Ecommerce Shopping Cart Blog by InstanteStore » marketing tips for websites

2010 Marketing Tips For Websites – Add Real Value To Your Brand

desmond — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 05:06:36 +0000

The economic downturn has brought new emphasis to the term “Value” among consumers. The old marketing tips for websites of yesteryear may not be as effective anymore as shoppers are now more cautious with their spending. Although sales figures show that people are still spending money on all sorts of goods, they now (more than ever) indulge in more research to ensure they are really getting their money’s worth.

Now the reason to spend must be heavily influenced by the actual need for the product as well as the authentic meaningful value associated with the product. Gone are the days when people used to easily buy into assuring yet hollow tag lines and seemingly unrelated celebrity endorsements.

Online business opportunity Internet marketing suc cess now depends on how companies engage their customers. It matters little whether a store is an easy home based business or an established name in the business, consumers will no longer part with their cash just for the lowest priced item. Instead, many customers have adopted the “reason-to-buy at all” mentality.

Companies need to adapt fast to the current trend. A paradigm shift is needed with most companies, as consumer expectations are higher than ever.

Brand awareness used to be a staple on lists of marketing tips for websites, but the term no longer carries the same mileage that it used to. Consumers are placing more and more emphasis on brand differentiation. A brand that can successfully align itself with the needs of the consumer while setting itself apart from the competition will gain the most in terms of market share and profits.

For instance, there are hundreds of web stores that sell sports merchandise, yet how many have put in the effort to ensure total customer satisfaction in terms of the quality of their products, timely delivery and helpful after-sales service, for instance. As stated earlier, low prices are not the only determining factor anymore.

Customers take tag lines at face value, for the most part assuming that they are unsubstantiated claims or statements (until proven otherwise). If a web store makes a claim then it must back it up with proof such as real customer feedback from email, forums or review sites. Web stores must also be seen as continually trying to improve every aspect of their store by displaying survey questionnaires on their sites, for example.

We end this post on marketing tips for websites with a reminder that it is the consumer that decides if a brand has value. Therefore, constantly get feedback from your customers on whatever services or features associated with your brand or product are of value to them. Feedback such as this goes towards building your brand, which will bring success in the long run.Recent Posts:

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Affiliate Marketing – Myths, Mistakes And Money Making

desmond — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:51:10 +0000

Affiliate marketing is a great way to make extra money online by promoting someone else’s products or services. It is definitely a home based online business opportunity that’s been around for a while now which can be potentially very lucrative.

Now making money from affiliate marketing may sound like easy pickings, but it’s not. Don’t get us wrong – we don’t intend to ruin anyone’s dreams of making money via affiliate marketing – but what we do want to do with this article is give our readers a clearer picture about what affiliate marketing is all about and how to go about doing it properly (via marketing tips for websites, for instance).

How Affiliate Marketing Works

Affiliate marketers make money via commission from the sales of products that they promote. Say you have your own site and you’re an affiliate of The Fast Fast Fast Running Shoes store. If visitors to your site click on affiliate links that you’ve set up at your site and then proceed to buy products from The Fast Fast Fast Running Shoes store, you’ll earn commission from these sales.

With this in mind, affiliate marketers must ensure that their marketing efforts are targeted. This means to say that the products being promoted must be closely related to their website’s compelling content. For example, a website with a focus on running should contain affiliate links to running shoe or running related product pages. In short, Internet marketers have to address niche markets in order for their promotion efforts to be effective.

Affiliate marketing is popular home Internet business opportunity because it is inexpensive and rather easy to set up. For starters, you could join affiliate networks and sign up for affiliate programs. Be sure to do some homework before doing this to ensure that you join only the best ones.

The Myth

Myth: “Affiliate marketers can roll in money overnight without much effort”

We’re sorry to say that this is very far from the truth. Many new affiliate marketers fail because of this myth. This can be attributed to the fact that these Internet marketers do not know what they have to do to achieve their goals.

The Mistake

Many new affiliate marketers figure that all they need is a website filled with links and their work is done. No thought is given to how they will get people to visit their site and hopefully click on their links. Even more experienced affiliate marketers still make one age-old mistake: They don’t track the progress of their sales.

The Money Path

The key to making money online via affiliate marketing is targeted traffic – vast amounts of it. In order to get traffic to your site, you need to ensure that your site is easily found. For this to happen, your site needs to rank well on search engine result pages with the help of very good long tail keywords, among other things.

Earlier in the article, we mentioned “compelling content“. Having compelling content on your site is important because it gives your site some “net cred“. This is why trusted consumer resource sites do very well in affiliate marketing. If people trust what you say, they will return to your site, recommend others to your site and perhaps even establish links and ultimately purchase products that you’ve recommended or reviewed positively.

Even before your site starts attracting a healthy amount of targeted visitors, you need to work on call-to-action images and text to persuade visitors to click on the links. Simply put, you have to attract visitors, convince them to consider buying a product, and then drive them to the appropriate product page. Your goal is for your visitors to be in a buying mood after reading your content, with just a little more convincing needed on the actual product page to help seal the deal.

Also, you should have 2 page designs at hand so you can perform an A/B split test. This would allow you to gauge which design will garner a better CTR (click through rate). Even a 5% increase in CTR could potentially result in more money in the bank. As a business person you should do everything you can to maximize your profits, especially if it only costs you time and not money.

Once your home Internet business opportunity has stabilized, do not forget to track your sales. Consumer buying patterns change all the time and some links might not be popular as others. Remember, you need to constantly maximize the potential and profits of everything you put on your site.

It may seem like a lot of work and the truth is that it actually is, at the beginning at least. But then again, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Once your site is established as a reputable site, you should start to see some really good figures and all the effort that you’ve put into your home Internet business opportunity would have been worth it.

We invite you to share your experiences with affiliate marketing with us. Please leave us a comment if you have anything to share.Recent Posts:

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Make An Interesting Video With These Tips

desmond — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:56:14 +0000

Online video marketing is a great tool to boost sales. Video marketing on the Internet effects have so far been positive. The success of Internet marketing companies in increasing client sales via video marketing has been well documented. But this does not mean that your conversion rate will automatically increase tenfold just by uploading a video or two. An effective marketing video does not have to be costly to produce but it does take a bit of skill and effort to create one that will garner the response you desire.

Many small business merchants produce their own videos and have done pretty well. You can too.

To help you out, here are 6 simple video marketing tips for websites that you can follow…

Tools

Naturally, you’ll need a video camera and probably a better-than-average microphone for the voice-over. To reduce sibilance from the pronunciation of fricatives – the ’sh’ or ’sss’ sound – try positioning the mike differently. You can also reduce sibilance via software. Open the wave editor, locate and then reduce the problem frequency by 1dB. This function is sometimes known as the ‘de-esser’ on some wave editors.

To avoid aspirated and plosives voices (palpable puff of air upon release in words like ’spy’) that might lead to clipping, use a pop filter. You can actually make a pop filter using old stockings and a length of wire.

Software-wise, you can use free movie editors such as Movie Maker, iMovie, Jump Cut, Virtual Dub, Wax, Swei-Stein, Jahshaka, Avid FreeDV and HyperEngine-AV.

Keep It Short

The attention span of the average Internet user can be measured in mere seconds. So you need to keep your videos short and to the point – preferably under 2 minutes. This seems like a very short amount of time but people have made successful Apple Apps sales videos that are 30 seconds long or even shorter. It is important to let viewers know how long your video is right at the beginning, e.g. “Learn the secrets to looking younger with this 60 second video”.

Pace

In order to squeeze everything within a limited time frame, keep the pace fast and lively from the get go but don’t overdo it. This will help create an exciting atmosphere so as not to bore viewers. You can also use music with a fast beat to help dictate the pace. Make sure the music does not draw too much attention away from the point of your video, though.

Sound And Visuals

Try to make the video as dynamic as possible by making full use of sound and visual elements. Use an appropriate voice-over for narration. Graphics should be consistent and tasteful throughout the video. Narration and visuals (graphics, text, formatting) should sync perfectly to help drive home your point. Again, make sure that these elements help emphasize the point you are trying to make rather than draw attention away from it.

Content

Make sure the point of the video is expressed at the beginning as well as reiterated at the end of the video. Be sure to include the features as well as the benefits of any product or service you are trying to promote. Include calls to action at appropriate points during the video and one at the end too. This helps make the video more interactive. You can also include a call to action link in the video description, if possible.

Optimize And Disseminate It

There’s not much point in uploading your video to just your web page. You should leverage on all the free video sharing sites and other relevant sites which allow you to post written content as well as upload videos. It is also important to optimize your video for search engines. Make sure you include keywords in the title, description and tags.

Have you tried video marketing before? Do share you experiences with us.Recent Posts:

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