Starting today you can now enhance your Facebook Timeline with the ability to indicate the products you “want” or “own” throughout the Lax World website after logging in using your Facebook credentials. By leveraging these buttons on the product pages of the website, users will be able to not only share whether they want or own a particular product, but will also be able to see what those in their Facebook connections have indicated.

“This functionality provides not only a new level of user engagement but really allows e-tailers to interact with their audience in a unique way based on their users’ behavior with this functionality. Our expectation is that this will further integrate companies’ social and shopping presence through the timeline application, as well as help drive user engagement back into the site,” stated CEO of Groove Commerce Ethan Giffin.

Baltimore-based Lax World is the first client Groove is testing this functionality with on the Magento Enterprise platform and will soon be rolling it out to their other e-commerce clients.

“Ultimately, this was a great fit for Lax World, where so much of their traffic doesn’t have direct buying power. Now, we’ve created an opportunity to let them not only indicate products they want within their Facebook Timeline but we’ve created an opportunity to further user engagement by letting them also indicate and comment on products they already have or end up purchasing,” said Mack McGee, Vice President of Groove Commerce.

What are Events?

Merriam-Webster defines an event as “something that happens”. It’s a succinct definition, but one that perfectly defines Magento’s event system. Whether it’s a customer registering an account with your store, placing an item in their cart, completing an order, or doing many other specific actions, Magento fires an ‘event’ to allow other sections of code to execute that may be dependent on those activities.

If you’re familiar with JavaScript and the popular jQuery framework, you’ll know that events are fired during actions – mouse click, mouse move, keyboard press, etc. You can then set event handlers to observe that event taking place and run whatever code you need in response to that action. In this way, Magento operates very similarly.

Why use Events?

For a developer, it may be tempting to simply override a Magento class to ensure your code runs. For instance, a number of extensions override the Checkout Success block in order to finalize accounting of some feature it provides. This introduces code complexity, and can cause issues with other extensions that also attempt to override the same block.

By leveraging the event system, you can use an event handler to observe the event. When this event fires, your observer method will receive the message, often with some data attached to it, and execute your code.

In this way, you don’t need to worry about the implications of overriding core blocks and methods. By watching the right handler, you can be sure that your code will have all the information it needs.

Defining Event Observers

An event observer is defined in your extension’s config.xml. In our example extension, simply named ‘Company_Example’, we will implement an observer to the event that Magento fires when the customer views the ‘success’ page after a completed order.

<config>
    <frontend>
        <events>
            <checkout_onepage_controller_success_action>
                <observers>
                    <example_success_observer>
                        <type>singleton</type>
                        <class>example/observer</class>
                        <method>myTestMethod</method>
                    </example_success_observer>
                </observers>
            </checkout_onepage_controller_success_action>
        </events>
    </frontend>
<config>

In this high-level post, I only want to point out the important parts of our event handlers.

In our event section, we name the event we’re watching, in this case checkout_onepage_controller_success_action. Inside of that, we assign a unique name to our observer (example_success_observer), and define both the class and method to use. We’ve told our extension that the observer lives in models/Observer.php as ‘myTestMethod’:

// filename: Company/Example/Model/Observer.php

class Company_Example_Model_Observer
{
    public myTestMethod (Varien_Event_Observer $observer)
    {
        $orderId = $observer->getEvent()->getOrderIds();
        $order = Mage::getModel('sales/order')->load($orderId);

        /*
          From here, you have the order details that have been processed by Magento.

          You could report sales information to a third-party accounting system,
          notify an internal pick-ticketing system, or basically do anything
          that you want with the knowledge that this order is complete.
        */
    }
}

The application possibilities are nearly endless with such a powerful event system. The challenging part is identifying what events are available, and when they are fired.

By now you may be wondering how we came across the event ‘checkout_onepage_controller_success_action‘.
Two places: search engines, and the Magento code.

There’s no definitive list of events in the Magento documentation, but there are a number of third-party attempts at cataloging them all. Perusing these lists may give you some insight as to what actions to direct your extension to observe.

From there, search the Magento code for the event name, and you get both an idea of when it runs (in our easy example, the ‘success’ method of mage/checkout’s OnepageController), and what information it may pass into the event.

There’s no substitute for experimentation! If you’re a Magento developer that’s just getting started using events, creating a quick-and-dirty extension that simply Mage::log()s a message in response to an event would be an excellent way of getting a handle on where and when your events are defined and executed.

Are you interested in learning more about how we leverage Magento’s features and functionality? Contact us to start the conversation!

The main goal was to ensure visitors had a better understanding of our services by pulling in targeted content to more visible locations and to driving more engagement. We also aimed to update and better lay out the portfolio and client list sections. To accomplish these goals, we first added a new section called “Why Groove”. This area of the site helps potential clients understand what differentiates Groove Commerce from other agencies. By highlighting our services and the “About Us” videos, we could drive people to alternate ways of consuming content.

In order to drive more engagement through our site, we adopted the Facebook comments functionality on the blog section. This makes it simple and fast for people to comment and share the content they read on our blogs. This functionality also makes them able to further engage with Groove through Facebook, by sharing on their own walls. The new social sidebar that hovers to the left of the blog post allows yet another way to share and connect.

The last change we made was to the lay out of our client portfolio section. In this section, you can now get a better idea of the wide range of companies Groove works with. You can also click through to view a full case study on many of the projects.

Overall, this site redesign allows us to better reflect our services, experience, and mission. We can display more targeted content and drive people to interact with and share that content.

“I loved getting the opportunity to share my knowledge of search engine optimization with those that may very well be making a name for themselves in the industry in a few years. I think it’s amazing that universities are now offering classes that focus on SEO and social media, no such classes existed when I was in school.” said Ethan of the experience.

Although most SEOs continue to be self or peer taught, the opportunity now exists to study and major in the industry. Such changes prove that as the Internet evolves and becomes more and more engrained in our lives, the possibilities are endless for future innovation.

If you are interested in learning more about speaking engagements for your school or event, please reach out to robyn@groovecommerce.com.

1. Avoid Driving Traffic to Your Homepage

Your homepage may be great but it will not perform as well as a highly focused landing page with a clear call to action. It also creates multiple conversion funnel paths, making it difficult to properly analyze performance.

2. Maintain Scent (Sniff! Sniff!)

Headlines, themes, images, calls to action, etc. should all be consistent as the user makes their way from your ad to your landing page.

3. Cater to Your User

You should be leveraging everything you know about visitors. For example, if you are targeting users in a certain state, use that information on your landing page. Incorporate the state name in the headlines and copy. Feature images of the state flag or a local city’s skyline as well.

4. Limit the Links

The goal of a landing page is to convert! That being said, include everything a user needs to convert on your landing page and avoid driving them elsewhere at all costs. Do not include your site’s top or side navigation on your PPC landing page.

5. Awesome Headlines

Make sure your headlines are awesome because you only have a split second to catch a users attention before they click the “back” button.

6. Brief and Compelling Copy

Generally people don’t read all of the content on a webpage, they scan it. Using bullet points is a great way to get your message across clearly and concisely.

7. Clear Call to Action

All PPC ads and banners should include a clear call to action. The call to action on the landing page should be the same and prominently displayed above the fold. The button associated with your call to action should stand out.

8. Include Assurances

Include elements that will build trust and confidence with users. Client testimonials, product reviews, security certifications and guarantee seals are all great assurances.

9. Fewer Form Fields

The number of fields in a lead form and the conversion rate are inversely related, as the number of fields in a lead form go up the conversion rate goes down. Try and limit the number of fields to only the information you absolutely need.

10. A/B Testing!

A/B testing is the process of continually experimenting with on-page factors to increase your landing page’s performance. Pick an element to test instead of trying to test everything at once. Some common places to start testing are headlines, images, calls to action or button colors.

VA Mortgage is a prominent mortgage lender that specializes in low-interest rate mortgage lending for active military personnel and veterans. The VA Mortgage loan program was developed by veterans and is actively carried out by specialists who are committed to assisting military families with utilization of their GI Benefits.

Project Background

VA Mortgage aims to facilitate the loan process for military families by providing exceptional customer service and comprehensive educational resources. However, their website neglected to sufficiently reflect these goals and was not able to proactively engage users in an effective manner. VA Mortgage partnered with Groove to create an informative and updated site design that prompted enhanced user engagement and personalized interaction. Specifically, VA Mortgage sought to strengthen lead generation through prominent CTA’s, creating an interactive mortgage calculator, and developing a stronger military-focused online aesthetic. Additionally, VA Mortgage aimed to segment customers and facilitate channeling website traffic based on one of two primary motives: buying a home or refinancing.

The Redesign

Groove worked closely with VA Mortgage to identify their primary goals for the redesign and develop a strategic approach for an online marketing plan and lead generation initiatives. The redesign incorporated a new site layout that effectively directed website traffic based on conversion goals, as well as a more extensive sitemap with highly targeted landing pages. Refreshed colors and imagery were used to be more representative of a militaristic look and feel. A testimonials section added a humanistic element to the website, as a means to personally connect with military families and veterans visiting the site.

To directly impact lead generation, Groove focused on adding more CTA’s and increasing dynamic contact forms throughout the site. Groove deployed an online marketing strategy that utilized PPC, Facebook Ads, and SEO efforts to increase organic traffic. Additionally, a new blog feature allowed VA Mortgage to develop ongoing content with targeted keywords.

Enhancing user engagement was a primary objective of the site redesign and Groove worked to implement several strategies that successfully addressed this goal. Newly developed click to call and click to chat features facilitated ease of use and directly encouraged site visitors to inquire further. A new site search was implemented with a prominent call-to-action, allowing for ease in site navigation and increased user engagement.

Results

Through this redesign project, Groove was able to successfully increase conversion and time on site. On-going content provided noticeable results in SEO ranking for targeted keywords, and the PPC campaign witnessed a conversion rate of 10.10%. VA Mortgage’s newly launched Facebook campaign generated nearly 7,000,000 impressions, and then was optimized based on performance of varying headlines and images. A successful retargeting campaign launched display banners for visitors who reached a landing page but didn’t fill out a lead form. The redesign project coupled with strategic online marketing initiatives allowed for VA Mortgage to successfully build their online reputation and proactively engage their target audience, ultimately resulting in increased lead generation from their online presence.

EC Kraus is a family owned business providing people with the supplies and products necessary for making wine and beer at home.

Primary Markets Served

North America

Challenges

EC Kraus was on an older ecommerce platform and lacked the customer segmentation and merchandising capabilities necessary to appeal to two very different customer audiences.

Overview

EC Kraus has been selling everything needed to make wine, beer and soda at home since 1966. Some of their customers have been shopping with them for 40 years. This family run business prides itself on providing personal service and their customers return year after year because of it.

Originally established as a catalog company, EC Kraus went online in 2002 with a simple shopping cart. Site speed, an inability to customize the site, and lack of customer segmentation capability prevented them from taking their business to the next level. In addition to these limitations, owner Ed Kraus recognized that by providing home brewing kits as well as home winemaking kits the company actually appealed to two very different audiences. If they were going to properly address their customers – and provide them with a satisfying online shopping experience – a new eCommerce system was necessary.

The Solution

The frustration of hearing “no” or “that would be custom work” from their shopping cart provider is what led EC Kraus to Magento. The idea of having an enterprise level platform while still enjoying the flexibility of open-source software made EC Kraus confident that Magento would be able to keep pace and evolve with their rapidly growing business.

EC Kraus turned to Magento Gold Solution partner, Groove Commerce, to help them implement a new, robust online store built with Magento Enterprise. Groove acknowledged EC Kraus’s success and utilized Magento capabilities that would provide significant new advantages for the company. Groove adopted an analytics-focused approach to the project in order to ensure that the features that were working were carried forward with Magento and, where necessary, new capabilities were implemented to accommodate their growth.

A few of the features Groove applied with Magento Enterprise include:

• Layered navigation for an all new “Wine Selector Tool,” allowing users to find a wine based on the attributes they select;
• Search criterion that makes it easy to find everything from the right wine testing equipment to a specialty grain for beer making;
• Full-page caching to increase overall site performance and decrease page load times;

Customers enjoy buying from EC Kraus because it’s an honest family business with a long standing reputation for excellence. It was critical that the new site provide a more modern shopping experience without losing the “soul” behind the business. Groove helped achieve this goal by maintaining the EC Kraus color scheme and providing user-friendly design features.

Groove integrated BizSyncXL Mail Order Manager Edition with Magento to give EC Kraus product synchronization capability, inventory updates and order status integration. In addition to the backend integration, Groove also installed and configured several extensions. These included a shipping override extension that creates the ability to set rules in CSV format, and an auto-add extension that allows EC Kraus to include a free item from their inventory with each order.

The main development challenge involved the need for a way to quickly place orders for multiple products without having to navigate all around the site to find the items. Groove built and installed a custom quick order form extension that presents all the products in a drop down format, where customers can easily select the items and add then to the cart with one click.

Corsair is a global company bringing innovative, high-performance components to the PC gaming market. Specializing in very high performance memory, ultra-efficient power supplies, and other key system components, their products are the choice of overclockers, enthusiasts, and gamers everywhere.

Overview:

Corsair engaged with Groove Commerce in the Spring of 2011 to find ways to optimize their existing Magento Enterprise website. With Groove, Corsair gained an expert Magento Enterprise resource that would allow them to continue to evolve their online presence without having to train, hire, or manage new resources.

The Challenge:

From a design standpoint, there were several areas for improvement regarding usability, ease of finding desired products and white space. The biggest challenge was to find a way to present robust product information in a clear and concise manor. Shoppers of Corsair’s products needed to be able to review the robust technical specifications while also still being driven to a clear call to action to purchase the product. With the cluttered pages, it was distracting for users to shop.

Corsair also wanted to be able to better accommodate their growing international audience by offering different products unique to the needs of each audience. Rather than simply providing a language translation tool, Corsair needed the ability to create unique stores that had the option to provide a customized inventory.

The Solution:

To remedy the design issues, Groove Commerce redesigned the main category pages in a list view with product descriptions and large product images. Not only did the list view better lay out the products, it also allowed us to show off the high quality product images. On the subcategory pages, we improved the design of the sidebar refinements for better usability and made use of Magento’s “Compare Products” feature. The site usability was enhanced, particularly in regards to navigation. Improved site taxonomy supports layered navigation, meaning that users can now find their products faster. Given the amount of technical spec information and product description as well as other content that needed to be included on product page, we merged all the information into SEO-friendly vertical tabs. Now users have access to all the information they need in a familiar functionality. Overall, the design remained within the Corsair site theme and brand, but improved on some critical areas for better conversion.

Groove leveraged the Magento Multi-Store feature in order to establish their expanding international presence. These sites were built with the ability to share inventory or to split it. With just a site language translator tool, Corsair would not have been able to customize the product offerings to each international region, while a separate store can completely customize the inventory and provide only the products that sell best in each region. The multi-store functionality also capitalizes on the opportunity to make design changes that provide a friendlier layout for international users and will even allow for localization to automatically take place.

Morris 4×4 sells Jeep parts and accessories through their eCommerce website www.jeep4x4center.com and are one of the largest etailers in the industry.

Primary Markets Served:

North America

Overview:

Morris 4×4 is a successful etailer of jeep parts and accessories. They began selling through their ecommerce website jeep4x4.center.com on the SiteLink platform. Their initial online presence was a custom, static eCommerce website and Morris 4×4 needed a more robust solution in order to scale with their phenomenal growth.

Challenges:

The main challenges Morris 4×4 hoped to overcome by transitioning to the Magento Enterprise platform was to transition all their static HTML pages to dynamic. Morris was hindered by the fact that almost their entire site was made up of static pages. This made updating the site a challenge. Each time they made a site change, they had to manually change the code of each page affected by the change.

The Solution:

Morris was able to capitalize on Magento’s front-end capabilities in order to transition all the static pages to dynamic. By paying special attention to SEO best practices, Groove was able to redevelop the pages in a way that avoided a negative impact to organic rankings. Leveraging Magento’s built-in CMS allows users to make changes and updates at a site wide level, dramatically decreasing the time and effort needed.

During the transition planning stages, Groove worked to understand which features and functionalities Morris could expect to leverage in a new Magento Enterprise site and how that would impact the existing design and site architecture. The biggest opportunity uncovered was redesigning the checkout process using the One Step Checkout extension. The goal of the checkout design was to keep it as clean and as concise as possible. Since this extension puts the entire checkout in a horizontal process, it needs to squeeze a lot of information into a screen’s worth of space. A clean design helps prevent overwhelming the user and decreases the likelihood of user error. In addition, we were sure to include security assurances at the top of the page as well as customer service information by the submit order button in order to help the user feel confident in a site’s ability to secure their order and provide assistance if needed.

Having a List of Deliverables

As a retainer client, you probably pay each month for ongoing services. You should expect that your agency will make it clear which tasks they are working on at any given time in the month. Whether it’s developing content, managing social media strategies or creating retargeting ads, hold your agency accountable for letting you know exactly what they are doing for you and how it is improving your bottom line. A great agency will provide reporting around managed services and the return on that investment from a sales and revenue standpoint.

Providing Quality Work

Many etailers assume that working with an agency guarantees quality work, but you have the right to question work if you don’t think it meets your company’s standards. Don’t confuse activity with results – continually ask your account manager how their monthly deliverables will contribute to your average order value, traffic rate, and conversion rate.

With a strategic onboarding process, Groove collects important information from our clients up front so that we make sure we have all relevant information to create campaigns around. We work to understand your target demographics, past efforts, long and short term goals, etc. so that we can hit the ground running and begin providing quality work from day one.

Being Responsive

It is important for an account manager to provide clients with reasonable communication expectations before entering into a marketing engagement. You should have a clear cut understanding of what can be defined as “mission critical”, needing immediate attention vs. what needs to be addressed as soon as possible. Regardless of the nature of the task, a good account manager will indicate they have received your email or voicemail and provide you with an expectation of a follow up time. It is never acceptable for your agency or account manager to be unresponsive, especially in emergency situations.

Providing Reporting and Analytics

You should always know how your business is performing. So whether you have an ecommerce website or a lead generation website, make sure your agency is providing you with detailed reports on traffic, revenue, and leads along with their analysis of those metrics.

We provide a monthly report to review the metrics from the previous month so that we can discover the optimizations we need to make and fine-tune our strategy for the next month. Having ongoing documentation through physical and consistent reporting allows you to follow the progress and success of a multi-faceted marketing engagement.

Keeping on Top of Marketing Trends

Your agency should be an expert in the marketing field, so they should be proactively bringing new strategies and technologies to you as trends change. In the world of online marketing, tactics that worked 6 months ago could be obsolete today. Ask yourself when was the last time your agency brought something new to table. As a business, do you have a Google+ page? Are you using Pinterest to drive traffic to your site? If you answered no, then your agency isn’t doing their job.

An agency-client partnership is a two way relationship. Just like your agency should be pushing you, you should stay on top of your agency to make sure they are working with your best interests in mind and providing you with the results you expect.

To learn more about how we would approach managing ongoing marketing services for your business – contact us.