Marketing

Working as a Marketing Analyst at One Click Ventures, I see a lot of numbers.  I look at sales numbers, site performance numbers, and work rate numbers.  I calculate numbers.  I interpret numbers.  I make recommendations based on numbers.  Sometimes, I blankly stare at numbers.  Most of which is done in a software program known as Microsoft Excel. I’m pretty sure I have worked in Excel every work day since graduating college.  Over the years, I have learned a few shortcuts to help analyze sets of data quicker and easier.   I have listed a few of these shortcuts below. Yep, that’s right, a blog post on excel formulas!  I hope you are as excited as I am! 1. =AVERAGEIF() We all hopefully know how to add and subtract, maybe even average.  But did you know you can AVERAGEIF?  Say you have a list of data that includes zeros and you want to

Whoa. Simmer down. You don’t even know where I’m going with this yet. Put your pants back on. Stripping down. That’s what we did, figuratively, of course (and luckily for you all). We took our largest and most recent acquisition -- and stripped it down to its bare bones to see what we had to work with. We knew there was so much opportunity somewhere in The Fedora Store. Elephant sized. Jupiter sized, even!  We sell great hats and needed to gain some trust with a site makeover. This is what the site looked like before we got our hands on it. It’s very… um… teal. It wasn't  easy to navigate, and you could only sort by brand. What if you wanted a fedora, but didn’t care what brand it was? Or, what if you just wanted to browse

We all agree that social can be a phenomenal tool for lots of brands, right? Of course we do. Anyone who's ever had an issue with Orbitz, complained about it on Twitter, received a prompt and effective service recovery, and then raved about the experience knows what I’m talking about (Personal aside? Maybe). Brands on Twitter and Facebook have a duty in today’s business environment to pay close attention to what people are saying about their products and services, and at the very least acknowledge when someone experiences an issue. For the sake of this argument, let’s call the situation and environment described above as “Social 1.0.” You speak, brands listen. Brands help (or try to help) you with your issues and you speak about your experience (good or bad). This relationship has worked well for many companies thus far, but several large companies and startups are trying to shift into

You know those life-changing events that happen every so often? I’m talking about those really good ones that make you shake your head because you can’t imagine how you ever made it through the day before. For me, usability testing is one of these events. When I first started looking into usability testing, some of the methods I found in my research were really daunting and super expensive. There was special equipment to buy, and we needed a private room to hold tests(absolutely not possible at the time). We would need to pay out incentives, provide lunches, and the list goes on. On top of that, there was the issue of recruiting users – unless we only wanted local residents, we’d have to figure out ways to locate and possibly bring in out-of-town testers. Feeling overwhelmed yet? I sure was. WAS. Past tense. Despite my love for the show Mad Men, I'm

Part of the organic team's job is to create awesome content that encourages our visitors to share, revisit, and interact with our sites. Sometimes it's an infographic on hat history, sometimes it's a blog post with 10 tips on getting up and out the door in 10 minutes, but whatever the medium, we're always looking for new ways to connect with our audience. If you've seen any of our how to tie a scarf content, you also know that we've been dabbling in video for awhile now. Last week we hit a pretty big milestone in our video career...drumroll, please! This is my attempt at drawing confetti.  ONE MILLION YOUTUBE VIEWS!! (Okay, yes, that picture

If you follow the One Click Ventures blog and Twitter, you know by now that we added The Fedora Store to the One Click portfolio. After the deal closed, the marketing team began to work their magic to give the site a makeover. First on the list was to spruce up The Fedora Store's look. Our extremely talented Creative Director, Moriya, gave the brand a fresh re-design to appeal to a broader demographic. She also created a new logo for an overall classy look and feel. While Moriya designed, the Organic Team started to work their SEO magic. Nate conducted keyword research to find the queries customers search for. He created a spreadsheet with all of his data that is so large you can get cross-eyed

What makes the Internet great? Is it pictures of dogs balancing things on their heads or balancing precariously on fire hydrants? Is it the seemingly endless stream of cat gifs? While all of these things are totally awesome, I firmly believe that what makes the Internet great is the availability and proliferation of communities. So what do I mean by “community”? There are several forms of the word as it exists online, ranging from robust message boards/forums, to pop culture blogs and news sites with active commenting communities, to media aggregation sites. Each community has its own unique and special set of skills *Liam Neeson voice*, but the thread that unites them all is the spirit of learning and sharing. I recently bought a nifty little Kindle Fire, but quickly discovered that I couldn’t download all the apps I was hoping to through the Amazon

Last month was super busy for me. Funny, normally January is a relatively slow month for most retailers, but not One Click. We catapulted ourselves into 2012, landed in a full-on sprint, and plan to continue this momentum through the remainder of the year. Exhausting? Eh. (My two-year-old is exhausting.) Exhilarating and challenging? You bet! At some companies, execution is a dirty word that conjures up stressful images of conflicting priorities, communication issues, hoards of unfinished projects, and just plain old-fashioned chaos. Thankfully, we try to avoid these nightmares at OCV, and today I'm going to share with you my top five insider tips on how to get things done. 1. Conceptualize, Plan, Execute, Repeat. Don't be afraid of structure. Having a well-defined process in place provides a framework that everyone can work inside of and a process can easily be repeated over and over again.  New project ideas come across my desk all the time, and with such a creative

As the resident Assistant Buyer, Julie Schieferstein is the One Click go-to gal when it comes our products. She helps choose and buy the items we sell on our websites, and she's one of the first people to see and touch all our new products when they arrive at One Click. Julie's role at One Click combines her love for fashion and her knack for pinpointing trends and managing our inventory that includes thousands of products. I took a moment to interview Julie to get a better idea of what her role entails. Q: As the OCV Assistant Buyer, what does your role entail? A: As the Assistant Buyer, I am in charge of adding all of our new products to the websites, and maintaining them. I also do trend research for our bi-annual trade show visit, so

It’s a new year, and as a member of the OCV Organic Team for Sunglass Warehouse, I couldn’t be more excited for 2012! We achieved many of our goals and had an outstanding 2011, and we hope to continue this momentum into 2012. Like many others starting their New Year’s resolutions this month, the Sunglass Warehouse team members are ready to divide and conquer. Our main focus for 2012 is to provide an even better shopping experience for our customers. We take customer feedback very seriously and rely on it to improve the One Click experience overall. Here are three projects the Sunglass Warehouse team has up their sleeve for 2012: The Sunglass Warehouse blog will have more content based on your needs. We have received great feedback on the articles we’ve posted over the past couple of months, but we’re not completely satisfied unless you’re completely satisfied. We are