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Tips for Creating an Online Store
Archive for the ‘Marketing Tips’ Category
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Wednesday, January 21st, 2009How to post your product on Craigslist
Tuesday, January 13th, 2009
Craigslist.org is the biggest online classified listing site in the world- a great way to sell and buy products locally!
How to get your product on Craigslist:
Download and Print These Instructions
1. Go to Craigslist.org
2. Click on your state and then city you are closest to (Craigslist sometimes figures out where you are located based on your IP address and takes you to your city automatically)
3. Click on “For Sale”
4. Click on “Post” in the upper right hand corner
5. Pick on the category that best describes your product
6. Enter in a title, description, price, upload your product image, and enter in your email address
7. Click continue
8. Verify the post in your email
Some pointers on writing a good listing
Title:
- Good: Durable Heavy Duty Island Bay Hammock – Water Resistant
- Bad: Check this posting out now!!!! BIG $$SALE
Description:
- Good: Includes hammock, stand, and hanging hardware. Heavy-duty 12-gauge steel. Stand measures 15L x 4W x 4H feet. Shades of blue striping on quilted weather resistant fabric. Contact me if you have any questions.
- Bad: Awesome Hammock – Call me for more details
Please Note: Craigslist is great for selling products locally. You will get banned from Craigslist if you try posting multiple items at once in multiple cities. You don’t want to get banned from Craigslist so follow their rules.
Discussion groups for online sellers
Monday, January 12th, 2009Something new we are trying out this year is launching in-person discussion groups in different cities. We are hoping this will teach people to…
#1 Build their own online brand
#2 Ways to promote your products on the web
#3 Tips on making sales online
Our first two meetups are in Madison and Chicago. If you are in the area please stop by. Let me know if you would like us to come to a city near you.
Sugar Free Jello
Monday, January 12th, 2009I really wanted some vanilla pudding last night so I went to the grocery store to buy some. All I could find was Sugar Free pudding. What happened to the ones packed with sugar? I couldn’t find any, all of them were sugar free.
I can just imagine the thought process behind this decision. More people buy the sugar free pudding so lets just produce sugar free. But what about the people that want something sweeter?
This would be a great niche. Sugar packed pudding – so good you have to eat it and not worry about your health.
If you sell something – how is your product a little different? How can you carve out a niche even in a dominated market? Go against what everyone else is doing.
What are people asking for?
Saturday, January 10th, 2009Check out the Keyword Tracker it answers the question “What are people asking for?”. Type in a keyword, I suggest starting with one of your products (sunglasses, shirts, etc.)
Who knew the #1 question for shirts would be “How to build a shirt cannon?”
So now that you know this information. What do you do with it?
- Sell shirt cannons and run a Google adword campaign on “How to build a shirt cannon”
- Blog about shirt cannons and how to make them
- Make a video on shirt cannons
Traffic Blazers Don’t Work
Friday, January 9th, 2009A customer just sent me an email saying they just paid $500 to a service that will guarantee his website 2 Million hits.
PLEASE don’t waste your money on services like this. How do I know this? I was also once new to the web world and fooled by this.
Here are my reasons:
1. 2 Million hits doesn’t mean 2 Million customers. If you are selling sunglasses and 2 Million people that are not interested in sunglasses go to your store that doesn’t do a thing for you.
2. They won’t be able to get 2 million people to your website.
3. From personal experience. From other customers experiences. Just don’t waste your money on this.
If you have $500 to spend on marketing. This is what you should do:
1. Spend it on Google Adwords
2. Figure out a magazine in your industry and advertise in it
3. Send your top 5 clients a free gift in the mail and note to check out your new stuff
Be Different!
Wednesday, December 24th, 2008Everyone has heard of Band Aid brand. Its a household name! No one says “Do you have a adhesive bandage?” they say “Do you have a Band Aid?”. That is why it would be crazy to compete with them.
Then a CRAZY company called Curad came around and they wanted to make adhesive bandages. You know what they did? Something super simple. They put fun characters on them and marketed towards little kids. This worked and now they have captured some of the adhesive bandage market from Band Aid!
I learned this from the most amazing book I have read in a really long time called The Purple Cow. Its a short book and will take about 5 hours to read but a must read for any business owner. I have a copy and would be happy to loan it out to you. Just let me know in the comments.
How can you be different?
- If you sell Ipods – What about selling them with pre loaded songs
- If you sell candles – What about selling smells big companies like Glade could never create
- If you sell clothes – What about selling naturally faded clothes by washing them 10 times first
Dirty Shirt – Submit your Product
Monday, December 22nd, 2008
Check out The Dirty Shirt Blog written by a mother who reviews and promotes products. If you have a product targeted towards mothers I would definetely submit yours.
Frustration Free Packaging
Friday, December 19th, 2008The best part of ordering something online is getting something in the mail. When you see a big package in your mailbox or on your doorstep your eyes light up and your heart skips a beat (I think I am being over dramatic BUT I get a ton of useless garbage in the mail so its exciting to see something you want).
The worst part about it is the 20 minutes that comes after it. Ripping through all that plastic packaging and getting 20 different cuts all over your hands.
Amazon realized this problem and launched Frustration Free Packaging.
“It’s designed to be opened without the use of a box cutter or knife and will protect your product just as well as traditional packaging (on the right).”
Think about your customers experience when they open your package. Is it delightful or a pain?
Are you blogging?
Wednesday, December 17th, 2008
I want to know which of our stores are blogging. If you have a blog – email it to me or even better post it in the comments.
I like stores that blog. It brings out the personality behind the company. The most common comment I get is “Rishi, who is going to read my blog? What is the point?”
The reason I am asking you to start a blog isn’t to gain more customers. It is to to become more passionate about your business and increase your expertise in what you do.
Here are some ideas for your first post:
- Tell everyone about your favorite product
- Post a picture/video of you (or a friend) using the product
- Talk about something totally personal… like what you did over the weekend
- Blog about the things you enjoy (I enjoy ecommerce and helping small business owners like myself)
- If you make your products talk about the process
From my experience the first 10 or so posts are hard. After a while new post ideas spring up automatically.
Flying Cart uses WordPress for our blogging platform. For beginners I would recommend Tumblr. Super easy to use and it’s free. Another really easy to use and popular blog platform is Google’s Blogger (also free).
Tell me about your blog. I will read it, post a comment, and I will like you more.