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The new Google Retail blog says that we’re already in the early parts of the retail shopping season. Many surveys show that people will spend more time researching their purchases and looking even harder for values.

Economists are predicting a very slow retail holiday, especially with autumn already in a slump. Online retailers stand to weather the storm a bit better, turning to search marketing, site redesign and refinement, and other ecommerce technologies to squeeze every dollar from their limited budgets.

Surveys and predictions for this retail season abound.

• 43% of consumers will spend more time shopping around.
• 95% of online shoppers report that free shipping influences their purchases, preferring to shop at retailers that usually offer free shipping, and 78% report that expensive shipping prevents them from shopping online.
• Nielson reports 35% plan to spend less, 6% more, and 50% the same this year
• 31% of consumers will start holiday shopping before Halloween and 57% will start before Thanksgiving.
• 66% will use coupons and take their time shopping if it means more savings. and spend more time shopping around for bargains.
• 59% will spend less due to economic hardships such as higher food and gasoline prices.
• 26% of consumers plan to spend less, 11% expect to spend more, and 63% about the same
• 60% say they will change where they shop to get the best price.
• 53% will drop brand loyalties to save money.
• Online discounts and sales will influence 83% of web shoppers.
• 52% plan to buy fewer gifts this year.

I think this year will also show that shoppers are becoming “better” at searching so that long-tail, brand specific search campaigns may show gains. Features such as Google suggest may alter the profile of the amateur searcher helping to drive branded searches to more accurate product page landings. People who have set up paid search to match these long-tail searches will be well positioned to reap increases in click through rates and quality score.

On the analytics side, while people are jumping around from comparison engine to website to review page, it may be a challenge to attribute sales to specific ads or search campaigns.

I hope all of you buck the trend and have a great holiday season.

Binoculars photo by raebrune used under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License

Lee Odden posted a fascinating list of results from the TopRank Reader Poll which reached out to a large group of business marketers. Lee received 400 responses to the question “What 3 Internet marketing tactics will you emphasize most in the next 6 months?”

… the results were fascinating.

* Search engine optimization (36%, 149 Votes)
* Blogging (33%, 134 Votes)
* Pay per click (26%, 107 Votes)
* Email marketing (22%, 89 Votes)
* Social networking (Facebook, LinkedIn) (21%, 86 Votes)
* Blogger relations/blog PR (14%, 56 Votes)
* Microblogging (Twitter, Plurk, Jaiku) (11%, 47 Votes)
* Affiliate marketing (11%, 47 Votes)
* Advertorial (NewsForce, AdFusion) (10%, 40 Votes)
* Video marketing (7%, 29 Votes)
* Corporate Website (7%) (This pattern was echoed here)

Why do so many who call me want to just spend their entire budget on their website but ignore Social Media and blogging? (I’m wondering if my business name needs to change soon) I think a lot of company decision makers are confused about the benefit from trackbacks or RSS subscribers on blogs or the methods needed for effective social media relations, even though marketers seem to be whispering it in their ear more loudly now.  Some know it’s important but are unwilling to take the leap to doing it right.

But that doesn’t hold a candle to the level of confusion out there about SEO. Executing a well-thought out SEO strategy requires an immense amount of education for most clients.

One question I have…Where is testing on this list? Isn’t offer optimization part of marketing? What about post-click analytics and focusing on finding the right offer to roll back into the SEO, Blogging and PPC engine? I think it would have been interesting to learn who, if anyone is doing this with any regularity.

I guess in the minds of the participants testing and optimization are simply part of the activity itself.

I took note earlier of CEO David Friend and Customer Service Manager Len Pallazola of Carbonite as they did some pretty fancy damage control on a negative blog post about Carbonite on Vinnie Carpenter’s blog.

As you can see, these guys handled the situation - and took control of the room, leaving anyone willing to read more than the first few posts with a very positive sense that Carbonite has its act together. Mozy, on the other hand, did not participate in the discussion.

First, what’s at stake. As the discussion continued, Google ranked the blog higher and higher in the SERPs for search “carbonite vs. mozy” - not good for Carbonite.

In my opinion, this kind of damage control can only be done when the executives and customer support leaders of an organization stay totally on top of everything being said about their brand. They cannot address every little technical issue being said, but can watch for strongly worded negative posts and comments - to represent their brand and be sure there’s not just misunderstandings being spread around as facts. (more…)

The North American SEM industry grew from $9.4 billion in 2006 to $12.2 billion in 2007, exceeding earlier projections of $11.5 billion for 2007 and marketers are finding more search dollars by poaching budget from print magazine spending, website development, direct mail and other marketing programs.

The SEMPO study released today offered some good news for Agencies, as 53% of advertisers outsource their organic SEO because it is to hard to stay up-to-date with best practices in-house. 37% say they don’t have the right tools, and 33% say they get more bang for their buck with an outside provider.

But overall, a trend to in-house these efforts is still strong. Forrester research shows least two-thirds of U.S. businesses prefer to keep SEM in-house. In-house training and education efforts will probably continue to improve and drive performance gains. (more…)

I was really surprised by the new study by Arbitron, called “Infinite Dial 2008: Radio’s Digital Platforms” showing 33 million Americans age 12 and older listen to web radio, a growth of 14% over 29m last year.

• Thirteen percent of Americans age 12 or older (an estimated 33 million people) listened to online radio in the past week.
• Nearly 25% of all Americans age 12 or older have a profile on a social networking Web site such as MySpace, Facebook or Linked-In, nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of online radio do.
• One-third of online radio listeners with a social network profile visit their social networking site nearly every day or several times per day
• The top social networking Web sites among online radio listeners are MySpace and the business professional networking service Linked-In.
• Twenty-eight percent of online radio listeners have a MySpace page.
• Twenty-four percent have a profile on Linked-In.

From an advertiser’s perspective, this means that social media participants, often the sneezers in social media, are listening online. While I’m not advocating interruption marketing strategies, one could make a strong case for participation in talks shows, podcasts, and other web media events held on web radio srouces.

Jakob Nielsen’s latest Alertbox post “Bridging the Designer-User Gap” is almost a follow up to the “Myth of the Genius Designer” which I consider one of my favorites from him.

Red emphasis mine.

….There’s a big gap between designers and the majority of users. …. Generally, if you’re a member of a design team, you are not representative of the target audience. I don’t care if you’re the interaction designer, the graphics artist, the information architect, the writer, the programmer, or the marketer. All of these people:

• know too much about the product (be it a website, intranet, application, phone, whatever);
• are too skilled in using computers and the Web in general; and
• care too much about their own baby (so they can’t imaging visitors bouncing after scanning the homepage for 30 seconds — but that’s what outside users do).

- Jakob Nielsen

(more…)