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Much of the entrepreneurial anxiety surrounding the use of Twitter for businesses is associated with these hip little things called Hashtags. I say “hip,” because they just randomly started appearing in Facebook, a completely different social media network. What’s even funnier, they became so popular that Facebook decided to start using them too.   For those unfamiliar, hashtags are useful little punctuation marks that make it easy to create communities and join discourse in the Twitterverse. They’re like topic headings that you can search for. In other words, hashtags are phrases that people can rally around like banners for all sorts of reasons; everything ranging from simple conversations, to activism, to product marketing. Any tweet that contains a particular hashtag will appear whenever said tag is searched. For example, if you were looking for a fun mobile application, you could enter "#androidgames". Then you could browse through the resulting tweets for awesome mobile game recommendations. You can turn anything into a hashtag. All that’s required is the # (hash) symbol in front of some text. The space bar acts as a delimiter, so treat the entire hashtag as a single word, even if it contains multiple words within. There’s also very little in the way of established etiquette for hashtags. They can be placed at the end of your message to be used as filtering tools, like so: Or, to be particularly contextually clever, you can use them mid-sentence: You can even use them to be obnoxious: But don’t do that. It’s obnoxious. Of course, this can all be a bit difficult to process at first. My inner-grammarian is screaming for spaces between words. However, once you’ve gotten the hang of it you can make better use of the social media network in all sorts of ways. You can create your own conversations where anyone can join, while only burning through a few their coveted 140 characters. Alternatively, you can join conversations that are already in progress, and more effectively target your audience that way. Targeting Speaking of targeting, it’s one of Twitter’s most powerful functionalities. To effectively target people in your niche, you’ll need to do a search of popular hashtags that fall within your niche. Choose or create a simple and easy hashtag based on your research. Try to pick one that is getting or will get a lot of impressions. Impressions are user interactions with your tweets. They can be either mentions, retweets, or replies. Then add it to the bottom of your tweets. Anytime someone searches that  hashtag, your tweet will be in their results. If you've correctly crafted your content, then it will offer them something they want. Simultaneously, it will be offering you their attention, which is definitely something you want. Everybody wins. However, Twitter targeting isn’t something that’s limited to hashtags. There are plenty of other distinct ways to target your niche. Here are 5 of our favorites. 1. Keywords in timeline Twitter has a timeline that’s available for marketers to peruse in order to insert their advertising in ways that make contextual sense. This feature, available only in Twitter’s “Ads UI” or “Ads API” paid services, helps you target consumers based on their recent tweets and tweet engagement, that is to say which tweets they’ve interacted with. This will help you find out what your customers are currently interested in, and how to appeal to those interests at the correct time, using the same keywords that they’ve been using themselves.  This is all part of Twitter’s Promoted Tweets program. 2. Interest Another Ads UI/API feature, targeting by interest, lets you choose a set of interests that you’d like to target. Any user that shares these interests and matches some additional filtering will receive a promoted tweet from your account. This can also be adapted to mimic your followers’ interests as well as your own.   3. Geography This one is pretty much self-explanatory. You can further narrow down your promoted tweet targeting by isolating it to a specific location. If you’re trying to break into a new market in a foreign land, this feature can be abundantly helpful. 4. Gender Maybe you’re selling fancy French perfumes online, and maybe it’s smarter not to market Chanel no. 5 to men. Some products are quite simply gender specific, and you don't want to waste time with people uninterested in your advertising. It might still build brand awarenes, but it also leaves a bad taste in their mouths. 5. Device Differentiating your marketing efforts between mobile and stationary devices (i.e. phones/tablets vs. desktops/laptops) is an absolute must for today’s online marketers. Just look at these stunning statistics detailing mobile Twitter use: That just seems like too much movement for your thumbs, but  I suppose you can’t stop progress. Twitter  marketing makes targeting so easy that anyone with internet access can become a fairly competent social media marketer in a matter of weeks. You’ve just got to put the legwork in, do your research, and effectively manage your databases. Look to sell to people at the right moment in the right setting. Not because it’s always necessary, but because it’s always more effective than just guessing. Check back next time as we delve into some awesome examples of big-time brands that conduct successful Twitter advertising campaigns.

  Social media networks are undoubtedly the next big boon to online advertisers. They serve as an individualized filters. Twitter in particular is personalized specifically to each and every one of its 200,000,000 different users. Smart marketers are developing strong social content strategies and implementing them across all different social media outlets. It's one of the most unique and relevant marketing tools around. Short 140 character messages can be used for everything from product launches to customer feedback. It’s a powerful device that today’s business owners need to understand. So to keep you in the know, we’ve put together some social media guidelines to help you traverse the treacherous Twitter waters.   Goal Setting Before becoming an expert Twitter fiend with thousands of followers and wielding vast amounts of internet influence, it’s important to set some reasonable and measurable goals for yourself. By reasonable, I mean realistic. Your brand won’t start off at the top of the heap and hit the ground running with a million twitter followers. Not unless you’re the lucky fella who gets to promote Taylor Swift’s Lonely Hearts Dating Service. Yeah, that’s totally a real thing. Go ahead look it up. Now that you’re done being gullible, and I’m finished being mean, let’s talk about some examples of measurable goals you can set for your social media strategy. Follower growth- You can try to increase your influence here. It’s akin to building brand awareness. This is an extremely easy metric to measure as your followers are prominently featured at the top of the Twitter dashboard. Follower Engagement- This is the amount of interactivity between you and your followers. Aim to increase this statistic to foster a friendship with your followers. That way you can quickly turn a follower to a lead, and a lead to a conversion. Site Traffic- Social media networks can be a significant source of traffic for your website. And through that you can actually attribute increased conversions to Twitter as well. So treat your Twitter account like the highly targeted sales funnel that it is. These are just a few of the "Twitter for business" metrics you can keep up with, and these three are actually very easy to track with Google Analytics. There are plenty more goals you can set that are more specified or ones that are only traceable using special software tools. Here is a link to Twitter’s official advice page on tracking different metrics. How to Market on Twitter Now that you’ve got some goals and you know how to track them, it’s time to learn how to use twitter for business advertising efforts. If you’re looking to increase conversion, (as you certainly should be) there are a few twitter marketing caveats that you’ll need to follow. Build Brand Awareness Twitter is an excellent method of bringing more attention to your company’s product or service. There are a few ways of going about this. There are some very simple starting points you can begin with, like adding a “Follow” button to your website or promoting your twitter account via your newsletter or a landing page. You can also embed a retweet button in all of the content you post on Twitter. Retweeting is immensely popular, and of the average 400,000,000 tweets that users make per day, a significant portion of them are retweets. Facilitate this process for your loyal users with an embedded retweet button in all of your content. It’s also a good idea to integrate similar functionality across all your social media platforms, e.g. post on Facebook, Tumblir, etc. In this way, you increase the chances of your content going viral.  Another reason to build brand awareness is so that you can add the social media data you gather on your customers to your database. The more you can learn about your customers, the easier you’ll find it to meet their needs with your products and services. Databases are a huge part of marketing a successful online business, and each of your Twitter followers is a potential lead. Create Community This goal sort of flows from building awareness naturally. It’s a very organic process. After building some buzz around your company and establishing an audience, it’s a good idea to actually interact with them. That means engaging individuals in conversations and interacting with them on a consistent basis. As your company grows, this can become a full time job in itself, but when you’re just starting out, you can set aside an hour or two each day to connect with your audience. Introverts need not apply. However, this attempt at online friendship begs a simple question: What should I tweet? The answer is plural and multifaceted. The simple response is: a lot. And often. But there are certain types of interactions you should aspire to create, and others that you should avoid. Here are some examples: Helpful content is better content. This can be applied in a variety of ways. Just like in our earlier post about targeted email campaigns, useful or informative industry related content is always a clear winner. So endeavor to find useful or interesting articles, infographics, videos, or educational materials and work on posting those. You can also be helpful in an active attempt to build a network of contacts that can all support one another. Look for other similar businesses in your niche, follow them and retweet there promotions. At the risk of sounding kinda new age-y, it’s just good karma. Within the Twittersphere, you’ll notice that spending your efforts on good will makes your company, (both personal and proprietary) an enviable commodity. You’ll build a network that runs on positive vibes and receive back many times over the helping hands that you’ve extended out over time. This might seem somewhat counter-intuitive according to traditional competitive strategy. However, that old-school way of thinking is quickly becoming obsolete. Instead of a rabid cutthroat economy crowded with marketers vying for the same piece of pie, we have a global network with no shortage of buyers for virtually any product or service. There’s enough pie for everyone. So pull up a chair and dig in, and don’t be afraid to invite anyone else to the table. Exclusive content is another good direction to walk in. You reward your Twitter followers by blasting out prizes, discounts, special offers, amazing deals, and what have you. Anything that adds value to being one of your followers. People love getting something for free, and ironically it makes them more willing to buy from you. The idea with this and every other tweeting strategy is to have good intentions guiding your actions. Come at your Twitter marketing efforts with the idea of actually being caring and you’ll see that the higher profits will flow out of being a helpful, educational, and entertaining resource for your Twitter followers. Inversely, if you spam them with disposable advertisements, and only talk about your business, (re: self-absorbed) you’ll be marked as uncaring and won’t be cared for in turn. To avoid this persona is as simple as practicing good business ethics. Simple things, like: don’t plagiarize other people’s content, give credit where it’s due. Never repost, it’s like repeating yourself in a conversation, when you’re certain that everyone already heard you. And NEVER give in to the urge to engage in petty argument. There are a lot of internet trolls who make it their life’s mission to get a reaction out of you. Don’t give them the satisfaction. Twitter is it’s own universe with tons of different nooks and crannies for marketers to explore. Check back next time for helpful and practical advice on how to properly target your niche within the vast expanse of this online interface.   

Picking right back up from where we left off in our last post about creating effective targeted advertising emails, you want your messages to amiably assail the senses. If you’ve followed the instructions in our last post, your target marketing content should already sound like music to your listener’s ears. Now it’s time to make it easy on the eyes. There are some rules of thumb you need to follow. So let’s get cracking. Consistency is Key Start by being consistent. It helps to build your brand if you can associate an image or color scheme with your company. It might be worthwhile to do some psychology and behavioral marketing research in this regard. There are some very well-known correlations between behavior and color. Red, for example is known to increase appetite as well as impulsiveness, whereas blue produces feelings of serenity, and helps put customer’s minds at ease. These are handy facts if you’re looking to sell something. You can also use this opportunity to visually complement your message. If you’re advertising a product, it’s a no-brainer that you would want an attractive image displaying its fine details. Or perhaps you could show a situation in which your product or service is being used and enjoyed by a family of smiling urbanites. However you decide to best highlight the utility of your products or services, but you must be careful to convey a message without simply being flashy. Flash without substance won’t create conversions nearly as well. It’s also important to remember that just like your text, image choices should be directly informed by the metric data that you’ve gathered, as well as the conclusions you’ve drawn about your clientele. Images Can Increase Clickthroughs Whatever images you decide to fill your email with, they should all be clickable. Remember that one of the main goals of any email is to drive traffic to your site. In terms of picture perfect propriety, having an image that directly links to a landing page just makes sense. Images are also an excellent opportunity to throw in some less intrusive calls to action. To do this, set your images up to display a pop up box directing the recipient to the desired course of action. For example, say you owned an ecommerce store, let’s say an online bait shop. You’ve theoretically sent an email with an image of a seasoned fisherman fitting a colorful plastic fish hook to his line. When the mouse scrolls over the image, it should link directly to the hook’s product page with a short and sweet CTA, implying that the reader should: “Prepare to haul in a big catch by purchasing the Acme Bass-o-matic fish lure.” If you’ve correctly targeted your angling aficionados, then they may go ahead to your site without bothering to read the rest of your message. This is your goal in the end anyway. A picture is worth a thousand words, so why not use your pictures as actionable items in your target marketing emails? Sticking to a Schedule Once you’ve developed an idea for the process behind putting together effective emails, it’s a good idea to decide on a time to send them. Being out of sight is directly connected to being out of mind, so it’s important to keep your brand consistently on your customer’s radar. There are a few ways to go about this. The most popular is to send them out on a schedule. Daily, weekly, or monthly emails are sure to keep your customer’s engaged, so long as they are well-crafted. However, you run the risk of bombarding your recipient with too many messages, and end up annoying them. This is especially true for the daily blasts. Yet you don’t want to spend too much time between messages either. Monthly is on the other end of the spectrum, and is probably the maximum time you would like to spend between emails. Any longer, and you risk being an unmemorable addition to your client’s inbox, and may end up being marked as spam. You can send out targeted advertising sporadically and still achieve commendable results, but this can lead to disorganization and confusion on either end of the relationship between you and your clients. It all depends on how you work best, but in general keeping to a schedule is a proven method of increasing sales. On the other hand, you could perform your content targeting with pinpoint precision, by automating email templates to go out whenever a client’s activity matches certain filters in the data that you’re tracking. Let’s say that the same customer has purchased 25 items in a month from your online store; you could have an email template set up to thank them for their loyal shopping habits. After all, it’s nice to be appreciated. Depending on the scenario, this kind of filtered automatic emailing would often require a user subscription. Hopefully, this comprehensive guide to crafting effective target marketing emails has helped you get a feel for the process. Though if you’re still not feeling ultra-confident, you can stay tuned for the next post. Part 3 of our series on targeted emails will examine some in-depth examples of successful campaigns that have been used to create conversions to great effect in the past. We’ll see you then, but while you’re waiting, you can examine the filtered emailing system we’ve discussed today by signing up for a free 10 day trial with Ashop. 

Welcome to the final installment of the Ashop blog series on target marketing email campaigns. In the last two posts we’ve discussed how to construct effective emails using text, images, and smart scheduling. Today we’ll be discussing the merits of famous targeted advertising email campaigns undertaken by affluent and recognizable companies. Let’s jump right in with our first example. British Airways As we discussed in our first post, tracking customer data and recognizing trends in their behavior is a vital part of accurate target marketing. British Airways did a spectacular job of illustrating this point with one of their email campaigns. To advertise an exclusive mobile application to their Loyalty club members, they tracked several different important sales metrics among their users in an effort to create the perfect customer profile. They built a very specific picture of the customer they were trying to target by doing the following: Discovering what loyalty club customers were using mobile devices. Determining which devices they were using. Developing 4 different emails optimized for each device individually. Detailed more consumer habits and further tailored the email content. With these metrics they gathered a list of highly specified loyalty club members who were most likely to open the emails from their mobile devices, and then clickthrough to the company landing page. The results of this campaign were astonishing. Android and iPhone users who received the email opened it more than 50% of the time. After opening the message clickthrough rate exceeded ¼ of the total users on iPhone and approximately a third of all Blackberry users.  These are by no means ordinary results. If nearly half of targeted customers are opening a company’s emails, that’s an incredible success. The emails advertising the Executive club mobile application directly resulted in over 250,000 downloads and over 70,000 clickthroughs to the British Airways website. The campaign was so successful that the company is now planning another multilingual campaign based on the same template. So to what do they owe their success? Attentive and intelligent analysis of their tracked metrics Individual optimization for specific devices Attractive and clickable imagery in the emails Here are a couple of screen shots for the email and its corresponding landing page:   Note the identical color schemes on the landing page, which complement the email perfectly. This harkens back to the importance of imagery we discussed in the last post. Everything in the email looks smooth and unhurried. There is also no wasted real estate on the iPhone email. Every inch is covered in either text describing the benefits of the application, or pictures illustrating the sleek and stylish imagery of the app itself.  All of which works in perfect harmony with the landing page. This email campaign is a perfect example of the power that goes along with paying attention to your customer’s browsing habits on an ecommerce site. The campaign nearly doubled its targeted rate of application downloads, offered its high value customers some advanced notice on useful content, and built for itself an entirely new base of advertising operations through its mobile application. As far as success stories go, you’d be hard pressed to find one more compelling than that. Expedia.com When travel website standout, Expedia, was looking to expand its business in the Pacific Asian region, the decided on an efficient and optimized targeted email campaign that drew upon some of the concepts we’ve already discussed, and at least one that we haven’t. They began by examining user data in that region to divine browsing habits, but where the novelty comes in is through their topographic efforts. They delivered weekly newsletters to their customers in different sub-regions with geographically specific offers. In other words, they examined which offers were getting more clickthroughs in certain areas, but still weren’t converting. So to incentivize these attractive offers that for whatever reason just weren't converting, they made special offers around those packages. In this way, they managed to turn user interest into profitable sales. These geographically inspired efforts were made more thoroughly effective by the use of intelligent scheduling. The weekly repetition of Expedia offers to these specific customers, who were already showing a lot of interest on Expedia’s website, served to reinforce the desire for travel, and ended up converting potential customers in high volumes. This smart strategic play bodes well for Expedia’s future. Any web service that pay attention to customer habits, and therefore customer wants and needs, stands an excellent chance of predicting their future behavior. Understanding your clients is the first step to providing them with a better product or service, which in turn leads to higher conversions, and more money in the company coffers. Hopefully, our look into big-time successful email campaigns has served as a window into the billionaire empire mindset. This is the final post in the Ashop series of blogs concerning targeted advertising using email campaigns. Follow the strategies outlined in this series to a “T” and you’re virtually guaranteed to have a successful campaign of your own.  So start paying attention to customer behavior and specify your targeted marketing messages and you can begin to create conversions for yourself. And if you’re in need of a quality metric tracking system for your online store, be sure to sign up for Ashop’s free 10 day trial.

Writing effective automated emails is an essential element in any behavioral marketing campaign. They carry a kind of quasi-intimate connotation with your clients. One that surmounts many of the usual obstacles one would encounter during such an entrepreneurial adventure. Content targeting is usually going to be many times more effective than many other advertising outlets. This is because of the already established level of trust between you and the recipient. They gave you their email addresses, and you must treat access to their inboxes as a great privilege. Your customer’s attention is the life blood of your business, and crowding it with anything inconsequential is bound to direct it elsewhere. So what can you do to keep from abusing this near-sacred trust that your contact list has afforded you? The Purpose of Emails in Target Marketing You have to understand your client’s interests, and how your business fits into them. What exactly brought them within the sphere of your influence? You need to determine this all-important information, and continue to provide content which matches those criteria. In the past, this kind of data would be available only through random sampling and surveys. Today however, metric tracking software, such as Ashop’s ecommerce interface, will allow you to learn a great deal about your clientele without having to use any such intrusive methods. So before you ever start crafting an email, it’s important to answer 2 questions: 1.       What does your mailing list want, expect, and gain from your business? 2.       What do you hope to accomplish with your email? The first question is the difficult one. Basically, you’ll need to analyze your metrics, hypothesize, test, and draw conclusions. Where is the traffic originating from? What devices are they using? How long are they spending on individual pages of your site? Which pages are they spending the most time on? The more specific you can get with your hypothesis, the better your testing will be. From there, you’ll be able to draw useful conclusions, and in turn paint a much more 3-dimensional your picture of the consumer. To conduct adequate tests, write a few different email drafts designed to check your hypotheses. Send different versions out to different contacts on your list, and record the results. This is called multivariate testing, and it’s an extremely useful tool in your content targeting arsenal. Learning about customer intent is not always an easy endeavor, but it is always a worthwhile investment of time. The second question should be far easier to answer. There are usually 3 major reasons for writing targeted advertising emails: 1.       To drive traffic to your site. More specifically, to your landing page, so that you can gain conversions. 2.       To advertise a new product or service. It makes sense to advertise to a client who’s seen fit to purchase from you in the past. To put it in old-school terms, it’s like using a solid sales lead, versus starting from scratch and cold calling. 3.       To build a business/client relationship. In an ideal world, all of your customers would be friends. So treat them in a neighborly manner, and you’ll see that affability pays big dividends. Once you’ve figured out why you’re doing what you’re doing, a course of action becomes much clearer. Crafting Target Marketing Email Text Now that you’ve got an idea of who you’re aiming for, it’s time to begin putting a persuasive and engaging message together. But before you pull out a pen and paper, it’s always a good idea to do some prewriting exercises. Begin as previously suggested, by defining the purpose of this message. Are you informing a trusted customer of a new product? Trying to increase your visibility?  Let the answers guide your drafting efforts. To put it succinctly: be informative, entertaining, agreeable, inspiring, and visually appealing. Informative-If a visitor to your site has handed you their email address, you can assume that they’re interested in your industry. Take advantage of that fact, by keeping them up to date with news or updates that are relevant to the field. Entertaining- This is another powerful tool used to create conversions. If you put the idea that your emails are fun or interesting into your client’s mind, they’re far more likely to open them up. Entertaining content is capable of building brand loyalty. Agreeable- Always try to speak in a conversational tone to your customers. Be conscious of how your message sounds. You’re neither a politician nor a salesman; you’re a friend offering useful information about a subject of interest. So write like you speak, unless you’re oratory isn’t up to par. If that’s the case, then write how someone else speaks. Someone charming. Think Neil Patrick Harris, but less overtly sexual. Just try to be amusing, approachable, and accommodating. Inspiring-This approach should be used sparingly. You don’t want to come off as a motivational speaker. Just be aware that using amazing or inspiring stories to illustrate a point about your industry, product, or service can give an impression of being genuine. It’s all part of building trust. Plus, being inspired is fun, why wouldn’t you want to share that with your customers? There’s obviously a lot more to creating conversions with email than just text. You’ve got to keep a schedule, incorporate effective imagery, and examine the campaigns of successful competitors as well. However, these are complex subjects that cover a lot of ground. In the interest of brevity, we’ll cover the rest of this material in our next two posts. In the meantime, take a look at how Ashop uses Google analytics to gain those coveted consumer insights, and learn how these can help you craft effective emails by signing up for a free 10 day trial of premium Ashop service.    

Almost every webmaster uses Google Analytics, the powerful metrics tool that has it all – unfortunately, most of these users have no idea what they're doing. Sure, they log in, check the traffic, gawk noncomprehendingly at the graphs for a while, and try to see if their popularity is ascending or descending but that's about it. Well, Google Analytics has enormous potential to help your business keep growing, but not when you used it like this – and that’s why we're going to give you some tips on how to use Google Analytics to its fullest extent.   Aim for the Right Market: So, let’s imagine your company is based in Dublin and that you’re currently aiming your communication efforts towards that area. By checking Google Analytics you can find out where your audience is from, and if 90% of it is from the United States and only 10% from Dublin, then you're directing most of your marketing efforts towards a very small percentage of your customer base. That means you are probably ignoring a gold mine by not focusing on the USA. By using this tool you can geographically target your audience, and finding out the specific demographics that comprise your clients can help you retarget more accurately. That means you'll start generating more conversions and subsequently increased revenues.   Find Out Who’s Buying: One thing many e-commerce shop owners don’t realize is that getting new customers shouldn't always be the top priority. It's always an important part of the plan, but you have to consider the fact that it's easier to up-sell an existing customer than to convince a brand new one to buy. This is why you’ll want to pay extra attention to your current clients as opposed to your prospective ones. A good way to do this is by using the source information to tailor some pages or recommendations for people that come to your site through certain sites.  For example, if you've noticed your social media sites are funneling a lot of traffic into your site, make an effort to set landing pages that correspond with the social media site's calls to action. So if you had a CTA that was suggesting a customer take a look at a certain product, be sure that the banner the user hits for the clickthrough corresponds to that product page.  Similarly, if 40% of your traffic is coming from blogger.com, as shown in the graphic below, you might add some text rich content to your site, because you know your visitors are likely used to reading well written and entertaining content.    Credibility is often won with a good first impression: Find out if people are leaving your site too soon. If they this is the case, it is most likely due to a weak first impression. Web pages with a good design and quality CTA paths can usually establish a great first impression and maintain user attention until the point of conversion. Confusing or badly designed pages on the other hand, tend to discourage or frighten potential customers. If your visitors are hustling off of your page too often or too quickly then you should invest some time and capital into improving it. Bounce rate isn't always directly linked to template design though. It could be you've targeted an ineffective keyword for your page, or a number of other factors could be at play. It's important to look at your metrics with a critical eye to try to take in all the possibities.    Browser Compatibility   There are a lot of technical difficulties associated with a website that can really hinder your promotional efforts if left unattended.  One of these aspects is browser compatibility. Google Analytics doesn't just show you the browser your audience is using for kicks. It's actually to warn you that if 50% of your audience uses Google Chrome then your page should be Google Chrome compatible. While the vast majority of users will be on Internet Explorer, it's important to make your site all inclusive. This is also true for mobile devices. If you don't have a mobile version and application for your site, it would be very wise to get that in the works. With the rise of mobile technology, people expect to be able to access your site on the go without losing any functionality.    All Data is Important   Another piece of data people don’t usually pay attention to is the screen resolution of their audience. Well, even this can be a vital consideration when creating a website. Lower resolutions produce bigger images than their more elevated counterparts. So if the resolution of your audience utilizes is mainly high, you can take advantage of the extra real estate that creates on your website’s display – or you can increase the size of the copy to be more legible.  However, if your market uses mainly low resolution monitors you should scale things down a bit.   Keyword Optimization   Always check where your traffic is coming from. If the majority of your traffic is coming from a certain keyword over an extended period of time, then you have got a nice keyword there, but there's no reason you can't make improve it. Chances are that if you improve that keyword’s rating you’re going to get a massive return on your investment. You can raise its ranking through the employment of an SEO expert or even start a Google Adwords campaign.   Targeted Advertising: Your Best Option We've already discussed how up-selling is preferable to advertising to new clients, but there’s another concept that usually yields tremendous results: Targeting. To successfully target a section of your customer base, you must analyze what certain customers are consistently buying and create specific suggestions for them. Amazon has been doing this with great success for quite some time. Every Amazon page is specifically tailored to the person seeing it. We know it isn’t normally possible to create such a big and complicated programming algorithm for your everyday small business, but you can always target specific groups on your mailing list by examining their browsing habits. We hope that this article helped you realize how important Google Analytics is, and that metrics can be an extremelly useful tool when it comes to improving the way you do business.

  It’s no secret that e-mail marketing is one of the most effective ways to promote your business in the online world, but there’s a catch. You need to have a segmented list filled with quality e-mails in order to experience success. Let’s face it though, people hate “spam” and they are very reserved when it comes to giving out their e-mail addresses to companies. They fear their inboxes will get filled with annoying and “spammy” e-mails of no interest to them. This begs the question: how do you get people to submit their e-mails so you can promote to them with their permission?  Well, this is just what we'll be discussing throughout today's article. Hopefully, It will help you gain some fresh insights to capture those leads and get on with the important work of  promoting your products.   Make it simple If you’re a regular reader of our articles, then you must have noticed by now often we tend to repeat the phrase: “make it simple.”  That’s because keeping it simple keeps consumers engaged, and stops them from getting confused. We’ve seen, researched, and proved that internet users get lost easily and they tend toward laziness. That is to say that they can’t be bothered to do anything that requires work, or that's too complicated. This applies even more to an online business, it's difficult to convince a customer that they should provide you with their e-mail address. You’ll have a hard time persuading people to give up their e-mails even if it’s simple and requires no work. So if you complicate the process, you may as well forget about gaining access to your customer's inboxes. Remember to keep it simple and short – a simple field to insert e-mail,  and another for a name, but try not to make people fill out long forms, because these take time, and will discourage a lot of users. Make it visible This one might be a given, but you would be surprised at how many websites that fail with this basic piece of etiquette. If you aren’t going to highlight your opt-in form, you'll be missing out on a lot of potential business. It's understandable if you want your company to look professional, but hiding your opt-in form isn't necessarily going to achieve that goal. If you don’t want your opt-in form mixed in with the rest of your company’s web content, then make a page dedicated to it  exclusively, and promote it instead. Offer Benefits Filling out an opt in-form shouldn't have to be a burden. Give your site's visitors some incentive. Offer them some benefits or at least give something in return so they don’t feel like they're being ripped off. A free trial, exclusive content, an instructional e-book, anything that has potential value in your consumer's eyes, could possbily grant you access to their inboxes. Treat it like a trade. Better yet, veiw it as if you're doing them a favor by providing them with access to something they want. This is the easiest way to make your opt-in form pertinent and professional, by offering up some benefit in return for the user's e-mail address. This way, your lead will appreciate the fact that you're giving them something by allowing them access to something they really want or are curious about. They won't think twice to give you an e-mail address if you manage to make them feel that way. There’s always a trade off. You just have to place yourself in your lead’s shoes and figure out what they want. Find out where their interests lie and offer it to them as a benefit. Prize Example – an E-Book This is almost like the rule of thumb of e-mail marketing, and the reason why it's so common is because it works. To give out an e-book on the topic in which your company specializes, is about the surest way to get your opt-in form working, not only because people want to know more about the subject they were searching for, (and that’s how they reached your site) but it will also filter the market for you. How does this filter your market? Well, now you know that every single e-mail you have comes from people who are interested in getting information about that particular topic. In other words, a topic that they are interested in. That is a serious plus, because now you know that they're interested. However, the opposite can occur too. If you notice your opt-ins aren’t very high, then maybe your audience isn’t interested in the subject you're providing. So, this means A/B testing is a good idea too. For those of you that still don’t know what A/B testing means, it's testing something, (a landing page, an email, etc.) two different ways, and then going for the one that proves to be more effective. In this example, have 2 e-books on different topics related to your niche and find out which of these topics has the largest response (more e-mails addresses received), this is your winner. For further filtering, simply discard the loser, rinse, and repeat. Run a Contest Don’t just think inside the box though, because there are plenty of ways to get those e-mails. There are a lot of companies that use contests as a medium for gaining leads. They run a sweepstakes, offer an attractive prize, and to be able to enter, people have to register by providing their e-mail addresses. One of the good things about this is that you can actually ask for more info, and not suffer too many lead losses because of it. The allure of a big prize can circument a lot of people's wariness at handing out personal info as well as their aforementioned laziness.    Fair Trade Another effective tactic is to simply trade someone for leads. Find a site owner within your niche that has an already established mailing list. Offer them something of value in exchange for plugging your own site. This could be anything you do well. Are you the artsy type? Offer a free graphic or logo. Are you a writer? Put together a press release promoting their product. As long as you're saving the site owner money, they're bound to oblige. If you've scouted a good source, then every plug you recieve should translate into dozens of new leads. This is because you've built name recognition off of an established content source.  If people trust the advertiser, they're bound to buy the product. Similarly, if your site is advertised on a site that visitors trust, and your own content strategy is up to par, then the users are far more likely to opt-in because they heard about you from a source that already has their confidence.  Content Lock Finally, why not try locking a part of your site for “community members” only? Of course, to join the community people will have to register an e-mail address. Don't forget to create funnels Most people will get their lists, send their emails, and return a small percentage of wins. But let's take this a step further. Some e-mail companies, like customer.io, let you a/b test but also create list segmentations based on events or actions. For example, those who opened the email but didn't click the link are recorded. You can then send these folks a second email saying something different, like offering a discounted coupon perhaps. So, be creative, think outside the box and get to work! E-mail marketing riches await you.

  Marketing challenges are common during the progression towards your ecommerce goals. So here’s a list of the top ten marketing strategies that will make all the difference in your ascent. Getting your market share to grow while maintaining your client database can be a real challenge. So use these 10 simple tactics to increase your company’s reach while still keeping your existing customers enamored with your brand. So, without further delay, check the factors we deem essential:   1 – The Golden Rule I’ll bet you’ve heard this one a lot, “Treat others as you would like to be treated,” and not only in regards to business – you see, this piece of advice works for life in general. Without getting too preachy, the good will your business puts out will always observably comes back around. So get in your customer’s shoes and find out how they feel, what they aspire to, what makes them progress through the sales funnel, and most importantly: what makes them share and interact with your company’s content, products, and web presence..  This brings us to the next topic:   2 - Invest in Customer Support Clients and leads are the most important aspect of any firm – they are the lifeblood of your business and ultimately they decide whether you succeed or fail. So you should invest in customer support and provide a clean avenue for them to contact you and get their problems sorted out. Don’t be the kind of company that doesn’t want to hear from their customers. Not only will good customer support bound to attract some positive buzz marketing, it also generates credibility–Nobody trusts an online store that doesn’t have contact information.   3 – Listen to the Market To keep the bond between company and customer strong, and ensure that communication continues flowing both ways you have to do your fair share of listening. Client feedback is golden. You should make sure to keep your ears wide open when customers decide to share their opinion. They might just reveal something that needs to be heard. Often your users can give you some great ideas on what to do to please clients (and coincidentally get your conversion rates to skyrocket).   4 - Satisfy and Over-deliver You’re in business to solve problems. You provide an asset or a service that enables people to get their problems solved. Since that’s the case, you should always strive to satisfy each and every one of your clients, and you know what? There are extra brownie points available for those who over-deliver. This is a question of mentality. You’ve got to have it in your mind that your service should offer more and perform better for your clients than any other. That’s how you set your customer service apart, in a crowded field of competitors. Place yourself in your client’s shoes. Simple things like excellent service can engender a lot of good will among the populace, and that positive energy you put out intermingles and expands within the marketplace. So, if you want to get some free publicity, this is a highly recommended method. Not only that, but it’s just the right thing to do from a professional and ethical standpoint. Always provide more value than is expected.   5 - Treat every customer like a business partner Try not to think of your customers simply as walking revenue sources. Instead think about them like shareholders. They deserve a say, because their revenue is keeping you afloat. Treat them like they’re part of your creative department. Use their feedback to create a better business.   In other words, you should endeavor to treat every customer like a business partner. That means the relationship should be beneficial to both of you. Such a relationship demands honesty and fair dealing. So don’t try any little marketing tricks to “deceive” or “trick” your customers into doing or buying something. Let the business take care of both parts by providing quality service, and making sure that you keep in mind that a client is as important has any royalty share holder of your business.   6 - Build Trust Trust is of paramount importance to companies operating in the virtual world, and even more so to ecommerce companies. Therefore, you should aim to build your credibility. That means getting your customers to trust you. This isn’t something done overnight, but rather a process that require patience, diligence, and commitment. Remember, it’s not a sprint – but a marathon. Building trust can accomplished in many ways. For example, Australian Woolworths’ affiliate: Big W, decided to notify their potential customers after the deadline for items being delivered on Xmas was past. They did this so no one would be disappointed when they didn't get their order in time for Xmas. This was a simple kindness performed for consumer convenience. It was an honest gesture, and one that builds trust.   7 - Be clear and honest Do yourself a big favor and tell the truth. Don’t tell stock lies like: “the product stock is nationally depleted,” or “I heard that production will soon come to a halt,” just so you have quick conversion spikes or little selling peaks.   Be honest. Also, don’t paint an orange yellow and say that it’s a lemon. Don’t camouflage important information. Just keep your sales pitches clear and honest. The bottom line is still: Don’t do to people what you wouldn’t like done to you.   8 - Keep your promises You can build up your trust to insanely high levels and get it all shattered thanks to a broken promise. Never promise a customer anything you can’t deliver. You instantly lose all credibility in that customer’s eyes, and they will relay their distaste to all their friends and family. God help you if they happen to have a strong social media following. This list isn’t in a particular order, but if it was, this number 8 would be ranked number 1. So keep this caveat in mind: Promises should be kept.   9 - Be Responsible for your mistakes When people complain about something, don’t pass the buck and try to blame someone else. Instead, you should show responsibility and answer something along the lines of “I'm sorry, I can see how this upsets you, and to fix it I suggest doing the following…” Candid and apologetic behavior can win over a lot of difficult opposition. If you’re in the position where you have to apologize, it’s best to man up and handle it with grace.   10 - Have some manners Most everything your mama taught you is applicable to the business world. People like well-mannered folk, and they really hate arrogant or poorly educated salesmen. So you should find reasons to use expressions like “thank you” and “I’m sorry” as often as possible. So, are you respecting every point on this list? What can you do to better your company? Take a little bit of your time and think it over.    

There are certain objectives that every ecommerce store should try to meet. Moreover, there are certain commonalities shared by all successful ecommerce ventures. We’ve compiled here for your viewing pleasure the top 10 ecommerce caveats that all online stores need to have in place if they hope to rake in the dough.  So without further ado, let’s get started with your first ecommerce requirement. 1. Engagement: Every ecommerce store that’s worth its salt at least tries to engage with its customers. With outreach and connectivity at an all-time high, there’s simply no way to just be a store. You have to be a retailer who has relationships with its customers, and the way to build online relationships is through engagement.  Engagement is the interaction between your customers and your content, as well as the direct interactions between the two of you. All the time your customer spends engaged with some facet of your business is time spent creating a positive impression of your brand in their minds. You’re quickly becoming a trusted resource of some kind. This accruing value will eventually put a customer in a buying mood, and your company/client relationship will become very profitable. Common methods of engagement include informative articles with topics centering around your niche, newsletters, eBooks, entertaining videos, podcasts, and many other types of content. How you decide to engage your customers is up to you, but it’s an absolute necessity that you make the effort. 2. Credibility Reputations are funny little things. They take lifetimes to build and seconds to destroy. Your image and credibility are undeniably valuable resources in regards to the way your brand is received. You won’t get anywhere fast without a healthy measure of trust from your customers.  Credibility will take trust and turn it to loyalty, which translates into big money conversions. Building credibility is a slow process, that basically can only be achieved by consistency. You must always deliver on what you’ve promised, and if you can’t then you have to make it right in the customer’s eyes. Bad customer service will spread a lot quicker than the good kind, so it’s very important to stay consistent in your interactions with your customers. You can also build credibility with a few noticeable additions to your website, like a security badge or utilizing your own payment system rather than outsourcing it to a third party website. 3. Functionality No one wants to use a wonky website. Functionality, or how well your website works, is an enormously important facet to the ecommerce experience. Customers are impatient, and have very little attention span. If your site is slow or difficult to navigate, you’ll lose most of your business in very short order. 4. User Generated Content The phrase “Content is King” is bandied about quite often these days. That’s because of the positive effect on-site content has on search engine rankings. The more content you have on your website that’s likely to appeal to your niche’s interest, the more traffic that will be organically driven to your site. This is obviously a highly desirable outcome, but for those who don’t have the time to produce a lot of this content, or the requisite writing acumen to do so, may find content creation a frustrating difficulty to deal with. A simple solution is to allow your users to create some of your on-site content for you. It’s kind of nice to have your customers pay you and work for you at the same time. You didn’t know that becoming an ecommerce magnate would also make you a criminal mastermind, did you? In all seriousness though, user generated content is an excellent way to increase engagement and search engine ranking. You can do this by employing many different common ecommerce tactics. It could be something as simple as opening up your blog to comments, or starting a customer support forum where your companies clients can discuss your service amongst themselves and you can answer support related questions. 5. Versatility This one isn’t so obvious as the other qualities we’ve discussed so far. But having a versatile online store can attract a lot more conversions. It’s one of the missing ingredients for many would-be successful ecommerce businesses. Basically, to have your ecommerce store be versatile means to present customers with as many options as possible. You need to be able to customize an experience for your users. Let them make shopping lists, like and favorite items, integrate social media functionality, and be sure that your store accepts a large variety of different payments. That last one is a big point to hit on. Your store needs to accept all the major credit cards, take direct payments from a user’s debit card or bank, and definitely it needs to be compatible with PayPal. Another payment service that’s dawning on the horizon is Google wallet. With Google’s empire status, it’s a good idea to accommodate any product of theirs that looks poised to make a big move in the near future. 6. Customer Support Quality customer support is another keystone of any ecommerce store. It doesn’t matter if you have the coolest, sleekest, and most exciting website ever. If there’s a breakdown in communication between you and the customer, then you lose business. It’s inevitable that you’ll have some customer service conflicts. You can’t please everybody all the time. However, that shouldn’t stop you from trying to minimize their reasons for complaining. Work toward customer satisfaction, and providing them with all of the support they need in obtaining your products or using your services. In either case, you need to have an approachable and friendly support team that actually works to be helpful in any way they can. 7. Refunds It’s frustrating to give refunds. After all, you already had the money; it’s disappointing to have to give it back. Still, a little good will with your return policy can go a long way in building brand loyalty. And who knows? You may end up selling them something more expensive as a result. When offering refunds, it’s an opportunity to try to better meet your customer’s needs, and that means you can offer them some other product or service that might be better suited to their situation. Avoid difficulty with return policies, by clearly stating them in a visible area on your checkout page. That way there won’t be any confusion. You can give your customers a 30 day grace period to return their items, or a money back satisfaction guarantee. Whatever you feel comfortable with is fine, but make sure you’re being fair to the client. Part of having good customer service means keeping people from having to jump through too many hoops.  8. Reliable Delivery People expect a certain standard from their online purchases. The most obvious part of that standard is the expectation of timely and accurate delivery. You wouldn’t buy from an online store that only delivered packages after 6 to 8 weeks after receiving your order, would you? How about one that delivered the wrong items, or broken ones? No, these kinds of things are deal-breakers. So be sure that you choose a safe, reliable, and efficient delivery method for whatever wares you may be slinging. 9. E-mail Marketing Email marketing is a potent new venue of advertising. It’s also very easy to implement in an online store. Whenever you get a customer to purchase an item, you should require an email address from them. That way you have some limited access to their attention spans, and you always have an effective entry point into their field of vision. Be forewarned though, you email marketing efforts should be helpful, because if they aren’t then that means they’re annoying. You want to create a positive impression of your ecommerce business in your client’s minds. That means you don’t abuse the generous access they provide you with to their inboxes. So always include an optional checkbox asking them if they want to receive emails from your company. Make an attractive offer with these emails, such as free content, and use this as a hook to continually bring their focus back to your brand and your products. 10. Monitoring Metrics Every online store needs to be monitoring their metrics if they want to be successful. If you don’t monitor your profits, losses, marketing campaign effectiveness, customer behavior, etc. then you are really just leaving all of your success to chance. And chances are luck won’t be a lady in your favor forever. You need to keep on top of the comings and goings of your online visitors in order to recognize problems with your site, and quickly rectify any outstanding errors. There is obviously a lot more to running a successful ecommerce business than the few items in this checklist. However, if you can manage to keep on top of these ten directives, you’ll be much better equipped to deal with any of the more complex issues that will come your way down the line. So make sure you’ve got at least this much covered, and stay tuned to the Ashop blog for more ecommerce assistance. 

  Part of any online store’s overhead is the cost of returns and lost orders. Consumers are finicky and prone to fits of indecisive action. Out of every hundred purchases, you’re bound to have at least a few returns. You need to prepare accordingly. That means working out a consistent and agreeable return policy that favors consumer habits, without making it too difficult for you to keep in business.  Refunds, returns, and lost orders can be quite an unpleasant bit of business. However, as long as you’re clear, consistent, and fair in your policies, you can actually end up adding value to your business. Returns Your return policy is going to be unique to your business. It needs to be personalized so that it makes sense for you, while still accommodating your customers. You can always offer a money back guarantee, however if your product is an impulse buy or something of the sort, you’ll need to actively work against buyer’s remorse in your return policies. Something like that can be addressed with time constraints. Time constraints are the limiters that you put on your returns. In other words, the length of time that you will allow before you no longer offer a refund for a returned item. For example, let’s say you’re selling Girl Scout cookies and an inebriated forty something who’s feeling lonely, hungry, and depressed wants to put in a rather large order. You’ve got to limit the time he has to return his cookies or he might come to his senses and realize he doesn’t actually need 100+ boxes of delicious thin mints. Of course, you might actually feel bad about feeding him sugar coated obesity and not leaving a sizable window for returns but keep a stiff upper lip. You’re running a business here not a charity. Store Credit vs. Money Back or Item Exchange. You also need to decide what kind of a refund you’re willing to dole out. Do you offer full money back? Store credit? Or even exchange? The choice is up to you, but you should realize decisions like these have a direct effect on conversion rate. Customers like options, and the more you give, the more appreciative they’ll be. Conversely, if they feel locked into a purchase by an overly strict return policy with no refunds accepted regardless of circumstance, their confidence drops along with your credibility and conversion rate. A store credit or exchange only policy can also limit your viability in a shopper’s mind. Especially if your store has a limited selection. Giving money back is never pleasant, but it’s a necessity if you want to keep your customers truly happy. Some might deal with an exchange or credit policy, but they’ll do so begrudgingly. Policy Design The Return policy itself, in its written form, should be easy to understand and easy to find. You want to make things run smoothly for your customers. Use easily digestible languages so as not to intimidate, bore, or in any other way discourage your customer from understanding your return policy. An easy rule of thumb to remember when creating an effective return policy goes like this: easy to read, easy to find, easy to do. That means being up front with any costs associated with returns. These need to be stated explicitly in order to avoid unseen or hidden costs. Note clearly whether or not a customer has to pay for return shipping. Otherwise this will come as quite an unpleasant surprise and leave a bad taste in the customer’s mouth. They’ll be far less likely to buy from you again. You should prominently display a button/banner/link for your company’s return policy. It’s an important part of any consumer purchase, and should be treated as such. It gives the wrong impression of your company if this piece of important information is tucked tightly out of sight. It seems like you’ve got something to hide, which is no good. Because in your business, transparency is very much a good thing. If your customer is returning an item they’re dissatisfied with, you should use this as an opportunity to better serve their needs. Don’t forget that when they’re returning a purchase, they have to actively engage with you. Engagement is half of your marketing strategy already, or at least it should be. So take the chance to offer customers an extra something special whenever they’re looking to return an item. Some valid options include discounted items, similar products, or additional free content. It’s also an excellent opportunity to ask them for feedback. You know what they say; you can only truly count it as a loss if you lose the lesson. Minimize returns Ideally, there would be no returns to your online store at all. However, this is far from an ideal world, and we have to be prepared to live in reality. So the question becomes: how can we minimize the returns that we are obligated to process. There are a few proven successful strategies. One is honesty. You need to give consumers an accurate product description of the item they’re considering for purchase. Vivid and high quality product photography can also go a long way to help inform customers of the exact appearance of your products. We mentioned time constraints briefly above in this capacity, but these can be such powerful tools in limiting the number of return requests you’ll receive, they bear a bit more emphasis. Although above we stopped short of recommending a small window for returns, it can sometimes be the way to go, depending on the products you’re selling. In the somewhat specified and silly scenario we drew, the time frame was kept short so as to reduce the likelihood of a consumer realizing a mistake. However, this tactic could have the opposite effect, making a consumer nervous about the small window could make them more determined to void the purchase entirely. Another tact to take is to give a large window of opportunity to make the customer feel comfortable with their purchase. It’s simple reverse psychology. Not surprisingly, 30, 60, or 90 day periods for accepting returns are very common for online stores.   Some brick and mortar spots will actually extend the grace periods past the point of common sense. Sam’s Club for example has been known to accept a mattress return YEARS after the initial purchase. Wal-Mart, being the retail giant that it is, can afford to have a stupid policy here and there. But for a small ecommerce business, it’s best to stick to a month or so for your limitations. It’s also important for clarity and credibility sake to have a separate policy in place for damaged or malfunctioning purchases.   What not to do Be inconsistent. Don’t make allowances for some customer while taking a hard line with others. Be firm with your return policies, only making exceptions for the truly adamant high value customers. Write an angry return policy. Using threatening or aggressive language in your return policy can make a consumer cringe and flee your checkout page in a hurry. Makes sure the tone of your return policy is consistent with the friendly and amiable copy that you’re using to sell the products in the first place. Assume that nobody reads the fine print. A lot of people won’t, but then again, a lot will too. Savvy shoppers will always check a return policy, because they want to feel comfortable with the purchases their making. If you assume that poorly written or inconsistent or vague language will work for your return policy, simply because “nobody reads the fine print” you’ll definitely pay the price in the form of a disproportionate bounce rate on your checkout page. Lost Orders An even more frustrating ecommerce happenstance is a lost order. Lost orders are particularly annoying because you technically didn’t do anything wrong. The delivery guy messed up. Or it could be a fraudulent claim. These are difficult and largely unavoidable circumstances that you need to be prepared to address. You also need to know what to do if your item is actually lost in the mail. Here are a few guidelines on how to handle such a situation. Impose a waiting period before giving a refund. This way you can be certain that the package isn’t just arriving late. It can also help minimize capital lost. Depending on the product ordered, a lot of customers might just forget about it after a few days, and never request the replacement or refund. You can help guard yourself from these unfortunate circumstances by employing a delivery service that offers delivery tracking and verified delivery. Being able to track your packages and have their delivery verified brings the chances of fraudulent claims of lost items down significantly. It also increases your own sense of security about the safety of your packages, and if you give your customer’s the tracking data, it will increase their confidence in your company as well. Refunds, returns, and lost orders can be a real pain, but they can also be an opportunity for you to improve customer relations. It’s not like having to hand money or additional inventory over at no additional profit is a lot of fun, but if you look at the glass half full you can find ways to exploit these situations in your favor.