I am excited to introduce Steve Groenier as a new guest blogger at SLI Systems. Steve has a long history in e-commerce and online marketing, serving the past three years as VP of Marketing and eCommerce for IR500-ranked Artbeads.com.  He will be writing about the latest news and innovations in online marketing while supplying his perspective as an online retailer focused on driving growth.  This includes diving into the details and analyzing the numbers. His aim is to filter out the hype and identify the real opportunities for retailers to produce measurable and meaningful results.

Steve is passionate about finding innovative ways to drive growth for online retailers and has a track record for producing results.  His early adoption of new advertising channels such as Amazon Product Ads and Google Remarketing have been featured in industry publications and Google case studies.  At Artbeads.com Steve launched numerous initiatives to improve the customer experience, increase conversion rates and build a customer community.  SLI Systems Learning Search, Merchandising and Site Champion where among these initiatives.

In his own words, Steve says, “I believe online retailers must deliver quality content, engaging and personalized experiences, and community interaction in order to attract customers and build lifetime loyalty.”  He has shared his views with retailers while speaking at the 2011 Online Retailer Conference in Sydney, Australia and recently in an SLI Systems webinar titled, “How to Build Better Brand Loyalty By Adding Social Content To Your Site Search.”

While Steve would say that the creative work in online marketing is his first love he would be quick to point out, “it’s the science of online marketing that I find the most interesting and potentially game changing.”  Steve believes in tracking everything, rigorous testing and making data-driven decisions.  As such, with every blog post, you can expect Steve will have something to say about the numbers.

We look forward to having Steve blog for SLI Systems.