A company's website going dark has a domino effect

With the holiday shopping season being a critical part of many retailers’ annual revenue, it’s also a good time to take a look at the user experience (UX) of shopping on the web and how that can impact sales. Every eCommerce manager loses sleep starting on Thanksgiving, praying their site’s infrastructure can handle the spike in traffic and transactions that come with Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Dyn Inc, a leading Infrastructure-as-a-Service provider, posted some interesting statistics about the load placed on Internet retailers during this busy weekend. According to the National Retail Foundation, 2010 saw over $212 million spent on Internet purchases Thanksgiving weekend. This is a trend that won’t reverse, as Reuters claimed a 14% increase in 2011.

This drastic increase in traffic can cause problems for unprepared websites. While hackers will use a distributed Denial of Service (DoS) attack to bring a website down, a heavy load of retail traffic effectively accomplishes  the same thing: flushing the server with traffic, overloading its ability to keep-up with the demand.

Once a website collapses, dollars can’t be spent, and your bottom line is instantly hurt. For small retailers, this could mean hundreds of dollars lost; for others, going dark could mean the difference between Black Friday and a Bloody Friday. In fact, analysts estimate that a single hour of downtime can cost upwards of $150,000.

In some cases, it’s not the web server that goes down — it can be the DNS provider. Often overlooked as Internet “plumbing,” DNS is the technology that translates a website’s URL to an IP address, essentially acting as the phonebook for the web.

DNS recently became a news item when GoDaddy’s DNS services infamously went down in September of 2012. As a result, millions of websites using GoDaddy as a DNS provider were unreachable for over two hours. This amount of downtime would be a disaster for any Internet retailer, especially during the holiday season.

As a marketing manager, it’s vital to understand that your projected ROI off web properties, social media strategy — everything — becomes obsolete if your website goes dark. Customers can’t buy from you if they can’t access your website. Guaranteed uptime should be the first part of the user experience, and then you can worry about the cart!

It’s December. That means you’re either stuck killing time in a shopping line or waking up early to shovel snow off your car. Neither is a particularly good time. But hey, that also means it’s prediction time! Can I interest you in aimless (kidding!) soothsayer-esq insight into what’s happening next in the tech, eCommerce, and general business world in 2013? OK. Well take a seat, fasten your seat belts, and try to smile when the Mall Santa listens to your kid’s most desperate desires (while simultaneously hoping an iPad Mini isn’t on the list). Without further adieu, Seven eCommerce and Marketing Trends To Watch For In 2013

#7 Captain Ahab, Moby Dick and the Benefit Of Context Marketing!

That whole “Content (Marketing) is King” thing will always be true. Looking forward, though, we’ll see a shift in what attracts Search Engine Algorithms (and thus eyeballs) to land on your website (more on this later). Once there, readers want to be compelled; piquing interest starts with imploring well thought out and (more importantly) timely posts. In other words, your content has to have context to be relevant.

Corey Eridon, of Hubspot, defined Context Marketing as delivering the right content, to the right people, at the right time.

One way of accomplishing this is through current events. Try to relate and blend your content with what’s happening in the real world. The ability to engage with readers hinges on the ability to relate and resonate your message in their life. For example, Paul Anthony, of Web Distortion, wrote about current events and the seismic impact of viral marketing, by examining the “Horsehead Man” and his whimsical jog in the middle of Hurricane Sandy.

Another growing method of context marketing is storytelling. Use text or video to tell your company story, a customer’s journey, or an overarching theme.  Check out Red Bull‘s “Art of Flight” marketing campaign, which was lauded and named the best use of social video by a company on the web.

(more…)

The following is a recap of Bridgeline Digital’s latest webinar, “How Your Website Can Drive Patient Activation,” including exclusive (yes, ONLY HERE) answers to select questions that did not get answered during the live presentation due to time restraints. To watch the archived version of the webinar CLICK HERE!

In this space we talk about innovation (Responsive Design), SEO strategies, eCommerce News, Content Marketing, CMS capabilities. The works. All of it. At our webinar, “How Your Website Can Drive Patient Activation,” we had a chance to step back and see these terms, ideas, and products in practicum. We talked with Robin Doerr, the Executive Director of Marketing and Communications of Children’s Hospital CO, and Joseph Hice, the vice President of Public Relations and Marketing of Moffitt Cancer Center, both of whom offered their expertise as leading healthcare marketers on how to leverage website design to vastly improve Patient Activation.

CLICK IMAGE to Watch Bridgeline Digital's latest webinar, "How Your Website Can Drive Patient Activation"

Holly Korda, who is a Ph.D. and deputy director for strategy and growth at the Altarum Institute, already explained Patient Activation’s meaning better than I ever could. In short, Patient Activation refers to a patient’s and ability willingness to be involved their own health outcomes. With reform changing the focus of reimbursement models to retention, professionals are facing an increasingly competitive milieu. And Patient Activation becomes that much more important.

In a study by the official journal of the American Public Health Association (APHA), participants were “taught to identify questions that would help them consider their role, process and reasons behind a decision; and empowerment strategies to better manage their care.” Results found that intervention helped immensely. The following conclusions were made about the educated focus group:

“ … over twice as likely to be retained in treatment and over 3 times more likely than comparison participants to have scheduled at least 1 visit during the 6-month follow-up period. Similarly, intervention participants demonstrated 29% more attendance to scheduled visits than comparison patients.”

A website, more than any other medium or outlet, is a one-stop experience offering patients the opportunity to learn about their ailments, referral services, compile resources with information on preventative care, and much more. Joe and Robin gave presentations about their experiences in leveraging web presence to strengthen patient activation, and then fielded questions from the audience.

Due to time restraints, however, we weren’t able to answer all the submitted questions. Joseph Hice and Robin Doerr were kind enough to take the time to answer the rest here at the B-Line blog. (more…)

In the film “Back to the Future,” Doc Brown slips and hits his head on a sink while trying to hang a clock in his bathroom. For whatever reason, this triggers him to envision his greatest discovery, the Flux Capacitor — the secret sauce to the (totally unrealistic) invention of his time travel machine. I bring this up because behind every product or service, there is a “Flux Capacitor” moment. A story behind how it was conceived. Yes, even The Snuggie had an “Ah-ha” revelation.

The intriguing detail about the iAPPS platform (my ’81 DeLorean in this analogy) is not how I came up with the product (it’s software – the minutia isn’t that interesting), but why I conceptualized the product.

In a sense, Bridgeline Digital started out as chefs working in a restaurant – implementing other companies’ CMS products and building out web solutions. I immediately noticed none of the systems were particularly good, and, worse, the recipes certainly didn’t talk to each other. There was a disconnect present between employees who were creating the message (marketers) and the ones who oversaw its publishing (IT).

I wanted to create a solution, which served our real audience (marketers and business owners), and covered EACH of their needs. We spent 18 months putting ourselves in a marketer’s shoes – thinking how they thought, working like they worked. While other CMS products limited their scope — focusing only on the IT component of the industry, instead of integrating a seamless platform that would satiate real business needs — we determined the four primary objectives a business’ website has to accomplish in order to be successful.

• Attract traffic
• Create content
• Convert sales on an easy-to-use system
• Measure progress and track trends through statistics

Through the iAPPS platform – Content Manager, Marketier, Analyzer, Commerce — we were able to introduce a hybrid product never seen before in the market. For example, we don’t just offer marketing software and rudimentary web statistics — our product gives actionable suggestions, ROI calculators to measure campaign performance, and persuasive and targeted content based off visitor behavior.

Analyst had problems grasping what (exactly) iAPPS was. Were we a product or service? Both. Was our payment structure SaaS or a Perpetual License? Both.

Part of this was because, six years ago, the concept of iAPPS was reflective of forward thinking. These days, you see companies like Adobe acquiring analytics software and eCommerce systems to fuse business needs like iAPPS does. (Though, the iAPPS platform still holds the advantage of leveraging a single interface for users while shifting through its capabilities, rather then requiring producers to adapt to different programs when examining analytics vs. using a content management system like other companies’ software)

Even now, years later, we continue to push forward. Our partnership with UPS Logistics and the integration of their Warehouse Management System (WMS) with iAPPS (referred to as eCommerce Fulfilled), bolsters our eCommerce abilities beyond virtual stores and ensures clients are covered from click to ship. iAPPS ds, our monthly subscription offering for syndicate organizations, has helped us transition into the franchise and large dealer networks market.

The lesson? I want to recite a platitude like, “There are no boundaries!” or “Nothing is impossible!” But let’s just say there is nothing like a home-cooked meal.

Brett Zucker is an Executive Vice President and the CTO of Bridgeline Digital. Follow him on Twitter @BrettZucker.

The Super-Information Highway!! That was the nickname for the Internet in the ’90s. Seems silly now, doesn’t it? Almost like looking at the haircuts in an old high school year book or listening to a 98 Degrees album — at the time this made sense, we tell ourselves confidently, but everything feels so dated. The funny thing is, even with that dial-up connection, we were mesmerized by the speed at which we could access information while surfing the web. Today, we take that ease for granted — we expect it — and are quick to abandon whatever we’re looking in a split second, if it’s taking too long. Per this Infographic by Smart Bear, 57% of web users abandon a site after three seconds. There is little to no room for error.

CLICK HERE To Download Our Latest FORRESTER REPORT Offering

The Golden Rule for a company’s website places functionality and ease-of-use above everything else. These are the pillars of your eCommerce success. According to participants in a survey in our latest Forrester Report offering, entitled “Websites That Don’t Support Customers Waste Millions,” if your website doesn’t offer superior functionality, your web presence could be irrevocably damaged and the results could cause your business significant financial loss.

• About 75% use a more expensive channel (typically a company’s customer phone service) to complete the sale or product research.
• 17% took their business elsewhere to competitors.
• 11% gave up on the shopping experience entirely.

Yikes. Even business that is retained through other channels (like your company’s phone service) leads to cost of sales increasing, and revenue squandered. Through the use of provided case studies and raw data, learn more about this growing problem in eCommerce, how it can impact your business, and different ways to avoid common pitfalls by downloading the August, 2012 Forrester Report.

And if you’re looking for a best-in-class, end-to-end web platform, including capabilities in Content Management, eCommerce, Marketing, and Analytics that provide actionable suggestions to optimize your virtual presence  check out our award-winning iAPPS Platform.

A

ccording to IBM, “…90% of all the data available in the world today has been created in the last two years alone.” Take a second, put it back in neutral, and let that statistic digest for a moment. With me? OK. Well, among all of that data are countless instances of important and useful information that is buried within millions of Instagram photos of what your BFFs are having for dinner, mani/pedi Groupon offers, MapQuest directions to grandma’s house, bank card transactions, and of course, thousands of lipsync’d versions of Call Me Maybe!

But because there is so much data, a lot of it gets lost – or better put, becomes unfindable. Pardon the cliche, but in the world of content marketing: Out of sight means out of mind.

This problem could hit closer too home than you think. It is entirely possible that portions of your company’s germane content is lost inside databases and documents on websites, in folders, emails and on all sorts of other media. Presumably, this content was produced to drive success. But you can’t go to your destination if you can’t find the keys to the car, right? (more…)