Lead generation is a tough thing to do. It takes time, lots of time, and the results are few and far between. 

We have put together a system for generating leads that motivates, automates, and provides results.  It's a bit complicated and has taken some years to perfect but now it's working and I'm going to show you how to do it for your own business.

The system is a 6 part Sales & Marketing System for lead generation. Read More

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PayPal  recently published a survey of online transactions (or non-transactions)  and here is how we read the results:

The biggest challenge for online merchants is getting them through the eCommerce Conversion Funnel.  The funnel usually looks a little something like this:

StoreFront (Home Page)
> Catalog View
>> Product List View
>>> Product Detail View
>>>> Shopping Cart Summary**
>>>>> Check Out Form

** The Shopping Cart Summary is the page where the buyer sees a summary of the products selected, the taxes, and the shipping charges.  This is where the ABANDONMENT occurs.

We can measure and test abandonment rates to help your site reduce abandonment.  And PayPal has helped us to see what items need to be considered or tested to increase sales.

Here are our interpretations of PayPals survey:

Main reason why visitors leave the Shopping Cart Summary:
 - To gather more information like "Shipping Costs"

Main reason for abandoning:
 - Shipping Charges were too high
 - Wanted to compare prices with another website
 - Wanted to compare prices with a Bricks and Mortar store
 - Wanted to look for an online coupon
 - The preferred payment option was not available

Main Suggestion for Online Merchants
 - Provide shipping charges upfront before the checkout
 - Provide as many options for payment as possible

Shipping still seems to be the main driver for visitors to leave a website behind.  We suggest that all online merchants carefully examine their shipping policies and consider making "Shipping" a marketing function rather than an "Operational" function.

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I was recently asked to give some advice to a friend who wanted to have a web designer design her website. My friend runs a salon and she was one of those people who knew that she needed a website but didn't know about the business...

She had no idea what Web Designers charge, she didn't know how her website would work for her, she hadn't thought about what content she was going to put there, she just knew it was 2010 and every small business needs a website. Well, it was time to teach her a couple of things as a favour and help her with her strategy for her website.

I went through 5 strategies with her when I explained the opportunities with a website:

Goal 1: Selling Online

The most well known goal for eCommerce Businesses where you're looking for an extra channel to sell your products and services.

Strategy: To reach sales targets and reduce shopping cart abandons, you'll need to focus on an all-in-one eCommerce site complete with catalogs, products, shopping cart, shipping and a payment gateway and that provides an interesting and seamless shopping experience. Don't forget to add extras like upselling, recommended products, product galleries and plenty of credible product information to help meet your sales and orders targets.

But what happens when you can't sell online because what you sell is a physical service or you're not running a for-profit business? There's 4 other goals you can set for your Online Business to get return on investment...

Goal 2: Build Your Community

This goal applies particularly well to non-profit organizations like Churches, local Neighborhood organizations, Community organizations, Charities etc - they need to have online conversations/discussions with their current members and attract new ones.

Strategy: To build an online community, you'd need to nurture a social site with a discussion forum and post regular news on a blog to keep visitors coming back. Make a space for photo-uploads to show what's going on in your community, post podcasts of speeches or presentations for your visitors to download in a members-only area. Make sure members know about your site and that they contribute as well!

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Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) is a constant battle online. I call it "Shiny Object Syndrome". It is so easy to lose focus these days and bounce from one great idea to the next before we have fully executed on the first great idea.

That's why we need a plan that follows a the path to success. 

Decades ago, business owners had it easy - they weren't dealing with the rapid and volatile change we deal with today.There was a strategic, focused way of managing a businesses that you may remember - the 4 P's.

The 4 P's, aka the "Marketing Mix", is a combination of four marketing ingredients that you must constantly balance and control when running your business.

The 4 P's are still relevant today, and we have a bit of an update to applying them to the eCommerce Business:

Product

Offering static, cataloged products no longer wins the race. With comparison shopping sites and huge online stores like Amazon, how do you compete on Product alone? Google has changed the way we buy online and your customers now start with the goal in mind (a product), then choose which supplier to buy from.

If you're selling eProducts or online services then you still have the power to innovate and stay ahead of the game, but if you're selling tangible goods you need to be offering a valuable experience AND proving your credibility.  Here are a couple of proven techniques to demand credibility:

1. Allow customers to offer feedback with comment forms on blogs, announcements and products. This builds online credibility for your next round of customers to see, making them feel more comfortable doing business with you.
2. Offer a public forum where customers can discuss what they like/dislike about your product or service. You can always moderate the forum if you are concerned about negative feedback.
3. Give your customers individual, personalized attention through exceptional customer service.
4. Prove that you're an expert by creating content & educating you customers about the products.Give customers detailed photo galleries, videos, specifications and anything else they won't find in a "bricks and mortar" store.  Customers crave information in their quest to become more informed.

Price

Competing on price is a hard battle to win.
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Do you need to generate more sales?  Do you want to fire up our sales team?  Is your Marketing Department producing good quality leads?

One of our clients has a very effective way of using the BigTurns Email Marketing Platform as a calling list for his sales team and I would like to share his methods and successes with you here.

First, you need to know about the Email Marketing Platform.  The BigTurns platform is hooked into the BigTurns Analytics and Reporting engine.  That means that when you send out an Email Blast you will have access to the following Data:

1. Who Opened Your Email
2. Who Clicked on a Hyperlink in your Email
3. What Hyperlinks were clicked on the most
4. What Products were Bought as a direct result of your Email

This is very powerful information.  You will know, in real time, who opened your email and weather or not they clicked on a link or not.  You will know who is interested in your products and who is not. You will know How many times they opened your email and how many links they clicked on.  You will be "BIG BROTHER" watching your contacts interact with your email campaign.

This is a snapshot of the Email Marketing dashboard for each campaign.

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The year 2010 should be used to optimize your existing eCommerce Platform. Many Online Shops I see out there have enormous potentials for improvement. Some of them can't be implemented easily, e.g. Clean URLs (URLs which just reveal their resource, but not their technology) - here you are often limited by the technology and platform you use. However, there are many things you can do in the field of technical Search Engine Optimization (SEO). For this purpose one option would be to create a whole new template to get started. You can overhaul the GUI (graphical user interface) and optimize the template for all the search engines like Google and Yahoo. What needs to be done for this can be listed quickly:
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Do your customers pay on time?  Do you spend more than 1/2 a day a week collecting payments from delinquent accounts?  When you call for payment do your customers pay by Credit Card?  Would you like to automate your accounts receivables?

The Process to Automating Your AR Collections

First, you want to take a look at your Aged Receivables.  Do you have many customers past due over 30 days?  Over 60 days?  Over 90 days?  Do you have a system or process to collect the funds?

Point is, most small businesses don't have the time to effectively manage their Aged Receivables.  A lot of the time, small business owners don't focus on collecting payments until a cash crunch hits - like pay roll.

So, we need to build a system to communicate to your customers in a organized and systematic way to show that you are: 1. on the ball and 2. coming for your money.  How do we do this, you ask?  Easy.

Automated Multi-Step Email Collection Campaign

Step 1:

We create a 5 part email campaign to send to your Delinquent Accounts.

• Email 1, is polite reminding them to pay their bill
• Email 2, questions their delay in payment
• Email 3, The language is "Concerned" and requests payment again
• Email 4, The language is stern and demands payment now
• Email 5, Notifies the customer hat their account has gone to collections.
• After the last email is sent we set up a "WorkFlow notification to automatically email the AR manager and the collections department about the Delinquent account.

The wording is customizable in the template.  In that, you can say what you want, but you will need to say the same message to every customer in the same time frame.

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Sure, your web store looks just great and you have a right to be proud of it. But did you ever sit with a focus group to see what problems they had with it? Did you ever have top web site designers analyze it to find its hidden flaws? Have you listened to dozens of eTailers describe in detail how they vastly improved their online sales and conversion rates just by making basic design changes that eliminated the most common web site design faux pas?

Online retailing is expected to return to double-digit growth this year, and the web merchants that enhance their web site design and usability early in the year will lead the way. The growth will be achieved by avoiding the most common web site design and usability mistakes that cause shoppers to abandon the retail sites and result in an average conversion rate of just 3%.

Here's a list of 9 common online store design mistakes:

1. The Self-Satisfaction Syndrome

It may comfort you to assume that because your web designers and staff can whip through your site without problems your customers can do so, too. Unfortunately, beauty is in the eye of the online shopper, not the web designer. You need to find out how customers really use your site. Find out how to test your site to make sure consumers can navigate it as easily as you can.Contact BigTurns for a No Obligation Free Consultation

2. Throw money at your Web Designers to fix problems.

This idea can be an excellent way to throw money away. The Internet is overturning the old adage that "You get what you pay for." Many free or low cost design and usability tools can help retailers uncover how to take their sites to the next level of performance—if they know where to find those tools and how to evaluate them. Contact BigTurns for a No Obligation Free Consultation

3. What Works in the Store Works on the Web

No, not so much. Many merchants still mistake online merchandising as an extension of in-store merchandising where the merchant simply stacks items in aisles for shoppers to see. But online merchandising must be a much more engaging and interactive experience. Contact BigTurns for a No Obligation Free Consultation

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Have you noticed that it's deeply ingrained in North American society to define ourselves and others by what we do and who we work for?

 Conversations with strangers are sure to almost always follow these 3 steps:

1. "Hi, I'm Charles. What's your name?"

2. "John.  Nice to meet you.  How do you know the host?"

... Uncomfortable Pause ...

3. "So, what do you do for a living?"

and that's the Bus-stop / 1st-date / Distant-relative / Networking variety of conversation. Mind you, when you go to 'networking' events you can often dispense with step 2 altogether!

True Story..
The other night I'm talking to an older gentleman, a distant relative, at a family gathering and the inevitable question popped up.  What are you doing now, Charles?

"I'm the Director of Online Marketing at Keel & Rudder, an online sailing store" I unashamedly respond but at the same time secretly wishing I was a respectable banker with Goldman Saks. (not)

"Keel and What?!?! And what exactly does a 'Director of Online Marketing' do??" the old Uncle interrogates me suspiciously like Colonel Klink would...

Here's the answer in blog post format for easier digestion:

Basic Marketing For Your Online Store

The first image that comes to peoples minds when they hear the word 'Marketing' is flashy prime-time TV ads for some large Corp made by people who take extra long lunches with international ad agencies and never seem to do much that's actually useful.

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Google and other search engines such as Yahoo! or Bing use software programs called "Search Engine Spiders” to search the Web for content "relevant" sites. These spiders travel across links, then index and rank the web sites. Their rankings can be then seen on search engine result pages.

To be listed on top of the search engine pages it is critical to establish "relevant" link relationships, building both outbound and inbound links to your site. To help being ranked as high as possible it's necessary to build as many "relevant"  links as possible.

The more "relevant" links you have the greater your chances will be to attract more visitors. It's an easy and very effective formula to boost traffic to your web site while it's also one of the least expensive ways.

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