There’s this weird thing about conferences. You often leave them not knowing what to do with all the information you just semi-retained. You’ve got notepads (physical or digital) full of scribblings about what other very cool companies are doing, but often you’re not sure how to apply them to your own business.

Thankfully, most of the speakers at eTail this week came through with some takeaways that can actually be implemented. Right now. Here were 5 of my favorites:

1. Invite a member of the IT team to one of your marketing meetings. If you have a specific goal or project coming up, and you’ve got time to work on it, that’s the best place to bring this person in. S/he might be a bit disoriented, but you could end up pleasantly surprised about what s/he brings to the table – things that you may have never thought of.

– John Peebles, VP Marketing Strategy & Innovation, Avis Budget Group

2. If you’re still thinking multi-channel, you’ve got it all wrong. Your customer is everywhere, all the time. They are in your retail store, while shopping your mobile app, on their smartphone. What channel is that? You’ve got to be everywhere, all the time, and it MUST be a seamless experience across channels.

– Lisa Gavales, CMO, Express

3. When it comes to customer service, providing that through Twitter is the bare minimum. Providing customer service is your job – you have to make your customers happy. But what can you do with social media that goes above and beyond that?

– Virginia Suliman, VP, Digital Design and Development, Hilton Worldwide

4. Aspire to be one of your customer’s “love brands.” There are lots of brands out there, and your customers have space to “love” about five. You should always be working to get on that shortlist.

– Bob Kupbens, VP, Marketing & Digital Commerce, Delta

5. Start with an idea or a need, implement your solution, analyze and refine, again and again…and again. If you think you can get away with implementing a change, strategy or solution once, and only once, you’re in the wrong business. Anything digital takes refinement…and lots of it.

– David Sinatra, Head of E-Commerce Web Marketing, Stussy

6. Never go against your company’s culture when hiring. If you have to, pass on people who have the business acumen to perform the job but aren’t a cultural fit. It can do wonders for your internal teams’ synergies, which lead to creating better customer experiences, marketing and brand strategies.

– Kelly Cook, SVP Marketing, DSW

Ok we lied, one more – another from Lisa because her preso was just so good:

BONUS: With social media, you can touch your customer literally every single day. In what other channel can you be in front of your customer daily? How can you possibly place a value on that. Stop thinking about social ROI. Your ROI is that influence, that reach, that engagement.

– Lisa Gavales, CMO, Express