Must Design
75.5K views | +0 today
Follow
Must Design
Design Is Revolutionary
Your new post is loading...
Scooped by Martin (Marty) Smith
Scoop.it!

Why You Need A Website MacGuffin - Curagami

Why You Need A Website MacGuffin - Curagami | Must Design | Scoop.it
Website MacGuffins are ideas such as Free Shipping whose absence hurts more than their presence helps. What are your website's MacGuffins?
No comment yet.
Scooped by Martin (Marty) Smith
Scoop.it!

Top 5 Black Friday Websites - Annual Curagami List

Top 5 Black Friday Websites - Annual Curagami List | Must Design | Scoop.it

Top 5 Black Friday Websites Curagami's annual list sees Big Boys move in. Amazon tops the list. There are surprises & we share our Black Friday scorecard.

1. Amazon.
2. Sears.com.

3. Dell.com

4. Walmart.com

5. Nordstrom.com

Find out how we rated these websites TOPS in Black Friday preparation, free shipping and merchandising:
http://www.curagami.com/featured/top-5-black-friday-websites/

No comment yet.
Scooped by Martin (Marty) Smith
Scoop.it!

5 Holiday Website Design Tips - A Haiku Deck by Martin Smith & Team Curagami

5 Holiday Website Design Tips - A Haiku Deck by Martin Smith & Team Curagami | Must Design | Scoop.it
This holiday selling season (2014) will happen as close to real time as any thanks to the social / mobile web. Listening and curating are going to be important, but so is tapping the nostalgia and spirit of the season in creative and collaborative ways.

Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:

add your insight...

No comment yet.
Scooped by Martin (Marty) Smith
Scoop.it!

What Is A MacGuffin & Why Web Design Needs To Include Them - Curatti

What Is A MacGuffin & Why Web Design Needs To Include Them - Curatti | Must Design | Scoop.it
MacGuffins are plot devices in films & conventional web design "best practices" that hurt more in absence than presence helps. How to design for MacGuffins.
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:

Website MacGuffins include Free Shipping, Satisfaction Guarantees and email subscription boxes. Important to know what has reached "MacGuffin" status in your business. This post explains what a MacGuffin is and how to design for yours.

No comment yet.
Scooped by Martin (Marty) Smith
Scoop.it!

Master Class Video: 3 Ways To Design In Higher Conversion Rates

Master Class Video: 3 Ways To Design In Higher Conversion Rates | Must Design | Scoop.it

Ecommerce Master Class: Conversion Metrics
There are only a handful of ways to increase sales from a website. Good idea to START with increasing your conversions since sending more traffic into a leaky boat is a fool's errand.

In this short Ecommerce Master Class Video we share three of our favorite tactics to increase conversion:

* Ubiquitous  Free Shipping.
* Best Sellers.
* Reviews.

As you design your next website make sure you DESIGN IN these three ideas and your site will convert better. Conversion is a magic number too. Tiny improvements in conversion create HUGE benefits to your bottom line as costs go down and profit go up.

No comment yet.
Scooped by Martin (Marty) Smith
Scoop.it!

Deigning Tomorrow's Ecommerce Today

Deigning Tomorrow's Ecommerce Today | Must Design | Scoop.it

Designing Tomorrow's Ecommerce
I'm writing a blog post for Curatti that will go live at midnight tonight that discusses the "best practices" of "Tomorrow's Ecommerce". I'm also writing a Curagami blog post (also published at midnight) about how social shopping will change Tomorrow's Ecommerce.

Tomorrow's Ecom Current Best Practices (Curatti tonight)
Tomorrow's Ecom Social & Mobile Web (on Curagami now)

The Haiku Deck that bridges both of these posts is linked above and here:
http://shar.es/1nkJef

As we publish each post we will link them here.


Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:

add your insight...


No comment yet.
Scooped by Martin (Marty) Smith
Scoop.it!

Ready For Holiday 2014 Ecommerce? 5 Summer To Dos

Ready For Holiday 2014 Ecommerce? 5 Summer To Dos | Must Design | Scoop.it
Martin (Marty) Smith's insight:

Summer = Make or Break
What are you testing this week? Are you testing design, offers, shopping cart or merchandising now? Here are 5 Summer To Dos to help your sales in the 166 days left to Christmas:

Testing Plan
Your testing plan should be FLAT OUT now. Testing after Halloween should be done with great CARE. This means you eat off the "testing meals" you cook now for 3 of the most important months of the year. Here are things we liked to test in the summer:

1 FREE SHIPPING
This year we STRONGLY recommend offering Free Shipping both ways (out and back) and without any hoops to jump through starting about Halloween (i.e. remove your triggers as they start costing you money right around Halloween or at least they did when we tested). We could never get our DM bosses to thing of free shipping as advertising. Shame since we keep placing print ads long after that tactic was dead man walking (now print by itself is crazy).

When you model Free Shipping both ways now remember you need 3x the same customer visits now you will need in November.. In the summer we ran about 3.2 visits before a purchase. After 11.1 that number dropped to 1.5 and by Black Friday it was damn close to a single visit.

2 Offers & Causes
Use that last paragraph to model great offers at this time of year. If an offer lowers the number of return visits needed BOOK IT for November and December since any summer offer should ROCK 4Q (unless the goods are summer related).

We liked to test cause marketing at this time of year. Our demographics were almost even (men to women). Find brand aligned causes and figure out how to help. If you sell auto stuff for trucks you might contribute to Ducks Unlimited for every sale of Chevy parts.

If you sell books contribute to literacy for every bestselling bought in any form (e-book or hardcover). Your cause doesn't have to be so close to your brand especially if you tie-in to the big 5:

American Red Cross
Goodwill
American Cancer Society
Feed Children
Care fore Pets

3 Create & Test Unique Merchandising Combinations
Great time of year to create unique merchandising. Amazon is going to beat any price you have on products with velocity in segments like books, gifts and media. Your only HOPE is to create unique and branding merchandising.

Be sure to create a NEW page and SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) for your new combinations. Link your new combinations from established pages for best sales results. If you've always sold A, B & C offer a new combination of all 3 and give C away free.


Use your metrics to find natural combinations.

4 Free Gifts
If you have Free Shipping both ways and no competitor is following you don't need a free gift. If you can't get free 2 way shipping approved toss in a free gift. Free gifts can't SUCK.

If can't give a gift aligned with your brand and that will delight and surprise DON'T GIVE A FREE GIFT.

5 Social Mentions & Kudos
By far the LEAST expensive idea on this page is LISTEN, THANK and SHARE content your customers share with you. Follow back well more than 50% of your followers cutting out the spammers. You will be amazed how much traction ACKNOWLEDGEMENT creates.

Every follow back and Retweet wins hearts, minds and loyalty best mined NOW for THEN.

No comment yet.