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Visit our e-Commerce blog for ideas about the exploding arena of commerce on the World Wide Web. Read our posts for help with determining how e-commerce might work with your particular business model.
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Interactive marketing is expanding by leaps and bounds on the web. As a consequence, the Internet is the hottest place for growing your business. There’s a lot to learn about marketing on the web, and most business owners don’t have time to keep up with technical challenges like search engine trends, proper ad placement, and the like. More and more businesses are jumping into the Internet marketing arena with both feet, though. That’s because there’s a lot to gain. Think about what might work for your business, and then take the plunge. To learn more, visit our Services page, or call us at 866-799-0220.
Affordable Website Upgrades
As your business grows, so can your site. Upgrades are easy and affordable. Adding components can help your business reach its full potential. Blogs, permission-based email marketing, viral marketing techniques, calendars, job boards, and the like are hot. You should know what’s going on!
Blogs
What’s a blog?
A weblog, or “blog,” combines text, images and links to other web pages related to your business’s products and/or services. Blogs offer commentary on subjects like recipes, current events, or local news. Usually a blog has a subjective, informal tone, like an online diary. Customers can post comments to your blog entries. As people respond to each other’s comments, it creates a feeling of community.
What does a blog do?
With blogs, people can share ideas, opinions, and information quickly and easily, from anywhere on the Internet. In your blog, you could add links to sites devoted to a hobby your customers share. Your blog might include “What’s New” updates, or questions for your customers, such as “Give us your honest opinion about our latest product!” or even, “Where should we open up a new location of our store?”
Customer Satisfaction
Gaining access to your customers’ opinions and suggestions with a blog can help you understand your market, where you’ve been, and where you’re headed. And, if someone did have a bad experience with your company, a blog gives you a chance to rectify that. If you’re responsive, even unsatisfied customers might keep coming back!
Refer a Friend
Give your customers an easy way to refer their friends to you. A Refer a Friend option lets visitors and subscribers share your URL with their email contacts. You capture their contact information and use an auto responder to send follow-up emails, re-introducing yourself and your business. As an incentive for your customers to refer their friends, you might offer a “freebie” -- a $5 gift certificate, or a free gift next time they shop.
Calendars
Why a calendar?
With a web calendar, you can post your business’s events and classes, or even community happenings that might interest your customers. Calendars can also be interactive; for example, your clients could schedule their own appointments at your spa or salon. All appointments, whether coming in by phone or Internet, would be coordinated by your scheduling coordinator.
A reason to visit
Updating the information on your website on a regular basis creates a reason for visitors to check your site often. Keep customers visiting your site by adding a calendar that’s frequently updated with special events they care about.
Job Board
Use a job board to post jobs when you need to fill a position, and provide an easy way for job seekers to get you their resumes. Good customers can make the best employees: they know your business, and take an interest in its continued success. Give them a convenient place to find out when you’re hiring. Even if your customer isn’t looking for a job, he or she might know someone who is.
Promo Creator
Coupons and Sales
You can publish coupons and sale information on your website with a promo creator.
Coupons and sales enhance relationships with existing customers, and they help attract new ones. If you update your promotional information regularly, customers will visit your site often to keep up with your current offerings.
Survey Creator
This tool lets you gain priceless information about your market. You might want to know how to budget your advertising dollars. With a simple questionnaire, ask how your customers find you. Did they see you online, in the Yellow Pages, or in print? Did they hear of you in a radio ad, or word of mouth? To grow your business, understand your customers, who they are and what they want. A survey creator gives you the information you need.
Contact Form
With a contact form, your customers can contact you with questions or comments on your products and services. Customers fill in boxes with their personal information, and, of course, their comments. When they click Submit, the information is emailed to your email address. You could also just make a hyperlink to your email address, which creates a blank email for people to send.
Photo Gallery
We’ve all heard that a picture is worth a thousand words. Give potential customers a chance to see what your business has to offer by posting photos of the inside of your store, or of your products and services. Include a photo of the outside of your store or your sign out front, so first-time customers can recognize your business.
Portal
A portal is a website that serves as a point of entry to a larger resource, such as the World Wide Web or a large corporate website. It usually includes a search engine or a collection of links to other sites. Portals provide rapid, seamless, personalized, and secure access to information. Corporations use portals to share information both externally – with customers and partners – and internally, among sales, marketing, manufacturing, operating, and support personnel.
E-commerce/shopping cart
More and more consumers every year are opting to shop online from the convenience of their own homes. If your business is not set up to sell products and services online, you are limiting sales opportunities to hours of store operations when you could be open for business 24/7. Just think of all the extra sales adding e-commerce to your site could generate!
Contact NordicInteractive today
For more information about these and other add-on components to maximize your website’s value, visit our Services page, or call us at 866-799-0220.
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If you've heard of the Internet, you've probably heard of keywords. Key words are what drive traffic to you website. At least, you hope so!
Well chosen key words, and the way you use them on your site, are important factors in attracting organic search engine traffic, or "type-in traffic." This is when people click to your site because they typed a keyword or a phrase that is relevant to your website into a search engine. You'll need about 10-25 key words and phrases.
How to create good keywords
Meet with a group of people, some of whom know your business, and some of whom do not. Brainstorm a list of key words or phrases that people might use to try to find sites like yours. Think about what people in your target market would do to find your site, or find information on a topic encompassed within your site. Even more important, think what they would do if they didn't know your company existed, and were looking for the types of products and services you sell.
Test this list of keywords or phrases by typing them in, one at a time, to a popular search engine like Google or Yahoo. Do sites like yours come up in the results? If yes, you've found a keyword that you want to use.
You should check your thinking by reviewing competitor and industry leading websites. At these sites, click "View," then click "Page Source;" and then review the "<meta name="keywords" content=" information. Check your list of keyword phrases against theirs. Also, observe how these keywords are used in their page titles, page headers, and body text.
Here are several questions to help you with your brainstorming process:
1. What industry are you in (e.g., landscaping)?
2. What is the focus of your website (e.g., a resource, as guide, a store)? What would people search for if they were looking for a website like yours?
3. What products and services do you sell? What are some of the descriptive words or benefits of your products and/or services that might be familiar to your target market? Also, include words that describe the benefits of these services or the service in more detail.
4. Are there any regional or geographic implications to consider? For example, there could be spelling differences to account for. In the United States the target market might look for color laser printer and in Canada the target market might look for colour laser printer. Also, people typically blend a destination or major landmark with their keyword search.
Again, your list should contain between 10 and 25 key words and phrases. More than this could be deemed "spam" by the search engine mavens. Good luck!
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Sometimes the value of a website is realized with a simple “brochure” site, which gives basic information about your business and how to find you. For those businesses that intend to enter the Internet marketplace however, more thought and effort is needed to realize the value of the Internet.
If you intend your website to be a primary revenue generator, think about how you will make that happen. There are several basic approaches to producing revenue on the Web:
Direct Sales
Your business makes money selling products or services on your website. Your overall expenses include the cost to design and operate your site.
Indirect Sales
Your business makes money by selling advertising space, because your web site offers content that attracts visitors who are desirable to advertisers. Your advertising rates will depend on the number of visits your site gets and the type of visitor.
You can also make indirect sales when your website provides space for associate buttons, where visitors to your site can click through to another site and make a purchase. With associate or affiliate programs, you earn a referral fee when someone leaves your site, goes directly to the affiliate site, and then makes a purchase.
Licensing and Selling Content
Your business makes money by licensing or selling your content to other sites. "Content" can be feature articles, news and weather reports, opinion polls, and much more. Appealing content causes a site to be "sticky" - meaning that it keeps visitors clicking on links within your site, staying at your site instead of getting bored or dissatisfied, and going to another site.
Example: Travel sites sell airplane tickets, and book hotel accommodations and rental cars. They want visitors to stay connected, increasing the likelihood that they make a purchase. Sites on this model will offer content related to their products. These sites lease weather reports, and they create affiliate relationships with hotels, airlines, and rental car agencies. These added benefits create repeat visitors because they can find everything they need at one site.
Answer these questions to define your Web revenue model:
- What is my eCommerce strategy for making money on the Web? (Direct Sales, Indirect Sales, Licensing Content, Other)
- Who is the customer in my revenue model? Describe the benefit(s) your customer will receive from your eBusiness.
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E-commerce is exploding on the Web as more and more people do their shopping online. Some Internet retailers are actually outselling their brick-and-mortar counterparts. Take full advantage of your web site to get your share of the billions of dollars spent online every year. In this article, we will cover 7 ways to increase your sales and revenue with your ecommerce web site. You can put any of these suggestions into practice immediately. With these methods, you are likely to see a dramatic increase in your web site sales and revenue.
- Introduce Your Business Well
Have a brief introduction on the homepage of your web site. Your introduction should be concise, and should clearly identify the benefits for visitors shopping at your site.
- Make Your Navigation Crystal Clear
Your site needs clear and easy navigation, a visible search box on the top part of your web site, clearly organized content that’s easy to browse, an FAQ page that explains your shipping and returns policies, and any other information that’s important for your business model.
- Offer Gift Certificates
Having gift certificates available on your web site offers people a way to spend money at your site by giving gifts at holidays, birthdays, weddings, and other celebrations.
- Reinforce Customer Loyalty
Give your customers an incentive to come back and do business with you again. You can offer coupons and special discounts to customers who have already purchased something from you. Keeping repeat customers is easier than acquiring new customers – they already feel comfortable shopping with you. If your business model warrants the expense, you can add even more value to your website by providing live customer support.
- Present Sales and Special Offers
Devote a section of your website to your current special offers and sales items. If your specials and sale items are numerous, you can feature the most popular ones on a high level page, and then create another page displaying all of your sales items.
- Make Checkout Quick and Easy
Make sure that your visitors are always just one click away from checkout. Reduce the checkout process to as few steps as possible. Offer multiple payment options, such as credit cards, Paypal, online checks, and mail orders. When you no longer have a product in stock, either remove it from your site, or clearly mark it as “out of stock”. Unless an item will be back in stock quickly, it may be best to remove it. Customers may become frustrated if they check back only to find that the item is still out of stock, and their frustration may cause them to shop elsewhere.
- Develop an Affiliate Program
The most successful web sites have affiliate programs. With your own affiliate program, you develop an online sales force, but you only pay them when a sale is made. There is no risk, and it is cost effective.
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Approach setting up your business on the Internet strategically. Identify the potential benefits for yourself and your customers. Then determine a revenue model for your business on the web. Consider your goals and objectives for your e-business. Then research best practices sites and competitors' sites as you decide how you will leverage the power of the Internet for your business. When you've completed these preliminary steps, you're ready to make a plan for how you'll strategically implement your e-business activities over time.
Benefit for Your Customers
Nordic Technologies can help you identify how your website will add benefit to your product or service. The Internet can create benefit in two ways:
- Web features become part of your product or service. Example: eLibrary.com created a reference information service using the Web's ability to create access to numerous resources across the Internet.
- The Web enhances existing benefits of your product or service. Example: Amazon.com started as a bookseller. Today, they enhance the services of a traditional bookstore by adding the benefits of "always open for business,” online reviews, a searchable inventory, recommendations for similar books, and delivery to your door. Millions prefer visiting Amazon.com to a trip to a storefront bookstore.
Consider these questions to evaluate your potential Internet benefit for your customers:
- What features of the Internet could add value to my product or service?
- If people can acquire my product or service without the Internet, how does the Internet provide my customers with enhanced (more convenient, faster, easier) ways to shop and buy?
Benefit for Your Business
Identify how developing a website will benefit your business. The Internet can help you generate new sales leads and increase revenue from existing customers. A website can even become a moneymaking asset in its own right, through affiliate programs that earn referral fees or commissions. Here are three ways a website can make you money:
- Generate new sales leads. Example: Use an Internet promotional offer to attract potential new customers to your site. When they enter their name, email, and phone number at your website, you can contact them directly to follow up on their interest.
- Increase revenue from existing customers. Example: Post coupons and specials on your website. Existing customers may visit your store more often, generating increased revenue.
- Make money through affiliations with other websites. Example: Your business, a computer consulting firm, frequently recommends purchasing a software package from another firm. When you set up an affiliation with that firm, you can earn a commission when your customers purchase the software by clicking a link from your website to theirs.
To help you evaluate the potential Internet benefit for your business, ask yourself:
- What are the next steps I want to take to develop my business right now?
- How can I utilize Internet technologies in these next steps?
If you find that you are unsure how to proceed, Nordic Technologies management consultants can help you leverage the power of the Internet to the fullest extent for your business. Call 866-799-0220 or email info@nordictechnologies.com and ask to schedule a free consultation.
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Your website will be part of a prospective customer's initial impression of you and your business, and therefore, it must represent you with quality and professionalism. As a component of your overall marketing strategy, your site should reflect your business and current marketing presentation. Like your brochures and other print materials, your website should attract favorable attention for its quality and professionalism.
If you stop to think about it, you wouldn’t have just anyone create your company’s marketing materials or prepare your tax statements. Why would you have an amateur create your website? As the Internet becomes increasingly important as a communications tool, it is vital that your web developer can successfully communicate your message and style, and create an effective experience for your site visitors.
What does it take to achieve success on the web? What are the most important steps to make that happen?
- If you want your website to have a unique domain name, you have to check to see if it is available. Go to www.internic.net to see if your preferred domain name is already registered.
- Create a budget for your website. In considering costs, remember that a website is a complex matrix of text and images and a professional execution is very important. Include costs for advertising and promotion. In general, a larger investment brings greater returns. You can also grow and expand your website gradually to spread your investment over time.
- Determine the purpose of your website. Does this purpose support the mission and vision for your company? Without a clear idea of the purpose for your website, you may sink resources into a project that doesn’t meet your needs. If you know the results you intend to achieve, you can create a website to achieve those results.
- Consider the layout and design of your website. Is it easy to use? Quick to download? Can visitors find information? Does it meet their needs and expectations? An effective website provides a reason for the visitor to return. This reason can take the form of unique and regularly updated information, useful resources, or ways to communicate with you or with other who have similar interests. If it suits your purpose, you can use your website to build relationships and communities with your Internet audience.
- Promote your site by posting it to search engines such as Lycos, Yahoo, and Excite. There are 20-30 main search engines, and hundreds of smaller or specialized ones. Include your website address on all your marketing materials, business cards, and advertising; paint your address on the side of a company vehicle. You may also consider hiring a publicist to help you get the word out.
- Although planning and preparation steps are necessary, do launch your website now. The sooner you get on the Internet, the sooner you can start leveraging its benefits. If you are in an industry which isn’t widely represented on the Internet, you’ll start off with a larger market share. Start your Internet presence today!
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To jump-start your thinking, consider some typical goals and objectives for E-Business.
Typical E-Business Goals and Objectives
Goal: Use the Internet to expand my business.
Objective: Within 30 days, be able to communicate my company name, its strong points, products and services, benefits, prices, customer list, etc. to new customers & prospects
Goal: Expand my sales outside my local area.
Objective: Build national web presence on-line so that I am getting 25% of total sales from outside my local sales area within 90 days
Goal: Sell products on-line on a 24/7 basis.
Objective: Achieve 15% of total product volume through on-line sales within 120 days
Goal: Reduce overall marketing expenses.
Objective: Cut costs of printing my marketing materials by 50% by referring people to my web site; cut costs of Yellow Pages advertising by 70% by shrinking my Yellow Pages ad from a full page to a quarter page that includes my website address
Goal: Enhance customer service.
Objective: Provide instant information to prospects and customers by making it possible to view product descriptions, FAQ's, price information and applications information directly from my site
Goal: Use the Internet to showcase my product or service.
Objective: Offer an interactive web demo that sells my product; publish testimonials and case studies that show how customers have benefited from my product or service
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