Marketing

Three Pre-Holiday E-Commerce Tips That Work

ecommerce, Marketing / By /

Santa OwlIs your ecommerce website ready? If you sell online, the holiday season is nearly upon you. Here are three items you should review and act on if necessary. Each of them will help you convert visits to sales.

You know what your customers bought or didn’t buy in the past. Take a good look at how you are currently presenting your products. It is a good bet that focusing on these three tips will make a considerable difference in your holiday sales.

1. Meaningful Product Descriptions — Do not copy and paste product descriptions from your vendor. Create unique descriptions for each item you sell. Do not shortcut this. Write them for your customer. More, but concise, information means more conversions. Explain what your product is or does and why they should buy it. Help your website visitor visualize using your product.

2. Professional-Quality Photos — It is simple. If you have professional quality products to sell, you need professional-quality photos. iPhones and many Android phones have great cameras, but the person taking your photos needs some photography skills. You do not necessarily have to hire a professional photographer, but you do need photos taken by someone who knows about and will incorporate lighting, simplifying the scene, framing the subject properly, aspect ratio, balancing elements, symmetry, viewpoint, using backgrounds, depth, and colors. The necessity for high-quality photos cannot be overstated.

3. Easy-to-find, Complete Contact Information — Your telephone number should be large enough to see and touch (for mobile users) easily. Provide your visitors with options: phone number(s), contact form, email address, mailing address, office hours. Include prominent links to shipping and return information as well as your privacy policy.

Today’s consumers want more and relevant information about what they buy online. The time you spend on these recommendations will serve you well.

    • Meaningful Product Descriptions
    • Professional-Quality Photos
    • Easy-to-find Contact Information

Make it a happy holiday season by improving these three areas of your ecommerce website!

First Impressions Matter! What Does Your Website Say About Your Business or Organization?

Marketing, Mobile, Web Design, Web Development / By /

What kind of first impression does your website make for your business, community, or organization?

First Impressions Matter! Not many of us would argue that. Unfortunately, when it comes to websites, many business owners, as well as community and organization leaders, don’t often think about how they make their first impression. The reality is that the first impression formed by your prospective customer or visitor is not likely to be made when the visitor walks up to your front door. It most likely will be made online, and in rapidly increasing instances, it will be made on a mobile device.

    • Does your website look as professional as you believe your business or organizations is?
    • Does your website look professional on phones and tablets as well as a desktop computer?
    • Is it attractive enough to make the visitor spend some time on it?
    • Can your visitor quickly determine what you offer?
  • Can your visitor quickly find your contact information?
  • Does it convey enough to make prospects want to contact you, or order online?
  • Can they call you with the touch of a button on their mobile device?

People are busier than ever, and their time is precious. The reality is, if your website is more than three or four years old, it likely does not meet Google’s current mobile-friendly standards. If that is the case, you are not making a good first impression when prospects see your website on a mobile device.

First Impressions Matter!

It Is Not Enough To Know Who Your Audience Is

Marketing / By /

So, you truly believe you know who your website audience is. Hopefully, you don’t believe that is enough. You still have to make and maintain a favorable connection with your prospective and current customers.

How do you do that? The answer is by using the other 4 Ws as they relate to online marketing.

Five WsWhat — Refine what you want to say. Well-written, relevant, and grammatically correct copy is imperative. It doesn’t matter if it is a 1,200-word blog post, a 140-character Tweet, a product description, or a Google AdWords text ad with a 25-character headline and two 35-character description lines. Provide relevance and value.

When — The adage, “Timing is everything,” is true.  Know when to send your message to your audience.

  • Look at your website and or Facebook analytics to see when most of your visitors are online.
  • If you have a newsletter, check to see when your subscribers are opening your email.

Where — You said you know your audience. Go where they are. If the majority of your website visitors get there by searching Google, you may want to consider Google AdWords (the type of campaign may depend on the devices your visitors use). If your audience is on Facebook or Pinterest you should be too, and consider advertising there. The same is true of other Social Media. If they listen to the radio, a short commercial always closing with your URL can be effective. Similarly, classified and other newspaper ads can be effective as well. Remember your “Who” drives your “Where.”

Why — Are you trying to . . .

  • create brand awareness?
  • drive traffic to your website?
  • reduce inventory of a particular product?
  • announce a new product or service?
  • build your newsletter subscriber list?
  • thank a returning customer?

The reasons why you are trying to reach your audience affects what you say, when you say it and where it is told.

Applying the 5 Ws as they relate to your marketing plan (You do have a marketing plan, do you not?) will reward you for your time spent. After all, simply identifying your audience is not enough.

Your Audience and Your Website Visitors – Are They the Same?

Marketing / By /

Who is your audience? That is one of the very first questions we ask our new clients. The answer to that question is something that should be at the forefront of every business plan and marketing decision made for any business. Of course, identifying your audience is not enough. You need to know if your story is reaching them.

Many of you are going to say, “Of course, we know our audience” and I will grant it is likely that you do.

Assuming you do know your audience, are those in your target audience among your website visitors? Have you checked lately? You do review your website analytics regularly, do you not?

Google Analytics Demographics

Here is a little checklist for you.

  • Are you reviewing the demographics reports?
  • Are your visitors in your target age group?
  • If your target audience is a particular gender, are the majority of visitors that gender?
  • What is the ratio of “new” users and “returning” users?
  • Does that ratio coincide with your marketing plan?
  • Are the visitors to your website spending time on the pages you want them viewing?
  • Where do they go when they leave those pages?
  • Do they leave your website or do they look at more pages?
  • Is your conversion rate what you would like it to be?
  • Are visitors filling out a form or making an order?

If you are not measuring, you are not marketing, and if you are attracting the wrong audience, you are not marketing at all!

Are those in your target audience among your website visitors?

Increase Conversions – Improve Your Most Popular Pages

Content, Marketing / By /

Improving the most popular pages on your website can increase conversions.  Take a look at the pageview data in Google Analytics (or other analytics provider) and make note of the top three pages (other than your home page) visited.

Improving ConversionsYou may not have intentionally created the most popular page on your website with the thought of it being specifically a landing page. More likely, it is a page you created some time ago that highlights services or products you offer. It may even be a nearly random blog post you wrote because you hadn’t published one lately.

Take a good look at your most visited web page, the time your visitors spend on the page, and where they go after viewing it.  Are they filling out your form, subscribing to your newsletter, or calling you?

  • Proof your page again. You may be surprised to find a typo or two. Fix them.
  • Update any outdated information.
  • If you don’t have a photo or visual, add one.
  • If you are talking about more than one topic, use sub-headers.
  • If you have other pages on your website related to the page topic, link to them.
  • List additional resources at the bottom of the page.
  • If you do not have a “Call to Action” on your page, add one.

Improving your most visited pages gives you more chances of increasing conversion rates.

Learn more about increasing conversions by calling us today!

1-800-281-9993 or 608-822-3750

Don’t feel like talking today? Use our convenient contact form.