 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| eMarketing Tips and Tricks - Feb 18, 2003 |  |
 |
||||
|
Check out our eMarketing Tools
Informative eBooks
|
Today's Article: Have you Captured Me Today? Today's Ask Dr. Ebiz: Web Hosting for eCommerce Site by Alexandria K. Brown, 'The E-zine Queen' There are many Web sites I visit
every day and will probably never return to again. It's not that I
didn't like the site, or that I wasn't interested in the topic,
services, or products The danger of this happening at YOUR site is that you just lost a great prospect. After all, I'm pre-qualified. I was already interested in what you had to offer. I likely found your site via a search engine, web directory, advertisement, article, or another promotion. I clicked through to your site because I wanted to learn more. But studies reveal that I'm most likely NOT going to take action the first time I visit your site. Have you heard the statistic that it takes about *seven* contacts before prospects are ready to buy? (That's a lot of times!) So how can you get the chance to contact me another *six* times? The answer is to CAPTURE me then and there -- that is, get my email address. To do this, you'll have to offer me something valuable in return. If you just tell me to 'sign up for our mailing list,' you're not going to get squat. So what can YOU offer me? Here are some ideas that have been proven to work when done well. Of course, the *content* for all of these should tie-in to your business focus: 1. A FREE MINI EMAIL COURSE. These are becoming very popular right now. You simply create a few emails' worth of content to spread out over a certain amount of days. You'll need an email autoresponder to do this, which allows me to sign up for your course automatically. Many sites seem to offer five- or seven-day courses, and many of them are awful. So here's a chance for YOU to stand out: Make sure yours offers really useful or interesting content that's more 'how to' than salesy. Then in the last email, tell me how your services/ products will further help me -- lead me on to the next step. 2. A FREE E-ZINE (email newsletter). If you can produce new content on a regular basis,
this is your BEST option, because you're receiving permission to
contact me (and market to me) again and again! You'll always be on
my mind. And if you're a solo professional who is marketing your own
3. A SPECIAL VIP/PROMOTION LIST If I like what I see, and you give me the chance to
receive *special offers* that will save me money at your site, I'll
be sure to sign up for your list. For example, one site I love
4. A FREE SPECIAL REPORT OR EBOOK. Here's another neat idea -- give people a special report or short ebook related to your topic of interest. Not sure where to start? Try a top-10 list of tips, a list of relevant resources, or a collection of articles you've already written. The more 'how-to,' the better -- give me real, useful information. But of course make sure it implies that YOU and YOUR BUSINESS are the best resource in the end. This is a delicate balance to achieve, but it's not as hard as you may think. And at the end of your content, tell me how your services/products will further help me. (Again, lead me on to the next step.) 5. DON'T FORGET TO FOLLOW UP! Once you capture a list of prospects, you'll need to contact them again. We'll cover the art of follow up in an upcoming article. Of course, if you're publishing an e-zine, that's already set. (Hooray for e-zines!) (c) 2002 Alexandria K. Brown ABOUT THE AUTHOR
"We have been researching setting up an e-commerce site. One question I have is when picking a hosting service, what is best to look for -- transaction fees or amount of total memory I am allowed for our site? Do we need any special software of our own to handle credit card purchases?" -- Kevin Glenn Web hosting companies try to show that their offer is better than their competitors -- more disk space, higher download limits allowed per month, lower prices, etc. Few beginning online store owners will ever exhaust the disk space or download allowances. What generally fills up disk space on the server are graphics from hundreds of products. (Note: if you're a Fortune 1000 company, some of this advice doesn't apply to you.) The most important single factor in selecting a web hosting service is the level of customer service you can expect when something goes wrong. You can't determine that unless you know someone who has used the service for a while. Among the many good hosts out there, I've found that Lexiconn Internet Services (www.lexiconn.com) provides superior customer service while offering good prices. The lowest priced hosting services just can't afford to offer great service for what they charge. You don't really need special software to handle credit card purchases, but a combination of (1) a merchant credit card account that allows you to get credit card transactions processed and (2) a payment gateway that transmits your credit card information instantly to the credit card processor and sends back a transaction authorization number.
A low-cost approach is to use PayPal (www.paypal.com) to start and employ their free shopping cart system. With PayPal you don't need a merchant account or payment gateway, but you will need a web hosting service for your site. While PayPal lacks some automatic order management features and is clumsy for stores with lots of products, they can get you started in e-commerce without a lot of out-of-pocket expenses. Don't select PayPal, however, unless you are in a country that allows you to transfer PayPal receipts to your local bank account (www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/approved_countries-outside). Copyright 2002, Ralph F. Wilson . All rights reserved. Used by permission. |
|||||
|
©
2003 Mailworkz. All Rights Reserved.
|
||||||
