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This week, the SEOmoz crew and I are heading to Pubcon in Las Vegas for one of the search industry's more advanced conferences. However, before departing, I felt an irresistable urge to do some coverage of a tough competition shaping in the world of search marketing...

As email marketers, we never know what mindset email recipients will be in at any given time. So a good idea is to design your copy and creative to speak to all personality types/buying modalities: competitive, spontaneous, methodical and humanistic. If this makes you go "hmmm?" make sure you check out our explanation of the buying modes in our personas webinar and webinar recap.

Despite the convenience of shopping online, many people still use the web only to research products to purchase offline. Multi-channel retailers with both physical stores and online stores have a leg up on pure-plays when it comes to serving and converting these buyers. Circuit City is an example of a retailer that's in tune with what customers want and expect from the cross-channel experience, offering customer service features that leverage its competitive advantage:

Though I'd never recommend "lowest prices" as a unique selling proposition, I notice many retailers use a Price Match Guarantee or even a 110% Guarantee to convince customers to purchase from them and not the competition. I'd venture to say Price Guarantees are becoming "Ubiquitous Value Propositions" rather than unique!

I've been a big fan of Crutchfield's marketing for a long time - I consider them to be one of the top retailers in that regard. Here's a perfect example of why: Crutchfield recently ran this email incorporating ratings and reviews (an effective and underused tactic for retail email), and includes content that speaks to various buying modes effectively.