Is your morning coffee habit feeling the Nespresso pinch?

Yes, a serious issue.

I recently paid far too much money ($300.00) for a De Longhi coffee machine AND a gross amount of money ($0.69 each) for a tube of the highest strength Nespresso Pods. None of these "Pods" will be as satisfying as my local Barista-made takeaway right?  Not a chance in Brazil.

This is how I bought my Pods.
Me: "Which are the strongest"
Sales guy: 'The black ones'.
Me: "I'll take them".

I had literally thought policed myself into thinking it was a wise financial decision.. like I'm Mr Accountant. Yeah right. Cynical me knew deep down the coffee would be crap. Stubborn me knew I'd never use it and lazy arse me knew I'd never clean the machine. I hate those three guys and wanted to prove them all wrong.

Stay with me.

Well after 3 months I can take great pleasure in kicking 3 of my.. (lets not start a head count) "alter ego's" out the door because I have stumbled upon a life changing secret. Nespresso. 

The Nespresso is good. Very good. I even buy 3 different Pods, including the purple one and the funny colour one that's not quite pink or red... it's a bit like a Sparkling Rose colour. Eww. But it's not about the colour, its the beans. The grinded beans. The $0.69 cent grinded bean coffee pod thingy.

My second Pod purchase went something like this:

Me: "What is the second strongest" 
Sales Guy: "The Purple Ones"
Me: "I'll take them"
Sales Guy: "This one is the most popular" (pointing to my Rose coloured friend)
Me: "Thanks.. Brian. I'll take them"

Brian was right. The Rose coloured one is a belter. I drink 2 at least, every day. The little Pod slots in the cockpit, I hit the button, the hot water filters through into my warm glass and Voila.

Two incredible things before I leave you from this thought provoking blog post.

1. I am saving loads of money. 5 great coffees for the price of one. Initially, I chose to ignore this fact. "You get what you pay for... $0.69 cents can't do it."

Well.. actually, it can.

2. I am saving time and enjoying great coffee whenever I want it, rather than at restrictive times such as "Morning before work" & "Lunch breaks".

Finally, this is the line that mentions George Clooney. I couldn't leave him out of the blog could I?

Over to you.

Are you a Nespresso convert?

Product should be cheaper In Store.

I've had this conversation with a few people lately. Friends have found incredibly good deals on the internet that absolutely brain the In Store competition on price & service. Why? It doesn't make sense. In Store should be cheaper considering the lengths we go to simply to get there. There should be a bonanza waiting for us In Store with queues of people lining the foot path waiting for their chance to get inside. There isn't. Aside from the occasional opening of a new store and the fanfare it entails, there are no 'clear' signs of any In Store marketing body telling us exactly how and why we will benefit by making the trip in. There should be! Why are we bothering?

OK, because we love it. Or some of us still do anyway. We've been shopping in the market place for 2,000 years and I don't see it slowing anytime soon. Having said that, it has clearly slowed. The internet has evolved so fast that we cannot ignore the sheer convenience and opportunism it holds for the shopper. Why though, do retailers send strong, clear marketing-driven messages about deals on their websites?

Is it because everyone else is doing it? Could they be doing so at the detriment of their bricks and mortar stores? Are they effectively shooting themselves in the foot?

Is it because they believe the internet will make them billionaires? Couldn't be. The magic bullet simply doesn't exist.

In theory, online should be more expensive. You don't pay travel costs, fuel or parking. Even the train from Flemington to the CBD (3 stops) is $6.80. For the purpose of this blog, I call it a Tarrif on my decision to buy In Store. If I had decided to drive into the city (assuming I'm on my own), there would be an additional flat fee parking expense on top of fuel.

So, by staying home and having my product delivered for free, with a free gift, and a discount off my purchase, and lifetime subscribership, with a ribbon... I both save & use the time previously dedicated to travelling In Store, to do 'other things'.

Talk about a lop sided deal for the In Store retailers. Aside from the love of shopping in store, where is the incentive & how can the retailers fight back?

Is the love of shopping off line enough to keep the industry alive for the next 2,000 years?

Over to you, what do you think?

Do Beauty Bloggers have any impact?

I could just say "Yes" and be done with it but there is more to it.

I tell you what I'll do, I will use June 2011 statistics to explain in part, the impact Blogging has on the online business I run, FashionAddict.com.au. (FA)

58 Beauty Bloggers sent traffic to FA in June 2011. 

In addition to the people arriving direct from the beauty blogs, an additional 558 unique visits came from Twitter. Do not confuse this with Hits or Page Views, which would be approximately 20 times this amount. 1 unique visit can create 20 hits or more in one session as the visitor clicks from page to page of your website.

I mention Twitter because Beauty Bloggers use this medium frequently. Most of the traffic hitting FA from Twitter is from a Beauty Blogger Tweet or Re Tweet. This is easily proven just by scrolling through your Mentions. It looks to me like 16 in every 20 Mentions are from a Beauty Blogger.

I won't include FaceBook because of its dwindling impact on anything of substance. As an aside, how many FaceBook accounts would be sitting dormant in cyberspace these days.. to the nearest million please?

So... Twitter & the Beauty Bloggers. A new musical? No. A match made in heaven? Yes.

Twitter is where I talk to beauty bloggers. I have also been fortunate enough to meet a few bloggers in person. The incredibly dedicated & passionate beauty bloggers I know have one increasingly important affect on my online business, thus the reason for this blog posting -  They send traffic to FA. Good traffic. Buying Traffic.

Does Beauty Blogger Traffic turn into sales?

Yes & No. Beauty Blogger Traffic is definitely responsible for immediate sales. Some blogs send more traffic and more sales than others. It is brand recognition however, that we benefit from most in the long run and ALL beauty blogs make an impact & build the momentum.

A little detective work & with the help of Google Analytics (GA), I have tracked a typical sale path which shows the impact a prominent beauty blogger can have on an online business. A Beauty Blogger post written over 3 months ago was visited by a new FA customer this week. We know which blog the customer came from because we can track it. The customer read a beauty review from this blog, trusted the content, liked what she saw on FA and BOOM! We made a sale. Take the Beauty Blogger out of this equation and we may as well call ourselves Invisible.com. We simply would not have been found so seamlessly.

Why does one Beauty Blogger website send more traffic than another?

It has nothing to do with the amount of followers or negativity in the reviews. True story. It matters little. Follower numbers and negative product review written honestly should not ever concern the product sponsor either. Bloggers don't have to like everything & invariably they don't.  Blogs are personal & honest and I think they should remain that way unless there is a specific agreement in place. Blogging is about the truth, the good, the bad and the beautiful.

However, if you want to know the technical reason why some blogs send more traffic than the other, here is some insight on the matter:
The relevance of the link to the post matched with the relevance of its destination = a Google Marriage.

Sponsors gain the most benefit from links that include the keywords of the product within them as opposed to "Get them here" or "Click here" If the link reads "You can buy this Blue Nail Polish here", the difference literally changes from No Traffic to Targeted Traffic for that particular product type. This blog will now also be listed somewhere under the phrase "Blue Nail Polish" within the next 6-8 weeks. If this Blog was ALL ABOUT Blue Nail Polish, the link would find its way on to Google anywhere from 3 hours from now to 24 hours from now.

Here's the 'Kicker' for the Beauty Blogger. It is not the sponsor being listed on Google so quickly, it is the Blogger. The sponsor benefits because their online business is associated with a high ranking web page about "Blue Nail Polish" (If I can continue with that example), but it is the Beauty Bloggers page that gets the first visit. The Blogger and Sponsor can both have a win. Should they both have a win? I think so. It's not about changing the writing style or distorting the truth.. it's just a little technical layout tweak. Many suppliers don't even know the question they need to ask of the Blogger, thus they fly blind.

When I compile sales data and monitor where the customers are coming from each week, it is very clear where the traffic originates. As a Beauty Blogger supporter & product supplier, FA is mindful of sharing the love when it comes to product hauls but I can see why some suppliers couldn't give a rats. Very harsh, but true.

Visits from Beauty Blogs to FA, in JUNE 2011 in terms of Unique Visit 'numbers' read like this:
306 visits, 232, 91, 74, 59, 37, 25, 21, 19, 13, 13, 12, 11, 10, 10, 10, 9, 8, 7, 7, 6 (x4), 5, (x5), 4, (x4), 3 (x5), 2,(x9) and 1 visit (x6)

For an online business owner trying to maximize immediate returns, it would be tempting to send product to the first 5 or 6 and ignore everyone else. I know some people who do. For the record FA does not do this, but yes, I see their point.

Online Business owners should appreciate any & all contributions to their brand and/or their product made by Beauty Bloggers.

Beauty Bloggers can increase their visibility on Google & the opportunities they offer suppliers simply by adjusting the way they link. Could it really be that simple? 

The blogs that link well have the greatest impact on an online business & the stats back up this story each week.



Thanks for reading


Regards
Director Dave