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Newsletter - March 2007

What We Learned about E-commerce in 2006

The Importance of Online Public Relations

Five Steps to Better Conversion Rates

Online companies spend millions every year on advertising campaigns and marketing tactics. But much of this money will be wasted if their Websites cannot convert visitors into customers. Try following these five simple steps to improve conversion rates, which will increase profitability and make your advertising budget go farther.

Simple Steps to Converting More Leads with Your Website

1. Identify your conversion goals
This might seem an obvious step, but it's often overlooked. While the overriding goal of most e-commerce sites is probably "to make a sale," chances are there are plenty of other actions you would like your site visitors to take as well.

Signing up for a newsletter could be a conversion goal, or even just getting visitors to take the first step deeper into your Website after opening the home page. Identify the steps your visitors take on the path to becoming paying customers, either today or down the road, and make each of those a conversion goal.

2. Organize and optimize your site structure
If your Website is difficult to use, the chances are your visitors aren't going to stick around long enough to make a purchase. Before investing in driving traffic to your site, make sure it's user-friendly, clean, and easy to navigate. Also ensure that it is graphically attractive, balanced, and well organized so visitors can easily and quickly find what they need.

3. Develop a compelling message
When visitors arrive at your Website, you have only seconds to catch their interest and convince them they want to learn more. To do this, you need a powerful and compelling message. How can you distill your company's strongest selling points into a few words that will leap out of the page at your site visitors?

4. Place effective calls to action
Many Websites lose potential customers because they imply that the visitors should take certain actions, without actually encouraging them to do so. Site visitors want strong directions like, "Read more," "Sign up for our exciting newsletter," or "Buy one today!" Try to think what actions you would like your visitors to take on each page of your Website, and actively encourage them to do so.

5. Enhance shopping cart/lead-capture process
If you've put the effort into refining your Web copy and navigation to encourage visitors to actually make a purchase, you might think your job is finished. But there is still one very important step - your shopping cart. If your checkout process is too restrictive, confusing, or just plain difficult, you are actually driving potential customers away at the very moment that they most want to buy!

Once you have gone through these five steps and made improvements to your Website, it's time to measure the effect. Measure whether your conversion rates improve, and by how much. Once you have a baseline conversion rate, you can test changes and quantitatively measure their effect.

Remember, a Website is never finished; constant tweaks and improvements keep your profits rising and your customers satisfied. If you wish to improve your conversion rate, call 01242 570330 for a no-obligation consultation.

What We Learned about E-commerce in 2006

The year 2006 is firmly behind us, and now that the year-end sales and last-minute rushes are over, we can take the time to review the year from a new perspective. Throughout 2006, e-commerce has continued to grow and change, with some marketing trends growing stronger and others dying out.

Five Lessons from 2006 that will Bring Success in the New Year

Here are five e-commerce lessons we learned in 2006 that will continue to impact small and medium businesses in 2007.

E-commerce is continuing to grow. The great news for all e-commerce businesses is that the money is out there. More and more people are coming online every day - and more of those people are foregoing the hassle of in-store shopping, and are spending their cash online instead. This is a great market for businesses savvy enough to appeal to increasingly sophisticated online shoppers.
Keeping an eye on your competition is vital. The disadvantage of being an online retailer is that there is little or no barrier between you and competitors, who can spring into your market fully formed and be competitive in a shockingly short time. Watch what your new and old competitors do, and what tactics and advertising methods work for them. That information could be vital for your own business.
Never be satisfied. With that in mind, you also need to think constantly of new ways to exceed the expectations of your customers. Can your Website be improved? Can you bump up your average order price? Can you make a deal to cut advertising costs? Sitting still is the same as being a sitting duck in the fast-paced world of the Internet.
Be prepared for the holiday rush. In 2006, the holiday rush was larger than ever, and indications seem strong that even more consumers will be turning to e-commerce for their holiday purchases in 2007. During the upcoming holiday season make sure your Website is prepared for higher traffic, more questions, and tighter shipping deadlines than ever before.
SEO is A-OK. SEO remains the undisputed champion of online marketing, driving more customers to Websites at less cost. If your Website is primed and ready to help active searchers find the information they need to make a purchase, then you can expect to see very high returns on your SEO investments. If you aren't, then hiring an SEO expert to revitalize your Website will be one of the best investments you can make in 2007.

If you would like to explore how these and other e-commerce success tactics can boost your online sales, please call 01242 570330 for a no-obligation consultation.

The Rise and. Rise of Video on the Net

Google sent shockwaves and amazement through the advertising world when it announced it was paying an unprecedented $1.65 billion to take over the free video-sharing Website YouTube.

Furthermore, Google claims this is just the first in a series of investments it is planning in the online video arena. An Internet-savvy company like Google would never invest that kind of money without a clear potential for profit. So why is online video suddenly so very hot, and how can you put it to work for your business?

What Impact Could Online Video Have on Your Company?

The main reason online video is so hot with e-commerce companies today is simply that those Websites are where the eyeballs are. Just as Web portals seemed to offer the perfect venue for online surfers a few years ago, online video sites are universally adored by Internet users across the board, young and old, rich and or poor, newbies and or experienced browsers.

YouTube serves well over a million videos a day. Metacafe reports tens of thousands of views for its most popular videos within the first hours its viewers are online. People even flock online to watch funny commercials that would cost their designers millions for an equal amount of TV exposure.

And the numbers continue to soar. Experts predict a popularity jump of ten percent over the next five years. That's a massive source of potential customers for your business.

The audience is vast, diverse, and global. People love having an alternative to text, as the popularity of television news has proved. Why not put this love of video to work for your business? Here are a few ideas:

Create a funny video promoting your product or service. Upload it to the major video sites, and watch as your name brand leaps in recognition.
Tap into the huge audiences online video sites attract by purchasing advertising near relevant videos. Google's PPC advertising service, AdWords, displays prominently near the videos.
Communicate your company's message through a video blog or weekly podcast. You'll be adding a face to your services, making them seem more personal and reliable.
Create a video how-to for your Website. While some people may prefer to learn about your product by reading the text on your site, others will be delighted by a more visual medium.
Add video testimonials from happy customers. Any company can write a blurb about how great its services are, but visual testimony from satisfied customers is indisputable evidence others think so too.

Online video is the way of the future. Putting it to work for your business could reap enormous benefits for your company's bottom line.

If you would like a no-obligation consultation to explore how using online video could improve your marketing message, please call 01242 570330.

How Well do You Know Your Customers?

How well do you really know your customers? For many small business owners, the answer is "not at all." It's easy to spend so much time looking at conversion rates, exit paths, and traffic that we lose sight of the people behind the clicks. But all the facts and figures available to us can't reveal the most critical factor when it comes to making a conversion - the customer's mindset. For that, we need marketing research.

How Marketing Research Can Effectively Improve Your Bottom Line

An idea that might sound great when pitched in the boardroom could have unexpected consequences when presented to the general public. Marketing research is a critical tool that can help you pinpoint problems on your Website, focus your budget on the most effective advertising, and discover new ways of generating revenue from your current customers.

Perhaps your navigation isn't as intuitive as you believe, or the explanation of your services is unclear. Maybe your copy sounds patronizing instead of friendly, or you've made a grammatical mistake that is turning off customers. Maybe there's a service you haven't considered, one your core customers are dying to have. Many companies overlook these mistakes, but your customers will notice them.

So the obvious question to ask is: How can you gather information from the perspective of your customers?

Here are a few ideas you can put into practice to improve your company:

Ask friends, family, and co-workers to browse your site and look for specific information. Include tasks that are a priority for your customers, such as "sign up for a product" or "describe how our service works." Ask for their honest feedback about how easy it is to perform their tasks, and how your site could be improved.
Place satisfaction surveys at key points on your Website. For example, when customers leave your sign-up pages without completing the registration, ask them why they changed their minds. This can give you valuable insights into your Website's weaknesses.
Have an open house and invite people to sign up for your services in your office. Free pizza will bring a lot of interested people along, and you can actually watch how they interact with your site.
Test advertisements with a small control group before starting a large-scale sales drive. This will allow you to fine-tune your message before it hits the "big time."
Interview your customers after the transaction has been completed and ask them about their experience. This can be done by mail, e-mail, or telephone.

By spending the time to conduct marketing research, you will greatly improve the performance of your Website by learning to understand the true impact of your marketing decisions.

The Importance of Online Public Relations

One of the major advantages of online marketing is that it is very easy to track conversion rates and return on investments. The drawback, however, is that e-businesses can get so caught up in these numbers they overlook more ephemeral qualities, such as public relations.

Strong online PR can have a major impact on your bottom line, improving conversion rates and stretching your marketing budget. Read on to find out why overlooking PR can be a major mistake for your online business.

Good Online PR Can Vastly Improve your Marketing Efforts

Simply put, PR is about ensuring that people think about your company and then managing what they think about the company. In other words, you want to recommend your company, and encourage others to do the same.

People are far more likely to trust an advertisement from a brand they've heard about than the brand of a no-name company. If they trust your brand name, they will be more receptive to listening to what you have to say.

The Internet is an ideal medium for communicating your company's message and improving your public relations. You can reach a vast number of people on a personal level at a very low cost, which is a PR firm's dream. Here are a few ideas you can use for your business:

Create an online forum where customers can ask questions and receive personalized answers.
Write a company blog to communicate your business' goals and ideals.
Post articles in directories to spread the message about your company's perspective on important topics related to your business.
Offer Web conferences to teach people how to use your products and services to make their lives run more smoothly.
Encourage visitors to spread the word about your Website on social networks and tagging sites.
Run sweepstakes or contests that will get people chatting about your site.
Participate in forums run by other Websites to establish yourself and your company as experts in your field.

So, although it is very hard to track the exact number of conversions you might get from investing in public relations online, remember that PR drives interest, interest drives traffic, and traffic drives conversions. Once people start talking about your business, it will become that much easier to bring them to your Website and convince them how wonderful your offerings really are.