What sort of features attract online shoppers during the holiday season? There are a great many, but for this discussion we’re going to look at wish lists, saved carts and a variety of delivery methods. All of these options often beat out their near-equivalents of registries (though most people don’t register for the holidays!), layaway and order by mail or catalog. First we’re going to look at the benefits of each and then how those benefits outweigh their similar components, listed herein.

Wish lists allow individuals to shop online and select the items they want to receive so that shoppers can quickly enter a wish list and select those items they’d like to purchase. Wish lists allow shoppers to be certain that the recipient will like the gift, while allowing still for an element of surprise. Wish lists work similarly to a registry, however, most people use registries for bridal and baby showers, as well as wedding gifts; perhaps registries are even used for housewarming gifts. Walking into, for example, Bloomingdales and asking to see someone’s holiday registry is rare, if not completely unheard of (unless that person is having a wedding or baby near the holidays).

The ability to save carts allow shoppers to shop online, and purchase their selections later. This is useful if perhaps someone doesn’t yet have the funds available to purchase a particular product, or if they’re waiting until they reach the minimum limit in order to receive free shipping. Or perhaps, they know they will purchase additional products from that website and don’t wish to initiate multiple yet similar transactions. Saved carts can also be edited, in case shoppers change their minds. Layaway, however, requires at least a deposit, which is sometimes non-refundable.

What are the benefits of multiple delivery options? For one, for those shoppers who like to do their shopping last minute, delivery can often be arranged for Next-Day or 2-Day air, though that option can often be expensive. However, some people require Saturday deliveries, while some delivery companies do not distribute or deliver on Saturdays, so a variety of shipping options is often an appreciated benefit of online shopping. Furthermore, for those shoppers sending gifts to distant relatives and friends, additional shipping options can even include gift wrapping and cards with personalized messages. Delivery can be arranged by a specific date to ensure that the present reaches the recipient on time.  Understanding the reasons shoppers look to the internet is crucial to implementing successful internet marketing strategies.

What do the holidays mean to you? Of course, one of the main elements that come to mind when we think about the holiday season is family. The holidays are a time when we get to see our family, but not only see them; we get to make them smile. Part of that process often includes purchasing a gift that we know they want to receive. More and more, holiday shoppers are turning to the internet for several reasons in general, including the absence of lines, busy schedules and ease of finding the best product for the best price.

One of the most frustrating processes of holiday shopping for most shoppers is waiting on line. Holiday shopping lines to check out and purchase products are notoriously long, sometimes stretching to the back of a store, or perhaps even wrapping around and weaving through aisles. Toward the beginning of the holiday season, this may seem exciting and novel, but after several frantic shopping sessions, the need to stand on line is nothing short of frustrating.

Shopping online removes the needs for lines. Shoppers select the product they want and electronically add the necessary quantity into their shopping cart or shopping bag, or whatever the website on which they’re shopping elects to call the collection of products to be purchased. Many businesses even offer free shipping if a customer buys enough product. Online coupons can even be distributed to anyone who subscribes to an email list.

As the holidays draw ever closer, shoppers’ schedules begin to fill with parties, planning and even last minute business needs as the year prepares to draw to a close along with the fourth quarter. Finding time to shop, especially when lines are long, becomes increasingly difficult, and shopping in person can be cause for additional stress during the holiday season. When shoppers shop online, because the internet never closes, they can tailor their shopping to their own schedule. Furthermore, shopping online doesn’t take as long because there’s no waiting on long lines.

Shopping online allows for quick and easy price comparison. If you’re buying a digital camera and the recipient of the camera hasn’t specified a particular brand or model, you’re not likely to just purchase the first one you see because the price sounds good. You’ll want to compare different brands and models. You’ll even want to find out what the same camera costs in different places; the internet allows for shoppers to easily compare product features and prices.

In Barrack Obama’s victory speech one week ago, he issued a sort of call to action, reminding listeners that in order to repair many of the problems we face, including, for example, our current economic woes, we need to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and get to work. What if, though, you could help to bolster the economy while boosting your business as well? Our previous discussion explored how email marketing can do just that; implementing a carefully designed blog management campaign can do the same, though in a different manner.

That’s not to say that blog marketing isn’t targeted; in fact it can often be more targeted than email marketing, especially when blogs are approached from an in-depth understanding of search engine marketing and optimization. First we’re going to look at how blogs are an inexpensive way to market your business, and then we’ll examine how blogs can be targeted to increase efficiency. Finally, we’ll consider what that means not only for your business, but for the economy as well.

Why are blogs inexpensive methods of internet marketing? For one, owning a blog can be very inexpensive, especially because you can have a free blog if cash is tight. What can you expect when it comes to free blogs as opposed to hosting your own blog? When you host your own blog, you can use your own URL as opposed to using the URL supplied by the blog website. For example, your own URL might be something like www.yourcompany.com/blog or blog.yourcompany.com. A free blog might have a URL similar to yourcompany.freeblogsite.com.

Another reason that a blog is an inexpensive method of internet marketing is that you can tailor its frequency to suit your needs and budget. You can have new posts every day, every week day, twice a week, once a week, twice a month…While the most successful blogs post more frequently, you can always increase your blog’s frequency and start at a level with which you’re comfortable. With blogs, you’re not locked in. Even if you decide to move to another brand of blog software, so to speak, most will allow for seamless transition by importing your old blog into your new blog. Blogging allows for flexibility, and you can see the results of your alterations almost immediately, in real time.

Blog marketing campaigns can be targeted if you apply SEM and SEO principles. For example, if you’re blogging about caramel apples, you would want to insert that keyword into the text of your blog post the proper amount of times so that the text would be optimized. Anyone searching for the keyword phrase “caramel apples” might be led to your blog. SEM practices that can drum up targeted visits for your blog include PPC campaigns, or pay-per-click campaigns, which might lead prospects to your blog if they search for keyword phrases which you set to your blog. Visitors might bookmark your blog or put it into their RSS feeds, and perhaps even forward your blog to others. In this way, your blog can spread much the same way your email marketing campaign can spread, except faster in cases where your readers make their RSS feeds public.

Any element of internet marketing could be inserted into the scenario described in our last discussion about how email marketing could help improve the economy. However, with blog marketing strategies, that cycle can work faster and for less money. If you apply the money you save with your blog toward an email marketing campaign, imagine the benefit of implementing both types of marketing strategies with the guidance of your internet marketing agency.

Now that we’ve discussed various changes we might expect to see, both technologically and economically (and how those changes are, in the case of the evolution of the internet and internet marketing, inextricably linked), we can begin to look at how specific elements of internet marketing can help the economy and your business.  For this discussion, we’re going to examine email marketing.

In past discussions on email marketing, we’ve looked at how it increases efficiency while decreasing cost, especially when compared to direct mail marketing.  We explored how reports relating to the success of an email marketing campaign are generated in real time; and these reports show many tidbits of useful information that you cannot glean from direct mail marketing.  These elements include click-throughs and unsubscribes, both of which can tell you a lot about how successful a campaign is.

We’ve looked at some important tips to remember when planning or running an email marketing campaign, from how to stay out of spam and junk mail folders to the proper size (in pixels) for your email marketing campaign message so that it can be viewed on multiple browsers, email programs (such as Outlook), and even mobile phones that both have full internet and also those that simply have email features.

In addition to being more cost effective and efficient, email marketing will also help to evolve the internet, and internet marketing strategies, while, at the same time, helping to boost the economy.  How will the economy be helped through increased use of email marketing campaigns?  Email marketing is part of a cycle that connects your business, your internet marketing agency, and your prospects and customers.

This cycle can be viewed in two ways.  First let’s look at a simple circular example.  Imagine three entities.  Your business, the internet marketing agency you elect to run your email marketing campaign, and the prospects and customers who receive your email marketing messages, whether they be newsletters, coupons, announcements, surveys or any other form of email communication.

Your business invests in an email campaign designed and managed (with your needs in mind, of course) by an internet marketing agency.  You’re helping to support that agency, thus helping to provide jobs to coders, designers, marketers, writers, system administrators and additional professionals.  The internet marketing agency prepares and implements an email marketing campaign to fit your business, and distributes it to your prospects and customers, who in turn support your business.

That’s a simplified version of the cycle, but an inherent understanding of that simplification is necessary to move on to the more complicated example.  Imagine now, instead of a circle, a straight line.  On one side you have prospects and customers, on the other side you have an internet marketing agency and in the middle rests your company or business.  Branching off of prospects and customers are friends, family and coworkers.

Your company purchases email marketing services from the internet marketing agency, providing jobs as previously mentioned (thus fueling the economy).  The internet marketing agency distributes your email campaign to prospects and customers, who then buy products from your business or company.  So far, this is similar to the circular example, but there are a few exceptions to this deeper level of understanding.  Your business, through your website and products offered, turns prospects into customers, and customers into satisfied customers, who then pass on the email to friends, family and coworkers.

Friends, family and coworkers become new prospects, with the opportunity to become customers, feeding into your business.  In addition, their companies begin to use the internet marketing agency to run an email marketing campaign while your company begins to sign up for additional online advertising opportunities.  Before you know it, the circle has become a web of interconnectivity, where every entity benefits from the relationships formed through what started out as a simple email marketing campaign.