E-Commerce Basics: Customer Prospecting
No doubt as a budding entrepreneur or small business owner you have labored extensively perfecting your online website, but unlike the quote, “If you will build it, they will come,” obtaining and retaining a dedicated customer base requires substantial effort. Fortunately, there are some no-fail marketing methods designed to attract new customers to your site; which require no upfront investment.
To get your business more well-known, start by determining your niche. Do you sell pet products? Are your products geared for a certain age group, gender, or hobby enthusiast? Asking yourself some basic questions will help target your customer base and can focus your businesses’ efforts to attract customers who have a need for your services.
A great way to advertise your site to niche markets is to become a forum member. Have your company’s web address in your profile’s signature line, and remember to post frequently, as your signature line will always stay with your post. To determine if these kind of marketing efforts help, install a stat counter on your site and monitor where the traffic originates. Likewise, try to create specific articles related to your site and use your website in the “links” or “suggested resources” tab. Some places like Associated Content, eHow, Helium and other sites welcome articles for free, but you can not promote your business, sound overly promotional, or appear “spammy”. An example of how to overcome this obstacle will be explained with the premise that your site sells sporting goods. As a site owner, first you will need to make a list of all sporting goods products that you sell and write an article for each related sport. If you sold football supplies, you could write about topics relating to body protection, the proper fit of outerwear, different shoe manufacturers, injury prevention, and other related articles, not mentioning your site until the “suggested resources” or “links” section appears. This kind of free publicity has to be done incognito, as these sites constantly monitor content to make sure it does not appear as self-promoting.
If you can not take the time to write articles for content sites, you may want to make a small investment and have someone write them for you using a “for hire” site like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. There, you can pay a “Turker”, which is basically a worker, a mutually-agreed upon rate of pay for a specific article. In order to protect yourself from getting third-rate content, make sure you specify all articles must be written by Native English writers, state all articles will be checked using Copyscape, and that all poorly-written work will be rejected. This will save you from having to weed through and pay for unusable content. Post one article request, and if you are satisfied, post more titles and content requirements.
Additionally, when you receive these articles, remember to post them as “non-exclusive” and as “display only” to avoid any article confusion. Finally, remember, since you now own these articles, you may also want to put them on your website to show shoppers how important your product really is, or how it is used. While most catalog descriptions of goods or services for sale are brief, your goal is to try to keep the customer on your site for as long as possible; hoping they will make a purchase. Quality content and marketing will not only help draw in a qualified customer base, but will help your business maintain a relationship with those interested in a product with a trusted vendor.
Finally, consider setting up a mutual agreement with affiliates. This is where the affiliates post an advertisement about your product or service and customers can click a link back to your site. As compensation, the affiliate either receives a commissioned percentage of the sale (usually 2 to 3%) or, in return, free advertising on your site. While not Google ads, affiliate linking can in the long run be more profitable than Google ads, as you would either be providing free advertising or only paying your affiliate once a true sale is made, as opposed to a typical cost per click or cost per impression. Be sure though to approve all prospective affiliate’s websites to ensure neither they, nor anyone affiliated their site can be a potential competitor. Affiliates work best when your product or service and theirs can work in conjunction with each other, thus filling a need for each other’s customer base.
Remember: exposure is the key to drawing traffic to your website. Once there, the more diverse and helpful your business’ site, the more consumers will know you care about them. By winning the customer over, you most likely will be the first one they turn to for all of their niche-specific products sold on your site now and in the future.
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