Stores Magazine - December 2007 - (Page 64)

NUTS AND BOLTS / MARKETING combines the company’s MTA and EAS software with its e-mail marketing and management application. While high rates of deliverability are key to the system’s success, the company also helps its clients to create targeted, personalized email campaigns, with visibility at every stage of delivery and control and flexibility in e-mail volume. And, depending on the specific StrongMail application, the platform provides clients with campaign management tools, help with content creation, data segmentation and targeting functions. Bounce management StrongMail’s strong suit is “bounce management,” according to Tricia Robinson-Pridemore, vice president of product and market strategy for the Redwood Shores, Calif.-based company. “When an e-mail is not received, the bounces are looked at in two ways: Is it a temporary failure, such as a full mailbox, or is it a permanent failure, such as the mailbox no longer exists? In the case of the latter, StrongMail “provides information about each individual address and how the message is being sent or received,” she says. Possible solutions for those permanent failures include a checklist of issues that should be considered, such as inaccurate addresses and the actual content of emails. “We offer a best practices approach, based on what we have seen in the market and what we have heard from ISPs on how they are handling deliverability,” Robinson-Pridemore says. Installation of the StrongMail platform requires just a few days and carries fixed costs, minimal maintenance costs and no monthly fees. Clients who are replacing a home-grown system typically recover their initial investment in a few months, Robinson-Pridemore says, while those who were renting their previous system can usually recover their investment within weeks. In the case of Golfballs.com, StrongMail personalized e-mails with the recipient’s name, past purchases and recent behavior; those e-mails could also in64 STORES / DECEMBER 2007 clude product photos of past purchases. Since it began using StrongMail’s systems in August 2005, Golfballs.com has been freed up to explore new ways to customize individual e-mails rather than having to monitor “send” functions. “The system has paid for itself many times over,” Broussard says. StORES Michael Hartnett is a Brewster, N.Y.based business writer. Follow the Crowd E-commerce system helps emulate shopping buzz BY D. GAIL FLEENOR full parking lot is generally a sign of a good restaurant. A long line can indicate a new movie is worth the price of a ticket. This unspoken “wisdom of crowds” has been unavailable to Internet shoppers until recently. Since customers generally don’t shop the same way online as they do in bricks-and-mortar stores, long-standing sales techniques don’t easily translate to the Internet. A This realization prompted Aggregate Knowledge to create what it deems the industry’s first “discovery network” — an online system that emulates the way people discover and shop for products and information offline. The network uses the collective behavior of Internet users to deliver relevant content and product placement on customer websites. Aggregate Knowledge CEO Paul Martino and products vice president Chris Law previously developed social network Tribe.net. “They found that the real indicator of customer interest on the web could be better seen through aggregate behavior observation rather than what customers say they do,” says Dave Peterson, chief marketing officer of the San Mateo, Calif.-based company. Aggregate Knowledge’s Pique Onsite Discovery “is a breakthrough way for retailers to have their customers lead each other to the mostrelevant and high-value products across their site.” AlwaysOn Media recently ranked Aggregate Knowledge among the top 100 private companies for “innovation, market potential, cusWWW.STORES.ORG http://Golfballs.com http://Tribe.net http://WWW.STORES.ORG

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Stores Magazine - December 2007

STORES - December 2007 Contents Executive Editor's Page President's Page Holiday Shopping Extravagance What Shoppers Think 10 Things You May Have Missed Numbers Worth Counting Full Price/Markdown Retail People Niche Marketing Eight Predictions for 2008 Concept2Watch Merchandising Strategy Sourcing E-Commerce Supply Chain Warehouse Management Software Contactless Payments Marketing Marketing Online Loeb Retail Letter ARTS Update Point of View NRF News Retail Industry Calendar Last Laugh

Stores Magazine - December 2007

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