My mom is usually tricky to buy for, but now that she’s on Pinterest all I have to do is check her boards to see the home décor, cook books or crafting tools she’s got her eye on. It’s like I have access to her virtual wish list – love it! My dad is all about the gadgets. He just got the iPhone 5 so I know any accessories would be great. I’ll do a quick search to see what’s out there that he would enjoy.

Collette is by far the easiest to buy for. We live together and like a lot of the same things. I’ll make a trip to Evolution. I love that store and Collette will love something from there too. Also, the fall dress I got there would transition to winter if I had the right blazer or scarf – why shouldn’t I give myself a little holiday cheer too!

Since signing up for their email loyalty program earlier in the fall, I’ve been getting great offers from ShoeSparkle. Just this week they emailed suggesting I surprise the man in my life with new shoes. I didn’t even realize they sold men’s shoes! It’s perfect though, because Dean’s been talking about these neon tennis shoes he wants. While I wouldn’t normally buy a guy shoes, I know he’ll love them – plus, their return policy is superb if he doesn’t.

So that leaves little Sienna. I don’t normally shop for toys, so this one might be tricky. I’ll probably do some online searching for gift ideas. There’s got to be toy gift guides out there to help me know what’s popular for the kiddies. While I’m at it I’ll search for homemade gift ideas too. I’m sure to find something fairly easy and super cute.

I’m planning to do most of my shopping this weekend to take advantage of all the great Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals. Most likely I’ll do the majority of my buying online – it’ll be cozier shopping from my couch. It sure seems like shopping this year will be a lot less stressful than years past!

Happy Thanksgiving and happy shopping!

XOXO,

Dana

Note from the editor: Holiday shopping really is getting easier for customers because savvy marketers are more customer obsessed than ever.

Dana is resourceful, using technology to save time and money this holiday – and she’s not alone. Rather than roaming from store to store, a quick online search for gift ideas can point her in the right direction for what she’s looking for. In order to reach people like Dana as they search for ideas, marketers need to make sure they have content on their site to attract people looking for recommendations. Here’s a quick look at search terms that include the word “gift.” “Unique Christmas gifts” and “homemade Christmas gifts” top the list.

^{Source: Experian Hitwise}

Homemade gifts – something Dana is looking for ideas about – appeared in several variations. If we look at what sites are receiving traffic from homemade gift terms, we see that Pinterest is number five on the list, with an increase of search clicks from the same time last year.

^{Source: Experian Hitwise}

Homemade gifts aren’t the only thing on Pinterest. Similar to Dana searching her mom’s board for gift ideas, many consumers are actually creating “holiday wish list” boards specifically so friends and family know what they want or need. Adding “pin it” buttons to your emails and website can help get products on those boards and in front of buyers. With the varied ways people use Pinterest, marketers are seeing the value – a recent EMS survey revealed that 71% of marketers are investing in Pinterest this holiday.

Like ShoeSparkle, many marketers are also touting their gift guides via email. One trend is highlighting specific categories, like “for her,” “for him” or “for the home.” This is a great way to remind recipients of the different people they need to buy gifts for during the holiday season. In addition, remarketing emails could also be sent based on what categories were clicked by recipients. Experian Marketing Services recommends testing this method when sending gift guides – in general, more targeted emails perform better.

According to a new study by Experian Marketing Services, niche social networks significantly increased their market share of all visits to social sites, with Instgram and Pinterest leading the pack.

The following graph illustrates the global growth between July 2011 and July 2012, based on share of visits to all sites by country:

Other niche social networks that have experienced significant gain include Stock Twits in the US, Redidt in Australia, and FanPop in the UK.

According to Bill Tancer, head of Global Research at Experian Marketing Services, the growth of Instagram and Pinterest over the past year has been successful because they haven’t tried to be ‘another Facebook.’ Both networks are image based – something people love and relate to better than just words. For retail brands, sites like Pinterest present a great opportunity to promote products in a compelling and organized way to a wide group of people, globally.

Deeper functionally, combined with a lower technical barrier to entry, will result in new leaders in social media being created, accepted and used within a matter of days – compared to the rate of adoption happening now over the course of weeks and months.

Also included in the study for July 2011 to July 2012:

What social networks do you use most frequently? Do the results of this study surprise you at all? Feel free to share your thoughts with our readers in the comments section below.

Key take-aways:
Facebook is the top social network displayed or promoted in email, followed by Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest respectively.

On average, emails promoting Pinterest get 24.7% more unique clicks than other non-social-promotion emails. The new kid on the block creates a lot of buzz in email. Check out this case study for specifics on how Ballard Designs boosts engagement with Pinterest.

Unique open rates for Twitter “follow-us” mailings are 9.5% higher than those for other mailings.

60% of brands that sent emails with “Facebook” in the subject line averaged a 27% increase in traffic to their website from Facebook the week following deployment.

86% of U.S. online adults are taking part in at least some form of social interaction

None of the marketers in the room were surprised to hear Rob say that social media has become increasingly mainstream, though it was interesting to learn that according to Forrester, 86% of U.S. online adults are taking part in at least some form of social interaction.

This was good news for the marketers in attendance, many of whom are in the retail and travel industries, and all of whom are increasingly turning to social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest to promote their brands.

Also not surprising was Rob’s breakdown of challenges that marketers face, the biggest of which is creating a single view of customers across channels – picked by 50% of respondents in a recent Forrester survey. Not surprisingly, according to Rob, organizational silos contribute heavily to creating this challenge.

Measuring results was chosen by 45% of respondents, 39% cited improving expertise in new channels (i.e., social and mobile), 37% picked capturing customer insight to drive decision-making and 33% said managing data quality.

Smart cross-channel campaign management is critical to solving all of the above challenges and Rob had these thoughts on the topic:

• Campaign management applications are needed to enable more customer-centric approaches, but core CCCM capabilities are now quite mature
• Integrations, customizations and licenses are expensive and this sometimes prevent firms from incorporating campaign management applications
• Marketers need more support in social, mobile and local, but often native social listening, mobile push notifications and location-based communications are poorly supported or absent from the mix
• Marketers are asking for more help from their vendors as they often have the right vision and an interesting perspective. The vendors’ biggest challenge is simply a matter of moving fast enough to satisfy clients’ needs

Ultimately, Rob’s advice to marketers for getting to optimized cross-channel campaign management was this:

• Map your customer’s journey across key touch points
• Look for opportunities to integrate data and automate operations
• Create a 3-5 year technology strategy and implementation roadmap
• Prove ROI in high-value interactions – quick wins make it easier to get funding

• For the first time, last year’s Cyber Monday beat Thanksgiving Day as the busiest online shopping day of the year
• Facebook and Pinterest were the top traffic sources to the Experian Marketing Services Retail 500
• Pinterest visitors most often went to etsy.com and amazon.com from the pinterest.com site
• Dynamic content in emails can drive up to a 70% lift in open rates
• Tying web, email and in-store promotions together enhances the shopping experience and improves sales

The bottom line is that marketers need to understand where there customers are, when they are there, and what they are doing. Armed with that knowledge, you can deliver personalized and targeted holiday messages that are sure to make this shopping season merry and bright (and profitable!). View the webinar to learn more.

Given our environment of hyper-innovation, it’s hard not to become myopic focusing on what’s next and how to plan for it. In writing this year’s Digital Marketer (pre-order here) we’ve come to a realization. In our world of fast-paced change, some of the biggest gains can be had by understanding constants versus variables, and the most important constant is the customer.

In the upcoming 2012 Digital Marketer report, as in previous reports, we’ll supply you with a plethora of data around email marketing, social media, mobile and direct marketing. This year, unlike previous years we’re going to focus on understanding the people who buy your products and services. Through tools like our New Mosaic segmentation, data from Techlightenment, Hitwise, Cheetahmail and others we’re going to fuel our new focus – customer obsession.

We will be releasing this year’s Digital Marketer in March, before it’s release we’ve been posting some of our findings and insights here, so stay tuned for more. If you missed our earlier posts, read them here:

Three steps to maintaining a clean email database

Three ways to optimize email for mobile consumers

Pinterest content has something for everyone, but the site is dominated by images featuring home décor, crafts, fashion, and food. Not surprisingly, visitors to the site in the 12 rolling weeks ending December 17th skewed female (58%) and between the ages of 25 and 44 (59%). Pinterest and the Social Networking & Forums category both receive their highest share of visits from California and Texas. However, the Social Networking category as a whole over-indexes on share of visits from Northeastern states while Pinterest over-indexes on visits from the states in the Northwest and Southeast. This data indicates that Pinterest visitors have a different profile versus their counterparts visiting other social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube.

In fact, nine of the top ten over-indexed states for Pinterest visitors also over-index for the Hobbies and Crafts category (versus the online population) which is expected given the abundance of crafts content on the website. When comparing the Mosaic USA 2011 types that visit both Pinterest.com and Hobbies and Crafts websites during the 12 weeks ending December 17, 2011, the data shows that Boomers and Boomerangs are the group most likely to visit, particularly the Pinterest website (comprising over 10% of visits). This group of consumers is characterized as baby boomers and young adults who are heavy web users who spend time on house and garden, sports and fitness, and family-oriented websites. This information is useful to companies who wish to target their content to be “pinned” by Pinterest users.

Thanks to Lauren Rice, an Analyst with the Strategic Services team at Experian Hitwise for today’s analysis.