5 Easy Steps for Developing and Integrating a Social Media Plan

I’ve written several posts this year that explain how to use some of social media’s most popular functions. I’ve concentrated on Facebook and Twitter because they trend as some of the most popular social media sites in the world. While knowing how to use these sites is helpful, putting them to good use can be an entirely different proposition.

Similar to a business and its business plan, when you decide to start using social media to market your brand, you should also have a social media plan in place.

If you’re stuck on how to develop and integrate a social media plan, I’ve laid out five easy steps to get you up and running in no time at all.

Step 1. Alerts and Analytics. You’ll want to begin this R&D phase of your plan by checking your analytics, specifically, your keyword content. Keywords are not solely responsible for driving traffic to your site; however, they are a good indicator of what is leading people to your site. Once you’ve narrowed down your top 5-10 keywords and phrases, create email alerts with these words or phrases as topics. The alerts will keep you up to date on any online chatter taking place about your topics.  Be sure you’ve also set up an “ego” feed to alert you whenever your site or url have been referenced on another site.

Step 2. Check out the competition to determine how you will use social media. Head on to Twitter, Facebook and any other social media sites you’re considering so you can see what your competitors are doing. Be sure to observe the frequency of their posts or updates, any discounts they offer as well as how they’re communicating with their followers or fans. Do you want to follow a similar track? Will you use social media strictly as a marketing vehicle — talking about upcoming promotions or discounts — or will you use it to communicate with current or future customers?

Step 3. Create your accounts and promote the heck out of them. Once you’ve done your competitive analysis, factored in your keywords, and have seen the online chatter, you should feel comfortable enough to set up your accounts and start talking. “Talking” can be as simple as a “Hi, this is our website and this is what we do” or “Have you seen this great article on how to use ornaments all year round?” or even a “Welcome to our Facebook Page, Did you know we’re also on Twitter and we have a blog too?”. Once you have your accounts set up and conversations started, make sure you’re letting people know you’ve got a presence there. Facebook and Twitter both have badges and widgets you can add to your site. If you’re sending out electronic alerts, make sure you’ve added your Facebook and Twitter profiles to them as well. You want to make your presence known so others will follow and friend you, thereby increasing the odds of new customers.

Step 4. Launch a social media-based promotion. One of the best ways to see if your social media plan is working is to launch a social media-based promotion. Once your social media sites have been running smoothly for a few days (or weeks, however long is comfortable for you), begin to use your new friends and followers as a means to make a sale. Offer a Facebook friends discount or do a Twitter promotion and watch to see if anything converts to a sale. If it does, then you’ve witnessed your first social media marketing ROI. Not sure what to discount? Check back to your keywords to see what trends high for you. That’s what you should be promoting.

Step 5. Review and revisit your social media plan often. Don’t rest on your laurels once you’ve converted a social media promotion into a sale. Continue to review your analytics to see how much traffic you’re getting from your social media efforts. Make sure you also don’t drop off the face of the social media earth once you’ve landed a sale. Keep the conversations going and continue to promote and review your progress.

The How-to and Why of Twitter Lists for Ecommerce Retailers

Twitter’s recently added list functionality has turned the social networking site into a list-maker’s paradise.

If you’re asking yourself what the point is or why use a Twitter list if you’re an ecommerce retailer, then you’ve come to the right place. Below, you’ll find a brief introduction to Twitter lists as well as reasons why web retailers might want to use them.

What are Twitter Lists and how do you use them?

In the simplest definition, Twitter lists are a way to organize – into lists — brands, associations or people you want to keep together in a group. You can put together up to 20 lists containing up to 500 users each of whomever or whatever you choose.

Creating a Twitter list is fairly simple. Using my own Twitter account, we’ll create a list for my Chicago Tweeps (that’s Twitter People for those not up on the Twitter lingo).

Once you’ve logged into your account, find “New List” on the right column.

Once the dialogue box appears, begin typing the name of your list. This name is unique to you in that it’s attached to your Twitter profile name. You needn’t worry about copying someone else’s list name.

You may include a description with your Twitter list if you so choose. This might be helpful if you choose to make your Twitter list public or if you need to remember why you put the list together in the first place.

Finally, choose whether you want to make your list public or private. If you choose the public option, other Twitter users will be able to see who you have on your list. If you choose private, only you will be able to see who is on your list.

Once your list has been created, you can now start to add people to it.

There are several options for adding people.

You can use the search function:

You can search for Twitterers you follow (click on the ‘list’ icon and check the list you’d like to add them to.)

You can search using other Twitterers’ lists. To do this, click on their list(s) in the right column to open up a list. Select individual Twitterers to follow or choose “Follow List”

If you chose to follow another Twitter’s list, the list will be added to your list of lists in the right column.

Why would you want to use Twitter Lists as an Ecommerce Retailer?

Twitter lists are a great way to organize the people you do business with. If you’ve been on Twitter for any amount of time, you’ll notice that it can be cumbersome to find and follow specific users you may consider important.

Twitter lists allow you to organize those users into easy-to-follow screens.

Say you have 900 followers. A third of your followers are customer-based; another third are vendor-based and the final third are industry-based.

With 900 followers, you’d have to be on Twitter all day long just to keep up with everyone. With Twitter lists, you can segregate your customers from your vendors and industry experts and concentrate on a specific group of Twitterers.

With Black Friday coming up, wouldn’t it be a great idea to call attention to your loyal customers (whom you have showing on a public customers list) and give them all a discount? Same goes for your vendors. If you love Paypal and your newsletter software so much you wish you could marry them both, why not give them the attention they deserve by pointing your followers in the direction of your vendor list.

Complete Ecommerce Holiday Checklist

The holidays are quickly approaching and you should already be pushing promos geared toward that (and have others planned). However, this timely post provides you with a checklist of things to consider while moving toward the holidays.

1. Ensure your checkout process is stable and the shopping cart is streamlined.
You should be aware of this part of your site all the time, but take one good look at it and make sure it is working (and across multiple browsers) before the holiday shopping season hits big. It does you no good to get an customer who is interested in your product(s) put items into their cart and then abandon due to circumstances that could have been avoided.

2. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.
If your website is working and is smooth, now is not the time to try new programming alterations etc… You might risk introducing a bug or problem into the current process and if it can wait, you should put all your major changes off and sit tight until the holiday season passes. Instead, focus on sales efforts. Sales are more important than new innovations during the 4th quarter.

3. Ensure your search marketing and ads reflect the holiday things people are looking for.
Free shipping, big discounts, buy one get one free, etc… are all big items people consider during the holidays especially. Also consider running ads during the holiday season only that reflect products people are looking for (that you offer).

With the major engines you can easily schedule your ads to run during a given period (I recommend creating a new campaign(s) and calling it “holiday” or something like that.) You can break this new campaign into various ad groups that all target different holiday products.

Schedule it to run during the holiday season only and end it when the holidays are over. This is something that can really help boost sales.

I recently worked with a retailer that had some holiday products (limited time) which just arrived. A quick search of Google Trends told me the exact points in time each of these products was in it heaviest demand on the internet and thus we setup a number of ads targeting those keywords and products. The results were immediate with new sales coming in within a few hours.

4. Utilize your Social Media channels to ensure you spread the word about your offers.
Viral marketing during this time of the year is something you simply can’t overlook. Good news (and offers) spread fast!

5. Tweak navigational elements to cater to the holiday shopper.
Consider adding the following temporary categories to your navigation during the holidays.

Gifts by Price: Organize and suggest gifts by price range. For example, highlight gifts under $10, 25, 50, 100 or whatever price points are appropriate for your business. Maybe try a “Gifts Under $10″ category or something.

Gifts by Person: Organize gifts intended for different people groups such as kids, teens, parents, and grandparents. Consider a “Gifts for Him” or “Gifts for Her” category as well as “Gifts for Boys” and or “Gifts for Girls.”

6. Showcase stocking stuffers.
Be sure to highlight low cost products that would make good stocking stuffers. You may even want to utilize these types of items for “cross promotional selling” as a way to increase your average order value.

7. Make sure your shipping and return info is clearly marked on your product pages.
Again, this is something that I say should be there all the time anyhow, but during the holidays you better have it. Shipping and return issues will be top of mind for your customers at this time and one of the first places the begin to seek answers to these questions is on the product page. Be sure you display or link to your shipping and returns pages from your product pages.

A favorite way I like of doing this is to provide a “tabbed” experience as is the case with many big online retailers and providing tabs for the product description, shipping info, returns info etc… This is a super way to keep the user on the product page and still provide them with the information they seek.

8. Consider offering gift wrapping.
If your business can do it, consider offer gift wrapping services to your customers. You can add this as an “upsell” on the product page (and remember to cross sell it on the shopping cart page in case they missed it) but be sure to add enough additional charge to cover any labor and materials associated with this.

9. Create product bundles.
Product bundles are a great way of increasing average order value and sales across the board. Consider taking several related products and grouping them into a “gift package” at a discounted rate than if the items were purchased separately (this too will encourage sales.) Gift selection is much easier when related items are grouped together in some sort of gift basket or bundle.

10. Consider gift messages.
If you r cart enables you to do so let your customers add a personal message to their gift. For simplicity, you can have the message appear on the packing list which will already be included in the box. If your cart doesn’t enable that, consider using the “Additional Comments” box (which many carts have by default) as an opportunity for them to add their gift message. Just ensure this message appears on the packing slip as well.

11. Determine shipping cut-off dates.
This is probably one of the most important pieces of information to communicate to customers during the holidays. Check with your shipping carriers to determine what the cutoff days are for the various methods of shipping. Ensure you add a “guaranteed arrivel in time for (name your holiday here) if ordered before (name your date here.)”

12. Prominently display your return policy.
As mentioned above, your return policy should be easy to find. Consider re-wording it as a “no hassle” policy in order to calm the fears of first time buyers (if you are not already doing so).

If your current policy is stiff, consider loosening it up during the holiday season. While a 30 day return policy is commonplace for the rest of the year, it may scare off early shoppers during the holidays. Make it clear to your visitors that you will accept returns and exchanges on all Christmas (or name your own holiday) gift purchases. This ensures them that they can expect total satisfaction.

QVC always does a super job of wording their return policy during the holidays—Why? because it works.

13. Show holiday spirit in your graphics.
Go ahead, decorate for the holidays! Consider redesigning some of the artwork on your site with a holiday theme. If you do any shopping (or searching) on the internet you’ll see all the big players do this. Even Google decorates for the holidays by reworking their logo to get you in the buying mood.

14. Ensure your server can handle any increased capacity.
If you don’t host in-house, talk with your web host about how you can increase your server performance during the holiday rush. The quickest way to lose sales is to have a website that is not online or is very slow. This will not only cost you holiday sales, but will likely cost you many future customers as well so the effect can be long term.

If you are on a shared hosting platform and looking for hosting, I recommend Media Temple as an option.

If you are looking for a dedicated hosting solution, no one beats Rackspace in my opinion. (I would not recommend moving your site to a new hosting platform if you are in the midst of the holiday shopping season though!) If you weren’t prepared for the rush then you’re just going to have to wait till next year to make the move. Lesson learned.

15. Enable customers to ship to alternate locations than the one they are buying from.
If a customer is buying a gift for someone that does not live near them they may want to have it simply shipped to to the recipient’s address as a holiday gift surprise.

16. Communicate with fulfillment & customer service.
Make everyone involved in the order process aware of any promotions etc… you plan on running. Don’t surprise your customer service and fulfillment staff with an unplanned 24 hour blowout sale.

Taking 10,000 orders in a day is great, but if your warehouse can only ship 5,000, you’re in for trouble.

17. Ensure your email campaigns promote the holiday offers and your website backs those up.
If you are running any email campaigns you need to ensure that offers presented in the emails are easily found and similarly presented on your website. Consider using similar graphics and pushing the traffic to specific landing pages on your website that are setup to convert that traffic.

It’s all about relevancy here. The more relevant the site is in comparison to the email offer, the more success you’ll have generating sales.

18. Consider offering gift certificates.
Even if you do not offer gift certificates any other time of the year, consider offering them during the holiday season. These often provide an added option for shoppers who may not have a “wish list” but know someone they are buying for likes to shop at your store.

These might also be a way to get “last minute” shoppers to buy—that is, providing your cart offers the ability to generate “digital gift certificates” that are sent and redeemed online (rather than printed or sent in a traditional “gift card”.

4 Tips to Ensure Your Site is Customer Focused

Website conversion is increased using a variety of strategies all of which play an important role in the ultimate effectiveness.

I seem to constantly mention that one must make sure they pay careful attention to the customer experience their website offers. After hearing this so many times one might ask “Why do you keep saying this? Enough is enough already.”

The reason I continually bring it up is because it is one of the most important factors playing a role in your success, yet is most often overlooked by many store owners. This quite possibly could be because the customer experience is an all inclusive concept involving many systems working in unison.

The customer experience is not a single tangible element which can be held or altered but rather a series of elements which make up a system upon which the customer relies to get them to their end goal — making a purchase. For it to be effective each of the elements which makes up the system must each be in top shape.

A big part of that customer experience lies in the content (text) your site uses to describe everything from products to the way you use them to your business itself. This is your chance to shine — and many stores fall short.

“Words have the power to influence. Use them carefully but wisely.”

Take the following example from a dealer selling automobiles.

Company Focused: The auto dealer features a particular automobile in its inventory as offering “30 miles per gallon.” Although customers may find this promo informative, they may not see the benefit this statement offers them.

Consider this reworded description.

Customer Focused: The auto dealer lists the car and says “spend less on gas and save more money with this gas-efficient vehicle getting 30 miles to the gallon.” Now this phrase speaks to the customer. It provides them with a specific benefit that buying this car will give them. Everyone wants to “spend less and save more” right?

So after that introduction and example, here are 4 tips you can implement to ensure your site is focused more on your customers and not yourself.

1. Examine your content “bulk.” Content is what encourages customers to continue through the conversion path toward a completed sale. From product page and shopping cart wording to customer assurance terminology which builds confidence, make sure your site includes plenty textual content aiding users at understand the purpose of each page, where to go next, and what to expect.
2. Analyze and assess your content. Who does your content focus on (speak to)? Is it your customer or your company? While content should describe your offers, products, and company (to name a few), it should do so from a customer perspective. Turn any “we” / “our” statements into “you” statements.
3. Describe product and shopping benefits. Let your customers know more than just about what you offer; tell them how your offers or how shopping with you (instead of competitors) will benefit them. For starters, try to include one benefit for each attribute. Customers who clearly understand the benefits are more likely to turn into sales.
4. Start from the top and work your way down. Begin updating content on the high level pages of your site (home page, product pages, shopping cart, etc…) — pages that play the biggest role in moving customers toward conversion. Once the top level pages are out of the way you can focus on the lower level pages of the site. Another good option is to take a close look at your website analytics program to determine which pages have the highest bounce and exit rates. Examine these pages and use them as a starting point for your improvement with the goal of keeping customers from abandoning at those points.

To your success!

Things to Consider When Starting an Ecommerce Business

I get asked this question quite often; “I am starting an e-commerce business. What are the main points I should consider?”

Well, for starters, successful websites should address 4 distinct areas. If any of these areas is flawed, you risk losing sales.

Having said that, here is a list of what I’ve found from experience you need to consider.

Hosting

Shared vs. Dedicated? Each has their pros and cons (for a later post). Make sure you allow for scalability either way.

It doesn’t matter what items you have in place and how great the site is if the hosting platform is unreliable. You’ll lose current customers fast and have a hard time attracting new ones. Your server platform must be reliable, fast (provide enough bandwidth during peak times) and easily scalable to allow for company growth.

A Merchant Account

This is one component you’ll need in order to accept credit card transactions. You get this typically through your bank. You can find them on the Internet, but research carefully before you choose. Picking the wrong merchant account provider could make a big difference in how your cash from sales is handled.

Merchant accounts typically charge you a fee based on a predetermined percentage rate (varies among card companies; i.e. VISA, MC, AMEX, Discover, etc…)

Payment Gateway

This enables you to connect from your website to your merchant account in order to process credit cards in real time. There are several good providers out there. I recommend Authorize.net.

Payment gateway providers typically charge you a monthly rate based on the amount of transactions that run through the system with a minimum monthly transaction amount for anything under a certain level.

Secure Certificate

Shared or Private? I recommend a private SSL (buy your own don’t use one the host provides to everyone) as private SSL’s typically see higher conversion rates (visitors that convert to sales.)

Private SSL’s are very inexpensive and there are a number of companies that provide them such as GeoTrust, Thawte, Verisign, Comodo to name a few.

Shop around. Pricing can be high on some yet reasonable on others.

Shopping Cart platform and infrastructure (technology)

Do you want to go OpenSource or are you looking for a custom solution. A few keys here. No matter the route you choose, make sure your cart is rich in features and is stable under high load volumes.

You want a cart that is flexible enough to adapt to change (you’ll need this for testing what works to cause visitors to buy from you; this is a critical element in achieving higher conversion), solid enough to provide fast response times under peak times, and has the ability to scale as your business grows.

Like the hosting I mentioned above, without the right infrastructure in place, it will make no difference how “good” a cart looks, or what other elements are in place to “make it succeed”. In the end you’ll pay dearly for a shop that is “non-reachable” due to technical problems.

Market Strategy

This is a big one. Like the others, if you have no market strategy, it won’t matter how many other elements are in place; you’ll have a hard time seeing optimal and sustained growth results.

Website Analytics

Get yourself a good Website Analytics package. Some are free and some cost a bundle. For starters, Google Analytics offers a super tracking system that’s free and provides you with more than enough data (when properly setup) to get your company moving in the right direction.

In order to succeed you need to be able to measure how effective your implemented strategies are on your visitors / customers. Website analytics allows you to do just that. Without them you are a sitting duck. You will have no way of knowing where your problems are on your site, how to correct them, or if the direction you are heading is the right one.

For more on properly setting up Google Analytics, you may want to read my 6 part series called Google Analytics Demystified.

Advertising

What channels will you utilize to generate traffic to your site? Online / Offline? A combination of both? You need to decide this. Determine your target market and plan your advertising strategies accordingly.

Areas to consider for traffic generation are:

• Organic SEO
• Paid Search Advertising (PPC)
• Blogging
• Social Networking Sites
• Online Press Release Services
• Opt In Email Marketing (don’t spam)
• Print Ads in Trade Magazines and Journals
• Radio
• TV

Order Fulfillment / Inventory Management

Put systems in place that will support the demands of customers (they like fast delivery) and will not overtax your internal infrastructure.

You’ll make customers happy and gain more if you have processes in place that promote fast and efficient shipping.

Likewise, make sure your cart has a method of tracking inventory. Not only is that important for keeping track of your business, but it will ensure you don’t make customers angry by allowing them to buy a product that, after completing the transaction, you have to have to then tell them the item is out of stock. This is a sure way to lose customers.

Customer Retention

Put systems in place to keep in touch with past customers. Building an ecommerce business often means keeping a “base” of repeat customers coming back for more. As new customers enter the funnel, they build on top of the base that is already there. Combined, the two drive the business toward growth.

There are numerous ways to retain customers. Offline methods such as postcard follow-ups, coupon offers, brochures, and more. Online methods include much of the same although the delivery is usually via email. So make sure you have an email provider (preferably a company that’s sole purpose is to get your email delivered) with a good reputation for delivery. When looking at this, consider checking to make sure they are not “blacklisted” (which will decrease the chances of your emails actually arriving at their destination.)

Here are some helpful links that may assist you in checking the “listing” status of your ISP or mail service provider.
Distributed Sender Blackhole List
DMOZ Blacklist Directory Listings

There are practically an infinite number of items one could say should be considered when building an ecommerce site. The listing provided in this article is a good start.

To your success!

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