The typical e-commerce site only takes the time to present their product in a “this is what we have to sell you” manner.  Remember, you are trying to appeal to an audience, and an audience doesn’t want to hear that you have a product to sell.  On the contrary, they want to know the benefits of owning your product, they want to know what the competition’s prices are, and they want to know that the people running the company are trusted.  So, you can break the bad habit of thinking like a business owner.

1. Introduce a review section for your products — By allowing your clients to provide both positive and negative feedback of products and services you are opening the door to completely honest information that will better your business.  Believe me, you will hear all of the bad and good which will allow you to change the way you present products or what products your e-commerce site carries.
2. Up-sell and Cross-sell — People want to buy something.  That, truly, is the bottom line concept of all businesses.  And, one of the biggest hooks is allowing customers to see what other clients have purchased.  You can display a “recently purchased” section, or a “Other people have liked” at the bottom of the product page.  Overall, introduce more products related to an individual’s interests.
3. Find Products Easily — If you have a category search within your e-commerce site (which I highly suggest you look into if you don’t already have it), then list your product in multiple categories.  The more face time that product has with the consumer the better opportunity you have to sell that particular product

A significant number of e-commerce websites take their audience through a gauntlet of obstacles in order to purchase their product or service.  Take a quick minute and think like your clients (sounds familiar?) and keep things simple!  In other words, you need to break the bad habit of complex navigation, purchase pages, and overall site design by:

1. Reduce The Total Clicks — This is the easiest thing for you to do, but one of the hardest habits to form.  Your customers want to buy something with as little hassle as possible, but you need all of their information.  You can get around this by having billing and shipping information on the same page, a checkout page, and a confirmation page.  Be sure you are able to minimize the total clicks in a purchase
2. Return Policies — Keep things simple with this and include the policies within the confirmation page.  This will also allow the customer to only have one print-out instead of two or more.
3. Establish a Presence — This time (and one of the only time so far on this blog) we are not talking about an online presence.  Instead, place your physical location and contact information in as many obvious places as possible.  Again, think like the consumer and make your contact information visible.

All too often, e-commerce websites think that if they build it, consumers will come.  I cannot stress this enough (and I apologize for the blatant remark): That Is Absolutely False!  If you don’t work for your website, your website will not work for you.  In other words, you need to break the bad habit of letting your website run without promotion.

1. Social Media Marketing — If you don’t already have a social media marketing plan, please contact IMPACT to get help creating an efficient plan to get you up and running.  However, if you do have a social media marketing plan then please stick to it!  Think about it, this is the easiest and cheapest form of advertising for you, and you need to take advantage of it.  So, plan to take an hour out of your day and network.
2. E-Mail Marketing Campaign — Again, this is another cheap and easy way for you to market your website and products/services.  You have contact information from your networking and previous sales.  Take advantage of that and establish and effective e-mail campaign.  Form a consistent behavior or marketing through e-mail.
3. Just Talk — You attend chamber of commerce events, you attend social gatherings, you talk on the phone every day.  How much of that time do you actually take to promote your company?  The vast majority has a learned behavior to sit back and not say anything.  Take the initiative and talk about your fabulous e-commerce site and how it can help people who need x, y, and z (and more).  And then (get this) ask them to talk about your site for you!  And, yes, another free form of marketing is established.

Everything that we do in life is a learned behavior (minus our heart and breathing…which are learned behaviors of survival, but that’s a different subject).  Take the opportunity to change the bad habits you have formed and create excellent habits that will launch your e-commerce site to a new level.  Remember, think like your customers, keep things simple, and market your site!  If you can accomplish changing these behaviors you will be on the right path to success.

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The header of an email also includes a “from” line so make sure your name appears clearly so recipients know who is sending the email. Put your website or company name in the from line, not just an email address.

The timing and frequency of your email will also impact your open rate. Certain days and times may be better for sending email and the number of emails you send is also crucial. You don’t want to send more than two emails per week or less than one a month.

With so much spam email and firewall and email guardians that block unwanted emails, you also need to insure recipients have agreed to receive your emails. Keep opt-in records of your customers.

You can also test your emails before sending them to your mail list to insure they’re not tagged as spam. You can also test different subject lines to determine which one works best.

Work with your agency or web design firm on your email marketing program to insure your emails will be opened consistently.

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One of the most basic key rules with social media is to establish a captivating key message to deliver to your audience.  In other words, the topics that you decide to publish to your social media venues need to interesting; they need to captivate your audience and the topic along should keep them thinking well past the point they are done reading your update (even if it is only 140 characters).

After you have established an interesting key message to deliver to your social media audience, you need to be interested in what your community thinks.  The bottom line with blog posts, with LinkedIn, with Twitter, with Facebook, and any other social media platform is to listen and be sincerely interested in what your audience says and does when you publish your work.  Their reactions are true measurements of the interest levels with regard to your topics.  If you are not openly and actively looking for responses (you can do this by using Google Analytics or just by watching comments on your publications), then you will not know if your topic is truly received well by your audience.  Confused?  Think about it this way, if you were with your friends, are they getting bored when you tell a joke and you get no response from the punch line you need to find a different way to approach the joke, right?

Along with the above two points, it is very important that you are personal with your social media audience.  When I read a blog or a Twitter update, I don’t want to just read about your product.  On the contrary, I want to learn a little more about you personally.  It is not until then that I am able to develop a trusting relationship and start referring (or sharing) your updates.  Think about how you interact on Facebook, the contacts with whom you are most familiar are the ones that you “Like” their updates while your casual friends are the ones that you just let alone.  Be a little more personal with your social media audiences and you’ll establish more of those close “friends” that will share your posts.

Last, but certainly not least in your conquest to be successful in social media is a combination of being interactive, asking questions, and taking initiative.  As a social media expert you need to take matters into your own hands and not be bashful.  Ask people to share your updates, your posts, your information.  Ask people to give you feedback on your updates and posts.  Ask them to get involved; after all, the worst thing they can do is say no, right?  Lastly, make sure that your social media updates are interactive.  Features of your updates need to grab your audience and make them interact with you or your posts.  Let’s take a different look at this, and think about how you are with your friends again.  If you are having a one-sided conversation, people will not be engaged.  Instead, you hold a conversation with them and bring them deeper into your topics by asking questions and interacting with them.

Overall, social media is not a 50,000 piece jigsaw puzzle.  However, it is a great test to see how you interact with everyday people.  Use a page from your own relationship book and talk about interesting topics, be interested in what your audience has to say, get personal with your social media, and just be interactive!  It is that simple, and if you can accomplish these steps you will be well on your way to being successful within your social media platforms.  I invite you to leave comments below and open the discussion on other tips or feedback from this post.  And, as always, if you need help establishing a social media marketing plan please feel free to contact IMPACT.

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Gary Lombardo, direct of product marketing at Brightcove, the leading video content management and syndication company, spoke about how his clients have successfully used online video. “Video drives new traffic, grabs attention, brings products to life and keeps visitors on the sites longer,” he said.

Posting videos on YouTube is extremely valuable because it encourages search engine optimization. Video views on YouTube lead to high rankings at search engines. However, YouTube and other video sharing sites aren’t perfect, because they offer limited customization options and control over associated content. So the goal is to use video sharing sites in conjunction with your own site, where you have total control over the videos.

You can also post user generated videos, which has worked well for many companies who hold video contests, post the best ones and allow visitors to vote on their favorites. It’s a great method for raising awareness and getting consumers to directly engage in your product.

Using online video to show your products is another great idea. It beats static images of the products convincingly by showing the products in action and keeping viewers engaged.

It’s also possible to include buy links and hotspots outside the video player to promote direct sales of your products. As video product demonstrations play, viewers can click on the links to make purchases.

Discuss creative uses of online video with your agency or web design firm to determine how you can use video to accentuate your website and your online business.

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1. Facebook Ads — While the increase of users is exponential for this social networking enterprise so is your ability to market to that consumer base.  With 500 million users, that gives you 500 million opportunities to market your product or service.  No, not everyone will be your target audience, but that is why Facebook provides the ability to narrow your audience by age, geographic location, and interests.  With 500 million users, this means that your target audience can still be very large, and could lead to a significant increase in your bottom line figures.
2. Facebook Business Page — Consider this: the fastest growing age demographic among Facebook users is 35 and over.  According to studies, individuals in that age category are more willing to buy products or services online.  With the Facebook business page, you can maintain a unique business page that includes company photos, links, videos, events, and much more!  Along these lines, you can publish fresh/quality content within that page which can help build your online presence as well as open lines of communication with your target audience.  The key with these pages though…market and spread the word.  Invite people to “Like” your page, and make sure that you are keeping everyone involved.  Once you have them hooked, keep them hooked by staying in front of their feeds!
3. Networking Opportunties — Branding and marketing also includes your ability to network with your sphere of influence and let them know what you do.  They may be connected with someone that could utilize your products/services.  So, if you see a feed that you like, then click the “Like” button.  If you have an opinion about a status update, fill in your opinion and submit it.  You are getting your name out there and staying in front of your audience.  Take full advantage of the opportunities that Facebook is providing, and get out there!

The paradigm of social media marketing has shifted from why you need to market through social media venues to where and how much do I need to market through these social media platforms.  The answer is truly in the statistics that Facebook published recently.  If you have the opportunity to be in front of 500 million people at one time, and 100 billion visitors per day…take full advantage of that and market your message to the fullest extent!  If you need assistance in streamlining your social media marketing efforts please don’t hesitate to contact IMPACT.

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* Format – does your ad conform to IAB size guidelines? Does it use rich media and sound? Make sure your ad is formatted in a way that makes it enjoyable to view.

* Ad copy – make sure the copy effectively communicates your selling message. Start with a compelling headline and go from there.

* Landing pages – use unique landing pages customized for each creative execution, so you can target your campaign and analyze the results.

* Registration/purchase process – streamline the process to minimize the steps viewers have to take to respond.

* Make sure the ad is competitive – examine competitive ads in your product category and make sure your ad meets and beats them.

Work with your agency or web design firm to create effective ads that will boost your business.

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No matter how much traffic your website gets, those numbers do not mean anything towards your bottom line income unless you are able to convert the traffic into dollars.  Here is a list of the top 5 ways to convert your website visitors into product/service sales:

1. Install A Click-To-Call — With more and more web users utilizing the features of Skype which means that you can install a bit of code and have Skype automatically call your business when they click on the phone number.  For a significant number of consumers, they may not want to buy something from a website, but they may be able to be sold on the product if they speak with a customer service representative.
2. Analyze Your Competition — The bottom line here rests with this simple statement…always “one-up” your competition.  No, your products don’t have to be better, and your services don’t have to exceed the competitions’.  However, the delivery of the experience needs to be significantly better than your competition.  So, do the research and find out what they are doing, and raise the bar for the delivery of service.
3. Easy Access To Contact Someone — Online chats, social media links, and options to call someone will always yield great results for traffic conversion.  Consumers want to be assured that there is someone behind the proverbial curtain, and allowing them to directly contact someone is a significant benefit.  Make the contact information obvious and repetitive, and allow your future clientele to establish a trust with your company.
4. Test Various Positioning — Experiment and adapt.  Those are the key focuses when you have an e-commerce website.  You always want to experiment with different positions for your call to action links/buttons.  Attempt to have them in the header, in the footer, in the body of the content, in the sidebars, etc.  Google Analytics has great tools for you to experiment and truly research the various designs you could use.  Take advantage of those tools, and adapt to the findings!  Remember, just because it worked well for one year doesn’t mean that it will work well next year.
5. Stand Out Call To Action — The fact of the matter, when it comes to call to action links or buttons, is you want them to catch the visitor’s eye immediately.  You want the call to action link to be the first thing that they see on your website.  So, strong colors that don’t necessarily match the rest of your site, prominent placement (like we mentioned in #4), and adequate size.  Again, you want this to be so enticing that they will click the call to action even before they know what they are acting on.

E-commerce websites should be focusing on driving a large amount of traffic through search engine optimization, but they should more-so be concerned with conversion ratios.  Remember, unless your traffic converts to sales, your website is just costing you money.  So, if you need help with converting your traffic or experimenting with different ways to increase your conversion ratios, contact us at IMPACT!

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1. Apparel – branded clothing is at the top of the list, with sweatshirts, tee shirts, jackets and caps sure fire winners.
2. Writing instruments – highlighters, pens and pencils are frequently used with expensive Parker pens ideal gifts for faithful customers.
3. Glassware and ceramics – branded glassware and coffee mugs are standard promo items that continue to work well.
4. Calendars – desk calendars, wall calendars, day planners and personalized office calendars are ideal promotions at the start of the year.
5. Mousepads – ideal for online businesses, customized mouse pads include your company’s logo and come in vibrant colors and 3-D shapes.

You can find promotional items services online. Discuss the goal of your promotion with your agency or design firm and determine the best items for your campaign.

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This past week, Google has now shifted their paradigm with regard to their YouTube accounts.  In the past recent history, new YouTube users were required to register through the Google Accounts system.  However, it will now be a requirement for old YouTube user accounts to register through a Google Account as well.  This is a significant move for multiple reasons.  Here are the two main reasons that YouTube provides:

• Improved account security. The Google Account system is robust and will help reduce spam across the site; users will get a slew of security and safety features that Google has spent the past decade developing.
• A single account system. This may not mean much to anyone outside of the YouTube engineering team, but behind the scenes it’s extremely complicated to support two different account systems. Having all users on the same account system not only simplifies matters, but more important, it makes it much easier to use Google technologies to keep the site running smoothly (over two billion views a day and counting), as well as introduce new functionality.

This is a significant move for Google to make, and it is a move that you can take full advantage of with regard to the social networking world.  Here are three ways that you can capitalize:

1. Lock In Your Username — With Google taking these necessary steps to open a strong social networking platform, they are going to be utilizing their already Goliath-sized account system.  This means that you can take off fast from the starting line and create a username through Google Accounts that represents your company.  Take into consideration that you want your username to reflect your company name or deliver a company message.  Branding is key here!
2. Utilize The YouTube Community — If you haven’t already taken advantage of YouTube’s significant user base, now is definitely the time to establish your online presence with that community.  There are over 100 million videos viewed each day, and it doesn’t appear that the frequency of visitors is slowing down anytime soon.  Utilize the Google Account system to get yourself involved, create an initial executive presentation with your message, your mission, and your objectives.
3. Enhance The YouTube Experience — YouTube is not just another way to present material to your target audience.  It is also a very efficient way to communicate with your employees.  With Google now requiring you to have accounts, this also allows you to have inter-office Google Chat accounts.  It also presents the opportunity for you to record weekly business updates, training presentations, or anything else related to effectively delivering inter-office messages.

Of course, the only way that you can truly take advantage of this chess move on Google’s part is to open a new web browser and take the first step.  However, we understand how difficult time constraints may be so please feel free to take advantage of our comments section and let us know if you need help.  You can also contact us directly if you need other social networking assistance.

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Start your online marketing plan with a business objective that outlines the focus of your business and the challenges of marketing your specific product. Next, develop a marketing strategy that defines the approaches your will use to reach you market. The elements of your online marketing strategy will include how to improve online communication, how to build awareness of your company online and how to communicate your website’s existence to existing and new clients.

Your marketing plan should also address marketing programs you will use to boost your business. You might launch online discussion boards, offer an email newsletter or submit your site to targeted search engines.

Writing a marketing plan is essential to your online business and you may need help to do it. Discuss your web strategies with your web design firm or agency and prepare an effective marketing plan that will help you launch your site and succeed in the competitive online business environment.

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