Google's Keyword Tool

Following the demise of the Overture keyword tool, that many people used as their starting point for keyword research, there has been a distinct lack of some suitable, free, alternative.

Well, that's all changed now; enter Google's search based keyword tool. It currently looks and functions a bit American centric but it's a great starting point and we're sure that, with the UK being Google's second largest market for their Adwords program, a more UK centric version will become available soon.

Le Beaujolais nouveau est arrivé

The third thursday of November every year announces "Le Beaujolais nouveau est arrivé".

It's a remarkable marketing story that dates back to 1951 when Georges Duboeuf saw the marketing potential for selling a lot of 'vin ordinaire' at a decent profit and, in the process, help the cashflow of wine producers who would normally not be able to release their new wine for sale until the 15th December in the year of harvest.

After a relaxation of these release rules, Beaujolais Nouveau was born and since George Duboeuf's first race to Paris, the event has an gathered an International following with annual events organised to get the first bottles afar a field as North America and Asia.

In 1985, in keeping with the marketing opportunity afforded by the event, the official release date was changed from 15 November to the third Thursday in November to take best advantage of marketing in the following weekend.

Barack Obama Does Social Media

There are many many stark differences between George W. Bush and Barack Obama and one of interest to us here is their embracing of technology to communicate directly with people; or not, as in George W's case.

Whereas George W allegedly doesn't even have a pc in the oval office, Barack Obama has launched a weekly broadcast, on Youtube.

Obama made good use of the internet and modern technology throughout his election campaign using social networking sites, like Youtube, Twitter and facebook to get the vote out. Rarely seen without his BlackBerry, Obama now has a Youtube channel; http://uk.youtube.com/barackobama and he seems determined to follow a former US president, Franklin D Roosevelt, who boadcast his weekly message to the electorate by radio.

Retail or Etail?

Retail sales figures published today show the extent that traditional retail is failing to attract and retain consumers.

Retail sales in October 2008 were 2.2% lower than 12 months ago. If you couple this to a 3% rise in prices over the same period, the real fall is more than 5%. Like-for-like sales have now fallen in seven of the past eight months with every sector down on a year ago (except food and footwear).

Compare this with online sales where etailers have seen a year-on-year growth of more than 16% and, with the Christmas boom-time still to come, it looks like being another good year for those businesses that sell on-line.

A quick poll earlier today of our etail customers suggests the main reasons for the growth in etail sales at the expense of traditional retail are:
1. Consumers looking for a bargain
2. Convenience of on-line shopping over retail
3. Growth in reliability of on-line stores.

We'd also add the fact that there are no limited shopping hours, no pressure from pushy shop assistants and the comfort of your home is much nicer than braving the aweful weather we're having this year.

Do you do ecommerce?

We had an enquiry the other day from a prospect asking if we 'did' ecommerce sites and what would it cost?

It's virtually impossible to price a development without knowing what you're going to develop so I started to ask some starter questions; what would they be selling, target customers, forecast volumes, product options and accessories, shipping rules...Nothing too taxing, you wouldn't have thought.

No answers were forthcoming so I helped them through a few points to think about that I subsequently realised maybe of some general interest.

Visualising your online shop as a bricks and mortar shop can help you think through what you want to achieve and how you're going to achieve it. With a traditional shop, you'd think about what customers see and think when they walk into your shop; what products you'd show them, how you'd stack shelves and group products, how would you up-sell accessories, what additional products would you have on display at checkout, what payment methods would you accept and how would you entice the customer to come back and buy some more.

The same thought process needs to be applied to an online shop. Thinking through these points will give you a better feel as to what you want to achieve and will help any developers to give you what you want in the most cost effective and efficient manner.