Real world tips for e-commerce success

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Liz Kidson just posted an excellent article about the use of color on e-commerce websites. And best of all - there are lots of examples.

Quick – name your blog’s topic in 5 words or less.

If you can’t – oh brother – you’re in trouble.

Why do so many business blogs fail, languishing without readers, while others thrive?

I analyzed over a hundred business and e-commerce blogs, seeking an answer to that very question. Surprisingly, it seemed that the most successful company bloggers all excel at a handful of things. And at the top of the list is:

Focus.

In this article, I’m going to share the 7 essential topics that will give your blog the focus it needs. We’ll look at real world examples, and define some criteria to determine which is right for your business.

But first, we need to cover a topic that’s deadly serious…

The big lie of the internet

It’s amazing how some things are repeated so many times, you start to believe them. Misunderstandings so crucial that they can sink your business or your blog before you know what hit you.

I know this from hard experience. Several of my previous business ventures were doomed by my belief that…

…there’s an audience for everything on the internet.

NO!

No belief has cost online businesses more sweat and money than this.

No belief has caused more blogs to sink into the dreg and mire of irrelevance than this.

If you’re going to succeed you need to:

Write what your customers want to read.
- or -
Write what the people who influence your customers want to read.

And sometime that means writing about something other than your product.

Here’s what Bob Walsh, the head of the 47 Hats Consultancy & author of Clear Blogging has to say on the subject:

Me:
Do you have any advice for companies that feel their products aren’t necessarily “blog material”? You mentioned the subzero wine blog in your book. It seems like they chose that topic because more people will read about wine than about refrigerators. Did you notice any other solutions to this problem?

Bob:
The key question is, what are you selling? If you are selling a commodity - something that can be found elsewhere at “the Internet Price” you need to talk in a clear, unique way about the problems/concerns your customers are interested in. Take refrigerators. Not a good topic for blogging, right? Sub-Zero saw that, so their blog is about something people put into refrigerators that they care about - wine.

If you are selling something unique - like jewelry, clothing, software, catering, info-products or services - add to the above idea the idea of using your blog not to sell, but to connect and collaborate. Take your reader into your world - discuss with them why you made the (informed) choices you did creating your products, why you structure the service(s) you offer in a particular way. In other words, layer on to discussing what passions you share with your readers (their needs, problems, interests) your opinion, judgment, experience.

So let’s get our hands dirty & look at some real world examples:

The New Deal Blog

The new deal blog is all about fresh, hot, amazing deals that you have to grab now, because they won’t be around tomorrow.

Use it for: Generating a huge amount of buzz & traffic to your site.

Example: Woot – at one product a day, their entire store is set up like a blog. And it’s addictive.

What we can learn from them: Hey – it’s ok to have a variety of products at a variety of price points. Sometimes it’s the uncertainty that makes it exciting.

Here’s the catch: You have to have real deals on items people get excited about. That dollar off a 3-pack of Irish Spring soap ain’t going to cut it.

The Maven Blog

It’s about the newest, latest, bleeding edge products & how to push them to their limits. You’ve heard of all the people hacking their i-phones? They’re mavens.

Use it for: Courting the early-adopter crowd. Creating a reputation for being on the cutting-edge.

Example: Audio Federation - Who would have thought a $1000 CD player would be “low end” to some people?

What we can learn from them: Forget the marketing-speak. Talk about your products like your customers would & be honest about their flaws.

Here’s the catch: Don’t even consider this type of blog unless you really know what you’re talking about. And, some products just don’t lend themselves to this treatment. We know you love your selection of gaskets, but….

The How-To Blog

It’s about giving your audience new ways to achieve their goals, be happier, and look prettier..

Use it for: Showcasing fresh ways that your customers can use your product.

Example: Gourmet Fusion - A gourmet shop that has a recipe blog? What could make more sense than that?

What we can learn from them: Sell the sizzle. Not the steak.

Here’s the catch: It’s a mistake to solely focus on projects involving your own products. You want to be a resource, not a brochure.

The Making-Of Blog

It’s about giving your customers a window into your world.

Use it for: Attracting customers who are interested in your business.

Example: Jewelry Trends.

What we can learn from them: Use a blog to give readers the stories behind your products.

Here’s the catch: If your market isn’t the type that would care about how your product was made, you’re sunk. Too many software companies sell software for non-technical people, but blog about….programming!

The Lateral Blog

Let’s face it. Some products. – ball bearings? Don’t tend to generate as much reader interest – as opposed to, say, the latest from Apple. In this case, it’s smart to go lateral. Pick a topic that your target market IS interested in, and write about that.

Example: Subzero Wine Blog.

What we can learn from them: A lasting connection with readers over time can let you build and awareness of your products is a much more subtle way than advertising ever could.

Here’s the catch: Be sure to pick a topic that your customers actually care about!

The Guru Blog

It’s about sharing your deep understanding, your insider knowledge of a specific field.

Use it for: Creating a reputation as an expert, and drawing in prospects who are attracted to your status.

Example: Joel on software – Programmers love to read about…programming.

What we can learn from them: Don’t underestimate the soft-sell.

Reality check: You have to have paid your dues to be a guru. If you don’t know what you’re talking about – forget it. The last thing we need is another fake guru.

The FAQ Blog

It doesn’t get much respect. But sometimes your customers just need their questions answered!

Use it for: Supplementing your customer service efforts.

Example: Arcadian Lighting

What we can learn from them: Don’t be afraid to take your service public. It gives people a sense of security to know that you actually have customers!

Here’s the catch: You may have a tougher time attracting subscribers.

Now the real work starts…

Now you have all the tools you need to give your company blog a laser-like focus. But that doesn’t mean anything unless you know how to attract readers.

Before you write your first post; before you tweak that first graphic…You need to know how to market.

It was a lesson I learned right after college. I was sick of working, so I turned down the job I’d gotten and went on the road to play stand-up bass for a rock band.

Now the only way a bass can compete with a band is with a lot of amplification. And in this little club on the north edge of death valley, my amp was going out. It was fading fast Soon, I couldn’t even hear myself in the noise.

So being the smart person I am, I decided the answer was to play harder. And by the end of the night, let me tell you, my hands were torn up. I couldn’t play for a week. But I learned something. My own little bit of folk-wisdom:

It doesn’t matter how hard you play - if nobody can hear you.

Coming up next week –

• 5 ways that new bloggers can use the power of amplification to attract new readers!
• Bob Walsh from 47hats will school us all on keepin’ it real.
• And the 30 second trick that will make the search engines love you.

Don’t want to miss it? Subscribe to our feed.

Technorati Tags: e-commerce blogging, ecommerce blogging, business blogging, ecommerce blog, e-commerce blog, business blog, social marketing, blog marketing, relationship marketing

Today’s SEO quick tip comes from Patrick McKenzie’s excellent blog (view his original post).

Let me ask you a question. What happens when you go to yourdomain.com? Does it redirect you to www.yourdomain.com?

If not, the search engines will think you have two separate web sites! Any incoming links to your domain without the “www”, will not be credited to the domain with the “www”.

The solution is to set up a permanent redirect.

Your e-commerce software may do this for you automatically. If it doesn’t, you may have to edit your .htaccess file. For detailed instructions on how to do that, click here.

Technorati Tags: ecommerce seo, e-commerce seo, e-commerce, ecommerce, 301 seo, redirect seo, 301 redirect

You’ve probably been told your business needs a blog. But does it really?

To be sure, there are tons of success stories. Have you seen the Woot blog? They sell every item they list. They have a massive community built around their e-commerce store. All with no marketing budget to speak of.

And if you’re a techie, you know all about Joel Spolsky. He used his personal blog, with thousands of daily readers to launch a successful software company with millions in revenue.

But most businesses don’t get anywhere close. They buy into the hype, start writing, then….nothing happens. They fall into a slow death spiral - all because they don’t know what successful company bloggers know.

This is the first in a five part series that will dig deep to uncover the secrets of successful business blogs, with a special focus on e-commerce blogging. But first we’re going negative. And we’re starting with the big one -

The number one reason that business blogs fail…

If you handle this one detail, you’ve solved 99% of your problems.

You’ll know what to write about. You’ll know what voice you should use. You’ll be able to make good decisions about design and marketing and promotion.

And here’s the kicker - it’s so simple it’s almost stupid.

Play along with me for a second. Take a nice yellow pencil. Sharpen it… And write down 3 things that you want your blog to do.

• Do you want to create a buzz and send tons of traffic to your e-commerce storefront?
• Do you want to establish a reputation as an expert, and leverage your blogging success to appear on TV or in print?
• Do you want to be #1 on Google for your top 10 products?

If you can’t think of anything, that’s a clue. If the only reason you’ve considered a blog is because you’ve been told to…Then maybe there are better ways to grow your business.

Now that you know know the “what” before, we can focus on the “how”. And man - are we ever going to.

Coming next week….

I’ll divulge 7 proven blog topics that that’ll have customers beating a path to your door.

We’ll have a little Q&A with Bob Walsh, the author of Clear Blogging, and head of the 47 hats consultancy.

And I’ll share the marketing secret I learned by playing punk rock in death valley.

Make sure you don’t miss it! Subscribe to our rss feed, or to our email newsletter (in the sidebar).

Technorati Tags: e-commerce blogging, ecommerce blogging, business blogging, ecommerce blog, e-commerce blog, business blog, social marketing, blog marketing, relationship marketing

If you’re considering one of the new pay-per-performance  ad services, the E-Tail Detail has a *huge* article that will give you everything you need to know to do it right. Click here to read it.

Search engine optimization can be easy if you pick the right keywords.

Does your store sell art supplies? Don’t try to rank for “Paint” or even “Oil Paint”. Go after the super-specific. “hand-made oil paint” or even “hog’s hair filberts”.

You can use your cart’s categories feature to make all kinds of these “niche” pages.

Try it - you’ll be surprised at how quickly you’ll make the Google front page. For example, our product photography post is now fifth when you search for “ecommerce product photography”. It’s all due to the power of good keywords.

It looks like our little comparison shopping engine article has had quite an effect!

TheFind.com has launched “Green” - a new product search engine featuring only eco-friendly products.  (original post)

Also, Microsoft has acquired Jellyfish, and is looking to integrate it with their Live Search. (original post)

Technorati Tags: comparison shopping engine, cse, jellyfish, thefind, green

Would you like an extra source of highly-targeted traffic?

That’s a silly question. We all would

Well, some merchants have found comparison shopping engines to offer just that. And this article will give all the info you’ll need to test the waters.

Compari-what?

“Comparison Shopping Engine” or (CSE) is just a fancy term for search engines that look for products instead of web pages.

Suppose you’re looking for a Canon Digital Rebel camera. Just go to google product search, type in “digital rebel”. And - BAM - you get a listing of cameras, with links to the stores selling them.

In certain markets, being listed on CSEs is almost a requirement. A 2006 study showed that 90% of consumers buying electronics online use a CSE.

With a little bit of elbow-grease and a little cash, you to can enter the CSE field.

What’s it gonna cost me?

Google product search is free. Hey - They’re Google. They can afford to give stuff away. But all of the other comparison sites make you pay.

99% of the time, CSEs will use a pay-per click setup. Just like Adsense, you only pay when someone clicks on your link and goes to your site.

One good thing about the PPC model is that you can get started for just a few dollars, and ramp up spending when you see results.

But there are a few things to watch out for:

• All comparison services will charge different rates depending on your product’s category. For example PriceGrabber charges $.80 for camera listings, but only $.25 for furniture.
• And some sites set prices via adwords-like auctions. So these may be a bargain for niche items, but too expensive for more competitive products.

Feed me Seymour!

To feature your products on a comparison engine, you’ll have to create a “product feed.”

The feed is just a file that has the name, description, price and other info for each item you’re listing. You can create feeds by hand using either a text editor, or Excel.

But here’s the bad news. Each service has it’s own rules for what data should be in your feed, and how that data should be formatted.

And lets face it, entering tons of data by hand into excel. Formatting it 5 different ways for the 5 engines you’re using. That’s just soul-crushingly boring work.

Luckily, some very smart people have created some good tools to automate the process.

Tools

Think about it - You already have all the product info you need, right in your shopping cart program.

So the first thing to do is look for a plug-in that can fetch this data and make a feed from it.

If you’re using ZenCart, X-Cart, OSCommerce or CRELoaded - Congratulations! Just go over to MagneticOne, plunk down $115, and get the 10-in-1 feed plugin. It will make feeds for all the major CSEs.

If you’re using another cart program, you may have to look around a little.

In addition to the cart plugins, there are a number of web apps that can help you optimize, validate and submit your feeds. Check out SingleFeed and FeedPerfect.

Making the sale

There’s one crucial fact that will make or break your comparison shopping efforts: Customers take up to 10 days to purchase an item they originally found on the CSE.

Here are a few suggestions for getting those customers to come back:

• Self-contained landing pages: Your landing page should have the site name & address in a prominent place, as well as any important company, policy & shipping info.
• Bookmark links: Giving the customer an easy way to come back to the landing page is a must.
• Email updates: Offer to email the customer with new deals or information related to the specific product. Then check in with them a week later.
• Other content: If you offer reviews, a blog, or any other content, show it on the landing page. Do anything to keep the customer from hitting that “back” button.

The services

Curious? Here are links to all of the main comparison shopping engines and their rate cards:

Home | Rates

Home | Rates

Home | Rates

Home | Rates

Home | Rates

Home | Rates

Home | Rates

Home | Rates

Home| Rates

Home | Rates

Home | Rates

Home | Rates

Technorati Tags: CSE, comparison shopping engine, ecommerce, e-commerce, ebusiness, e-biz, e-buisness, data feed, product feed

In the *ancient* past, 5 years ago, A/B testing was something only big players with big money did.

A/B testing lets you squeeze every last bit of conversion from your landing pages, checkout process…you name it.

It’s really a simple idea: Instead of making a guess as to which language or layout works the best, run an experiment. Try a few versions & see which is more successful.

This simple idea can work wonders. Mattress Liquidators increased online leads 5,000%. Doba.com increased signups by 50%…and the list goes on.

Even better, Google has made their A/B testing software available for free. With a deal like that, why wouldn’t you start testing?

If you’re interested in learning more, Channel Dollars points to a great video on the subject.

Technorati Tags: ecommerce, e-commerce, multivariate testing, a/b testing, ebiz, ebusiness, etail, ecommerce stats

A successful email marketing campaign can mean the difference between profit and loss for your business. But all too often you write your copy, prep your list and hit “send”, and then…nothing happens.

Here’s why:

Nobody opens your email

How many of your customers actually read the emails you send to them?

MailChimp did an interesting survey where they tested open rates for emails by subject line. They found that emails with “boring” subject lines strongly outpulled emails with “benefit-based” (aka salesy) subjects.

The best subject was “[COMPANYNAME] Sales & Marketing Newsletter” at 87% opened. The worst was “Last Minute Gift - We Have The Answer” at a measley 1%.

Nobody gets your email

Did you know that internet providers could be blocking your emails as spam? There are three triggers that can get you blacklisted.

• Bounce Rate: Watch out if a lot of your emails come back as undeliverable. The ISPs might think you’re a spammer trying random addresses.
• Content: If your customers start reporting you as spam, you’re in trouble. So keep your copy clean, and make your unsubscribe button shiny.
• Volume: For a normal e-tailer this isn’t going to be an issue. But in case you have a few million people on your list, be sure to stagger mailings.

To see if your mail servers are on any black lists head over to mxtoolbox. If you’re really serious, services like blacklistedip offer continuous monitoring solutions.

If you are blacklisted, Blendworx offers some helpful advice. You can also switch servers or email services.

Email gets garbled

If you’re in charge of designing a HTML-based mailing, my heart goes out to you.

According to CampaignMonitor, a popular mailing service, there are at least 10 popular email clients out there. Each offers different of standards support ranging from perfect to virtually non-existent.

So your perfect design could look like a pile of trash to your customers. Not exactly good for conversion.

The only cure is to work within the limits of exsiting email clients. Check out this handy list of html support by client.

It ain’t pretty

Even if you manage to get your HTML through unscathed, designing for email has it’s own challenges.

Keep these tips in mind to avoid the most common mistakes

• Design for the preview pane: Most people’s first look at your email is through a teensy little 300×400 box. And what they see in that box better look good!
• Go light on images: Never use images for important elements like titles or headers. And be sure to add alt text for all of the pics you DO use.
• Top Left: All important info should go at the top left side of your layout. Only god knows what will happen to that rightmost column.
• Keep it low-tech: Avoid flash, video or audio like the plague. They won’t work.
• Offer a contingency plan: Add a link at the top of your email to a web-page where they can view the full contents of the email.

Want more? MailChimp offers a free e-book with 68 full pages of email design goodness.

Your Email is Sub Optimal

If you want results, you have to optimize your mailings just like you optimize your web site. For each campaign you should know these numbers:

• Open rate: the % of recipients who open the email
• Click through: what % of recipients click on a link?
• Soft Bounces: result from server overload, exceeded quotas, etc.
• Hard Bounces: happen when the address does not exist.
• Unsubscribes: you do have an unsubscribe button, right?
• Conversion: sales resulting from the mailing.

That’s it!

So now you know why your email marketing is broken, time to go fix it!

Technorati Tags: email marketing, ecommerce, e-commerce, opt-in, mailing, ecommerce marketing, e-commerce marketing, email design, email css, email html