10 Strategies for Effective Facebook Posts

Posted on July 31, 2012 by ADSEL Blog

If you’re focusing on building brand awareness (for your small business) through social media, a recent article by Paul Chaney (practicalecommerce.com) provides unique strategies to get your online store out into the “social” community – from posting outside of normal business hours to cleverly including discounts and offers in posts. (Despite it’s focus on Facebook, the basic principles of the article can be applied to most social media outlets).

At its core, Facebook and other forms of social media should be treated as public relations vehicles, whereby your focus should not solely depend on advertising your products, but should depend on the even larger scheme of interacting with an entire community (including your competitors). Chaney provides this one tip, “Share Posts by Other Pages”:

“In the same way that Facebook users can “Like” pages, Fan page administrators can Like other pages, as well. Doing so gives them the ability to share content from those pages on their own Timeline. Not only is this good public relations, the fact that you have shared the post is highlighted on the other page, which can lead to more traffic to your page and further increase the chance for engagement.” The old adage, “I do this for you, you do this for me,” boldly stands strong across the Facebook platform in terms of emarketing.

For more tips on using Facebook (and other social media outlets) to build the awareness of your company (9 more tips, to be exact!), visit Chaney’s article, 10 Strategies for Effective Facebook Posts.

How to Increase Online Conversion by Catering to the Impulse Buyer

Posted on June 15, 2012 by ADSEL Blog

“The internet is an impulse buyer’s heaven,” says Robyn Keegan, GrooveCommerce.com. Yet more importantly, it’s crucial to know just how to convert an impulse buyer. Robyn Keegan, in a May 2012 article, provides a multi-leveled strategy to snag an impulse buyer right when you see one.

How?

Consider using time sensitive marketing. For example, ”a simpler way to achieve time sensitive marketing is to have your designer clearly state a deadline on the site’s creative. For example, your Memorial Day Sale banner should include a “Sale ends May 31st!”. By telling the spontaneous shopper that they only have a limited time to buy, they are more likely to purchase without taking the time to research or price shop.” All this said, you want to find reasons to give an impulse buyer to consider their purchases in a shorter time frame (that is, without essentially rushing a customer and leading them into a negative shopping experience).

What else? Visit Robyn Keegan’s post, How to Increase Online Conversion by Catering to the Impulse Buyer, to learn more ways to convert an impulse buyer!

-Christopher Lin, lexity.com

Use Visual Marketing to Improve Site Sales

Posted on June 4, 2012 by ADSEL Blog

The visuality of your online store (how it “looks”) can boost website sales by as much as 10,000% (Paul Boag, boagworld.com). Have you ever walked through a Macy’s during Winter and seen all of the decorations? Have you ever noticed how retailers consistently change the set-up of their store throughout the year? Retailers have used “visual strategies” for years and years, even hiring Visual Marketing Directors, all to increase consumer sales… and so should you. Even online, visuality can directly affect a user’s experience, and thus they’re likeliness to buy.

As an etailer, you should never ignore the need to make a lasting visual impression. Let’s just say, “looks are important.” And to help you out, there are a number of things you can do to improve the visuality of your online store.

Firstly, when it comes to choosing the size of your “Add to Shopping Cart” button, size matters. The shopping cart should be vivid enough (either in size or color) to catch the eye, and simple enough to allow quick and instant purchases.

Secondly, when it comes to converting visitors into customers, vivid and detailed photos of your products are an absolute necessity. Customers might already be nervous about purchasing something online that they can’t see for themselves “in-person.” Reduce their anxiety by providing a great photo of your product, and customers will be significantly more willing to purchase from you.

-Christopher Lin (@christophlin), lexity.com

Increase Website Conversion Rate and Turn Visitors into Customers

Posted on May 25, 2012 by ADSEL Blog

A new article for @crowdshifter by Eric Tsai recommends 9 brilliant and simple ways to increase your website conversion rates (yes, we really do think that they’re brilliant and simple). But before you rush off to conduct a checklist of Tsai’s 9 tips, Tsai makes the following important distinction:

“Conversion rates typically depend on two factors: 1) Qualified Traffic… [where] the goal is to capture only traffic that’s more likely to convert; [and the] 2) Landing page… [where] it’s important that the links you use to send traffic to your website is relevant to what that person is looking for.“

Instead of spreading your resources thin by attempting to garner as many visitors to your site as possible, it’s perhaps more important to specialize in the demographic your advertising to. Here are just 2 of Tsai’s tips:

Cater to Online Reading Habits: ”What doesn’t get read doesn’t get clicked on.” Did you know that online readers view web content in an F-shaped pattern? “You should use attention call-outs such as headers, subheads, paragraphs and bullet points with words that users will notice when scanning down the left side of your content in the final stem of their F-shaped behavior.
Leverage Image or Rich Media to Direct Attention: ”Studies have shown that people perceived websites as more ‘professional’ or ‘trustworthy’ when they had images of people on the site.”

Want to read more? (Because we’re willing to bet that you do!) Visit Eric Tsai’s article for crowdshifter.com, 9 Keys to Increase Website Conversion Rate and Turn Visitors into Customers.

-Christopher Lin, lexity.com

Tips For Presenting On Camera

Posted on May 21, 2012 by ADSEL Blog

Introducing your product through video can humanize your website, gain customers’ trust and boost sales. As easy as it may sound, this can be a rather daunting task. Why? It can be little difficult finding someone who enjoys public speaking and at the same time is the right person to introduce your brand to the customers. Kenna Hurd provides few tip that can be helpful when you set out to do the task.

Search for the Hidden Gem

Look for the hidden gem in your own team. While looking, keep in mind that this person may not necessarily be an outgoing individual. Sometimes even the most introvert people turn out to be exceptionally good at public speaking.

In-depth knowledge

It is better to put a person who has in-depth knowledge about your product rather than a polished professional from outside in front of the camera.

Don’t talk too fast

When talking in front of the camera, take deep breaths and try to talk at a slow pace. This ensures that the viewers get enough time to absorb each important piece of information.

For more read 5 Tips For Presenting On Camera by Kenna Hurd at http://videoretailer.org/

-Priyanka Jain, lexity.com

Make Effective Product Video

Posted on May 17, 2012 by ADSEL Blog

There are many things to keep in mind while making a product video. Some tips from 3dcart can help you do your job better.

Keep it short

Customers do not want to waste their time on extremely long publicity videos. Most important thing they need from the video is information about the product, so make sure you get to that quickly without wasting too much of their time.

Demo your product

Don’t just hold your product; give your customers an interactive view of the product. Show it from different angles. Wear the dress, walk the shoes or cook in the pan.

The product should look its best

Use wide screen and shoot in high definition. Make sure that there is enough lighting and use a tripod to keep the camera stable.

Don’t talk the entire time

It is absolutely alright to show off your product with light music in the background for 30 second in a 2 minutes video. Don’t try hard to fill every second with commentary.

For more such tips visit 8 tips for making effective product video @3dcart

-Priyanka Jain, Lexity.com

Integrations That Drive Brand Endorsement

Posted on May 11, 2012 by ADSEL Blog

ReferralCandy

Is an email marketing referral system that lets your customers bring in more customers. After a purchase, your customer will get an e-mail with a coupon, which they can share with their friends. Each time a friend uses the coupon, they can receive fixed bonuses such as cash back, store credit etc.

Constant Contact

With email marketing from Constant Contact, you can connect with your customers easily. The customers can share your message in their own networks. As customers spread word about your business, you automatically grow.

Yotpo

Yotpo let’s your customers write and read social reviews from their friends, followers and connection. It also provides you with a social analytic tool that gives more information about your top customers and establishes the social graph of your customers providing valuable info about the reviewer’s exact influence.

Taken from Mitchell Harper’s 9 New BigCommerce Integrations That Help Increase Your Sales at bigcommerce.com/ecommerce-blog.

-Priyanka Jain, lexity.com

The Beginning of the Beginning!

Posted on May 1, 2012 by ADSEL Blog

Short and to the point, we’re here to help small businesses. With every post, we’ll share great ecommerce content (blogs, news, insights, tips and strategies from experts) that will help guide your online store to success. Our mission? To make “finding” ecommerce content easier!

Small Biz 101 – the ADSEL approach is intended to be educational – almost like a glossary for ecommerce content. The ADSEL approach, itself, is designed to break down ecommerce and emarketing into 5 different stages, described below– all of which are pivotal to an online store’s success:

building brand AWARENESS
Do consumers know your company even exists? Your online presence is crucial, from Facebook ads and Banner ads to Twitter, Pinterest and blogging. Creating a brand means a lot more than just giving your online store a “name.”
getting products DISTRIBUTED
Getting your product in front of consumers, and where they’re most likely to buy. This means focusing on search marketing and deciding whether or not listing your online store with a shopping engine would be beneficial.
improving your SITE SALES
Ensuring customer conversion based on site structure, and retargeting and marketing promotions specifically aimed at certain types of customers.
creating customer EVANGELISTS
Promoting your online store through social sharing. Email listservs and social media sharing are “essential.”
fostering customer LOYALTY
Returning customers are often more important, sale-wise, than new visitors. Effective and efficient retargeting, then, becomes vital.

Every week, we’ll synthesize and categorize blog posts related to ecommerce and small businesses, linking you to the actual article to read more (which we always encourage!). If you’re focusing on building brand AWARENESS, check out all of our blog posts tagged, AWARENESS. If you’re focusing on turning your customers into EVANGELISTS, sharing your content to their networks of friends and colleagues, focus on reading our blog posts tagged, EVANGELISM. Pretty easy, right?

Each stage is just as important as the next. However, we understand that as an online store you might be concentrating your efforts on only one or two. To figure out which stages are most important to you, read our descriptions here and decide which posts are most relevant for your small business!

Thank you for visiting. We’re excited to help!

-Lexity

Small Biz 101 – the ADSEL approach

ecommerce education for small businesses

Tag Archives: emarketing