|
|
|
Are Your Business Emails Legal? (Part 1)
You do business online right? If you do any marketing or commercial communication via email, then you are intimately aware of the CAN SPAM Act of 2004. If you’re not familiar with it, get a brief overview at: ...
Five Ways to Kill Your Home Business
Copyright 2005 Craig Friesen I know it is better to be positive than negative. But speaking from experience sometimes you can do things that are bad for your home business without realizing it. You might even think you are doing the right thing...
The Most Deadly-Effective Trick of Online Marketing that Hypnotizes People to Flash out Their Credit Cards Instantly!
I just finished reading another sales copy ending with the Deadline Marketing! And it's the sixth I see today saying "If you order by midnight, blah blah blah...." I'm sure you've seen it. And I'm sure you're getting (if not very) a little bored. ...
What is Site Match?
While you may have heard of a controversial new program called Site Match, which is being run by the Yahoo/Overture team, what you probably don't know is what this program is really all about. Site Match is a program created to get your site into...
Your E-Business Strategy: Is It Love ... Or Fear?
I read recently that every human thought originates from either love or fear. The more I thought about it, the more true it became. I began to apply it to business - after all, every business success or failure originates ultimately from human...
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Online Marketing: A Busy Person’s Guide
Managing your online business is a full-time job. Unfortunately, most people have other responsibilities that prevent them from devoting all their attention to e-commerce.
If your time is limited, here are five things you must do to keep your revenue flowing:
1. Keep content updated
Nothing signals a neglected business like old content. If you walked into a retail store that had dusty signs and old merchandise you’d turn around and walk out. You would instantly know that the service would be poor and the merchandise unacceptable. A neglected website signals the same things. The only thing your online customer can judge is what they see on the screen. They have no idea you work late into the night improving your product. Make sure to do simple things like updating your copyrights to the current year and removing references to holidays that have passed. Which leads us to our next topic—promotions.
2. Develop frequent promotions
Excite your customers whenever possible. People respond to novelty. Create new promotions as often as you can. Even slight changes make a difference. A discount, a bundle, anything that says “ALL NEW” will catch their eye. If you get into the habit of constantly revising the way your products are merchandised, you will have a much stronger sense of what works. Which leads us to our next topic—testing.
3. Test and revise
In my marketing business, I have seen companies spend hours in meetings deciding what words to use and how to position a product. Often it is based on nothing more than a strongly held position by an aggressive staff member. The arguing continues until the loudest staffer gets his way. This is not the way to make decisions about your website. The only true way to know if something works is to test and revise it. If you are not tracking promotions you are simply devoting time to a hobby. This
is not to say that intuition should be ignored. It should be tried and tested to determine whether your customer sees things the way you think they do. Which leads us to our next topic—feedback.
4. Get feedback from your customers
If you want to know what your customers think you have to ask them. It’s not complicated. I guarantee that sometime in your career you will be shocked by how customers perceive something differently from you. I use the word ‘shocked’ advisedly. Sometimes you will be so close to a product that the obvious benefit or flaw escapes you completely. This is not a good experience, but it will encourage you to see how your customers view your offers. Which leads us to our next topic—buying.
5. Make buying easy
Your main goal for your website is to get people to buy something. You have a service or a product that needs to be purchased. Is it easy to buy? Do you require lots of extraneous information that you don’t use? Think long and hard about what your buying process should look like. Check out how the largest companies sell their products online. They streamline the process so that people don’t get frustrated and give up along the way. This should be your goal. Don’t feel you need to make the purchase seem ‘important’ by requiring lots of unnecessary steps. Amazon has reaped the benefits of "1-Click" ordering.
If you pay attention to these five areas, you should not feel guilty when you devote your time to other parts of the business. Which leads us to the final conclusion—make it fun! Busy people need fun too.
About the author:
Digital Media Works, Inc.(http://www.DigMediaWorks.com ) is an Internet marketing and design firm. A seasoned 25+ year management/marketing professional, founder Stephanie Diamond, former AOL Marketing Director, is experienced in building profits.
|
|
|
|
|
|