The Product Feed - Where the owners manual FAILS

I think the section in the help files is called "Setting Up Web Site Product Feeds" - and it just sounds so simple...  it's almost unlike any other section in the manual - short, concise, screenshot, the end.  Only issue is - it just doesn't work that way (well it does - but there are several other steps first to get a product into the feed correctly) - and since this is a GREAT way to increase your product exposure using things you have already put the time into configuring - let's walk through one example - Google Base (since it's free) - end to end.  So let's get to the steps:

• The assumption here is you have already configured your products inside Netsuite and they have pages in your web store

1. For each product you want to include in the Google Base feed (or any feed) for to Lists> Accounting> Items and click Edit on the item.  Click on the Store Tab and select the feeds you want the product included in from "Product Feed".  (Frankly - unless you have specific plans - I'd just add all services now).  Save the item.  Do this for all items you want in the feed.
2. Now go to the other end of the menu system and select Setup > Web Site > Product Feeds.  Select Google Base from the listing.
3. What you have here is basically the results of a hidden Saved Search for these products - in a pseudo usable format.  Now - don't panic if items don't have the correct product type listing - we still need to massage the listing for Google Base.
4. Using the magic of Netsuite - Click "Edit this Search"...  we are going to change the results from this search to have the correct Google Base headers and information (accurate as of 3/2009) - here's the link to Google for the "required / optional" headers.
5. Save the search with a Name so you can use this in the future - maybe "Custom google Base Feed"
6. Head to the Search Results tab and add in the field "Vendor Code" - or whatever you have for your items that is your unique internal ID for the product.  Assign it a custom label of "id",  This is one of the required fields that Google Base needs - but it not part of the output.
7. At this time - you can refer to the link in step 4, select any of the optional headers you wish to populate in your Google Base Feed and add them in the same manner as adding "id" in step 5
8. Now - obviously there are lots of important fields here - but description is the one you really want to pay attention to - THAT's the field Google will index for search results...  if you don't like the content or want better content than the saved search is pulling off your item description - that's OK - next we will clean up this feed to make it super wonderful. (now - if you are going to be pumping this into Shopping.com or other places that consume live feeds - you will want to fix the item itself)
9. Export the list using Export-CSV and save the file...  we use CSV because Google Base won't accept Excel files.
10. Now - you can change things in here as you see fit - as I already mentioned the description is important but you might also want to change your "product type" to match the listings of the Google categories - check this out for guidance and auto-generation.
11. When you open your file there will be the following headings: link, title, description, image_link, product_type, price, brand, condition... Make sure things make since - at the time of writing this - Condition is NOT correct.  Use your eyes and the tools in the links above to "scrub" the output to be accurate - and if you have other pieces of information as you learn the attributes for Google Base - go back to the Saved Search and add them in there for future feed generation.  there is no easy way to do this part - it's a lot of trial and error to get things the way you want them.
12. When you are done - save the csv file that you worked so hard on as a TAB DELIMITED file - this is key in getting Google Base to accept it.  And a nice tip here is - save it as a friendly name because you will have to name it that inside Google Base as well.
13. Head into your Google Base account and just work through the New Data Feed screens.

I'd say "and that's it" - but this isn't exactly a 3 step process - but - if you follow these steps you will end up with a file that Google will accept and incorporate into their Shopping searches.

And take notes.

(What is Google Base? - it's a free directory of products that google indexes and compares prices for consumers - sometimes refereed to as Froogle, sometimes as Shopping.  Bottom line for your products - it's a free service you can register for and increase your exposure.  Ever Google for a product and see those  or so listings with prices below the AdWords and above the actual search results - that's Google Base...  so for all your SEO work - here's a easy Netsuite friendly way to get a "top search result" with minimal work)

Promote your content - via twitter - and KNOW!

OK - you design a nifty Netsuite web site (tips and trick on doing that in Netsuite will be coming - plus there are a bunch of websites out there who will help you design some very snazzy sites - this is more about you doing it MOSTLY yourself).

So - you have this website with commerce behind it - and it's fully instrumented with Google Analytics...  right? (Post on how to pull this off is coming)

You have built an submitted a Sitemap to at least Google - right?

And now you want to leverage the community of friends / family / followers / whatever you have in YOUR social circle - so they can promote it too...

Here's a challenge - maybe you have some content within your Netsuite hosted site - maybe it's multiple domains - maybe it's a form - but it's SOMETHING and the URL is Netsuite UGLY!  What to do...  and how to know if it works when you do - do it?

To the rescue - Google, tunyurl.com and Twitter...

The combination is actually pretty simple to pull off in a few simple steps:

1. Take the ugly Netsuite URL you are not a fan of and plug it into the Google URL builder - here
2. Take the result of the above tool with the tracking information now appended to the URL and past that whole blob (techically a string - but whatever) of consumer repulsive ugliness into www.tinyurl.com - and poof - some long URL string that could have easily been around 100 characters is now down to 25 or so.
3. Take that tinyurl you just generated and Tweet away - email to your friends - the works.

Now - I wouldn't recommend sending this off to your customers in this form unless you are responding to a Tweet for information and this makes it deliverable...  or if you are engaged in something  that makes passing this URL acceptable.  What you gain in flexibility due to the small size is lost in the recognition of your domain...  so use this judiciously...  but - if you find there are customers or leads in the land of Twitter that ask for information - and the Netsuite URL is too long to tweet back - this is a powerful combination that can ultimately tell you - do people CARE about my responses?

You, Netsuite and RSS

It's a brave new "syndicated" world out there - and the latest release of 2009.1 from Netsuite has made the managing of an RSS feed a little more - well - manageable.  Although it's not quite as simple as checking a box that says "include in RSS feed" or even bracketing your content with as specific tag and having the RSS engine pick it up and publish it to the feed (Netsuite are you reading this?) - it is "mostly" painless.

Basically, tucked away under Lists > Web Sites > RSS Feeds is the interface.  And it's about as simple as you can make it for a fully manual process.  The fields are:

• Title - this is how YOU will see the feed inside Netsuite and how the RSS feed will identify itself
  
• Alias - this is the variable that gets passed to Netsuite on the GET to say "this feed" as opposed to "the other feed"...  just don't put naughty words here
• Description - self explanatory - this does not seem to appear in the external feed - which is nice
• Available Externally - means what the 2 words say it means
  

For the items you are adding to the feed - each gets a Title, Description and URL for the content.  There's not the ability to include images / podcasts /etc in the feed at this point (without hoop jumping).  Netsuite handles the time stamping of the feed entries - so no feed stuffing is going on in this implementation...  and that's it - once you have generated the feed parameters - you are just about done.

All that's left now is to take the feed you just generated and submit it to whatever consuming service you choose.

One last thing - if you are generating a feed that contains content you would like to offer as an onpage subscription within your own site (as opposed to / or in addition to an external feed) - all you need to do is include this tag in the HEAD section of the page where you would like people to be able to subscribe from:

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="FEED TITLE HERE" href="GENERATED NETSUITE URL HERE">
Most browsers now will allow the "subscription" to that feed on that page.  And that's it - you now have syndicated content...  talk about the Netsweetness of that!

What componets make up an email campagin

I'm sure you have been though the Netsuite Help files - and have scratched your head at what seems to be a ridiculous number of things that are "required" to make an email go out the door.  Well - here's a very simplistic visual representation that contains the authorized email address, the saved search, group, template, and campaign.

At the most basic level - the Saved Search generates the list of customers / leads / contacts / whatever criteria you build for the list of people who will get the message.

The Group generation is just a layer whereby you attach the Saved Search to a facade used in the Marketing world within Netsuite.

The Marketing Template is the actual content you will be emailing out - this can be as simple or complex as you need for your message.

And finally the Marketing Campaign is where the Template is matched to the Group and when the emails are scheduled, the category they fall into is assigned and here is where you will come back after a successful launch to view the historical statistics about delivery, read, bounce, unsubscribe and clicks.

Fundamentally the system is pretty simple and the components make sense from a practical sense.  It's just a bit overwhelming when you are initially assaulted by the complexity.  If you have ever used other web based marketing tools like Vertical Response, you will find many of the concepts to be the same.

Welcome to Netsweet-ner

Netsuite is a powerful SaaS tool for complete management of your business - but when a single piece of software tries to become everything to everyone in a small to medium sized company - things can get a little muddled... especially for the newbie.

Over a long series of posts, the goal here is to publish a as much information about tips, tricks and techniques I have learned on my own and from others about making Netsuite do the things it's capable of.

You may find there is an easier way to "do it" than the post - if you do - please come back and add that as a comment.