REI Misses Social Networking Opportunity On MySpace.com

I was kicking around MySpace today looking for companies out there trying new things in the social network arena.


The North Face



I've seen a few reports out there on who is spending for advertising on MySpace.com, and in general, I don't think many big retailers are included in this club.


The challenge with social networking sites is to convey your brand message without attracting unwanted negative attention.



TGR



Large apparel retailers appear to be a little phobic about the context in which their ads will appear at MySpace. If you have a nationally recognized brand, the odds are pretty high you are already represented there.




Notice a common theme in some of these profiles? There are a lot of "Great Outdoors" retailers on MySpace, and they all have thousands of friends.


BURTON

This one seems like a no-brainer to me. Lots of "great outdoor" people get to add their favorite "outdoor brand" to their list of friends, and the outdoor brand gets to post special offers to these folks, and talk about events they are sponsoring around the country.

So far, my favorite company out there is called Moosejaw.com. Their profile is full of zanny contests, funny pictures, and a daily free t-shirt giveaway (I have a t-shirt fetish) that convey a real sense of fun. They send my bulletins about special offers...all free marketing
Moosejaw


Is REI too dumb to understand they are missing an opportunity, or to scared too put their brand out there? Test your brand out on a social network, before someone else tests it for you.

REI

Evil Search Brand Keyword Bidders REVEALED

There it is again. The Google keyword rank report for yesterday says I ranked 1.8 on my brand name, which means someone else has been bidding on my company name, and forcing me to the number 2 spot in search results.

There are benefits to bidding on your brand name, and drawbacks. If you do, great, if you don't, should others?

You spent a long time and a lot of money to build your brand, and someone is trying to cash in on that and steal your customer when they are ready to shop with you.

Who done it? Was it an affiliate? A competitor? A shopping comparison site? There are an endless supply of suspects. You may have budget constraints that make it more cost effective to allow a partner to bid on your name. That may be the case with some of the examples here, but I suspect there are some sinister forces at work too.

Catching these guys can be hard. Brand name keyword bidders can geo-target their bids so that search results in your geographic location exclude their trespassing. Sometimes they strike in the dead of the night while you are asleep. Even if the culprit is dumb and lazy, Google doesn't always show all the bidders on a specific term for a given search... You need to be a little obsessive compulsive (I'm guilty) to catch these guys.

I think I've found a way to circumvent some of the filtering that goes on in Google. Their search results in places where they syndicate their search seems to include ALL the bidders for a given term. So you get different search results on places like MySpace (where I got these samples).

If you are bidding on someone else's brand name (without their consent), a pox on your family. If you are hanging out at MySpace, look me up and invite me over....imbarber

Technorati

Greetings Technorati Profile

My Case for Big-Box Free Shipping Online

I’ve been thinking about online retailers vs. multi channel companies a lot lately. Online merchandisers spring up faster then zucchini in July. Multi channel retailers have easy access to weed killer, but they let that pesky zucchini persist because they worry about how much that weed killer costs to use.

Imagine way back to 1996. You’re off to make your first online book purchase, and you have to choose between shopping at BarnesAndNoble.com or Amazon.com. You know the book you want to buy, and the price is about the same at both companies, but Amazon will give you free shipping. Barnes and Noble is a trusted brand, but you want to save a few bucks on shipping, so you take a chance and order through Amazon.

Most items you purchase are available at many different retailers. You shop at a store based on its convenience to your geographic location and some brand affinity that appeals to you. Once you are in the store, your option to comparison shop for best prices on similar products requires a great deal of time and effort on your part…this is not the case online. Consumers would rather purchase stuff from a trusted brand instead of taking chances with a new company, but they will take a gamble for perceived ‘extra’ value.

I can’t figure out why more multi channel retailers are not offering free shipping as a means to keep online only companies out of the game.

Look at this article from the NRF. Amazon is listed as #1 in customer satisfaction and they don’t even have a 1-800 number (okay, maybe the do, but it’s not ease to find). An Online company beat out all the other multi channel guys. How did they do this? Clearly, Amazon does a lot to deliver good service, but I also suspect consumers are also considering free shipping in the overall service evaluation.

You lost the sale. Someone else has established a potentially lucrative business relationship with your vendor. The new guy is building a supply chain that can be expanded to include other products without huge additional investment, and established trust with your customer. All this goes on while the online company bleeds large sums of money for the first few years of its existence.

Free Shipping is cheap when you add all these things up. Don’t let another Amazon happen in your garden, someone might take weed killer to you.