Ramp Up Your Store for the Holiday Season!

The holiday season has begun… is your store designed to grab
visitor attention and convert the highest number of sales?

Now is the time to optimize not just your sales and promotions
but the overall flow of your site so all your hard earned traffic
won’t go to waste.

I can help you make your site easier for customers to use so
you’ll get more sales this holiday season.

I’ll go through your entire site starting at the home page and
working 
all the way through your checkout process to see where
your site can 
be improved for your customer usability and overall
conversion.

Book Your Site Review Here: http://www.ecomsitereview.com

The holiday rush will be in full swing in the next month, don’t wait
to optimize until its too late. Find out how to improve your site
now and watch your sales number soar over last year.

“Audrey’s ideas helped us double our conversion rate…
and sell
FOUR TIMES the number of items compared to a year earlier…”

“Our web site was struggling with low conversion rates, and we
knew it 
was not well optimized. Through her site analysis and
suggestions for 
improvement Audrey’s ideas helped us double
our conversion rate for 
the month of December. We emphasized
a particular product line 
and ended up selling FOUR TIMES the
number of items we had when 
compared to a year earlier…”

Sylvia Seamands
Retired M.D.,
Online Store Owner

My conversion site reviews are normally $200, but for a limited
time you can 
get your personal site review for only $97.

Book Your Site Review Here: http://www.ecomsitereview.com

I have 50 slots available so you want to book your site review now.

“Audrey – 
I’d really like to send you a huge THANK YOU! 
Your website
review was awesome. It’s got us moving on all that stuff that needed
to get done. We are completely focused on prepping for the big
holiday season. That was such a thorough review and then delivered
via video – I was completely impressed with the presentation!”
Lew Sabbag

“WOW! Audrey, Thank you for the information you provided in my
website audit. Even though I have been in the ecommerce business
for nearly 10 it is easy to miss things that are (or are not) happening
on your own site.  I really appreciate the insight. I have already
started making changes and will be monitoring the improvements.
Thank you for the audit – it was well worth my time and investment!”
Michelle Chance-Sangthong

Less than $450 per year?

Jumpstart Your eCommerce Business

Do you find yourself getting stuck when it comes to deciding what you should be focusing on in your store?

Are you having trouble figuring out what is keeping your store from being the profit-maker you know it should be?

Would direct access to a seasoned eCommerce Expert help you increase the bottom line of your online store?

Find out how you can get unstuck and add rocket fuel to your online business.

Find Out More => http://ecomcatalyst.net/

You will gain direct access to me, Audrey Kerwood, on live calls and through a 24/7 online forum.

You will also have direct access to a new expert each and every month. Here is a taste of the caliber of experts you will be in contact with:

•    Leslie Rohde – SEO Expert
•    Chris Malta – eCommerce Expert, Owner of Worldwide Brands
•    Linda Bustos – eCommerce Trend Expert, owner of ElasticPath.com
•    Vin Montello – The Godfather of Copywriting
•    Ross Goldberg – Web Traffic & SEO Expert
•    Shirley Tan – eCommerce Expert, founder of American Bridal
•    Mike Wesely – Social Media Expert, Formerly ranked #1 in the World on Twitter
•    Eric Stafford – Conversion Expert
•    Sherman Hu – Video, Blogging, and New Media Expert
•    Plus many more

Find Out More => http://ecomcatalyst.net/

Email Marketing for eCommerce

I’m just back from JV Alert Live in Orlando, it was a fantastic event. I talked with quite a few people about the importance of a good follow up campaign and newsletters for eCommerce stores. So I thought I’d post specifically about email marketing.

Email Blastoff!
Get more out of our eCommerce store through your list.

Just because you sell physical products instead of Internet marketing tools doesn’t mean you don’t need to put out a regular newsletter. I’ve found that a lot of eCommerce storeowners don’t put out newsletters on a regular basis because they don’t know how to offer their products. Putting out a newsletter four times a year at holidays is a start there is much more to be gained by doing regular mailings.

So let’s start from the beginning, before you can send newsletters you have to have a list. Your store software might include an opt-in program or you can use a third party program.

Once you have your opt-in box on your site you have to work on your offer. Just saying “Sign up for our specials” isn’t enough; you need to offer your visitor a good and fair incentive to give you their email address and the right to market to them. I’ve had great success by offering a percentage discount coupon that is sent to the customer instantly. The point is to make whatever you’re offering easy and fast for the customer. Don’t make them have to think or wait for something – you’ll lose both ways.

Okay, you’ve got your message and it’s garnering sign-ups, time to get to getting! Holidays are pretty easy – New Years Sale, Fourth of July Sale, Fathers Day Sale – but what about all those other days of the year? What do you say? How do you justify sending out these emails? Easy, give them something!

Here are some ideas that gave worked very well for me in the past:

Another discount coupon. This can be for specific products or a blanket storewide discount. You can set a threshold price for storewide sales so you’re not losing money on your lower profit items, i.e. 10% off orders over $50. Buy one get one free. If you’re promoting a product with enough of a profit margin, buy one get one sales are fantastic sellers. Even if you sell a product people wouldn’t necessarily need more than one of, you can offer buy one get one of equal or lesser value. If you can pull this off it’s a great sales tactic.

Buy one get one ½ off. Same basic principle as the buy one get one you just keep more of the profit while still offering the customer a deal.

Buy one get a free xxxx. An example of this that I use is: Buy any tapestry over $200 and get a free hanging rod. The rods cost me about $11 apiece and I charge $22 in the store so this promotion is a great way to get my customers to buy the next tapestry size up so they save the $22. It works very well for anything that can be accessorized; it’s one of my favorite promotions.

Featured Product of The Week (Month, Day, Hour). I have found offers with a time limit capture a lot of interest. When doing a featured product mailing I describe the item in great detail and provide more than one picture if possible. You really want to feature this product, so talk it up. List all the virtues of the product and try to make the customer feel what it would be like to own it. A single product offer is different from any of the others I’ve mentioned because the benefits have to be much more specific.

Those are a few great ideas that work very well with eCommerce stores. Now lets talk about subject lines. It’s all well and good to have a great offer for your subscribers but they won’t know about it unless they open and read your email. Subject lines are just as important as content and design. In fact they can be more important. Let me use a different form of marketing to illustrate.

Think of movie posters, specifically the taglines. Now even more specifically the poster for the movie Alien. I’ll describe it in case you don’t know what it looks like. It’s almost entirely black with a faintly glowing greenish egg in the center. The title “Alien” is spelled out above it. Without the tagline (I’ll tell you what it is in a moment) the poster means whatever you attribute to it. If you were afraid of aliens it would seem ominous, but if you’ve just finished watching ET your perspective might be completely different. It’s the tagline that explains the purpose of the images – “In space no one can hear you scream”. Pretty clear it’s a horror movie now and if you’re a horror fan you are so seeing that movie!

Now let me tie this in with newsletters. Your customers probably subscribe to more than just your newsletter and they’re probably not waiting in anticipation for your next mailing. If your subject is bland it doesn’t matter how well written the content is or how amazing the images of your products look because most of your customers will delete it without opening it. People are being sold to everywhere they go and it seems everyone is always having a sale so: “Big Sale at My Store” isn’t going to get you the open rate you want. So what do you write?

Let’s go back to the movie poster example. The image and title are for all intents and purposes neutral. If the tagline had been the equivalent of “Big Sale at My Store” it would read “Humans Meet Alien”, not exciting, not descriptive, not seeing that movie. It describes the movie in a completely general sense and conveys nothing about the content. How can people decide if they are interested based on what amounts to nothing?

Over communicating is just as bad. For example, “Sent to a distant planet for recon, seven deep space miners encounter a new species of destructive alien that rampages through their ship and kills all but one of them before being blown out of an airlock.” Um, thanks, I’m not eve going to read all of that. In terms of email marketing it would look like this, “Three Day Buy One Get One Free Sale On Modern Art Tapestries Handmade and Imported from Belgium For Stunning Home Decor.” Too long and it looks like spam. You want a bite-size hook not some long exposition that will be truncated by your customers email client.

Make your message clear and concise, a call to action doesn’t hurt either. “Three Day Buy One Get One Tapestry Sale”, “Get a Rod with Your Tapestry Purchase”, “All Tapestries 20% Off This Friday”. These all work. Don’t use all caps, avoid extra punctuation, and don’t use more than one exclamation point if you must use any at all.

Now that you’ve gotten your customer to take a look at your content you need to capture their eye with your design. There are a lot of different elements and considerations that go into design so I’m going to start with the most basic and technically the only necessary one – product pictures. Your products need to be the focus. Whether you’re featuring just one or a whole menagerie, your images have to be clear and sharp. In other words, your products need to pop.

You can use in-context images or just simple product pictures. One layout I’m fond of using is an in-context image at the top either to the right or left of my offer text, then three to six regular product images in columns underneath. I’ve also had success with nine regular images in three rows arranged by category. For single product promotions I like to put a large regular image in the center and a smaller in-context image inset with my offer text.

I also include the name of the product below each image (except on single product promotions) and hyperlink both it and the image. If I’m running a storewide sale or promoting a specific category of products I include links to view all related products. For example in a storewide sale mailing below the text link to a contemporary art tapestry I will have text saying View All Contemporary Art Tapestries linked to the corresponding category.

The design that works best for me may not work as well for your products and/or customer base. So always be testing new layouts. When you’re looking for design ideas go to some of the sites you order from regularly and sign up for their newsletter. Also sign up for some of your competitors’ newsletters. I’m not in any way suggesting you pilfer a design but there is nothing wrong with emulating things you like about others. And with competitors you also have the benefit of choosing to differentiate yourself with a completely different design.

One thing to be sure of when you’re adding images into your newsletter is they need to be absolute URLs. There are some email programs that allow you to upload images and place them in the template. But if you’re not using a program that has that feature or you’re building your own template in an HTML editor you have to enter the image location in manually.

If your going to use the same exact image that is on your website you can right click on it and select View Image to get the URL. If you’re going to make changes to the image, i.e. size, color, effects, you’ll need to publish it somewhere to get an absolute URL. You can upload it through the backend of your store just as you do when you add products for sale – just be sure to name it differently than your store product image – or you can use FTP if you have access to it.

Most email marketing programs have built in templates that you can add or upload text and images to and there is nothing wrong with using them. You should customize them a bit though. Change the colors, alter the layout, that sort of thing. I suggest doing this because many of the other marketers that use the program will be using the same templates are you. This isn’t nearly as big a deal as having the same website template but it’s worth doing.

If you’re creating your own HTML email template using an editor be sure to put in all the proper tags from the email software you’re using. If you want a greeting at the top you need to put in the code to call the customers name. If you want tracking (you definitely do) be sure to add the tracking tag. In the admin of your email program it should tell you what these tags are and where they should be placed in your code.

Let’s talk about code for a moment. My best advice is to keep it as simple as possible. The more tables, large images, and scripts you put in the longer it will take to load. People don’t wait very long for web pages to load and they’ll have even less patience when looking at email. If you’re designing your email with a large in-context image break the image up into a few slices rather than one large file. Use div tags instead of tables wherever you can.

Another thing to remember as far as tables go is the more you have the better the chances your newsletter will not show up correctly in some email clients. You don’t want to go through all the work of creating an awesome looking email only to have it go all screwy in Gmail. I’ve done it; it did not make me smile. A low tech way to test your emails is to create accounts with all the free clients then create a separate contact list in your email marketing program. Before you schedule or send your newsletter, send a test out to this list and make sure it’s showing up the way you want it to. Scheduling is another very important factor in email marketing success.

Just as sales ebb and flow with the days of the week so does email response. There are a lot of different ideas and theories marketers have about the best day to mail but I firmly believe it varies by industry and customer type. For instance, I do my tapestry mailings on Friday afternoons and my sports mailing Wednesday evenings.

This is something you will have to test. You need to get a feel for your customer base and how they like to do things. A large part of my tapestry customers order Friday evening and Saturday afternoon. So I aim to get my email offer to them an hour or two before prime time spending. Look at your stats and figure out the day of the week and rough time you get the most orders. By rough time I mean morning, afternoon, or night and schedule your mailing to hit inboxes just before. That’s how you should begin and test from there.

You should also test frequency of mailings. Your customer base, again, will dictate this. For my tapestry store I send out storewide sale mailings every week and do a featured product of the month mailing the first Sunday of every month. For my sports store I send out category specific mailings weekly and bi-weekly featured product offers.

Another thing I like to do, and my customers seem to like it too, is to feature products related to the season. For instance, in the Spring I feature tapestries related to the season of renewal or the upcoming summer months. Likewise for the sports store I feature MLB and NHL items because those are foremost in the mind of many sports fans.

A nice, simple way to see instantly how well your offers are doing is to use different coupon codes. This should not be your only form of tracking. You should use the tracking options offered by your email marketing software and have methods in place in your store to track conversion. That being said, nay demanded, I like to use varying codes because they show up on order receipts and I get an idea how well an offer is being received as orders come in without having to log into my tracking admin.

If you’re putting the same offer on your blog as you are sending out to your newsletter list create two different codes. If you send out a weekly newsletter create a new coupon code each week. You’ll be able to tell how fast or slow sales result from your efforts just by looking at your order receipts. Likewise, use a new code for each featured product rather than reuse a generic code. This isn’t a mandatory practice, just something I like to do that I’d thought I’d share.

I have been doing email marketing for my eCommerce stores for over five years and I’m still testing new offers and new designs. If you put as much thought and care into designing your newsletters as you do your website you will increase the value of your list and reap the benefits of repeat sales. Keep testing and digging deeper into the wants and needs of your customer base and you will create another income stream from within your existing business, it’s a wonderful thing.

-Get and opt-in box on your website to collect email addresses
-Create an offer your customers will want to sign up for
-Create and test different types of sales
–Buy one get one, Single product, Free accessory, etc
-Write an eye-catching subject line to describe your sale and make your subscribers want to click
-Test different email design layouts including single product, varying number of products and columns, in-context images, etc
-Be sure to code using absolute URLs and keep your HTML simple
-Figure out your sales cycle and schedule your newsletter to hit customer inboxes right before your highest sales period
-Keep testing!

Content Creation Webinar Replay

For everyone who wasn’t able to make it to the webinar live the other night,
Brendan Will has posted a replay of the entire webinar for you.

You don’t have to do anything special to watch – you don’t have to register
or download anything – just watch at your own convenience.

On the webinar Brendan, Lesley, and I talked extensively about content
creation for eCommerce stores. We spent a lot of time talking specifically
about writing product descriptions and articles / blog posts.

I walk you through everything I do to create this content, step by step.
I also answer over 50 questions submitted by listeners and take live
questions from those on the call.

This was an informative webinar I think you should take the time to
listen to. You’ll learn about content creation and get new ideas you
can implement on your store immediately.

Enjoy

http://www.easycontentblueprints.com/audrey-kerwood-webinar-replay/

Get All Your eCommerce Questions Answered

Tomorrow you can get the questions to your content marketing problems answered. Join Brendan Will, Lesley Rice, and I (Audrey Kerwood) as we go over your most common problems with content marketing.

- No more problems rewriting your product descriptions. We have an action plan for that.

- No more problems deciding what types of articles to write to best promote your business, we have a plan for that too.

Sign up for the webinar now.

http://www.easycontentblueprints.com/webinar

There is a bonus recording available on how to improve your site conversion rate just for signing up.

There was such a rush to register yesterday that the website went down. Thanks, that made us feel pretty awesome   This has been fixed so there will be no problems registering. We’ll see you tomorrow night!

Anatomy of a High-Converting Store Book

Interested in increasing your online store’s conversion? You can now get my acclaimed Anatomy of a High-Converting Online Store presentation to study at your own pace.

http://www.audreykerwoodblog.com/anatomyofahighconvertingstore

I put the entire presentation and a few bonus strategies together in a simple to download eBook that you can read, implement, and re-read at your own leisure.

This is a 34 page pdf book that goes through each of the conversion strategies I employ on all my eCommerce Stores. Every aspect and tactic is covered and explained. I don’t simply tell you what to do, I explain the psychology behind why it works. This way you understand why certain things work while others don’t and you can come up with new ideas tailored to your specific market.

This is learning conversion the smart way… actually learning it rather than just listening to it.

This book will show you how to get your visitors engaged and ready to buy from the moment they land on your home page. Then I go even further by explaining how to keep that level of engagement and excitement throughout your entire site, all the way through checkout.

These techniques and strategies will not only ensure you get more sales, they’ll also ensure your customers will be happy once they place their order and excited to get your products.

Anatomy of a High-Converting Online Store = happy store owners and happy customers. Can you beat that?

Actually, yes I can…

Oh, it’s only $5.99.

Grab your copy now and start getting more orders right away.

http://www.audreykerwoodblog.com/anatomyofahighconvertingstore

Get Your Site Reviewed By Audrey

The feedback for my personal site reviews has been incredible and I’ve been inundated by requests from people who weren’t able to buy in time to get the bonus site review.

Well, I love doing these site reviews so I’ve put together a plan to offer you the opportunity to get your own personal site review.

I’ll go through your entire site starting at the home page and working all the way through your checkout process to see where your site can
be improved for your customer usability and overall conversion.

Book Your Site Review Here: http://www.audreykerwoodblog.com/ecommercesitereview

“Audrey’s ideas helped us double our conversion rate… and sell FOUR TIMES 
the number of items compared to a year earlier…”

“Our web site was struggling with low conversion rates, and we knew it was not well optimized. Through her site analysis and suggestions for improvement Audrey’s ideas helped us double our conversion rate for the month of December 2009. We emphasized a particular product line and ended up selling FOUR TIMES the number of items we had when compared to a year earlier…”

Sylvia Seamands
Retired M.D.,
Online Store Owner

The holidays are coming so now is the perfect time to ramp up your site
conversion to capture the profits you deserve.

I normally charge $200 per site review, but for a limited time you can
get your personal site review for only $97.

Book Your Site Review Here: http://www.audreykerwoodblog.com/ecommercesitereview

I have 50 slots available so you want to book your site review now.

Don’t worry if you’re still building your site and aren’t quite ready to have it
reviewed. Book your slot now and you can let me know when you want me
to review your site. It can be anytime from now until December 1st 2010.

These 50 slots are going to go fast, so be sure to book your site review now.

I look forward to working with you to make your site irresistible to your
customers and making you the money your store is worth.

Get Rich and Happy Online

That’s where we all want to get to, right? Being rich AND happy? It is possible, that’s what the Get Rich and Happy Event is all about.

I am one of the featured speakers at the event which is in Philadelphia Nov 5, 6, 7. The event is going to feature 14 amazing speakers in all – Jim Britt – Jason Oman – Ken McArthur – Jim Donovan – just to name a few.

I’m really excited to be speaking at the event. I’m going to be speaking about eCommerce and Online Marketing in general and welcome as many questions as attendees can throw at me all weekend.

Get Rich and Happy is going to be a killer seminar. The breadth of experience and perspectives from the speakers is massive. With so many different approaches and types of businesses you will learn how to take your business to the next level… the way YOU want to.

The cost for this event is almost ridiculous it’s so low. For all 3 days with 14 amazing speakers, the cost is only $97.

http://getrichandhappyevent.com/?id=audreykerwood

I’ll be on a webinar for the event this coming Thursday, August 19th at 8pm Eastern. If you want a taste of what the seminar will be like or what I’m like in person, join us on the call here: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/707770489

Larry Steinhouse and I will be talking about eCommerce and online marketing and I’ll be taking questions afterward. I’d love to hear from you.

The webinar is totally free, it’s part of the Get Rich and Happy Event series Larry has been doing with the seminar speakers. It’s going to be a great call and an even better event. Hope to see you at both!

eCommerce Incubator Is Open

It’s been a long wait and I’ve been bombarded with emails asking about the program…

I’m happy to announce that eCom Incubator is finally open to the public!

Get your copy here: http://www.eComIncubator.com/open.html

If you buy before August 10th at midnight you can get the special discount price of $197.50. The regular retail price is $249.50, you save $50!

eCom Incubator is a complete 12 Week eCommerce Home Study Course…

From researching a new market and the correct search terms…

…to finding and vetting suppliers and dropshippers…

…to building out your online store and maximizing sales conversions…

The 12 Training Modules inside eCom Incubator take you from daydreaming about your ideal eCommerce business…

…to actually owning and running it!

Catalyze your online efforts now: http://www.eComIncubator.com/open.html

And if $50 off isn’t enough, you also get 5 free bonuses when you place your order:

Bonus 1: Free DVD of the entire eCom Incubator
Course – compatible with Mac and Windows this
DVD-ROM allows you to skip the huge downloads
and listen or watch at your convenience.

Bonus 2: Complete Store Graphics Package -
Fully customizable Headers, Image Ads, and
Add To Cart buttons that I designed specifically for
eCommerce stores!

Bonus 3: Graphics Package Video Tutorials -
Watch as I take you through each of the templates
I created for you and show you step by step how to
create your own in-context images!

Bonus 4: Enhanced PDF Transcript of my
“Setting Up Your eShop for the 2010 Holidays”
webinar – everything you need to do to make
the most profits this upcoming holiday season!

Bonus 5: Action Plan 2010 Holiday Season
Calendars – Stay on track with your holiday planning
with these convenient calendars that lay out each
step for easy reference!

That’s a lot of great stuff!

eCom Incubator also comes with my solid 1 year money back guarantee. You have a full 365 days to put my methods to work and if you’re not satisfied, simply drop the DVD in the mail and we’ll give you a 100% refund… even if it’s a year from now.

Grab your copy now: http://www.eComIncubator.com/open.html

Next Page »