some good insight that seems so easy, yet so many companies forget. the end goal: keep your customer thrilled. surely worked for zappos.

well, not exactly.

however, companies like petco understand that owners only want the best food, clothes, toys, treats, even snuggies for their animal friends – and since our pets can’t tell us (not in a spoken language, anyway), they turned to the owners for answers.

petco needed to learn valuable information for its products without having to spend thousands on surveys or focus groups. instead, they implemented an online customer ratings system and hosted “digital conversations”.  quickly, the pet goods retailer noticed that they were losing money on product returns that continued to increases as a result of very low ratings.

the solution? the company decided to use the information they obtained to improve their product and get even more feedback using digital strategies. the results? according to a wammo case study, “petco integrated ratings and reviews into email campaigns and realized a 5x increase in email click-through rates. petco [also] integrated Bazaarvoice with its site search and navigation solution to create top-rated products paths that highlighted four- and five-start products in each category. these ‘top-rated product’ paths delivered 40% higher conversion and 60% higher average order value than their traditional shopping paths”.

petco effectively turned decreasing returns for their low rated products into increasing returns for high rated products while simultaneously giving pets a ‘voice’. so maybe cats and dogs aren’t running petco.com (some very smart people are), but this is an important way for pet owners to exchange advice without investing in poor quality products and losing faith in the store brand

petco also took a more social approach to creating an online community. one example of this is their howl-o-ween pet costume contest, where owners uploaded pictures with stories (and recommended products) of their pets dressed up on the website. it’s a facebook for pets/pet owners, if you will. and who doesn’t love to share pictures of their pet and have others marvel at the cuties?  here is an example of one account:

source: bazaarvoice.com

and we’re guessing that the more time people spent on their website, the more they explored products, the more petco.com benefitted from howl-o-ween. gotta run, the pints are busy perusing petco.com to purchase holiday gifts for their four-legged best friends!

nowadays, a typical research mission starts at a search engine. thanksgiving recipes? google. can’t find what i need on google? switch to yahoo. need more specific information about something i found on yahoo? wikipedia. it’s great, as a consumer, to have millions of results show up every time we search for something on the internet. but this isn’t great news for businesses whose sites aren’t optimized for organic search. this means that your website, even if it has the best thanksgiving recipes known to man, will never be seen by a potential customer.

the days when businesses had to focus only on their brand and services are long gone. now businesses have to focus on how consumers will find their company on the internet as well as building their brand. in the world of search engines, seo (short for search engine optimization) is king. seo is the process of improving your site’s ranking on the major search properties. in other words does a relevant keyword bring up your website and on what page? why is good seo important? put simply, because 62% of search users only click a link on the first page of search results.

here are some quick tips to improve your seo:

1. keywords, keywords, keywords
choosing the right words is crucial to getting noticed on large search engines. please describe your business and services or products in a concise sentence or two, and use those keywords. you will also need to refine your html or css tags and make sure that your web content is contains frequent keywords. go here to learn more about keyword selection.

2. a high performance loading time improves your ranking
the faster your website loads, the better. for some businesses, that might mean ditching HTML code for a more efficient CSS code. go check your website’s loading time here.

3. linkbaiting
this is one of the most interesting techniques for improving rankings on large search engines, and also the most controversial. there are different ways to ‘linkbait’. a website could include some interesting content which may generate enough interest for others to link back to, thus boosting traffic. you can also link to articles, applications, content, or use websites such as digg.com to generate interest.  for information on linkbaiting “rules”  go here.

let us know what other quick seo tips you have.

the pints really love two things: our fans and holiday starbucks lattes. so, we are excited to announce our “share the love” giveaway in november, where one lucky blupint facebook fan will win a $20 starbucks card and OD on peppermint mochas and gingerbread lattes. the winner will be drawn and contacted on november 19th! remember, you must be a fan to win.

become a fan HERE!

if you followed the election last year, you probably heard about the impact social media had on the presidential race. it was difficult to escape reading about obama’s 3 million online donors or about the 2 million profiles created on my.barackobama.com. the election of 2008 was dubbed by many as the “social media election”. we began to see social media, in particular twitter and facebook, replacing some of the functions that the so called more “reliable and factually sound” mainstream media was traditionally responsible for during such elections. for example, youtube videos were used during presidential debates and twitter feeds were used to share political speeches and gather opinions. this begs the question, if cnn, msnbc, the san francisco chronicle, and fox news deliver more “valid” information, why is it that the use of social media in politics is growing so ardently?

when you start to follow a political figure on twitter, you may not get an answer to your personal tweets. you also may not be able to create a conversation with your state representative. however, you choose to follow them anyway because they may provide information that is valuable and than you in turn can share. no more “hey it’s too bad you missed that coverage on msnbc”, instead it’s “@soandso has retweeted this youtube video so check it out!”

the use of social media in politics isn’t just limited to america. remember the #iranelection? iranians utilized social networking sites to update each other and the world about different important events taking place. updates were reliable and frequent and easily tracked through a timeline, that aggregated events throughout the election using twitter, facebook, flickr, and youtube. without these networks, the world would have never experienced the events during those turbulent weeks. social media certainly had a powerful influence on mainstream media during the iranian election. one example of this is seen in the trending topic #cnnfail. this thread was about how cnn was not covering the iranian election thoroughly. someone at the network surely took notice because within a few hours of #cnnfail becoming a trending topic on twitter, the large news organization began to cover the iranian election much more closely.

what do all these media changes mean for politicians? they point to a fundamental shift in the way and the speed that politicians can connect with their constituents, and vice versa. while information is being exchanged at unprecedented rates, social media has given politicians the opportunity to reach out to millions within seconds anytime, any place, any day. there is no need to wait for interviews, debates, or press releases to share and react. the public can now learn details about government representatives and political events on a level that our parents and grandparents never imagined. we only wonder what kind of dialogue would have been possible if web 2.0 tools had existed during the fall of the berlin wall, the end of the cold war, the election of nixon, the assassination of jfk….and so on.

so why is the use of social media increasing in the political arena? it boils down to communication. some would argue that mainstream media is more accurate, but it is a one-way communications channel. and maybe social media doesn’t always deliver the “important” news stories but it definitely delivers the interesting ones and let’s you share them. let’s just say that if people are talking about it, it’s going to be on twitter, facebook, digg and so on. also, as seen in the case of iran, social networks are open to anyone and you don’t need to be a journalist or have a special visa to share pertinent news. this is only the beginning as we expect to see more many more changes, such as protesters leveraging social media to organize, political organizations gathering worldwide support for different causes, countries with little to no freedom of speech being forced into more transparency as well as politicians using social media to gather immediate feedback. ladies and gentleman, worldwide politics is going viral, going social and moving more into the hands of the people.

the blupint team is always looking for fresh avenues that businesses can use to spread their messages, share their ideas, and strengthen their digital presence. in the rapidly evolving environment of internet marketing, one trend continues to gain momentum: podcasting. for those new to podcasting, it is a funky fusion of blogging and voice. podcasting began as a type of audio-blogging experiment which, due to increasing usage, has continued to illustrate that consumers are interested in what businesses have to say, not just what they have to advertise. it makes sense that in an economy where people trust recommendations and yelp reviews more than a 30 second ad on the television, consumers are more interested in what businesses are thinking about, talking about, blogging about, and podcasting about.

podcasts are unique because, unlike a blog, there’s no need to use a computer or smartphone with an internet connection to access them after they are downloaded. we like to think of it as radio on demand. subscribers can search for podcasts on their itunes account and automatically download the content onto their iPod or iPhone, giving anyone the opportunity to broadcast to an unlimited and constantly growing audience during a commute to work, run at the gym, walk to class….you get the point. and with predictions that podcast downloaders will grow from 9% in 2008 to 17% by 2013, businesses should consider this tool to engage with potential customers.

i took a look at some popular podcasts on my itunes earlier, and found a lot of companies using podcasts to update their listeners (actually, they’re not just listeners…they’re fans). you can find just about anything on here. ESPN’s pardon the interruption. the new yorker. the adam carolla show. bloomberg news. vans. oprah (not to be outdone, ellen and tyra are on there too). but big companies aren’t having all the fun, small and medium businesses are also creating podcasts. YOGAmazing, a kentucky based yoga studio, is a small business that has utilized their 25 minute yoga routine podcasts to connect with current yoga students as well as entice new students to visit the studio and buy products online. the podcast has a large following (over 8 million downloads) in over 20 different countries and has been picked as a staff favorite on itunes. YOGAmazing’s video podcasts have even been featured in shape magazine. this small business has definitely shown how successful an effective podcast can be!

whether a big or small business, podcasters reach out to their audience in a more intimate way. they use podcasts to build their brand and sell services, provide tutorials on how to use a product or service, and to keep listeners up to date with the latest press releases and product developments. we are excited to see how podcasts will continue to evolve in the future.

here are some great resources for you to get started finding good podcasts or starting one yourself:

steps to podcasting

tips for podcasting fans

popular podcasts

podcast directory

do any of these stats surprise you? i am certainly curious about the one sole newspaper that is not in decline? what is their secret sauce? also amazon kindle sales sure are getting high. well enjoy! let us know your thoughts.

we here at blupint are readers. the news, blogs, tweets, articles, even an occasional book. if its got words on a screen or a page we’re likely to take it in and form some sort of an opinion. in one of my most recent reading adventures i was enticed by a quote from Pio Schunker (the dude in charge of North American advertising and design at Coke). from a recent article in Fast Company, Pio said “[a]s life gets visually noisier, brands that dial back to their core essence stand out by contrast.” nowhere is this idea more evident than in coke’s red, silver and black cans, with their script and ribboned writing. it’s simple. it’s classic. it’s memorable. it’s the essence of their brand. and in the ever-changing world of product packaging, if coke put their classic red can on a shelf with the newly packaged competition – i’ll bet you my share of blupint that it would catch your eye.

there’s two thoughts that have stuck with me since reading that article. thoughts that run through my head before every pitch we walk into; and thoughts that i’m applying to the daily work we do at blupint. the first is that for this idea to reign true, to stand out in a noisy world by dialing back, it requires that a company first have a “core essence” they can dial back to. therefore, the first task for anyone creating a brand (or a business) is to create or identify that essence. that characteristic that makes you different. it can be something as  simple as a red can with cool ribboned writing, or something much more complex. whatever it is, it’s unique to who you are and it must exist. the second thought is that where ever this branding world goes, however innovative it gets or however it changes 50 or 100 years from now…  it will never hurt, and it will often help, to be in touch and revisit ones core essence. no matter how the world changes, if you can’t revisit and rely on your foundation, that one thing that made you different in the beginning… then you’ve got no chance for the future.

when we talk to clients these are things going through my head. i ask myself, “do they have that core essence? can they identify it? is it something we can build on or is it something we’re helping them identify and develop? is it something that will hold over time? and is it something we can dial back to?” blupint is focused on helping small companies build brands that resonate in the digital world. that’s our expertise and our niche. but that requires us knowing and understanding our clients core. and as far as i can tell, the struggles we face with clients are the same that the big guys do. coke, apple, nike… sure they’ve all adapted overtime, but every one has revisited and relied on their core essence at some point. it’s what’s helped them stand out and be successful. it’s what we try and do in all our work. so… if you’re a biz owner, an employee, or an agency helping build brands – you better be able to identify and rely on that core essence… your future will likely depend on it.

our team is in mexico this week, which is still a landscape littered with bustling mom and pop shops, as opposed to the common chain stores of the usa. while many of these smaller businesses operate only brick and mortar locations, we believe having a digital presence is no longer voluntary, regardless of where you are in the world. since many of our clients operate new or smaller ventures, we must often educate them on how communication, participation and influence has evolved. here are some excerpts of the pints sharing their insight on the benefits of a digital brand for small businesses.

why small business also benefits from digital from blupint on Vimeo.

over the weekend we put some of our recent thoughts into a short video for you guys. we plan on adding fresh video content to this blog on a regular basis so we can be more personable and engaged with you all. in this segment we chat about entrepreneurship, starting a business in a recession and some insight on working with close friends. enjoy!

blupint founders chat it up from blupint on Vimeo.