1. YouTube
2. MySpace
3. FaceBook
4. Bebo
5. BlackPlanet.com
6. Tagged.com
7. Imeem.com
8. hi5.com
9. Orkut.com
10. Digg.com

Most on this list are names we’re familar with. A few at the top have probably inched their way into every nook and cranny of our personal space (Facebook and that damned 25 things application). But beyond that, I think it would be hard pressed to find anyone who is intimately and intricately involved with all of these applications. Even the ones just listed in the top 10.

Like Everything else these days, is the bubble about to burst?

That said, is this the beginning of the end for social networking? I mean, we’ve seen it time and time again, right? You name the industry or the innovation, I’ll show you the meteoric rise of players in the marketplace, user adoption, acceptance plateau, industry or category decline, and vendor consolidation (photo by glamhag).

The evolution and importance of user generated content is no doubt the next step in the Web’s next phase. When used correctly and appropriately, it makes the world a better place. But, one can’t help but wonder what the landscape of social networking and it’s players are going to look like in 18-24 months.

Website Magazine is astute in asking some sobering questions in it’s February 2009 issue: “How much time should we all be committing to these resources.” and “What are the indicators of success”, are all great questions to ask ourselves as we all feverishly upload video clips and reveal everything anyone ever wanted to know about ourselves, plus a wee bit more.

Are you using them for more than just mental bubble gum? A time killer? I would love to get some feedback. Or, hit me with some comments below…

So, the next time you want to know how your site compared to the big-boys of online retail during Christmas, here’s the data. Or, the next time your boss asks for the average, whatever – your a rock star. Here’s an excerpt of Eisenberg’s post:

According to Coremetrics Benchmark, the percentage of website visits that ended up with product orders increased by 23% from November to December and fell by 2.4% compared to December, 2007. The average number of items per order and average order value fell by 19% and 11% compared to November and by 2% and 3% compared to last year.

• Page Views Per Session 12.01
• Product Page Views Per Session 2.99
• Average Time on Site (in seconds) 503.01
• Average Items/Order 4.76
• Average Order Value $124.48
• Shopping Cart Conversion Rate 38.16%
• Shopping Cart Abandonment 61.84%
• New Visitor Conversion Rate 2.69%
• On-site Search Session 18.97%

If your wondering how your site compares, and how slight improvement in any of these metrics or areas can translate into some serious cash, read my previous posts on the subject here:

• 4 ½ Conversion Metrics No One Ever Talks About
• How To Translate Conversion Ratio Opportunities Into Real Cash
• Conversion Funnel Calculator Download

With that, we’ll pick up where we left off…

First of all, I should be answering the question, “What is a dashboard?”. In a nutshell, a dashboard is a central location where all your KPI’s can be reviewed and monitored on a regular basis. The benefit of having all of your metrics in one place is twofold. First – convenience. Because you’re busy enough during the day, having to dig up metrics and data from 10 different sources is just a plain hassle. Secondly – and most importantly, there is a knock-on benefit of having these metrics displayed in one central location together. Over time it is easier to spot trends, see cause/effect relationships and make better decisions about your business (photo by gwen).

3. What should your dashboard look like?

How should the dashboard look? Well – that’s kind of up to you. As long as you’re able to read the data accurately and make decisions, it’s probably not all that important to have a bunch of fancy bells and whistles. A few standard charts will probably do. The key is to not overload yourself or your dashboard with data. 8-10 key points from across your business, with the ability to dig deeper is probably enough to get you going.

Here’s the problem: How do you combine click-stream data and polling data in one central location or spreadsheet? Doing this can be difficult. If you’re part of a larger organization and you’ve got a data jockey who knows database management and Excel – you could be off to the races. If not, you may be able to create a work around.

For example: a key indicator of customer satisfaction is the tendency for customers to recommend your product or service to others. By asking a “would you recommend” question on your site – in the checkout process, or whatever – the information could be easily pulled into Excel on a regular basis and the calculated metric is the percentage of yes/no answers over time. If you see a swing one way or the other, or just want to dig deeper into the data, you can take the extra step and dive into your polling data in Bizrate, 4Q, etc.

If you’re not able to centralize all of the information in one spreadsheet – that’s ok at first. As long as you have the ability to get at each data type easily and you’re not spending a bunch of time manually updating or digging for data. The important thing is to begin to establish a process or system of collection and looking at the information regularly.

Automation is the key. You should be able to easily set up a system where you are compiling click data and polling data automatically. If you’re using a system like Omniture, you can have the information emailed to your inbox at regular intervals: weekly, monthly, etc. If you’ve decided to use Bizrate as your polling source, the email functionality comes right out of the box.

So – even if you don’t take the time to centralize at first, you’re at least receiving the information regularly without having to remember to dig it up. Good on you.

There really is an art to this. I’ve been digging around over the last couple of weeks, and it looks like Hubert Lee at Dashboard Spy really knows his stuff. He hasn’t posted new information for a couple of months. But, there’s looks to be a wealth of templates and how-to’s that can help in the creation of your customer experience dashboard.

4. Establish a feedback loop

You’ve established the goals, decided on your KPIs and developed your dashboard. You’re receiving your information. Now what? It’s important to review the data on a regular basis that is set within you calendar. In addition, if you’re looking at this information regularly, it’s important to create a process to respond to customers in a timely manner, if it’s warranted. Many times, when customers are given an opportunity to sound off, they do it in spades. Some have issues that haven’t been resolved or need attention immediately. It’s important to take these instances into account when developing your loop.

If you’re part of a larger organization: It’s important that stakeholders from across the company have access to the information within the dashboard – maybe within a scheduled monthly recurring meeting where everyone can review the data face to face. Some points to remember:

1. Do the KPIs align to the goals we’ve established?
2. What actions can we take to improve upon the KPIs in the short term?
3. What actions require longer term planning?
4. Remember to review the actions from the previous meeting prior to looking at the new month’s data – and ask for updates from owners. It keeps team members accountable.

Putting it all together

By estabishing a dashboard and the feedback loop – you now have a 360 degree view of the customer. In addition, your users will notice your organization taking action on the feedback they’re giving. Just this communication alone will help create the type of advocacy for your products and your organization all the advertising in the world couldn’t buy. In addition – you’ve just established a foundation for change in your business that goes much deeper than click-stream analytics reviewed by the Web team. A customer experience dashboard can be used as a basis to make improvements throughout an organization, with all the stakeholders buying in.

From a marketing perspective the last decade couldn’t be more different than the decade before. Results driven marketers finally rule the roost and to say most organizations are doing more with less would be a herculean understatement. Mostly because the real marketing has been taken out of the hands of the real marketers. All the stuff that used to costs millions to implement, broadcast and track is now free and only requires a bit of knowledge and elbow grease. But, I’m not going to get into that. We’ve all heard it before – and to hear once again how Google, or even the Web for that matter, have changed the world, would be a waste of time (photo by Alby Space).

One point does stick in my mind, however. The content that is being generated today for marketers, by marketers is also a far cry from even 3-5 years ago. Today, we’ve all caught up in the “how”. The tactics. The tips and the tricks that are a means to an end. SEO tips, WordPress plug-ins and link building strategies have taken center stage, in my opinion, and it’s all gotten a bit – well, clinical, antiseptic and lacking in strategy.

What happened to creating great products for real people? Exceeding customer expectation, and creating advocates for you brand? In the Web 2.0 world of user generated content, we have just created ‘more’ rather than ‘better’ marketing.

We’ve created a 14 cup coffee maker and called it revolutionary. But, it’s still the same old coffee – just more of it.

Visitors: check
Orders: check
Conversion Rate: check

What ever the statistics are, we’re there. With bells on. Daily. Weekly. Monthly. We’re doing it right. Right? Well – partially.

The problem is that most marketers look at click-stream analytics as the entire story when it comes to Web site data mining and online customer experience analysis. But, it’s only half the picture. Remember – there are real people out there interacting with your Web site and your products – not nameless, faceless bits and bytes. By taking a step back, defining the true goals of your Web site and incorporating some additional tools that allow a true 360-degree view of your users, you will be able to drive profits and make better decisions for your business than with a Web analytics package alone.

A couple of weeks ago, I was reading some comments on Sphinn. A reader had asked a question about click stream data he was seeing on his site. Apparently, his home page bounce rate was low, and consequently he was seeing visitors leave from areas much deeper within the site. He was a bit unsure whether that was good or bad – and he was asking for a bit of advice. To be honest, I didn’t stick around to read the responses, and I didn’t answer his question either.  But his dilema stuck in my head. Was this good or bad? The ultimate answer revolves around whether the users visiting his Web site achieved the goals he’s established for his site: subscribed to an email or rss feed,  bought a product – whatever (photo by itto.be).

1. What’s the goal?

I’m not knocking the guy. But, answering this question right out the gate is the first step in driving profitable decisions online. What is the goal of your Web site? Figure it out now – and let that decision drive every aspect of the online strategy: Design, content, call center scripts. You name it. The Heath boys talk about this point in their book, Made to Stick: Describe your mission or goal in one simple phrase, sentence or idea. It works.

2. What are the KPIs?

Once you’ve established what your overall goal (or goals) are, you should spend some time figuring out how you should measure them. Develop some KPIs (key performance indicators) that can keep track of a defined set of metrics over time without getting inundated with information. The important thing here is that you should not rely on Web analytics data alone. If you do, you’ll be missing the boat on a ton of great information that will help you run your business and take it to the next level. Some examples:

A. Pre-and-post sales polling data: Allows for real customer feedback covering any kind of questions you deem important in helping you achieve your goals. You can gather this information in a number of ways. Many forums and bulletin board systems come with polling functionality out of the box. For post-sales and multi-channel questionnaires, there are a few options. You or your organization can invest in a firm like Foresee Results. There’s a ton of degrees and methodologies to their madness, and they specialize in merging online and offline experiences in a coherent and actionable manner. A definite challenge for most organizations who are selling in both direct and multi-channel online as well as bricks and mortar.

If you’ve got Chimay taste on a PBR budget, try iPerceptions. Avinash Kaushik, the analytics evangelist for Google, has developed the best of both worlds. If you want the full service agency approach, iPerceptions can accommodate. If you want the DIY approach, they offer the free 4Q.

B. Click-stream analytics: Sure you’ve got the Google Analytics set up. But, are the metrics you’re tracking on a regular basis tie into your goal(s). They should. We’re talking 3-5 key data points. That’s it. Any more than that, you’ll be swimming in data and indecisive. If you’ve got a budget, it might be worth your while to look into a firm like Omniture Site Catalyst. The Site Catalyst platform offers much more flexibility, plus a consultative support staff to be able to help you set up the reports you need to help you monitor your online busines effectively.

C. On-site usability testing: Being able to watch your visitors use your Web site can be worth it’s weight in gold. I’m not sure why, but face-to-face usability testing and the books of Jakob Nielsen were standard fare a decade ago. Traditional testing can be expensive. Alternatively, a firm like Clicktale will be able to record users on your site for you and you design team to review later. An enterprise version is offered by Tealeaf, I’m sure with a load of consultative features, if this area is new to you.

D. Customer comments and reviews: Ok – let’s be honest. Many organizations have been falling all over themselves over the past 3 years trying to employ customer comments and reviews on their sites – for a lot of reasons. First and foremost, it’s continually updated content that has some serious Google juice. Secondly – and much more importantly, it lowers a significant barrier on most E-commerce sites regarding purchase indecision.  But, many organizations get these comments and reviews up and running and don’t review the data themselves. Big mistake.

If you’re not into developing customer comments and reviews for your Web site and you sell physical product, try getting hooked up with BizRate. They do a fantastic job in offering post sales surveys to customers as well as fulfillment questionnaires. Plus, you don’t have to sweat any kind of implementation or integration. Just post a link on your order confirmation page.

Point is – click data is chump change. Dig deeper and reap the rewards. I’ve gotten a bit long winded here. So, later in the week I’ll publish part 2 on this topic. We’ll go into KPIs, creating the dashboard and developing a feedback loop of information.

To continue reading, move on to the second in this series: Driving Profits With A Customer Experience Dashboard Part 2.

O.K. – we’ve all heard the goofy riddle. But, in an odd way, many online marketers draw similar parallels to conversion rate opportunities. Improving a Web site’s overall orders to visits conversion ratio can be a big task and many of the most seasoned marketers can be left scratching their heads wondering where to begin improvements. Which areas should you concentrate on improving with your E-commerce Web site? The answer to that question depends on a lot of factors. By digging into this a little more deeply, you can begin to understand where to begin.

A Ton of Bricks – Quantifying Real Revenue Opportunities

A few days ago, I posted a piece on The 4 ½ Conversion Metrics No One Ever Talks About. A general piece about how many online marketers view the overall Web site convert rate metric as the end-all, be-all when it comes to E-commerce. The post breaks down the 4 key areas of a Web site conversion funnel and discusses the idea that concentrating on each step in the process will help improve the ratio as a whole. If you haven’t read this post, it might be a good idea to start there (photo by alexkess).

The point is, many online marketers get caught up in metrics and ratios without taking a step back and quantifying the real revenue opportunities at each stage in the process. Once you get an understanding of where your Web site is lagging within the funnel – and what that means in cold hard cash – it will hit like a Mack truck.

You can quantify these ratios and the resultant revenue by doing a little math. But, to help things along I’ve built a handy Conversion Funnel Calculator (.xls) that you can use to help you quantify the opportunities on your Web site. Let me know what you think.

A Ton of Feathers – Identifying the Areas Your Site Needs to Improve

Here’s where things get tricky. Where do you start the improvements? It really depends on a lot of factors: goals of the site, time, resources, etc. One thing’s for sure. Seeing the gaps within the funnel can be pretty sobering. Plus, seeing the lost opportunities at each stage in the process will help you identify improvements and map out an action plan pretty quickly (photo by *Melody**).

One thing to realize is that it’s very difficult to look at each step, page or phase in the process inside a vaccuum. Changes made in one area will no doubt have a knock-on affect later down the line in the process.

The Art of Customer Experience
In E-commerce, online marketing, or what ever you want to call it, many of us are overly preoccupied with capturing the sale. Do what it takes to register the revenue. Looking at your business in this one dimension will let you garner profits early, but if you’re not looking at what’s happening before and after the sale, you’re E-commerce strategy will suffer long term. The businesses and brands that focus on these “ancillary” areas will not only be able to position themselves to acquire market share in the future even when budgets are tight and times are tough, in many cases focusing on these three key customer experience touch points will remind organizations there are benefits beyond the buck and there are real people behind the numbers. So, where should you and your organization be looking? Customer experience is definitely more art than science, but here’s three areas that are under utilized when it comes to improving customer experience as well as the bottom line:

1. Pre-Sales Contact Emails and Phone Calls – A no-brainer right? Maybe. Many organizations look at this area when it comes to cost cutting. Automation, auto-responders and tactics to reduce the need for real human interaction. But, there’s a goldmine of information within the content of these emails. If you look more closely than just the sheer number you may be getting over the course of a week or even a day, and dive into the content, you can find information that can lead your editorial schedules, drive support articles and help define the requirements of your Web site support feature and functionality list. Most importantly, taking one hour per week to sift through these little gems will plainly let you know what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong within your organization immediately.

Quick Tip: If you’re a part of a large organization and you’re a bit removed from the front lines of the phone queue, put a reminder in your calendar to sit and listen in on the calls once a month with one of your call center reps. Don’t have that kind of time? Do it at least quarterly. It will save your organization time and money in the long haul, plus be the impetus of a ton of great ideas that will help separate your business from your competition.

2. Post-Order Confirmation/Re-Affirmation – Congratulations, you got the sale.  So what. Most confirmation emails spit out pretty worthless junk. At most, it tells end customers that their order information has made it through the unknown labyrinth of bits and bytes and is has now been successfully received. End of story. Most online organizations have just lost a major opportunity to really create a customer for life. The best thing you can do at this point is to make your newest customer feel good about themselves and the wise decision they just made. How? Take a close look at the confirmation email that’s sent when an order is placed. A great confirmation email with a customer testimonial or two, links to install instructions if necessary, information regarding next steps in the fulfillment process – expected delivery dates, tracking links, etc. Do what you can to affirm that end customers have made a great purchase decision. Additional products to purchase are good here too (maybe even at a promotional discount). Hey, They still have their wallet out – they may have forgotten something!

3. In-Box Delivery and Packaging – If you’re selling hard goods, this is The Moment of Truth. Did you deliver on your promise? Did it arrive in a timely manner? Better yet, sooner than expected? As your customer peeled back the bubble wrap, what did they find? If you delivered on your promise, you’re more than half-way there. But, you as an organization can be burned on this last leg of the transaction. If the packaging is hard to open (an issue with a growing number of retail packaged products), install instructions difficult to understand or interpret, or even worse, the customer didn’t get what they expected when they initially purchased your product, you’re in trouble. The time, effort and real dollars you and your company spent acquiring this customer has just gone down the drain.

Quick Tip: In your organization’s analytics package or ERP system, keep a close eye on the number of new customers you’re acquiring over time compared to the repeat customers. The new ones are great to tell your CEO about because they’re growing your business and your market share, but don’t turn a blind eye to the repeat customers. If you’re doing your job right, they are your advocates, your biggest fans and when times are tight they’re probably keeping the ship afloat. What’s a good ratio for new vs. repeat customers? It may depend on your industry and your average order value, but if you’re keeping as many customers as you’re acquiring as a percentage month over month (50/50) you’re probably doing something right. Plus, the great thing about repeat customers? They’re telling their friends and family about you too. (photo by HOBO)

How can this information change your life? It doesn’t take many raving fan emails to remind you that you’re in the right business – or a couple of ranting phone calls to make you get your act together.

I just discovered Bruce Temkin’s blog on Customer Experience a few weeks ago. He’s got some great insights into customer experience monitoring and measurement – plus a free e-book: The 6 Laws of Customer Experience. A quick summary of the laws:

1) Every interaction creates a personal reaction.
2) People are instinctively self-centered.
3) Customer familiarity breeds alignment.
4) Unengaged employees don’t create engaged customers.
5) Employees do what is measured, incented, and celebrated.
6) You can’t fake it.

Definitely some points to ponder in an area that can be nebulous to say the least for many organizations. Bruce goes into great detail regarding the implications of the laws and how an organization can strive for improvements. A quick eleven page read with some fantastic insights. If you’re looking for some help in quantifying the customer experience for your organization, give it a read.

The point is – the transaction is only a small piece of the story. Organizations creating advocates and fans are able to break down pre-sales and post-sales touch points as well to maximize the experience from end to end.

Have a great story or point on customer experience? I’d love to hear it.

True? Yep. But, that’s far from the end of the story. It would be silly to summarize it’s 822 pages of introductions, character development, twists, turns triumphs, disappointment, climax and conclusion in one simple sentence. In a phrase, there’s a lot of meat on that bone.

A lot of parallels can be drawn between a great novel and success online. However, too many e-commerce and marketing professionals focus on the “final act” – a Web site’s overall conversion rate, as the end-all-be-all metric of success. If you’re an online marketer or an e-commerce strategist tasked with increasing the revenues, orders, average order value (AOV), profit margins or the net profitability of an e-commerce Web site, success lies in being able to tell a great story from beginning to end (photo by pandaramic).

So, how do you read the tea leaves in this one metric and derive success? The ultimate goal of many Web sites vary. For some, it may be to sell more products, for others it may be to increase order volumes of physical goods, e-mail sign-up rates, rss subscriptions, Webinar attendance or digital downloads. The desired end result may vary, but in general, the goal is similar. Define the paths of conversion on your site for each conversion goal (an order, a download, a sign-up) and break them down into four distinct categories. By doing this, it’s much easier to tell a great story to the visitors of your site and hand them off to the next step in the conversion funnel process. Plus,  looking at these distinct areas separately allows you to see how minor improvements at each stage in the funnel can dramatically increase the number of visitors moving on to the next phase of the process. Here are the 4 metrics of the funnel that need to be looked at individually:

1. Overall visitors to decision pages / Total number of visitors – How many visitors are getting to decision pages? The pages that have the offer, product or sign-up? Divide this number by the total number of visitors. This gives you the percentage of people coming to the site that are even seeing the desired offer. The first step in the funnel – and quite honestly the most important. By getting your pitch right here, you can increase your goal (orders, sign-ups, etc.) dramatically while reducing the costs of phone calls, emails and other drags on profitability. It’s tough to find what the “average” ratio here should be, but if it’s any lower than 50% to 60% than some big improvements should probably be made. Half or nearly half of your visitors are not getting to decision pages.

A quick tip: Most sites have analytics packages these days. Whether your using Google for free or your paying for your metrics with services from Omniture or Coremetrics, but be careful. Many times organizations peel the bubble wrap off their analytics, install them and don’t make the customization necessary to get the most out of them. A great example is the visit to cart ratio. An out of the box metric that completely overlooks decision pages. If you’re not looking at the specific decision pages that are unique to your business, you’re missing out – and probably not getting your money’s worth out of your analytics package.

2. Shopping cart visits / Decision page visits – Once visitors have seen your pitch, how many are taking action and adding product to the cart or moving on to the sign-up page of that Webinar (or whatever)? That’s what this metric is for. From a percentage standpoint, this is probably where the highest visitor drop-off is going to occur within the funnel. Why? Visitors see this step as the first commitment. The add to the cart, or the first part of a sign-up. Most looky-loos will take off at this point. But if you’ve refined your pitch and reduced the percieved risk in taking this step, serious visitors should have no problem taking the plunge. What should this ratio be for your organization? In a recent pre-holiday season Webinar, Brian Walker of Forrester Research commented that that this metric should be somewhere around 40%, but others cite the metric can be much lower, say 30%, before you should start sweating bullets (photo below by duien).

3. Check-out visits / Cart visits – Okay. So you’ve got potential customers at the cart. How many are taking the plunge and starting the checkout process? This is the metric that will tell you. Honestly, many people get to the cart to see if there is anything special that’s going to happen when they get there. Did the price change? Is there any kind of special offer that happens when the product is placed into the cart? Many times visitors do this out of curiosity. Once that itch is scratched they bail. The committed move on – for the most part. Unless you’ve done something to tick them off. Like added unexpected fees or the load time for these pages are longer than expected. In his Webinar, Walker states that the average cart abandon rate is 59%. But again, be careful of averages. They could be much higher or lower than what you should be shooting for in your business.

4. Confirmation page visits / Check-out visits – The moment of truth. Cha-ching. The ratio of customers who have made the comitment to go through your checkout process and complete the process. The ratio for this metric should be very high. Why? Look at all the hoops your visitors have jumped through and are still willing to complete the process! Look for a 70%-80% completion percentage here. If it’s not up there, look for improvements to forms and other unnecessary questions in this process to streamline the deal. Keep your eye on the prize and not some obscure question that needs to be completed for the boot licking toadies in accounting.

That’s it. Simple eh? Honestly, it is. By disecting the conversion rate funnel into these simple steps, you can begin to make significant improvements to your organization’s Web site, what ever the goals may be.

Oh, and what’s the ½ goal mentioned? Always remember to follow the number of single access pages to your site. This is the number of visitors who took a look at one page of the site, then bolted. This metric is a great determinant of qualified traffic, and will allow you to potentially make the necessary changes to your demand generation tactics (paid advertising, etc.). Don’t look at home page bounce rates alone. This will only tell you part of the story. Your Web site is exactly that. A Web. Visitors are coming from every angle. Don’t miss the whole story – you’ll miss out on tremendous opportunities.

Want to dig into this a little deeper? Read part 2: How to Translate Conversion Ratio Opportunities Into Real Cash. Plus, I’ve built a handy little Conversion Funnel Calculator (.xls) try it out and tell me what you think.

It took me several years to realize that I don’t need to put pencil to sketchpad, or fire up Photoshop to get my creative release. By thinking of things in a new way, doing what others are not and creating a feedback loop for me to improve on the things that I’ve built, created, managed, dreamed of, or otherwise came to fruition, I have been able to vent creatively. It took a long time for me to realize that Norma from Accounting is just as likely to get the same kind of creative release as she builds some kind of super Excel spreadsheet to solve a recurring problem for her department as I would in my job as a “creative type”.

As a person who defines and executes on E-commere and direct marketing strategy every day, it has taken me quite a long time to define and categorize the things I do into two camps: strategy and tactics. It may seem that the work would be easy to categorize, but as many of us get knee deep in the mud of every day tasks, it is sometimes more difficult to see the forest for the trees.

Skellie, at Skelliewag.org wrote an insightful post a few weeks ago about not selling out. Not really sure how this pertains to me and what I’m writing here, but it was thought provoking enough for me to write a post. As I dig into Sphinn and other social media sites, I’ll admit it all seems to be a bit odd. Content for content’s sake. Everyone writing for some kind of traffic home run, rather than what might be useful for prospective readers or customers.

Seems to me to be all tactic and not much strategy.

Definitely something I’ll take into consideration as an E-commerce guy who sometimes impersonates as a blogger.

When someone mentions Nebraska, visions of corn fields, popped corn and Cornhuskers fill the brain – instinctively. Man, you can’t buy that no matter who you are (photo below by Chad Johnson).

As you start to define strategies for marketing, E-commerce and customer experience for 2009, remember who you are as an organization and flaunt it to the nines. Shout it from the rooftops until it hurts. But, if you’re fighting a me-too battle with a bigger, stronger, better competitor with deeper pockets, you could be in for it.