Marketing

Canadian Retailers and Ecommerce – The Future….

We have been advising our retail clients that the future is digital eCommerce. This innovative marketplace is expanding in Canada and becoming more common place for consumers to not only research there future purchases online but also buy online. A recent Retail Insider online article highlighting the Canadian retail outlook discussed the future of E-Tailing (Electronic Retailing) in Canada (2015 Canadian Retail Outlook, by J.C. Williams Group). The article highlighted their prediction for E-Tailing in Canada:

“E-tail (with 82% of Canadians researching products online and 71% making a recent purchase – source: J.C. Williams Group Canadian E-tail Report) is now a formidable and growing force. Commodities like electronics and entertainment have penetration of over 30%—and even apparel has 18% of expenditures spent online. Any retailer not moving to cross-channel or omni-channel retail will be left behind.”

Rereading the final sentence of this quote we think its important to highlight, “Any retailer not moving to cross-channel or omni-channel retail will be left behind”. Don’t get left behind on this incredible opportunity.

C360

Sources:

• eMarketer: Retail Ecommerce Sales in Canada to Near C$30 Billion
• Retail Insider: 2015 Canadian Retail Outlook, by J.C. Williams Group

Business Checklist for CASL Compliance: Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation

How to prepare for Canada’s New Anti-Spam Legislation:

Identify a key individual or individuals in your business and form a committee of one or a committee representative of each department affected to address CASL going forward.

Identifying what kinds of CEMs are currently being sent, what form these CEMs take, to whom they are sent, and why are they sent?

Identifying Exemptions – categorizing (with appropriate supporting information) CEM recipients who fall under one or more of the exceptions to CASL; such as,  where the sender (a) has a family or personal relationship with the recipient, (b) is responding to the recipient’s request, inquiry or complaint, (c) is enforcing a legal right, (d) is sending a business-to-business CEM (within and between firms) in the context of an ongoing business relationship, or (e) is a foreign business sending a CEM to a foreign recipient who accesses the CEM while roaming in Canada.

Once CASL comes into force (July 1st , 2014), you can’t send an electronic message requesting consent because it will be considered a CEM.

Should there be any question about compliance with CASL, you need to be able to say when, where and how you received permission. The easiest way to track permission is to have people electronically grant permission – then the database shows a date, time and method of permission. The onus is on you to clearly prove permission.

Some changes should be made to the technology you use for the purpose of tracking  CASL consents and related information.

Under CASL there will be requirements for your business to change certain business message processes.

Canadian Small Biz need to increase spending on their websites

While 84% of Canadians are online, just 17% of businesses sell online. Source: BDC

Since watching this video it has always resonated with me that not a lot of Canadian businesses seem to be sold on the whole idea of selling their products online. As this chart shows US based companies are investing more and more this year on their website. If Canadian businesses are to follow suit I do recommend you consider adding an eCommerce component to your website tool kit and start testing the market of your products and services online.

C360

Slidedeck – Canada’s New Anti-Spam Legislation

This is a recent slide-deck presented at both the Milton Young Professionals Group, part of the Milton Chamber of Commerce and Milton Business Connections. The purpose of the presentation is to educate individuals, business owners and organizations on the basics of what is Canada’s new anti-spam legislation.

Richard Bolton

C360

Adding Coupons can Help your Email Marketing Performance

Dealing from experience there has always been a greater open rate and click rate on emails that have some form of coupon. Working with one client of ours, they wanted to include a coupon in a newsletter email blast. The coupon was readily available on they’re website. We decided to put the coupon in the email to test the conversion rate. Wow! What a difference. They’re client clicks on the coupon was astronomical in comparison to they’re previous emails and to the click rate of the coupon on the website, ten  times higher. Try adding a coupon to your next email blast to test conversion.

Emails with discounts have higher open, click and transaction rates.

Richard Bolton

C360

The Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) and your Small Business.

On July 1^st 2014 a new anti-spam legislation will be rolled out in Canada that will affect all businesses that send commercial electronic messages or CEM’s. This wide sweeping new law should cut back on the amount of spam email, phishing schemes and the unwanted computer software attacking our business computers.

Unfortunately, it has also created a lot of confusion among small business owners as to what exactly needs to be done to prepare for CASL. At this time, before the law comes in into play, what we are recommending is a CASL compliance audit to review exactly what forms of electronic messages your business sends on a daily basis and establish what levels on consent you have with your existing clients or customers. Communications such as email, SMS text, and social media messages all need to comply with CASL.

Here is a short FAQ prepared from a recent presentation on CASL:

Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation FAQ

What is SPAM?

Spam can be defined as any electronic commercial message sent without the express consent of the recipient(s). Other online threats such as spyware, phishing and malware.

What is CASL?

Canada’s Anti-Spam Law (CASL) was drafted to keep unsolicited, unwanted electronic messages out of Canadians’ in-boxes while still permitting businesses, and consumers, to maintain mutually beneficial relationships (Deloitte). The Anti-Spam Act imposes significant restrictions on the sending of unsolicited commercial electronic messages or CEM’s. In effect: July 1^st 2014

What is a commercial electronic message or CEM?

A commercial electronic message is any electronic message that encourages participation in a commercial activity, regardless of whether there is an expectation of profit.

Email, SMS Texts, instant messages and social network messages (Tweets, Facebook Posts) are all electronic messages.

What is exempt from CEM?

Even if a message is a CEM, you will not need consent to:

–        Send a quotation upon request

–        Complete a transaction

–        Provide warranty, recall or safety information

In all of these cases you must still include the prescribed information & an unsubscribe mechanism.

What is Consent?

After July 1st, 2014: You can’t send a CEM without consent from the recipient.

Express Consent

Express, meaning someone actively gave you permission to send them a CEM.

Can be in the form of:

–          Sign‐up on a website

–        Response to a contest or coupon offer

–        Sign‐up at point of sale

–        Sign‐up over the phone

Implied Consent

Implied, meaning it would be reasonable to conclude you have someone’s permission to send them a CEM based on prior relationships.

A Family relationship

A personal relationship

A business or non-business relationship

Why am I telling you this now?

Once CASL comes into force (July 1^st, 2014), you can’t send an electronic message requesting consent because it will be considered a CEM.

Make sure you keep records. The onus is on you. Are you prepared to comply before CASL comes into effect?

For additional information here are some sources that we have reviewed to educate ourselves on the new law:

Government of Canada – Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation

What Canada’s new anti-spam law means to you – Deloitte

CASL: What you need to know about Canada’s new Anti-Spam Legislation – Retail Council of Canada

C360

Canadians research online… but are they buying online

I spent a lot of time last year researching Canadian based business and their adoption of eCommerce or online selling. The Boston Consulting Group did a study of the of G-20 countries that indicated that Canada is behind in the adoption of technology by business and in the size of our internet economy. This was echoed by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in a policy resolution (Read more: The Digital Economy Strategy: Ensuring Canada’s Economic Success using Information and Communications Technologies). More recently I was reviewing a video from the BDC (Business Development Bank of Canada) that indicates that 84% of Canadian consumers are online and connected to the internet but only 17% of businesses in Canada actually sell online and that 20% of companies with 10 or more employees don’t even have a website. I’ll let that sink in. You can view the video on the BDC website, view video: CAPITALIZING ON THE INTERNET REVOLUTION. But now with this eMarketer article (Consumers in Canada Research Online, but Don’t Buy, After Seeing TV Ads) it confirms that Canadians are researching products online but suggests that they are not converting online, actually buying. It no doubt confirms that the audience is much more informed before they ever enter your business or retail location. But how can we close the gap and make more Canadian consumers buy online and more Canadian based business sell online. I’m working on it! ;o)

C360

Canada’s Younger Adults Devour Video

We’re approaching the heart of the winter for 2014; this year has been a cold one! As Canadian’s were used to it. We spend a good part of our time indoors avoiding the cold (ok, when I’m not skiing!) and I’m wonder whether that might be part of the reason why we’re watching so much video.  A recent article on eMarketer (Canada’s Younger Adults Devour Video: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Canadarsquos-Younger-Adults-Devour-Video/1010518/3) details that nearly “Nearly 90% of the country’s internet users are online video viewers” and that “In Canada, the number of videos consumed online has jumped 140% over the past three years, according to data released by comScore in November 2013. What does this say about how we are now taking in information and how we are using video in our business to convey our message and market our products? Those small businesses that have a target demographic of a younger age might want to consider the effective use of video marketing.  Video is something I’m going to be using more of in my business, how do you use video in your business?

Source:

eMarketer (January 24, 2014):http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Canadarsquos-Younger-Adults-Devour-Video/1010518/3

Eight Essential Small Business Internet Marketing Tools

Marketing your business on the internet successfully is a very important part of today’s competitive business landscape. There are many internet marketing tools available to small business that they can use to grow their customer base and challenge their competition big or small. These are some of the tools that I use when working with my clients. Some may be very familiar to you and perhaps underutilized where others might not be familiar to you.

Here are eight essential marketing tools:

HootSuite

If you’re looking for a marketing tool to track your Social Media efforts, HootSuite is a very feature rich dashboard for managing your brand on Social Media channels (I.E. Facebook) with excellent reporting capabilities. You can immediately publish and schedule content for release on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, WordPress and many more. HootSuite is a free tool but if you’re tracking more than five Social Media channels you will have to pay a small monthly fee. HootSuite is based in Vancouver, B.C.  www.hootsuite.com

WordPress.com

WordPress.com is a great way to start your first blog and/or get a website live in seconds that has loads of functionality but very cost effective, nada!  They have great themes for the look of your site, plenty of widgets (add-on pieces) and lots of viewer stats and you can track blog comments. Blogging is a great way to express thought leadership on a topic specific to your industry or business. Search engines love blog content.  www.wordpress.com

Google Analytics

A lot of people are familiar with Google Analytics but may or may not be using it. Google Analytics is a free service by Google that generates detailed statistics of the traffic (viewers) of your website and presents this information in the form of an easy to read dashboard. Google Analytics can track website visitors from all search engines,  AdWords campaign traffic, pay-per-click referrers etc. All it takes is for you website guru to drop a bit of computer code on your website and you’re ready to go in a few steps. Use it; it’s a powerful marketing tool! www.google.com/analytics

Google Keyword Tool

Keyword research is a very important part of your internet marketing strategy. Keywords are the search terms that people enter into the search engines when there trying to find your business (I.E. Hair Salon Milton). It’s really important that your website or blog have these keywords in locations like the title of your website so that search engines can rank your site accordingly. Take a few minutes to check out the Google Keyword Tool to determine the actual search terms people enter into the search engines when conducting a search for your business. https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

YouTube

I’m pretty sure by now most everyone knows the video sharing website YouTube. YouTube was purchase by Google in 2006. Billions of videos are watched on YouTube every single day. It can be a very effect marketing tool for any small business trying to market their product and services to a global or local customer. Businesses can have their own dedicated YouTube page or Channel on which you can post product videos, company profiles or just a walk through showcase of your business. The Milton Chamber of Commerce has a YouTube channel for member videos and event coverage. Again search engines love video, use it effectively as a differentiator in your business. www.youtube.com

Open Site Explorer

This marketing tool is probably not familiar to you. One important part of winning the search engine ranking game with your business is to have what are called backlinks or incoming/inbound links to your website from quality external sources or other websites (I.E. Partners/Friends/Customers). The more legitimate backlinks you have the higher your website is ranked against your competition. At Open Search Explorer you can input your website address and see how many websites link to yours. Don’t forget to try it for your competition as well to see where you stand. Try it! www.opensiteexplorer.org

GoToMeeting

GoToMeeting is an internet hosted service for remote meetings and sharing your desktop that enables users of GoToMeeting to meet with other computer users, customers, clients on the internet in real time. This tool has really help me in marketing my business through hosting webinars with prospects to review products, give presentations or help someone resolve a problem by viewing their computer desktop. Hosting a weekly webinar is a fun way of spreading the message of your products and services to a global audience. GoToMeeting does have a price to it costing me approximately $50 per monthly. Considering how much it saves me in travel and fuel costs its well worth it. www.GoToMeeting.com

Market Samurai

Market Samurai is another one of those more obscure marketing tools that you may not have heard of but it does have some great features when it comes to search engine keyword analysis and research. I use it with quite a few of my clients. Market Samurai is like Google Keyword Tool on steroids. It can not only preform keyword research but it will also compare your rankings to that of your competition, very powerful. Use it as a key differentiator. The price of Market Samurai is a little more than the other tools I have offered here but it is definitely worth it, expect to spend somewhere between $100 and $150.  Try the free trial for 12 days and get a discount. www.marketsamurai.com

I hope you have a chance to try some of these internet marketing tools and they help you in growing your business.

Richard Bolton – Centricity360 Consulting

The Benefits of Video Marketing for Business

“The Benefits of Video Marketing for Business written for the Milton Chamber of Commerce Newsletter”

A few years ago I read an interesting article in the Globe and Mail that left a lasting impression on me. The article explains how presidents and business owners in this fast pace economic climate consume information; in short snippets of written text and online videos. The article detailed that preference is given to watching online videos. Video engages more senses than written text which only uses one medium.

The fact that there is somewhat of a video revolution going on is not new. You Tube has now become the second largest search engine on the internet; it has become so popular that it receives more visitors every day than the company that owns it, Google. There are literally billions of daily views of videos online and there not just videos of furry puppies chasing their tails. Businesses are leveraging the power of this tool to educate their audience.

In fact, this summer was a perfect personal example of the power of this media. We were at the cottage for the Canada Day Long Weekend, on beautiful Lake Temagami. My sister bought a tent for my nephew. On the day of the camping trip the instructions did not do justice to the task of assembling this monster in the 3 easy steps that were recommended. She surfed over to You Tube and there was a step by step video from the manufacturer on how to assemble the tent. 1-2-3 Done!

The Milton Chamber of Commerce recently launched a Video Profile Program in partnership with Creative Bube Tube offering a web commercial for member only businesses. This unique way of marketing not only provides a visual experience of your business to other Chamber members and local online customers but it also opens your business to a national and international marketplace. Take advantage of this program by calling the Chamber for details today!

Here are a few of the many benefits of online video marketing for your business today:

• People Like Viewing Videos: As I mentioned above, people are watching billions of videos every day, it’s today’s preferred method of communication. Businesses are now using this media for; providing helpful advice and product demonstrations, client video testimonials, sale and event promotion, how-to -videos and product reviews, store front walk- through and online commercials etc. Remember, online audiences are more excited about watching than they are about reading content. Video offers a better quality experience to your prospective customer.
• Search Engine Optimization Benefits and Website Stickiness: When posting a video on You Tube, a website or blog and properly tagging (keyword labelling) it increases your internet search ranking. Videos now appear in Google search results or SERP’s (Search Engine Results Page).  Video can also cause prospective online customers to spend more time on your website or sticking to your site longer reducing your bounce rate (The more compelling your website the more visitors will stay on your site and convert to customers or clients).
• Increase Branding and Credibility:  By uniquely branding your videos you can increase your business visibility and reach by displaying your logo and website on the video. Videos can also position you and your company as thought leaders or experts in your field giving you more online credibility.
• Global Audience Reach: If you’re looking for a way to expand your business outside of Milton to an international marketplace a video on YouTube can open your business to the world. Imagine the possibilities if your video went viral across the internet!

These are but a few of the many reasons to look into posting video for your business. Grab your digital video cameras or call the Chamber today and take advantage of the Video Profile Program.

See you online!

Richard Bolton

Centricity360 Consulting

VP Milton Chamber of Commerce