http://www.practicalecommerce.com/topic/13/Marketing--Revenue-Growth/ Articles relating to online marketing, email marketing and using the Internet to growing your business. en-us Copyright 2007 Confluence Publishing Wed, 07 May 2008 17:50:59 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/rss/ Practical Ecommerce v2.0.1 Ecommerce kmurdock@practicalecommerce.com bgetting@practicalecommerce.com 60 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/731/Shopping-Search-Engines-Six-To-Consider/ If you consider yourself an online retailer, you most likely are familiar with the major pay-per-click (PPC) search-advertising providers: Google, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and MSN. Advertising on these search engines can bring sales to your site. However, you may be missing out on a lot of sales if you have not considered getting listed in the shopping search engines. Let's take a look at shopping search engines and see what each of them has to offer. NexTag NexTag is a comparison-shopping site. Sellers can "pay-per-performance," meaning that you will pay-per-click depending on how much you bid for each click. Minimum bid prices are already set, and there is a rather large minimum CPC (cost per click) by category chart on the site. The minimum CPCs range anywhere from $.15 per click (books, movies and music) to $1 per click (printer supplies, plasma and LCD TVs). The homes and real estate category is currently set at $.01 per click for a minimum bid. Based on my organic SEO... Wed, 07 May 2008 17:50:59 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/731/Shopping-Search-Engines-Six-To-Consider/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/729/Pay-per-click-Advertising-Try-The-Home-Page-For-A-Landing-Page/ Over the last couple years a lot of emphasis has been put on creating the perfect pay-per-click landing page. The overall landing page strategy is to create a clear call to action on the page and to have relevant content relating to the search query and ad text. After you've followed these guidelines and even split-tested different variations, what happens if the keyword still doesn't convert? In my experience, a home page can sometimes be the solution. The value of landing visitors on a home page through paid search should not be overlooked. The main reason is because your home page is a reflection of your business. People always say, "You don't get a second chance at a first impression." While it may be a cliché, the adage is oftentimes true. A well-contrasted, clean-cut home page will give first-time visitors a warm and fuzzy feeling when they find your ecommerce business. Not only will this help conversions, but it could potentially turn those first-time visitors into... Mon, 05 May 2008 11:09:49 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/729/Pay-per-click-Advertising-Try-The-Home-Page-For-A-Landing-Page/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/724/A-Social-Media-Symphony/ How often do you find a classical musician who is not only a virtuoso on his or her appointed instrument, but who demonstrates Internet marketing virtuosity as well? Allow me to introduce you to classical pianist Grace Nikae (Gracenikae.com). From looking at her website, it's obvious the piano is not the only keyboard Grace spends time on. Her site is a convergence of standard web content, social media and ecommerce. Blog/email newsletter: a two-part invention I've long been a fan of using a blog in concert (yes, pun intended) with email, a more traditional form of marketing. The combination works as well together as two skilled hands playing two parts on a Bach composition. Grace utilizes this approach on her site. While I've yet to receive a newsletter to determine whether it's simply repurposed blog content (think Feedblitz) or something else altogether, the fact that she offers two forms of media to appeal to different audiences is a communications strategy worth... Mon, 28 Apr 2008 16:39:48 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/724/A-Social-Media-Symphony/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/719/Online-Reputation-Management/ Like it or not, people are talking about you online. They're talking about your brand, your products, industry and competition. Do you know what they are saying? If not, why not? Can you afford not to listen? There is a relatively new industry burgeoning on the Internet. It's called Online Reputation Management. This is the practice of monitoring the conversation going on about you or your brand via the various forms of social media, such as blogs, instant messaging, social networks, forums, ranking and review sites, or anywhere people have the opportunity to express their opinion. According to Wikipedia, a complete reputation management strategy involves three components: 1. Maximizing the appearances of positive online references for a person or company. 2. Building an online identity in the event the web presence is minimal or nonexistent. 3. Solving online reputation problems. Monitoring the conversation that's taking place is a fundamental part of this... Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:40:32 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/719/Online-Reputation-Management/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/713/Email-Marketing-Avoid-This-Deadly-Mistake/ Over the years, I've seen many ecommerce store owners make one simple but deadly mistake when they get started with email marketing: They send emails to old, obsolete email addresses. Does this sound like you? You started your ecommerce store a few years ago. Even back then, you had the foresight to start collecting email addresses because you knew you'd be sending marketing emails someday. Finally, you locate an email service provider (ESP). You spend hours designing and testing your first campaign, and you hit the send button. Then your email service provider shuts down your account because you've been blacklisted by all the major Internet service providers (ISPs). What gives? For one, people change email addresses all the time, such as when they get new jobs or switch ISPs. Or they get inundated with so much spam at one email address that they create a fresh email account, so all those emails you sent to them will bounce. Too many bounces tell the ISPs that your list is... Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:43:31 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/713/Email-Marketing-Avoid-This-Deadly-Mistake/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/711/Alternative-Pay-per-click-Advertising/ When should you consider advertising your products on sites other than on Google, Yahoo! and MSN? By properly identifying and evaluating various second-tier PPC advertising options, you may uncover a diamond in the rough. Investigating your options is not as hard as you think. Payperclicksearchengines.com has a list of its "Top 10 PPC Search Engines." You could start with that list. However, if you are in a niche market, consider other options as well. Payperclicksearchengines.com also contains a directory, or, alternatively, consider one of the sites listed in other directories such as DMOZ. If I have a niche product to sell, such as tennis balls, I could go further and search Google for the phrase "tennis pay per click." Having done that, I found that Business.com has a tennis category where I can pay for each click. Once you have narrowed down your options, consider developing a short list of potential websites. Contact each of these sites by phone, if possible. Tell the... Wed, 09 Apr 2008 15:12:14 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/711/Alternative-Pay-per-click-Advertising/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/696/Social-Networking-Build-Your-Own-Community/ There is not a day that goes by that I don't reflect on how to leverage social media, including social networks, for marketing purposes. I have tried a number of approaches, some of which have been successful and some of which have not. This month, I want to share an idea that I think has genuine potential. I call it "getting a table of your own." A basic rule of thumb in social media marketing is that, in order to gain influence, you must actively participate in the communities of which you are a member. That means commenting on blogs, participating in forums and message boards, joining fan groups at major social networks like MySpace or Facebook, and dialoging via online chat on sites like Twitter. Participation in social shopping sites such as Judy's Book, Kaboodle or ThisNext is a good thing as well, and essential to any effective marketing strategy. However, I liken all of these activities to getting a seat at someone else's table. How much better would it be to get your... Mon, 17 Mar 2008 12:30:21 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/696/Social-Networking-Build-Your-Own-Community/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/695/Promotional-Offers-Can-Create-Prospects/ For ecommerce websites, a sale is a desired outcome. However, in some cases, building a mailing list of interested prospects can also be very valuable. In this article, we'll discuss some of the principles for developing a compelling offer to get visitors to convert in a non-financial transaction. Principles of an Effective Offer There are two important elements in creating an effective promotional offer. It should: 1. Qualify the visitor. 2. Be delivered at low cost to the merchant. Perhaps you've visited websites that offer some sort of monthly drawing for a popular prize like an iPod. Such a drawing will help the website develop a list of prospects that would like an iPod, preferably a free one. My feeling is that this is primarily effective if you are selling iPods. Only an offer that directly relates to your products or services means that you are building a qualified mailing list. The term "low cost" is a relative one. For some companies, an offer would... Wed, 12 Mar 2008 15:58:34 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/695/Promotional-Offers-Can-Create-Prospects/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/693/Exporting-Your-Products-First-Learn-The-Terminology/ To sell products overseas, you will need to learn the international buying and selling terminology, also referred to as "Incoterms 2000" (or, International Commercial Terms). These were first developed in 1936 by the International Chamber of Commerce , which adopted 13 Incoterms to make it easier for international traders to understand one another's responsibilities when conducting a buy-sell transaction. The following are the 13 Incoterms. 1. "EXW" - Ex Works (Named Place) - Seller delivers when he or she places the goods at the disposal of buyer at seller's premises or another named place (i.e. work, factory, warehouse). 2. "FCA" - Free Carrier (Named Place) - Seller delivers when he or she delivers the goods, cleared for export, to the carrier nominated by buyer at the named place. 3. "FAS" - Free Alongside Ship (Named Port of Shipment) - Seller delivers when the goods are placed alongside the vessel at the named port of shipment. 4. "FOB" - Free On Board (Named Port of... Mon, 10 Mar 2008 15:47:01 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/693/Exporting-Your-Products-First-Learn-The-Terminology/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/690/Pay-per-click-Ads-Impact-Google-Checkout-and-PayPal/ If you're running an ecommerce store, you've probably heard of PayPal and Google Checkout. The following is a quick rundown of things you might not have known about the two. Google Checkout You can process 10 times your ad spend in Google AdWords for free. For example, if you're spending about $3,000 per month in AdWords, you can process up to $30,000 in website sales with zero transaction fees. If you hook up your AdWords account to your Google Checkout account, you will be eligible to display a badge on your pay-per-click ad. It really will make your ad stand out. See for yourself: type "toys" in Google.com. See that Toys R Us ad with the Google Checckout logo? Google Checkout offers almost seamless integration with some popular carts out there. Check out Checkout.google.com/seller/integrate_cart.html for more information. You're also able to accept payments via Google Checkout on the mobile version of your site. If your customers have existing credit card... Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:07:39 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/690/Pay-per-click-Ads-Impact-Google-Checkout-and-PayPal/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/689/Ecommerce-Blogging-Who-What-And-When/ Last month I talked about blogging platforms and the value blogging can bring to ecommerce sites. When a website makes the decision to begin a blog and decides upon a blogging platform, it will then have to decide who will blog and how often. Time allotted to blogging is also a relative issue, as is subject matter. So why bother at all? Relative to static ecommerce sites, search engines consider blogs more real and trusted because blogs tend to have fresh content and there is a less financial, more informational link between a blog and its readers. An ecommerce site should take advantage of this tendency by adding a blog to augment the overall site. A focused, well-written blog can get readers hooked on the blog and promote repeat visits to the website or garner subscriptions via RSS feeds and email newsletters. These recurring communications will help to tie potential customers to your site, encourage natural link building and increase repeat visits. Journalists are also more... Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:45:33 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/689/Ecommerce-Blogging-Who-What-And-When/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/687/Exporting-Your-Products-Do-It-Yourself-or-Hire-an-Exporting-Firm/ Once you have conducted your market research and made the decision to export your products to foreign markets, you must devise an international sales and marketing strategy. Your initial obstacle will be determining which overseas markets have the most potential for selling your products. Second, you will need to decide whether to market them via "direct selling" or "indirect selling." You may decide to apply a different approach for each market or simply use the same approach throughout. Direct Selling "Direct selling" means that you will be responsible for exporting your products to customers in foreign markets. You will be responsible for identifying the best distribution approach, complying with foreign market regulations and requirements, collecting payments, producing export documentation, appropriately labeling your product, shipping logistics, after-sale service and so forth. I recommended that you assign this task to a separate department within your company that is... Mon, 03 Mar 2008 16:27:50 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/687/Exporting-Your-Products-Do-It-Yourself-or-Hire-an-Exporting-Firm/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/679/Field-Test-Social-Networking-Part-1-of-3/ In Field Test, Practical eCommerce has gathered ten seasoned ecommerce merchants and asked each of them the same questions around a given topic. This month’s topic is social networking. The participating ecommerce merchants are: Dave Norris, House of Antique Hardware; Justin Hertz, MuttMart; Chris Stump, Only Hammocks; Mike Reiman, PoolDawg; Dan Stewart, Xtreme Diesel Performance; Roman Kagan, Appliance Parts Pros; Cindy Barrileaux, Write Your Best; Claudette Cyr, Gear-Source; Mike Butler, Bloom Designs Nursery; Kristen Taylor, Juvie. The responses for three of the ten merchants follow below. The answers are shown to preserve anonymity. PeC: Which social networking sites do you visit? FIELD TESTER 1: Facebook.com, Kaboodle.com, Stumbleupon.com, Yelp.com, Myfoxla.com, Dogpile.com, Del.icio.us, Iliketotallyloveit.com. FIELD TESTER 2: Linkedin.com and Facebook.com. FIELD TESTER 3: I visit Meetup.com, Linkedin.com, and occasionally Myspace.com. PeC: Which... Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:13:34 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/679/Field-Test-Social-Networking-Part-1-of-3/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/675/Mobile-optimized-Websites-Extend-Customer-Service/ When Apple reached out to Travelocity.com to develop an iPhone-optimized website, Travelocity jumped at the chance. “It was a great opportunity for us,” said Paul Briggs, Travelocity’s Director of Customer Marketing and Loyalty. “We already had a general mobile site, but with Apple’s suggestion, we also developed one just for iPhone users. Both the general site and the iPhone site enhance customer care by offering travel-tracking functions on mobile devices.” With Apple's collaboration, Travelocity launched its iPhone-optimized site. iPhone users entering Travelocity.com are redirected to the company’s standard mobile interface, a straightforward, text-only screen, that loads quickly with minimal bandwidth. iPhone users then click from there to take advantage of an interface customized to iPhone’s 3.5” screen. Both the standard and iPhone versions remain graphically branded to Travelocity and the iPhone version also includes the company’s signature character,... Mon, 11 Feb 2008 19:03:08 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/675/Mobile-optimized-Websites-Extend-Customer-Service/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/673/Email-Marketing-Report-Card-Delightcom/ Delight.com sells gifts, fashion accessories and home decor items. It claims to make the online shopping experience quick, fun and simple. But what about its email marketing? Delight.com requested a review from Practical eCommerce of its email marketing activities, which we are please to do. Opt-in Process: Setting Expectations Unlike most sites that have a signup box on just one page of their website, every page of Delight.com’s website has a signup box in the footer. One advantage to placing the signup box in the footer is the proximity to GeoTrust and Hacker Safe icons. I submitted my email address in the signup box, and it took me to a page asking to specify my interest groups, and also offers links to view archived versions of past newsletters (this gives me a preview of what I can expect). It’s odd that the site places the archives in a blog, however. It makes me wonder if it’s a search-engine-optimization tactic, or if it’s just a limitation of its email... Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:12:45 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/673/Email-Marketing-Report-Card-Delightcom/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/670/Time-Is-Money/ It never ceases to amaze me how much time people waste trying to save money. Having grown up in a small town (fewer than 2,000 people), I recognized that paying a little more for staple items locally was less costly than driving 20 miles to save a few bucks. In the business of ecommerce, it’s more about time than anything. Tried-and-true technology (whether it be smartphones or automation software) is a must if you want to reap the true benefits of working for yourself, and my bet is the majority of small business owners are working for peanuts. Take order processing, for instance. The majority of small online-store orders are still manually processed — an employee retypes orders into an antiquated database. This wastes time, increases costs, and makes it difficult to offer competitive prices and zero handling fees. Yet, accounting says that outlaying a few grand right now isn’t feasible. I watch my neighbors sacrifice family time to do tedious things themselves.... Wed, 06 Feb 2008 13:43:57 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/670/Time-Is-Money/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/661/Advertising-On-The-Google-Content-Network/ The most common mistake Google AdWords advertisers make is assuming that Google’s search network and Google’s content network are the same. In reality, the two are very different. Below is a checklist of how one should go about settings up a content network campaign. Getting Started A content network campaign should be set up separately from a search network campaign for a number of reasons: You’ll be reaching your target audience at a different stage of the buying cycle. You’ll be targeting prospects using various types of ads types/formats. Quality of traffic generated through the content network is different. Your optimization strategy is rather limited and otherwise is very different from a search network campaign. You should have a separate budget for a content campaign. Content network ads are theme-based, versus search network ads, which are keyword-based. Step 1 To understand why the content network works differently from the search... Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:33:51 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/661/Advertising-On-The-Google-Content-Network/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/655/Widgets-Moving-Your-Web-Store-Into-The-Community/ Social media has grown to become a serious tool in a merchant’s marketing arsenal. Sites like Shopwiki.com, Thisnext.com and others provide excellent opportunities for merchants to gain favorable reviews and referrals, and other social networking sites like Del.icio.us, Reddit.com, Myspace.com and Facebook.com provide the opportunity for brand exposure. However, perhaps the greatest social media advantage to merchants is still emerging — the ecommerce widget. A widget is an application that can be embedded into a web-based application, such as a blog or a social network, though anything that is html-based. For ecommerce, a widget could embed a shopping cart, for example. Widgets are a tool for merchants to take their web store across the online community, placing products where like-minded communities are gathered. So far, the music and book industry has embraced widget technology via companies like Goodstorm.com and Random House. According to Goodstorm.com, its... Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:13:52 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/655/Widgets-Moving-Your-Web-Store-Into-The-Community/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/652/PPC-Report-Card-Homeexchangecom/ Homeexchange.com helps people exchange homes while on vacation. The site has two conversion events: A $99.95 registration for one year and a $50 house-listing fee. The site’s owner recently asked Practical eCommerce to review its pay-per-click campaigns in Google and Yahoo!. In its current campaign, Homeexchange.com spends around $2,000 per month in Google and $400 in Yahoo!. The site’s internal pay-per-click conversion tracking is in use, and the average cost per conversion is $45. Account Structure There is only one active Google and Yahoo! campaign with a single ad group in each. This structure is ineffective and does not conform to pay-per-click best practices — splitting the account into a number of separate campaigns. That single ad group has 50 keywords in Yahoo! and 61 keywords in Google. By grouping non-related keywords, Homeexchange.com adversely impacts its Quality Score, which ultimately affects cost per conversion. Remember, the higher a keyword’s... Wed, 16 Jan 2008 17:05:18 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/652/PPC-Report-Card-Homeexchangecom/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/648/Google-AdWords-More-Than-Text-Ads/ Google AdWords offers a number of different ad formats and options in addition to the standard text-based ads. I’ve summarized these formats and options below. Standard Text Ads These are the regular text ads that we most commonly associate with Google's pay per click ad program. The ads consist of a single title, two description lines and one display URL. They have proven to be a very effective medium of driving advertising message to the end user. More information is available at Adwords.google.com/select/afc/ads.html. Image/Flash Ads Image ads are another format support by Google AdWords. These are your regular banner ads in a variety of shapes and sizes. To ensure maximum exposure on Google’s content network use all allowed sizes. More information about specific ad sizes is available at Adwords.google.com/select/imagesamples.html. Mobile Text Ads Millions of people are using their cell phones with Internet connectivity to find products and services on the web.... Mon, 14 Jan 2008 15:28:30 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/648/Google-AdWords-More-Than-Text-Ads/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/647/Negative-Keywords-For-Your-PPC-Campaign/ Keywords are an integral part of any online advertising campaign. However, what is sometimes overlooked is the equal importance of negative keywords, which are word filters that disqualify ads from being triggered by users’ search queries. For example, if the term “iPhone” is one of your keywords, each time somebody runs a search for that keyword your ad will be displayed. Similarly, if someone were to run a search for the term “iPhone problems,” your ad will also be displayed since the main keyword “iPhone” is present in the search query. To avoid bloating total impressions with irrelevant searches it is important to add the word “problems” as a negative keyword so that the “iPhone problems” query would not trigger your ads. Negative keywords will not only improve your click-through rate, but will also improve the traffic quality that your pay-per-click advertising generates since the negative keywords should be filtering out many undesirable clicks. Here... Wed, 09 Jan 2008 15:37:43 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/647/Negative-Keywords-For-Your-PPC-Campaign/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/639/Social-Media-As-A-Marketing-Strategy-in-2008/ 2007 was a good year for holiday shopping. comScore reported that online shopping totaled nearly $28 billion, up 19 percent from 2006. Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday all had record traffic compared to previous years, according to Hitwise. Hopefully, your business experienced similar results. But that was then. This is now. As you look forward to 2008, what marketing tactics are you deploying that will improve your bottom line even more? Is the use of social media a consideration? If not, it should be. According to MediaPost, one out of every four Internet users visit sites such as MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr at least once a month. And as social networks become more commonplace, the percentage is only going to increase in both the number of visitors as well as frequency of visits. What does this portend for you? To answer that, let me refer to a long-held mantra: “Markets are conversations. Participation is marketing.” If your... Wed, 02 Jan 2008 10:54:37 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/639/Social-Media-As-A-Marketing-Strategy-in-2008/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/637/New-year-Ideas-For-eBay-Powersellers/ I hope you had a great holiday selling season online, and with the new year right around the corner, what follows are some tips for increasing your eBay presence even more in 2008. 1. Use research tools like Terapeak.com, Hammertap.com and EverySeller Research (Everyseller.com) to fine tune strategies and make decisions that will help grow sales and profitability. 2. Your name matters so make it easy to spell, memorable and consistent. If your user ID is dlevitt12345678, your eBay store is Puppy Loves Mommy, and you thank people for shopping from Debbie's House of Stuff, you've just greatly increased the chances that your buyer will tell friends he/she got it from "some guy on eBay." Nobody's going to remember your name. If they do remember “Puppy Loves Mommy,” and then they do eBay’s “search by seller” for that term, they won’t find you: “Search by seller” looks for user IDs, and in this example, your store name isn’t your user ID. Pick one name, don't put... Wed, 26 Dec 2007 19:03:14 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/637/New-year-Ideas-For-eBay-Powersellers/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/636/Five-Tips-For-Improved-Sales-In-Good-Times-or-Bad/ Increase Focus On Existing Customers For many companies, the primary focus is on selling to new customers, and little attention is given to the tremendous potential in the existing customer list. But when consumers become more skittish and conservative in their purchase behavior, they become less likely to take a risk on a new, untested vendor — opting instead to do business with the vendors they already know and trust. So while economic uncertainty can make customer acquisition more challenging and expensive, it can also make remarketing to existing customers for repeat sales and referrals more productive. In times like these, your past investments in providing great customer service and a flawless experience can produce solid dividends. Tune-Up Your Profit Path In great economic times, the rising tide can float all boats — even the boats that aren't as "ship shape" as they could be. But when you can't count on that rising tide, you have to squeeze everything you can out... Wed, 19 Dec 2007 16:30:14 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/636/Five-Tips-For-Improved-Sales-In-Good-Times-or-Bad/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/634/Numbers-Should-Not-Dictate/ They say the true measure of success for an online store is based on visitor and shopping statistics and analysis of investments for driving traffic to the site. The most common reporting method is Google Analytics, and with its recent integration with LivePerson (a live chat tool), store owners will now be able to analyze ROI for chatting with potential customers online. But I have to wonder if small businesses are lending so much weight to ad campaigns, statistical services and software that they lose sight of what really matters. For years, a key component in marketing strategy has been the study of numbers —specialists tell us what they should be, and that they reveal what we’re doing right and wrong. These numbers, however, are merely guidelines, and I’ve yet to see a sell-thru ratio that would make me say, “Hey, you can’t get any better than that!” These numbers, though, often make us forget about other key components, and we wind up missing an untapped market... Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:40:38 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/634/Numbers-Should-Not-Dictate/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/633/Websites-For-The-Visually-Impaired/ You put a lot of effort into making your website successful. You implement a strong design, you add features such as wish lists, coupon modules, gift certificates and perhaps even Flash and JavaScript functionality to attract customers and provide them an enjoyable shopping experience. But have you given thought to what that experience entails for a blind or visually-impaired person? Did you even know it’s possible the blind could shop online? Don’t be embarrassed if you answered “No.” If you weren't aware of the 10 million visually impaired users who utilize Assistive Technology (A.T.), it's time to tap that expanding — and under serviced — market. A.T. enables non-traditional web users to participate in the online experience. Using screen readers (software which reads aloud on-screen content) visitors can navigate your site using keyboard commands. While the programs are sophisticated, site builders need to pay particular attention to how pages are coded. As... Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:22:43 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/633/Websites-For-The-Visually-Impaired/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/630/Pay-Per-Click-Advertising-Alternative-PPC-Venues/ In the world of pay-per-click advertising, there are three well-known players: Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter. However, there are several other interesting pay-per-click sites you may not be familiar with, which you might find useful. Clickriver Clickriver.com is owned and operated by Amazon.com. All ads are circulated on Amazon, and advertisers running ads through Clickriver are therefore able to reach an audience that is looking to shop online. The pay-per-click interface is very intuitive and should seem familiar to anybody using Google, Yahoo! or MSN. Additionally, you have complete budget flexibility and easy-to-understand reporting, but no internal conversion tracking is provided (you’ll need to use a third-party solution to track results, such as Google Analytics). Clickriver could be an interesting test for your ecommerce website. No set up fee is required to sign up. Business.com Don’t let the name throw you off. It seems as... Wed, 12 Dec 2007 16:49:07 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/630/Pay-Per-Click-Advertising-Alternative-PPC-Venues/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/631/Interview-Facebook-Application-Developer/ Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace generate huge numbers of visitors. Because of that, marketers increasingly are looking to those sites, and other social networking sites, as channels to promote ecommerce products. In May 2007, Facebook “opened up” its platform to third-party developers who can build “applications” and “widgets” that appear on Facebook itself. One such developer is Nicholas O’Neill, who not only writes custom Facebook applications but also blogs on everything Facebook, at Allfacebook.com. We asked O’Neill to explain the Facebook marketing potential to us. PeC: What's a Facebook application? O’NEILL: In simplest terms, a Facebook application is a website that exists within Facebook. Facebook has opened its platform to enable businesses to create interactive content within Facebook itself. You can place pretty much anything in your application and the Facebook blue frame still wraps around your content. 
 PeC: Is an... Wed, 12 Dec 2007 10:11:56 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/631/Interview-Facebook-Application-Developer/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/626/Email-Marketing-Report-Card-Acceptedcom/ Accepted.com provides admissions consulting and application-essay-editing services that help people get into top business schools, medical schools and graduate schools. It produces a free monthly email newsletter called “Odds ‘N Ends” and the staff of Accepted.com has requested that Practical eCommerce review the newsletter for this report card. Background I run an email marketing service that caters to small and medium sized businesses. Most companies I’ve observed handle email marketing as a totally separate process from the rest of its business. So in this ongoing report card, I’ll be checking how companies complete the “full circle” of email marketing — not just how cool the emails look. We’ll review the opt-in process, the email creative itself, the landing pages that the email campaigns point to and general list management practices. The Opt-In Process: Setting Expectations At Accepted.com, the newsletter subscribe link is easy to find, but it was,... Mon, 10 Dec 2007 11:20:42 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/626/Email-Marketing-Report-Card-Acceptedcom/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/622/Web-Analytics/ Web analytics is a looking glass into the health and productivity of an online presence. Your online presence includes your website, your advertising, and any blogs, forum posts or web pages that mention you or otherwise link to your site. If your website affects your revenue in any way, then you must use some form of web analytics. Anything else is equivalent to driving blind. I've had the privilege of helping hundreds of site owners with web analytics and one pattern emerges over and over: Those who invest in web analytics generate more profit and experience faster growth. When properly used, the tools can answer important business questions related to advertising investments, market segmentation and web design. Through this column, I want to help you get a clear view of how your online presence affects your business. It's fairly easy to get going, so let's start with the first step. Your first assignment is to get a web analytics tool connected with your web site.... Mon, 03 Dec 2007 17:06:34 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/622/Web-Analytics/