Sam Decker, CMO of Bazaarvoice; Todd Friesen, SEO Ninja at Todd Friesen Associates; Sheldon Gilbert, Founder & CEO of Proclivity; Pinny Gniwisch, Founder & EVP, Marketing of ice.com; Brian Klais, VP of Search for Netconcepts; Jeff Molander, Principal of Molander & Associates; Brian Platter, General Manager, Home Delivery of Peet’s Coffee & Tea and Brian Smith, CEO & co-Founder of SingleFeed all weighed in. The session was moderated by Allan Dick, CMO and Chief Plumbing Evangelist for Vintage Tub and Bath.

Here’s a “best of” list selected from more than 30 tips shared in this session:

• Customize your product description pages on your site to improve SEO (Todd Friesen)
• Leverage a customer’s abandoned shopping cart. Remind customers of what they already want by sending them an email each month that features items that are still sitting in their cart (Sheldon Gilbert)
• Spread the love. Some customers take it upon themselves to send your products to their friends. Send these people a thank you email – and maybe even offer them a discount (Sheldon Gilbert)
• Run a sweepstakes to grow review user generated content volume (Sam Decker)
• Merchandise “top rated” products in emails (Sam Decker)
• Activate new or existing consumer communities (Jeff Molander)
• Add more attributes to your product descriptions to succeed in shopping engines data feed optimization (Brian Smith)
• Simplify your landing page urls with keywords to improve your natural search rankings (Brian Klais)
• Increase profit by using segmented free shipping offers. For instance, non-buyers get free shipping on orders of $40+, while frequent buyers get free shipping when they spend $40+ on a gift order (Brian Platter)
• Increase customer lifetime value by aggressively promoting automatic replenishment loyalty programs across multiple touch points (Brian Platter)
• Get involved in blog communities in your area of interest before starting your own blog. This helps get the viral juices flowing (Pinny Gniwisch)

Which of these ideas are you going to implement next week?

Mulpuru opened with a cautionary tale about the Firestone family. A reality TV fan from the audience correctly identified a photo of Andrew Firestone from season 4 of The Bachelor. The Firestone tire company, founded around the turn of the twentieth century, was at one point highly regarded for its superior management. But the tides turned when Michelin introduced radial tires. Radial tires were cleaner, safer and lasted longer than Firestone tires. Instead of recognizing the need to embrace this new technology right away, Firestone made small tweaks to their existing product. Consequently, they lost market share and were purchased by Bridgestone. Today, Firestone heirs have gone into other lines of work. To boil it down – if you don’t embrace innovation you will be eclipsed in the marketplace.

Here are the new rules of online retail that Mulpuru shared with us today:

1. The web is no longer the underdog. Ecommerce now has a significant foothold in several retail categories.
2. Merchants are no longer the taste makers. Social networking has turned the old rules on their head.
3. YouTube is the new Google. Video provides the ability to communicate more emotion and the rich information that consumers want.
4. Green is the new black. 38% of consumers say they are willing to pay more for environmentally sustainable products. 31% of consumers are now shopping online more often due to high gas prices.
5. Cash is still king. Consumers like having options – such as echeck, PayPal and Bill Me Later – in how they pay for products.
6. 3G is the new T3. iPhones are “a religion.” Gen Y is more than twice as likely to go online from somewhere other than home or work than BabyBoomers or Gen X.

Mulpuru went on to outline her recommendations on how retailers should incorporate these rules into their multichannel marketing strategies.

1. Multichannel retailers need to think big picture. Rather than only trying to grow online sales, think of ways your ecommerce channel and brick and mortar stores can work synergistically for mutual benefit.
2. Pure plays can’t rely on being the cheapest game in town. If web sales taxes grow, sales will suffer. Price point can’t be your only strategy.
3. Embrace social computing. But first, figure out what your objectives are. This will help guide you to the best modes of social networking for your company. For example, if you want to energize your customer base, incorporate customer reviews into your site.
4. Prioritize content creation. Better content is key for increasing conversion. Content is often the last priority for retailers, but Mulpuru recommends rethinking this. Adding embedded zoom or videos are some options.
5. Consider the environment. Some ways to do this are embracing carbon footprint offsets and reducing paper mailings.
6. Embrace mobile. While ROI is still to be seen for the most part from mobile marketing, retailers should embrace this channel now. Some ways to do so include creating a unique mobile interface, making best-sellers easily accessible, incorporating easy-to-use address book integration, GPS capability to locate nearby stores and offering alternative payment options.

Mulpuru concluded her presentation with another interesting cautionary tale. This time, we learned from Red Lobster’s mistakes. The lesson – embrace innovation. It’s really the only option for success.

In this interactive session, Mullen, Miller and members of the audience weighed in on what a handful of retailers did right – and got painfully wrong – in their email marketing promotions

Here are some interesting nuggets from this session:

• Search is getting close, but email is still the #1 online activity
• Baby boomers spend more of their time online on emails than any other age group. This group goes online to get things done
• Gen Xers go online for entertainment. When they’re online, they’re multitasking. This poses a challenge for online marketers – your messages really need to cut through the clutter
• The most frequent online activity for “screenagers” is downloading music
• The average person conducts 49 searches online a month

I was particularly intrigued by Chung’s presentation about online catalogs. Chung began his presentation with a photo of three heaping, messy piles of catalogs. He came back to all of these after a two-week vacation. This sight got Chung thinking – how could he take the best parts of catalogs, do away with the negatives and translate the medium to the online space? As he put it, he was interested in “adapting old metaphors to new technologies.”

While there are downsides to catalogs – they generate a lot of waste and are expensive, for starters, there are also a number of positives. Catalogs drive traffic to web sites, drive in-store visits, create an impactful experience that is pushed to the consumer, are portable, never crash, and customers really love them.

Chung admits that past attempts at online catalogs haven’t been very successful. In his opinion, they have failed because the translation to online media was too literal. He advises thinking of online catalogs as an additional channel, not a replacement for paper catalogs.

He wrapped up his presentation with a demonstration of a pilot he conducted with a subset of Anthropologie’s customers. This online catalog pilot consisted of a desktop application that consumers download onto their computers. Since it is downloaded, a consumer can take it with her where ever she takes her laptop, much like a catalog. Another loved feature of catalogs is the ability to whip through all of the options at a quick clip and then zoom back in on the products that catch your eye. The pilot Chung created for Anthropologie incorporated this ability as well – the user can scroll across the page at different speeds and can double back to find out more about a product of interest, such as if it comes in a particular color and size.

Anthropologie’s online catalog brought a number of cool extras to the table as well. These innovations – including the ability to search the company’s offerings by color, utilize your Outlook contacts to ship products, and schedule replenishments of products on a regular basis – harness the technological advancements that are only available online. Another added feature is the ability to purchase a product on the spot.

While he concluded that this was a successful pilot, he admitted that there is still significant work to be done. But, as several speakers have noted today, innovation is key to the future success of retailers’ cross channel marketing strategies, and innovation doesn’t come without risk.

In both his presentation and his book, Tapscott sets out to convince us that there is a powerful force emerging that is impacting the retail industry. This force stems from a group of people – the first generation that has grown up bathed in technology. This generation, born between 1978 and 1998, has no fear of technology. Tapscott says it perfectly – to this generation “technology is like the air.” Technology has been a constant to this generation throughout its formative years and this has greatly influenced the net generation’s world view.

His argument is clear, convincing and oftentimes amusing. A member of the net generation myself, I particularly appreciate the humor and colorful anecdotes that he peppered throughout his presentation. As Tapscott remarks, the net generation is happiest and most engaged when there’s a sense of fun about what we’re doing – even if it’s work-related.

According to Tapscott, the fact that the net generation has grown up with the internet has had a profound effect on this group’s norms. Unlike previous generations, this generation is characterized by a deep appreciation of freedom, customization, scrutiny, integrity, collaboration, entertainment, speed and innovation. This shift is in turn changing the world on various levels – our civic interactions, the educational system, the structure of families and – most importantly for this audience – the worlds of retail and marketing.

Tapscott concludes with a revamped marketing model that today’s retailers can apply to their cross channel marketing efforts. In it, the 4Ps of yesterday’s marketing model are transformed into the ABCDEs of today’s model:

• Today, it’s all about the consumer’s experience – not the product alone
• Rather than focusing on a specific place – now there’s an understanding that business can take place ANY place
• In today’s world, retailers must recognize “discovery mechanisms for price,” such as eBay, rather than assuming that they alone have a say in setting a product’s price
• Simple promotion of products and services is no longer as relevant as engaging customers
• Finally, the brand is becoming a “more complicated construct.” Instead of being primarily shaped by the company, the brand is now a product of a consumer’s relationship with the brand.

Don Tapscott has convinced me that the net generation is reshaping the online retail and marketing landscape. What about you?