e-commerce made easy - everything you need to know about selling online

e-COMMERCE:EVERYTHING YOU NEED

TO KNOW ABOUT SELLING ONLINE

Agenda

• About me and e-CBD• The e-commerce landscape• How to know when you’re ready to sell online• Shopping cart options• Dealing with your bank – What you need to know• The five biggest mistakes you can make• Top ten tips for selling online• Case Studies• Marketing your store• Further reading

About Me and e-CBD

• Communications degree• Worked in Public Relations and Journalism• Joined e-CBD with Marilyn Strauss in 2001• Focussed on online marketing• Stared memery 2008• I’m Marketing Magazine’s ‘Online Marketing Guru’• Write regular features for Marketing Mag

About this Workshop

• It’s not a lecture, it’s a workshop so if you have questions, write them down and we’ll go through them at the end.

How much do we know?

• Does anyone not have a website?• Who is already selling online?• Who is using a payment gateway with their bank?• Who has used PayPal

WHAT DOES THE E-COMMERCE LANDSCAPE LOOK LIKE?

HOW TO KNOW WHEN YOU’RE READY TO SELL ONLINE

How to know when you’re ready

1. Are people looking for what you want to sell?2. Will people buy what you sell online?3. Can you compete?

Are people looking for what you want to sell?

• Go to Google’s Keyword Tool and find out!– https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Example– http://www.dogtrainingproducts.com.au

• ‘dog harness’

Will people buy what you sell online?• Are there competitors online?• Are they doing well? (Longevity, nice design, marketing budget)

• What if you’re the first to sell online? (They said no-one would buy shoes online)

• Are you selling something people need to experience? (You’ll have a hard time selling boutique wine to new customers, and easy time to existing customers)

• Are you selling something people want NOW? (Pizza sells very well online, beer does not)

Can you compete?• Don’t compete with Amazon.com unless you’re Dymocks

• Don’t compete with eBay

• Find your niche• But make sure it’s profitable

Finding your niche – The Long Tail

Source: http://blog.hubpages.com/2008/10/the-long-tail-of-hubpages/

Finding your niche – The Long Tail

Source: http://modernl.com/article/forget-the-long-tail-go-for-the-sweet-spike

SHOPPING CART OPTIONS

Shopping Cart Options

1. PayPal Buy Buttons2. PayPal Shopping Cart3. Shopping cart linked to PayPal or to your bank

PayPal – Free payment network

Great for dipping your toe in the waterEasy to setupPay per sale

Takes people away from your sitePeople get scared of PayPalDoesn’t go straight to your bank

PayPal Examples

http://blackmarketrhythmco.bandcamp.com/

http://twollow.com

PayPal Shopping Cart

• Visit PayPal.com.au and create an account for details

Professional Shopping Cart

Make it look exactly how you want Incorporate a large database of products Advanced tracking and stats Deal with your bank, integrate with Quickbooks and

make your accountant happy

You need a merchant account

Dealing with your bank – What you need to know

• You need a site before you can get a merchant account

• You need a payment gateway – the bank will try and sell you theirs

• Must show your full contact details• Need a returns policy• Show bank guidelines• Costs:

– Per transaction– Yearly fee

Professional Shopping Cart

• e-CBD Shopping Cart (Interspire)

THE FIVE BIGGEST E-COMMERCE MISTAKES

The Five Biggest e-commerce Mistakes

1. Making the checkout process to complicated2. Being too expensive3. Looking untrustworthy4. Not doing your research

– Know your competitors back to front– Know your conversion rates– Know your profitibility

5. Not being visible in Google

TOP TEN TIPS FOR SELLING ONLINE

Top ten tips for selling online

1. Be the cheapest! (Online and offline – make it worth the wait for shipping)

2. Look the most professional/trustworthy (they’ll be shopping around)

3. Explain everything as well as you can (and as succinctly)– Video, image galleries

4. Make the process super easy. Don’t make them scroll or login.

4. Make the process super easy. Don’t make them scroll or login.5. Show people’s opinions of what you’re selling

4. Make the process super easy. Don’t make them scroll or login.5. Show people’s opinions of what you’re selling6. Give an incentive for them to buy from you

4. Make the process super easy. Don’t make them scroll or login.5. Show people’s opinions of what you’re selling6. Give an incentive for them to buy from you7. Create a sense of urgency

4. Make the process super easy. Don’t make them scroll or login.5. Show people’s opinions of what you’re selling6. Give an incentive for them to buy from you7. Create a sense of urgency8. Answer their questions without them having to ask (FAQs)

4. Make the process super easy. Don’t make them scroll or login.5. Show people’s opinions of what you’re selling6. Give an incentive for them to buy from you7. Create a sense of urgency8. Answer their questions without them having to ask (FAQs)9. Make your products easy to find with intuitive searches and

accurate categories

4. Make the process super easy. Don’t make them scroll or login.5. Show people’s opinions of what you’re selling6. Give an incentive for them to buy from you7. Create a sense of urgency8. Answer their questions without them having to ask (FAQs)9. Make your products easy to find with intuitive searches and

accurate categories10. Give them a reason to come back (most sales happen to existing

customers)

CASE STUDIES

Case Studies

• Flowers

MARKETING YOUR STORE

Marketing your Store

• SEO• AdWords• Email Marketing• Social Media Marketing• Advertising, PR and Word of Mouth

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION

Search Engine Optimisation

Create Unique, Descriptive, Accurate Page Titles• Accurately describe the page's content• Create unique title tags for each page• Use brief, but descriptive titles

Use the Description META Tag• Accurately summarize the page's content - Write a

description that would both inform and interest users if they saw your description meta tag as a snippet in a search result.

• Use unique descriptions for each page - Having a different description meta tag for each page helps both users and Google,

Get People to Link to You• Search for the keywords you’re targeting and note the top 30

results. If appropriate and likely, ask them for a link.• Search for the keywords you’re targeting and note the top 30

results. Go to www.yahoo.com and check the backlinks of each of them using the “link:http://www.website.com” query. See who comes up and if they’re appropriate, write to them nicely and offer to swap links.

• Get people to use descriptive anchor text when they link to you. Eg. e-CBD Web Design is a great business.

• ‘Click here’ search

Create Interesting Content!• Write content about whatever it is you want to be

found for. Google won’t list your site for information you don’t talk about.

• Write the kind of content people will want to link to!• Start a blog with useful industry information, tips or

Read!• http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_conten

t/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/en//webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

• http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769

ADWORDS

AdWords

• Google has made it so that the ads which get the most clicks pay less money and appear at the top.

• This is so big companies can’t out-bid everyone.• It’s nice, but it means that if your ads don’t perform well,

you’ll end up paying more so always get professional advice, at least at the beginning, to help set up your campaign, or they’ll be tainted forever.

• Include your phone number in your ad – then you don’t have to pay for the click.

• Read all the other ads competing with you and stand out!

AdWords

• Create a call to action• Create a special offer• Setup conversion goals so you can track sales• Create dedicated landing pages with content targeted to

people coming from Google – it’s almost always a bad idea to send people straight to your homepage

• Make every word count, get rid of useless words• Refine your ads and test them over time.

EMAIL MARKETING

e-CBD’s Top Email Marketing Tips

• When someone buys something, offer them incentives to sign up to a regular newsletter

• Offer everyone on your site a newsletter with incentives, like special deals

• Send them a welcome message as soon as they’ve subscribed• Personalise each newsletter as much as you can. Make the recipient

feel special• Tailor the subject line for your audience• If they unsubscribe, ask why. Get feedback on what you could have

done better• Don’t send anything without testing it first!• Track referrals on your website using Google Analytics• Tweak your campaigns by testing different subject lines and formats.

See what gets the best click through rates

e-CBD’s Top Email Marketing Tips

• Send your newsletter out at lunchtime on Monday or Tuesday, or on Friday morning if you want to reach people for the weekend. These are the times when people are most active online.

• Make sure the recipients can see who it’s coming from, your name, or your company (or both).

• Remember that inboxes are smaller than computer screens. Don’t make your email too wide.

• Make sure it looks good on an iPhone• Have a subscribe option at the bottom of emails as well as an

unsubscribe. People might have forwarded their friends the email. Make it easy for them to keep getting it.

• Don’t send an email newsletter to anyone unless they’re expecting to get it. Just because they gave you their email address doesn’t mean they want you to send them a newsletter.

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Social Media Marketing1. Use Facebook advertising, it’s cheap2. Setup a Facebook page for your business and give people incentives to join3. Set up a Google alert for your brand and engage the people who are talking about

you, wherever they are talking4. Set up alerts for your industry (especially if no one is talking about your brand)5. Keep an eye on what people near you are saying on Twitter6. Spend some time each day reading about what other people are doing. There are

1 billion social media marketing blogs out there. Reading blogs is much easier than writing blogs.

7. Create a community of interest around what you do. It takes time, but it’s worth it.8. Don’t start something you can’t finish or maintain properly or it’s a waste of time

and you’re better off with Google Ads9. Use LinkedIn as a networking tool. Join groups and ask questions.10. If you want people to talk about you, be creative (or pay someone who is).

ADVERTISING, PR AND WORD OF MOUTH

Advertising, PR and Word of Mouth

1. You could write a book on each of these2. Each has its place, but all help to give legitimacy to

an online store3. If people recognise your brand when they find you

online, you’re more likely to make a sale4. Write down the names of as many online flower

stores we visited before as you can remember. How many can you think of?

e-commerce made easy - everything you need to know about selling online

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online marketingstared

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long tail source

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