Is YouTube part of your 2019 digital marketing strategy? Here are some tips on how to use the online video leader for eCommerce marketing.

30 Ecom Strategies & Tactics To Master
No wonder most ecommerce teams feel overwhelmed. Off the top of our heads we came up with 30 complex "mini-systems" that must be mastered to create greatness in online commerce.

Gone are the days when a little of this and that could win the day in online retail. Today all 30 of these tactics and strategies dance together requiring sophisticated understanding of individual trends, tools and ideas to win.

Things change too fast to really KNOW anything. Instead teams must surf waves, learn and fail fast and then wax up their boards for another wild ride.

Did we miss any BIG IDEAS your ecommerce team is managing. Soon we will support this infographic with a http://www.Curagami.com post to further explain each strategy and tactic. In the meantime let us know what we missed in comments or email martin(at)Curagami.com.

Thanks and remember DEEP SLOW BREATHES and if you aren't having FUN your visitors will know. They will feel it.

Yesterday at the Digital Summit in Charlotte, NC we ran into a familiar problem. "Marty we don't have any content," an growing ecommerce website shared.

I shared the good and bad news. The bad news is developing an effective content strategy takes time, focus and money. The good news is there are things to do in parallel that bring all pieces together such as:

* Create an Ask.

* Begin to CURATE content.

* Curate 90%, Create about 10%.
* Listen and set up Key Performance Indicators to LISTEN better.
* Develop a testing culture.
* Begin the journey to sustainable online community.

Added video notes to explain all of this to our Ecommerce Questions Haiku Deck: http://shar.es/1guIF1

Find video notes on platforms, content curation and community on Curagami's YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/tSHeIxtrs4g

Visualizing Data
Inside every big data stack is a secret, a secret capable of helping your web marketing IF you find it. Our new Curagami Ecommerce Master Class discusses how to cut a mound of mud into meaninful patterns.

Steps are easy:

1. Start with clean data.

2. Start categorizing.
3. Sort by your categories.

4. Cut your detail out (remember to replace functions with numbers).
5. Graph your broad strokes.

We fly through how to create patterns in this 3 min video. If  you ae stuck or confused email martin(at)Curagami.com.

Good luck and make sure your weed whacker is working.

M

Showrooming Scurge
Most retailers HATE people showrooming in their stores. That's stupid as it is like trying to hold back the tide. Better to embrace showrooming - the practices of shopping in the world and then buying online for better price.

One way to embrace showrooming occurred to this morning watching Bruno Torturra discuss how easy it is to stream a live event to the web. Torturra is streaming protests, but retailers brave enough to encourage showrooming could use the same tactics to build a powerful Ambassador layer.

The recipe is simple:

1. Create content explaining how to stream live video.

2. Create a community to share your "shopping videos".

3. Provide social rewards (encouragement and features) to filter.

4. Rinse and Repeat

Your customers could help keep your prices in line, alert you to cool merchandising by competitors and a million other near real time benefits. You can't go into something like this halfway.

It's an all or nothing idea and that means listening more than you talk (some sites, brands and companies are better at 2 way communication than others). Early today team Curagami wrote a piece about competing with Amazon (http://sco.lt/58qhn7 ).

Add this "video showrooming army" to that and you get differentaion from the monster. Cool thing is cost of creating such cool and cutting edge competition is minimal (webpage and some serving). I wouldn't host on YouTube unless you were strapped for cash since you want the SEO juice flowing in your site's direction.

Soon retailers will be glad people are in their stores FOR ANY REASON, beat them by embracing showrooming now.

By mashing eBay's Pitman with Motif's Walia we see the functional, social and mobile future of online retailing, ecommerce and mobile / social shopping.

Stop Using Stock
Stop Using Stock & Increase Ecommerce Conversion In 2014
If your #ecommerce  website uses #stockphotography  and you want to make more money in 2014 then stop. This post has ideas for weaning off of stock such as:

* Use @HaikuDeck (http://www.haikudeck.com) to mine creative commons. 
* Ask customers / visitors to share their photos.
* Tell the story of your products (another great plase for UGC User Generated Contests).
*  Embed a photographer (hire a photographer to live in your company for a few days, week or a month). 
* Ask your employees to hellp bet many of them take pictures when I was Director Marketing at Atlantic BT there where three or four GREAT photographers.
* Shoot a lot of video (videos tell great visual stories and are also a great place for UGC see my Scoop on Vidrack http://sco.lt/8ePWtN . 

In recent years, online video has evolved into a powerful marketing tool. Use the following guidelines in this Infographic to help fine tune your video-making endeavors and maximize your viewership.

Click on the Earnest Edge to watch a great example of awesome video marketing. 

ScentTrail Marketing is about what is happening NOW in Internet marketing.