Question

Topic: E-Marketing

Marketing Plan For An Online Store

Posted by Anonymous on 5/27/2009 at 4:35 PM ET 2750 Points
We are trying to put together a common sense marketing plan for a new online store that will sell premium food products and I'm looking for hard data to support a reasonable budget.

The market is mature, with many other players in the trading space. Most of the big players are extensions of brick and mortar establishments or outgrowths of a well established traditional mail order businesses. There are some other e-retail only sites in the trading space that have done well, but they have been around a few years, and then there are others that have very nice websites but little traffic.

Unlikely that this client can cannibalize too much on competitors to build a good business -- they are going to have to build their own loyal following in order to generate sufficient sales. That means converting lots of prospects who aren't looking for "what's for dinner?" on Google, and a mix of offline activities (PR and advertising) in addition to blogs, social networking, online ads, search, cross promotions, etc.

So how much will this cost and when can they expect a good payback?

Through analyzing competitor's pricing structures, web traffic stats and the client's cost of goods, I've been able to make some preliminary guesses, but I'm going to need some third-party data to support my recommendations and I'm a little dead in the water until I can come up with a common sense budget to flush out a good plan.

First off, do you have a better formula for making sales projections? And next, do you know where I might turn to get info on marketing spend, tactics and return on investment for online marketers? What worked and how much did it cost? An appropriate report on best practices, etc?

I've been searching lots of sites online and all I've seen are (very expensive) reports that seem to be generic and focused on trends and technologies (Search works better than e-mail for customer acquisition, etc. -- No, duh!!!)

Any help you can give is most appreciated! Thanks a lot.
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by ajanzer on 5/27/2009 at 5:31 PM Member
    I don't actually have the details you need but (shameless MarketProfs plug coming) - did you look at the MarketingProfs SmartTools marketing plan? https://www.marketingprofs.com/members/

    I haven't tried it myself, but it might at least jump start some of the projections and put a framework around the process.
  • Posted by Gary Bloomer on 5/27/2009 at 7:32 PM Member
    Dear Agorman,

    There's a calculator that lets you calculate the costs of customer acquisition here:

    www.machinteractive.com/roi-calculator.asp

    I hope it's of use.

    Though analyzing your competitor's pricing structures, and so on might give you some useful basic information, do you know what other sites your potential customers use?

    I've found Quantcast to be a mine of useful information on users and their general web habits and site visits.

    This example might help:

    www.quantcast.com/harryanddavid.com

    The great thing about Quantcast is that you just type in a url, press go, and you get an instant result (as long as the site you're looking for is in their data base).

    Another useful resource is the range of tools here:

    www.futurenowinc.com/conversion_calculators_tools.htm

    There's also the direct approach. It's a bit ballsy, but if you don't ask, you don't get. Call the competition, tell them you're carrying out a survey on sales in uncertain economic times for an article you're writing, or for a student paper, and pepper them with subtle questions.

    Might work, might not. But it's worth a try.

    This might also be of use:

    www.slideshare.net/abelsp/maximizing-the-roi-from-online-marketing

    As might this:

    www.gourmetfoodmall.com/Articles/microsoft.html

    Anyway, apologies if this is all old news or ancient history.
    I hope my humble two cents' worth here bears fruit. Sorry I can't be of more help.

    Good luck to you.

    Gary Bloomer
    Wilmington, DE, USA




  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 5/27/2009 at 8:25 PM Member
    Are you trying to sell food products to everyone/everywhere online or are you focused on selling food products locally/regionally? There are different approaches you'd use based on the target market.

    For sales projection info, you could put up a website, create an adwords campaign, and see what the trafffic is like. Create a signup for new food products/special offers. That'll give you some hard data of what people are looking for.

    The next step would be to guesstimate what % of your traffic converts into customers. As a test, you could offer just a few representative products online, allow people to order them, and see what your conversion stats are.

    Of course, if you do PR, advertising, blogging, etc. you'll get more traffic (and ideally, a higher conversion since visitors will be already interested), but you'll have some minimum estimates to move forward.
  • Posted by SteveByrneMarketing on 5/29/2009 at 11:59 AM Member
    agorman

    My recommendation is for you not to try to do this internally. I would find and hire a consultant who is very knowledgeable in the areas where you need real expertise and data. It will be a good investment over the long haul.

    hope this helps,

    Steve
  • Posted by SteveByrneMarketing on 5/31/2009 at 12:21 AM Member
    "I am looking for research reports and data that shows how other major online merchants have achieved major successes, how they did it and what it cost them. I need this to validate and justify our recommendations.""

    Thanks for clearing things up. So in a sense you want to determine a budget for the discovery phase of your swot/situation analysis. As you have already experienced, you could just budget hours of google time at a relatively low rate ($25 to $40 per hour) to get a better handle on this project, but you are likely to be disappointed.

    If you were an expert in this area, you would know the answer. I would hire an expert and save myself time, money and aggravation.

    just my two cents,

    Steve
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