The other day, while I was debating whether or not to report father-to-be, DJ Waldow, to Child Protective Services for FUTURE neglect*, a funny thing happened. 

I was standing in a very busy, noisy, 50-floor, city office building, impatiently waiting for one of the two (out of eight) elevators that were working.  EVERYONE was on their phones  (in fact, most of us had a phone in one hand and a BlackBerry/iPhone in the other) and nobody was paying much attention to anyone else.   We were all grumpy; the one of us who couldn’t find the stairs to bypass this exercise in futility (that’d be me) the most cantankerous of all.

When my turn finally came, I was the last person to squeeze in.  I pushed my button, the door closed, and then, and only then, I felt a tug on my leg.

Staring up at me — eyes rapidly filling with tears — was a boy who looked to be about 1.5 years old.

He did not belong to me.

Naturally, I ignored him.  It’s always fun to try to tempt the Elevator Gods to see how many e-mails you can type before you lose service.  Plus, his Mom or Dad must be in here somewhere, right?

Wrong.

Turns out that his Nutter Butter Mother didn’t hold the little terrorist’s hand (and yes, after spending OVER AN HOUR with him, I can tell you that the kid came directly from the clearance bin at Brats R Us) and he had snuck into the elevator right as the door closed.

I found this out on Floor 17 when a burly guy who was about to exit wished us all – specifically me — good luck.

I won’t bore you with the rest of the details of this story or that when the mother finally reunited with her child, she screamed at me for six minutes.  She couldn’t care less that I had missed my appointment or that she should have stayed in one damn place instead of chasing us up and down the floors in a different carriage.   Apparently, she just needed to lash out at someone for her lame-ass parenting skills.

I still believe that 99% of parents do the best job they can with the tools they have. 

Unfortunately, many of them have very limited tools.

Kind of like a lot of web marketers these days, eh?

I know my opinion isn’t a popular one, but I believe that the chasm between good internet marketing and bad internet marketing has grown by leaps and bounds in the past six months.  Catalogers and traditional direct marketers are not only falling behind but they’re dropping out of the race.  They can’t – or won’t – seem to keep up.

What are some of the most critical tools you need for 2010?

VIDEO – YouTube is the second largest search engine but that’s not the only reason you need to look at video seriously.  Video is, of course, visual.  It works because the optic nerve plugs directly into your reptilian brain, which is where your “buy buttons” are located.   You do NOT need a multi-million dollar studio.  Start with a Flip camera and a VERY good, VERY aggressive script.

UGC/REVIEWS – Consultants have all sorts of myths why User Generated Content (UGC) and reviews work.   Most of them are wrong.  They work for two reasons.  First, they create “evidence” that someone else just like you was already on the site you are looking at.  Second, they are one of the most effective methods for forming contrast.   Our buying brains like beginnings and ends and they best understand and function/act with contrast (dark versus light).

LIVE CHAT — Six years ago, I thought live chat was one of the worst things you could do on your site because, for the most part, it not only didn’t work but it actually hurt conversion.  Today, I am one of its biggest proponents ESPECIALLY  when it comes to instigated (aka proactive) chat.  It’s great for carts, forms, search and all those other nasty places that people like to leave from.

MOBILE — A lot of the mobile consultants make mobile marketing seem extraordinarily complicated.  Here’s a secret for you.  It may be the easiest thing you’ve ever done.  Start by optimizing your e-mails.   Then, add a handheld CSS file.   Take the mobile stuff in baby steps.  It’s easy and it’s incredibly worthwhile (read: lucrative.)

DYNAMIC RELEVANCE — If I tell you that I don’t like pink shirts, you shouldn’t show me a pink shirt.  Period.  You don’t have to go all Amazon tomorrow but you need to start looking at what you can do to make your site personalized.  Start with a Welcome Back message, if you must.

TRIGGER E-MAILS — Trigger e-mails are different than thrust e-mails because they are based on a user’s individual actions.  They are more than just abandoned cart programs and EVERY site – B2B, B2C, B2G, needs them.  Plain and simple as that.

Organics – Let’s face it. Most folks killed their organic SEO efforts the minute they heard about PPC.  Paying for clicks was so much easier than working for them.  Now Social Media is hot and PPC is not, right?  Wrong.  PPC still works and organics, if you build your program properly, still works even better. 

LISTENING TOOLS — If you’ve spent 2.2 seconds with me you already know that I’m not the world’s biggest social media proponent.   I truly believe that, in most cases, it’s massively over-rated.  With that said, this is the year you need to have a presence, you need to listen and you need to respond to the users who are talking about you.  Most social media “experts” don’t like it when I say this but for most companies, it’s truly a customer service thing and you need representation, just like you need a phone. 

ANALYTICS — I’ve got to say, I’m over Google Analytics.  Yes, I believe you should use it (even if it’s only to get accurate reads on your PPC) but only as PART of your arsenal.  Analytics is the key to your online success and you’ve got to take it seriously.   If you aren’t using a high-powered package, this is the year to look at one.  Buy it.  And then use it like crazy.

Additionally, consider analytical tools like Chartbeat (which is especially helpful for seeing what’s happening right this very minute on your bsite – for example, what happens after you deploy an e-mail); Clicky (good for real-time spying as well as social networking), Crazy Egg (one of my all-time favorites, great for visualization), ClickTale (also for heatmaps), TrafficSpaces (good for banner tracking) and so on.

What am I missing?   Please add your thoughts in the comments or drop me a line at info@amyafrica.com.

 

*Look, DJ’s daughter, due in March, already has her own Twitter account. @babywaldow.   This is obviously clear and blatant abuse.

**And yes, because if I don’t say it here, I’ll likely get questioned about it.  I adore Papa Waldow (@djwaldow on Twitter.)  That’s why I am teasing him.   DJ’s smart, funny and very genuine and I am happy for him, his wife and their new bambino, even if her name will likely be something like Narcissa.