Holiday Marketing 2015

[CCarter]

Macys' is bossing it up, but they always do. One complaint is they don't have a link to their affiliate program in the footer. I had to back out and go to Google to find it. When I clicked on the "affiliate program" link which I found when I arrived to another page on their site from Google it just redirects me to the fucking homepage.

So if they DO have an affiliate program they are doing a terrible job, if they don't have an affiliate program they might as well just delete the references from all over their site. Like right now I don't know whether they have a program or not, I'm going to have to Google this nonsense to find out.

I ended up on some suspect website, FlexOffers.com (http://www.flexoffers.com/affiliate-programs/macys/), clearly an affiliate running this operation. I'm done searching. If Macys does have an affiliate program they are completely fucking up.

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Now their homepage was on-point with the holiday seasons.

In fact I started scrolling and a little popup came up on the right hand side and it kept onscreen as I scrolled. Impossible to not notice, but it's not huge and in your face like some of you guy's popups mang. I've never seen one so elegantly like that, so that's a cue to steal, check it out:

^^ Note that it doesn't instantly popup when i land on the page, it was timed when I scrolled down the page some. And it doesn't completely interrupt my experience. So I went to whatever was promoted, I didn't bother reading anything on the onscreen popup, it's for a Macy's Credit Card. Meh, whatever (I also don't recall sharing anything):

^^ I ain't paying you, so I have the privilege of going to your store and buying a ton of shit, paying you even more, just so I can get 10% rewards. But that's me, I'm not a consumer - but I know these clowns are making bank off this though. So that's a cue to think about.

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I attempted to sign up for an account and once again, over 1500 fields. But I do get an extra 15% off when I create a Macy's profile, so IF that's true, that's definitely worth it as a consumer.

^^ Their form is weird, cause they've got extra big textboxes, I guess for the old people. I'm curious as to why the fuck they would expect people to put in their birth dates in this form. I know WHY, for demographic reasons, but wtf? I'm potentially a visitor with my credit card out and you are wasting time asking for fields you really don't need, but simply would like to know... meh, whatever. Consumers will still fill it out, but it's an added waste of time.

Interesting enough when I signed up I got a popup for this Macy's Credit Card again. They must love this shit. I like it from a branding perspective and as a marketer. (Fun Fact, their "loading icon" is a Macy's Credit card, lol nice touch);

One thing about Macy's though is I can't tell if their red is normal level or not, and what levels are for the holidays:

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Okay now Macy's is taking it to a new level, boss level with "The Gift Guide" - tons of Pinterest icons, so it's clearly pinterest inspired. (Further research tells me this page is designated for the social media crowd based on the url (http://www.macys.com/campaign/socia...l_id=1&cm_sp=navigation-_-top_nav-_-giftguide). Some of this long ass page is actually animated - the colors and imagery, fucking perfect for their brand - I shed a tear for this artwork:

 

[Calamari]

Clicking the like button doesn't show much I appreciate what you're doing here. I appreciate the insight.

 

[built]

Pretty much solid gold what I've learnt from this thread, would have never thought about it before

 

[CCarter]

Macy's delivered. I never thought about having an incentive to create an account for an ecommerce store (especially with all those fields I had to input), but it's a great idea:

^^ They have some stipulations, the total purchased price has to be over $100 in order for me to get my 15% and free shipping (it's one time I believe.).

I like it cause it starts the process of the user buying on Macys.com, and once you buy from a person once and have a great experience you'll be more willing to buy from them again. Not only do they get $100+ of my money, which they give 15% back, but now they've got a customer who bought and is most likely to buy again IF they don't fuck up the process.

The incentive is a hook that would push me through the fear of buying with them, if I had any fear or hesitation. I would then have an established consumer/seller relationship with them, so they're on point all around. A+ work, but nothing about the holidays specifically.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Even Textbroker got me to log back in!

Then I laughed because my transaction history is nothing but free $7 vouchers for the past few years. I think I gave the last one to @built.

 

[CCarter]

Like @thamonsta stated Twitter's starting to get into the game by attempting to get business to spend money, but overall weak IMO. I'll keep an eye on them for my accounts and see what they do, but meh:

 

[built]

OMG!!! @CCarter is Donald Trump

 

[CCarter]

Notable absent brands

I went to Progressive.com, Geico.com, AllState.com, and eSurance.com - nothing for the holidays, and that's to be expected. It's pretty difficult selling shit people really wish they didn't need like insurance during the holidays. They can't exactly give out coupons, discounts, or have sales. I'll keep an eye out on their sites to see if anything changes, but i doubt it.

Brands That Eventually SHOULD switch To Holiday Mode

Apple and Beats By Dre seem to be holding off for now. I think it's a perfect idea for Apple, cause you know they're going to fucking make bank. People aren't lining up to give fucking Android or Windows Phones as gifts for the holidays - let's be fucking serious. Apple knows they're the bosses of the game. You know that iPad is going to kill it overall.

Brands That Really have nothing to sell directly

No one gives soft drinks away on the holidays yet Coca-Cola and Pepsi will eventually get into the holiday season. Coca-Cola's Christmas polar bears are infamous characters and almost as recognized as Santa Claus himself during the holidays (You can picture them right now in your head right? Cause you're a consumer mang and they got you in their claws). But for now, nada:

 

[CCarter]

OMG, fucking Sears is at it again... How are you going to have your Twitter (and Facebook) more on-point with the holiday shopping and then when you click through it goes to a site completely off-basis? The right hand isn't talking to the left hand or the brain all together. Buy a fucking diswasher for the holiday meals... WTF is wrong with these people. Just horrible marketing and incompetency all around:

OMG Even Kmart's Twitter (and Facebook) is more on-point than their website. Their website still looks like it's March, I can't tell the difference. My mind is blown with the un-coordinated efforts of these knuckleheads' brands:

 

[CCarter]

Amazon is coming out the gate with a strong push to their customer base. They sent an extremely long email out to everyone which has a ton of products for categories people would be looking for. I have a feeling Amazon is going to be hitting up consumers daily and give no fucks. #BawseMode

Some of you reading this probably still don't have an email list or newsletter sign up option - Who the fuck are you guys even talking to? You have no user base to even communicate with instantly... mang your dead in the waters... This is Amazon in full Go Mode:

 

[CCarter]

Target's affiliate program is retarded. It was 3 pages first of all, I mean WTF? 3 pages and I had to reenter my username twice - page 1 and page 3. Then I waited for the validation email, and clicked to confirm, no problem. It then led me to the login page and I used my login credentials I just created and I get this retarded shit:

^^ Mang... Fucking idiots. Every fucking new affiliate is going to get this once they sign-up, why? How do they think this is a good thing to see? Some of you guys reading this probably send your new affiliates to pages which block them from doing anything too... mang... Whatever at this point I'll just wait for Target's affiliate program to get their heads out of their asses. I'm a bit disappointed at Target of all brands for this. I thought in recent years they've been getting their act together, but clearly that's not the case.

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Their home page is on-point though. Ready for the holidays, surprising to ME they have Apple product and the Apple Watch and are talking about the iPhone6s. I haven't been inside some of these retail stores in forever so who the fuck knows what else is going on, but it looks like they are stepping up their game. I actually shouldn't be surprised Walmart has Apple products too:

^^ I like that "Free Shipping and Returns on every order". That's pretty slick, I can imagine they are losing money but whatever, customer service is key.

Clearly Apple is going to make a killing this holiday season, you see people pushing their electronics all over their homepage. Ain't nobody pushing Androids, Windows, or Blackberry - just give it up folks. Apples = Money, Android = "Oh mang do they have a free version of that App?" fucking peasants...

Some of Targets interface is a bit difficult to navigate cause it took me a minute of searching to find the spot to create an account. I mean, there might just be too much red, and not enough colours for contrasting, like black or grey (gray and color for you savages across the pond). The account setting is superb though, fucking simple:

They have a Kids Toy's section that had a nice cute animation:

^^ Random survey popped up appeared on the 4th time of reloading. Target is ready to go, I'll keep an eye on these knuckleheads and hopefully the affiliate team can get their head out their asses soon and get me going.

Hold on folks, is this fucking adsense on the bottom of this kids' toys page? Retargeting me with Comcast XFinity cause I was reading @thamonsta's post about them:

^^ yeah, that's retarded. I'm a customer on your eCommerce platform and you've got advertisement to send me away... not so bright.

Also got the email confirmation, nothing about holidays, but not a complete joke like Sears' one at least. Simple and generic:

 

[CCarter]

The Home Depot - nothing really going on their homepage for the holidays except the drop down stating "Christmas Decorations":

I'm assuming this is where the normies go to buy Christmas Trees, and lights and shit to make their houses look like savages live there. They definitely are going to make a good chunk of change by raping the forest this holiday season. They're good to go.

They are using CJ.com for their affiliate program so I'm not going to bother with going through that.

I went into the "Holiday Decorations" section and loved the layout, loved how the options are all laid in front of me and all I have to do is scroll down and select what's up. There is even an App for Holiday Lights:

This is where it gets interesting, Home Depot had a nice registration pop up, extremely simple, no problem, then when I clicked to submit, the pop up switched and transformed into an email subscription option.

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They are fucking smart, this is pretty much telling me and asking my permission to send me communication. I actually opted-in to receive the one about daily deals, so we'll see. Overall Home Depot does a great job. They aren't going into the holidays too early on the home page at least, but there is a dedicated section, and it's crisp and clean - and their registration process is phenomenal.

 

[CCarter]

Sears is just embarrassing themselves at this point... I went across the pond to America's hat, The land of the Queen, Canada of course, and I checked out http://www.sears.ca/, and you won't believe it:

^^ They're ready for the holidays, The Sears Canadians are more on-point then their USA counterparts. Check out this Wish Book Page:

If your Canadian counterparts are one upping you and they know how to actually use a calendar, just put them in charge mang... Long Live The Queen of Canada, Katheryn Winnick!

^^ I'm told this is her donning her native Canadian tribal attire which has ancestral meanings which I could not completely understand my translator, his dialect had an 'ah' at the end of most sentences and he spoke extremely fast so please forgive me if I get anything wrong - the patterns have something to do with trading furs with Native Americans and a show of respect to the Drowned God. They are a very humble people. I plan on visiting some of the tribes near their "Ottawa empire" in a fortnight.

I understand Queen Winnick has a 3 degree black belt in Tae Kwon DUO and 2 degree in Karate. My understanding is before their 14th birthday all Canadians need some sort of martial arts training to fend off the wild bears that can come within their tribe's territories.

 

[CCarter]

Even the most hated company, Comcast (http://www.thewire.com/technology/2...e-the-most-hated-companies-in-america/371295/, in the world is getting into the holiday season early. I hate these clowns cause I just learned they capped one of my houses, so I'm like fuck do get rid of the house or do I upgrade to GB plans which I'd rather not do cause I'm not there a lot, or do I just say fuck it and go with ATT. Where the fuck is Google Fiber! I really hate these assholes:

 

[MetaData]

And we've got Taco Bell's marketing department tapping out to the holiday stress already...

Here's their marketing manager attacking a driver. Driver was smart, turned the dashcam around and discreetly palmed his mace. Taco Bell fired the guy.

Skip to about 2:20. Love how the Uber driver gets out of the car and follows him like "Yeah, that's what happens, you got maced!!!"
http://www.adweek.com/news/technolo...-was-caught-video-punching-uber-driver-167905

 

[CCarter]

Home Depot sent in their welcome email yesterday, here was the outcome. Nothing about holidays, people are really missing the ball with these "Welcome" emails to new members, they should rotate with the seasons:

^^ At least they got 3 promotional items at the bottom, one going to "weekly ADs".

 

[emp]

Looking at amazon.de

They are dropping the ball.
I can understand why the homepage isn't showing Xmas stuff, but they SHOULD be preparing their affiliates.

Went to the affiliate backend -nothing
HAd to click on "Promotions" and well.. scroll quite a ways.

Going there gives me this:

Which is just a list of bestsellers per category.
No banners, not anything.

::emp::

 

[CCarter]

Target's affiliate team finally got their act together, but I haven't bothered logging into the account. My main goal is to see how frequently they push their affiliates to promote their products and what products they push. For an initial affiliate "welcome" email this is an "okay" start. (Note they state they send out a weekly newsletter to their affiliates on Wednesday, so we'll see tomorrow what's up.):

 

[CCarter]

To note @emp's amazon.de posts - there is 1 slide, at the very end, promoting the holiday season. When you click on the slide it takes you to their section that's dedicated to the holidays. I do like the fact they are smart enough to know going into the holidays early in different countries would create backlash - but then again it's Amazon, they are on top of their game so it's not surprising:

Holiday Promotional page:

^^ I like the layout, in fact for some reason I like the whole layout of Amazon.de versus Amazon.com - it seems cleaner, more crisp.

 

[emp]

@CCarter - that is new as of today.
I checked yesterday and there was nothing.


::emp::

 

[emp]

Actually - LOL
Still nothing xmassy for me, neither logged in nor out (even checked using proxy)

::emp::

 

[emp]

Affilinet sent out an email to their affiliates today.

They are going to start Christmas promotions on 16th of November.

::emp::

 

[CCarter]

Fucking Sears mang... This has to be a troll. These people are completely retarded. First off... Only Sears' is able to magically be labeled as SPAM, in an email account with no spam settings. How, I don't even know. But these two emails went to the junk mail/spam folder and sat there absolutely alone by themselves.

Holy Shit look at their Spam score, fucking 8.0!! You need to have a 5 to get into 90% of people's spam inbox, they've got 8!!

They are so fucked in the head, it's mind blowing. How are your emails being sent to your customers triggering spam scores of 8.

To put this into perspective when I initially test new projects before launching, with NO SPF or DKIM setup I hit scores of 2 - 4.

To put this further into perspective you know those flood of emails from Twitter and Facebook you get daily? Their spam score are 0.9 and -0.7 respectively. You are a major brand, how the hell do you have a Spam Score of 8?

But here is the kicker, that's not even the real problem with their marketing, check this out. Look at this retarded second "spamm" email. I just signed up for a fucking account the other day and they sent me this morning!!?:

^^ That's complete incompetence at a grand level. Even the sexy asian chick in the photo is confused. Are these super automated emails that they don't realize they are sending these "Are you still there" emails to NEW members? Are you fucking serious?

What's really crazy is they are sending this email as if I hadn't confirmed something, yet they sent me an email earlier about "fill in the blanks" if you recall. And now checking that email, it had a spam score of 3.3. That's even too high.

How many times do you want new members to confirm?

When I said that Sears was going to be completely utterly failing, it was sort of tongue in cheek, but this, this is just stupid. Everyone needs to be fired in their IT and marketing departments, and management needs to give it up and let their Canadian counterparts take over, cause wow...

 

[Goldorak]

@CCarter we actually say "eh" at the end of almost every sentence ha. If you ever come to Ottawa let me know that's where I live but first you will have to transform back to your human form.

 

[CCarter]

Sears really loves 404 errors. I decided to look a bit further, and their "Payment Methods" is going to another 404 error. Now you would think an eCommerce platform - if you thought it was a good idea to have a "Payment Method" page, you would consider it might be somewhat important... These guys just give me a headache, I'm off this site for a while, I'll continue looking for their emails in my spam folder:

I have to wonder though, how much money are they going to lose cause they don't realize 90% of their emails to customers are going into spam. I mean they are already having trouble, now, this just continues exacerbating the situation. They're a publicly traded company, what would shareholders think when they see Sears can't even send emails correctly or get to the inbox of their customers in order to drive sales.

This is fucking huge, especially for the holiday season. And I can only imagine the amount of lost revenue from the years of not figuring out their emails are going all to spam folders and they don't have anyone competent enough in their IT department to fix this company wide.

This is their stock ticker, it really does tell you the story of what's going on with this company:

^^ This is the result of incompetent managers hiring incompetent employees. The problem is 'A's hire 'A's, cause they want the company to succeed. Rarely do people hire people smarter than them, except for 'A's, cause they know when times are bad the 'A's will perform, they are worried about the survival of the company since it insure their future.

The problem is 'B's hire 'C's, since they want don't want to be overran or made irrelevant if they hire someone that will shine brighter than them. 'C's hire 'D's since they barely can tell characteristics of individuals, and 'D's are the people on the frontline - talking to YOUR customers. Think about the majority of customer service people you've dealt with, they aren't the brightest and ALWAYS seem to lack the authority to do what you need them to do, so that means they aren't even trusted or empowered.

The reason companies like Apple and The Ritz-Carlton (Apple actually mimic's Ritz' customer service level) are successful is because they empower employees to make decisions. I like to recall the time Apple decided to give me a brand new macbook pro laptop cause they kept screwing up fixing it for 2 weeks. First time came back with the wrong processor, 2nd time didn't turn on - there wasn't a 3rd time. The employee stated they wanted to give me a brand new macbook for free, they just have to transfer my data. Shocked me completely till this day. But small gestures like that help keep customers happy, and turn regular customers into loyalists. Here is an article EVERYONE should read if you are in marketing: How Wegmans, Apple Store, and Ritz-Carlton Win Loyal Customers

This level of customer care is one of the philosophies I utilize at my own operations, but I also like to hire 'A's instead of 'B's.

It's clear Sears is hiring 'B's all the way down their ranks, and these 'D's are the people on the frontlines, that's scary. It's clear the smarter people, the 'A's, left the company along time ago - most likely realize they where starting to be surrounded by 'B's and maybe even their managers were worse. The CEO and board of directors need to get their act together, cause it's clear incompetence is the problem, and that comes down to your employees, but YOU are the one to blame.

Don't be afraid to hire people smarter than you, in fact I encourage it cause they'll take more of the weight and burden off your own shoulders and get things done faster. If you hire people with no drive, with a weak work ethics, or not willing to expand their learning or their education you are just creating more work for yourself and therefore more stress. Don't become like a Sears, where it's probably too late for them at any level cause incompetency is gummed into the halls of management and the stench of failure surrounds their employees daily.