Email marketing - timing is everything

The humble email continues to drive the ecommerce economy. From baby goods through to wine, a merchant newsletter combined with a good email database can drive significant revenue.

The mass adoption of the smartphone is increasing the importance of email as a marketing tool and changing the time emails should be sent to customers.

Over 50% of personal emails are being opened and read on a mobile, with this number jumping to over 96% for smartphone users.

Technology does not yet exist to detect and render an email mobile friendly, it is therefore important that you the design and test to ensure your emails work on a mobile.

Mobiles are also transforming when and where people read their emails, the smart businesses are adapting to these changes in behaviour.

Gone are the days when ecommerce was solely conducted during working hours. Sending mails during drive time and Sunday evenings are seeing increased open and click through rates.

The great beauty of the mobile is that it always on so most people now have instant access to read and purchase from the device. The internet has moved from the office to the couch.

Access to customers has significantly increased making it more important even ever to know your customers. There is a fine line between helping and annoying your customers, do you think your customers would like to receive an email from you on a Sunday evening?

The better you understand your customers, the better you can be at taking advantage this mobile revolution.

Questions for your business:

1. How do your emails look on a mobile?

2. What time of the day and day of the week do you send out emails to your customers?
3. Which of your customers respond best to email campaigns?

It pays to pick the right payment options

You haven’t made a sale until you have the money in your account. Making it easy for your customers to pay online not only improves your cash flow but helps your increase sales.

There are a number of misconceptions about payment options, this article will provide you with an overview of the two most popular payment options used by ezimerchant customers and their associated costs.

PayPal

PayPal was the first true online payment solution, owned by eBay PayPal has grown a large Australian customer base. Merchant's customers have the option to either pay using their PayPal account or credit card.

PayPal is an ideal solution when you are starting out in business as their are not fixed monthly fees.  It is also a convenient option if you do not yet qualify for an internet merchant account with your bank. 

The multi-currency service is great when selling overseas and you want your customers to pay in their local currency.

Even if you already have online credit card facilities with your bank it is worth adding PayPal as an alternative payment option. Reports* show that most merchants gain incremental sales after adding PayPal to their website.

PayPal pricing

Standard PayPal services for domestic transactions are based on transaction volume and range from 2.4% + 30 cents per transaction down to 1.1%  30 cents per transaction. There are no monthly or setup fees, for more information visit PayPal.

Credit Card

Credit cards account for the majority of online sales. Behind each transaction is  a complex network of intermediaries allowing transactions to be transmitted safely put the money into your bank account.

As the owner of an ecommerce business there are two main components of the payment network you have to deal with, the credit card gateway (provided by ezimerchant) and an internet merchant facility (provided by your bank).

Gateway

The credit card gateway encrypts your customers credit card information and transmits it across the payment network, then returns if the payment has been accepted or rejected. The ezimerchant platform has gateway facilities integrated make it simple and easy to setup your credit card facility.

Merchant facilities

To process credit cards you need an internet merchant facility with your bank, this does differ from your EFTPOS and offline credit card facility. Our experience has found that you should allow 4-6 weeks to setup online facility with your bank.

Costs of process credit cards online

Credit card gateway have 3 sets of costs associated with the facility, a setup fee, a monthly fee (this is covered within your monthly fee) and a per transaction charge.

Internet merchant facilities usually have a setup fee, a monthly fee and a per transaction fee hat consists of a fixed and variable component based on the total value of the transaction.

Payment options as your business grows

Most new websites will use PayPal as their sole payment solution, as their business grows   they then add a direct credit card facility. Top merchants know there is value in retaining their PayPal option as they see the value in this payment option.

Setting up the right payment options can help increase your sales and see money in your bank account faster.

* IPSOS - “Eight in Ten (83%) PayPal Merchants Say Sales Have Increased Since Offering Popular Payment Method” March 2011

Understanding the basics of SEO

Over eighty percent of people use search engines to find products and services, so search optimisation is important for your business success.

The objective of a search engine is to deliver a quality results to people searching on the web for a product or service. These results will hopefully provide websites with relevant information  to the customer.

Your ranking dictates where your listing will appear when people search for your primary keyword or term. Ideally you need to be on the first page of results. Understanding how your ranking is determined is the key to getting your best ranking.

The aim of this post is to provide a simple non-technical idea of SEO and things you should be focusing on.

Two components to SEO

There are two essential components to SEO:

1. On-site optimisation, how easy it is for the search engine to gather information and the quality of your site. This accounts for about 10-20% of ranking.
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3. Off-site optimisation which accounts for 80-90% of your ranking. This determines the authourity and reputation your site has in the market, or in other words how many people are talking about your site.

On-site optimisation

As the name suggest this component deals with the information you present on your website and the  ezimerchant technical code your site is built upon.

ezimerchant has taken a lot of the hard work away for you by making it easy for search engines to crawl your site and gain all the necessary information. In addition ezimerchant utilises Rich Snippets to allow search engines to present in their results an image associated with your product. 

Selecting a Keyword

It is important that your copy incorporates the  keywords you are optimising on your site, what search terms will your site appears from searches. You want to ensure that your site has relevance for the people you are attracting.

If you have not already determined your keywords, this is a good time to do it. Using tools like Google AdWords Keyword Tool can help determine the importance of the term, how many people search the term, and alternative keywords.

When selecting a keyword, it is pointless picking keywords where you have to compete with larger players. For example, if you picked a keyword in the music industry that the likes of Sony and other large players use, you will not be able to match their link popularity.

Off-site optimisiation

To maximise your ranking you need to gain an off-site presence, getting people to link to your site and talk about your products. Any offsite activities you conduct should be part of your wider marketing campaign to engage and reach your target market, marketing activities and SEO optimisation are closely aligned.

Listing on others websites

You want to aim to get other sites to link back to your website and/or products. The more important and visits the other site gets the more weight this link will have in your rankings. Gone are the days of link farms, google is too clever.

Directories

Directories are a good way to get listed and gain awareness with your potential customers. While it is easy to get added to a list, it is the same for your competitors.

Social media

Social media provides you with a great opportunity to engage your customers base and increase the level of discussion about your website. If you are to busy to keep on top of all the social media services you can use services like Hootsuite to schedule messages at different times of the day across several services.

Blogs

Blogs provide you with a great vehicle to educate and keep your customers up to date with trends in your market. In addition blogs help keep your website content up-to-date and provide an opportunity to share posts with business partners, helping grow each others web presences.

Remember if you start a blog you regularly need to add content, there is nothing worse than going to a company blog site that has not been updated for over a year.

Summary

There are a lot of articles from on the web about SEO optimisation with many of these articles being highly technical and companies claiming to be SEO experts. A good rule of thumb is when you can’t understand what you are being told, don’t spend money with that company.

SEO should be common sense, if you understand the needs of your customers, communicate and engage with them online, your rankings will look after themselves.

How shopping comparison engines can help grow your sales

Maximise your customer reach and boost sales by listing your products with a shopping comparison engine. Comparison engines were one of the earliest ecommerce tools developed but provide a highly effective way to drive leads and sales.

The benefits to your business if using a comparison engine service include:

1. Increase product reach

These services generate significant traffic and promote their service to attract customers. In addition some services run affiliate programs where your products are published onto a range of leading Australian websites. For example, GetPrice run the ninemsn shopping site.

2. Quality leads

These services tend to attract high quality customers who are close to making a purchase, the perfect lead.

3. Pay per click

Most of these services work on a pay per click basis so you only pay for results. Your budget is therefore never too small.

The myth of comparison engines

Many merchants think comparison engines only attract price conscious customers who are solely looking for the lowest price.  While price is always an important attribute most customers visiting the sites are looking at a wider range of criteria before making the purchase decisions, from brand reputation, to customer reviews to shipping times.

It is often the time poor customers that visit these sites to quickly assess the best solution for their needs.

Using the Data Feeds

To use a shopping comparison engine you need a provide these companies with a data feed of your product information. ezimerchant has worked with a number of the leading comparison engines to make it easy for you to connect with their services.

As part of your ezimerchant service, ezimerchant dynamically keeps all of the Data Feeds up to date, ensuring your listings are populated with your latest information and you obtain the best possible conversion rates.

What comparison engines does ezimerchant support

ezimrchant support the following comparison engines: Shopping.com, GetPrice, MyShopping.com.au, Shopmania, Clix Galore, Shopzilla, Nextag and Yahoo Product Submit.

How do I connect to the comparison engines

ezimerchant’s automated feed are located within the Data Feed tab. 

Once you have logged into ezimerchant admin you go to Marketing and then click on the Data Feed tab. All you have to do then is copy and paste the appropriate feed URL and paste this into your comparison engine service.