No Turn On Red

Some stories that are on my radar this morning:

McDonald’s is testing no-brand marketing in Japan by opening a store without any of the colors, logos, or branding of their traditional stores. Supported through non-traditional marketing such as hand outs, viral campaigns, and a unique website, the store offers two menu choices and that is it. Intriguing concept and I wonder how long it is until we see that more often in the United States. Jon Sykes also shares his thoughts on this campaign.

Linda at Get Elastic has a very informative post about the benefits of pushing educational content, rather than sales promotions, in e-mail. In Should Retail Email Sell or Inform? An A/B Split Test Case Study, she provides a look into an study into different types of e-mails that were sent out from a retailer and provides concrete information on ROI, conversion rates, and sales results. Summary is, content is king and the e-mails that were focused on educational content and information performed better than the sales oriented e-mails. Good information for all retailers.

Over at CNBC, Cindy Perman writes about the impact the economy is having on second hand and consignment shops. Some intriguing sales numbers from Goodwill and quotes from consignment store owners that reflect the uptick in sales and traffic they are seeing this holiday season. At least someone is seeing positive gains this season.

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Really recommend this blog post written by Jim Barraud: Email Newsletter Makeover. He takes a real email newsletter he’s received and shows the technical issues with it that prevent most people from getting all of the content and then shows how easy it is to make it more accessible. Very good use of a real world example and some very simple tips that all retailers should be aware of, especially as the use of email newsletter blasts ramps up as we progress through the holiday season.

For full disclosure, Jim is an associate of mine at Media-Hive.

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