Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

Has anybody signed up for your newsletter yet? The problem for those who do is that they are likely to get lots of ads and not much in the way of entertainment.

You've had 180 visitors - on average how many pages do they visit? Are they genuine visitors - or do they just want to leave a comment to some spammy website leaving a false email address?

Now the hard stuff: who are your target audience? Are you speaking to them? Why would they buy from you and not one of the 100,000 other websites offering exactly the same stuff as you with as much entertainment value. One of these other websites will be cheaper than you.

Define your market niche with some care - work out who it is that wants the stuff you sell - and speak to them. Not just "we can do it cheaper, we'll do it better" but real communication, as if you were in a shop selling the stuff you sell.

You have no clear on screen positioning statement—nothing that signals to your ideal buyer that they are in the right place to meet their needs.

You might also want to look at your linking and social media strategies: you have both of these initiatives in place, yes?

Samdoris, I'm going to be very up front, and it may comes across as brutal (think brutally honest) ,but the Internet and ecommerce world is a very brutal place.

First off, your expectations of ecommerce is way too high. 180 and page visitors is really not a lot of traffic in the ecommerce world. Many ecommerce web sites have thousands of hits, even tens of thousands of hits, then get one sale, and sorry to say, that one sale often results in a return of the product back to the retailer (you). It takes a LOT of traffic to make it in the ecommerce world because the masses on the Internet are lookers, not buyers.

I don't know if you;ve ever worked in a retail store, but very often the people who come into a regular (bricks and mortar) store are again, often 'just looking'. Most of the foot traffic is likely window shopping, more lookers than actual buyers.

So, you may have to lower your expectations a tad, or you may end up sorely disappointed.

Its different if you are placing Search engine ads because folks who are searching for an item are actively engaged in finding an item to buy. People browsing an online store are usually browsing, killing time, filling time, aimlessly 'looking', but people actively engaged in search are usually looking to buy and are hot leads. You may want to consider placing some Google ads to direct folks to certain items in your store.

You domain name may be your new brand, but its going to take a long time to grow that into a brand name that masses will identify with. Brands don't happen over night, it takes a long time to develop one. But, you could get some help from search engines if you had a key word rich domain name. I don't know how often people (females) search the term AWESOME DRESSES AND REALLY COOL SHOES, but if you had registered and used the domain name AWESOMEDRESSESANDREALLYCOOLSHOES.COM (and yes, its really available according to my domain name registration web site www.customerloyaltydomains.com), you would be receiving some link love and some traffic from likely interested parties.

I know you are paying monthly fees to Shopify to host your online store, and you'd like to make some sales, but it takes a lot of work to promote an online store, perhaps more work than you'd like to take on or get into. Plus, its going to take a lot of traffic to get a few people to stop, let alone buy.

But, you might want to use social media and invest a bit of time searching Facebook and the likes to find groups, pages, and individuals who are interested in dresses and shoes, then reach out to them to try and get them to visit your online store. You might want to consider 'teaming up or partnering' with someone who has a lot of 'likes', if you can come to terms, you might want to do a 'sponsored story' or Facebook Only offer to the fans of a Specific interest Fanpage in hopes of driving very interested people to your web site to buy. For example, here is a Fanpage for Shoes i happened to find in a Facebook search: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Shoes-Mania/166140506762633?fref=ts <-- this Fanpage as almost a million 'likes' (909,551 at time of me posting this reply), that's a heck of a lot of people who have expressed an interest in SHOES and have even reached out to self identify themselves as LIKING SHOES. If you could partner with this page owner with a special offer to just his or her fans, well, do you think you might be able to attract a few of those 909, 551 people to visit your web site and perhaps look at some shoes? I think you might get some sales. But then again, perhaps not; but i know the odds are a lot better reaching out to folks who HAVE EXPRESSED an interest in a certain product category than sitting around waiting for the world to beat a path to your door.

I checked out a few items, and i must admit, I found myself drawn to the shoes. I think you have some pretty funky, neat, cool, fashionable, and desirable inventory. Same with some of the clothing. The copy describing the items is rather lack luster. Some of the items listed are just that, listed, like reading a phone book. You need to have some sizzle, some Pizazz! in those item descriptions.

Here is a link to one of your biggest competitors products: https://www.zappos.com/lassen-trula-black

Notice how Zappos does MORE than just list the item and its price. They go on to tell a story about the company that makes the item.

Here's another example. The J Peterman Company has taught me more about selling the sizzle as well as the item. Their catalog and the stories that go along with their inventory are legendary. Check out this: https://www.jpeterman.com/Womens-Dresses/Georginas-Sunset-Polka-Dot-Dress

Its not just a Polka Dot Dress.Its a story, a vision, an EXPERIENCE!

'When I left Georgina, she was restoring the 200-year-old frescoes in her 200-year-old villa in Matera, slightly south of Naples.

"Go explore the old town," she said.

Her euphemism for "get lost for a while."

(Actually, her villa was young by Matera's standard, where I discovered many of the houses are carved from old caverns that are some 9,000 years old.)

After an exhausting day of "exploring," she later restored my spirit at Le Botteghe by arriving not in her plaster-spattered overhauls, but rather in a dress whose stunning color was more than able to compete with the Matera sunset.

The approving looks from diners at surrounding tables seemed to concur.

Georgina's Sunset Polka-Dot Dress (No. 3692). Long, graceful, sleeveless, vintage cut in 100% cotton. Invisible side seam zipper. Mid-calf length. Band collar leads into a slightly curved V. Shirring along waistband. Side seam pockets. Separate wide self-belt adds a graceful touch.

Timeless femininity punctuated with tiny, almost innocent, raised white dots. '

I don't know about you, but DANG, I can almost smell Georgina's hair, and feel her light touch on my arm.

You are up against thousands, maybe millions of web sites out there. Take a close look at other web sites that are making sales. What are you NOT doing that they are? What are you doing that is different, that makes you stand out. What can you do for your customers to give them MORE value, MORE satisfaction, entertain them more, entice prospective customers to favor YOU with their hard earned cash?

I think you'll see, a field of dreams web site (if you build it, will they come?) is not an instant success, its only the start of a very long (and hopefully exciting) journey that will hopefully result in success.

I hope this helps you, and inspires you.

Darcy Moen
Customer Loyalty Network