This past weekend I had the privilege of driving the new 2011 BMW 535i. It’s a really nice car, but beyond the nice handling and comfort of the car, one thing stood out to me. The technology in this car is just magnificent. One of the features that the car boast in it’s technology package is the ability to search for any item using the built-in Google search functionality on the Navigation unit. To be specific, you can search for a few million points of interest using the Google and BMW database. Here is a video demo of the product.

Pretty cool, right? But that got me thinking. What if your place of business is not searchable in the first place? Would someone who searches for “bagel” or “dinner” find your location? Well, the answer is no.

Here’s the thing. Getting found on search is pretty important. Now, you might say, “Hey Robert, not a lot of people are searching for locations and items using their car.” You might be right. I will not debate that point, but the general idea is that people search for brands and products a lot, just in different form factors. It might be on their computers, or on their mobile phones, or heck in some futuristic world (maybe now), in their cars. Let’s be real, digital is everywhere. It’s hard to ignore. People want instant information and search allows for that instant information.

Getting your business indexed for search can be hard work. Sometimes you need to hire an “expert”. We can do that. However, a simple and easy first step would be to go to Google Places and have your business indexed on the Google maps. It’s a pretty simple process that you can do yourself. Now, that’s just a start, but it will get you headed in the right direction and make you gain more visibility. As always, I welcome your comments.

Ok, so a while back I wrote an article on how social conversations are impacting search results on the two biggest search engines (Google and Bing). Well, I don’t think I gave that article enough justice. After all, social and search represent two of the three pillars in the digital ecosystem. The combination of them has consequences for anyone wanting to get awareness online (and awareness is what we all strive for as marketers, right?). Let’s break this down.

First, what the combination of social into search means on the surface is that people have more authority than brands. It used to be that brands could buy keywords and conduct spamy type activities to get their way to the top of the search results. While buying keywords is not going away anytime soon, the ability to load your site with useless content to generate higher ranking on the search engines has gone away as evident in the latest Google algorithm adjustment.

However, the addition of social authority in the search field has made it more difficult for brands to gain search awareness. Let’s say for example, you are a grocery retailer or CPG brand and you care about your presence online. As someone responsible for a brand you care about your image. Now imagine if you are a retailer and a shopper enters your store and has a rotten experience at checkout. Let’s say that person shares that experience on Twitter, or Facebook. Do you care? You should. Here’s why. That person has 140 people in their social circle online. And guess what, when anyone of the 140 people search for your brand online using Google or Bing, guess what shows up? Yea, maybe your brand page, but look a little further down in the search results. Right there on the search results is the tweet that your digrunted customer shared on Twitter for all to see on Twitter, but also on search results (In the example below my friend said something positive).

Retailers and CPG brands have an opportunity. It’s time that retailers and CPG brands not ignore social media anymore. Social media is important and will continue to be important. As more people voice their bad experiences online (as has been evidence in the Middle East), it’s ripe with opportunity to provide traditional customer service be it in a digital format. If you are smart and are monitoring social media via the thousand of tools available, then you can quickly find these conversations online and not correct them, but influence them. You could alter that negative tweet into a positive one. For example, let’s say you caught that negative tweet through some kind of monitory service. Let’s say your brand has a Twitter account. Reach out to that person via Twitter and publicly apologize and offer them a discount or exchange. It’s likely that person will be surprised that you reached out to them via their “preferred communication” method. It’s also likely that the person will send out a second tweet that says something like “thanks brand for giving me a coupon” This is where your brand can gain a positive tweet instead of the negative one and further more, the last tweet will likely be the one that shows up in search results instead of the negative one.

Here is one last bit of advice. If you manage a brand, and you don’t have a Twitter or Facebook account, if nothing else get one and use it for customer service. Yes, it’s tough to learn new forms of communication, but when your image could be threatened online, the last thing you want to do is ignore it altogether. As always, I welcome your comments.

I was just reading an article on HubSpot about the impact Amazon’s Facebook integration will have on eCommerce (link here). It’s a good article, simply because I think there is a lot of personalization and recommendations that Amazon can dig up through someone’s social preferences on Facebook. For example, Amazon can pull my friend’s birthday’s and then list out what music they might like based on what music was listed on their Facebook profile. It’s a pretty powerful way to give product recommendations.

While I think recommendation systems like this can work for the majority of shopping experiences, I think there are challenges with grocery shopping in particular. This is simply because there is a lack of grocery related preferences on Facebook. The current Facebook preferences a user has to enter on their profile are broken down by the following categories:

• Education and Work
• Religion & Political Views
• Favorite Music, Books, Movies, TV Shows and Games
• Favorite Teams and Athletes
• Activities and Interest
• Fan Pages

Notice the glaring omittance of Favorite Foods? As someone who works with grocery retailers to provide their shoppers more value, I’d personally like to see Facebook add a category that allows people to list their favorite foods. This would allow more grocery retailers to make stronger food related recommendations to consumers who are connecting via Facebook on their website. So Facebook, when are you going to allow your users to highlight their food preferences? Sure, there are Facebook fan pages, like Starbucks, Pancakes, Brownies, etc that allow you to do that, but when are users going to enter more preferences?

Grocers Using Vertis Inserts2online® Services Boost the Bottom Line by Transforming Printed Circulars into Powerful Interactive Online Content

BALTIMORE–Vertis Communications, a results driven marketing communications company that delivers inventive advertising, direct marketing and interactive solutions to prominent brands across North America, today announced a strategic partnership with Grocery Shopping Network (GSN) that will enhance the Inserts2online® (I2O) services Vertis provides to some of the most recognized grocers in the United States and Canada. Nearly 100 of North America’s top brands – including three of the top 5 food retailers – use Vertis’ I2O services to transform their traditional printed store circulars into interactive Web content that advances their marketing strategies and has measurable impact on the bottom line.

More than one third of U.S. households access advertising circulars via store websites, the majority of whom (65%) research weekly specials and discount coupons, according to Vertis Customer Focus® research. Vertis I2O for Grocers will enable grocery retailers to meet demand for online content while:

• Generating revenue from GSN digital display ads placed on online circular pages;
• Achieving greater return on their investment in printed circulars by converting advertising insert design to web content and adding functionality available only online;
• Building customer awareness, program participation and website traffic through opt-in registration, RSS feeds, email features and social sharing;
• Increasing store traffic by promoting weekly specials and unique offers;
• Boosting sales through e-commerce integration;
• Measuring impact with analysis of online activity and leveraging that intelligence to better target their customers’ viewing and buying preferences.

“Consumers buying everything from televisions to tortillas are researching purchases before they set foot in a store,” said Jerry Sokol, Interim President & Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer for Vertis Communications. “Grocers need to be online with savings opportunities and product information, as well as tools consumers can use to plan their trips to the store. Our new partnership with GSN will give grocers the power to connect with their customers while also generating revenue and driving sales. It’s a win-win all around.”

The partnership gives Vertis I2O for Grocers’ clients access to GSN’s display advertising network, which operates on more than 90 sites. As grocers build display ads into their online circular pages, they open new revenue streams and provide product-specific information to customers planning their grocery purchases. Grocers also have the ability to access data about consumer engagement with display ads, making future marketing efforts more targeted and relevant to customers.

“Like Vertis, GSN is extremely data-focused. We create the industry’s most precise data on shopping behavior to connect grocery consumers with the resources they need to optimize their shopping experience,” said Scott Lutz, CEO and president at Grocery Shopping Network. “We are committed to harnessing the power of digital communications to improve the shopper experience by conveniently saving time and money. The combination of Vertis’ I2O client sites and our display advertising network will ensure shoppers have the most relevant information while deciding what to buy.”

About Vertis Communications

Vertis Communications is a results-driven marketing communications company that delivers inventive advertising, direct marketing and interactive solutions to prominent brands across North America. Our deep industry knowledge and extensive range of offerings—including integrated data solutions, digital program management systems, creative services, world-class print and mail production, logistics, out-of-home and business process outsourcing—are used to deliver superior program performance that drives bottom line results for our clients. With 100 strategically positioned locations and more than 5,000 dedicated professionals, we deliver impeccable quality and fast turn-around to any market. For more information, visitwww.vertisinc.com.

At GSN we analyze a ton of shopper data to make sense of what’s happening in the shopping world, which is why we call ourselves the experts in digital shopper behavior for the retail channel. We set out to do just that this past holiday season. Some questions that we had where: What are shopping trends in grocery right now? More specifically, was there anything interesting in the data?

After analysis of grocery transactions, we found that produce and dairy were the big category winners for the November/December holiday season. Overall, the top 5 category sales were as follows: #1 was produce, followed by Dairy, Meat & Poultry, Beverages and Cookie/Crackers/Snacks.

Furthermore, produce specific items saw the largest increase in category sales with an increase of 44% between 2009 and 2010. Dairy saw the second largest increase with 39% category growth between 2009 and 2010.  However, Beverage items saw a 5% decrease, while Cookies, Crackers and Snacks saw a 61% decrease in sales, which begs the question of whether consumers where looking for healthier items this past holiday season?

Let the debate begin. What are your thoughts?

Photo courtesy of Flickr, mapper-montag

New Program Leverages Existing Technology to Tie Retailer’s Social Media Strategy to Brick & Mortar Floor Strategy

Minneapolis, MN – Grocery Shopping Network (GSN) is pleased to announce the launch of a new Quick Response (QR) Code program that offers retailers the ability to engage shoppers in a non-intrusive manner. Shoppers can now become a fan of their favorite grocer’s Facebook or Twitter profile instantly while in the store via signage embedded with QR Codes. This service is now available to retail grocers across the United States.

“QR Codes are part of our expanding mobile and social media strategy, we believe they will continue to play a larger role in our strategy as shoppers’ use of smartphone scanners continues to increase,” said Robert Krajeski, VP of Digital Marketing at Grocery Shopping Network. “The key is finding a valuable connection with the shopper while they are in-store. QR codes provide retailers an easy way to activate shoppers’ in-store and ultimately engage with them on a one-to-one level.”

Targeted towards maximizing shopper value in a digital format, GSN works with retailers to identify the best position for the in-store signage and then provides a printable pdf of the signage, complete with the embedded code, to the retailer. Retailers simply print and place the signage in the store.

“With this emerging technology, we’ve developed a simple method for retailers to enhance their social media presence while engaging shoppers in the store,” said Robert Mews, eMarketing Manager at Grocery Shopping Network. “This will extend the shopper relationship beyond the stores’ physical location while also being able to measure performance.”

Traditionally, this technology has assisted businesses in monitoring inventory, managing supply chains, and connecting print advertisements to online distributors. QR Codes are becoming a hot trend in many industries from advertising to marketing as recent reports highlight huge increases in mobile barcode scanning.

According to a recent report published by ScanLife, an estimated 30-40% of all smartphone users have downloaded a barcode scanning application. The report went further to say that in 2010, there was a 1600% increase in mobile barcode scanning and mobile bar code scanning doubled in the 4th quarter of 2010.

The study also highlighted a survey that found that 97% of respondents found mobile barcodes useful in some capacity while 3% found them not very useful. Additionally, the report indicated that the top uses of mobile bar code scanning are coupons, prices, and nutritional information.

Incoming CEO Brings Strong Industry Experience to Leading Retail Advertising and Analytics Firm

Grocery Shopping Network (GSN) is pleased to announce the appointment of Scott Lutz as its Chief Executive Officer. GSN Founder and former CEO Andy Robinson has been named Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) where he will be responsible for the continuing development of GSN’s industry leading online marketing and advertising offerings.

“We are excited to have Scott’s extensive business management experience to catalyze our rapid growth,” said Andy Robinson, Founder/CKO of Grocery Shopping Network. “I look forward to my new role within the company where I can focus my energies on enhancing our core business by creating new innovative processes for our platform, products, and services.”

Mr. Lutz brings nearly 30 years of extensive senior level experience in domestic and international brand management with industry leaders including Procter and Gamble (NYSE:PG); General Mills (NYSE:GSI); Con Agra (NYSE:CAG); and 8^th Continent LLC, a joint venture between DuPont (NYSE:DD) and General Mills (NYSE:GIS) where Mr. Lutz won the DuPont Marketing Excellence award during his tenure as CEO.

“GSN is the leader in harnessing the power of digital to optimize shopper experience, retailer loyalty, and brand-marketing efficiency. This category is growing significantly and GSN is uniquely positioned to accelerate growth,” said Scott Lutz, CEO of GSN. “I am excited to join the Grocery Shopping Network team during this period of rapid growth. Shoppers are clearly ready to expand their use of a virtual shopping experience to make their in-store experience more enjoyable and productive.”

Prior to joining GSN from Life Time Fitness, Inc. (NYSE:LTM), Mr. Lutz has held top executive management positions with Best Buy (NYSE:BBY) and venture-backed Coolham Holdings. Mr. Lutz is a respected thought leader on the topic of transforming ideas into profitable businesses; he was an inaugural winner of Fast Company Magazine’s “Fast 50 Champion of Innovation” award as well as CIO Magazine’s “Top 100 Innovative New Products” award. He is featured in several books on new wealth creation and is a frequent speaker on innovation at national conferences as well as corporate executive outings; he is also a guest lecturer at top MBA programs across the country.

“Grocery Shopping Network now enters a new phase of growth with Scott’s arrival,” said Richard Andolshek, Executive Chairman of GSN. “His skills and expertise will accelerate GSN’s momentum as we expand our reach and services, adding to the innovations in our platform. Grocery Shopping Network has achieved a leadership position under the helm of Andy Robinson; we look forward to advancing that success further.”

Google and Bing announced this week that links shared on Facebook and Twitter will impact search results. This is big news for marketers who want their website to appear in the top of search results and attain visibility. Marketers will have to jump into social, but it also means they need to be smarter about how consumers are motivated to share content amongst friends.

Prior to the announcement, marketers would focus on optimizing the keywords within their website content in order to get a good listing on the search engines. Even the Google Social Search product that was in place prior to this week’s announcement really didn’t change that. By the way, Google’s Social Search product delivered search results that are influenced by your friends and social graph, based on the links they are sharing. It was an additional search listing seperate from your organic search result. For example, if you and another person are both searching for tailgating, and your friend liked a tailgating article from a website, well then that website would show up in my search result when I search for tailgating.

However, this announcement changes all of that. The two search engines will use what they call social author authority to influence organic search results. Presumably, if you are a highly influential Twitter user who shares a variety of tweets (which are then commented on, re-tweeted, and shared across your large network), you’ll have a good cache of authority and the links you share will enjoy a boost in SEO.

As always, we want to hear your thoughts.

Leading Provider of eCommerce Solutions for Grocery Industry Continues to Provide Successful Strategies for Clients

Grocery Shopping Network (“GSN”) is pleased to announce that coupon prints on grocer websites powered by their proprietary suite of online tools will have a projected increase of 60% over 2009. In 2009, yearly print totals rose an astounding 517% from 2008. The company set a new record for coupon prints in October 2010 and expects continued growth in this area.

“With the best months still ahead of us and with the addition of some new clients, our 2010 print goals are well within reach,” said Duane Kolsrud, Vice President of Client Performance at Grocery Shopping Network. “Our web coupons in conjunction with our proprietary suite of web-based tools engage our client’s shoppers, leading to increased sales and website traffic.”

Pop-up blocking software and spam blockers are creating a more competitive environment for advertisers by eliminating many advertisements before they reach their targets. Consumers are exposed to a constant bombardment of advertisements that are not relevant to their product search or personal needs; GSN has been able to sustain their growth in coupon prints by providing relevant content to users at the critical decision point in the pre-shopping planning process.

“Grocery Shopping Network is at the convergence point of consumer awareness and trade advertising,” said Andy Robinson CEO and Founder of GSN. “Our platform reduces the degrees of separation between initial consumer impressions and their decision to purchase a product.”

Grocery stores have traditionally implemented their advertising efforts through print, radio, and television media channels. The increased availability of online news sources in addition to the rising costs of print media has allowed the internet to quickly become the leading provider of information to the general public.

“In today’s changing world, progressive grocers are adapting their overall advertising strategy to include a diverse mixture of media including digital,” said Andy Robinson, CEO and Founder of GSN. “By captivating and engaging their shoppers through digital media, grocery retail operators are increasing the loyalty and performance of their best customers while attracting new customers to their retail brand.”

With triple digit growth in each of the past 3 years GSN’s Ad Network now represents over 7000 retail store locations, the growth of the Grocery Shopping Network is a result of experience, research, and strategic planning initiated and implemented by visionary leadership.

Grocery Shopping Network Reinforces Creative and Digital Marketing Teams to Answer Industry Needs

Grocery Shopping Network (“GSN (http://www.groceryshopping.net/about/detail.html)”) announced today the addition of Jennifer Flanagan and Robert Mews as eMarketing Managers to the firms Digital Marketing Team as well as the addition of Jon Fischler and Megan Tregedar as Web, Content, and UI Designers to the firms Creative Team. Grocery Shopping Network’s new additions, combined, have comprehensive experience working with industry leaders including General Mills, Best Buy, 3M, and Land O’Lakes.

“We’ve grown over 1000% in the last 3 years to represent over 6000 retail store locations, the new additions to our Creative and Digital Marketing teams will not only allow us to sustain our growth; they will allow us to better serve our clients,” said Robert Krajeski (http://www.groceryshopping.net/about/management.html), Vice President of Digital Marketing at Grocery Shopping Network. “Jennifer, Megan, Robert, and Jon are experienced professionals with a history of innovation; we are very excited to welcome them to the GSN family.”

Jennifer and Robert will work with Grocery Shopping Network’s Digital Marketing Team to assist retailers converting GSN’s advertising campaign ROI analysis and POS transaction data from over 40 million loyalty card holders into more successful marketing programs that drive registration and customer programs. Playing a vital role in the development and implementation of marketing communication plans, targeting both consumers and businesses, Jennifer’s diverse experience combined with Robert’s innovative digital thinking and extensive industry expertise positions GSN to sustain their continued growth while enhancing their service capabilities to more efficiently meet their client’s needs.

Bringing a fresh perspective to design and style direction, Megan and Jon will work with Grocery Shopping Network’s Creative Team to expedite project workflows while supporting the creation of relevant content that reflect the quality workmanship GSN’s clients depend upon to succeed. Drawing on their diverse backgrounds as well as their individual histories of innovation and success, Megan and Jon will be key elements in GSN’s continued expansion into the social media space and also the mobile shopping space.