Marketing Online |

Facebook Probably Isn’t Going to Make You a Millionaire

Posted by Colin Brown | Posted on 12-04-2011

Category : Conversion, Marketing Online, Traffic Generation

Despite all the hype you may have heard about marketing on Facebook, a new study from Forrester Research reports that having an ecommerce presence on Facebook isn’t very effective at acquiring and retaining customers compared with email and paid search. These findings are in line with a WSJ article in June that reported that early adopters of shopping carts on Facebook had only modest results.

My own experience does back that up. I did some testing using Facebook ads – some to affiliate offers and some to my own products. I racked up a pretty big advertising spend quickly and I was able to capture some emails but not a single buyer. What is interesting, is that the pages I sent people to all had coversion rates of 3-5% conversion rates with SEM and PPC with Google and MSN Adcenter.

Forrester’s study found that Facebook just isn’t a hot spot for shopping. Most people log onto the social network to — as you may have guessed– socialize! Despite Facebook’s enormous user base, Forrester concluded that the social media giant may not be poised to become a major ecommerce player.

If you have a success story advertising on Facebook, I want to hear it! Chat back.

7 Tips for Information Marketers

Posted by Colin Brown | Posted on 20-01-2011

Category : Conversion, Marketing Online, Tips and Tricks

1. Increase the perceived value of your information product

You can increase the perceived value of your information product by using a three ring binder for print materials rather than comb, coil, or spiral binding. It’s also a good idea to include CDs or DVDs in a DVD case instead of the jewel case.

2. Take advantage of the prime real estate on the back of your binder or DVD cases.

Most people who produce information products leave the back of their binders or their DVD cases blank. Use this prime real estate to promote other products or services you offer.

3. Invest your time wisely

Don’t spend your time doing tasks that can be outsourced for under $15 per hour. You need to be investing the majority of your time in promoting your products or in the development of new products and services.

You should evaluate your time by outsourcing noncritical tasks and free up your time for things that only you can do.

4. Take advantage of every opportunity to promote

If you are shipping products to your customers be sure to include sales like flyers, circulars, or catalogs in your shipping box. If you’re already paying for the cost of shipping you can mail your other offers for free to the people that are prime prospects to buy additional products from you.

5. If your products are digital then go physical and if they are physical go digital

If information product is only delivered electronically, create a physical version as an upsell and you’ll increase profits. If your information product is only physical, convert it to digital or even a membership site so your customer can receive instant gratification right after ordering.

6. More hints to increase the perceived value

Use a heavier paper. It increases the value of your product and and the added cost is minor. If your product contains six or more DVD cases consider adding a slipcase to package them in. People who have a tangible product are less likely to return the product. We call this the “thud factor.” The bigger the thud when they place it on their desk, the less likely they will be to return it!

7. Personalize your package

Use a picture of the yourself or your product right on the outside of the shipping box to personalize and brand your package. Always use a white shipping box rather than craft for a better look.

Broadband in the US

Posted by Colin Brown | Posted on 13-01-2011

Category : Marketing Online, Traffic Generation

The United States ranks 25th in the world for the average Internet connection speeds, which is quite pitiful considering this is America we’re talking about. Nearly half of all U.S. residents fall below the FCC’s minimum definition of broadband at 4 MBPS download. The median download speed in the U.S. in 2010 was 3 MBPS.

Meanwhile, South Korea’s average download speed in 34.1 MBPS, Sweden’s is 22.22 MBPS, Romania’s is 20.3 MBPS and Japan’s is 18 MBPS. Let’s hope that we can get that number up in the U.S. in the next few years.

Black Friday

Posted by Colin Brown | Posted on 01-12-2010

Category : Marketing Online, Traffic Generation

So I’ve been in business since 1987 and it has never occured to me to take advantage of an opportunity to pick up some otherwise hesitant customers with some special promotions and utilizing Black Friday to do it. Go figure.

It is the perfect time to increase business as all business has always died down during December when you are selling B2B (Business to Business). It seems everyone is interested in the Holiday Season and not working– so things come to a screaching halt. You do have a few planners that are working to get a project done for the next year but they are few and far between.

HostGator

So on Tuesday (2 Days before Thanksgiving) I got an email from HostGator, my favorite blog hoster, saying they were going to have a special promotion for affiliates to push for Black Friday. But they sent no details until the next day Wednesday. The promotion was awsome but there wasn’t much time to promote it because it takes time to put an email together and get it delivered to 1.5 million subscribers. It actually takes 3 days just to get that many delivered!

So it seemed they saw Black Friday as an after thought just like I have been doing for the last 23 years. Because you need to have time to put together your promotions and get it to your affiliates for it to be a huge success. So this is the last year that I don’t take Black Friday seriously. I will plan for it every year from here on out. Make sure you do the same regardless of whether you sell to Consumers (B2C) or Businesses (B2B).

BTW, I was still able to salvage some sales for HostGator on Black Friday – it made the whole Holiday that much more pleasant knowing I was making money while haning out with family!

Testing, Testing, Testing

Posted by Colin Brown | Posted on 10-08-2010

Category : Conversion, Go Solo, Lead Generation, Marketing Online

The reality of being in business is that you don’t always know where you are going to end up with in the end. Sure you can put a plan together and have a strategy for direction but utlimately, you don’t actually know if someone is going to buy your widget/service without actually testing the market. In years past, testing a market was an expensive proposition but today with the Internet, you can easily test a market for $100 in under a week. Simply put up an offer on a website with WordPress and a free theme (cost $8/mo hosting) Put $82 in a google adwords account and you can easily split test the adwords ads and you could actually set up a second offer page and send traffic to both to see which keywords to use and which ads to use. You’ll come up with a conversion rate and have an indicatin on how responsive your target market is to your offering. But until you test – it’s all talk!