Question

Topic: E-Marketing

How To Market An Ecommerce Website Development Co.

Posted by Anonymous on 4/26/2006 at 7:24 PM ET 250 Points
I am about to relaunch our website and with it plan to start actively marketing the business.

We are ecommerce website developers and we teamed together last year via a freelance strategy to create a portfolio of work to launch a more "legitimate" company with. We are now ready for that.

We want to reach a better client level/ higher paying clientele (We haev doine research and we knwof roa fact that People pay 10 times for the work we do to our competitors and it makes us cry - we'd be happy with half that).

We have started with google adwords to test that approach already and it has got us some (better) business but ...

We have thought of email marketing campaigns and gotten quotes but not gotten convinced.

We have been told press advertising in ways where is seems more like an article than an ad would be good but don't know where to look.

We designed postcards with no idea where to put them.

In fact we don't have a clue how to get our name out there other than what we know for online marketing in general.

Any helpers?
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by ReadCopy on 4/27/2006 at 2:11 AM Accepted
    I think Sids advice is good, I just wanted to add some simple things techniques to help things along:

    Put a "Add to Mailing Address" box above the fold to capture email addresses.

    Look closely at email campaign software and chose someone who has worked in the same sector as you and is cost effective. I have recently brought in Email Vision for one of my clients, its works well and is cost effective.

    Continue to use Adwords and/or Yahoo!, use very relevant keywords to keep the cost down.

    Use SEO to get high natural rankings

    Offer something for free, I offer a free SEO report on my site and it attracts lots of new clients.

    Take part in forums and discussions to get your message (and URL) across.


    Remember starting out is hard it took me 12 months to be comfortable with where I was, DO NOT expect overnight success.

    Good Luck
  • Posted on 5/2/2006 at 3:45 PM Accepted
    Hi There,

    I agree with the very wise first response to define your USP, and your target audience.

    If you are looking for offline marketing opportunities..

    I would go to networking events where your target market congregate.. this is one of the most successful avenues - along with being cost effective.

    You can also put together a presentation with a case study outlining growth stats on online shopping and how it can help x business and present in front of the group.

    Then I would go for PR. If you want to target small business then i would target small business magazines, and so on...
  • Posted by steven.alker on 5/9/2006 at 8:58 PM Accepted

    Our Unimax partner who engages in this area of activity tried all the routes mentioned with varying degrees of success and whilst it kept his team busy, they were not rushed off their feet and the business gained was geographically inappropriate.

    He printed a two fold, three page full colour flyer.

    He joined up with all of the local chambers of commerce and enterprise organisations.

    He mailed these, hand addressing the envelopes and putting in a personal hand written letter to convey personal attention.

    In their quiet time and personally at week ends, he toured all the local industrial estates and business parks, dropping off his flyers. Where he could get the names, he included a hand written note to the MD,

    He organised seminars on his technology in local hotels, after he’d dropped leaflets. He filled them.

    And that was that. I’ve not seen the guy much recently. I understand that he’s rather busy!

    Regards

    Steve Alker
    Unimax Solutions
  • Posted by ReadCopy on 5/10/2006 at 1:56 AM Accepted
    Offline, definately try PR, get your reputation out there, then employ a good business development manager.
    Someone willing to put in some telephone calls to potential clients, meet with them and sell them the concept.
    Its hard work, but its the way the industry works, and it does tend to work very well.

    Build relationships with others that could help you, SEO agencies, maybe even small web development companies that have no ecommerce building experience (offer a finders fee for them).

    Good Luck
  • Posted by steven.alker on 5/11/2006 at 5:27 PM Member

    I was interested in what AndrewS had to add. Offline, PR, use a BDM – yes, yes, yes. But the telephone suggestion has me worried – on leads or enquiries, yes! On cold approaches, I would have said no. The numbers in the chain seem to mitigate against success.

    Take a reasonably targeted list of a 1000 potential users and try to call them. You will get through to about 10% of the decision makers because the gatekeepers are very efficient at keeping out cold callers.

    That’s 100 conversations.

    Out of those, perhaps 40 will have an interest – higher if you have an enthusiastic and persuasive person doing the calls.

    Perhaps 20 of those will be able to envisage an application for your services within a reasonable timescale for the project and as I’m prepared to play the long game on my CRM system (OK, PRM system, prospect relationship management!)

    The killer is having a budget or the authority or discretion to create one. If they have considered the proposal before the call, they might have one, otherwise the interest engendered and the application envisaged will have to wait until the money is available. My experience is that only 25% will be able to give you some business within a 6 month period. That’s 5 people.

    Lastly, because it is now a competitive situation, you will not win all the orders where the prospect has the interest, the application and the budget. We win one in 4 on CRM projects at this stage and lose 1 in 4.The other 2 in 4 go into suspended animation for a variety of reasons and we sometimes revive them a year later.

    That’s 1.25 orders for the effort of making 1000 phone calls! We tried an enthusiastic telemarketer and increased the contact rate from 10% to 20% through professionalism and persistence. She also increased the interest rate from 40% to 60% but all her skills couldn’t produce an application where one didn’t exist and she couldn’t conjure a budget where one was not available.

    I have the highest respect for Andrew’s firm, Black and White marketing, so I would be delighted for him to show me the error of my ways or my approach. I would love to find a way to make the phone work again in software sales (We do CRM systems and consultancy) because it used to be effective. We are concentrating on generating enquiries, getting customer pull, so that the people we phone have already given us a reason to phone, by enquiring have expressed an interest, are likely to have envisaged an application and might just have access to a budget. We win one in four of those!

    Best regards


    Steve Alker
    Unimax Solutions

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