Ecommerce Conversations

Michael J. Katz is founder and “chief penguin” of Blue Penguin Development, Inc., a consulting firm helping companies increase sales by showing CEOs how to market to their existing relationships, and which specializes in the development of electronic newsletters. He recently spoke with Practical Ecommerce’s Contributing Editor Mitch Bettis about the importance of communicating with customers, how to get the “genuine you” into a regular electronic newsletter and what types of content to put in these newsletters.

How frequently should I send email marketing messages and newsletters to my customers, what should I put in the subject line to improve the open rate and how to include paid ads in an email newsletter are all topics discussed in this podcast by Practical Ecommerce Contributing Editor Mitch Bettis and Emma’s co-founder Clint Smith. Today’s podcast discusses several important tips to improve email campaigns, and it is the third and final installment in our podcast series with the myemma.com’s Clint Smith.

Are you still using Outlook Express or another text-based email client to email information to your customer base? Are you afraid to convert to and .html-based email service because you think it’s too hard to use? Practical Ecommerce’s Contributing Editor Mitch Bettis continues his discussion on email marketing with Clint Smith, the co-founder of Emma, a web-based email service at www.myemma.com. They talk about how easy it is to use an email service, the types of response tracking those services bring to the table and Clint provides tips on how to build a quality email list.

Matt and Amiee Moffett launched the Satellite Radio Superstore three years ago have an quickly built their site into one of the top 10 independent retailers for XM Radio. Sales at their site should hit around $3 million this year and that means there are plenty of orders to keep their 12 staff members hopping. Matt and Amiee have also started selling products on eBay and are close to launching a store for Sirius satellite radio products. The Satellite Radio Superstore was profiled in the October edition of Practical Ecommerce. Matt spoke with Contributing Editor Mitch Bettis about some of the challenges they have faced, including how to manage thousands of orders from multiple sales channels.

Scene7 is another leading company in the image management business. Scene7 provides services that can improve the product display features on ecommerce sites including zoom and pan features, online catalogs and improve product images. Sheila Dahlgren, senior vice president of marketing and corporate communication at Scene7, recently spoke to Practical Ecommerce’s Contributing Editor Mitch Bettis about the benefits of product display software.

Equilibrium is one company in the marketplace that automates imaging solutions and offers various display options including zoom and pan features. Sean Barger, CEO of Equilibrium, says there’s been a number of studies showing that people are more likely to buy a product if they can see the details — the front, the back and close-ups — especially for items that are detail-oriented, such a jewelry and electronics. He recently spoke to Practical Ecommerce’s Contributing Editor Mitch Bettis about the benefits of product display software.

AuctionCheckout offers a competitively priced merchant account package that is an alternative to PayPal. It’s one resource in the marketplace that can be used by an ecommerce owner to serve as a merchant account on his site and also be integrated on an auction site like eBay and Overstock so an ecommerce owner doesn’t need multiple payment channels. John Waldron and Sloane Bouchever acquired AuctionCheckout (www.auctioncheckout.com) in mid-July and recently spoke to Practical Ecommerce’s Contributing Editor Mitch Bettis.

Clint Smith, co-founder of Emma, discusses several important tips to improve email campaigns and addresses that age-old question of whether an email should use images or not. This podcast is the first in a series of podcasts with Clint Smith covering email marketing.

Kevin Mahon, founder and CEO of KEMP, and Peter Melerud, the company’s marketing and business development officer, talked with Practical Ecommerce’s Contributing Editor Mitch Bettis about what a load balancer does and noted some of the tell-tale signs of when a small business owner will know it’s time to deploy a load balancer.

Eric Lituchy is the founder and CEO of Delightfuldeliveries.com, a leading site for gift baskets and unique gift items, such as gourmet food items and deserts. Given how important product images are to a web site, in particular those selling food products, Eric speaks about his site’s incorporation of product display software and that software’s special features — like it’s zoom and pan technology.