But I’m most excited about their official video. This is one of the best (it would be the best, but I have to give the top spot to our own video) This is a video done right. It is clean. It is clear. It is beautifully done. Take a look and tell us what you think about the video or service.

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In fact, it’s been around for the last few years … if you trust Wikipedia: “The term ‘Cyber Monday’ is a neologism invented by Shop.org, part of the U.S. trade association National Retail Federation. It was first used within the e-commerce community during the 2005 holiday season. According to Scott Silverman, the head of Shop.org, the term was coined based on research showing that 77% of online retailers reported a significant increase in sales on the Monday after Thanksgiving in 2004. In late November 2005, the New York Times reported that ‘The name Cyber Monday grew out of the observation that millions of otherwise productive working Americans, fresh off a Thanksgiving weekend of window shopping, were returning to high-speed Internet connections at work Monday and buying what they liked.’”

And there you have it – an instant education on what Cyber Monday means. And if you believe the hype, or – better yet – fall prey to it, we bet you’re at your desk right now, reading this post between purchases.

We say go for it. It’s only one day a year, right?

To help you navigate the treacherous backroads of the Internet as you spend money you haven’t yet made, CNN’s Josh Levs has compiled several helpful tips to keep you safe as you browse and buy online – advice that’ll help you get the most out of Cyber Monday.

Watch the video after the jump. Happy shopping!

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Everyone has their own way of using the site to his or her advantage, but Walker’s list of power tools is great for anyone using LinkedIn to cultivate new business, network or keep up with existing contacts – and the competition.

Take a look at this comprehensive rundown of what you may or may not be doing to make the most of your presence on the professional networking scene.

Once you’ve studied it – and thought of ways to integrate the techniques into your own marketing strategy – feel free to read some of the LinkedIn success stories Walker has uncovered.

Just think … with the proper attention to detail, someday soon a similar story could be yours!

LinkedIn Events
This feature is very simple. You can submit your event allowing you to promote it to other LinkedIn users both within and outside your network. You can also go here to find events you might be interested in attending. Both live and virtual events can be included.

• “Events Home” displays a list of the events related to your connections (created by, attending or interested in).
• “Find Events” allows you to search for events you may be interested in attending.
• “My Events” are events you have created that are upcoming or past.
• “Add an Event” is where you, well, add an event. Once you publish the event, your connections will automatically receive an update. You can also share it with up to 50 specific contacts at a time via LinkedIn mail, and you can pay to advertise the event to people outside your network.

Blog Link or WordPress
If you write a blog (a professional one of course), have the blog content automatically “sucked in” by one of these 3rd party applications so that your most recent posts are actually displayed and promoted in your profile.

SlideShare or Google Presentation
Have a smashing presentation you did in PowerPoint? You can use this 3rd party application to post your presentations publicly on LinkedIn to help you build credibility and clarify your areas of expertise.

LinkedIn Groups & Discussions
This is one of LinkedIn’s most useful features (and I would hazard a guess that it’s the most used too). Individual LinkedIn members start groups where other members have discussions, share news and post jobs. The wonderful thing about these groups is they are basically segmented mini-markets ready and waiting for you to tap into. As of this posting, there are more than 357,000 groups on LinkedIn ranging in size from 0 to more than 100,000 members. Approximately 5,000 new groups are created each week. Some groups have a spam problem but often there are worthwhile discussions to be had and news to read. Groups are also a great place build visibility among people who are interested in your area of business (we’ll dive into this more next week!). Be careful though – the line between “sharing information” in the form of links to your site or blog and spam can be very faint.

LinkedIn Searches (within your network and outside it)
Many people use LinkedIn as a simple contact management database. Having a lot of people in that database can provide you access to any company, person or network with whom you want to connect.

In fact especially if you don’t know who to reach out to for a particular question, need or opportunity, a quick keyword search on LinkedIn can tell you who you already know that meets your criteria, and can also find people you don’t know but should – and that’s where the magic begins!

Network Updates
These updates are useful obviously to keep up with what people are doing, but also as an excuse to reach out to someone and reconnect, and as a means of finding people you might want to know. You receive a list of updates both via email and at the bottom of your profile letting you know of the changes people have made to their profiles. Did they change their headline? Change their current job? Are they connected with 5 new people some of whom you might know?

LinkedIn Browser Toolbar
This application installs a thumbnail into your browser bar. The application simply opens different pages on LinkedIn to save you the time of typing them in. http://www.linkedin.com/static?key=browser_toolbar_download

LinkedIn Q&A
This is a tool that many LinkedIn users swear by. This tool can provide a great deal of exposure. When you answer a question, and your answer is rated “best answer” it will also appear in your profile which not only adds to the good will surrounding you but help you build credibility as an expert in your field. Beware however – this can be very time consuming.

Send Mass Emails
LinkedIn does limit your ability to do this outside of groups, typically you can email up to 50 people on your list at a time. But it can be a great way to get the word out. Note that when you post a “question” in Q & A, you can send the question to up to 200 of your connections in addition to making the question public.

Job Postings
For $195 for a 30-day posting, you can use LinkedIn to post jobs to a wider network of people or you can post jobs for free through groups that you’re a member of if the group owner has turned on the “Jobs” feature. Note that job descriptions are limited to about 3,900 characters.

Tagging
I included tagging in the last article on How to Set up your LinkedIn Profile but it really belongs here in the list of tools. It is a great tool for organizing your contacts into groups that are personally meaningful. Right now the tool is in Beta so it may not be visible yet to everyone. But when it becomes available I would definitely suggest checking it out.

Here’s another post from Maisha Walker that details the success stories of LinkedIn users who are using the site to its full potential. Your homework after reading this is to think of ways that you can improve your own presence.

Which of the tools listed above are you using now – and which will you start using? Let us know.

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You might be thinking though, how can I compete with major retailers whose sites are all shiny and sleek? Trust us, even the shiniest, sleekest sites have their problems. And their oversights could be your gain.

So what exactly should you do to prepare your site for the holiday season.

In an article on MultichannelMerchant.com, James Gardner details a few important steps you should take now to help stay ahead of the curve a month from now.

1. Don’t Forget the Basics

A common mistake that most retailers make, says Gardner – and we agree – is that too many times they concentrate their energy on a particular promotion or holiday campaign. But what about the rest of the site? What happens when all those people who are impressed by the company’s Christmas creativity can’t access others parts of the site because of poor functionality? Well, they answer, all too often, is that leave. They don’t want to be bother with a slow site that isn’t working correctly.

So, before you go spending all your resources on your holiday push, go through your site – meticulously – to make sure that everything is in working order. Make sure there are no unnecessary obstacles that stand in the way of consumer and checkout. Make sure that they have no reason to leave your site because of broken links and videos or images that don’t load. You owe it to yourself and your customers.

2. Make Your Site a Holiday Destination

It’s not just the discounts that will drive sales. Smart marketing can help.

Gardner suggests taking the holiday shopping experience to the next level by capturing customers’ attention with something unusual and unexpected.

Like branded games or quizzes, for instance, that add a bit of fun to the shopping experience. Perhaps an interactive feature – like answering questions about the gift recipient – will add an interesting element for customers who are shopping for the hard-to-buy-for on their lists. Whatever it is, offer visitors something unique that gets them in the spirit and keeps them coming back for more.

3. Think Outside of the Site

Engage in social media to help build brand buzz by using video, customer recommendations, deal tweets, and whatever other novel ideas you can think of to get the word out about what you’re offering this holiday season.

Gardner says, “There is nothing more compelling to a customer than hearing a recommendation from another customer, which is why tools like Twitter, Facebook and other social communities can be so powerful in generating brand buzz. During the holiday season, these tools can serve as an invaluable advocate in quickly spreading your brand message and driving traffic to your site.”

It’s true. We post about how valuable social media marketing is during the off-season, so it stands to reason that it’s even more powerful during holiday time when the Web is jammed with increased traffic.

For more tips on how to fine-tune your site for the holidays, check out Gardner’s entire article here.

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Over the past year we’ve made several changes to the GolfEtail e-commerce Web site, including the addition of rotating Flash banner ads; the launch of a blog that features golf player and product news; and the introduction of The DealTeam, animated characters designed to facilitate a sense of community among GolfEtail users.

The users have responded well to the changes as the site has experienced an uptick in traffic since the implementation of these components. Organic visits to the site have increased nearly 170%. Sixty-five percent of those visitors were new, and they account for nearly 60% of the transactions conducted on the site. Keywords have played an important role in new traffic as well, with more than 19,000 keywords driving search traffic up 330%. Almost 85% of keyword traffic was new.

What this means for the online golf apparel retailer is that Web 2.0 practices are working the brand, drawing traffic primarily using search engine optimization. SEO – through Web copy, the blog, and customer reviews – have introduced GolfEtail to a new customer base flocking to the Internet looking for the best deals on quality golf equipment.

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But just because marketers are increasing their budgets for interactive advertising, that doesn’t mean they’re making money.

The good news is at least they think they will. And positive thinking has power, people!

According to the “2009 Promo Interactive Marketing Survey” from PROMO magazine, more than one-third of marketers believe that interactive marketing ROI will be more profitable than traditional marketing – such as TV, radio and outdoor - this year.

Take a look at this bar graph from eMarketer, which details the results of the survey:

As eMarketer points out, while 29% of the marketers surveyed were unsure if digital marketing ROI would turn a profit or not, only 7% believed that digital marketing would be less profitable than previous years.

Tell us something we don’t know, right?

It seems to us that if online sales are up, as we report in this post, it’s only natural to assume that interactive ROI will increase too. Unless, of course, some marketers are made of money and are pumping more cash into online efforts than they expect to recapture.

Maybe those are the folks who make up the 22% who indicated they would funnel money from traditional media to the digital space this year. But for that faction, the issue then becomes how to measure the ROI since a lot of newer platforms aren’t yet measurable.

Which begs an important question: How do they know it’s working?

The answer is simple: They don’t.

Perhaps they should give Nesquik a call. They seem to have a handle on things.

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3. Is Nesquik King of the Interactive Advertisement?

It seems Nesquik – the drink that “you can’t drink slow if it’s Quik” – is spending super major, buku bucks to ramp up its interactive and multimedia advertising.

Nesquik’s adoption of interactive media isn’t new, however. The brand’s been shakin’ things up for quite some time as evidenced by this article first published on BrandRepublic.com more than six years ago. Six years! That might as well be a hundred in digital speak.

Then, of course, there’s this video of passersby dropped-jawed at a massive store-wrapped campaign in downtown Los Angeles. Take a look.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eocM7p2jOU&hl=en&fs=1]

According to the folks on the street, the ad does its job over and over again, several times a day. “I want some chocolate milk!” a few of them exclaim.

Cha-ching!

But perhaps the most revealing display of Nesquik’s command of the interactive language is its presence on ABC.com, where, while watching the most recent episode of “Lost,” I enjoyed (and I mean it!) the exciting ads Nesquik placed between segments.

The first (the screenshot above) was fairly straightforward. Just a regular commercial that you’d see on TV or anywhere else online. But even if you don’t watch the video, which is pretty hard to resist in itself, there’s no way you can ignore the bright, colorful and downright cheery platform on which the campaign was built. It screams happiness – and also invites the captive Internet TV-watching audience to come to its “happy place,” which just happens to be your cupboard or the convenience store right around the corner.

The next phase of this four-part campaign is a game. Not just any game, though – rather, a simple, nostalgic game of Connect Four. I got so caught up playing the game that I totally forgot that I only had to wait 30 seconds to rejoin my program. Somehow, I think that was the plan.

In part three of the series, there are a selection of videos available to watch while the 30-second timer runs down. Again, there are so many options that it’s hard not to spend at least two minutes browsing what seems to be user-generated content. Some of the videos are actually quite funny – if you’re into the chocolate milk as a cure-all kind of thing.

The fourth installment was actually the best of them all. (There’s no image because I accidentally closed the program before capturing it – and it took a half hour of opening and closing streaming videos just to find the Nesquik campaign for the purpose of this post.) It was another game, this time asking viewers to locate Nesquik Bunny on the screen. Once you clicked him, the campaign ended and – get this! – granted you early access back into the program. Brilliant!

How do I know it’s brilliant? Because I was so impressed by this campaign that I had to write about it.

My own giddiness aside, Nesquik seems to really have a handle on how to get viewers’ attention through interactive advertising. It’s much better than those boring auto adverts that I’m usually stuck watching during the online “commercial” break.

Nestle understands its audience, too. It’s not advertising where it doesn’t make sense. Unlike Volvo, Toyota, Nissan, and the other misguided companies misplacing ads on ABC.com.

If you don’t believe me, ask yourself a question: Which are you more likely to run out and buy after your episode is over – a $30,000 clunker or frothy, refreshing Nestle Nesquik?

The defense rests.

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According to a recent study conducted by Forrester Research and Shop.org and published by eMarketer, online sales in the United States increased, on average, 11 percent in the first quarter of this year. Of the 80 companies studied, nearly 60 percent reported growth in online sales, while almost 70 percent of consumer brand manufacturers and multichannel retailers saw an increase in Web sales. Web-only companies, however, weren’t so lucky; about 60 percent of businesses without brick-and-mortar stores reported sales declines.

An interesting set of statistics, for sure. And they beg a couple of questions.

First, if Web sales saw an uptick in the first three months of 2009, why were Web-only retailers left in the dark? Is it possible that shoppers prefer to compare prices in store, then head to the Web for deeper discounts? Or could it be that brick-and-mortars are encouraging this transition by undercutting their Web-only competition?

It’s possible.

Of course, what’s more interesting is how the aforementioned flu may affect buying trends. (Insert obligatory “viral” marketing joke here.) We suspect that if the virus gets out of hand, causing communities to be quarantined (we sure hope it doesn’t come to that!), many of us might not have a choice but to get our goods – and we’re talking necessities here, not luxury items – from the Internet. That is, if delivery companies continue to deliver.

Right now, the situation is hard to predict, but it’s one we’re watching. From our vantage point, this current crisis has the potential to completely change the game, considering there’s a game left to play.

What do you think? Will online sales continue to climb organically? Will they increase as fear of the flu spreads? And how will the big picture – an already weak system faced with another potential setback – affect the future of the national and global economy?

Leave us a comment with your thoughts on this topical conversation.

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For answers to this question, below are some key insights about when to send your emails so your company can capture consumer hearts and minds through February 14th!

What Days Work Best?

Knowing when to send your emails is extremely important, especially for Valentine’s Day. In a recent study by RetailEmail.com, Valentine’s Day experienced the greatest amount of retail email traffic of any holiday. Specifically, the majority of emails are sent on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday making them the worst days to send out emails.

Retail Email Participation Stats

The best days to send out emails are on Monday and Wednesday when they have the greatest chance of engaging with the undivided attention of your customers.

What Times Work Best?

As one might guess, sending out promotional emails at 4am may not be the wisest decision. Though I might want to read about a romantic box of chocolates in the middle of the night, it’s much more effective to send me an offer during the day.

As a general rule, 11am during Monday or Wednesday is a good time to send out your email, because your customers should have already read through their morning inbox and should have already finished their morning coffees. Once customers receive your 11am email, the point is to have it appear as the first (and hopefully only) email competing for their attention.

After an email is sent, companies should use online metrics to measure the rate of opens, clicks, etc., to gauge your audience’s preferences and ensure the greatest rate of success.

In Conclusion…

…don’t let the challenge of email traffic on Valentine’s Day scare you off. As we mentioned last week on our blog, B2C email marketing was ranked as THE best practice for online marketing yielding a high Return on Investment (ROI). A “2008 Direct Marketing Association (DMA) study found that email’s ROI in 2008 was $45.06 for every dollar spent on it.” Specifically in trying times, it is important to use cost-efficient practices such as email marketing to get your message out there.

There are many ways to give yourself an advantage over the competition, and when can be every bit as important as the who, what, where and why.

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As we previously reported, Cyber Monday made gains this year, but according to industry analysts the highest sales of the season may not have come until earlier this week. Still, while conjecture and hypothesis is valuable, we’d like to get real results from real marketers .

Did you launch an e-campaign to boost holidays sales? Did you see more traffic on Cyber Monday versus Dec. 15 or later? Or maybe the week of Dec. 8 fared more favorable for you. Take our poll and let us know which week received the highest response rates for your campaigns.

[polldaddy poll=1210692]

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