Online Research Affect on Retail Sales

Posted on April 2, 2010 by Jodi Gaines Pereira

The US Census Bureau released Q4 numbers for online sales that showed a growth increase of 14.6% compared to the same time the previous year. Interestingly enough, they also found that much of the time spent on e-commerce sites were research oriented leading to in-store purchases. Online consumers were busy searching for coupons, price shopping and finding the right product to fit a particular need.

Fortunately for e-commerce stores with no Brick and Mortar presence, the industry believes that as the age of internet users increases so will the percentage of online purchases because of their predisposition to e-commerce.

Email Promotions Top Search Marketing for Holidays

Posted on December 2, 2009 by Jodi Gaines Pereira

Marketers and retailers this holiday have opted to spend more money sending email promotions to bolster online sales than for online search or social media. According to Shop.org, “100% of online retailers planned e-mail marketing efforts, and nearly 97% would do paid and organic search marketing activities. Social media usage was increasing at a higher rate, but from a smaller base.”

More importantly, marketers are stressing that retailers also focus on execution of these strategies, specifically having the right landing page and presenting offers where users can find them. Emails should focus users to specific products or pages that correlate with the email message. Search ads should send users to special landing pages with appropriate keyword related content.

Search engines typically send users to pages deep within the site without the user ever having to hit the home page. So instead of placing promotions only on the home page, make sure they can be seen through-out the website too.

Quick Tip: Collect Customer Reviews for Your Website

Posted on November 2, 2009 by Jodi Gaines Pereira

When managing email, be sure to tag possible testimonials or comments that can be put on your website with a category or move them to their own folder after the response. With eMail Manager, this can be done manually or by implementing a Rule that assigns a category or copies the email to a folder, automatically, based on specific triggers (e.g. email title, etc.).

For more on how Customer Reviews can help your website, take a peek at:
Putting Customer Reviews on Your Web Site by Business.com

The Best Methods to Improve Online Conversions

Posted on October 28, 2009 by Jodi Gaines Pereira

Website success is generally measured by the number of conversions that are generated. The most common conversions are defined as a sale, sign up or contact effort (online form or phone call). But how do you know if a website is generating the right number of conversions? According to a conversion report published by eConsultancy, the most effective way to increase conversions is to analyze data (such as customer journey and cart abandonment rates), site testing (user and A/B testing) and taking the advice of an expert on usability. Other methods included segmentation, copy optimization, email triggered behavior and online surveys.

eConsultancy also reported that 70% of the businesses in the study said they experienced improved conversion rates despite the sour state of the economy. Companies with staff devoted to monitoring conversions were 50% more likely to show improvement than those that did not.

For additional details and charts, visit eMarketer.com

Consider Cost per Lead for Online Advertising

Posted on September 7, 2009 by Jodi Gaines Pereira

Instead of paying for clicks, ever consider paying for performance (aka cost per lead)? Per transaction costs are a bit higher, but in the end, you are paying only for an actual lead and not just the click-through to your website or landing page.

According to Pontiflex, 51% of marketers found leads from brand or community sites to be the most effective, 31% from E-newsletters and 9% from ads that included a free trial offer. Costs per lead do vary depending on the industry, ranging from $ 0.60 to $3.00 per lead. The more data you collect, the higher the cost per lead. Technology, health and entertainment industries were typically higher than other industries.

Experts recommend collecting the most basic data (name, email, etc.) for higher conversion rates for new leads and collecting more premium data while building a relationship with that customer. It is also important to follow up on these leads in a timely fashion, so be sure that your email management software is easy to use and can easily be filter emails so the right person can follow up.