What I learned at eTail 2009
I just got back from eTail 2009 in Baltimore. Here’s a recap of what I learned…
- eTail puts on a great event. I met some great people and learned some things along the way. The event was well organized and everyone I talked to seemed to be getting a lot out of it.
- Retailers today are getting more savvy as to the importance of multichannel marketing, but they realize that they are far from getting it right.
- Baltimore is a cool city, at least the part I was in. And the Baltimore Hilton is great.
- What seemed to be basic usability suggestions by some of the speakers were getting positive nods by the audience and furious note taking. This tells me that retailers are still behind the eight-ball when it comes to simple usability best practices. Focus in the conversion area (vs the traffic area) would help these business a great deal.
- Range does conference schwag the best. No comparison.
- Social is an area that most retailers aren’t even close to approaching, and few are getting it right. Seems like creating a Facebook Fan Page is some kind of stroke of genius. Lot of room for growth here.
- Sponsor and vendor presentations should always be read in advance and approved. As is usually the case, 80% of them were fraught with sales collateral and “look at how great I am” statistics. Most attendees saw right through that.
- There wasn’t a whole lot of tweeting going on, which surprised me. I think the marketers there would be wise to start playing with Twitter. I believe there are big things ahead when this kind of micro-communication meshes with e-commerce (it’ll happen, trust me).
But of the tweeting that did occur, here are a few notables:
- @bob_williams: “56% of ppl said wld be less likely to buy from a brand offline if they have issues online” Geoff Galat Tealeaf #etail CEM
- diamondbuyer: Don’t require customers to register in order to buy something ok your site – I agree 23% give up at that point #etail
- bob_williams: Dell twitter strategy – put personalities on your accounts, not a corporate drone. #etail
- gregcangialosi: OK, its 2:30pm and they are serving beer in the exhibit hall at @etail_baltimore :-) They say Baltimore’s a drinking town but WOW :-) #etail
Nice format, Jeff. Christian (from Paris Notre Dame)
Regarding social media use, I'll add that some of the attendees have not yet heard the message that it's about community, conversation, and customer. Sales and profits come as a by-product of meeting a customer need. The line of questioning in the morning social media discussion from Dell was like a feeding frenzy to push product via social media tools. I agree with you, there is definitely room for growth here.
Christian, how are you! Glad to hear from you, Facebook me and tell me how you've been. One day I'm going to come back and bring my wife and visit you guys.
Jeff
Yeah, completely agree. What I found was that most people were focused on the sale today, and what they could do to convert and sell customers immediately. Obviously that's important, but what they're missing is the longer term sale. It's dating. Consumers more and more are waiting to get feedback from their friends and social graph and the companies that understand that side of the channel are going to be the long term winners (IMHO).
Thanks for being one of the few Tweeters at the event. Maybe I'll see you at Shop.org later this year?
Thank you for your Twitt, very useful . This is a new 'social' manner to gain from attending a conference : knowing what others have found interesting. Especially for international attendants vho don't cath it all the first time.
Thank you for your Twitt, very useful . This is a new 'social' manner to gain from attending a conference : knowing what others have found interesting. Especially for international attendants vho don't cath it all the first time.