GoPromoIt - Enabling e-tailers to reward customers for word of mouth advertising

This post was provided by our friend Corrie Davidson, who works as the New Media Coordinator & Product Manager for Washington based online marketing agency Captico. Corrie is a savvy communicator with an interesting perspective and I consider us lucky to have the opportunity to host her here

One of the clearest indicators of online shopping’s growing popularity is “Cyber Monday”.

For a few years now the the Monday after Thanksgiving has seen millions of Americans hit online stores searching for hot digital deals from the comfort of their homes.

The Cyber Monday phenomenon is clearly on the rise since first sarted in 2005 and according, to Internet marketing research company Comscore, this year spending crossed the billion Dollar threshold for this first time.

Cyber Monday Spending 2005-2010 (Stats via Comscore.com)

Videos, as my friends at Treepodia can tell you, will certainly help you sell your merchandise once your shoppers are in your store. But how do you get them looking at it to begin with?

Introducing GoPromoIT

GoPromoIt is a new coupon-code based application hopes to help you solve that question. Installed as a button added to any ecommerce website it enables purchasers to share a link back to the site with their Twitter or Facebook friends. In return for the social advertising they thus provide the site they become eligible for a discount or deal predefined by the vendor. Sites must be able to take accept coupon codes in their checkout process as a prerequisite for using the platform.

Tested successfully on Wall2WallStickers and jewelry seller JJ Singh GoPromoIt reportedly came through on the promise to increase exposure. Traffic on these sites has spiked as high as 65% above preceding averages since implementing GoPromoIt. Denny Hamlin’s Speed Wash, a Virginia based car wash, also reported getting positive feedback for their discount offerings. The increase in traffic, one must note, did NOT come at the cost of increased bounce rates, indicating that the new visitors sent to the sites represented interested consumers and qualified leads.

It’s still early days for the service but so far the 50 or so businesses participating in the Beta phase pilot agree that GopromoIt seems to be  a great way to increase awareness and sales via a simple utilization of one of the most basic principles of the social web – the ability to harness “Word of Mouth” validation online.

GoPromoIt also actively promotes the brands who use its service on its website and its Twitter account.

Sharing Statistics – Facebook vs Twitter

An interesting by-product of GoPromoIt’s pilot is sharing statistics:

• Sharing on Facebook was 63% more likely than on Twitter
• 85% of users elected not to customize the promotion message offered by the system as default -

For more information on GoPromoIt, screen captures, and a walk through of how it works, check out: “GoPromoIt.com – Discounts for sharing with your social network”

Dr. Melody King - Our VP for Sales & Marketing

On March 5th, our very own VP of Sales and Marketing, Dr. Melody King was interviewed on Webside Chats.

Webside Chats, in case you aren’t familiar with the site, is produced by Jack Humphrey: “who’s sole purpose is to track down the leading experts in internet marketing, blogging, SEO, and branding and pump them for insider information for the benefit of new to advanced marketers”.

Although of course we have a particularly soft spot for video, we appreciate all mediums for communicating our message, and it was an honor to be hosted in this audio format.

Automated Video is always impressive

In case you didn’t catch the Treepodia interview just yet, to summarize, Jack and Melody discussed the growing importance of video online in general, and on retail sites in particular.

Melody went on to describe the Treepodia platform and how it uses retailer’s existing marketing materials to automatically generate product videos in a time-effective and cost-effective manner, thereby removing all barriers to adding video to any retailer’s site.

Throughout the conversation, Jack was particularly impressed by this automated process, and the ease of installation (adding just a couple of lines to code, once, to the retailer’s site). But the thing he seemed most enthusiastic about was the type of relationship Treepodia builds with its retailers in offering long-term service with continual video version A/B testing.

85% Increases to Conversion Rates…

Other things that were discussed include the details behind how we do automated voice-overs, some stats on conversion rates (starting at an 85% increase), and practical examples of the difference different video versions can make to your bottom-line.

We recommend that you listen to the interview in its entirety for a great summary of all that the Treepodia smart video platform can do for your online store. If you have any questions or comments, you are always free to contact us.

“Social Media ROI is the hardest job in town”

In the post, largely based on a post published on Socialnomics’s own blog, Aden claims that:

“Everyone knows that trying to measure Social Media ROI is the hardest job in town. It’s so diverse in every application that there is no single (or simple) way to measure all the outputs into a single report, let alone track sales indirectly from the effects of their social presence.”

Granted, a single dashboard for measuring the effects of your Social Media efforts, isn’t something I’ve come across yet. However there are a number tools that can give you a pretty good idea, especially when used together.

Introducing Better Google Analytics

For those of you using Firefox there’s a free and funky solution I’ve been using for a while and highly recommend: The “Better Google Analytics” GreaseMonkey scripts by Erik Vold.

Better Goolge Analytics add, amongst other nifty features, a set of social media related data to your standard Google Analytics dashboard. Since Better Google Analytics is a GreaseMonkey script all you have to do is install the addon and your good to go – simple, quick and zero risk.

Do you Youtube insight?

Another tip is the splendid “Youtube Insight” dashboard accessible with any Youtube account.
Once you have enough volume, Youtube Insight provides great demographic data regarding the people who’ve viewed your videos. If most of the views for your video come from embedded views on your video you can also easily cross reference the Insight data with the any other stats you collect.

Tubemogul for video analytics

My last tip is also related to video:
Tubemogul, an excellent video syndication platform, has a nice analytics panel for following cross domain video campaigns that they make available to free accounts as well. You’re welcome to learn more about what they do from the following video presentation I found on their homepage:

Measuring Social Media ROI – Not easy, but not impossible either

Indeed a 1-stop-shop for tracing and proving Social Media ROI is, as of now, still unavailable. But, if you’re prepared to invest a little extra time, you can piece together a pretty complete picture from the fragments that are available.

Does Microsoft have a LookingGlass up its sleeve?

As a final note, for those of you who remember, in September the web was all a-buzz about Microsoft’s LookingGlass which will supposedly finally answer the market’s need for a one-stop Social Media analytics panel. I Guess we’ll all just have to wait and see…

Epilogue

Funnily enough, an hour after publishing this post I found an excellent post by David Berkowitz that lists no less than 100 ways to measure social media. A day later I ran into a great post by Urs Gattiker of SocialMediaToday, that did an excellent job of analyzing why Social Media ROI analysis often fails and suggested a few point for planning strategy that helps avoid these pitfalls.

image credit: annia316

Yes, I know, it’s a pretty crass attempt at grabbing your attention, but if you’re reading this… hey, it worked. AND, I do have a point.

According to a recent article in eMarketer, people are “Going Social Anywhere and Everywhere”.

“…60% of Twitter users reported using only their computer to access the service, microbloggers are highly mobile, accessing social media from the washroom, the car, the theater and even during a religious service…”

They’re not just shamelessly updating their Facebook statuses, revealing more about themselves than you never wanted to know. They are doing it, literally, in the most uncanny of places.

The graphs included in the eMarketer article tells us where American social media users are accessing their accounts:

Where US Social Media Users Have Accessed Their Accounts

And in what situations:

Situations Where US Social Media Users Have Accessed Their Accounts

So what do we learn from these graphs?

Well, the high percentage of people accessing social media during work hours, particularly for those under 35, is obvious enough. What’s slightly less expected is the relatively large number of people doing the same from the washroom or toilet (second only to work).

Truly disturbing is the fact that a vast percentage of people are checking up on their social circle while driving (eyes on the road people!), and right after sex (is romance THAT dead?).

Priorities people!

Which leaves only one question, really, where are your priorities?
We’re definitely all for staying up-to-date with the social media scene, but really…

I guess the moral of the story is that people really like their social media, and there’s just never a time too personal nor too sacred, when they aren’t at least tempted to give it a peek…

Oh, and if you’re not already doing so, you should definitely start following us on Twitter @treepodia.