Thursday, August 21, 2008
Free Comparison Shopping Engines
Talking about Comparison Shopping Engines (aka CSEs) with colleagues or peers in online marketing will get you mixed reactions because the results are equally mixed. Some retailers turn on CSEs during the holidays while others maintain a presence year round. How yoou approach it depends largely on your budget and plans. However, you owe it to yourself to check out TheFind! (www.thefind.com) and ShopWiki (www.shopwiki.com) which are two free CSEs. I recently got a client on TheFind! and it generated sales within two days of going live and is still pumping out results.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Complete End to End Enterprise Ecommerce Solution
MJM Ecommerce is growing and it's been a very fun summer for us. We’ve signed on some exciting partners for complete ecommerce implementation and management and others for online marketing management. We’ve also teamed up with a prominent Memphis agency to provide online marketing services for their clients.
Perhaps one of the most exciting developments has been the recent inclusion of a call center and fulfillment facility. This is particularly exciting because now we are able to truly provide a complete end to end ecommerce business solution to our partners. We’ll be able to provide a robust ecommerce platform, design, marketing, strategy, call center and fulfillment solution to businesses that want to start an online business or improve an existing one.
The call center specifically presents an opportunity for our partners to grow their business because it allows agents to interact with customers and guide them through the buying process. Essentially, this creates another sales channel for the business that is extremely important. Through our collective experience, a call center can generate around 30-40% of revenue for an online business. It’s important to note that a professional call center is more effective than having store employees answer calls during their shift to provide customer service.
If you’re interested in learning more about our complete end to end solution we invite you to contact MJM Ecommerce.
Perhaps one of the most exciting developments has been the recent inclusion of a call center and fulfillment facility. This is particularly exciting because now we are able to truly provide a complete end to end ecommerce business solution to our partners. We’ll be able to provide a robust ecommerce platform, design, marketing, strategy, call center and fulfillment solution to businesses that want to start an online business or improve an existing one.
The call center specifically presents an opportunity for our partners to grow their business because it allows agents to interact with customers and guide them through the buying process. Essentially, this creates another sales channel for the business that is extremely important. Through our collective experience, a call center can generate around 30-40% of revenue for an online business. It’s important to note that a professional call center is more effective than having store employees answer calls during their shift to provide customer service.
If you’re interested in learning more about our complete end to end solution we invite you to contact MJM Ecommerce.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
To Ship Free...or Not?
Free Shipping is a staple promotion among online retailers and for good reason. A recent PayPal and comScore study showed that 43% of shoppers abandoned shopping carts because of shipping costs. That leaves 57% of shoppers who started a shopping cart to go through your checkout process and dropoff because of other reasons (i.e. taxes, price shopping, etc.). Depending on numerous factors, your conversion rate may be around the 2% range.
Free Shipping may be more of a drain on retailers’ bottom line nowadays because of rising fuel costs. Recently, UPS updated their fuel surcharges to as high as 32% for air shipments! So this opens up a variety of questions for an online retailer that wants to increase (or at least maintain) year over year revenue numbers in this not-so-favorable economic climate.
Should I Keep Free Shipping?
Dig into your numbers and see what impact free shipping has on order volume, conversion rate, average order value, shipping costs, shipping revenue and margin before and after the fuel prices rose. If these numbers were favorable before fuel prices became burdensome then you need to consider keeping the promotion active and changing some qualifiers. After all, this is a temporary (not sure how temporary) situation and economic downturns are an opportunity to gain market share and grow rapidly when the economy turns around.
I have always approached free shipping promotions as a way to boost order volume, units per transaction, average order value and conversion. To do this I put in minimum order values to qualify for the promotion. There are multiple factors to consider, including: average online order value, shipping discounts you receive and your competition.
As a rule of thumb, I start with the minimum qualifying order value as the online average order value. Then I look at what increase in AOV I’d need to achieve to offset the lost shipping revenue to maintain a favorable margin. In most cases this has turned out to be 15% more than current online AOV. What you’ll find is that you may realize a 40% increase in actual AOV from the promotion.
Your shipping discounts and competition will weigh in on where you actually set the minimum order qualifier. If you ship out large volumes with UPS or FedEx you probably get great discounts. If not, renegotiate your rates with your rep and be sure to use their competitors to your advantage (i.e. tell your UPS rep that you’re strongly looking at FedEx for ground shipments and vice versa). If your own competition is offer free shipping at lower order amounts then you need to see what you can do to get near that level because you want to take away their customers. This leads into the next question….
What Alternatives Do I have?
To cut down on your shipping costs and offer free shipping at low order amount qualifiers you can consider using USPS. Using regular mail offers advantages over the other carriers because it’s a lot cheaper. However, disadvantages are present when using USPS. For example, you don’t get tracking with regular mail. Tracking only comes with Priority mail and even that is close to useless because you only see when it leaves and when it reaches the customer. The lack of visibility of what happens in between can cause customer service nightmares. But, it’s still worth a look if you’re selling non-perishable items and tell customers up front what to expect.
Look at your packaging materials. Can you cut down on your box dimensions, the type of dunnage used, and if product can be shipped without a box. The later is a perfect opportunity for apparel retailers and book retailers to use biodegradable plastic shipping wrappers because it can be folded down to nearly the exact dimensions of the product and is much lighter than using a box and dunnage.
When marketing your free shipping promotion be sure to use some real life cues to help get your message across. By shopping online your customers can save money (and time) by not traveling to a store and standing in line and they may save on sales tax.
Free Shipping may be more of a drain on retailers’ bottom line nowadays because of rising fuel costs. Recently, UPS updated their fuel surcharges to as high as 32% for air shipments! So this opens up a variety of questions for an online retailer that wants to increase (or at least maintain) year over year revenue numbers in this not-so-favorable economic climate.
Should I Keep Free Shipping?
Dig into your numbers and see what impact free shipping has on order volume, conversion rate, average order value, shipping costs, shipping revenue and margin before and after the fuel prices rose. If these numbers were favorable before fuel prices became burdensome then you need to consider keeping the promotion active and changing some qualifiers. After all, this is a temporary (not sure how temporary) situation and economic downturns are an opportunity to gain market share and grow rapidly when the economy turns around.
I have always approached free shipping promotions as a way to boost order volume, units per transaction, average order value and conversion. To do this I put in minimum order values to qualify for the promotion. There are multiple factors to consider, including: average online order value, shipping discounts you receive and your competition.
As a rule of thumb, I start with the minimum qualifying order value as the online average order value. Then I look at what increase in AOV I’d need to achieve to offset the lost shipping revenue to maintain a favorable margin. In most cases this has turned out to be 15% more than current online AOV. What you’ll find is that you may realize a 40% increase in actual AOV from the promotion.
Your shipping discounts and competition will weigh in on where you actually set the minimum order qualifier. If you ship out large volumes with UPS or FedEx you probably get great discounts. If not, renegotiate your rates with your rep and be sure to use their competitors to your advantage (i.e. tell your UPS rep that you’re strongly looking at FedEx for ground shipments and vice versa). If your own competition is offer free shipping at lower order amounts then you need to see what you can do to get near that level because you want to take away their customers. This leads into the next question….
What Alternatives Do I have?
To cut down on your shipping costs and offer free shipping at low order amount qualifiers you can consider using USPS. Using regular mail offers advantages over the other carriers because it’s a lot cheaper. However, disadvantages are present when using USPS. For example, you don’t get tracking with regular mail. Tracking only comes with Priority mail and even that is close to useless because you only see when it leaves and when it reaches the customer. The lack of visibility of what happens in between can cause customer service nightmares. But, it’s still worth a look if you’re selling non-perishable items and tell customers up front what to expect.
Look at your packaging materials. Can you cut down on your box dimensions, the type of dunnage used, and if product can be shipped without a box. The later is a perfect opportunity for apparel retailers and book retailers to use biodegradable plastic shipping wrappers because it can be folded down to nearly the exact dimensions of the product and is much lighter than using a box and dunnage.
When marketing your free shipping promotion be sure to use some real life cues to help get your message across. By shopping online your customers can save money (and time) by not traveling to a store and standing in line and they may save on sales tax.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Online Investment
In the most recent issue of Internet Retailer (July 2008), the Publisher’s Letter (written by Kurt Peters) talks about Moody’s Investor Services recent move to more heavily weigh a retailer’s online revenues when rating their debt. “A Strong online presence is considered a ratings positive more frequently than in the past because it represents such an important channel of distribution and can mitigate declining comparable-store sales trends,” according to Moody’s.
There were a couple points driven home in this article that new and existing multi-channel retailers should keep in mind as they assess their own online investments. But first, take these numbers into account:
Moody’s has a 40% share of the worldwide credit ratings market
First quarter 2008 online sales grew 13.6% year over year versus retail sales growth of 2.8% for the same period
Online sales growth has been very strong for several years as the shift of consumer spending from bricks and mortar to online continues. As this growth continues the percentage increase will decline because the revenue base continues to grow. Taking the news from Moody’s, you can bet companies are taking this seriously and looking very hard at how they invest resources into their online business.
For smaller retailers this is an opportunity to carve out niches and leverage growth to compete effectively and take market share over time. If you don’t have a large budget, carefully spend your money in those areas that will grow your business and areas that will support that growth. There are a lot of great tools out there that generate incremental revenue, but, that increase may not be worth the investment of your limited resources.
Focus on areas that grow your build your brand, generate sustainable revenue and increase market share. Look at your customer service. Are you taking care of customers to the fullest and increasing the profitability of the relationship? Look at your fulfillment…are you cutting unnecessary costs and finding ways to encourage sales conversions? Look at your site…is it efficiently converting visitors into customers?
As mobile commerce becomes more of a reality with devices such as the iPhone and Blackberry its up to the retailer to step up and take their piece of the pie. As a consumer, I have a web app loaded on my iPhone to compare prices when I go shopping at stores. On several occasions, I have gone into a store (i.e. Target, Barnes and Noble) and used this app to find better prices online and even completed the transaction before leaving the store. This is going to happen more and more as people have better mobile devices and want more convenience in their hectic lives.
Mobile commerce is going to quickly become a reality for some of our retailers in the coming weeks and we’re excited to see the growth. For these partners, they will be the first in their respective industries to have a mobile optimized site. These sites will be mentioned after going live.
I suggest you take a few moments to assess your online investments and determine where you’re headed. If you’re in a rut, you need to quickly rejuvenate as the holiday season approaches. Speaking of holiday, you should be acquiring more new customers than at any other time of the year and you need to groom that relationship. Every order that leaves your door is an opportunity to create or nurture a relationship. Do simple things over the holiday to make your customers feel appreciated. Include a simple holiday card in a box thanking the customer and wishing them a great holiday season. If the order is a gift for someone else, make sure that package contains everything it needs to and everything looks perfect because it’s about to go to a potential new customer. Start early and you’ll be thankful later.
There were a couple points driven home in this article that new and existing multi-channel retailers should keep in mind as they assess their own online investments. But first, take these numbers into account:
Online sales growth has been very strong for several years as the shift of consumer spending from bricks and mortar to online continues. As this growth continues the percentage increase will decline because the revenue base continues to grow. Taking the news from Moody’s, you can bet companies are taking this seriously and looking very hard at how they invest resources into their online business.
For smaller retailers this is an opportunity to carve out niches and leverage growth to compete effectively and take market share over time. If you don’t have a large budget, carefully spend your money in those areas that will grow your business and areas that will support that growth. There are a lot of great tools out there that generate incremental revenue, but, that increase may not be worth the investment of your limited resources.
Focus on areas that grow your build your brand, generate sustainable revenue and increase market share. Look at your customer service. Are you taking care of customers to the fullest and increasing the profitability of the relationship? Look at your fulfillment…are you cutting unnecessary costs and finding ways to encourage sales conversions? Look at your site…is it efficiently converting visitors into customers?
As mobile commerce becomes more of a reality with devices such as the iPhone and Blackberry its up to the retailer to step up and take their piece of the pie. As a consumer, I have a web app loaded on my iPhone to compare prices when I go shopping at stores. On several occasions, I have gone into a store (i.e. Target, Barnes and Noble) and used this app to find better prices online and even completed the transaction before leaving the store. This is going to happen more and more as people have better mobile devices and want more convenience in their hectic lives.
Mobile commerce is going to quickly become a reality for some of our retailers in the coming weeks and we’re excited to see the growth. For these partners, they will be the first in their respective industries to have a mobile optimized site. These sites will be mentioned after going live.
I suggest you take a few moments to assess your online investments and determine where you’re headed. If you’re in a rut, you need to quickly rejuvenate as the holiday season approaches. Speaking of holiday, you should be acquiring more new customers than at any other time of the year and you need to groom that relationship. Every order that leaves your door is an opportunity to create or nurture a relationship. Do simple things over the holiday to make your customers feel appreciated. Include a simple holiday card in a box thanking the customer and wishing them a great holiday season. If the order is a gift for someone else, make sure that package contains everything it needs to and everything looks perfect because it’s about to go to a potential new customer. Start early and you’ll be thankful later.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Woopra Website Analytics
I can't recall what search query I did, but, on Thursday I stumbled across Woopra website analytics. It's free and in beta mode and Woopra makes the claim of being the "world's most comprehensve, information rich, easy to use real-time web tracking and analysis package.' That's a pretty bold statement to make especially when you think of other analytics packages out there (i.e. Omniture) that take web analytics to the next level, but, I guess they qualify the claim by saying 'real-time web tracking and analysis package.'
I was interested enough to implement Woopra on this blog and give it a test run. Set up was simple, but, not quick because I had to wait for approval which came the next day. So yesterday I had my approval code and I quickly set up Woopra by inserting a short snippet of code. Then, I had to download an application which wouldn't work on my Mac so I put it on my PC.
Now that I inserted the tracking code and the application was installed and running I could instantly see who was on the E-Facts blog. The application interface has a nice look to it and is very informative right off the bat. There's a ticker at the bottom showing 5 visitor metrics and the dashoard shows you what pages are being/have been viewed, referrers, search queries and visitor countries.
The 'Live' tab shows me details of the current visitors including geographic location, browser, operating system, navigation path, and visitor history. Other tabs include 'Search'(search for visitors), 'Analytics' (includes 5 sub-tabs) and 'Manage' (create custom event notifications).
The features that I really liked were 'Start a Conversation' (live chat) and 'Tag This Visitor.' Clicking on 'Start a Conversation' opens a live chat window allowing you to communicate with a specific visitor. Its cool, but, also creepy at the same time. This is all facilitated through the tracking snippet I inserted into the HTML. 'Tag This Visitor' allows you to give a name to a specific visitor. To test this, I tagged myself and I see what pages I've visited, browser I'm using, country, etc.
Woopra certainly won't replace the analytics packages I use (Omniture and Google Analytics), however, I'm going to keep it on this blog and consider it as a supplement on other sites. It's going to be an excellent tool to provide me with instant gratification especially when a new campaign is implemented. Nothing like seeing the fruits of your labor in real-time!
From a customer service and marketing perspective, the customer tagging and live chat presents some unique opportunities. We use Magento for our ecommerce platform and the reporting provides insight on a visitor's current location on the site. So, when a customer calls in and mentions a specific page they're on the CS agent can look into Magento to verify the location of the visitor then go into Woopra and tag the customer. As an extra verification, you can instruct the customer to visit another page and you should see that page appear in their Woopra profile. Now, you can see where this customer goes and what they do in future visits! That's a marketing goldmine. The live chat feature should be used carefully. There's the potential of spooking visitors and causing them to never return. Be cautious with this one.
Check out Woopra and let us know what you think.
I was interested enough to implement Woopra on this blog and give it a test run. Set up was simple, but, not quick because I had to wait for approval which came the next day. So yesterday I had my approval code and I quickly set up Woopra by inserting a short snippet of code. Then, I had to download an application which wouldn't work on my Mac so I put it on my PC.
Now that I inserted the tracking code and the application was installed and running I could instantly see who was on the E-Facts blog. The application interface has a nice look to it and is very informative right off the bat. There's a ticker at the bottom showing 5 visitor metrics and the dashoard shows you what pages are being/have been viewed, referrers, search queries and visitor countries.
The 'Live' tab shows me details of the current visitors including geographic location, browser, operating system, navigation path, and visitor history. Other tabs include 'Search'(search for visitors), 'Analytics' (includes 5 sub-tabs) and 'Manage' (create custom event notifications).
The features that I really liked were 'Start a Conversation' (live chat) and 'Tag This Visitor.' Clicking on 'Start a Conversation' opens a live chat window allowing you to communicate with a specific visitor. Its cool, but, also creepy at the same time. This is all facilitated through the tracking snippet I inserted into the HTML. 'Tag This Visitor' allows you to give a name to a specific visitor. To test this, I tagged myself and I see what pages I've visited, browser I'm using, country, etc.
Woopra certainly won't replace the analytics packages I use (Omniture and Google Analytics), however, I'm going to keep it on this blog and consider it as a supplement on other sites. It's going to be an excellent tool to provide me with instant gratification especially when a new campaign is implemented. Nothing like seeing the fruits of your labor in real-time!
From a customer service and marketing perspective, the customer tagging and live chat presents some unique opportunities. We use Magento for our ecommerce platform and the reporting provides insight on a visitor's current location on the site. So, when a customer calls in and mentions a specific page they're on the CS agent can look into Magento to verify the location of the visitor then go into Woopra and tag the customer. As an extra verification, you can instruct the customer to visit another page and you should see that page appear in their Woopra profile. Now, you can see where this customer goes and what they do in future visits! That's a marketing goldmine. The live chat feature should be used carefully. There's the potential of spooking visitors and causing them to never return. Be cautious with this one.
Check out Woopra and let us know what you think.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Enhance Customer Service, Marketing and Online Reputation Management: Part 1
This post is a mash up of two previous posts with some new information. This is about using all the information resources available on the web to enhance your brand and customer service, but, the emphasis will be on social networks. Why social networks? Well, consider that the basis of social networks is building communities of friends and other like-minded individuals. And, there's not enough time to get into all the other informational resources!
Let's focus on Twitter as a tool to enhance your customer service, marketing and online reputation management. From a customer service standpoint, you can use Twitter to monitor all the mentions of your brand and get a pulse on how people interact with your brand. To make this easy on yourself, use Summize to quickly search all the mentions of your brand. Type in your brand and see if any conversations pop-up. If Summize returns results for your brand then you should be flattered (if all positive) that people talk about the brand. If you don't get any returns, then its a marketing opportunity which will be discussed in the next post.
Assuming you see conversations about your brand, quickly go over the conversations and get a feel for what people are saying and how they interact with the brand. There's nothing like an unmoderated and candid forum to gauge how much people like what you do or offer. Its inevitable people will have some negative comment to make and that should be an opportunity for you to make good. After all, customers remember you most when you make a bad situation a positive one. If you find a negative comment, reach out to that individual and let him/her know you want to make good on the negative experience they had and invite them to email/call you at their convenience to hash out the issue. After you take care of the situation and the person is happy, ask them to mention it on Twitter and give them an incentive to move quickly (i.e. free shipping on next order).
Roll this out slowly and build on your experiences. Create a plan of action that addresses who is responsible for checking Twitter/Summize, how often it will be done, customer follow up and reporting. Its important that an individual is assigned this task and they are given guidelines for customer follow ups, empowered to act quickly and have the ability to report on resolution (i.e. SugarCRM).
This is an opportunity to engage customers in another medium and show the importance you place on their ongoing experiences with your brand.
Let's focus on Twitter as a tool to enhance your customer service, marketing and online reputation management. From a customer service standpoint, you can use Twitter to monitor all the mentions of your brand and get a pulse on how people interact with your brand. To make this easy on yourself, use Summize to quickly search all the mentions of your brand. Type in your brand and see if any conversations pop-up. If Summize returns results for your brand then you should be flattered (if all positive) that people talk about the brand. If you don't get any returns, then its a marketing opportunity which will be discussed in the next post.
Assuming you see conversations about your brand, quickly go over the conversations and get a feel for what people are saying and how they interact with the brand. There's nothing like an unmoderated and candid forum to gauge how much people like what you do or offer. Its inevitable people will have some negative comment to make and that should be an opportunity for you to make good. After all, customers remember you most when you make a bad situation a positive one. If you find a negative comment, reach out to that individual and let him/her know you want to make good on the negative experience they had and invite them to email/call you at their convenience to hash out the issue. After you take care of the situation and the person is happy, ask them to mention it on Twitter and give them an incentive to move quickly (i.e. free shipping on next order).
Roll this out slowly and build on your experiences. Create a plan of action that addresses who is responsible for checking Twitter/Summize, how often it will be done, customer follow up and reporting. Its important that an individual is assigned this task and they are given guidelines for customer follow ups, empowered to act quickly and have the ability to report on resolution (i.e. SugarCRM).
This is an opportunity to engage customers in another medium and show the importance you place on their ongoing experiences with your brand.
Friday, May 2, 2008
SEO Software Update
In a recent post I said we weren't ready to change/replace WebPosition...well, things have changed. I was convinced to switch to WebCEO (http://www.webceo.com/). What's great for businesses with a tight budget is you can get a lot of functionality for free. That's right...WebCEO has a free version that has a lot of great features.
Its definitely worth checking out as another tool to put in your SEO toolbelt.
Its definitely worth checking out as another tool to put in your SEO toolbelt.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Monitor Your Online Reputation
An issue that repeatedly comes up for businesses is monitoring their online reputation. With all the new mediums these days, it’s hard to keep up with who is saying what about you and your business. If you have any customers, it’s safe to assume someone has said something about your business online. The easiest way to monitor this is by utilizing Google Alerts (http://www.google.com/alerts). Simply enter your keywords, frequency and your email address. I recommend setting ‘Type’ to comprehensive so you get full coverage across the web.
Use this tool to see where your site is being mentioned and in what context. If it’s good, then you should be happy and you may want to consider some marketing opportunities with that site. If it’s not all good, then you use it as an opportunity to correct the issue and make the customer happy.
I'm not going to name the business that recently benefited from using this Google service because they're trying to dig out of a whole caused by one of their customer service reps and its a public company. I was having lunch with the marketing manager and the topic of online reputation management came up. He wanted to know what he could to monitor the business and I suggested Google Alerts. Two days later, I get an email thanking me for this little but significant suggestion because he found a couple things. First, he got an alert for a total of 53 postings about a particular customer service representative who was very harsh with customers and basically didn't provide a level of service consistent with company policy. Several customers stated the rep used foul language with them, called them 'stupid' and hung up on several callers. The rep was immediately terminated. The other incident involved some issues of insider information being leaked to the public which is huge for a public company. After two weeks, the perpetrator was discovered and disciplined. This saved the company hundreds of thousands in fines from the SEC.
In short, if you're concerned about your business reputation on the web then you need to sign up now!
Contact MJM Ecommerce for ecommerce and online marketing solutions
Use this tool to see where your site is being mentioned and in what context. If it’s good, then you should be happy and you may want to consider some marketing opportunities with that site. If it’s not all good, then you use it as an opportunity to correct the issue and make the customer happy.
I'm not going to name the business that recently benefited from using this Google service because they're trying to dig out of a whole caused by one of their customer service reps and its a public company. I was having lunch with the marketing manager and the topic of online reputation management came up. He wanted to know what he could to monitor the business and I suggested Google Alerts. Two days later, I get an email thanking me for this little but significant suggestion because he found a couple things. First, he got an alert for a total of 53 postings about a particular customer service representative who was very harsh with customers and basically didn't provide a level of service consistent with company policy. Several customers stated the rep used foul language with them, called them 'stupid' and hung up on several callers. The rep was immediately terminated. The other incident involved some issues of insider information being leaked to the public which is huge for a public company. After two weeks, the perpetrator was discovered and disciplined. This saved the company hundreds of thousands in fines from the SEC.
In short, if you're concerned about your business reputation on the web then you need to sign up now!
Contact MJM Ecommerce for ecommerce and online marketing solutions
Monday, April 21, 2008
Numbers to Chew On
For those online marketers or business managers who engage in PPC and SEO take a look at these numbers from Nielson ReelResearch:
- When a brand name appeared in both natural search and paid search results, the brand attracted 92% of the total clicks
- Natural placement without paid search attracted only 60% of clicks
I’m going to write about advertising’s impact on search queries and how you can monetize other people’s efforts…so come back soon.
- When a brand name appeared in both natural search and paid search results, the brand attracted 92% of the total clicks
- Natural placement without paid search attracted only 60% of clicks
I’m going to write about advertising’s impact on search queries and how you can monetize other people’s efforts…so come back soon.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Promotions Test
I recently ran a split test on an email list featuring two unique promotions. The first was free ground shipping on orders of $85 or more and the other was 15% off $85 or more. I chose $85 because I wanted to raise the bar by 10% over the current site AOV.
Each promotion was mailed to over 70,000 subscribers (total list is over 140K) and I waited to see which performed better. It was amazing to see how many orders were submitted for the free shipping promotion. In fact, the 15% discount email only generated 13 orders compared to the 89 orders for Free Shipping. I realize the studies show that more people are willing to pay full price and receive a shipping discount, but, I wanted to see if it held true for this subscriber base. The shipping cost on an $85 order is $7.50 and its clear that the better savings belonged to the 15% discount. According to this test, more people were willing to pay full price on products and receive free shipping because shipping costs are seen as an inconvenience. Be careful when you do a shipping promotion. You should clearly define the restrictions of free shipping because you don't want to send an order to Mexico (for example) for free.
Test promotions on your subscriber base and see what works for you. Always be willing to test because its the only way you'll learn what works and what doesn't work.
Each promotion was mailed to over 70,000 subscribers (total list is over 140K) and I waited to see which performed better. It was amazing to see how many orders were submitted for the free shipping promotion. In fact, the 15% discount email only generated 13 orders compared to the 89 orders for Free Shipping. I realize the studies show that more people are willing to pay full price and receive a shipping discount, but, I wanted to see if it held true for this subscriber base. The shipping cost on an $85 order is $7.50 and its clear that the better savings belonged to the 15% discount. According to this test, more people were willing to pay full price on products and receive free shipping because shipping costs are seen as an inconvenience. Be careful when you do a shipping promotion. You should clearly define the restrictions of free shipping because you don't want to send an order to Mexico (for example) for free.
Test promotions on your subscriber base and see what works for you. Always be willing to test because its the only way you'll learn what works and what doesn't work.
SEO Software
Recently I was doing a google search for 'seo software' to keep abreast of any recent developments that may have occurred. I cam across SheerSEO which was the fifth listing on the first page of results. I hadn't seen them before, but, I was compelled to visit their site because the description line hit two things I was looking for: Google position and backlinks.
It turns out to be a great piece of SEO software that all internet marketers should add to their SEO toolbelt. I'm not ready to replace the other program we currently use (Web Position) because it doesn't have all the capabilities I want. However, its a web based application that provides me with data I can use when I'm out of the office and without my own computer. It can also be especially useful for small businesses that don't have large budgets or extensive SEO knowledge, but, need insight into their site's search engine performance.
Visit the site at www.sheerseo.com.
It turns out to be a great piece of SEO software that all internet marketers should add to their SEO toolbelt. I'm not ready to replace the other program we currently use (Web Position) because it doesn't have all the capabilities I want. However, its a web based application that provides me with data I can use when I'm out of the office and without my own computer. It can also be especially useful for small businesses that don't have large budgets or extensive SEO knowledge, but, need insight into their site's search engine performance.
Visit the site at www.sheerseo.com.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Crazy Egg – Visitor Visualization Analytics
I read about this in a blog a couple weeks ago and that evening installed it on MJM Ecommece’s site. It’s a rather nice looking tool and simply takes what you get in Google Analytics (site overlay report) and makes it a little prettier. I’m using the free version of the tool at the moment to better understand the value of this tool. The subscription plans, otherwise, are very inexpensive.
It’ll be an excellent tool to visualize effectiveness of a new design or navigation scheme. We have an A/B test in the works and we’ll be sure to use Crazy Egg to supplement our reporting on the effectiveness of the test pages.
Try it on your site and let us know what you think. Visit www.crazyegg.com.
It’ll be an excellent tool to visualize effectiveness of a new design or navigation scheme. We have an A/B test in the works and we’ll be sure to use Crazy Egg to supplement our reporting on the effectiveness of the test pages.
Try it on your site and let us know what you think. Visit www.crazyegg.com.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Google Matching Strategy: Broad, Phrase or Exact?
Google AdWords allows users to enter identical search terms with different matching options. For instance, you can purchase the broad match term Buy Books. Any search query that contains "Buy" and "Books" regardless of order or other terms used may display a paid search listing because of the broad match term Buy Books used.
However, most paid search should not stop here. Broad match terms are often more expensive because you are competing with more matching and, hence, more competitors. A good option is to also include phrase match and exact match for the same terms. In this way, users can often pay lower cost-per-clicks when search engine users type in exact phrases.
In this case, you would enter and bid on the following keywords:
Buy Books -- Broad Match: Any search query that contains Buy and Books in any order and with any additional terms may serve your ad.
"Buy Books" -- Phrase Match: Any terms outside of the term Buy Books will result in this being served as long as "Buy Books" is in this exact order.
[Buy Books] -- Exact Match: only this exact term will generated a served results. Any additional terms, e.g. I Buy Books, will cause this to not be a match.
Remember, you can also set negative keywords. Negative keywords are terms you set in Google and will cause your ads to not display if certain terms are included with the search query.
Using matching options and negative keywords allows users to target different search niches and also gives better bidding options. Often times broad-match terms may need to be removed yet phrase and exact match options will yield positive results.
For help with your paid search campaigns, visit MJM Ecommerce.
However, most paid search should not stop here. Broad match terms are often more expensive because you are competing with more matching and, hence, more competitors. A good option is to also include phrase match and exact match for the same terms. In this way, users can often pay lower cost-per-clicks when search engine users type in exact phrases.
In this case, you would enter and bid on the following keywords:
Buy Books -- Broad Match: Any search query that contains Buy and Books in any order and with any additional terms may serve your ad.
"Buy Books" -- Phrase Match: Any terms outside of the term Buy Books will result in this being served as long as "Buy Books" is in this exact order.
[Buy Books] -- Exact Match: only this exact term will generated a served results. Any additional terms, e.g. I Buy Books, will cause this to not be a match.
Remember, you can also set negative keywords. Negative keywords are terms you set in Google and will cause your ads to not display if certain terms are included with the search query.
Using matching options and negative keywords allows users to target different search niches and also gives better bidding options. Often times broad-match terms may need to be removed yet phrase and exact match options will yield positive results.
For help with your paid search campaigns, visit MJM Ecommerce.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Keyword Strategy
I was going through a potential client’s existing keyword list for their paid search campaign and found an incredible hodge podge of terms that indicated a lack of clear objectives and strategy.
Whether you’re starting a new campaign or reorganizing a current one, you should ask yourself several questions, but, there is one I want to focus on:
1. What terms have people used to find my site?
Simple question right? You’ll be amazed at how many people don’t know this or simply rattle off terms in their PPC campaign. Use your analytics package to scour for terms that have been proven traffic generators. Look for patterns. Are people doing general searches and finding your site (i.e. t-shirt)? Are visitors finding your site by using your company name (i.e. company x)? Is it a combination of both (i.e. company x t-shirts)? Are they showing a propensity to buy through their queries (i.e. discount t-shirts)? Create a simple spread sheet that breaks out the terms under the following headers:
- generic
- generic plus brand
- buy trigger terms
- generic plus brand plus buy trigger
Do searches on these terms and do a competitive analysis. Where do you rank organically? Are there a lot of ads for that term? If you don’t rank well organically, buy the term. If there aren’t any other ads, buy the term. If you rank well, don’t see other ads…buy the term. You get the drift…buy the term and test it.
Use suggestions from Google/Yahoo/MSN and use tools like Word Tracker and Good Keywords to build out a more robust list. The point is to capture browsers at all phases of their buying cycle. The first phase is general research where the customer searches for a broad term like ‘t-shirt.’ After doing some research, the customer finds your company and does another search for ‘company x t-shirts’ to get more information on your company. The visitor likes what they see about your company and starts moving towards buying your product, but, now the focus shifts to finding the best price. Now the query is ‘discount t-shirt.’ The visitor finds your ad yet again and decides that you’re a prominent player in this category and wants to find the best price for your product. The query is now ‘discount company x t-shirt.’ Your ad appears again and you’ve closed the loop.
The cost to get that sale is going to depend on the competitive landscape for the term, but, you landed the sale and now you can work on building a profitable relationship. You should also buy placements for your specific product SKUs. You’ll find that people will do a search for your product SKU in the hopes of finding it elsewhere. If you’re selling a homogenous product (i.e. stereo) visit sites like Amazon, Best Buy, Circuit City or other dominant players in your industry and buy ads for their model numbers.
Here’s an example: I went to Amazon and did a search for ‘Sony TV.’ I picked up the ASIN # B000HGQJZW and did a search on it. You’ll see Amazon listed organically because its specific to Amazon. Better yet, there are no ads! Great opportunity to buy a cheap term and pick off customers from Amazon. I’ve had great success using this little strategy in the past.
Try this out and let me know if you need any help.
Whether you’re starting a new campaign or reorganizing a current one, you should ask yourself several questions, but, there is one I want to focus on:
1. What terms have people used to find my site?
Simple question right? You’ll be amazed at how many people don’t know this or simply rattle off terms in their PPC campaign. Use your analytics package to scour for terms that have been proven traffic generators. Look for patterns. Are people doing general searches and finding your site (i.e. t-shirt)? Are visitors finding your site by using your company name (i.e. company x)? Is it a combination of both (i.e. company x t-shirts)? Are they showing a propensity to buy through their queries (i.e. discount t-shirts)? Create a simple spread sheet that breaks out the terms under the following headers:
- generic
- generic plus brand
- buy trigger terms
- generic plus brand plus buy trigger
Do searches on these terms and do a competitive analysis. Where do you rank organically? Are there a lot of ads for that term? If you don’t rank well organically, buy the term. If there aren’t any other ads, buy the term. If you rank well, don’t see other ads…buy the term. You get the drift…buy the term and test it.
Use suggestions from Google/Yahoo/MSN and use tools like Word Tracker and Good Keywords to build out a more robust list. The point is to capture browsers at all phases of their buying cycle. The first phase is general research where the customer searches for a broad term like ‘t-shirt.’ After doing some research, the customer finds your company and does another search for ‘company x t-shirts’ to get more information on your company. The visitor likes what they see about your company and starts moving towards buying your product, but, now the focus shifts to finding the best price. Now the query is ‘discount t-shirt.’ The visitor finds your ad yet again and decides that you’re a prominent player in this category and wants to find the best price for your product. The query is now ‘discount company x t-shirt.’ Your ad appears again and you’ve closed the loop.
The cost to get that sale is going to depend on the competitive landscape for the term, but, you landed the sale and now you can work on building a profitable relationship. You should also buy placements for your specific product SKUs. You’ll find that people will do a search for your product SKU in the hopes of finding it elsewhere. If you’re selling a homogenous product (i.e. stereo) visit sites like Amazon, Best Buy, Circuit City or other dominant players in your industry and buy ads for their model numbers.
Here’s an example: I went to Amazon and did a search for ‘Sony TV.’ I picked up the ASIN # B000HGQJZW and did a search on it. You’ll see Amazon listed organically because its specific to Amazon. Better yet, there are no ads! Great opportunity to buy a cheap term and pick off customers from Amazon. I’ve had great success using this little strategy in the past.
Try this out and let me know if you need any help.
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