1) There are people who actually ENJOY browsing email promotions!

“Jill” told me that she carves out time almost every day to sort through the 20 or so promotional e-mails that she receives from online retailers to “see what’s new,” and “to see what’s on sale.”

2) “Price” shoppers can be very savvy

“Bill” makes many of his online purchases over a several week period, and rarely buys something spontaneously. Once he knows what he wants to buy he will open a spread sheet, and will browse dozens of e-commerce sites. He records the price that each store sells the products for and he signs up to their newsletters. After several weeks he browses his inbox for promotional offers from those stores, updates his spread sheet, factors in the cost of shipping, and buys from the store who gave him the best deal.

3) When buying from “unknown” companies, shoppers may Google the name of the company in search of “red flags”

“Jackie” is not afraid to buy from online retailers she has never heard of before, and in fact she prefers to buy from specialty stores rather than “big box” stores. Over the years, however, she has made it a practice to open a new window before she completes a purchase to run a Google search of the name of the online retailer she is about to make a purchase from. She doesn’t spend a lot of time “investigating” the company, but she does skim the first page of results to see if any “red flags” jump out at her. One big red flag is when she searches for the name of the company, and only a few relevant results come out. She said, “I assume that means they are very new and have no track record,” or that “they are not savvy enough to care about their reputation.”

In closing: The next time you’re at a weekend party, consider doing some research of your own. Ask people what they like to buy online, and ask them to share their experiences doing so. Not only is this good fodder for a casual conversation, it serves to remind you that shoppers are more than numbers that show up in your analytics program. They are individuals with very unique needs and behaviors.

Here are a few points I like to see when I am searching articles or shopping online:

1. I am a big softie for product reviews and customer testimonials. There is nothing like a second or third opinion to add your product to my cart. If I am not shopping online I like to use http://www.yelp.com to help me decide on restaurants and much more.

2. How can I find what I want fast and easy? A navigation that feels like it was designed just for me with the option to sort by my price range, the brand of choice, and the ratings creates a personal feel and helps me find what I’m looking for. I think Amazon does a great job of this. http://www.amazon.com/

3. If you have a brick and mortar store, make sure the locations are easy to find. This ensures to me that I can physically return the item, and I don’t have to worry about shipping it back.

For instance, I just recently bought an elliptical from Dick’s Sporting Goods, their prices were competitive but knowing I could return it in the actual store was the comforting, especially with something as large as an elliptical.

4. Shipping Deals and Promo Codes! If you can’t give me a discount, it’s a deal breaker for me because I will find someone who will! I love this site: http://www.retailmenot.com/. They place success rates, so you know your code will work.

5. Making your search box easy to find. The food network makes it extremely easy in terms of searching for the perfect recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/

As an avid online user, usability is extremely important for me in terms of shopping and online research. My favorite websites get to the point fast and do not make me guess what their online purpose is. I have been shopping at the same online stores for a few years and I can honestly say they do a great job in making me a repeat customer!

This got me thinking, in this day and age of online sales and ever increasing impersonalization of the sales process, why don’t more companies and sales people send thank-you notes anymore? This simple gesture results in customer loyalty and easy “word-of-mouth” marketing. The increase in new and returning customers from this alone could be enormous!

To learn more, check out “Wendy Writes Kinetic Ideas”:

http://wendy.kinesisinc.com/2005/09/07/never-underestimate-the-power-of-thank-you/

She wrote a very interesting article about the marketing power of sending thank you notes to people.

A.C. Nielson sites:

“58% of the people polled shop in stores because they wanted to physically evaluate the product before purchasing.”

“52% didn’t want to wait for the product to ship.”

“43% didn’t want to pay shipping and handling.”

“27% wanted to talk to a sales person in person, before purchasing.”

“23% thought they could find a better price in store.”

“14% weren’t sure anyone would be home when the item was delivered by a third-party shipper.”

“11% wanted to support a local business.”

“5% listed none of the above.”

Physically Evaluate Product
For some products there is no substitute for seeing, trying on and/or holding the real thing.  That being said, there are some tactics which will alleviate customer questions.  The tactics you use depend on what type of products you sell.   A tactic that works for some of the best shoe selling eccomerce sites is offering free shipping in both directions and a no-hassle return policy. Now the consumer has the best of both worlds, the extensive selection provided by the ecommerce site and the ability to “physically evaluate” the product without hassle, cost or risk. Some products may not lend themselves to this approach. In that case, the best way to mimic personally evaluating a product is to create many different interactive views of the item, allowing the user to zoom in and out in multiple directions. If you own a retail ecommerce store this can be critical, especially for clothing. When buying apparel, people not only want to see different views of the clothing, but they want to know how it fits on their body type. A great way to show them is to display multiple sized models wearing the clothes.

Shipping
As mentioned above, free shipping can be a great solution. If you’re small, however, you may not have the funds or profit margins to offer this. A more cost effective approach may be to offer free shipping specials, especially during the holiday seasons. During the holidays, the malls are so clogged with people that shoppers will flock to your online specials. Make offers that make sense for your company. For example, if you own an ecommerce gift shop, create a special offer of free shipping on all $100 purchases. Another helpful option for shoppers is a shipping calculator. The shopper provide their area code the calculator shows them how much the item will cost to ship, well before they have made a purchase decision. This way, there are no surprises when it comes to checkout time and shoppers appreciate your understanding and help.

Salespeople
Shoppers want to talk to someone and get reissurance regaring their potential purchases. Pricing and product descriptions do help, but real opinions from other customers are highly valued. Add a customer review feature to assure consumers that they won’t be sorry with their purchase.

Cheaper Offline
Shoppers sometimes think they can find a better price in the big chain or mall store. Demonstrate that you are comfortable with the value you provide by encouraging them to check out chain store websites. This may prevent them from driving to the big-box store and making the purchase because it’s convenient. If the customer checks out the chain store website first they will come back to you if really are the better value. Shoppers want things quick and easy; if they travel to a store and find the product is more expensive they will still most likely purchase it because of the convenience. If they check it out online first you may get them NOT to make that trip.

Product Arrival
If shoppers are worried they will not be home when their package arrives, suggest they have it shipped to work.

Support the Local Business
I understand that people want to keep the smaller companies in business… let them know most ecommerce stores are also small businesses owned by people that live in their neighborhoods.

Mimic the Brick and Mortar Experience

PPC is a great way to get instant traffic to your site. However, to ensure quality traffic takes time. Once you create an account you have to allow the account to collect performance data. You cannot make any informed decisions until you actually let loose and experiment in the real world. What you might have predicted to be an instant success could just be too competitive and flop. On the other hand, you may find that one of your campaigns is doing extremely well and that you should increase your budget and build out your keyword universe.

I like to watch an account for a full month, making small adjustments along the way. Once you have a full month of account performance data, you can make well informed decisions. Each PPC program has an array of reporting that you can use to analyze your account’s performance right down to the keyword level. This should help give you insight into where you should focus your budget as well as assist you in identifying trouble areas. It doesn’t stop there either. PPC is a continuous process that needs to be refined on a constant basis. Most people mistakenly perceive it as a set-it and forget-it marketing technique, and that’s what leads to their downfall.

The beautiful thing about PPC is that the reward is great if you put the time and effort into the process. I have seen clients use PPC to generate up to 50% of their sales. The trick is to have the patience. No two accounts are alike and you need to spend the time to research and develop your campaigns to your needs. If you do that your patience will be rewarded. With revenue!

“…marketers shouldn’t fixate on the number of people who click on ads. According to the research, just seeing an ad on a Web page can impact memory.”

What are the implications? Advertisers need to consider the long term benefits of the number of impressions an ad achieves, not just the click-through rate.

As reported by the president of one impression based venue,

“site statistics showed seven times more traffic at that destination site than we would have shown through click through alone.”

Here’s the link.

Find what city your competitors are located in, run a geo-targeted ad in that city to camouflage your real ad, and bid the geo-targeted ad real low (or real high) in order to throw them off.

If you’re like most website owners, you want to drive traffic to your site. You’ve invested in building an attractive site and may even have tried traffic-generating tactics like pay-per-click (PPC) online advertising and search engine optimization (SEO).

Yet, increasing traffic without ensuring your website is optimized to convert that traffic into sales leads is inefficient, unproductive – and possibly a waste of money.

An increase of just 1% in your website’s conversion rate can improve your bottom-line results by 50% or more. That’s why Excusive Concepts has developed More Conversions!

If you want to maintain your existing site design, get more value from SEO investments, add content management capabilities, and improve your bottom line, the Exclusive Concepts More Conversions! Service is the answer.

What’s included in More Conversions!?
• A Website conversion analysis and improvement plan

• A site re-design that incorporates the conversion enhancements while retaining your existing site’s look and feel

• Integration of a state-of-the-art content management system that allows non-technical users to easily add and modify content to the website

• A streamlined schedule that provides the newly optimized site in about 60 days

• Optional search engine optimization and search advertising services

If you’re ready to take your business to the next level, call Exclusive Concepts at 781-810-9107 or send an email

It goes without saying that not all links are created equal. Back in the day, you could get away with trading reciprocal links like crazy to secure top spots in Google, MSN and Yahoo.

Today, that’s no longer the case. Search engines can detect these reciprocal link building schemes and have devalued them. Reciprocal links aren’t necessarily bad but they aren’t good enough.

You know from your own experience that websites that are linked to from other high quality, authoritative sites are likely to be more meaningful and valuable. Search engines are looking for the same thing.

Successful link building is based on inbound links from quality websites that are popular, authoritative, and relevant to your site Other issues like link anchor text, surrounding copy, acquisition rate, number on a page, and semantic relationship all have impact.

Link building has evolved into an art form. It can neither be too contrived or abstract. If you are interested in improving your sites search ranking then consider a quality link building service. Contact Exclusive Concepts at 781-810-9107 and we’ll explain how we can help.