Shea Beck

iStockPhoto is the first victim of “Fallible Friday.” Each Friday I will showcase an imperfect email and explain why it happened. 

In this Hot Shots email from 12/17/08 we get a fairly good coded email. It has a great text to graphic ratio and makes good use of background colors.

The email goes bad in the header, a pretty big mistake. iStockPhoto used <div> tags which is okay in some instances but obviously not here. I personally stay away from the use of any <div> tags in email because of the reason highlighted in the screen shot. iStockPhoto should use tables and hard code the widths. This is a pretty simple fix and would have been caught with a simple test to multiple email addresses. If you are indeed too lazy like iStockPhoto, give Pivotal Veracity a shot they will test the emails for you.

Since blogs are opinions, here’s one from my little brain. I feel strongly that Circuit City, Best Buy, and any other big box retailers could be dramatically improved by stopping the evil direct selling.

About the time the likes of Sony, Pioneer, Sharp and so on began selling direct on their sites and began leasing space to build their own stores to compete with the very same people who are trying to make a profit for these manufacturers is the same time these big box retailers had to scramble to find new revenue streams. Well, those revenue streams aren’t as healthy or guaranteed as selling the good stuff. If these suppliers (Sony, Sharp, Pioneer…) would only sell to big box retailers, as suppliers which is what they are, then retailers wouldn’t have to scramble to sell “shit” which obviously isn’t working. I know there isn’t as big of profit margin for suppliers (get over it). This in turn would force the consumers to do all of their shopping with these retailers which clearly means more $$$ for the big box and less clutter for the shopper who is shopppity shop shopping.

Let me give you an example of an industry this works perfectly in, take the irrigation industry. Even in a drought, irrigation distributors in the green industry are doing okay. This is due in large to the fact that the suppliers are not competing with the people trying to make them a profit (makes sense right?). The big 3 here are Toro, Hunter, and Rain Bird.

NOW LISTEN UP SONY and BEST BUY, if one of these manufacturers tried to sell direct, then the distributors (the ones trying to turn a profit for the big 3) would stop slinging the manufacturers merchandise, or at the very least stop promoting it and only sell it when it’s asked for. This has allowed for the distributors to focus on actual store competition and not worry about being undermined by the damn manufacturer. Take note, one of the big3 once fondled (may be still fondling) with the notion of selling direct…when distributors hear about something like this, they immediately embrace the other two manufacturers more. It’s like being in a relationship. If the retailer cheats on you buy selling direct, the distributor is going to take their relationship elsewhere.

So I ask you manufacturer’s, start caring about your relationships and cut the boys some slack by cutting back on your direct selling. And to you Mr. Big box retailer, grow a pair and lay down some law, you are dying anyways what do you have to lose?

Just because you aren’t getting your dream click through rate like you did 10 years ago on your banner ads doesn’t mean they aren’t influential. A recent study by Specific Media based on ComScore data highlights the fact that you must dig deeper into metrics rather than looking at a single number to determine the success of a marketing campaign. When assessing your marketing plan, please take a step back and look at the whole picture before cutting or adding budget to a tactic. This report focuses on how two tactics feed each other, search and display.

Specific Media shows that display ads will enhance your search marketing program. It basically reiterates the best practice of using multiple mediums to get your message across. For example, yesterday I was looking around on ESPN.com at some NBA stats. Fittingly an ad popped up for StubHub tickets. Today, I wanted to checkout some Suns ticket prices so I searched for NBA tickets in Google. I could have easily clicked on TickCo or TicketsNow, but I actually remembered seeing StubHub that gave me a sense of familiarity. Brand awareness is a big part of Search Marketing, if I have never seen your brand even if it’s just online, I will probably avoid you.

Okay, nice example but you want some numbers. Well, the average lift in search activity for those who were served a display ad was 155% vs those who were not served a display ad. The lift was 22% on the low end for Consumer Goods and 274% on the high end for Travel and Tourism clients.