I’ve been in several meetings recently with Human Capital (HC) Professionals and although they are coming to these meetings with iPads, smartphones and other electronic WHOHA, I’m surprised how these recruiting Pros appear to be late-adopters when it comes to utilizing Social Media and Mobile for Talent Acquisition. (Social Media is more than just LinkedIn)

Eye-Popping Social Recruiting stats for 2010*

• 18.4 Million Americans say Facebook got them their current job. This compares to 10.2 Million Americans got their jobs from LinkedIn and 8 Million Americans got their jobs from Twitter.

• That’s the entire population of New York City, Los Angeles, Michigan and New Jersey combined. WOW!

More than 36.6 million jobs were landed through Social Media and the Social Recruiting industry is just in its infancy.

Social Referrals should be a huge part of your recruiting

As the power and reach of Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter and Mobile continue to expand exponentially to become a breeding ground for external talent sourcing, they also provide an online resource for leveraging your best network…your current employees for job referrals.

Did you know that of all job candidates in 2010 (last full year reported)…*

• 16% of them got a job referral on Facebook
•  9% on LinkedIn
•  6% on Twitter

It‘s obvious that each Social Media community and Mobile offer Human Capital Professionals methods to recruit and hire employees, but the true power of these Social and Mobile networks rests with there ability to tap into your satisfied employees and their Social networks. Imagine the level of reach you have when you leverage your employee network to reach and recruit the Passive candidate that your employees knows.

What ShoppeSimple Sourcing does in Talent Acquisition…

We provide a Social plug-in to any ATS that automatically repurposes your job postings to Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Mobile Career Centers that we build for you. With your permission, we simply tap into your existing ATS job posting data feeds, RSS feeds or data downloads and auto-populate your Social Career Centers. All of this is done without your HRIT resources and without any maintenance on your part during the implementation phase or through the ongoing program. The ShoppeSimple Sourcing program basically works on auto-pilot since all of your traffic is directed back to your ATS for the Apply function.

You get more Job Candidates at a fraction of the cost

That’s not all!  Our proprietary Social Sharing tools (permission-based and secure) enable your employees and Job Candidates to share your job postings with their Social and Mobile networks through Facebook Sharing, Tweeting, Texting, Google Circles, LinkedIn Follows and through email.

Engage Passive Job Candidates 365 days a year

Companies are posting job openings on the Facebook Wall which has very limited value since Wall posts get lost in all the other Shares and postings. Plus they are only visible in the ever-changing stream of posts for a very short time.

Did you also know your best Job Candidates are Super Social (150 contacts or more across multiple Social platforms) so posting jobs to the Facebook Wall doesn’t work well for these highly sought after Passive candidates.

So wouldn’t you want a fixed and private location for posting job openings on your Career Center? This way the job candidate(s) can easily place your Career Center on the left rail of their personal Facebook page so they know exactly where to find your job posts.

A “Like” from LEHRN

In early December, we presented our Human Capital Solution to the Leading Edge Human Resource Network (LEHRN) in Minneapolis and got a big thumbs up “Like”.  During the LEHRN meeting we made a BETA offer for our SaaS solution, which went over extremely well.

A BETA OFFER you can’t refuse…

We would like you to simply try the ShoppeSimple Sourcing for three months at no charge (with no long term commitments or sign-up contingencies).

All we’re asking from BETA partners in return is to provide feedback on the ShoppeSimple Sourcing program to validate its Social recruiting value.  And, as a BETA partner you will have the option to continue the service at a greatly reduced monthly subscription fee.

We are expecting a HUGE response to this offering so act now. Don’t be left behind!  I look forward to hearing from you by 15th. RESERVE NOW by calling me at 612-349-2740 or email me jeff@shoppesimplenetwork.com

Best wishes for a successful 2012,

Jeffery

*insidebusiness.com

.

Welcome to the ShoppeSimple Human Capital Blog… I am Jeffery Giesener – CEO/Founder of ShoppeSimple.

Did you know that…*

• 1 out of 6 workers used Social Media to get hired
• 16% of employees found their current job using Social Media a jump of 5% from last year
• 50% of the job hunters in 2011 used Facebook
• 16% got a job referral through Facebook
• 84% of Super Social job hunters (those who have more than 250 contacts on social media) used Facebook

Staying in front of your Passive Job Seeker 365 days a year…

Once your Job Seeker allows your job posts from your Company Facebook Career Center (which we build for you), ShoppeSimple enables your job posts to appear on the left-rail of your Job Seekers Facebook page under your branded Career Center link 365 days a year. As a result: your Passive Job Seeker is continually engaged, wanting to have a conversation with your Company and is sharing your job postings with their colleagues.

This is unique for Social job postings because using the Facebook Wall has limited value, in fact, just minutes of streaming time. Plus with ShoppeSimple your applicant can also search, mark their favorite category job postings and continue to receive your postings on the left-rail of their Facebook Profile page.

A “Like” from LEHRN

In December, we presented our Human Capital Solutions to the Leading Edge Human Resource Network (LEHRN) Association in Minneapolis and got a big thumbs up “Like”.

Your best applicant is on Facebook

43% of Facebook users are between 25-44 years of age**

Since 2009, ShoppeSimple have been helping clients navigate and succeed with e-Commerce, Social and Mobile Media. We are also pleased that our clients continue to renew and that says a lot to you about our program. We are based in Minneapolis and in 2011; we opened three additional industries verticals, which bring our solutions to the Human Capital/Talent Management, Multi-Channel Retail and Educational and of course e-Commerce spaces.

What ShoppeSimple does in the Social Human Capital Space? We use our patent-pending cloud-based software solutions to distribute your job postings to any Social community and Mobile/Tablet platform with one easy click. We do it all without the need for any of your IT resources and we implement our solutions quickly and very affordably. So now with little to no effort you can reach your most desired demographic on Facebook, Twitter and Mobile.

Plus you use your current Talent Management Systems to distribute job postings and process these Social applicants as you normally would because the “Apply” function on any Social platform directs the applicant right back to your current Applicant Tracking System.

A BETA OFFER you can’t refuse…

To earn your business, we would like you to simply try ShoppeSimple Human Capital Solutions (with no long term commitments or sign-up contingencies).

And YES… there is even more…you must be satisfied. We will guarantee that you must be successful with the program and we will do whatever it takes to let you see what our other clients have seen…that the ShoppeSimple program provides true incremental Social recruiting value at a very affordable price. Plus there is absolutely no need for your IT Team to expend any resources to get ShoppeSimple running. We do all the work and we provide a set of measurement tools too.

So bottom line, let’s start a conversation on how ShoppeSimple can begin to assist your talent acquisition efforts using Social and Mobile Media.

SO RESERVE NOW by calling me at 612-349-2740 or email me jeff@shoppesimplenetwork.com

Best wishes for a successful 2012,

Jeffery

CEO/Founder

ShoppeSimple Network

Source:

Businessinsider.com*

Insidefacebook.com**

The word “instant” for us Internet Marketers is not new.  We’ve deployed “instant” micro-site web infrastructure to optimize search conversion, increase lead generation, develop sales pipeline leads, train and educate on YouTube and create a host of other Customer Relationship Management (CRM) opportunities for our consumers. Yes, micro-site marketing has proven itself with a positive ROI which has been cataloged many times in the web business success library.

Today, when people want instant information, instant search, instant PR, instant video, instant shopping, with increasing frequency they access the Web using their smartphones, Tablets and other Mobile devices. Mobile is fast becoming the new micro-site playground for online marketers.

Consider these Mobile Trends

* Total m-commerce sales for 2011 were expected to exceed $10 billion, according to the Internet Retailer Mobile Commerce Top 300.

* In December 2011, sales stemming from Smartphones and tablets accounted for 11% of total online sales, up from 5.5% in December 2010, according to the IBM Benchmark report that tracks online sales of some 500 retailers. – Internet Retailer

* By the end of 2012, we may see eight of every 10 phones sold in the US being smartphones – cmo.com

* 38% of smartphone owners have used their smartphone to make a purchase at least once – ComScore

* Well-known retailers, including Amazon, Wal-Mart, Target, JC Penney and countless others are building out their mobile commerce efforts. These brands realize that their future is intimately tied to dominating commerce in mobile – CMO.com

So what are your Mobile marketing plans for this year, and do they include developing Mobile micro-sites?

Mobile micro-site opportunity is ready to explode

According to Gartner, by 2013 more users will turn to their Mobile devices for online purposes rather than using their PCs.  We see by the numbers that it’s already happening. This past month of December, consumers used their Smartphones and Tablets instead of laptops and desktops for e-Commerce shopping at an increasing rate.

The IBM Benchmark found that 14.6% of all online sessions on retailers’ sites were initiated from a mobile device, more than double the rate of 5.6% during the same period in 2010.

The Launch Pad for Mobile . . . Micro-Site Marketing

Before you build an enterprise mobile experience for your consumers, we recommend that you first build and test Mobile using micro-sites.  This will enable you to see the current mobile user profile so you invest wisely in your enterprise system.

But the power of micro-site marketing is not in creating one micro-site. As we all have learned with more traditional online marketing, the success of micro-site marketing is in the creation of many targeted sites and optimizing each of them. That’s when it really pays off.  The challenge for us marketers is in having the ability to create and optimize numerous, targeted micro-sites easily within the context of everything else we’re now doing.  Where do we find the time and budget?

Mobile micro-sites multiply your market presence

ShoppeSimple can help you easily and affordably create and optimize targeted Mobile micro-sites which are built with minimal resources required by your IT team. Powerful measurement tools are provided to track the success of each micro-site too.

So right now (before your competitor jumps in) let ShoppeSimple help you develop and optimize the use of Mobile micro-site(s), all of which will drive Mobile traffic back to your website (mobile enabled or otherwise) for transaction processing.

We will provide you an initial Free Trial Period and the appropriate time to do your own testing so you feel comfortable moving forward.

To start your ShoppeSimple Trial simply connect with me at jeff@shoppesimplenetwork.com or ring me up at 952-349-2740

Best wishes for a successful 2012

Jeffery

CEO/Founder

ShoppeSimple Network

Today, when you think of contacting friends, you think of Facebook.  It’s by far the largest social media site as it approaches a billion worldwide users early next year.  It’s currently growing at the rate of a completely new LinkedIn user base about every 4 weeks.  And, earlier this year it surpassed Google as the most visited site!

Almost everyone is on Facebook so it’s tough to ignore it much longer for personal and also business use.  Marketers can no longer avoid considering the commerce potential of this consumer community.   Yet, there are still so many merchants who choose to stand on the Social Commerce sidelines while their competitors learn how to win in this space.

Enable more powerful Product Reviews in Facebook

When I shop online, I rely heavily on product reviews to make my buying decision.  Granted, the reviews I reference on a website are posted by product users who are unknown to me, yet they are still very helpful.  But their impact pales in comparison to reviews from people we know.

90% of online consumers trust recommendations from people they know; 70% trust opinions of unknown users. – Econsultancy, July 2009

One of the great things about Facebook for a merchant is that users on their Facebook merchant page can create their own personalized product reviews.  These are product reviews generated by your Facebook friends so they’re even more powerful in helping make buying decisions.

When asked what sources “influence your decision to use or not use a particular company, brand or product” 71% claim reviews from family members or friends exert a “great deal” or “fair amount” of influence. – Harris Interactive, June 2010

To enable this capability, merchants must provide consumers instantaneous access to their friends while they are shopping on their site.  This can be done by providing social sharing tools on the product detail page.  When your Facebook connections are activated within your shopping session, you can now send individual messages requesting reviews from people you know and trust on specific products you’re thinking about buying.  One- to-one communication is now underway between friends within Facebook as you consider your purchase.  It’s as if the merchant enables you to ‘beam in’ your friends at will to join your “shopping trip” from wherever they are.  And, a good word from a friend will always help to cement the sale.

Facebook Store Tips for Success

Here are ideas to consider in addition to Personalized Product Reviews that will increase your probability for Facebook store success:

1. Consider only those Facebook Store platforms that link the consumer to your product detail page on your site when they want to place an order.   As a merchant, you want to control the shopping experience and maintain check-out consistency whenever a consumer buys from you online.  The only sure way to achieve this is to direct all ordering through your existing website checkout process.
2. Facebook stores that feature targeted product offers are generally more successful at driving social commerce than stores that offer a fire hose of product.  Focusing on Daily Deals, New Arrivals, Specials, Closeouts, Event specific product etc. will be more successful than featuring everything you already feature on your site.
3. Look for a platform that enables you as a marketer to present your products in innovative product groupings on- the-fly to take advantage of special sales opportunities.
4. Provide a way for consumers to share product offers on the top social media channels.  Avoid  providing too many options that confuse or frustrate the consumer.  Giving them a choice between the most popular ones will do (Facebook, Twitter, My Home Pages, LinkedIn, and Google+)
5. Enable the consumer to place relevant merchant Facebook Store(s) on their own consumer Facebook page so they can receive relevant product offers from merchants they like without ever leaving their Facebook page.

If you’ve been sitting on the fence thinking that Facebook is just a personal communications channel . . .   think again.  According to Justin R. Levy in his book, Facebook Marketing, “Social networks are the new way to communicate and market your brand.  You can either choose to embrace it or watch your competition pass you as they figure it out.”

ShoppeSimple Facebook Stores drives new incremental business

ShoppeSimple makes it easy for merchants to create, publish and track relevant product offers to wherever their online consumers are.   That includes Facebook stores.  Typically, merchants are challenged by limited IT resources to add more online marketing programs that can generate additional sales.  Because we require no internal IT to implement our program, the merchant is free to create, publish and track as many new relevant product offers as they want, at any time.

The ShoppeSimple program is permission-based where consumers can choose to receive specific products that are relevant to them.  The results:  consumers place orders of higher value, will buy with greater frequency and convert more readily.

Imagine that your business is not meeting plan and the IT queue is backed up for months.  But you don’t stand still.  Instead, you add a program to fill the sales gap because you have the tools to create a successful new sales opportunity when you need it most.

Ring in the New Year right and contact us about putting a Facebook store in place.  There are no implementation costs.  Your investment is limited to an affordable flat monthly subscription fee that is guaranteed to bring a positive return.  Your store can be in place generating sales by mid January.

Additionally there are a limited number of New Year – New Customer Trial Offers available for the first to call us.

Call 612-963-3434 or email me at steve.neseth@shoppesimplenetwork.com.

Happy Holidays!

What makes Mobile marketing even more challenging is that these Mobile engagements are no longer dependent on your consumer being at home or at the office or in social communities tied to a PC.

40% of Mobile Conversations happen at work; 20% at home*

Now, when your business begins to focus on Mobile marketing, the stickiness of this medium will be all about creating faster engagements and better conversations. When you plug into this “on-the-go” marketing medium the result will be something that we as marketers have never been part of before.

Another Innovative Marketing Sea Change…

YES – another sea change of new Mobile innovations are coming at marketers and they are about to provide an undertow that could sweep your business out to sea  if you’re not ready for them.

And you’re still trying to catch up regarding what to do with Facebook and Twitter marketing? Sorry… no rest for the marketing weary.

From my seat, you should be looking at the competitor to the right and then to your left and determine how they could disrupt your business using Mobile and or Social platforms.

 Or does your business still have an attitude like this…

We still see attitudes like this all the time and advise merchants to mitigate these  legacy attitudes. Remember, Facebook has been in existence for nearly 8 years and now has over 800 Million users. So I often ask, at what point does a business “get it”?

The challenge is if you wait for competitive innovation to hit your business it may be too late.  With your consumer now in control of their marketing acceptance points, they will dictate where they will be marketed to and by whom. Companies prepared to enable the consumer to control their touch points will be the big winners.  Are you prepared to thrive or will you perish in this new consumer-centric marketing landscape? It’s survival of the fittest on the Social and Mobile tundra!

Would You Say Goodbye to 25% of Your Business?

Today, Mobile Commerce  is already 10%+ of sales according to IBM and growing rapidly so there’s no time to wait. This is not the late 90’s anymore when marketers questioned if they should be in e-commerce. You have to make the Mobile decision much more quickly than that!

Here is what you need to be thinking…and thinking it today!

• Mobile marketing is a way for your business to stay connected to your audience 24/7, regardless of their location.  It’s a way to connect with the consumer who is on the go.
• Mobile marketing is a tremendous opportunity for your business to reach your consumer while they’re in your store, on the web, in social communities or while they’re shopping your competitors retail or website store.
• Mobile Search volume has grown by 4X over 2010 because it provides timely information at that critical moment when a buying decision is made.* It’s now possible to draw traffic away from your competitor through a better quality Mobile search.
• For the first time, the use of Mobile marketing enables you to connect with a customer using a QR code placed in your catalog or storefront. With a simple  downloadable QR reader App, consumers can now move in real-time through a unique online experience where one never existed before.

My suggestion is that all of this needs to be in your Q1-2012 Marketing Plan as you drive your business into the Mobile Commerce world.

Already, our ShoppeSimple analytics show that more than 12% of  the visits to our clients digital sites are by consumers on mobile devices and Tablets. And, we’re just at the beginning of this Mobile sea change.  Morgan Stanley says Global smartphone usage in 2011 is around 835 Million subscribers’ vs. 5.6 Billion Phone Subscribers overall. Just imagine the quantum innovation opportunity coming at all of our businesses when you consider the tremendous headroom for Smartphone and Tablet growth is still ahead of us.

Meet The Mobile Challenge…

ShoppeSimple can help your business generate mobile sales now… not months from now.  The ShoppeSimple Get Daily Offers mobile platform includes:

• ShoppeFetch Engine:  patent-pending technology that enables you to easily create and distribute relevant and personalized product offers daily to your consumers on their Mobile smartphones phones and Tablets which they can also share with their Likes on Facebook and Followers on Twitter. The consumer buys through merchant checkout.
• Mobile Analytics: develop a cost effective mobile strategy and identify which Mobile platforms to pursue and when.
• Mobile Landing Pages: branded micro-sites are built on-the-fly for you for all Smartphone devices and Tablet platforms.
• Opt-in Mobile Data Collection:  build an opt-in database of mobile phone numbers that you can market to immediately because you own this data under pure permission with your consumer.
• Barcode Enabled: The ability for you to take advantage of all the unique “wherever you are” benefits of Mobile marketing like leveraging your stores through barcode marketing and driving additional business through QR codes on your catalog.

You can get started without requiring any assistance from your internal IT, time or resources. So, if you’re looking for an easy to implement, cost effective way to introduce Mobile marketing into your business in 2012, I’d welcome your call at 612-349-2740 or email me at jeff@shoppesimplenetwork.com. 

Best,

Jeffery

Founder/CEO

*National Retail Federation

*Morgan Stanley Mobile Trends Report/Mary Meeker

*Yahoo Press Release http://connectedtv.yahoo.com/

* http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/29/study-shocker-mobile-users-piddle-around-on-the-internet-while

Discounting efforts by some online retailers, including Amazon.com and Apple, in the hopes of bringing some of the mall’s Black Friday magic to the Web appear to have paid off.

With a 26% jump over last year, the day after Thanksgiving saw the highest increase in spending compared to 2010 than any other period in November, according to comScore. However, online spending on Cyber Monday still outpaced Black Friday by a healthy margin, the research says.

This year, the Monday after Thanksgiving became the biggest shopping day in the history of the Internet, with an estimated $1.25 billion spent online. Monday was the highest-grossing online shopping day in U.S. history, with spending reaching $1.25 billion, That’s up 22% from the previous record, which was last year’s Cyber Monday. (from CNN.com/Comscore)

How did your online marketing programs compare to these benchmarks?

Here’s a sampling of ShoppeSimple client results from Cyber Week November 23^rd through the 30^th.

Client One: added $29,000 from their ShoppeSimple Program during Cyber Week on  256 visitors to their ShoppeSimple landing pages. This client is in our lifestyle vertical and has a mostly male audience. They received $113 dollars per visitor and paid an ad spend of 2.8% through monthly subscription fees.

Client Two: added $91,000 from their ShoppeSimple Program during Cyber Week. They saw 6,699 visits to their landing pages through the program. The client is in our gift vertical and has a mostly female audience. They received $13.54 dollars per visitor and paid an ad spend of .5% through monthly subscription fees.

Client Three: added $46,000 from their ShoppeSimple Program during Cyber Week. They saw 3,003 visits to their landing pages through the program. The client is in our gift vertical and has a 50/50 male/female audience. They received $15.31 dollars per visitor and paid an ad spend of 2.4% through monthly subscription fees.

Client Four: A new client launched 10 days prior to Thanksgiving and did $8,500 in the ShoppeSimple Program during Cyber Week with 7,481 visits. The client is a multi-channel marketer with general merchandise stores and has mostly a female audience. They received $1.13 dollars per visitor and paid an ad spend of 2.0% through monthly subscription fees. This client is 50% ahead of a comparable client launched at the same time last year who has had over $1.4 Million in ShoppeSimple annual program revenue in one year’s time at a 2.4% ad spend.

But what did Cyber Week teach us about Mobile Commerce?

Could Mobile Commerce help you close the gap in your sales?

Morgan Stanley says Global smartphone usage in 2011 is around 835 Million subscribers’ vs 5.6 Billion Phone Subscribers. Just imagine the quantum change coming at all of our businesses as it’s obvious that there’s tremendous headroom for Smartphone and Tablet growth still ahead of us.

Let’s take a moment and also look through our rear view mirror. . .

You know that iPods changed the media/music landscape.  iPhones ramped even faster. Now, according to Morgan Stanley, iPads will leave their “i-siblings” in the dust.   And don’t forget about Google as Android phones are scaling even faster than the iPhone*.

The mobile marketing opportunity grows even more challenging when you look at eMarketer’s Reasons for In-store/Online Abandonment from Smartphone Users (a 7/2011report)

They state that a consumer ‘mobile abandoned’ because they:

1. Found it online through mobile search at a better price
2. Found it at another store through mobile search at a better price

Morgan Stanley also reports that your consumer’s Mobile Search is already four times greater than it was in 2010! *

So, when you look at what’s coming from Mobile Search and the potential affects this could have on your existing business as Marketers in shopping abandonment, how will you defend your business? Should you just wait and watch or should you go on the mobile offensive?

ShoppeSimple clients already see high Mobile Visitor counts

For Cyber Week, between 10.0% and 23.5% of all visitors generated from all ShoppeSimple client programs visited client-landing pages on a Mobile or Tablet platform. We expect this to continue to scale quickly in 2012.

Catch The Mobile Wave in 2012!

We recommend that you start by determining . . .

• Your Mobile visitor rate by Smartphone device.  This will help you align your initial mobile investments with the devices your consumers are using today.
• Your Mobile revenue level.  Just because you may not see mobile dollars being called out as material in your analytic yet, can be sure that there are not consumers already shopping your site from their mobile device or tablet?

Knowing your current mobile playing field, however insignificant you believe it to be will provide clearer direction as you build your go-forward mobile strategy. And no, a mobile program doesn’t always require a huge investment of resources.

ShoppeSimple Answers To Your Mobile Marketing Challenge

Without requiring any resources from your IT team, ShoppeSimple can help your business bridge the gap to Mobile. We can help your business quickly set sail (or should I say, ‘get sales’) on the Mobile Wave so you can generate mobile sales soon… not months from now.

You receive the following through our ‘Get Daily Offers’ mobile platform:

• Our patent-pending ShoppeFetch engine that enables you to easily create and distribute relevant and personalized product offers daily to your consumers on their Mobile phones which they can also share on  Facebook and Twitter. And as always, the consumer is driven back to your website for conversion.
• A robust set of ShoppeSimple Mobile analytics to help you develop a cost effective mobile strategy and identify which Mobile platforms to pursue and when.
• Mobile enabled landing pages (branded micro-sites) built on-the-fly for you for all Smartphone devices and Tablet platforms.
• The ability for you to build an opt-in database of mobile phone numbers that you can market to immediately because you own this data under pure permission with your consumer.
• The ability for you to take advantage of all the unique “wherever you are” benefits of Mobile marketing like leveraging your stores through barcode marketing and driving additional business through QR codes on your catalog.

You simply won’t believe how easy it is to accomplish all of the above!  And once again, we do it all without requiring any assistance from your internal IT, time or resources.

If you’re looking for an easy to implement, cost effective way to introduce Mobile marketing into your business in 2012, I’d welcome your call at 612-349-2740 or email me at jeff@shoppesimplenetwork.com.

Best,

Jeffery

Founder/CEO

*From the Internet Trends Conference Web 2.0 Summit (Mary Meeker – Morgan Stanley)

So which camp are you in?

Mobile marketing offers significant advantages and challenges over more traditional methods of customer engagement.

They are… Advantages/Challenges

• Your mobile marketing message can reach difficult-to-find customers, no matter where they are. However these consumers are your most loyal and best customers so you must treat them with stellar customer service.
• You can find your consumer in close proximity to your store. But so can your competitor.
• Your Mobile message is instantly on. If you’re not on, your consumer can easily go elsewhere.
• Your Mobile message will connect with customers when it’s convenient for them. Are you Mobile available 24X7?
• Provides marketers with unprecedented opportunities for engagement, conversions, long-term retention and Mobile monetization. Competition for these consumers is already heating up and they have already proven to be price sensitive and less brand loyal.

So while these  challenges may make you hesitant to jump into Mobile marketing,  the market facts speak to just the opposite. Take a look…

• HubSpot says…in the next two years, one billion people will have accessed the Internet using a Mobile device. Hopefully as you read this you are thinking WOW; I thought Facebook is a big marketing opportunity but the trend looks like Mobile marketing will dwarf Facebook.
• HubSpot also indicates that in the U.S., 25% of laptop users have abandoned them for exclusive use of Mobile devices. Just think about the implications for your ecommerce business if 25% of your consumers are already on your website but using their mobile phone! Have you tested your website on a mobile Smartphone and Tablet platform? What does your Mobile checkout experience look like?

Can you afford to dismiss 25% of your market?

• Morgan Stanley predicts 50% of all e-commerce will be done on a Smartphone/Tablet device by 2014 (just two years away).
• A report in IDC Retail Insights states that nearly 30% of the more than $447 billion spent by consumers during the 2010 holiday season can be directly attributed to Smartphone and Mobile device sales.

Black Friday 2011 Mobile Results

John Squire, IBM Chief Strategy Officer, reports that “10.3% of online sales are coming from Mobile shoppers. And about 17% of all shoppers are using mobile devices.”

Additional IBM findings for Black Friday 2011, at 7 pm ET, are:

• Black Friday 2011 online sales continue to hold at a 20% increase for this same time period over Black Friday 2010.
• Black Friday 2011 online sales eclipsed Thanksgiving sales at 2:20pm PST 
• The number of consumers using a Mobile device to visit a retailer’s site is holding firm at 17.04%.
• The number of consumers using their Mobile device to make a purchase is holding steady at 9.51%.
• iPhone continues to lead all mobile device traffic at 6.58% (38.6% of all mobile shoppers), followed by Android at 5.20% (30.5%) and iPad at 4.71% (27.6%).

Has your Marketing Team figured out how your business will Mobile enable every website visit, every email and keyword search campaign, every Facebook, Twitter experience, and every point of customer contact? How will you make these Mobile experiences available at any time to customers everywhere they are? With statistics as glaring as the above, how is your business moving to Mobile marketing in 2012? What is your Mobile Marketing Plan for Q1-2012?

Getting Your Business Ready For Mobile

• Identify your mobile users. Through your current analytic program determine which mobile devices are being used to access your site. Knowing the specific Mobile devices on your site will help you understand how to build your Mobile marketing campaigns. A key point… don’t use your gut; use your analytics.  Just because Droids may be the rage… it may well be the iPhone platform that is driving your Mobile traffic. Trust your analytics.
  

• Set appropriate Mobile marketing goals. Before you know you have a mobile business, one which is driving revenue, why spend tens of thousands of dollars on Apps or large-scale website enablement? Before Mobile or Social came online wouldn’t you have done a marketing test before spending big dollars on a marketing initiative? So why throw caution to the wind in Mobile?
• Treat your customer with respect. If you’re just getting started with Mobile marketing treat Mobile like you did when you began capturing your email-marketing database. For example, if you’re looking to begin a Mobile program, a good starting point would be to build an opt-in database of mobile numbers, which you own.  We recommend that you don’t use 3^rd party Sharing Apps to build your opt-in database where you have no idea where the data is going or with whom the data is being shared.

ShoppeSimple Answers To Your Mobile Marketing Challenge

Without requiring any resources from your IT team, ShoppeSimple can help your business bridge the gap to mobile by providing the following:

• A robust set of ShoppeSimple Mobile analytics to help you develop a cost effective mobile strategy and identify which Mobile platforms to pursue and when.
• The ability for you to build an opt-in database of mobile phone numbers that you can market to immediately because you own this data under pure permission with your consumer.
• Mobile enabled landing pages (branded micro-sites) built on-the-fly for you for all Smartphone devices and Tablet platforms.
• Our patent-pending ShoppeFetch engine that enables you to easily create and distribute relevant and personalized product offers daily to your consumers on their Mobile phones which they can also share on  Facebook and Twitter. And as always, the consumer is driven back to your website for conversion.
• The ability for you to take advantage of all the unique “wherever you are” benefits of Mobile marketing like leveraging your stores through barcode marketing and driving additional business through QR codes on your catalog.

You  won’t believe how easy it is to accomplish all of the above!  And once again, we do it all without requiring any assistance from your internal IT.

If you’re looking for an easy to implement, cost effective way to introduce Mobile marketing into your business in 2012, I’d welcome your call at 612-349-2740 or email me at jeff@shoppesimplenetwork.com.

Best,

Jeffery

Founder/CEO

“Ah Bob, we need to be on Facebook and Twitter and let’s start a blog too. Our sales are way down and I see our competitors are all over social media and their sales are up… so obviously the missing ingredient for our business is social media, so get to it.”

Bob: “You got it, we’ll get started right away.”

Fast-forward a month or two after the company started their Facebook, Twitter and blog accounts.

CMO/CEO: “Bob, our sales are still way down, what’s going on? Why hasn’t social media helped our sales liked it has our competition?”

Bob: “Um…”*

Has a similar discussion happened inside your business?

Is your Social and Mobile Media generating the sales dollars you’re expecting?

If not…why not?

My online experience dates back to the mid 90′s, way before anyone was talking about social media. As part of my current role at ShoppeSimple, I provide consulting for our clients. I help them understand their specific online channel issues and objectives along with why their current Social and Mobile Media programs are not generating the results they expect.

The reasons why…

Social is about consumer engagement wherever consumers are
For those not succeeding with social or mobile, we find that the thought process has typically fallen into the philosophy that “consumer engagement has to happen on my website”.

For Mobile, it’s likely all about building Apps (but which ones) along with a “field of dreams” mentality around Apps marketing.

From my point of view, I always encourage companies to pivot off these positions and acknowledge that social and mobile conversations and sharing are happening all around their business and through a myriad of channel touch points.

Holding firm to a mindset that everything must happen on “my website” is like setting your business up to fight against the exponential growth tide of social and mobile. If you truly believe you can position your business to fight the social battle ground against Facebook, Twitter and Mobile enablement, I have some social and mobile swampland to sell you in Arizona.

Social and mobile should be all about distributing relevant product offers to your consumer. Having your consumers willingly accept your offers under their terms, permissions and in their Social communities and on their mobile Smartphone.

Is your business in a position to enable your consumer to personalize product offers they want to receive from you and with just one click place them into their social, mobile, email and bookmarked customized landing pages?

I am not speaking to using the Facebook and Twitter share icons, which just congests your consumers Facebook’s Wall with more billboard like advertising. This builds the Facebook and Twitter brands, not yours.

Do you really believe it is sophisticated social marketing to clutter up your consumers Facebook Wall with advertising just like their email inbox?

When you reach a highly focused and sophisticated level of consumer engagement through the delivery of consumer selected product offers into your branded store on the Consumer Facebook Page (on the left navigational rail . . . not the Wall) the result will be sustainable incremental sales. We’ve proven this to be a successful formula time and again.

But you may be asking yourself . . . how can we distribute product offers that are highly relevant to social and mobile spaces when our IT team holds us back from working at our marketing best? We have heard the same frustrations from marketers time and again. They want to test Social and Mobile but their internal IT complexities, inflexibilities and archaic web infrastructure prevent them from doing so.

Enter ShoppeSimple . . .

No two businesses are alike…

ShoppeSimple is not a cookie-cutter social and mobile marketing solution. Our consulting is a key part of what makes ShoppeSimple successful for our clients.

We don’t simply hand over our technology and leave you to figure out how to apply it. We properly fit our solutions inside our client’s business and assist their Team in driving Surround-Sound™ Social Business through all consumer channel touch points.

We assist your business monetize social and mobile horizontally across the organization and create a sustaining incremental Social Business that you can bank on.

I welcome the opportunity to visit with you about generating new incremental revenue for your Holiday season, or to discuss how you can integrate ShoppeSimple into your Marketing Plan for Q1-2012.

To get our conversation started, call me at 612-349-2740 or email me at jeff@shoppesimplenetwork.com.

Best,
Jeffery

Jeffery Giesener
Founder/CEO
ShoppeSimple Network

PS. Please feel free to forward this email to a friend or colleague.

* from a blog post by Steve Olenski/Social Media Today

Ecommerce Marketers should always be in a position to personalize and distribute relevant content to wherever their consumers are.

But, is your online marketing team handcuffed by legacy technology, stagnant web architecture and aging websites?

Do your IT handcuffs hold back your marketers from doing their jobs more effectively and driving the most revenue for your business?

If you might be suffering from the above…read on…this blog post is for you…

Ecommerce Marketers Unite!

ShoppeSimple can help you build your own Surround-Sound™ Social Business platform that enables you to engage with consumers more deeply creating significant opportunities for your business to grow.

We make it easy for marketers to create and distribute relevant content to wherever their consumers are. We enable your consumers to personalize the category content they want to receive. The relevancy and targeting of the ShoppeSimple program increases consumer engagement as proven by client-reported increases in average order values, frequency of ordering, higher conversion rates and new customers.

It’s a Game-Changer for Ecommerce Marketers

ShoppeFetch is at the core of what makes ShoppeSimple so different. The ShoppeFetch toolset provides marketers with the technical ability to quickly respond to the unique needs of targeted consumer groups on their own. They no longer need the IT department or Web Team to making things happen. This innovative IT SaaS solution provides new marketing horse power for your ecommerce team and total control over all marketing touch points to drive more sales.

With ShoppeFetch the marketer essentially “vacuums” all of the relevant data off their site (without the involvement of IT) and then based on their unique requirements repurposes this targeted data on branded landing pages created on-the-fly.

Our patent-pending, content creation and publishing engine writes once and distributes content everywhere with just one click. Imagine if your business could solve many of its user-experience, IT and web infrastructure issues quickly (in weeks not months), at such a low cost (monthly subscriptions start at $500) and without any implementation fees. Now it can!

ShoppeFetch also includes a proprietary analytical reporting package that provides relevant, dynamically generated data so you can drive your own analytical bus. Now, you can grow all of your online marketing channels in ways that may have seemed impossible in today’s business climate.

I welcome the opportunity to visit with you soon about driving new incremental revenue for your Holiday season. And, if you call us in the next week you can even be up and running before Thanksgiving! Just call me at 612-349-2740 or click here to email me and get started.

• Are you placing emphasis around marketing on Facebook?
• Are you capturing a Facebook “Likes” database?
• To grow your Likes are you using email broadcasts, sweepstakes, couponing and free shipping promotions?

Is any of this working for you?

A study from Jive Software and Penn, Schoen & Berland found that 78% of executives thought a Social Business Strategy was important to the future success of their business. Most companies now recognize a well-crafted social media strategy and implementation plan is a vital part to their marketing mix.

eMarketer states that Social media and Facebook marketing has gained its place at the online marketing table. eMarketer estimates 80% of companies with at least 100 employees will use social networks for marketing this year, this is up from nearly three in four last year. By 2012, usage will be even greater, and, in turn, efforts are becoming more sophisticated.

For those of us who have been around the online marketing game long enough, capturing Facebook Likes reminds me of how we built an email database in the mid to late 90′s. Yes, I’m showing my age but Internet business cycles do repeat themselves. I am excited to see that lots of the Internet Top 500 merchants are working so hard to capture Facebook Likes; however, the critical follow up question is; “What are you doing to monetize these Likes?” The answers or blank stares indicated an obvious marketing disconnect. At current there’s market confusion on how to effectively monetize Facebook Likes. None of them had a solid plan to work with or implement.

What is the status of your Facebook marketing?

Time, money and effort have been spent to maintain your email database; therefore by establishing a Facebook Like database you open your business up to a brand new revenue channel.  Wouldn’t you want to start developing a Facebook Likes database now rather than a year or more from now? Wouldn’t you want that revenue for your Holiday fourth quarter sales?

So let’s take a look at what merchants are currently doing to generate sales through Facebook Likes…

Most merchants today are simply creating an offer or promotion and then posting it on their Wall. This way the Likes can see those offers and can share them with their friends and family. Yup…pretty straight forward and a good start but here’s the rub?

There’s a significant challenge and hurdle to posting offers or promotions on the Facebook Wall of your consumer. It isn’t obvious but, Facebook users don’t necessarily want their Wall plastered with advertising posts from merchants that they’ve Liked.

Do you really want the Facebook Wall of your consumer to soon resemble their cluttered email inbox? If and when that happens just imagine how fast a consumer will unlike your page.

Facebook has made it easy for consumers to Like you; however, they’ve made it even easier for consumers to unlike your page.

At ShoppeSimple we enable your business to monetize Likes…

First let us build you a Facebook product store that delivers daily content right to your most engaged consumer. Why a product store on Facebook? There’s a segment of your customer file that wants to engage with your Brand on their Facebook page, they’ve done this by ‘liking’ you.

We can create and distribute your product content or work directly with you to run your own ShoppeSimple program.   Your offers will be ‘delivered’ directly to where the consumer is.  This passive, yet, direct connection to your consumer keeps your brand at top-of-mind awareness, which inevitably renders more sales.

Now, the next step is to invite your Facebook Likes to add your Brand Store to their individual Facebook page. Yes, that’s right your Facebook store can reside directly on the left rail of someone’s personal page. By gaining valuable real estate on a consumer’s personal page, your brand’s relationship with this consumer inevitably strengthens and your offers can be easily shared.  This is the power of viral marketing! A very important point to make here is that all of the transactions happen on your site. Not on Facebook.

Just to repeat…every time you distribute content through your ShoppeSimple created Facebook Store it will be seen by your Likes.  Your Likes can then share those offers with their friends & family.

By using ShoppeSimple’s web-based services you are in total control of what items are offered.  We do this without the need for your IT department. This is much more immediate than sending a request to Marketing OR IT for new product promotions.

We welcome the opportunity to show you how you can easily turn your Facebook Likes into a new source of revenue.

For more information or a demonstration, please feel free to contact me at 612-349-2740 or via email.

Best,

Jeffery

Jeffery Giesener
CEO/Founder
ShoppeSimple Network

PS. Please feel free to forward this email to a friend or colleague.