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The Online Marketing Project: How to Improve Your Online Presence One Step at a Time – Part 1

April 1st, 2013 ::
This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series Online Marketing Project

If you’re familiar with the book (and blog) The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, the title of this blog post series might sound familiar. In the book, Rubin works on improving a different part of her life one month at a time and offers suggestions on how to do it yourself at the end.

The Happiness Project is the inspiration for this 4-part blog post series. Because it is so much easier to reach your goals in small, doable steps, I broke down the elements of what goes into a comprehensive online marketing strategy. I don’t know if it will make you happier, but my plan will certainly make online marketing easier to put your arms around. Let’s get started!

Step 1: Audit Your Website

Because the foundation of your online presence is your website, that’s where we’re starting:

  • Look at your Google Analytics data – What keywords are you being found for? Where is your traffic coming from? What pages are visitors spending time on?
  • Update your website – Add new information and remove anything that is outdated. Bulk up the pages visitors spend the most time on and remove any that get no traffic.
  • Proof your website – Check that all links work, spelling and grammar are correct, and the keywords you are being found for are being used throughout the site.
  • Optimize your website – Work with a search engine optimization expert (ask your web developer for recommendations) to ensure your site is properly optimized. Set up a maintenance schedule with the SEO person to make sure your site keeps up with changes in technology and search engine algorithms.

Step 2: Build a Mobile Site

Thanks to the increasing use of mobile devices to access and shop on the Internet, now is the time to put together a great mobile site:

  • Prioritize content – Because mobile sites have smaller screens, you want to add only the content that is most relevant to a mobile user, like hours of operation, location (with a map!), a brief overview of products and services, and contact info.
  • Streamline navigation – To cut down on scrolling or tapping, make sure the developer keeps navigation super simple.
  • Make contact info actionable – If you add an email address or phone number, a user should be able to tap on it and instantly connect with their email or phone functions.

Step 3: Start Listening

Now that your website and mobile sites are in good shape, time to find out what your customers and target market care about:

  • Set up Google Alerts – Find out what people are saying about your business, industry, products, and services by setting up Google Alerts using relevant keywords.
  • Follow trends on Twitter – If you are active on Twitter, trending topics are automatically customized for you based on who you follow. You can find them in the left-hand column.
  • Ask your customers – Sometimes the most obvious solution is the simplest. Ask your customers what they care about on Facebook or with a survey. To increase the amount of feedback you get, offer a freebie.

In my next post, we’ll look at editorial calendars, social media, and blogging, but til then, what aspect of marketing do you most want to improve?

Image by Flickr user fra-NCIS (Creative Commons)

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The Future of Online Retailing

April 1st, 2013 ::

By Rieva Lesonsky

Spurred by the rapid adoption of mobile devices like tablets and smartphones, as well as by major retailers’ investment in their websites, ecommerce sales in the U.S. are projected to rise from $231 billion last year to $262 billion this year—an increase of 13 percent–according to the latest forecasts from market research firm Forrester. Three product categories account for one-third of that total: apparel and accessories, consumer electronics and computer hardware.

Ecommerce currently accounts for some 8 percent of overall U.S. retail sales (or 11 percent, if grocery sales are excluded). Growth in online retail sales is projected to outpace the growth of traditional retail sales in the next five years. By 2017, total ecommerce sales in the U.S. should hit $370 billion.

Forrester says the increased use of smartphones and tablets is a major factor powering ecommerce growth. With over 50 percent of U.S. online users owning smartphones, many smartphone owners use any spare moment to go online. As a result, people are spending more time overall online than they would if they had to go to their PC or laptop to shop—and that means more browsing, shopping and purchasing.

Another driver behind ecommerce growth is that major retailers are rapidly making investments in their ecommerce divisions in order to better integrate their in-store and online shopping experiences. Even customers who head to a brick-and-mortar store now often end up buying merchandise online within the store, or using smartphones to find the same products elsewhere and order them online.

Surprisingly, new shoppers coming online for the first time are not a major factor in the growth of ecommerce. Just 4 million people are projected to buy online for the first time this year. Instead, growth is coming because people who are already comfortable with online shopping are now spending more money online, ordering more often, and buying a wider range of products from a variety of sites. Forrester says online shoppers typically become comfortable with ecommerce by purchasing low-risk items such as downloadable music or movies. Only then do they move up to more expensive purchases such as appliances or home furnishings.

Forrester’s report has some more good news, not just for ecommerce vendors but also for the economy as a whole: Ecommerce companies are powering employment growth. Currently, Forrester says, U.S. ecommerce businesses employ over 400,000 people, and that figure is expected to hit 500,000 by 2017.

Image by Flickr user Mosman Council (Creative Commons)

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Posted in Business Development, Marketing, Sales Process, sales process, Small Business, small business, Technology, Web Design | No Comments »

Web.com Small Business Toolkit: PageSpeed Insights (Website Speed Analyzer)

March 28th, 2013 ::

PageSpeed Insights

How fast does your website load? If it’s not fast enough, you could be losing customers who get impatient waiting for your beautiful but complex site to load. To help figure out what’s slowing your site down, check out PageSpeed Insights from Google. Simply input your URL and PageSpeed Insights will scan your website and make suggestions on how to speed up your site by optimizing photos, adjusting HTML and more. PageSpeed will also prioritize the changes in order of importance so you can see results immediately by taking care of the high-priority changes first.

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Posted in Marketing, Resources, Small Business, small business, Technology, Web Design | No Comments »

The Anatomy of an Effective B2B Landing Page

March 12th, 2013 ::

Coming in for a landingOne of the best ways to generate leads via your website is with landing pages. Landing pages are hidden pages (i.e., they’re not accessible via your site’s menu) that allow a visitor to download or access content – a demo, ebook, whitepaper, etc. – after they fill out a short form.

Whether you have a landing page or want to add one (or a few) to your site, here are the 4 elements you’ll need to incorporate on your page to make it as effective as possible:

1. Clear and visible messaging

The messaging and value proposition on your page should be written clearly and concisely and positioned front and center on your page.

  • Include the value proposition in the headline
  • List the benefits of acting on the offer
  • If the offer was created by an industry expert, let the visitor know what makes that person so great
  • Make it clear what the visitor will receive

2. Clean layout

Avoid the temptation to clutter the page with graphics, quotes, a laundry list of your products or services, or offers for other content.

  • Keep design to a minimum – lots of white space is good
  • Remove a menu or other navigation tools so the visitor stays on that page
  • Make sure the download button is large and pops off the page

3. Short information-capture form

Decide what information you really need in order to 1) qualify the visitor as a lead, and 2) then contact them. There’s a big difference between must-have and nice-to-have, and the shorter your form, the easier it is for the visitor to access the offer.

  • At the least, ask for name, company, job title and email
  • To qualify them further, you could ask for location, company size, website and/or their biggest challenge in a certain area (a free form field)
  • If an question is optional, make it clear

4. Thank you/access page

OK, so this is technically not part of the original landing page, but I wanted to include it. Once your visitor submits their information, take them to a new thank you page that has a similar look and feel to the landing page.

  • Say thank you!
  • Remind them what they’re getting
  • Provide an access link to the offer, or let them know you just emailed access to them
  • Provide links to other content or pages on your website where they can find more information on the subject
What else should a landing page include?
Image courtesy of the author

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Posted in Marketing, Web Design | 5 Comments »

Does Your Retail Business Need a Mobile App?

March 11th, 2013 ::

By Rieva Lesonsky

Does your small business need a mobile app? If you’re a retailer or etailer, maybe so. A new study from Flurry measured the time consumers spent using more than 1,800 iOS and Android shopping apps between December 2011 and December 2012.

The study divided apps into five categories:

  1. Retailer Apps (such as Walmart, Target, Macy’s, Victoria’s Secret, Gap, Saks 5th Avenue)
  2. Price Comparison Apps (such as RedLaser and Grocery iQ)
  3. Purchase Assistant Apps (such as ShopSavvy and ShopAdvisor)
  4. Online Marketplace Apps (such as eBay and Amazon)
  5. Daily Deals Apps (such as Groupon and Living Social)

Time spent on all five types of apps grew quite a bit, but time spent with retailer apps skyrocketed the most (by 525 percent). That percentage far outstrips the overall growth in the use of both shopping apps (274 percent) and apps as a whole (132 percent).

The time consumers spent with Price Comparison and Purchase Assistant apps also grew significantly, by 247 percent and 228 percent, respectively. Even Online Marketplace and Daily Deals apps grew, though at 178 percent and 126 percent, respectively, the growth rate was far less.

The big winner in the growth of app use is retailers. Overall, in 2012 consumers spent 27 percent of app use time on retail apps (up from 15 percent in 2011). By contrast, the share of time spent on Daily Deals shrank from 20% in 2011 to 13% in 2012, and the share of time spent on Online Marketplace apps decreased from 25% in 2011 to 20% in 2012.

Flurry concludes that smart retailers will begin examining their customer relationships through the “mobile-first” lens. The rise in mobile app use—and especially in retail app use—shows that it’s more important than ever to extend your customer relationships to a variety of channels.

Instead of focusing solely on getting customers into your store—or even onto your website—you need to also focus on attracting them via their mobile devices. “In the new mobile app economy, devices are always with you, always on and always connected,” Flurry writes. Yes, 95 percent of sales still occur in physical stores, but mobile allows you to intercept customers in store aisles and affect their purchasing decisions before they ever reach the cash register. Consider tapping into apps that let customers save their credit card info, apps that let them ship an item to their homes, or apps that let them scan an item with their phones to place an order.

How are you using mobile apps to enhance your customers’ retail and e-tail experience?

Image by Flickr user Dru Bloomfield – At Home in Scottsdale (Creative Commons)

 

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Posted in Business Development, Customer Service, Marketing, Sales Process, sales process, Small Business, small business, Technology, Web Design | No Comments »

5 Key Digital Trends That Matter to Your Business

March 6th, 2013 ::

By Rieva Lesonsky

How will smartphones, tablets, social media and other digital trends affect the way you interact with your customers, market your business to consumers and sell your products and services in the coming year? comScore’s new 2013 U.S. Digital Future in Focus report took a closer look at what trends will influence business in 2013 and beyond. Here’s what the study found:

  1. Social media matures: Social networking in the U.S. is still dominated by Facebook; consumers spent 5 out of every 6 minutes spent online on social media. In addition to Facebook, which is maturing by focusing on new ways to monetize, smaller social media players making waves in 2013 will include LinkedIn, Yelp, Zynga, Groupon, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest and Instagram (which is now part of Facebook).
  2. Search flattens out: Although Google is still the strong leader in search engines, Bing gained some ground in 2012. That was also the year when more and more searches began taking place on mobile platforms, signaling a possible flattening of the desktop search market.
  3. Online video matures: comScore says the U.S. online video market is beginning to mature in terms of consumption, but still has a ways to go in terms of monetization. There is more demand for online video advertising space than there is inventory available, so comScore believes this advertising channel will continue to grow, and will become better at precisely targeting viewers.
  4. Smartphone and tablets gain traction: In 2012, smartphones finally surpassed 50 percent market penetration, and Android phones surpassed 50 percent of the smartphone market. Tablet use also surged; as of December 2012, some 52.4 million Americans owned tablets.
  5. Ecommerce and mcommerce grow: Despite continued economic uncertainty, retail ecommerce grew in 2012, outpacing the growth of brick-and-mortar retail by fourfold. Overall, U.S. retail and travel-related ecommerce rose 13 percent from 2011 to 2012, reaching $289 billion. In addition, mcommerce is starting to emerge, with comScore estimating that mcommerce transactions (both on smartphones and tablets) accounted for approximately 11 percent of ecommerce sales.

Is your business taking advantage of trends in social media, mobile device use, online video viewing and online commerce? If not, 2013 is the year to make your move. You can learn more about all of these trends by downloading a free copy of the 2013 U.S. Digital Future in Focusreport.

Image by Flickr user Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com (Creative Commons)

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Posted in Innovation, Marketing, Small Business, small business, Technology, Thought Leadership, Web Design | 4 Comments »

Etailers Rejoice: Ecommerce Spending Hits New Records

February 26th, 2013 ::

By Maria Valdez Haubrich

You know that ecommerce spending is growing—but did you know by just how much? In 2012, online shopping in the U.S. grew by 15 percent compared to 2011, reports comScore’s recently released full-year 2012 data. This was the strongest annual growth rate since back before the recession began. Overall, U.S. online shoppers spent $186.2 billion in 2012.

In the fourth quarter of 2012 alone (which includes the holiday shopping season), ecommerce sales grew by 14 percent year over year, reaching approximately $56.78 billion. ComScore had originally forecast a higher growth rate for 2012 ecommerce holiday sales, but last-minute consumer worries about the “fiscal cliff” appear to have had some effect on dampening online holiday sales just a bit.

Of course, the fourth-quarter sales are still nothing to complain about. Fourth-quarter 2012 was the first quarter ever that online sales hit $50 billion. It was also the thirteenth consecutive quarter of positive year-over-year growth and the ninth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth.

What kinds of products contributed the most to the growth in ecommerce sales? The strongest areas (those where online sales increased by at least 15 percent year over year) were digital content and subscriptions, consumer electronics, toys and hobby-related items, apparel and accessories, and books and magazines. So while digital content still leads the way (not surprisingly), most major retail areas are well-represented.

Overall, the number of U.S. ecommerce buyers rose by 6 percent, showing that more consumers are more comfortable buying online. In addition, the average spending per buyer rose by 8 percent.

All told, U.S. online spending accounted for 10 percent of total U.S. retail spending last year (excluding spending on food, gas and automotive). That makes 2012 the first time that U.S. ecommerce spending has hit double digits.

While comScore hasn’t yet made a projection as to 2013 ecommerce spending, the report says that as long as the lower-than-expected fourth-quarter 2012 sales were just a temporary setback, rather than a foreshadowing of decreasing economic confidence among consumers, 2013 is highly likely to see strong growth as well.

Image by Flickr user SamahR (Creative Commons)

 

 

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Marketers Are From Mars, Consumers Are From Venus

February 21st, 2013 ::

By Maria Valdez Haubrich

Social media is growing by leaps and bounds, but email is still the best way to reach out to the most customers and gain their loyalty, reports a new study by ExactTarget. Called Marketers from Mars, the study found significant gaps between how marketers think customers want to be marketed to, and how customers actually want to interact with brands.

The clear winner? Email, which was named as the most valuable marketing tool for building loyalty by both customers and marketers. Ninety-three percent of consumers subscribe to at least one brand’s email, while about half (49 percent) have made a purchase as a direct result of email messages.  One-third of consumers want marketers to invest more in email marketing.

However, while marketers were highly focused on mobile marketing, customers aren’t quite there yet. About one-fourth of marketers thought mobile apps were an effective marketing tool, but just 7 percent of consumers thought so. Instead, consumers were more likely to want brands to invest more in marketing on their traditional websites.

Consumers were more likely than marketers to want to interact with brands on Facebook. More than half (58 percent) of consumers have “Liked” a brand on Facebook, up 20 percent from the prior survey in 2010. About one-third of consumers with a smartphone and one-fourth of consumers who do not own a smartphone say they prefer to interact with brands on Facebook, making it the second most common place consumers go to connect with businesses online.

While just 21 percent of consumers have made a purchase as a direct result of a Facebook message, 22 percent of consumers say they want marketers to invest in creating a better Facebook experience. This suggests that there is great potential for Facebook to grow as a sales and marketing channel.

While marketers are highly engaged with Twitter, consumers are far less so. Some 61 percent of marketers follow at least once brand on Twitter, but only 12 percent of consumers do. That was an increase of just 7 percent from the prior survey in 2010.

What’s the takeaway? If you’re involved in small business marketing, you’re on the cutting edge of new trends and technologies—so don’t make the mistake of assuming your habits mirror those of the average consumer. Always do your research to understand exactly what your target customers are doing and how they want you to market to them—it may not be how you’d like to be marketed to yourself.

You can download the complimentary research from Exact Target or view an infographic of the survey.

Image by Flickr user (Creative Commons)

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Posted in Branding, Business Development, Email Marketing, Marketing, Sales Process, sales process, Small Business, small business, Social Media, social media, Thought Leadership, Web Design | No Comments »

Web.com Small Business Toolkit: Wideo (Online Video Creator)

February 20th, 2013 ::

Wideo

Don’t be intimidated by all those online videos you see on other websites. You can create your own with Wideo. The videos are animations and can be used for explaining how your product works, how your company founders came together, or whatever your imagination comes up with. You can create, edit and share animation videos for free–it’s easier than you think. Insert objects, backgrounds and shapes or upload your own images and add text. Animate any object in as little as three clicks of a mouse.  Then build your story with animated scenes, and share your video with customers right away.

 

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Posted in Marketing, Resources, Small Business, small business, Technology, Videos, Web Design | No Comments »

6 Ways to Improve Your Website and Deliver the Information Your Customers Need

February 14th, 2013 ::

Sherlock HolmesAs a consumer, I find it incredibly frustrating to visit a website and not find the information I am looking for – I am sure you can relate. Sometimes it has to do with the content, which can range from dense, complicated, and completely unclear to so broad and general it is meaningless. Oftentimes, though, the information is simply missing.

Whatever the case, if your website visitor can’t find what they need, they will go elsewhere – and probably not come back. As a copywriter who works on a lot of website content, here are 6 simple ways to improve your website so your customers can easily find what they are looking for:

1. About Us

Your goal: Provide enough information so that a website visitor knows if you are a good fit for them and can meet their needs.

This might seem obvious, but make sure you clearly state – in plain English – what  you do, especially if your business is more technical, as well as the benefit of working with you. Also include your target market(s); for example, if you only work with commercial clients, then a residential customer will know to go elsewhere.

2. Contact Information

Your goal: Make it easy for customers to get in touch with you.

When a company practically hides their contact information, I wonder if they even want my business – or if they are headquartered on Mars. Display your phone number, email address, social media buttons, and physical address where it makes sense – not just on the Contact Us page.

3. Explainer Videos

Your goal: Quickly illustrate how something works.

If your product or service is more technical, complicated, or a new concept, a video will quickly illustrate how it works – like Dropbox does in this video on their home page.

4. FAQ

Your goal: Answer questions before they are asked.

“What are the hardware requirements? How long does it take? When will I start seeing results?” If you get the same questions over and over again, be sure to add an FAQ page to your website.

5. Downloadable Instructions

Your goal: Cut down on emails and phone calls.

It’s a basic fact that people lose paperwork, and with products being sold second-hand on Craigslist and elsewhere, you want to make sure your product is used properly. Add downloadable instructions to your website – it’ll reduce emails and phone calls.

6. Policies

Your goal: Keep your customers informed to avoid surprises or angry phone calls.

A lot of companies have privacy policies, but if you have others that will affect your customers, put them on your website, like Zappos did with their fur policy. You could have a smoking, pet, child, inclement weather, or return policy, but whatever it is, just put it up on your website – and make it easy to find.

What other information do you feel like you have to hunt for on websites?

Image courtesy of clipartist.info

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Posted in Marketing, Web Design | 2 Comments »

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