Lawrence Gee | Marketing, Internet, Creativity, Strategy

Thoughts on Cyber Monday and the Rest of the Holiday Season

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.

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Call to Action - SEMPO State-of-the-SEM Market Survey

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…

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CNN: Don’t be US Weekly

It a sad commentary on what we value in society when Britney Spears’ hospital stay is the front page story over a little thing like the INTERNET going down for part of the world…

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Search Marketing Has a Bright Future

I came across an article today called “Search Marketing: A Rewarding Career Path ” on Search Engine Watch today. It basically was discussing the results of a new survey of in-house SEMs conducted by SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization . Some very interesting facts from the article:

• ~64 percent of respondents had five years of SEM experience or less.
• For those with 0-3 years of experience…
  • 8.0% made over $100K
  • 48.8% made between $50-100K
  • 43.2% made less than $50K
• For those with 5-7 years of experience…
  • …they make significantly more.
  • The majority (56.4%) make more than $80,000 a year. Of this, 4.4% reported earning more than $200,000 and 30.3% make between $100,000 and $200,000.
• Few senior management roles for Search as of now - Only 4% had VP titles and 10% had Director titles.

Some very interesting numbers and figures, especially considering that SEM is a relatively new field of marketing. Simple supply and demand theory implies that salaries should be decent for both inexperienced and experienced hires. How many graduating college students have degrees or concentrations in Internet Marketing? Yes, exactly.

Of course, in the next 3-5 years this will obviously change. I recently took an Internet Marketing class as part of my MBA curriculum at USC Marshall. A few years ago it was an experimental class; today its a regularly listed elective. We all should expect more colleges and universities to offer courses like this. It’s hard to deny the fact that the Internet is an important channel for any marketer to get a grasp on. It will definitely be a competitive advantage going forward for any company and individual who gets it.

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The Social Bandwagon

Being honest with your customers is key to getting the relationship you want out of them — that being long-term, loyal, consumers.  Social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook were meant to give the Internet community a way of sharing ideas, creating interaction, and making connections.  Blogs and UGC (user generated content) sites like Youtube were meant to be authentic and allow individual expression.

When companies enter these communities, build product pages, and plant videos, are they still being honest with the intentions of these sites? Are companies just jumping onto the bandwagon to say that they have a Web 2.0 presence?  Alas, companies are not likely to stop strategizing and entering onto these sites but unless they create authentic connections with their customers, it’s unlikely to translate into more sales.

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