If your CEO, CMO, CFO (pick a C) hasn’t breathed the term ROI down your neck more times than you can count, we want to know where you’re working! But really, s/he has good reason to – at the end of the day, it’s what marketing is all about. That’s why etailers need to talk about it as much as they can to figure out the best ways to work out those finances.

Below are two retailers’ thoughts on the financial stuff: both on growing the bottom line and on monetizing your non ecommerce properties.

Arthur Lachman

Arthur Lachman, EVP, The Moret Group (Danskin), shares five tips on cutting costs and growing the bottom line by building a good relationship with your CFO and using it to your advantage. Michael O’Hanlon, VP, Business Development, Wayfair, gives seven quick tips on non ecommerce site monetization. Here we go:

Arthur Lachman, EVP – The Moret Group

1. Educate your CFO
2. Don’t wait for your budget to be cut
3. Understand the effect on your customers and bottom line
4. Look outside of marketing for cost efficiencies
5. Never ask your CFO for a social media budget – you will get nowhere!

Michael O'Hanlon

Michael O’Hanlon, VP Business Development – Wayfair

1. Understand your customer
2. Keep your customer the top priority
3. Try some monetization programs
4. Test for success – what it does vs. what it doesn’t – (good vs. bad customer experience)
5. Listen to feedback
6. Don’t ignore your gut
7. Doesn’t look good/feel right -> Don’t do it

If you feel the need to delve into more specific points that both Lachman and O’Hanlon make about these topics, we have their full presentations from which we pulled these nuggets. If you’d like to take a look, you can grab their eTail West presentations, along with a load of other presentations, through this link. You’ll need a login and password to access, but since you’re such a loyal blog reader, we’re happy to give you the inside skinny:

Username: etailusawest
Password: p34n187

Or, if you’re a top-level kind of person and you enjoy these quick tips, you can skim through about 125 of them, covering everything from email marketing to SEO to social media and more from some of the industry’s best retail innovators in the  “Take-Away Report” from eTail West here. Read the report and as always, let us know what you think!