Marketing Tools to Selling Online: Use One, Use All, and See Sales Grow!

Many online merchants in the eTaildTail community have asked me about the many marketing tools available to them to market their product catalog, brand, and storefront online.   Below I summarize 6 obvious ones that when used in concert together can be very effective in driving traffic, and hopeful sales, to your website. 

This does not include email marketing,which is a "science" unto itself...and something no one has really mastered!  But if you want a very cool (inexpensive) new rich, media, video email application that has back-end tracking and is very cool, ad works, check out www.FLIMP.net.  Tell them eTaildTail sent you.

I realize that unlimited marketing budgets are a scarcity, LOL, so may I suggest that you draw a pie chart, determine how much money you have to allocate for marketing for 6 moths and 12 months and then allocate appropriate funds to do AT LEAST 3 of the below effectively and continually. 

Ideally you should do all 6, but again budgets are probably a constraint.   The reason I say do at least 3 is that they work in concert with each other and search engines will pick up each campaign, thus increasing your relevancy in organic search by Google, Yahoo and others.

Happy marketing!

1. Affiliate Marketing:
Affiliate marketing is a relationship between web site owners, storefronts, merchants, and any body who sells online.  It is basically an inter related partnership where we all try and drive traffic to each other’s sites by appealing to a “similar” customer base from one site to another.  Websites will put merchants’ advertisement (usually text link or banner) on their page and then a merchant pays commission from each revenue deal. Sometimes these relationships revolve around leads and not necessarily sales, so be creative when you create an affiliate program. 

The advantage of pure revenue based promotions is that everyone only makes money from an actual sale =  you don’t lose money just time setting the program up.

If you want to start your own affiliate program you can buy one of many available scripts or use some of affiliate networks like Link Share or Commission Junction – but before these please understand the all in costs associated with working them, as they do charge a commission for leads.

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO):
Search engine optimization is one of the most effective (and one of the hardest) ways to reach targeted customers. If you are a search engine optimization specialist, optimize your web site for effective keywords that relate to your product line = think like a consumer = what would they type in a search engine to try and find your product?

If you know nothing about SEO, find some basic information on Internet and optimize for easy keywords or hire an SEO company – they can be expensive but they do work. The advantage of SEO is that you can target visitors who want to buy products you offer. The disadvantage is the long time necessary for successful optimization = 12 months campaigns work, anything less you are probably wasting your time.

3. Pay Per Click (PPC) on Organic/General Search Engines:
There are several search engines offering pay per click programs and they can be very effective and there are companies that also will manage this for you. Simply what PPC advertising on search engines is that an online merchant chooses keywords they like and then bid on them. 

It sounds easy but many online merchants get caught in a bidding war and they lose site of the cost of the click in relation to the effectiveness of that keyword. 

One friend of mine noted the following:  “If consumers search for a specific keyword, the advertisements targeted for this keyword are displayed. If more advertisers select the same keyword the advertisements are sorted by the bid (except google AdWords, there the advertisement position depends on the bid and click rate). The big advantage of pay per click system is the fact that you can start your campaign in a few minutes.”

4. Pay Per Click (PPC)/Revenue Share on Shopping Comparison Sites/Destinations/Marketplaces:
There are over 100 shopping comparison sites and marketplaces. Think of them as virtual online malls. These include Amazon, Shop.com, eBay, Shopzilla, GolfPricer.com and many, many more.  www.MerchantAdvantage.com feeds to over 125 channels, so ask them about all of them.

Most business models on these sites are PPC, where you pay a fee for a click through lead to your site and others are commission based, where you only pay on an actual sale.  The fees related to both types of marketing efforts vary from site to site and product category to product category.
 
These marketing channels act in a similar way to Point 3 above, but they are specific for shopping.  Rather than buying associated keywords for general search to get folks to find your products, you send a product catalog feed to these marketing channels for them to “display” your products for their customers.

When a customer comes to the “virtual online mall” they see your product and click to buy.  And you either pay for the lead (PPC) or a commission on the revenue/sale.

5. Banner Exchanges:
You include a HTML code to your web site and each time somebody visits the site where the HTML code is placed a banner will be displayed and you receive credits (usually 1/2 - 1 credit depending on the exchange ratio). For each credit you "earn" your banner will be displayed on another banner exchange member’s page. This type of promotion is good for branding but it will increase your traffic very little – industry average is 0.5 - 1 % only (depending on click rate of your banner). 

It is wise to combine this method with other strategies listed here.

6. Promotional Coupon Codes:
Everybody is happy with a free gift or some discount. Right?  A lot of online marketers take advantage of this fact. There are many promotional coupon code directories on Internet – just google one.  Or try www.mycoupons.com or www.couponmountain.com and away you go.

To do execute this all correctly, just list your coupon code to “coupon”  web sites. The best ting to do, if you have the time, is to try a combination of promotional coupon codes strategy and affiliate marketing. Give your publishers promo codes or special affiliate links. If the visitor clicks this link, s/he gets a discount, a free gift, free shipping or other benefits = every one is happy.  These can be very effective and very easy to manage once you have it all set up!

HELPFUL HINTS FOR THE DAY:

There are many online marketing methods that can help you get traffic, leads, branding, and sales.  Some work well along but by implementing 3 or more you should start to see some great benefits to building your business.  Some methods, which are explained above, include:

1. Affiliate Marketing
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
3. Pay Per Click (PPC) on Organic/General Search Engine
4. Pay Per Click (PPC)/Revenue Share on Shopping Comparison Sites/Destinations/Marketplaces
5. Banner Exchanges
6. Promotional Coupon Codes

Comments

[Lauren]

Thanks so much for your post regarding Flimp Media. If you or any of your readers would like to learn more about FLIMP I would be more than happy to set up a demo account and pilot for you if you are interested.

Please do not hesitate to email me with any questions or if you would like a brief online tour.

Thanks again,
Lauren Barrows
lbarrows@flimp.net

[Lauren]

Thanks so much for your post regarding Flimp Media. If you or any of your readers would like to learn more about FLIMP I would be more than happy to set up a demo account and pilot for you if you are interested.

Please do not hesitate to email me with any questions or if you would like a brief online tour.

Thanks again,
Lauren Barrows
lbarrows@flimp.net

[Bob Beatty]

What is the future of etail should i hold on to etailstore.com or sell it