Official Blog » 2008 » October

Once more, no Trick, just Treat!

Smarter.com is looking forward to working with you for the holidays! In fact, I want to remind you of our little pre-holiday gift I am offering as an incentive to any account that signs up before noon on Oct. 31st! Smarter will be having our office Halloween party that day, so make sure your account is in-place before noon and I’ll credit it with $50 in bonus clicks!

(speaking of Halloween Party, here’s a photo of some of us from last year : )

To make it easy, here is our account sign-up link!:

Official Smarter Sign-Up!

I have to tell you, we are still having temperatures here in the mid-80’s, so it still doesn’t feel quite like fall! But the truth of the matter is that it is that the first day of autumn did come quite a few weeks ago and NEXT WEEK is (finally!) election day! So, we are actually clipping along thru Q4!

Okay, I saw this article and just had to share (never fear, I’ll tie it back to comparison shopping at the end):

Read the full Recessionista New York Times article!

The New York Times Fashion & Style headline reads, “A Label for a Pleather Economy” I love it! So now I can really be on the cutting edge of style with my ‘boutique-Target’ (pronounced “TAR-shea” for those not in the know!) purchases!? The truth of the matter is that in a down-turn economy, budget and value is at the top of most shoppers minds!

Here’s the circle back!

At Smarter.com, we give every opportunity for our merchants to let shoppers know about all their special offers, coupons and discounts! We have a place for coupons in our data-feeds, and there is also a mechanism for adding them to products thru our back-end SAM (Smarter Account Management) accounts! Also, something new that we’re adding is the ability to list both the regular price of a product along-side the sale or discounted price of a product! This will serve to visually reinforce the great value that purchasing the product from your store over your competitors store offers!

E or ring me and I will be happy to explain these benefits to you further or walk you thru your Smarter account set-up.

Happy haunting until next week!  For more Recession Chic, visit Mary Hall’s blog at:

therecessionista.blogspot.com

How’s your Halloween marketing going? Great I hope! On Smarter.com we have a homepage feature called, “What’s Hot” - so, if you haven’t seen it yet, please check out some of the best Halloween decorating buys and creative costumes online by visiting this area of Smarter! This is what our “What’s Hot” Halloween area looks like from our homepage:

Only a week and a half until November!

I hope you’ve been able to visit and download the Holiday Survival Kit that I gave out the link to awhile back! If anyone missed it, it’s an annual guide put out by National Retail Federation and its full of great information and tips for maximizing your site’s potential during the holidays! You can find this kit for free downloading at the NRF “Holiday Headquarters” here:

Click here to find the full Holiday Headquarters report for downloading!                                                                                 

Also available on the NRF site is the latest Holiday Shopper survey, if you haven’t seen it yet!

2008 Holiday Consumer Spending Survey

Smarter.com is looking forward to working with you for the holidays! In fact, as a little pre-holiday gift (for those of you that have read this far!) I am offering an incentive to any account that signs up before noon on Oct. 31st! We’ll be having our office Halloween party that day, so make sure your account is in-place before noon and I’ll credit you with $50 in bonus clicks! Here is our account sign-up link!:

Sign Up Here to Begin a Smarter.com Account!

No Trick, just Treat!

I found a great comparison study poll for you this week from our friends at eMarketer.com and Universal McCann:

So, this begs the question: If your products are on the list above, how well are you optimizing your online reach? Reach is key; your products need to be found and your site name and brand re-enforced when shoppers are researching! What Smarter offers is another avenue for your site to pull in highly educated online shopping traffic. So basically, if you aren’t participating in comparison shopping sites like Smarter.com, you are neglecting a whole range of shopping traffic that we pull in!

Opening an account with us is simple and inexpensive (you can begin an account with as little as a $100 deposit, and this comes back to you in your first $100 worth of clicks) and there is no long-term obligation if you are not happy with your results! You can give me a call and I can help you set up your account or you register online here:

Register Here for your Smarter Account!

Lastly, knowing how important Q4 sales are to our eTail merchants, I want to include this link to a very practical article from yesterday’s Wall Street Journal Small Business section, especially the part about optimizing NOW for the search engines like Google, Yahoo & MSN:

Read the full Wall Street Journal article here!

I look forward to hearing from you!

 Image Source: (eMarketer.com)

In light of the recent events in our economy, today I want to highlight some of the expert guidance I’ve found for those of us involved in Holiday online selling and marketing! Based on what I have researched and read, my perspective is two-fold right now:

1. Lower expectations – everyone from large publicly-traded companies to online marketing experts in the blogosphere have been lowering their expectations for Q4 of this year. Even our friends at the National Retail Federation have recently lowered their Holiday Season forecast to an over-all Holiday Sales gain of just 2.2 percent, that is the slowest growth-rate since 2002. So - focusing creatively on spending strategies is key right now! But this doesn’t mean stopping all spending on advertising, it means to pay more attention to being strategic! See the following link on the NRF Holiday Forecast:

Read the NRF Holiday Forecast here!

2. Be careful, but don’t stand-still – shoppers are going to continue to purchase holiday gifts this season, and they are going to need to find your store to do it! Carefully checking-off all the major “to-do list items” for the season, like making sure that your product landing pages and over-all site pages are completely up-to-date, your inventory & shipping systems glitch-free, that you are effectively touting any sales, price-discounts and special offers both on-site and within any data-feed marketing you are participating with and etc. are fundamental. Here is a link to the most practical resource I have found for retailers regarding strategic holiday selling:

Read more about strategic holiday selling here!

Also key is proceeding with a carefully planned holiday marketing campaign spend for your site! So where does it make the most sense to place your allocated online marketing dollars? I’d like to suggest placing a portion of those dollars with the site like Smarter.com! Smarter.com and other comparison shopping sites (CSE’s) like ours give you access to great ‘shopping-targeted’ shelf-space and generate solid sales leads at a fair cost to you! Following is the link to register your Smarter.com account today:

Sign up for your new Smarter account here today!

Do you love to shop?  Are you addicted to Facebook?  If so, I don’t have to tell you that you are not alone and in fact there are millions of others just like you, starting with your own circle of friends!

Smarter.com has created a fun, new Facebook application designed to allow you to share your love of shopping (and your love for finding just the right products) with your ever-growing list of Facebook friends!  Here’s a screen-shot of what our new application looks like, or you can just follow the link for it here: 

Click here to see Smarter’s new Facebook application!

Smarter’s application called, “What Would You Buy?” helps you poll your friends for their opinions on things like, “Should I try wide leg jeans or stick to skinny?” to “What movie should we watch tonight?” or “Which digital camera is best for me?” - it’s like spending time at the local mall with a couple of your best friends! 

Products to compare are pulled from the millions listed on Smarter.com or you can pull them in from your online store of choice, it’s up to you!  Also, there is a privacy setting that can keep your polls and wishlist exclusive to just your designated circle of friends!

Why not start first with getting your friends to weigh-in on just the right costume to wear for this year’s Halloween party?  Download Smarter’s new Facebook application today and let the fun begin : )

Facebook(R) is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc.

Smarter.com has an exciting announcement regarding our latest entrance into social marketing! Please check out the link below to find out more about the launch of Smarter’s new Facebook application!

Click here to read the full Marketwatch Story!

You can actually download Smarter’s Facebook application here:

Download Smarter’s Facebook application now!

In other news, yours truly had a profitable time at Online Market World (www.onlinemarketworld.com) today, taking in 3 different panels:

• Keynote: Why Now is the Best Time to Sell Online
• Search Engine Optimization – Get Found Online or Get Left Behind!
• Improving Social Media Marketing Effectiveness – Adding Social Media to Your Marketing Mix

Check back in this space next week for Online Market World photos : )

And last but not least, the bell has rung, it’s FOURTH QUARTER! Let us help you to achieve the results you need to return in this tough year-end selling climate! Sign-up now for your Smarter.com account here:

Register here for a Smarter.com account today!