a wee bit of audio flakiness) via MarCom Strategist Podcast: Ted Demopoulos Dishes about B2B and Podcasting.
Comments(1) In a portent of things to come, on May 22nd on the heels of the ACCM show in Boston, DM News published an article called “Elastic Path to launch video parodying online shopping.” Besides declaring a war on boredom, Jason provided Chantal Todé
a sneak preview of the clips which you can enjoy in full over at the “Crazy Messed Up World of Ecommerce” page.
E-commerce services provider Elastic Path Software hopes it can shake up BTB marketing a little when it launches a viral video on YouTube about what would happen if real-world shoppers were treated the same as online shoppers.
“Other companies are boring — these conferences are boring,” said Jason Billingsley, vice president of marketing at Elastic Path, about why the company decided to create a viral video.
Some of the scenarios in the video included a consumer who asks Google for an orange and ends up in a store where everything is the color orange, and another who asks for a turnip and the clerk keeps to trying to cross-sell her by asking if she wants a t-shirt with her turnip or a warranty or a peeler.
Also noteworthy on this topic is Jordan (a Vancouver-based marketing consultant) Behan’s comments about both the funny ecomerce videos and Capulet’s blogger outreach approach, as he described thusly:
Full disclosure: I am an acquaintance of a few of the Elastic Pathers, and the firm that produced the spots as well. That being the case, it should be noted that the email I received containing the link was a terrific example of blogger relations.
I thoroughly enjoy the immediacy of the web, post a project and get real-time, unfiltered opinions from cool acquaintances like Jordan as they spread the word by telling ten more friends.
Comments(0) The fine ecommerce community / online and print magazine, Practical Ecommerce, published an article by Ryan Welton called “Selling With A Blog - Add value to your venture without a hard sell” today (4/26/07).
Ryan starts by breaking through some of the hype around blogging (”Heck, the blog has gained such widespread popularity that it’s almost become passé in some circles “) and then seeks balance between writing for interest and writing to encourage sales.
The ’soft-touch’ technique makes his Top 5 Tips list, … {drumroll} … in at #2 is, “Write about subjects related to your business, such as news and trends. Establish yourself as the expert in your field. As you do so, subtly link to pages within your website that showcase products and services.”
Chiming in on that delicate fine-line is EP’s VP Markerting, Jason Billingsley, (followed by fellow BC biz blogger Tris Hussey),
A notable byproduct of blogs is the way they provide websites with a ton of fresh, original content.
Jason Billingsley, vice president of marketing for ecommerce software company Elastic Path, says blogs also give businesses the opportunity to associate their websites with popular keywords related to products and services.
“We still keep it at arm’s length,” he said, referring to posts that could be considered too promotional.
Hussey noted, though, that blogs can still indirectly boost your business. “People come to the blog to read interesting stuff,” said Hussey, “but you are allowed to earn a living and still blog.”
Read Ryan’s whole article Selling With A Blog at Practical Ecommerce for tips and talking points on effectively using a blog to energize your online retail sales.
Comments(0) Shel Holtz joins the conversation to discuss the ways new marketing and communication tools can assist retailers collaborate with customers - resulting in better experiences and increased sales.
Along with host DaveO, they discuss blogging for business, reasons for podcasting, what’s up with Second Life, ways to engage audiences with Twitter and Ustream.tv and the low-down on Social Media Releases plus Shel wisely advises strategic action before diving in.
(crayonville in Second Life)
Shel is frequent flier, professional speaker and prolific writer as well as VP of New Marketing at crayon (a new marketing company). He joined us from Toronto where is presenting at Visa’s Ecommerce Summit. Thanks to Chris Clarke at Thornley Fallis Communications for the hookup. Thanks to Derek K. Miller (Penmachine.com) for music track “That’s No Dream.”
Topical Annotations
A Shel of my Former Self - Shel’s Holtz’s personal blog
Holtz Communications + Technology - Shel’s professional services
Road Weary - Shel’s Travel frustration blog
crayon - a new marketing company - Shel’s daily toil
The American Family Whirlpool podcast
Darren Barefoot’s GetaFirstLife project
Get a First Life - Second Life Insider
Technorati tag: secondlife
Social Media Club is being organized for the purpose of sharing best practices, establishing ethics and standards, and for promoting media literacy. This is the beginning of a global conversation about building an organization and a community where the many diverse groups of people who care about social media can come together to discover, connect, share and learn.
Sample Social Press Release (Coca-cola Virtual Thirst campaign by crayola)
Comments(0) NOTE: CK, one of Elastic Path’s QA Engineers, pointed out a borked link on this podcast so here is a fresh version of Get Elastic podcast Episode #21 featuring Chris Anderson at eTail West. Sorry for any inconvenience and enjoy!
At Etail West trade show and conference, Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail and editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, chats about how retailers can capitalize on marketing less popular products and increase sales by optimizing for niche searches plus discuss his career path from physicist to economist (and even banter about free beer) with DaveO and Jason Billingsley.
[photo of Chris Anderson at
eTail West by DaveO]
Comments(3) At Etail West trade show and conference, Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail and editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, chats about how retailers can capitalize on marketing less popular products and increase sales by optimizing for niche searches plus discuss his career path from physicist to economist (and even banter about free beer) with DaveO and Jason Billingsley.
[photo of Chris Anderson by DaveO at Etail West]
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