Marketing & Advertising
The marketing of an ecommerce business is paramount to its success. Our coverage includes insights on email marketing, content marketing, pay-per-click advertising, social media marketing — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest — affiliate marketing, video advertising, and much more.
Content Marketing | Email & Text Marketing | Google Ads | Influencers & Affiliates | Social Media-
Marketing & Advertising
How to Measure Content Marketing
March 16, 2015 • Armando Roggio
Content marketing may be one of the most effective ways for small and mid-sized businesses to attract and retain customers in 2015. Or it may not be. Nineteenth century American merchant ...
-
Marketing & Advertising
SEO: 3 Steps to Improve Your Search Engine Ranking
March 12, 2015 • Nick Mouledous
Optimizing your website to attract search engine attention — a practice known as on-site optimization — is an often multifaceted and complex process. However, following three simple steps can help improve your ranking, which may result in more visits to your site.
-
Social Media
Location-based Marketing for Small Businesses
March 10, 2015 • Paul Chaney
As Internet users become increasingly mobile-savvy, they rely on smartphones and other mobile devices to discover new businesses, find directions, read consumer reviews, and access business contact information. One way local small businesses can take advantage of this trend is through the use of location-based marketing.
-
Google Ads
Google AdWords Launches Call-only Campaigns
March 4, 2015 • Robert Brady
A major update to Google AdWords occurred in 2013 with the introduction of Enhanced Campaigns. It was designed to streamline campaign management across multiple devices. But, in the process, it eliminated ...
-
Social Media
5 Consumer Review Sites that Impact Your Business
March 3, 2015 • Paul Chaney
Thanks to sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Angie's List, local businesses often find themselves at the mercy of consumer reviews. Because people rely on the opinion of others, reviews have the potential to influence purchase decisions either positively or negatively, depending on the review.
-
Social Media
6 Compelling Twitter Lessons from Small Businesses
March 2, 2015 • Samantha Collier
There are plenty of ways that small businesses can grow a Twitter following without spending a lot of money. Here are six examples. Tyres 2 U: @tyres2u Twitter followers: 7,350 Tyres 2 U ...
-
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for March 2015
March 1, 2015 • Armando Roggio
The month of March has plenty of opportunities for content marketers to create topical and useful content that might ultimately attract new customers and additional sales. Content marketing is the act ...
-
Influencers & Affiliates
Pinterest Bans Affiliate Marketing Links
February 25, 2015 • Carolyn Kmet
On February 12, 2015, Pinterest announced that it would “automatically remove all affiliate links, redirects and trackers on Pins.” This is important news because merchants with affiliate marketing programs could ...
-
Email & Text Marketing
Email Marketing Metrics, Part 1: The Basics
February 22, 2015 • Carolyn Nye
Email marketing is cost effective and typically has a high return on investment. But over the years, email marketing has changed. Measuring the performance of email and its impact on incremental revenue can be difficult. In this 2-part series,
-
Email & Text Marketing
Without Email Marketing, You’re Probably Losing Sales
February 16, 2015 • Armando Roggio
When you send a well-done email-marketing message, it is like stepping on the gas pedal in a sports car. Things just start to go. In fact, of all of the ways ...
-
Marketing & Advertising
How to Create a Social Media Strategy
February 16, 2015 • Cathy Qori
Your organization needs a social media presence. One approach is to choose a platform such as Facebook or Twitter and start posting, but this probably won’t be very successful. To be effective, begin by creating a social media strategy. You don’t have to start from scratch. There are plenty of resources available online. Here are some of the most useful.
-
Marketing & Advertising
4 Content Lessons from Leading Blogs, for 2015
February 12, 2015 • Armando Roggio
Content marketing, which seeks to attract site visitors and, ultimately, customers, is one of the most popular trends in marketing. The key is producing interesting, useful, or entertaining articles, images,
-
Social Media
3 New Twitter Ad Features for Ecommerce Merchants
February 10, 2015 • Paul Chaney
Twitter recently launched three new features that extend the platform’s usefulness as a marketing tool for ecommerce merchants. The features are group direct messages, video, and quick promote advertising. Group Direct Messages Twitter now ...
-
Social Media
10 Ways to Use Instagram for Ecommerce Marketing
February 5, 2015 • Paul Chaney
The photo-sharing site Instagram is in a transition phase between personal and business use. Unlike Facebook or Pinterest, for instance, the site offers no business-specific features. That has not stopped retailers ...
-
Google Ads
Pay-per-click Ads: Unlocking the AdWords Dimensions Tab
February 3, 2015 • Robert Brady
The AdWords interface is cluttered and hard to understand. A colleague of mine put it best when she said that AdWords is an enterprise tool. Unless you’re a regular user ...
-
Social Media
18 Pinterest Tools for Businesses
February 2, 2015 • Sig Ueland
Pinterest is the social network for people to discover and share interesting pictures. It’s also a place for businesses to connect with consumers and influential brand advocates through dynamic product ...
-
Social Media
WhatsApp to Change Social Media Marketing?
January 29, 2015 • Samantha Collier
WhatsApp is a mobile messaging app that allows users to communicate via free SMS style messages within the app. It launched in 2009 and gained popularity as a way of ...
-
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for February 2015
January 28, 2015 • Armando Roggio
In February 2015, content marketers can connect with potential customers around holidays like Valentine’s Day or Groundhog Day, via sites like SlideShare, or even with inspirational quotes. Content marketing is essentially ...
-
Social Media
Comparing dlvr.it and Buffer for Content Distribution
January 28, 2015 • Paul Chaney
If you create or curate content on the web, you may want to consider the use of software tools to automate the distribution process. Today, I compare two such tools — dlvr.it ...
-
Influencers & Affiliates
3 Affiliate Tools for Content Marketing
January 27, 2015 • Carolyn Kmet
Banner ads are best used for branding, not to drive clicks. Affiliate marketers realize this. Increasingly, affiliate marketers are relying less on banner ads, and more on their affiliates’ content.
-
Marketing & Advertising
2015 Ecommerce Marketing Checklist
January 20, 2015 • Armando Roggio
In “2014 Ecommerce Marketing Checklist,” I addressed 10 marketing strategies that could help an ecommerce business. If business owners wanted sales to be flat year over year, however, and if ...
-
Email & Text Marketing
4 Email Tactics to Nurture Ecommerce Prospects
January 16, 2015 • Carolyn Nye
Lead nurturing is a business-to-business marketing process to optimize a series of communications with a lead or prospect, to increase sales. The strategy for a successful B2B lead nurturing program ...
-
Email & Text Marketing
12 Email-marketing Twitter Feeds to Follow in 2015
January 15, 2015 • Armando Roggio
Email messages can deliver relevant, actionable, and engaging content directly to shoppers, ultimately improving sales or helping businesses achieve any number of goals. Getting the most from an email-marketing campaign ...
-
Social Media
Do Social Share Buttons Help Ecommerce Conversions?
January 14, 2015 • Paul Chaney
It’s difficult to find a website or ecommerce product page that does not include sharing buttons to sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and others. Many Internet users are members of at least ...
-
Email & Text Marketing
6 Triggered Email Strategies for Ecommerce
January 13, 2015 • Armando Roggio
Email marketing is one of the most powerful, sales-driving tools available to ecommerce companies, reaching consumers directly on their mobile smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktop computers. Not every email message, however,
-
Email & Text Marketing
5 Clever Email Innovations for 2015 and Beyond
January 9, 2015 • Pamella Neely
Email marketing has a reputation for being dull. When someone says "innovation" we're more likely to think social media or mobile or video. Not email. But email marketing is evolving, and evolving fast. In just the last year or two there are several advances that can take any "dull" email message and make it cutting edge.
-
Social Media
Pros, Cons of Sprout Social for Social Media Management
January 7, 2015 • Paul Chaney
Last week, I addressed the pros and cons of using Hootsuite for social media management. This week, I review another popular tool, Sprout Social. Pros Well-organized dashboard. Of the features Sprout Social offers,
-
Influencers & Affiliates
Affiliate Marketing Events in 2015
January 5, 2015 • Carolyn Kmet
The following is a non-exhaustive list of top events in 2015 for affiliate mangers to consider. Deciding which events to attend will depend on whether your primary goal is to ...
-
Social Media
Review Social Media Channels for 2015
January 5, 2015 • Samantha Collier
This article will address how to review and retool social media marketing for 2015, to improve its effectiveness. 1. Conduct a Channel Audit You can’t retool until you know what you have to work ...
-
Content Marketing
5 Content Marketing Ideas for January 2015
January 4, 2015 • Armando Roggio
In January 2015, ecommerce content marketers can use infographics, animation, videos, podcasts, and national holidays to connect with potential customers. Content marketing is the art and science, if you will, of ...