April 6th, 2008
When you are a small online business owner you have to think about the promotion of your site sooner or later. To my mind, the most effective way to do it invented so far is the email campaign.
What are your options?
In fact, you have 3 choices of software types for the campaign:
- Desktop software
- Web server software
- ASP hosted service
The third option has one significant competitive edge over its opponents – you are not responsible for the delivery of e-letters. Subscribing to this type of service you get a certain number of email for a monthly fee.
Dr. Ralph Wilson, Wilson Internet Services, says:
“With desktop or web server software, basically you’re responsible to get them delivered… Whereas if you’re paying someone else for that service, it’s their job, and many of them take it very seriously.”
A desktop server has another advantage – its cost.
Follow the tips:
If you decide on a desktop or server solution here are a couple of tips that will help you get the mail delivered to the users:
1. Don’t be spam. How not to be spam? Here are some pieces of advice that will help you avoid spamming:
- Don’t use all caps.
- Don’t use HTML messages that are primarily graphics.
- Don’t try to trick filters by replacing letters with asterisks or breaking words up with punctuation marks. Filters are getting smarter, and you could end up on a black list.
- Don’t use sloppy HTML.
- Don’t use large or small fonts. Stick with H1, H2, or H3 heading tags
2. Use sender certification
There are companies like Habeas.com and BondedSender.com that certify your small business. Once you get your company certified you can be sure that you can get through spam filters right to the hearts of your potential clients.
Issues with a Hosted Server
If you decide to sign up to a hosted server here are a number of things you should keep in mind:
- What precautions do they take to prevent spammers from enrolling? A good host company will have measures in place, such as confirmed opt-in, to make sure that they’re not allowing spammers to join.
- Do they take any precautions to prevent spammers from signing with the service?
- Does the service offer any tracking system? Nowadays a number of hosted servers allow you to see how many email recipients have opened your letters and visited your site through the links provided by the letters
- Is their customer service good? In order to tell a good one from a bad one you can simply see if it takes a long time for them to respond to your inquiries.
Posted in Directory of Ideas, General Business, Uncategorized | No Comments »
March 31st, 2008
eBay selling might be a pleasant, fun and profitable experience. But when you have got reed of every single piece of rubbish in your house where can you go for product ideas and sources?
When you are done researching eBay you might need reliable sources of products. Here, at dropshiparea, we are doing our best to help you find the best wholesale suppliers and help you sign up with them and thus get access to the services they offer.
Plunging deeper into eBay Sources
In fact, eBay is itself a powerful product sourcing tool. For instance, it is a great place with inbuilt traffic which is a real goldmine for those seeking for the products to sell. I uncover a great secret to you: one of the best tools to learn what the traffic wants is the Seller Central Page (www.EBay.com/SellerCentral). Moreover, there are other tools which can be very useful plus not many people are aware of their existence.
- The merchandising calendar
It is great place to learn what products will be promoted be eBay next few weeks/months. You also learn under which categories you need to list your goods to be given a place on the home page of the service.
It can be called a monthly report. You can learn which products are moving, producing more bids, and getting higher final prices. Here you can learn where the demand is at the moment.
Janelle Elms advices:
“Print this report and keep it with [you] at all times,” She explains, “People don’t know what to look for… This will really help direct and keep your mind focused to what’s moving on eBay.”
- The hot categories section
This section gives you an idea about the top categories and moreover how to sell products in those categories. Each category features the section “In Demand” that gives you clue not only about the hottest selling products but also about the keywords users search for the items with. You see that eBay tells you what to sell and how to do it!
Listen to your clients
When users come to eBay they already know what they want. You don’t have to offer anything to them. All you need to do is listen carefully to what they’re saying. The tools help you to learn what they are looking for. You simply need to come up with the things they are in search of. Simple, but believe me it works!
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March 19th, 2008
Do you really need branding?
All of us, online retailers, want the clients to come and spend money with us online. But in order to ensure that you have to make them feel confident that they are dealing with a legitimate seller. As long as they give you their personal information and even the number of the credit cars, they simply need to be sure you won’t cheat on them. If it is obvious that you run your business from home, they might not feel that confident to give you their personal info. So what is the conclusion from all this talk? You need to create a reliable brand you customers will trust and come over and over again.
What is a Brand?
In fact, a brand is a something that makes you stand out in a crowd of other online retailers.
- Making a brand you create a kind of expectation in the mind of your client. This expectation includes everything from your customer service to the quality of the products you sell. A brand is much more than a name and a logo, it is you client’s attitude and vision of your company.
- Moreover, a brand is your reputation. With your brand name come certain other values which are expected from your products: quality, fashion etc. If you brand is a worthy one, clients are likely to buy products from you than from your competitors even if they cost a little more.
Branding is a non-stop process
Explains Eileen Parzek (SohoItGoes.com):
“Consistently use a brand design throughout all your different marketing material… It gives a sense you’re bigger than you really are.”
Concentrate on your marketing messages and make sure that these messages are traces throughout your entire policy. If you have print material make sure it doesn’t clash with your web-site design and logos.
Another important aspect is your web-page. If it looks professional and finished the clients are more likely to both buy things from you and come to your page again. The thing is that customers associate the quality of the site with the quality of the services provided, fancy that you have poor-quality web-site…Do you really thing that people want to make purchases even though they know that the quality of the customers service is from the bottom of the barrel.
Never stop evolving
Parzek continues:
“[Branding] is not something you ever stop doing. You have to be conscious of it at all times.”
A good brad always reflects the current evolution of the market and shows all the changes.
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