This is my journey as an E-commerce Consultant
Posts tagged Consultancy
Why won’t my new Skype Phone connect to Skype?
1623 days
by Liz
in Consultancy
The point of my purchase is lost on me. I buy a skype phone from 3 only to have it not willing to log onto skype.
Apart from its inability to provide the function it was created for, its a great little phone. Shame it is useless!
Cyber Monday – The Start of the Festive Online Shopping and December Marketing
1630 days
Cyber Monday (the 26th of November this year) is the ceremonial kick-off of the holiday on-line shopping season in the United States between Thanksgiving Day and Christmas. It is also close the the last pay day in time to shop for Christmas for most of us in the UK too. Over 700 million dollars was expected to be spent on this day.
Online spending is on the up:
$9.3 billion spent online from November 1 through 23, a record and 17 percent higher than the $8.1 billion spent online last year
Check out the post $700mm Cyber Monday? for more details.
If you have been following our marketing series, the last post Christmas Marketing – What to do in November. you would have been ready for the Christmas Crunch time between the 23rd of November and 16th December.
So what do you get up to in December?
Check, check and re check! You still have time to tweak your marketing strategies before the 16th of December! Do you have the last shipping date displayed for your target market? If you ship internationally make sure you distinguish between the posting dates.
From the 17th of December:
Ramp down your festive keywords and marketing to avoid wasted pay per click sales. Gather and analyse your data to outline the best method of increase your sales in the next festive season.
Celebrate your success, and forget about your failures until next year when you make moves to eradicate them!
Prepare stock and website for the sales. In the UK sales start on boxing day, so you will need to get moving implementing your strategy, boasting the best prices and driving the bargain ethos. Advertise NOW that your sales start boxing day, in pay per click and on your site. Email all your customers about the fantastic bargains to be had!
Repeat the main and successful steps from your Christmas marketing. top make sure you clear old and redundant stock ready for the trends of 2008!
Redundancy and Back to online selling basics
1632 days
Redundancy just before Christmas is not pleasant as the job market is not at its best, specially if you have had no warning.
As well as training to be an eBay education specialist I have secured consultancy and web development in the last few weeks of December to take me though to January.
In pure on-line entrepreneurial fashion I have been building up my web business ( practising what I preach) to its highest level yet and it continues to grow. Over the Christmas period I am going to be organising an eBay January Sale. I plan to make £900 with excess materials and stock hoarded over the years!
I shall also spend the time re-designing my ebay shop!
Christmas Marketing – What to do in November.
1664 days
Follow on from:
Gearing up for Xmas 2007 – What to do in October…
Week 1:
You have done your research, you campaign has had 7-10 days. Pin point your successes and failures.
Ask yourself a few questions:
1. What campaigns are working?
2. Why are the successful campaigns working?
3. What campaigns are not working?
4. Why are they not working and what can we change you yield a positive result?
You need to look at your analytical data and see where your revenue stream is coming from on these campaigns, are the keywords you thought were relevant to the season and your product working for you?
Are to continuously testing the efficacy of your landing pages?
Week 2:
You need to analyse your purchase or lead generation process. You should have enough data now to see where your customers are either abandoning the shopping cart or being lost in your pages.
Check your error and web logs, has the site had a slow down due to the increased traffic? Have loading times been effected at all? Do you have any dead links on your site you forgot to get rid of in October?
These holes in your bucket need to be corked before the ‘Christmas Crunch Time’ which is typically 23rd of Nov to 16th Dec.
Crunch starts in week 3.
Week 3:
Check stock levels and product feeds for errors. Display and be realistic about your last posting days before Christmas. Evaluate your pay per click and other active return on investment advertising to increase quality of traffic. Re-evaluate your match types, campaign negative keywords, budget, position and bids to ensure the relevancy of your shoppers.
Don’t sell them something they are not looking for. If they don’t know what they are looking for make sure you are ‘suggesting ideas’ within your advertising i.e Gifts for Mum, Gifts for a music fan etc.
Make sure you campaigns are organised to separate such ‘Suggesting Campaigns’ from product specific or general campaigns. These campaigns are more specific to panic shoppers at Christmas with no idea what to buy their loved ones.
If you do run an affiliate program make sure the creative and promotions are seasonal, add Christmas bonuses.
Week 4:
Wash. Repeat.
Keep tweaking and checking your promotional presence. Keep and eye on your competitors.
Again this is not a complete guide, only suggestions to get you going for the Christmas period and hopefully be a little thought provoking when your are planning your marketing activities. Watch out for the December edition!
Essential Reading for Webmasters – Call to Action
1666 days
Call to Action
They also have a blog : Future Now’s Marketing Optimization Blog
If you are tired of text book internet marketing reads, this plays out like a compelling novel. I can’t put it down, suddenly it all makes sense!
