Shopping Cart Software

The holiday season is nearly upon us! Spruce up your store with these 5 quick tips to gives your sales a boost.   1.  Set Up Abandoned Basket Emails Did you know that the average shopping cart abandonment rate is 67.44%? Scary huh? The bad news is that this rate is getting higher, and all online merchants are affected to some extent. The good news is that you can take action to reduce this and substantially boost your sales. The easiest way is to set up an email that is sent whenever a prospective customer leaves your store without paying for the goods in their basket. If you have an Ashop store you can easily create an Abandoned Basket email. If you can afford to, it’s worthwhile adding an extra incentive, such a discount, coupon or free shipping to entice customers to complete their transaction. This only takes a few minutes to set up and is something every online store should have. Pro tip: Make sure you top up on Newsletter Credits – you don’t want to run out during the Christmas rush!   2. Offer Free shipping 68% of consumers have recommended a retailer based on a free shipping offer, according to the 2013 UPS Pulse of the Online Shopper study. Many consumers expect free shipping, especially during the holiday season, and will leave your store in favour of a competitor if you do not offer it. Be upfront about your free shipping policy so that customers are aware if what they need to do to qualify.   3. Buy Some Paid Advertising No matter the size of your advertising budget, it’s worth spending some money on paid advertising to give your online store a short-term injection of traffic over the holiday season. This is the busiest time of year for online retailers, and you don’t want to miss out on the chance to attract new customers. Paid Search: - Google Adwords - Yahoo Bing Network Comparison Shopping Engines: - Google Shopping - Amazon Product Ads - Nextag - Shopping.com - ShopZilla   4. Build Trust If you’ve done the previous steps correctly, there’s a good chance you’ll be seeing a stream of first-time customers coming to your store. These customers need to feel safe when they‘re on your website, especially when they are checking out. They need to know that their credit card information is safe at all times and that they can trust you. Here are a few ways you can build trust: - Testimonials from happy customers. Using photos or video in conjunction with text is more effective than text alone. - Offer a guarantee. 100% Money-back, free returns (Zappos-style) etc all reassure customers that they can get their money back if they are not happy with the purchase.   5. Make Sure Your Returns Policy Is Clear Many online retailers hide their returns policy or worse, don’t even have one at all. Customers want to understand how shipping and returns work if they decide to purchase from you. f they can’t find this information easily, they will leave and go to a competitor’s site (which does have an easy-to-find-and-understand returns policy.) Having a page called ‘Returns Policy; or similar is a good start. Use plain English as much as possible; you might feel smart if you use complex words or Legalese, but your customers won’t bother to read it. The Iconic does a good job – they have a link to ‘Returns’ from the footer of their homepage. They also have a simple diagram explaining their return policy and some FAQs underneath.     Is your store all set for the holidays? Have you got any ideas or suggestions for other ecommerce site owners? Let us know in the comments below. (Image Source: Flickr)

(Image Source) Today we’re launching a powerful new feature called ‘Conditional Emails’. Unlike newsletters, conditional emails are triggered when a customer does a specific action. Stop and think about the possibilities for a moment. What if you could send an email to a customer whenever they abandon their basket before completing a purchase? That's an easy way to improve conversions and sales. Let’s create an Abandoned Basket email right now.   Step 1. Go to Marketing > Newsletter Management and click on ‘Conditional Emails’ Step 2. Set the Campaign Title, ‘From’ Name, Reply Email and condition. In this case, I’ve set the email to trigger 1 day after the basket is abandoned. You could set it to 12 minutes or 12 months if you really want to, but 1 day after abandonment feels about right.   Step 3. Write the subject and text of your email. You can add variables (text that is personalized to each email recipient) by clicking the Insert Item button. A handy one to use all the time is [NAME]. This way your email will say “Hey Bob” or “Hey Michelle” instead of “Dear valued customer”.   Step 4. Add a link to your basket page in the email. The whole point of this email is to get a customer to come back and finish off their order, right? The URL you want to use is http://www.yourwebsite.com/Basket   Step 5. It’s usually a good idea to add your phone number so they can contact you with any questions. Also, consider putting a time limit or other gentle nudge in there to encourage the customer to take action immediately. For example “We’re holding these items for you for the next 7 days – after that we can’t guarantee that they will still be in stock.” Or maybe “Our sale ends tomorrow. If you want to take advantage of our discounted prices, make sure you complete your purchases by midnight tonight.”   Step 6. Send a test email to yourself by clicking the “Send Test Email” button. Once you’re happy with the email, make sure the status is set to “Online” and click “Save”. There you go, you now have an Abandoned Cart conditional email. Some other ideas you could use conditional emails for: Post-Purchase Feedback -> trigger an email 3 days after Every order is shipped, with a link to a survey (like Google Forms, Wufoo or SurveyMonkey) Re-activation of cold customer -> trigger an email 90 days after Final order is placed with a special offer or discount “How to use our product” email drip -> trigger emails 1, 2 & 3 days after Subscribed to Newsletter How do you plan to use conditional emails? Got any ideas we haven't thought of? Let us know in the comments below.

Setting up a successful online store requires a lot more than just getting shopping cart software. Once it is up, with all of the bells and whistles sounding off, you have to find a way to get traffic pouring into your site on a daily basis. If your budget is a little tight, you may want to investigate free ways to drive traffic to your ecommerce website first.   As you sort through these ideas, please note that "free" doesn't necessarily mean that it's the best method for drawing traffic to an online store. Many successful online store owners get higher conversions when they buy targeted traffic through banner and contextual ads.   1. Contests and Sweepstakes People love to win free stuff. Take advantage of that by offering contests at your site and on social media. Make sure that the goodies you're giving away have something to do with the products you sell.   If you need help setting up a sweepstakes offer, check out Woobox and WishPond.   2. Blogging Search engines love blogs because they offer fresh content on a wide variety of topics and are often shared via social media.   When you post regularly to a blog on a particular topic, search engines will eventually pick up your site as long as the content is of a high quality. You should be passionate about the topic you're blogging about and provide readers with information on how to use your products.   Stuck for ideas on what to blog about? Consider inviting guest bloggers to post in exchange for a link back to their own site.   3. Forums and Community Sites One of the most popular ways to bring attention to your online store is to participate in online communities like Reddit and StumbleUpon or popular forums like Vogue.com.au or Yahoo! Shine.   The rules differ at each site, but in many cases you can create an online profile containing a link to your website or even place the link inside of a post.   Avoid being spammy or else people may not trust your links. Instead, focus on posting useful information regularly so that people will seek you out.   4. YouTube Videos It's time for your close-up! You may not realize the power of video, but put it this way--if a picture is worth a thousand words, a humorous or informative five-minute video is worth a million.   If you want to draw more free traffic to your ecommerce website, create interesting and useful video content for YouTube. The most watched videos are ones that make your target customer laugh or provide how-to demonstrations of the product you sell.   The great thing about YouTube is that it's very easy for the customer to share the video with others, resulting in even more hits to your online store.   If you need an example to follow, check out Whiteboard Fridays at moz.com or the Will It Blend? campaign by Blendtec.   5. Partnerships Your target customers have many interests besides your wonderful product. Another way to reach them is to find out what those interests are and then contact other companies who serve those interests to form partnerships.   For instance, if your online store sells food processors, there may be a blog publishing recipes and cooking shortcuts that caters to people who really love to cook.   Contact the blog owner to offer a very special offer or promotion to visitors on a visible area of her site in return for a commission for each sale.   For instance, you might be able to negotiate a side banner, an email blast or tweeting your offer to the blog's many followers. Also, remember to ask each new customer to leave his email address along with how he heard about your online store in order to claim the offer.   As you can see there are plenty of ways that you can start drawing free traffic to your website--simply use your expertise and knowledge of your target customer's habits to develop your marketing plan. Are there any other creative ways you've managed to drive traffic for free? Let us know in the comments below. (photo credit: jasonshim via photopin cc)  

  Putting together an online store is an extremely complex process. You’ve got a lot to worry about from start to finish. Content pages, contact forms, user support, frequent updates, auto-responding emails, and so much more. One of the most important items on your agenda is ensuring a high volume of organically driven visits to your product pages. That means a significant investment in your Search Engine Optimization efforts. If you really want your online store to succeed, you should provide custom SEO-friendly product descriptions for each of the items you have for sale.   SEO is an ongoing process that evolves alongside search engines as they increase in sophistication. The key is providing relevant content that major search engines can recognize. This end is achieved through the proper implementation and integration of highly searched keywords and keyword phrases.   Though it might seem like an intimidating endeavor, you can quickly and easily understand the basic tenets of keyword research and phrasing by following these steps:   1. Choose One Main Keyword Phrase   Keyword optimization is all about predicting which words users will enter as search queries to find certain products or services. When writing a product description, it's important to decide on the main keyword phrase that will identify and describe the product. Use as many descriptive terms as possible to help someone who is searching for the item locate it at your site.   For instance, if you sell a baby basket, you might want to include more descriptive terms in the main keyword phrase (product title) like “Pink Baby Basket with Retractable Wheels.” In doing this, you offer more detail about the product and increase the chances of matching a search query. Including these extra keywords in one phrase to increase its matchability is called long-tail keyword phrasing.   Be sure to use the exact keyword phrase when writing your content for each product page. Perform keyword research using Google’s keyword planner to find out what people are searching for when it comes to the type of product you’re selling. This way you can determine which terms will be effective in increasing your product’s visibility to search engines.   2. Write a UNIQUE Product Description   Many online stores just copy and paste product descriptions from the manufacturer. Even massive online stores like Amazon are guilty of this lazy policy – partly because they have so many products. Unfortunately for the transgressors, nothing will ruin an SEO score faster than duplicate content.   Duplicating the wording of one website exactly and including it on your own effectively cheapens the value of the text. Just like the old supply and demand curves you learned in high school.     As a smaller online retailer, you can get a leg up on your bigger competitors by writing unique and compelling product descriptions.   Here’s a great example from Birdsnest, a women’s fashion store. Notice how they’ve opted to tell a story with this product description. They create a narrative specifically targeted toward university students, which matches the marketing message displayed on the handbag. They also add a personal touch to their product description by signing it like a personal message at the end. The inclusion of this signature: “Love, Kate and the Birdsnest girls” accomplishes two goals.  It allows for an element of personal connection between customers and the voices/faces behind the brand. It enables them to add the keyword: “Birdsnest” on every product page. This way they have a higher chance of ranking for this term in search engine queries.   And guess what? Birdsnest is actually ranked above The Iconic, a major Australian online fashion retailer.   The most successful product pages follow some basic structural caveats. For example, your online product description should ideally be between 100-150 words long and made up of two or three short paragraphs. This is the optimum length for attracting search engine attention. It leaves plenty of room to include relevant keywords, while still breaking the descriptions up into short paragraphs to increase the text’s readability and appeal to visitors.   It’s important to keep your audience in mind when writing product descriptions. The scientific approach to SEO dictates that you follow certain formulas, through which the search algorithms might find your content more easily. If your text is ugly, incoherent, or riddled with spelling/punctuation errors, however, it won’t be attractive to the readers. As a result, they will likely bounce away from your product pages.   So even if you follow the best SEO practices, it’s still possible to have ineffective product descriptions. For that reason, it’s important to put effort into the on page copy. Not just so it follows SEO format, but so it is also alluring to readers in your target market. That means performing market research and segmenting accoordingly. After all, what works for a fishing tackle store probably won’t be as effective for a store selling cosmetics.   3. Place the Keyword Phrase   Now we’re down to the nitty gritty. The formulaic aspects of effective keyword placement in your product descriptions. It is best to include the keyword phrase at the very beginning of the product description block. Then you must insert it once or twice more within the body of your description. More than three occurrences of a keyword phrase displays redundancy in your writing, but more than that, you run the risk of search engines penalizing you for “keyword stuffing.” In other words, oversaturating your short text with an abundance of similar or duplicate keywords.   Remember to also include the same keyword phrase in the “Keywords” field whenever adding a new product (that is, if you’re using Ashop for your online store). These meta tags fulfill an important role, by tipping search engines off as to which keywords they should look out for on a particular page.   If you’re not using Ashop, you’ll have to manually add each keyword phrase to your meta tags, the HTML title, and the headline of the product page as well.   4. Add Other Keywords   If you have other keywords that you believe will support the product description and bring in search traffic, include each one once. But again, don’t go overboard – if your product description looks unnatural and spammy, both human visitors and search engines will respond negatively.   The trick is to include relevant and descriptive words and phrases, that you’ve researched and chosen for high volumes of search traffic and relatively low levels of competitive usage, all while retaining a natural human sounding voice. If you can do that, you’ve got all the tools you need to attract loads of organic traffic to your product pages.   These are just a few guidelines to help you optimize your product descriptions for SEO purposes. Keep in mind that search engines are fickle and the rules often change for how you should set up the content on product pages if you want them to be highly ranked.   Before you change all of the product descriptions throughout your website it's wise to experiment with updating the content on about 5-10 products. If your rankings improve after about a month or so then you can go ahead with more descriptions utilizing these same tactics.   Have you written unique and compelling product descriptions for your store? What was the impact in search results? We’d love to hear how your efforts went. Let us know in the comments below.    

  Blog commenting is an invaluable link building resource for your website. Interacting with blog followers allows you to form a sense of community among your readers, as well as improve your brand image. Working on a corporate blog, however, can be hazardous. Especially when interacting with negative commenters. Commenters can come in all kinds. You can meet the truly interested and impassioned customers who are genuinely interested about your brand, or you run into the jilted commenter who’s hell-bent on destroying your reputation. You can even run into the ever inflammatory internet trolls who are willing to say anything to get a rise out of you. The paths you must walk are narrow and the pitfalls are abundant. To successfully traverse these treacherous trails, you must be prepared. You should be able to predict the questions asked and have the answers in hand and at the ready. So let’s take a look at some of the basic guidelines to properly managing the comment section of a blog. General Guidelines The trick to correctly managing the comment section of your blog is not to lead but facilitate the conversation. You don’t actually need to do much talking, you’ve already presented them with the content, now your job is to keep interesting and constructive dialogue going. In order to do that you’ve got to keep a close watch on what’s being said. So first and foremost, you’re going to want to: Keep up with comments consistently This is big. Huge in fact. There’s no point in having a comment section if you aren’t paying attention to what your readers are saying. So make it a point to keep alert to the comment section’s activity. Without anyone to moderate it, it can become a chaotic playground for internet malcontents of all sorts. Don’t Ignore Comments This is a soft rule, the exception is for certain types of negative comments which we’ll cover in the section below. For the most part though, it’s not a good idea to ignore your commenters. If you have a high volume of comments it might be a bit of a strain, but try your best to keep up with the different questions or compliments, or declarations that are being tossed your way. The readers will appreciate your approachability, and be more likely to further engage if they believe you’ll respond to them. Respond to the Intriguing Comments This is a suggestion that you won’t have much trouble following, as it comes very naturally. People who have the most interesting points of view will often dominate the online conversation, and for good reason. It’s obviously a lot more fun to talk to someone with a unique spin on things. So whenever you see an especially thoughtful or compelling comment, make sure to do your due diligence in providing a proper response. Always Ask for More Feedback Even if every comment isn’t a jewel, all of the interaction that you get with your blog is still valuable. So whenever you enter into a conversation with a commenter, always conclude the conversation with a request for further feedback in the future. If you really enjoy the conversation, you can even ask the commenter to provide you with a guest post. Often they’ll be flattered, and oblige. Then you make an interesting new contact, and get some free content. It’s a win-win. Be Grateful In addition to asking for feedback, you should always adopt an attitude of gratitude in your interactions with commenters. It’s very nice of them to be reading your blog in the first place, and the fact that they’re engaged enough to ask a question or make a comment is more than worth a simple “thank you” on your part. Avoid a Flame War with Politeness This should be a no brainer, but as with any customer to business interface, your comment section is a lot like a customer service center. People are coming to you with an expectation of etiquette. If they get less than they expect in that regard, rest assured that they’ll remember you lack of tact and hold it against you. So always put your best foot forward, and try to be polite. Negative Comments Unfortunately, not all commenters are going to be friendly, understanding, and enthusiastically civilized folk with no bones to pick with you or your brand. In fact, some will be downright hostile. Such is the price we pay for mass exposure. The world is just full of critics. So what can we do to mitigate the damage that negative commenters can do? Be Like Water I always relish an opportunity to quote Bruce Lee, and in this case his famous mantra for martial artists applies perfectly. Water is cool, serene, and collected. It’s adaptable to whatever container it’s in. You put water in a cup it becomes the cup. So react to the situation you’re in malleably and appropriately. If your detractor brings up a valid complaint, then give ground where it’s due, but never alter your general congenially polite state of Zen-like patience. Avoid panic and fear at all costs. It’s alright to get upset, but don’t let it show on the page. Reassess the situation after you’ve calmed down and then respond. But remember that politely, directly, and genuinely engaging a critical commenter will often change the tone of your entire conversation. Find out who you’re dealing with. If you’re going back and forth with a commenter, you might want to know exactly who you’re talking to.  This can help you figure out whether you’ve got a truly disgruntled customer or a mischievous trouble maker out for laughs at your expense. It can also give you some insight as to their needs and what value your brand can bring to them. Possibly allowing you to defuse the situation much more easily. Don’t Forget About Email If this is indeed a legitimate complaint, you don’t have to address the problem in the public eye. If the conversation is starting to get too incendiary, then just PM your detractor in the same calm amiable manner that you would approach him or her with in the blog section. You might have a much easier time resolving the issue without the burden of being out in the open under public scrutiny. It also adds an element of intimacy between the two of you, which could allow the commenter to open up in a more humble or apologetic way. Now just occasionally, you will run into an unreasonable, inconsolable, and in all other ways undesirable commenter that has nothing positive to add to the conversation without even a semblance of a reason for being so combative. If you spot one of these ne’er-do-wells, you have but one directive: Do Not Feed the Trolls! Trolls thrive on attention, don’t give it to them. If you determine that the commenter is simply a bad apple looking to drag your name through the mud for kicks, then there’s no point in engaging with them. While the internet does open you up to criticism, it’s up to you what content to allow on your own domain. Which leads us to our next point and that is to… Keep Your Finger on the Delete Button Here’s some good news, you don’t have to keep every comment on the page. Here are just a few scenarios where it’s entirely appropriate to delete a comment: When a comment is irrelevant or off topic When a comment is obscene or offensive When an anonymous poster leaves comments When a comment is spam Or when a comment is determined to be intentionally incendiary for trolling purposes   So don’t be afraid to get involved with your own online community. You’re the moderator, and have ultimate control of all that goes on in your comment section. So don’t worry about the haters, and have fun talking to your fans about all the interest you’ve generated on the topic you chose.  

Business is booming. Sales are up, revenues are high, and life is good. Yep, it looks like another day in paradise, but what’s this? An ominous report crosses your desk: customers are unsubscribing to your email list in massive numbers! It’s like quicksand, your contact list is quickly approaching zero and you can’t figure out why. Panic sets in, chaos reigns, the building is on fire, and the devil himself laughs at your feeble attempts to douse the blaze with a squirt gun. It’s a scary scenario, albeit highly dramatized and not all that likely. Still, it’s an important point, and one that isn’t brought up nearly enough. What can you do to keep your email subscribers happy? How can you keep them interested? And above all, what can be done to minimize the number of people who click the “unsubscribe” button? Death, Taxes, and Unsubscribes First of all, it’s important to realize that no matter what you do, you are inevitably going to lose a few stragglers here and there. It’s like death and taxes. People just lose interest, and it’s nobody’s fault. You must simply accept this nihilistic axiom and move on. The real thing you have to worry about is if you see a big trend of people subscribing and immediately unsubscribing. This is indicative of subscriber considering their choice to receive your emails to be a mistake on their part. That simply will not do. You’ve got to get people to open up your emails and expose them to the content you’re providing. Otherwise you’re wasting a lot of time, effort, and resources on a completely ineffective distribution channel. That’s especially disappointing, because email marketing is supposed to be one of your biggest converters.   So what can you do to keep folks interested in what you have to say? Well, to do that you’ve got to know where you’re losing their interest. Let’s take a look at some of the most common problems with email marketing campaigns and some possible solutions. Email Marketing Problems and Solutions: We mentioned above that an immediate unsubscribe is a very negative trend, and a signal that something needs to change immediately. The first thing you need to implement, if you haven’t already, is a Welcome message. It’s very important to inform your subscribers of the major benefits of their subscription right off the bat. So after sending the confirmation message upon their initial signup, you also need to have a welcome message in place that will walk them through the value that you’ll provide them with in their subscription.     Assuming that you have this email marketing mainstay in place already and you subscriptions are still dropping off, you might have to get a bit more creative in your efforts. There are two major impetuses for unsubscribing, and both have to do with the frequency of your emails.  You can either flood an inbox with too many emails sent in short intervals, or you can lose subscriber interest by not sending out enough emails. Luckily, the answer to both of these problems lies in integrating a few extra options onto your unsubscribe page. Rather than having an unsubscribe button that immediately boots you from a customer’s inbox like an angry bouncer might toss an unruly nightclub patron, you should have the button redirect the clicker to an unsubscribe page where you present them with a few options before they decide to give you the final kiss goodbye. A lot of highly successful campaigns employ a well-known tactic referred to as Opting-down rather than opting-out. Opt-Downs There are a couple of types of opt-downs. The first is a frequency opt-down. These let your customers decide how often they want to receive your emails. This way you address the two major reasons a potential customer would unsubscribe from your emails at once. It also shows the user that you’re making an effort to help them feel in control of the content they receive. People appreciate this level of control, and it can often be enough to change their minds about receiving your messages. However, it might be that you simply aren’t sending out enough emails to meet your reader’s needs. They can’t increase the frequency of your messages beyond the maximum now can they? If this is the problem, then consider sending your messages out on a schedule. Consistency is very important. You need to let your subscribers know that you can dependably stick to a routine. The second type of opt-down is categorization. This can apply when you bundle too many types of content together in your emails. Maybe certain people are only interested in your newsletter, and don’t want to be bothered with your marketing videos. Or perhaps they only want to open messages carrying promises of special offers or promotions. You can add the category opt-down right below the frequency on your unsubscribe page, and segment your subscribers by content that way. Preventative Measures   Speaking of segmentation, that’s an excellent preventative measure to keep your subscribers from ever considering an opt-out. Proper targeting of your customers takes a lot of work, (examining metrics and studying browsing habits) but in the end it can boost conversion rates through the roof for specific campaigns. Even more importantly, it can keep your email content relevant in the eyes of the receiver. In fact, another of the biggest reasons people unsubscribe from marketing emails is because of irrelevant, boring, or repetitive content. Targeted emails tailored specifically to a consumer’s preferences will increase your value in that consumer’s eyes. Beyond targeting, you also need to be sure that you aren’t repeating yourself in your marketing messages. If people keep on getting the same messages from you on a consistent basis, it will quickly lower their opinion of you and your brand. So do try to keep it fresh. One final misstep that’s sure to drop a lot of email subscribers is readability. More specifically, readability on mobile devices. If your emails aren’t optimized for mobile, you’re automatically alienating a gigantic section of your perspective consumers. A great deal of people do the majority of their web surfing from either their smartphones or tablets, so you need to be certain that your emails appear clearly, cleanly, and without error in mobile format. Acquisition of a giant list of email contacts is no doubt important, but it should never overshadow the retention of those contacts. Keeping loyal customers is more likely to lead your brand to higher profits in the future than any other single ecommerce activity in which you can engage. So follow these guidelines, keep that unsubscribe rate to a minimum, and as always: keep checking the Ashop blog for updates on the best practices for your online store.    

  One of the most oft repeated caveats in any ecommerce business plan, is to understand and engage with a target audience. This certainly sounds like common sense. Any self-respecting hunter has to understand the behavior of their prey. A fisherman needs to be able to differentiate between a marlin and a guppy, because they need a completely different set of equipment for each. So how is it any different when you're trying to sell your products online? The short answer is it’s not. The long answer is that it’s infinitely more complicated to convince a human being than it is to catch a fish or shoot a deer. Today, we’ll be talking about some of the key segments that a marketer should be targeting in a marketing campaign of any type, as well as some of the best practices to gather the necessary data to do your market analysis. First things first, let’s dispel some misconceptions. Targeting is about more than just demographic data. Demographics certainly have their place, but they’re only a part of the bigger picture. In addition to demographic data, aka who the people in your target audience actually are, you’ll need to know their browsing habits. You need to know their favorite sites to visit, which times of day they’re most active online, and what they spend most of their time doing. Gathering this information will inform you of the best ways, times, locations, and methods to use in your advertising approach. So let’s start with the basics: who is your audience? You need to know how old they are, what their marital status is, and their interests. Of the three qualifiers just listed, interests are by far the most important. Targeting Your Audience People have a funny way of regularly defying expectations. So rather than expecting a 45 year old married woman to be a soap opera fan, it’s important to look into her browsing habits. Once you do, you may just find out that she’s a huge NASCAR fan, and spends a great deal of time searching for Dale Earnhardt memorabilia. If you’re selling antique tea kettles, you now know to leave her out of your segment. The object of performing any amount of target market research is to keep yourself from making assumptions. Ideally, you want to have hard data backing up your hypotheses. This way you can more confidently push your products, and gain more conversions because you’ve targeted effectively. But how do you actually gather some of this data to build these target profiles? If you have a well-established site that attracts thousands of unique daily visitors, then you can just check your analytics, and gain a great deal of insight that way. If you’re just starting out though, you might need to get a bit more creative. There are several resources that can help you gain an immensely comprehensive picture of your target market.  Web analytics This is your first stop for target market information. These are the people who are actually visiting your site. Find out who they are, how many are regulars, which pages they’re spending the most time on, and what they’re buying. This data can also inform your web design and conversion optimization efforts. For more information on how to use your analytics check out some of the other Ashop Blog posts on interpreting and analyzing metrics. Cookies Cookies are an excellent resource for tracking customer behavior, not just on your site, but all over the internet. By incorporating cookies into your market strategy, you can find out what your target market members do on other sites, what their likes/dislikes may be, their interests, political or religious leanings, age, sex, and marital status, etc. Cookies work by automatically storing an encrypted text file on your visitor’s device or browser whenever they land on a web page. This essentially creates a record of their online activities that you can analyze and learn from. Social media Social media represents a more direct way of learning about your target audiences. While there are specific ways set up for merchants to learn about their audiences on major social platforms, you also have the opportunity to directly engage with your audience in conversations. You can actually request feedback, and ask how you can improve your website, products, and services. Surveys Surveys are a fun and easy method of data gathering. You can easily create surveys with online services such as Constant Contact or Survey Monkey. You can then promote these surveys with your newsletters, email marketing, social media posts or tweets, and so on. Use these surveys to gather demographic information about your audience, along with product preferences, and more subjective data. Quantcast Quantcast is an awesome website that lets you build a profile of the average visitors to any site around the web. Quantcast builds a comprehensive demographics report for the site's visitors that can be highly valuable to marketers. Use this website to check out your what kind of customers your competitors are attracting, and compare their optimization methods with your own. Google Display Planner What list of data gathering tools would be complete without Google making an appearance? Display Planner helps you target specific audiences in your brand’s campaigns by determining the best placements for your ads with demographic information that can be segmented by a number of filters such as age, gender, keywords, and topics. Build a Customer Profile Once you’ve gathered all of your relevant data, it’s time to build an ideal customer profile. Use the demographic information to determine the age, sex, income, and education level of your ideal customer. Narrow the profile down further with geographical information like location, climate, and whether they live in urban or rural environments. Take a look at this infographic describing the statistical averages amongst users of the Merry Maids Pet Service:   See how they’ve broken down all of the relevant categories of their target market? They know exactly who spends the most on the service they offer, and therefore: who to target. After determining the basic biographical information about your customers, find out what kind of technology they’re using to browse and purchase online. What browsers are they using? Are they surfing from a PC, a Mac, or a mobile device? It’s important that your site be compatible with your ideal customer’s method of choice for online shopping. Finally, try to determine what kind of potential for growth your brand has within the context of this ideal customer profile. How can you cross promote your products to them? Who are the other brands that are competing with you for their attention? How can you one-up this competition? All Systems Engage After you’ve gathered all of this data, it’s time to go out and engage your ideal customers. You’ve literally stacked the deck in your favor at this point, so you can confidently approach people on the individual level to have conversations about their needs, and discuss how your brand can provide for them. You also know exactly where to find these customers and which offers they’re most likely to respond to. If you’ve done your research correctly, nearly every variable will be playing to your strengths. So get out there and mix it up. Once you’ve began engaging, (this will be an ongoing process) measure your success. How did your efforts effect your bottom line? Keep track of the change in data, and start the process all over again. You need to be shaving down your sales strategy into a finely pointed spear. Ironically enough, the more narrowly you target your campaigns, the greater success you’ll find. Hopefully, you’ll be able to put this information to good use. Remember to check back next week for more helpful ecommerce advice on the Ashop blog.  

  We all make mistakes. It's how we learn and grow. Still, if you can avoid messing up, it's certainly an advisable thing to do. One of the most common areas for ecommers misteps is in the arena of content marketing. Today, the Ashop blog endeavors to help you watch your step on the treacherous path of online store affluence by revealing some of the most common fallacies in content marketing.    There Are No Shortcuts Many marketers, and so called ecommerce gurus like to throw out maxims. They love to tell you how you can make millions overnight, and that anyone can do "such and such," or accomplish "so and so" in no time at all.  The harsh reality is, when it comes to content marketing, there is only one sure-fire way to make great content: hire proven and experienced content creators. Or look for talented up and comers to do the same. Either way, you should expect to pay top dollar for their services.   Sadly, there aren’t any Mario style warp zones that can take your pay grade to level 8 in a matter of seconds. You’ve got to scrape and scrounge for every conversion that you get. So don’t get caught in the standard trap of trying to get over on your customers with subpar content in great volumes. The only person that’s getting shortchanged is you. Don’t Aim for Virality Virality is often treated as the ultimate goal for content marketers. After all, it’s great having such an extreme level of distribution without paying for anything other than an initial investment for the content. However, virality doesn’t always translate directly to increased conversions. Probably the most surefire way to get a YouTube video with 100,000+ hits is to feature an attractive girl in skimpy clothes holding kittens and bunnies while telling bawdy jokes. What exactly does that message give to your customers about your company? That you’re desperate for their attention mostly, and maybe that you have a good sense of humor. Unfortunately, that doesn’t really convince them to empty their pockets for your products. Virality is great for increasing exposure, but it shouldn’t be the main focus of your content marketing campaigns. Instead, you should aim for targeted traffic that is likely to be high-converting. You want to build up a base of truly satisfied customers. Visitors who are genuinely appreciative of your brand and your products. These high value customers can be counted on to provide a base income while you look to reach out to other demographics and expand your prospects. The goal is not just to grab one time conversions, but instead to court long term return business. You don’t achieve that with viral content. You get it by offering quality products at reasonable prices and honestly advertising these benefits to your customers. Don’t Rely too Heavily on Video Video is awesome. We all love it. This blog has on several occasions espoused the power and popularity of video content, and its prominent position in content marketing. BUT it would certainly be foolish to hedge all of your bets on this one medium. Video offers a powerful and engaging way to interact with consumers, but guess what? Not everyone wants to sit and watch it.  You may have a fantastically effective marketing video, complete with artsy images, and persuasive arguments about your brand’s superiority. Unfortunately, if it’s more than a minute long, you lose half the internet right off the bat. This is a common reaction:   As counterintuitive as it might seem, it actually can take far less of that notoriously short attention span to read a short article, rather than watch a video. This is because a reader controls the pace of his or her consumption of your media, rather than being at the mercy of the unchangeable interval of time required to watch your video. That’s why effective writing, along with eye-catching imagery, still have an affluent place in any savvy content marketing strategy.   Aside from that, why would you want to limit yourself to visual learners only? There are a ton of other potential customers that prefer different types of media over video. Make sure you aren’t ignoring major sections of the buying population by sticking to one technique too stringently. Otherwise, you’ll be like a boxer who doesn’t know how to throw a right hand.  That jab will score points, but you’ll never put together a winning combination with only one punch. Don’t Treat Content as if it’s an Isolated Event Content shouldn’t be standalone, not in its message, nor in its delivery. You don’t send a single sailor out in a lifeboat to explore an island. You organize a plan, and send a detachment of veterans who are experienced and well supplied. Similarly, A piece of content shouldn’t simply be published in your newsletter, and then left to wither in obscurity. Wait a week, and redistribute that content on your social media channels. It’s also important that this piece of content make an impactful statement about one of your products, your company, your industry, your niche, or all of the above. Remember that effective content marketing isn’t traditional sales. You aren’t trying to get them to sign dotted lines. Instead, you’re telling a story, inw which your company is the protagonist. And if you have an attractive narrative, conversions will flow naturally from that. This isn’t to say that traditional sales tactics don’t have their place in your content. Every piece of content that you publish should include a CTA of some sort. It’s important to draw in as much attention and good will from your customers as possible, but not at the expense of alienating them with an excess of zeal for their pocket change.  Content marketing exists to inform and offer value. The ROI of offering this to your followers is trust first, and then revenue afterwards. Try not to lose sight of your content’s purpose, across all of your channels of distribution. The trick to avoiding these content marketing mishaps, is keeping common sense at the forefront of your mind. People are complex individuals who have to be romanced a little before they’re willing to offer up their attention--or their checkbooks. You have to approach them from multiple angles with a cohesive message that addresses their individual concerns.  Especially avoid coming at them with a single minded attitude of grabbing their value without offering them anything in return. You’ve got to give to get, and forgetting that is the quickest way to lose consumer interest. 

If you spend any significant amount of time in the world of ecommerce, you’ll get to know the buzzword: “interactivity.” That’s because having a successful website means having customers who consistently peruse, browse, shop, and in all other ways interact with your products and content. If you don’t have a contingent of regular visitors doing this, then your site is already failing at its primary purpose. So to address the point directly, how to keep visitors engaged? Well, it helps to ask yourself a few questions: Are you regularly updating your landing pages? What about your blog? Are you keeping up with comments from your engaged readers and prospects? How helpful is your support staff? Do you have a live chat option? If you answer "No" to any of these questions, it's time to jump on the ball and get it rolling! Keeping Customers Engaged One of the most essential elements of any successful online store is that interactivity, in other words giving customers the opportunity to connect with real people. In this case: You. If your customers aren’t receiving this basic service, you can be sure that they will take their traffic, (and all the accompanying conversions) elsewhere. They will quickly become a part of the "45 Second" category of people. The ones who only briefly visit your ecommerce site. Usually, they’ll stay for less than a minute and then leave, never to return again. And since we know that you wish to draw your viewers in to become loyal and regular customers, it's important to keep your store interactive and engaging, which is easier to do than you might expect. Interaction is based on the simple principal of creating action between two or more people. You can easily do this by: Becoming an expert in your niche Creating authentic and insightful Content Staying active within your targeted Social Networks Writing engaging Product Descriptions and Reviews Producing and managing captivating Sales Campaigns Sending Coupons and Discount Codes to encourage repeat visits Requesting Testimonials and Referrals from Satisfied Customers Creating "Best Seller", "Now Trending" and "Most Popular" categories Providing a Live Online Chat service so that your customers can get help instantly Producing detailed feedback and post-sales surveys that encourage customer participation Most of these are part of the "little" details that are looked at as unnecessary extras, when in fact despite their simplicity, they’re quite necessary for any digital store front that truly wants to sustain a meaningful income from its online business. Customer interaction can also been seen as an external marketing practice. These kinds of things are achieved through third party blogs and forums. Think of them as opportunities to flex your "helper" muscle and gain fresh new customers directly, while simultaneously feeding them into the lifecycle of loyalty and referrals. Getting Customer Feedback Most of the essential tasks listed above can easily be taken care of with new applications and technologies that help you leverage your time and budget. Qualaroo is one of our favorite feedback apps. It’s a simple program that you can copy and paste right into your website, where it will become an interactive pop-up menu that encourages viewers to leave you feedback about their experience on your website. Such information can be vital in the process of understanding how to be everything you customers need you to be. ServiceKick is another amazing resource for online shop owners like us, who need some assistance getting testimonials without feeling like we have to squeeze the water out of rocks in order to get them from our current customers. Similarly, Ashop's built in newsletter system is a great way to deliver this testimonial request. Just set an Autoresponder to 20 days after an order so it gets to every customer at the exact right time. This can be an especially powerful strategy, because consumers often trust the feedback of other consumers far more than any sales or advertising pitch you can provide them with. So it works on two levels. First, you get to determine which of your customers are the most interested in you and your brand, because if they weren’t they’d have never responded to your request for a review. And second, you get positive feedback that you can post as a testimonial promoting your site. Another even quicker trick you can use to enable your customers to provide you with feedback is allowing them to review your products with a click. Much like you would rate a movie on Netflix with 4 out of 5 stars, you can implement similar functionality for your product pages. This will allow your customers to review public opinion about your products at a glance. And the easier you make things on your customers, the more they’ll appreciate your efforts. Putting all of these disparate factors together will aid you in your most important endeavor, creating an interactive space that keeps customers committed to taking actions and eventually leading to conversions. Anything that keeps a customer’s attention and puts you in a position to capitalize on their interest is a worthy addition to your site. So keep your eyes and mind open for any blossoming trends that can be used to your advantage, and always work to make the desired customer actions easy to find on your web page.   

So here’s the deal. Text is boring to most people. It’s necessary, but ultimately very boring for the billions of visually inclined consumers spread throughout the globe. Whitepapers were once the top method of gaining mass conversions. However, sales letters and the like are quickly being marginalized in favor of videos, infographics, pictures, cinemagraphs, and so forth.  Using the more diverse and attractive visual medium to market your online business is an obvious next step for most ecommerce entrepreneurs. And I’m not just talking about embedding a welcome message on your web page; oh no. there is a wide variety of visual content, and an even more diverse amount of ways to utilize it in your marketing strategy. First, it’s necessary to further illustrate the fervor around the visual phenomenon. Nearly 9/10 of internet browsers aged 18 to 34 watch some sort of video based content on a weekly basis, and most of us in the younger “Generation Y” category try to get our video fix on a daily basis. Can you say: “exploitable and advantageous data”? I’ll bet you can. So the question becomes: how do I grab some of that precious attention and turn it into engagement with my product? Glad you asked. The secret is to understand what your audience wants, more specifically what they want from you. In many cases, it’s to be left alone. So you’ve got some branding work to do. This of course boils down to what you normally do when delivering quality content. Provide interesting, entertaining, and educational information through an effective visual medium. So again, it substrates down to who are my customers, and how can I provide solutions to their needs? To find the answers to these questions you should take some time to understand the different learning types that are out there. Mainly, there are auditory, kinesthetic, and visual learners. Or to put it another way: Let them hear about something, let them do something, and show them something. Of these three learning types, visual is by far the most prominent. People learn best by example. Monkey see monkey do, right? Visual Media Marketing Methodology So what do you do with your visually inclined learners? Deliver the type of media that best reaches visual learners in a specific way. Basically you’ll be presenting information to your audience in an engaging, entertaining, and educational manner. You want to empower your customers to make informed decisions. The more educated a consumer is about your products, the more they will appreciate the work you put into your business. There are several ways you can go about this: Tell a story- Use your visual content to draw a narrative around your product. A clever or intriguing storyline can help your customers connect with your company and see it as an organic structure with a personality, rather than a cold and uncaring corporate monstrosity. Show examples- Illustrate your words with examples of what you’re talking about. Graphs, charts, and visual expressions of relevant data are invaluable tools for informing consumers. Explain how to do something-How to information is some of the most sought after online material. People crave autonomy, and there are entire communities springing up around DIY projects. Become a valuable resource for this kind of info and your site’s content will quickly become a widely traded commodity. Explain how something works-Ever read an infographic? ‘Nuff said. Types of Visual Media Content So now that you know about the different ways of using your visual content, it might be a good time to go over which kinds of content you could use to further your marketing efforts. Video This is the granddaddy of all visual content. In case you hadn’t heard, there’s this neat site called YouTube, and it’s probably going to replace your television soon. YouTube advertising pays big dividends, but uploading your own content which entertains your customers, and promotes your products is doubly effective. How-to information and tutorials are highly recommended for this medium. Infographics Who doesn’t love a good infographic? I love infographics so much, I decided to include an infographic about the effectiveness of infographics. And this kind of reminds me of that Xzibit meme… Memes Memes are these funny little visual posters that have a recognizable character along with some accompanying text that follows a theme. You’ve got things like Insanity Wolf, Bad Luck Bryan, Overly Attached Girlfriend, and so on. These are virally popular pictures that are shared across a large variety of online communities. Proper placement of a correctly used meme can be both humorous and effective in getting your message across. Comics/cartoons Just because Bill Waterson won’t let you use Calvin and Hobbes to sell anything doesn’t mean you should give up on comic strips altogether. Funny cartoons are more prevalent now than they’ve ever been, and they can be an extremely effective way of creating buzz around your brand. Cinemagraphs These are like an artsy amalgamation of motion picture and still life photography. This often hypnotic genre of visual content usually consists of a stagnant picture, perhaps of a landscape, with a subtle bit of animation involved, like a flowing river for example. Check it out. These are easy enough to do yourself, and there are tons of online tutorials on how to make them, as well as many online communities dedicated to helping you hone the craft. They can give a moody and aesthetically pleasing appeal to any visual content marketing campaign. Gif Properly pronounced like the peanut butter brand rather than another word for present, these tiny animated files are good for a repetitious bit of humorous fun. Including these short, repeating, animated clips adds a dynamic element to your content that’s definitely worth exploring. Instagram You know you can advertise here now? This gigantic photo sharing social network is beloved by foodies, hipsters, and fake photographers of all colors and creeds. But to keep it cool and not so corporate, you can only directly advertise in the search and browse options. However, if you have a company account, you can share all sorts of relevant photos that explain, or show something interesting about your business.  With over 150 million users, it’s probably  a good idea to at least experiment with this interesting social network.   So now that you have a good idea of what to do, and how to do it, it’s time to quit reading and start creating. Remember to use visual content to its greatest effect by using the best medium specific to your brand. Inform, educate, and above all engage with your customers through their favorite form of visual content, and you’re sure to snag some more conversions.