Ten Tips for How to Thrive Online While Others Starve
Written by Michael Curving, Interspire Channel Marketing Associate
Published on
28th August 2008
Hi %%First Name%%,
In this newsletter I'm going to discuss why now is more important than ever to get a handle on your online sales and marketing strategy, plus ten tips you can use to catapult ahead while others are straggling.
Recent News
First I want to let you know about some of what's been happening here at Interspire since our last newsletter:
- We've officially launched our new website. Read more behind the scenes info from CTO Mitchell Harper in the recent blog post and leave us your feedback on the new design.
- A hosted edition of Email Marketer is now available. Starting from just $15/month with no contracts to sign, you can benefit from our software without needing your own web server, downloading or updating files, or worrying about whether your mail has been delivered. It's truly a hassle-free solution to all of your email maketing needs.
- Interspire Shopping Cart received a glowing review from Wayne Kawamoto at ECommerce-Guide.com. In his review, Interspire Offers Inspiring Storefront Solution, he explains how Interspire Shopping Cart strikes the perfect blend between breadth of functions and ease of use making it the ideal solution for all users regardless of technical skill. Read the full article.
Creating Opportunity
Lately I've been trying to stay abreast of the US and world economies. It seems that despite the US guarantee of a strong dollar, everywhere I look there is talk of economic woe. With fuel prices rising, the dollar falling, growing inflation and failing credit it would seem as though now would be the time to cut back right?
I believe that while the average business may be hurt by current conditions, there is still a huge opportunity right now - online - for those of us with the right knowledge and the right tools. Because while the general economy may be slowing, online sales are still growing like mad...
More People Shop Online
According to Neilson, the number of online shoppers is up 40% from two years ago. Over 85% of the total internet population has made a purchase online, with over half who made at least one purchase in the past month. And although a forecast from Forrester Research projected growth in ecommerce to be somewhat slower this year, it is still projected to grow by 17%.
From other data I've seen, more consumers are now shopping online to a) save on fuel costs by avoiding a drive to the store, b) comparison shop for better deals, and c) responding to improved ecommerce software and security, among other factors.
Whatever the reasons, the fact is that more and more money is being circulated online each and every day. Given current economic conditions this growth represents an opportunity that many will not seize. Nonetheless, the sharpest tools in the shed can (and will) still reap big profits.
Return On Investment
If you could earn $1.01 for every $1 spent, would you cut back or would you increase spending? How about if you could earn $1.99 on every $1 spent?
The key is to determine which of your initiatives are driving profit and which are not. To do this you absolutely need to be taking advantage of good analytics. This is the reason we've taken care to build such great analytics into all of our products - from tracking click through rates for your email campaigns in Email Marketer or your best selling products in Shopping Cart, to tracking your adsense placement in Website Publisher - you can use this data to calculate your ROI for each and every web-related business decision you make.
With these great tools and the tips below I believe you have the ability to sustain growth even through hard times by expanding your online channel. Whether or not offline sales are shrinking, the online marketplace is still in good shape, and while those with trepidation will be scaling back across the board that only leaves more money on the table for the rest of us. What will you do?
Top Ten Tips & Tools
- Pound for Pound, email marketing still yeilds the highest return on investment of any online marketing activity. It has been estimated that email marketing returns on average, nearly $50 for every $1 spent!
Using software such as Interspire Email Marketer, you can turn a simple website visit into a lead by allowing your website visitors and existing customers to join an email mailing list. Building this list over a period of time by encouraging sign ups in return for quality information, timely promotions and offerings will allow you to create a virtually cost free marketing medium.
Once you've built your subscriber list, writing a newsletter with valuable content will connect you with your customers and keep them aware of your offerings. To read more, visit the site of marketing guru Dr. Ralph Wilson who has written many articles on the strengths of email marketing including this one that discusses 12 ways to build your email list.
- If you're selling physical goods in a bricks and mortar store, and you don't yet have an online storefront, you should really be considering this as a top priority. The web is a virtual marketplace with millions of potential customers looking to buy your products. The beauty of the online marketplace is that anyone can shop from anywhere at any time. Now it is even possible to make a purchase online from a cell phone or mobile device, and many are already doing it.
Setting up your online store could be as simple as creating a few basic HTML pages and accepting payments using PayPal, or a fully fledged ecommerce website with inventory control, order management and marketing tools. Interspire Shopping Cart may be just the software you need to start selling your goods online.
- Run targeted ad campaigns to gather more traffic, sales and/or leads to your business. Google runs the most popular advertising network called AdWords. It is one of the most cost effective ways to promote your products or services and it allows you to continuously monitor and refine your results and your budget. Be sure to read this article from Interspire CTO Mitchell Harper on how you can setup your own profitable Google AdWords campaign from beginning to end.
- Work on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) by learning what terms people are searching for in what combination, and add content to your site tailored to attract them. Google's AdWords tool can help you with this. This tool is used primarily for building pay-per-click advertising campaigns but I use it as a basic tool to show me the volume of people searching for specific keyword combinations through Google.
For example, if you sell swim trunks, it may be helpful to know the number of people looking for 'red swim trunks', or 'discount swim trunks' or 'women's swim trunks'. You would also find that people are searching for 'bathing suits' and 'board shorts' as well. Use other tools like SEOdigger to analyze which of those search terms your site (or your competitor's) ranks well for or doesn't rank for in search engines. Then work on some basic SEO to improve that rank.
For a primer on Search Engine Optimization read this excellent article on SEO Basics written by Interspire CEO Eddie Machaalani, and another on general SEO from Interspire CTO Mitchell Harper.
- Start an affiliate program for your product or store. An affiliate program is like a network of individual advertisers, usually webmasters, who work on a commission basis. They promote your product or service on their website in exchange for a cut of any sale they refer.
Affiliate programs have a number of advantages. Affiliates work for themselves and only make money on their referrals that lead to sales. Thus you only pay for results. Since affiliates link to your site from their own they are also a great way to build inbound links to your website to further improve your rankings in the search engines, and thereby increasing your organic search traffic.
- Work on link-building to boost your site in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Search engines calculate a websites importance based on a combination of factors, one of the most important of which is the number of incoming links to your website. Link-building is the process of creating inbound links from other websites to your own.
There are several ways to do this. You can approach other reputable sites with similar content and ask them to share links with you. It is also a good idea to get your site listed in several web directories. You should strive to get listed in quality directories only. Here is such a list of directories ordered by page rank. You can pay for a directory submission service to get your site listed for a nominal fee. If you're looking to bootstrap it you should also check out these link-building tips from SEObook.
- Consider offering a special promotion or writing a whitepaper on the benefits of your product or service. A whitepaper is a report written by an authoritative source (you), on a topic that people are looking to learn more about. As an authority on the subject you address a problem that your reader is facing and position your product or service as the best possible solution.
The whitepaper can then be used to capture leads directly from your website. To do this you can use Email Marketer's built in lead-form generator to place a form up on your website within minutes. To receive your free report via email your visitor must fill in the contact form with their name and email (and any other qualifying information you wish to have about them.) A decision to fill out the form to receive the report indicates that your reader has an inherent interest in the product or service you are addressing. This is a lead you can further cultivate through the effectiveness of your whitepaper and additional follow-ups.
- Write press releases for every major announcement coming out of your company and share them on PR sites like PRweb.com and PRnewswire.com. Here is a big list of pr news distribution sites you can post to for free that will distribute your news to various media outlets across the web.
You can then use a clipping service to track how many 'hits' - the number of times your companies name appears in an article - in order to measure your success. This success can be difficult to quantify but there is real value in good PR. It gives your company added exposure in the media, building brand awareness and occupying the minds of people who read and follow the news. Since we know that on average a person must be exposed numerous times to your brand or advertisement before they will respond to it, spending the time to generate PR can pay unseen dividends.
- Create a profile for your company on a social networking site such as MySpace, Bebo, or Facebook to reach a new audience. Doing so can help with branding and promotions. The web is interactive by nature, and social networking sites allow people to interact with your brand, discuss your brand, share your brand with their friends, and so on.
Just today I read an article on a company whose mascot and brand ambassador were sent touring the country to have their photos taken with famous celebrities which they would post to their MySpace page. Their profile quickly gained thousands of friends. Viral marketing of that sort can create a wild buzz around your company.
- Work on other ideas to capture leads, create brand awareness, and market or promote your product or service. There are scores of other ways to do this including:
- Write an e-book on a topic that will attract new leads
- Podcasting to talk directly to your customers
- Post to message boards and forums with insightful comments and include a link to your website in your signature line
- Start a company blog to increase the amount of content on your site and encouraging your visitors to leave feedback via comments
- Start video marketing by posting a tutorial or promotion to YouTube with a link back to your site
- Hold webinars to demo your product and expertise to potential clients
- Use social news and social bookmarking services like digg and stumbleupon to draw traffic to your website or blog
- Attend virtual tradeshows in your industry
- Hold an online contest
These tips should hopefully give you some ideas to help improve your online marketing in the coming months. By combining one or more of these strategies you'll be able to create multiple marketing streams, increasing your leads and sales directly, to continue thriving online while others starve. Good luck and take care.
Thanks,
Michael Curving
Channel Marketing Associate
http://www.Interspire.com
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