Building eCommerce

By September Danforth

What’s the most important thing you can do during these turbulent economic times?

a) Drown your fears with a bottle of wine and hope things will be better in the morning. Repeat each night as necessary.

b) You know this can’t be Kansas! Click your heels three times fast! Hey, it worked for Dorothy.

c) Embrace the reality of the situation and use email marketing to drive sales right on through this recession!

Now isn’t the time to slow down. Don’t take your foot off the gas, and get ready to fully utilize the most effective tool in the box - email marketing. Even though you’re probably already using email to send out offers or highlight the occasional promotion, you may not be employing all of the tips and tricks you could be to keep your customers happy and prospects knocking on your door. Take a look at these 5 ways to help ensure success.

1. Let’s stay in touch: what’s your email address?

Do people want to receive your mailings? You have to keep your customers coming back for more by sending them emails they want to see. Most people are quick to delete the overflow of email they receive, and if it looks like spam, you know it’s gotta taste like spam. And where is the best place for spam? The trash. If done correctly, email marketing is the most inexpensive way to reach and positively impact your audience and keep your sales rolling in. The keys to the kingdom are right there in your hands, you just need permission to unlock the gate.

If you don’t have a sign-up form for folks to hear about special offers and promotions, get one up both on your website and at your store counter. People who sign up are handing over their email addresses willingly. They want to hear from you. So you really need to make sure your message counts.

How do you make sure your message counts? Offer some content that’s tied in with what you are promoting, and if you don’t have a newsletter, start one up. Keep it light, and keep it short. If you’re an auto parts store, offer up some “car care tips,” or if you’re a nursery, suggest “5 easy ways to make your garden grow”. You get it. Even a couple of short entries with nifty tips or “how-to” sections are helpful to the recipient. It will catch their attention and make them want to read on.

2. Have I met you somewhere before?

Make sure the recipient of your email knows it’s you by making sure the email “from” box is your business name. You don’t want them to delete it because they don’t know where it came from, or worse yet, mark it as spam.

3. The subject of subject lines

You need catchy subject lines that are relevant to the offer. “Free Puppies” will only get you a one-way ticket to Trashville. Folks don’t like to be tricked into opening emails. If you’re offering a special sale or discount, include it in the subject line. Example: “Save 25-75% off Winter Fashions” or “Free shipping - 1 Day Only!”

4. Make them an offer they can’t refuse

Frivolous spending is so last year, so you have to make sure your offers are good ones. When you’re putting your offering together, be objective. Does the offer appeal to you?

Limited time sales. The urgency of it all! If it’s a good sale, the autopilot comes on, and out comes the credit card. After all, if they wait until next week, they’ll have to pay full price.

Real Discounts. 5% off an order of $500 - Seriously? Turn out the lights and lock the door. No one is going to bite. Of course, you need to be smart and not lose the bank, but make it worthwhile for people! Repeat after me: “Good discounts = good sales.”

Loyalty programs. You know the old punch card trick: buy nine cups of coffee, get the tenth one free. Employ this simple strategy to something your business has to offer.

Contests. Encourage folks to enter a cool contest, both online and in your store - this is a great way to collect all of their contact info. Be sure to include a check box for a subscription to your newsletter and send alerts for upcoming sales and promotions.

And don’t be cheap. Make sure your prize is a nice one. Many people can’t help themselves; there’s a certain thrill at the idea of winning that sought-after item. Oh, they’ll enter all right, and the prize for you is going to be all of the opt-in email addresses you can market to. Get ready for some more sales.

Be sure to offer your discounted products or services on a regular basis. Be consistent, but not annoying. You don’t want to let your relationship grow cold, but sending an email out more than once or twice a week is overkill, and a surefire way to breakup blues.

If the recipient wants to find out more information about your services or products, make sure it’s as easy as one click in your email. Don’t take them to a Web page where they have to dig around to find what they are looking for. They’ll simply abandon ship and there goes your sale, right along with them.

5. “Hi, I’m Molly. How can I help you?”

Make sure you add a link, email, or phone number for customer service or support. Make it easy for people to reach you and get their questions answered or their problems solved. Even if that neon orange jumpsuit isn’t flattering to their skin tone after all, good experiences here will make them want to do business with you the next time around.

Always employ good email marketing practices by making sure that everyone on your target list is supposed to be there. Only add names if you’re executing and measuring a test. Make sure to give readers the opportunity to hop off the list by unsubscribing, but remember, if you treat them right, that thought won’t even enter their mind.

Times may be looking a bit tough, but email marketing is highly effective, and it’s here to stay. Employ the strategies above, and the benefits can’t be denied: lead generation, increased sales, strong brand awareness, and improved relationships with your customers. So, get out your umbrella and weather this storm. Utilize the tools you have at your fingertips and you’ll see that the forecast suddenly becomes clear.

About The Author

Yesmail Direct is a leading bulk email marketing company that offers professional email marketing solutions and targeted email marketing services for small businesses nationwide. Our products are easy to use, visit http://www.yesmaildirect.com to see for yourself!

By Chris Kennelly

The issue of article writing is quite often overlooked by marketers and online business owners. Some people claim that it is not really worth the effort and others claim it is. What you do have to remember is that the process and distribution of your article literally goes out into the internet and remains there indefinitely. Hence people may be seeking some information or advice and may not be ready to buy right now, but may so in the near future. This is the attitude that you have to bear in mind when considering the use of articles in the marketing mix. To put it plainly the article serves as a business card that may only be accessed and used when the consumer is ready to purchase.

Having said that you should also endeavor to make the consumer want to proceed with that purchase, or otherwise known as the call to action. Merely mentioning this aspect of the article writing should in turn make the writer realize that in order to effectively get the marketing message to the consumer, the article must be well written, informative and contain valid content. This according to the article directory editor cannot sound too much like an advertisement or marketing message and therefore by offering your reader value added advice and or information you will have the opportunity of allowing your reader or audience to click through to your website at the end, in what is known as the author or bio box. The trick here is to keep the reader’s attention until they get there and want to get more information from your company via the website.

Some marketers will also conduct article writing for the promotion of affiliate products and internet offers without even possessing a website and their ‘offer’ via the mentioned bio or author box is directed towards the company that they represent. This is one of the easiest ways to get into internet marketing, without having to spend any money or time on site design, hosting and so forth. This can be attributed to the fact that the article directories are free to register and place your articles on, which in itself offers great value to the article writing and marketing community.

Naturally there are some rules and regulations that will apply to your article writing techniques, and it would be best to familiarize yourself with these to avoid your article from being rejected by the article directories. Bear in mind that one of the most important aspects is that you should provide useful information to your readers and not sell anything in the article, but rather in the resource box, that is your area for sales. Give article writing and marketing a go and you will begin to realize the benefits, remembering that it does not happen overnight.

About The Author

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