Holiday Ecommerce
Good article on Holiday marketing strategies. Most Ecomerce retailers are putting finishing touches on their plans. I like the way this post organizes RETURN first. Always easier to sell MORE to people who already love you. I would add these tips for returning:

* Ask for advocacy.

* Gamify something.

* Curate something.

* Pad or Phone something.

Find a way to take some direction from your customers. When we ran out of sale inspiration we asked our best customers what we should put on sale when I was a Director of Ecommerce. We got great suggestions and sales. One great rule to ecommerce Internet marketing is when in doubt ASK.

This year I would make it a point to ASK for advocacy, create a game (or two or three) make sure you make your holiday gig MOBILE and curate something of THEIRS to your site.

Inbound Marketing
Some of the same advice, especially the mobile part, goes for inbound B2B marketing during 4Q. Create a cool User Generated Content (UGC) contest and curate content, ideas, comments and visuals from your visitors, customers, advocates and friends.

PPC
I wouldn't buy anything NEW during 4Q despite the incorrect belief that MORE can help if numbers start to dip. PPC is a TIMED and REPUTATION activity so double down on what is working but don't buy NEW until after 1.1.14.

This article is from Brian Solis , and in collboration with Barnickel Design, they have created this infograph that clearly shows that there is a perception gap 

what customers want and what executives think they want.based on research from Pivot referring "The Perception Gap"

Jan Gordon: My commentary

Hopefully this article and findings will help to provide some clarity so marketers can begin to engage with their customers, in a way that is meaningful to them. Word of mouth spreads like wildfire and you'll want to make sure your business is listening, engaging and responding to their needs before someone else does.

Here are some highlights:

** 76% of marketers feel they know what their customers want yet only 34% have asked customers

**59% of social customers wish to engge businesses for buying insights and customer service respectively, on the contrary only 37% of marketers believe that these services re in demand by their customers

**Take a look at Actual Consumer usage VS marketers' perceptions of consumer usage on the infograph, there is definitely a gap in perception here

 mobile social apps 

**15% of consumers use them on Linkedin, marketers think it's more like 36. 7%

**twitter 35% useage - marketers perceive this to be 82%

 Daily deal  & coupon sites

**Facebook usage is 35%

**Marketers perceive this to be 56%

Selected by Jan Gordon covering "Curation, Social Business and Beyond"

Read full article and see infographic here: [bit.ly/MMPPdI]

I selected this article from copyblogger because it delivers, it's simple, straightforward and right on the money!

Here's an excerpt:

"I believe a story can potentially carry the entire sale for your product, even if everything else is technically “wrong” in your ads

** no clear call to action

**lame bullets

**weak offer

For example:

"Nothing in the movie "Top Gun" told you to buy Maverick’s brand of sunglasses or join The US Navy. Yet, the movie “sold” both products to hordes of people.

**So, how do you apply this to your marketing?

1.  The personal story

This is one of the most common landing page stories.

**This one is simple — you just “walk” people (step-by-step) through a painful problem you went through and how you achieved the result your readers are looking for.

2. The historical story

**This kind of story is extremely persuasive, contains nothing even remotely resembling “hype,” and can persuade people to buy things they otherwise might ignore.

3. The “meet the guru” story

**This one is related to the personal story, but it’s got more “pop” due the built-in credibility it gives you.

**These suggestions have proven to produce results, he gives more examples......

Curated by Jan Gordon covering "Storytelling, Social Media and Beyond"

Read full article here:  [http://bit.ly/yVmlNV]

**** Recently appalled at how little copy was on maor ecommerce sites I was reviewing this articles seems prescient and important. Marty