E-Commerce for All

There are many great companies worldwide with continental and even global reach and recognition. Most everyone of these highly successful businesses started out in their local market. Certainly, the Internet has opened many doors for businesses to approach the global market in substantially earlier stages of development…. However, that does not mean business owners should ignore local opportunities. Not much is as effective a marketing tool as a great local fan base in your own home town…. Roots!

Business contacts and customers alike worldwide will respect that your community uses your services and products. As a matter of fact… It generates a trust and security factor for your business that is nearly impossible to top. Sure, you can go after those global sales.. But build a local fan club too.

Some very good techniques exist for establishing a local reputation and presence that will generate leads, sales, trust and credibility on a large scale for you. Join your local chamber of commerce….. This is a very hot spot for local sales and networking leads.  Become the authority for your niche in your local market.

Sponsor a youth baseball team and put your web address on their shirts…. Its not very expensive and everybody loves a business that is involved locally. People really do look up to businesses who sponsor teams and events for kids and groups. Consider sponsoring events at the Special Olympics, your local DARE program or a breast cancer walk. Local public exposure is the easiest thing you will ever do, and its priceless. <– And deductible!

Market your business with referrals, reward customers who bring in more customers. Phone the local radio station and donate a gift certificate or a free gift for their contests. Find local clubs and hobbyists related to your business niche and get a booth at their shows or auctions… Or donate a sponsorship or gifts for their raffles.

Marketing fliers are nice, and yes with coupons and discounts they can work… However, business cards work better. People are far more likely to throw away or lose a flier due to its size and related inconvenience. Business cards are more likely make it to the purse or the wallet… They get stuffed in to the desk drawer, tossed on the dresser top or in the car’s glove box. People remember them when a need arises and search them out… Many time before the phone book. Carry business cards with you… Always. Make them personal and professional, do a coupon or a FREE offer on the back.

Become that local business person… “Hey isn’t he the guy from _____”.  Local recognition will build a strong foundation for your business to grow on.

Donate some books to your local school library.. They will happilly tag them with your business name to demonstrate their gratitude. Get involved in your community, be social and be friendly…. Then when you are a trusted local brand… be ready to be a global brand.

Not only should you be planning for the generally heavier Internet traffic during the winter months… But in the US, the economy has folks tightening their budgets a bit. So today’s question is simple and straightforward…

What are you going to DO, to get your share of the Holiday sales this year?

Certainly, there are always time tested successful marketing techniques that we already know will help us build our sales during these peek periods… But what about some unorthodox and fresh marketing ideas?

Have any?

I do… So I will be adding great marketing ideas here to grow your sales and grasp a larger share of the winter month sales opportunities that exist. Check back, as I will be adding suggestions and other ideas to this brain workout marketing list. One of the things e commerce stores still have trouble bringing to the table is good old fashioned Holiday Cheer… Why is that exactly, its the Holidays, have fun and spread your cheer too!

1. Any kind of great link / promo bait is going to be very hot… For example, set a press release that Santa himself is at your shop answering your phones. This will get people’s attention and if you have the right product, folks will be happy to spend money in your store… Not to mention all the great links you can grab as well.
2. Search out and list/advertise with some Holiday gift guides and comparison sites.
3. Offer gift certificates for customers to refer a friend.
4. Offer free anything… Free gifts, free shipping, free gift wrapping etc. Free is always good marketing.
5. Run crazy fun Holiday Pay Per Click Ads… Target some very tight terms and throw up Ads like, Santa dropped the load at our shop! This will get you giggles and get some folks in your door, then grab them with great deals and Holiday offerings.
6. Submit a Holiday themed coupon to a bunch of FREE coupon database sites.
7. Offer after purchase 10$ gift certificates for a reduced price (Like 5$).. Many will jump at these and the shrink is very likely to get you out on top anyhow.
8. Run a contest or give away on your site… Customer # 000XX will receive a $25 gift certificate for their next purchase… Then track the winners and results in a very prominent location for all to see.
9. Filter the Holiday buzz keywords in to your content… Words like “Holiday”, Gift Ideas”, “Gifts for Men” and other seasonal related terms will be searched… Let them find you this Holiday season.
10. Get going with Image Search… People will be searching for those same popular gift and Holiday terms in images as well… Or you prefer to name your images like 45grj.jpg? =P
11. Send a Holiday cheer newsletter and include a coupon for a special deal or product ONLY available to your subscribers.
12. 9-20-08 Add product bundles to your store, Holiday shoppers are in a hurry and will be more inclined to checkout with a bundle containing everything they need… Like the iPod, case and headphones all in one shot.
13. 9-20-08 Swap out some website images for Holiday themed, feel good images to get shoppers in the “mood”.
14. 9-20-08 Run a stocking stuffer giveaway…

Everyone has an passionate opinion on this one, and honestly most theories are in general correct as there are many very effective schools of thought regarding domain registrations. The most important thing, in my opinion, is to register a domain that will do what you need it to do. Makes sense?

You most easily accomplish this by starting with an honest marketing and business model first. You must answer some tough questions like:

1. What types of services or products will you be selling with your online store? (Now and in the future as you grow)
2. What is your targeted area/region or customer base age, gender…? (Demographics)
3. What other companies will you form relationships with? (Distribution, etc.)
4. What kind of budget does your store development project have? (A real budget… Never over extend)
5. What is your plan for marketing and information distribution? (PPC, local marketing etc..)
6. Is your brand or company name well known or rich enough to include in your domain effectively? (Probably not)
7. What is the potential traffic for your store’s products/services? (What are others in the same niche doing?)
8. How much or deep is the competition? (Who’s on top and what do you have to do to beat them?)
9. Are you serious about making a successful commerce store… or have you big dreams and little execution?

There are a really host of things to consider in your domain name selection… some you can control and some you really cannot. Obviously, domain availability is one that is generally out of your control. If the name you “must have” is already registered, you might attempt to purchase it for a substantially higher investment. I strongly suggest you have a qualified SEO check it out first as there a many tricks and issues which can spoil the deal… and get a domain broker to handle the purchase for you… Would you sell your house using a car salesman?. Then, realize for certain, this is going to cost a great deal more than 10 bucks… So set your budget and stick to it.  Secondly, there are certain rules and restrictions regarding domain name registration.

• Domain names over 26 characters are supported in most web browsers, but many email, programs, and form fields will not be able to handle them. For reasons beyond my comprehension, however, in most extensions you can register up to 63 characters long.

• Domain names cannot begin or end with a hyphen.

• Names can only include English letters, numbers, and hyphens. For most TLD extensions the name must be 3 letters or longer.

Generally speaking, if you plan to target your home country (or another) you will benefit from registering a country level/coded domain and hosting physically residing in that country as well. If you are seeking a global market, then I suggest .com for a business or .net if you have to. If you are an organization or group, then .org would be perfect. In the United States, there is the .us, which I am personally against registering your business with this as it’s main url..

So you have your store up and running and hopefully you are watching those conversions closely. Today, we are going to hit some not so blatant discrepancies about online conversions that you should know. I have said this before, but it bares repeating, every store is different. Even store with the exact same flow and product line will convert differently. So lets did in to some conversion dirt.

First of all, and certainly unnecessarily, lets define a conversion…

In marketing a conversion occurs when a prospective customer takes the marketer’s intended action. If the prospect has visited a marketer’s web site, the conversion action might be making an online purchase, or submitting a form to request additional information. The conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who take the conversion action.

So you see a conversion or the act of converting a visitor to an action, not just about a sale. It is in fact a general term referring to getting them to do what you want such as sign up for a newsletter or click an Ad even. Now lets dig in…

I really hope you are using a great Analytics program like Urchin or Google Analytics which tracks conversions (completed sales and funnels) for you. Without these types of analytical tools you are pretty much popping caps off in the dark. We will assume you are using Google Analytics for our purpose.

On your main account stats page, the “dashboard”, you have several statistical summary boxes. We are going to concentrate on your “Ecommerce Overview”. In this summary box within your dashboard you get very basic conversion information. While I would never argue that your overall conversion rate is important, its just not enough information to grow your business. So click the “view report” link and lets dig deeper.

Before we go any further I want to debunk a very common misconception, something I hear far too often…

No, we always sell more beta widgets… That’s always been our top product. The alpha widgets just don’t sell, so lets concentrate on the beta widgets.

Personally, I really don’t care in the least “what you have always” sold more of historically. Have you considered the search rank, volume and potential sales of the other widgets? No, probably not. Here’s the thing, ALMOST 100% of the time when a customer tells me that, their lack of sales/conversions for the under performing widget is related to either their site or its lack of rank and therefore search phrase traffic. Only one time that I can remember was this actually related to a “bad” product. So throw everything you think about your products and whether you think they will sell out the window and rely on the data.

Ok, so we have or page one Ecommerce view up in Analytics. Some cool stuff here and some things I want you too look for…

1. In the top graph is about 30 days of conversions. The blue vertical line indicates the weekly separation, by default this is a Monday.