Cyber Monday, albeit with conflicting statistics, seems to have outperformed 2007.  comScore has stated that sales were 15% better. Nielson claims that shopping sites within its retail index saw 10% increased traffic from last year. It did say that top 500 retail sites were down 1% of traffic though. Among the winners seems to have been Amazon, which saw a 21% year over year growth in traffic, and according to Hitwise had 10.77% off all US traffic on Cyber Monday.

So is the 2008 Holiday retail sales doomed as predicted or has Cyber Monday shown a silver lining? I don’t envision death to retail but then again I also don’t see a Holiday season of anything better than flat growth. According to comScore, the Holiday Shopping is down by 2% overall including Cyber Monday.  As consumers become more Internet savvy, I’m really not surprised that overall internet traffic has picked up.  But I think most of this traffic growth is due to media’s influence of reporting huge deals by struggling retailers and consumers willingness to scour for deals and coupons.

Most of the deals this Holiday season seem to be 20% or 25% off with free shipping for Internet retailers. There seems to be a proliferation of these deals that are being remarketed as something new every week.  Not a bad option for those new 2009 clothing lines, sporting goods, or small electronics.  However, if you are in the market for anything larger, like the flat screen TV that I’m waiting for, I would be holding tight and waiting for the January clearance.

It’s time to give back to SEM community.  I just did and it takes about 15 minutes.

The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) has launched its fifth annual State-of-the-SEM Market Survey. Whether or not you are an experienced Internet Professional or just getting started in the industry, it’s a survey that you should do to benefit the community.  You even get the results of the survey sent to you once it’s completed.  That means more stats and figures to pour over.  If you are in SEM, you like that sort of thing.

As a bonus, SEMPO is offering two prizes that will be picked randomly – a free pass to any one of the 2009 SES conferences and an iPod Touch.

I have an iPhone but I guess an iPod Touch would be a welcome addition…

Well it’s sure been a long hiatus since my last blog post – a lot of things have happened.

In May, I completed my MBA education at USC Marshall School of Business, having graduated with Beta Gamma Sigma honors.

In July, I married my girlfriend of five years and got to honeymoon in Belize.  I also started my current job as Internet Marketing Manager at LAMPS PLUS.

In August & September, I got accustomed to post-MBA and newly-married life.   I’ve learned that the flexibility of school hours really is something special.  I’ve also learned that being flexible in marriage is also special.

In  October & November, most weekends were busy with attending other weddings and weekend trips (Joshua Tree, San Francisco, New York). All fun but time-consuming.

Now, that I’ve gotten settled back into the swing of things restarting my blog postings was on the top of my list.  Now with this posting, I can officially cross that task off my list.

Stay tuned for more commentary and thoughts on Marketing, the Internet, and more.

Following up on my posting of a Creative Brief for Gatorade Tiger, this is what Gatorade did for its first commercial.  I’m not a big fan of the sci-fi slant and slight hokeyness of the commercial.  I think Gatorade would have been better served focusing on the winning aspects of Tiger much like the “Be Like Mike” Nike campaigns of the early 1990s.

I came across a great article today on ClickZ on how Zappos is using customer service to create Word of Mouth advertising.  The main idea is that by creating great service, customers are happy.  Happy customers become evangelists for your company and products.  Evangelists tell their friends about how great your company or product is, which in turn creates new customers.  Your new customers also become happy through your great service and the cycle continues on and on.

The benefits of creating great interaction points with your consumers is not only repeat business but the ability to spend less on advertising and other promotions to gain awareness or trial. The premise is simple but many companies overlook how important being customer focused is in all aspects of their business.  It’s not only about having a great service staff but also having the customer focused attitude and beliefs throughout your organization.

My former company, Aplia, did a great job of using customer service to its full advantage.  We believed in giving 24/7 support for our professors (customers) and students (users).  Our internal goal was to reply to each support email within 1 hour. Often we replied back to our users within minutes. It wasn’t only our support teams that had our customers in mind.  Our product development process was always customer focused.  Our goal wasn’t just to produce a great product but how we could support the needs of our users better.  We spent alot of time using customer feedback, usability studies, and sales force intelligence to gain insight.  We took the time to listen and our customers loved us for it.  We always overdelivered as an organization and it became a competitive advantage for us.