I moved my ecommerce site over and have been busy trying to figure out how to gain mindshare. Strides are minimal.
I put some stuff up at ebay to see if I can move anything. So far, no bids.
I think I spend too much time on Twitter, because it's easy. Though I have made some good contacts on it, Twitter seems like a 10 minute/day thing. It shouldn't be a lifestyle.
I emailed beauty bloggers about my site and some joined.
Everything is moving so slowly in a world of high speed internet time, it feels like forever.
I'm going to do some real time stuff (gift shows, etc), which I hope will build the e-base. It is not my desire to be selling in real time. But we're heading into Christmas shopping season. I need some Black Friday mojo.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
Did you miss me?
I just finished moving everything over from Shopify to 3DCart and my fingers are tired!
I will have a full review coming soon, as well as an affiliate link to 3DCart. I can't wait to share why I made the decision.
I'm also going to write an article on what to look for in an ecommerce platform. In my case, I made a bad mistake by going to Shopify and it was a time consuming lesson, though thankfully not an expensive one.
In other news, I found an excellent article on one-way link building.
And another on using Twitter. I'm not sure about the Twitter one yet. In fact I remain unsure of Twitter.
If you try it, let me know how it works out.
I will have a full review coming soon, as well as an affiliate link to 3DCart. I can't wait to share why I made the decision.
I'm also going to write an article on what to look for in an ecommerce platform. In my case, I made a bad mistake by going to Shopify and it was a time consuming lesson, though thankfully not an expensive one.
In other news, I found an excellent article on one-way link building.
And another on using Twitter. I'm not sure about the Twitter one yet. In fact I remain unsure of Twitter.
If you try it, let me know how it works out.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
3dCart vs BigCommerce
I can't give a full review to either product but am evaluating both of them.
BigCommerce has a user interface that seems to have been designed by a user interface designer. It seems to understand how task analysis works, how most ecommerce people want to enter in their data, and provides streamlined support for accomplishing those tasks.
3DCart is awkward as hell. Things aren't where I expect them to be. The interface doesn't seem to be supporting the task flow that makes sense to me. And too much internals are exposed to me for my taste.
I'm having a hard time accomplishing certain basic tasks because I can't find where to do them and/or the documentation isn't helping.
The #1 problem so far, is, if you don't save your work religiously, and you tab over...poof, your work is gone. This has happened to me over and over and over again. I haven't run into this problem with any other ecommerce package. It's aggravating. Seems every tab over, is opening an http connection, thus your data is lost. It could be engineered to work differently.
BUT....I have the impression that 3D has features that may be unsurpassed in social marketing and easily connects to all kinds of things like shopping feeds, Facebook, etc.
BigCommerce may do all or most of that.
BUT....BigCommerce doesn't have a FaceBook page. 3D does.
The CTO of 3D is on Linkedin and actively participates in Ecommerce groups there.
The CTO of 3D is on Twitter.
In other words, this is a company who is USING social media to network and to gain mindshare.
I assume this means, this is a company who understands my needs and has a better understanding of ecommerce marketing in today's internet.
They are eating the same dog food that I eat. Playing in the same swimming pools I'm playing in.
And they seem to be seriously interested in customer feedback and feature requests. Through various means, they are actively soliciting feedback.
I want to love 3D. If I can just get past what feels like a tougher learning curve....
Maybe I can put in a feature request to streamline the number of clicks you need to do anything on the platform... :-) (or maybe they should hire me for some consulting work. I was a user interface designer for many years.)
p.s. the design of their stores are great!
p.s.s. Now that I see what "real" ecommerce platforms look like, I can't believe I wasted so much time with Shopify. I do love their user interface. But the platform is so broken in so many ways, that anyone who succeeds by using it, has succeeded in spite of the platform. I try to console myself by telling myself at least I figured it out sooner rather than later.
BigCommerce has a user interface that seems to have been designed by a user interface designer. It seems to understand how task analysis works, how most ecommerce people want to enter in their data, and provides streamlined support for accomplishing those tasks.
3DCart is awkward as hell. Things aren't where I expect them to be. The interface doesn't seem to be supporting the task flow that makes sense to me. And too much internals are exposed to me for my taste.
I'm having a hard time accomplishing certain basic tasks because I can't find where to do them and/or the documentation isn't helping.
The #1 problem so far, is, if you don't save your work religiously, and you tab over...poof, your work is gone. This has happened to me over and over and over again. I haven't run into this problem with any other ecommerce package. It's aggravating. Seems every tab over, is opening an http connection, thus your data is lost. It could be engineered to work differently.
BUT....I have the impression that 3D has features that may be unsurpassed in social marketing and easily connects to all kinds of things like shopping feeds, Facebook, etc.
BigCommerce may do all or most of that.
BUT....BigCommerce doesn't have a FaceBook page. 3D does.
The CTO of 3D is on Linkedin and actively participates in Ecommerce groups there.
The CTO of 3D is on Twitter.
In other words, this is a company who is USING social media to network and to gain mindshare.
I assume this means, this is a company who understands my needs and has a better understanding of ecommerce marketing in today's internet.
They are eating the same dog food that I eat. Playing in the same swimming pools I'm playing in.
And they seem to be seriously interested in customer feedback and feature requests. Through various means, they are actively soliciting feedback.
I want to love 3D. If I can just get past what feels like a tougher learning curve....
Maybe I can put in a feature request to streamline the number of clicks you need to do anything on the platform... :-) (or maybe they should hire me for some consulting work. I was a user interface designer for many years.)
p.s. the design of their stores are great!
p.s.s. Now that I see what "real" ecommerce platforms look like, I can't believe I wasted so much time with Shopify. I do love their user interface. But the platform is so broken in so many ways, that anyone who succeeds by using it, has succeeded in spite of the platform. I try to console myself by telling myself at least I figured it out sooner rather than later.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Shopify Review
I think I'm 30 days into working with Shopify. I've gone from clueless about what features I want in an ecommerce solution, to having some definite opinions.
I'm not super happy with Shopify. It lacks some fundamental features and/or has an upcharge for them.
I picked Shopify because it was end-user extensible. Most other hosted solutions are not. I still find that an advantage, but given the fact that I don't want to spend my time coding stuff, it's not necessarily a huge win.
My main gripes are these:
1) You cannot associate a particular image with a particular product variant without some serious hacking. I sell makeup. Color is critical. Yet, I have no way to say, "this image is Plum lipstick, while this image is Coral lipstick of the same manufacturer."
I can upload multiple images, but cannot identify the variant with text.
This is a HUGE downside for my particular products.
2) There is virtually no reporting functions. I can export to Excel but I still have no real reporting.
3) No built-in Quickbooks integration. For $10/mo I can add it. But I haven't been able to get it to work and the support email address that was given was apparently wrong. I've now tracked down the right contact address but haven't heard back.
4) Blogging doesn't allow tags and is so lacking in features that it might as well not exist.
5) You cannot get separate metatags on a per page basis without serious hack and slash.
6) Some companies offer free Verisign (like http://www.shoppingcartsplus.com/host/page/1109.htm which looks like a fantastic deal for $25/mo
7) some of the social networking and marketing that's built in, works really well. The Google feed is great. But the Twitter integration is all wrong (worthless.) The FB integration works great. I believe it's a free 3rd party app though.
8) No tell-a-friend built in and I haven't found a good third party replacement yet.
Overall, I think it's an okay platform. But I wonder what else is out there that would better serve my needs.
I'm not super happy with Shopify. It lacks some fundamental features and/or has an upcharge for them.
I picked Shopify because it was end-user extensible. Most other hosted solutions are not. I still find that an advantage, but given the fact that I don't want to spend my time coding stuff, it's not necessarily a huge win.
My main gripes are these:
1) You cannot associate a particular image with a particular product variant without some serious hacking. I sell makeup. Color is critical. Yet, I have no way to say, "this image is Plum lipstick, while this image is Coral lipstick of the same manufacturer."
I can upload multiple images, but cannot identify the variant with text.
This is a HUGE downside for my particular products.
2) There is virtually no reporting functions. I can export to Excel but I still have no real reporting.
3) No built-in Quickbooks integration. For $10/mo I can add it. But I haven't been able to get it to work and the support email address that was given was apparently wrong. I've now tracked down the right contact address but haven't heard back.
4) Blogging doesn't allow tags and is so lacking in features that it might as well not exist.
5) You cannot get separate metatags on a per page basis without serious hack and slash.
6) Some companies offer free Verisign (like http://www.shoppingcartsplus.com/host/page/1109.htm which looks like a fantastic deal for $25/mo
7) some of the social networking and marketing that's built in, works really well. The Google feed is great. But the Twitter integration is all wrong (worthless.) The FB integration works great. I believe it's a free 3rd party app though.
8) No tell-a-friend built in and I haven't found a good third party replacement yet.
Overall, I think it's an okay platform. But I wonder what else is out there that would better serve my needs.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Micro Polls
I'm thinking about doing a poll of the day.
I love them on cnn. No clue why, but they're fun.
I've been using Poll Daddy, but I think I might prefer Micro Polls because they somehow look more elegant.
Twitter is back to frustrating. I'm trying this formula but many will DM me whatever they're pitching, but don't follow back. "Hi, thanks for the follow. Read my makeup blog."
Uh, how about we share the love??
I'm also wondering what happens if you think you went with the wrong ecommerce platform? I did a lot of research, but seems like Shopify lacks features. It's end user extensible, which is why I picked it. But I'm not very good at extending it. My current gripe is an utter lack of reporting features.
I love them on cnn. No clue why, but they're fun.
I've been using Poll Daddy, but I think I might prefer Micro Polls because they somehow look more elegant.
Twitter is back to frustrating. I'm trying this formula but many will DM me whatever they're pitching, but don't follow back. "Hi, thanks for the follow. Read my makeup blog."
Uh, how about we share the love??
I'm also wondering what happens if you think you went with the wrong ecommerce platform? I did a lot of research, but seems like Shopify lacks features. It's end user extensible, which is why I picked it. But I'm not very good at extending it. My current gripe is an utter lack of reporting features.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
I continue to puzzle over Twitter, trying to learn to Tweet well, and trying to figure out how to harness the power of Twitter.
I found a series of videos on Twitter that are helpful.
They recommend going to:
search.twitter.com and searching on one of your targeted keywords. Follow up to 100 people/day.
If the person doesn't follow you back, use http://dossy.org/twitter/ to find who isn't following you back and unfollow them.
They also mention an app called Tweet Adder that automates the follows and unfollows by rules you can specify.
I found a series of videos on Twitter that are helpful.
They recommend going to:
search.twitter.com and searching on one of your targeted keywords. Follow up to 100 people/day.
If the person doesn't follow you back, use http://dossy.org/twitter/ to find who isn't following you back and unfollow them.
They also mention an app called Tweet Adder that automates the follows and unfollows by rules you can specify.
Get Clicky on it
I'm having a bear of a time with Google Analytics. It's obtuse, complicated, and in fact, the whole Google suite is feeling like drinking lots of bad medicine.
I need the kinds of tools Google is providing, but if I can't figure out what I'm looking at, it does me no real good.
So when I found Clicky for free, I figured it was worth a shot.
Advantages over Google:
1) you don't need a degree in analytics to figure it out
2) you get information in real time and don't have to wait until the next day
3) There is a free mode that is quite featureful if you're only tracking one site without a ton of traffic
4) the net upgrade is only $4.99/mo or $29.99/year. Compared to Google Analytics, it's worth it.
If you're interested in Clicky, please get it from my affiliate link.
I need the kinds of tools Google is providing, but if I can't figure out what I'm looking at, it does me no real good.
So when I found Clicky for free, I figured it was worth a shot.
Advantages over Google:
1) you don't need a degree in analytics to figure it out
2) you get information in real time and don't have to wait until the next day
3) There is a free mode that is quite featureful if you're only tracking one site without a ton of traffic
4) the net upgrade is only $4.99/mo or $29.99/year. Compared to Google Analytics, it's worth it.
If you're interested in Clicky, please get it from my affiliate link.
Site Speed
I'm told that one of the things Google ranks site on, is speed.
So how do you know how fast your site is?
And if your site is slow, how do you know which parts are making it slow?
http://tools.pingdom.com/ is a free tool that crawls your page and tests every element. It then gives you summaries.
Love it!
So how do you know how fast your site is?
And if your site is slow, how do you know which parts are making it slow?
http://tools.pingdom.com/ is a free tool that crawls your page and tests every element. It then gives you summaries.
Love it!
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Twitter revealed
I've often thought some people on Twitter post robotically. Some are admitted robots. But some just seem to maniacally post links.
I knew you could automate some tweets, but what I didn't know is that you can automate tweeting about blogs via RSS feeds.
http://marketingsurvivalskills.com/twitter_mastery_02.php is either corrupting me completely, or teaching me the secrets of google-fu.
They give a step-by-step tutorial on "mastering" twitter. You can go look for yourself, but it's taken me on a journey to twitterfeed.com
And my favorite tip??
I love this because I hate typing in 140 chars and I'm much more comfy on FB at this time. Though I hate the idea of a robotic direct message and may not use Social Oomph....but I may try this by actually doing something crazy like typing.
I haven't finished the Twitter tutorial but may have more to report.
Stats and Stuff Update
- web hits are down
- sales remain sluggish, but steadily sluggish
- my mailing list is barely growing
- the contest still has almost no entries (40)
- Facebook page is not growing
- Adwords is calling and bugging me so I tried one last try
- I started a FaceBook ad for the contest
p.s. the contest is at: http://www.makeupdealoftheday.com/pages/makeup-tips-contest-200-worth-of-makeup-to-the-winner
I will have the contest Makeup Haul photos up soon and perhaps that will help.
I knew you could automate some tweets, but what I didn't know is that you can automate tweeting about blogs via RSS feeds.
http://marketingsurvivalskills.com/twitter_mastery_02.php is either corrupting me completely, or teaching me the secrets of google-fu.
They give a step-by-step tutorial on "mastering" twitter. You can go look for yourself, but it's taken me on a journey to twitterfeed.com
And my favorite tip??
Open a Social Oomph Account and setup your automatic DM Message. Example message:
Hey what's up? I'm more active on Facebook - add me over there and lets chat: http://www.facebook.com/yourusername
I love this because I hate typing in 140 chars and I'm much more comfy on FB at this time. Though I hate the idea of a robotic direct message and may not use Social Oomph....but I may try this by actually doing something crazy like typing.
I haven't finished the Twitter tutorial but may have more to report.
Stats and Stuff Update
- web hits are down
- sales remain sluggish, but steadily sluggish
- my mailing list is barely growing
- the contest still has almost no entries (40)
- Facebook page is not growing
- Adwords is calling and bugging me so I tried one last try
- I started a FaceBook ad for the contest
p.s. the contest is at: http://www.makeupdealoftheday.com/pages/makeup-tips-contest-200-worth-of-makeup-to-the-winner
I will have the contest Makeup Haul photos up soon and perhaps that will help.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
More software reviews
Seems like there are always gee gaws and widgets that promise to make your site bigger, brighter, better, etc.
So I've been trying to figure out how to get Facebook to let me be more creative on my www.facebook.com/makeupdailydeals page.
FBML (Facebook Markup Language) is one of the least documented mysteries I've come across. It seems to be a crippled version of HTML that doesn't allow javascript or iframes. So, options for customizing are limited.
It turns out that AWeber can embed signup forms into Facebook by using HTML rather than forbidden methods.
http://www.facebook.com/makeupdealoftheday?v=app_7146470109
I can't figure out how to get something with AWeber as my "home" page yet.
I am playing more with Poll Daddy to bring more interactivity to my site. People seem to think polls are fun. I know I love the CNN polls.
So I've been trying to figure out how to get Facebook to let me be more creative on my www.facebook.com/makeupdailydeals page.
FBML (Facebook Markup Language) is one of the least documented mysteries I've come across. It seems to be a crippled version of HTML that doesn't allow javascript or iframes. So, options for customizing are limited.
It turns out that AWeber can embed signup forms into Facebook by using HTML rather than forbidden methods.
http://www.facebook.com/makeupdealoftheday?v=app_7146470109
I can't figure out how to get something with AWeber as my "home" page yet.
I am playing more with Poll Daddy to bring more interactivity to my site. People seem to think polls are fun. I know I love the CNN polls.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Continuing
Things continue to be very slow. In fact, none of my metrics are doing well.
So what are my metrics?
- Mailing list growth (from about 5/day to 1-2/day)
- Facebook page growth (www.facebook.com/makeupdealoftheday), grew by 5 today after I sent out probably 50 recommendations to my friends list
- sales (probably haven't sold anything in a week. Shopping cart was broken for at least 12 hours and both people decided to not purchase after I fixed it.)
Those are my current top metrics.
Further, participation in the contest that seemed like such an exciting idea, has bordered on pathetic. 32 responses. That's it. For $200 worth of makeup. If it were me, I'd be all over it like a dog on a pork chop. I can't fathom what I'm doing wrong, but I figured the response would be in the 100's.
Maybe I'm on my way to a dot-bomb. :-(
Today is the two week anniversary of my web site launch. Woo.
So what are my metrics?
- Mailing list growth (from about 5/day to 1-2/day)
- Facebook page growth (www.facebook.com/makeupdealoftheday), grew by 5 today after I sent out probably 50 recommendations to my friends list
- sales (probably haven't sold anything in a week. Shopping cart was broken for at least 12 hours and both people decided to not purchase after I fixed it.)
Those are my current top metrics.
Further, participation in the contest that seemed like such an exciting idea, has bordered on pathetic. 32 responses. That's it. For $200 worth of makeup. If it were me, I'd be all over it like a dog on a pork chop. I can't fathom what I'm doing wrong, but I figured the response would be in the 100's.
Maybe I'm on my way to a dot-bomb. :-(
Today is the two week anniversary of my web site launch. Woo.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Measuring things
My Klout score is 22 and per Klout's analysis, I'm now an up and coming tweeter. Still...no one is retweeting me.
There were only two contest entries today. I'm astonished and wondering what I'm doing wrong. $200 in free makeup? I'd be all over that like a dog on a pork chop! Maybe I need to figure out what the $200 is made of and get some photos and tweet specifics.
At the rate of entrants, the contest will end up being a huge lose for me. Suggestions are welcome.
In better news, if you google, "makeup deal of the day", I'm finally in the results and above the fold. In fact, both my ecommerce site and my FaceBook page are above the fold.
I don't entirely understand keywords yet. I'm not sure how to determine which ones to go after. Though "makeup" is obviously a ridiculous goal.
I explored www.alexa.com today, "claimed" my site. Alexa seems to be the arbiter of all web stats for marketers. I can see who currently does own any keywords I'm considering.
I'm surprised to find that "cheap makeup" leads to huge clicks. I hate the word "cheap."
There were only two contest entries today. I'm astonished and wondering what I'm doing wrong. $200 in free makeup? I'd be all over that like a dog on a pork chop! Maybe I need to figure out what the $200 is made of and get some photos and tweet specifics.
At the rate of entrants, the contest will end up being a huge lose for me. Suggestions are welcome.
In better news, if you google, "makeup deal of the day", I'm finally in the results and above the fold. In fact, both my ecommerce site and my FaceBook page are above the fold.
I don't entirely understand keywords yet. I'm not sure how to determine which ones to go after. Though "makeup" is obviously a ridiculous goal.
I explored www.alexa.com today, "claimed" my site. Alexa seems to be the arbiter of all web stats for marketers. I can see who currently does own any keywords I'm considering.
I'm surprised to find that "cheap makeup" leads to huge clicks. I hate the word "cheap."
Other cool apps for Sites
www.nabble.com makes an embeddable forum. It takes 2 seconds to setup and looks great inside of any page design. Best of all, it's free!
I wanted to implement a "Refer a Friend" application. There seems to be two main ways of doing this:
1) people enter in a friend or some friend's email address by hand, and then send the referral out.
There are free scripts that do this.
There are scripts that cost money that provide functionality to refer multiple people and to have reporting on the back end.
2) There are scripts that ask the user to login to their gmail, hotmail, yahoo, etc, account and it crawls their contacts and sends invitations to all of them.
I thought about this a lot. The obvious payback would be the possibility of large numbers of new people getting referred to the site.
But it made me twitch.
I've done this crawling for social network sites like www.linkedin.com. But that served MY needs. Not some sellers needs.
The people selling this type of software, don't seem to ever mention how twitchy it might make people.
-----------
I decided to go with option 1 using a paid script from Optistar called Tell. I'm trying to figure out how to incentivize it before I launch it.
I need to vastly grow my mailing list. My goal is 500 people by the end of the month and I'm a long ways from there. But if everyone on my list told 3 people and if that continued, I could reach my goal.
So offer a dollar off of purchase for each referral? Offer a free gift for 10 referrals?
I need to make sure my software that I picked, won't let someone make up email addresses just to get the gift (or whatever the incentive is.)
So I'm scratching my head about it some more.
I wanted to implement a "Refer a Friend" application. There seems to be two main ways of doing this:
1) people enter in a friend or some friend's email address by hand, and then send the referral out.
There are free scripts that do this.
There are scripts that cost money that provide functionality to refer multiple people and to have reporting on the back end.
2) There are scripts that ask the user to login to their gmail, hotmail, yahoo, etc, account and it crawls their contacts and sends invitations to all of them.
I thought about this a lot. The obvious payback would be the possibility of large numbers of new people getting referred to the site.
But it made me twitch.
I've done this crawling for social network sites like www.linkedin.com. But that served MY needs. Not some sellers needs.
The people selling this type of software, don't seem to ever mention how twitchy it might make people.
-----------
I decided to go with option 1 using a paid script from Optistar called Tell. I'm trying to figure out how to incentivize it before I launch it.
I need to vastly grow my mailing list. My goal is 500 people by the end of the month and I'm a long ways from there. But if everyone on my list told 3 people and if that continued, I could reach my goal.
So offer a dollar off of purchase for each referral? Offer a free gift for 10 referrals?
I need to make sure my software that I picked, won't let someone make up email addresses just to get the gift (or whatever the incentive is.)
So I'm scratching my head about it some more.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
http://bxslider.com/ has a content and image slider. It's "buy me a beer ware" and I'm trying to figure out if I can use it anywhere. Great job, Steven!
Monday, September 6, 2010
Tal.ki
I found an embeddable forum called Tal.ki. Their web site is pretty broken and I wonder if it's a guy in a garage.
I don't mind a guy in a garage. I've been one. But I don't have a warm, fuzzy feeling from the site being so broken.
Still, I forked over $10 today. So far, I can't make it entirely work, so I haven't linked it to my site.
But the features I like include:
1) attractive looking when embedded into my ecommerce site
2) sign in with facebook, twitter, or a few other things, rather than needing to make a new account
3) I can ban people
4) stupid simple to install and I don't need to do much to customize it
Hopefully I will have a good update on this one.
I don't mind a guy in a garage. I've been one. But I don't have a warm, fuzzy feeling from the site being so broken.
Still, I forked over $10 today. So far, I can't make it entirely work, so I haven't linked it to my site.
But the features I like include:
1) attractive looking when embedded into my ecommerce site
2) sign in with facebook, twitter, or a few other things, rather than needing to make a new account
3) I can ban people
4) stupid simple to install and I don't need to do much to customize it
Hopefully I will have a good update on this one.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
I'm a bad tweeter
I knew I was clumsy at Twitter. I'm not in the twit target market. I'm too old. I don't understand it.
I think it's mostly used to talk into black holes, about absolutely nothing. There is no conversation, no depth, and little that interests me as I watch things blip by in 140 chars bite-sized chunks.
I've asked people for help.
"Info on Twitter is highly perishable."
Ok. So, if I post something, I should post it a lot.
I'm trying to promote my company, so I figure 2-3x/day, I should post what we have on sale.
An old friend took mercy on me yesterday.
"You need to engage with your customers or you are going to get drop-kicked to the curb."
Hrmm...now what? I ask questions into the tweeting universe, I get no reply. I sometimes comment back on people's tweets, but get no reply. And most of my target market tweets about stuff I don't care about.
I'm not my own target market.
I like makeup. I love shopping for it. I love wearing it. But I'm not obsessed. I don't spend hours on the web watching makeup tutorials or pondering the Fall season's latest lipstick fashion.
I don't care!
So, how do I engage with people who do?
I think it's mostly used to talk into black holes, about absolutely nothing. There is no conversation, no depth, and little that interests me as I watch things blip by in 140 chars bite-sized chunks.
I've asked people for help.
"Info on Twitter is highly perishable."
Ok. So, if I post something, I should post it a lot.
I'm trying to promote my company, so I figure 2-3x/day, I should post what we have on sale.
An old friend took mercy on me yesterday.
"You need to engage with your customers or you are going to get drop-kicked to the curb."
Hrmm...now what? I ask questions into the tweeting universe, I get no reply. I sometimes comment back on people's tweets, but get no reply. And most of my target market tweets about stuff I don't care about.
I'm not my own target market.
I like makeup. I love shopping for it. I love wearing it. But I'm not obsessed. I don't spend hours on the web watching makeup tutorials or pondering the Fall season's latest lipstick fashion.
I don't care!
So, how do I engage with people who do?
Friday, September 3, 2010
AdWords
This weekend, I'm putting together my AdWords plan.
Problem #1, Google has so many keyword analysis applications, I can't figure out what to use. There is some actual phone support so I may see what they say.
Problem #2. When I spoke to the nice phone lady, she was talking about $3.50 to $4.00 per CLICK. Whoa! That is a very high customer acquisition cost, because one click isn't even guaranteed to convert to a sale. And most of my products are in the $10-20 price range.
Problem #3, The ad space is tiny. What do I say? Ads should have a "call to action". The person who sees the ad should DO something. Join a mailing list. Make a purchase. Enter my contest.
Problem #4. AIEEE! I just noticed that the ads I was playing with....Google was RUNNING THEM! Crap. It wasn't a lot of money, but I did not want to RUN them. I was playing with them. GRR!
So there are 24 chars for the headline
35 chars for "description, line 1" and 34 more for line 2
And then yo get your url.
As I understand it, InterCapitalizingURLS GetsHigherClickThroughs.com
We shall see
The ad that accidentally ran resulted in 16 clicks and zero "conversions."
No clue what a good ratio is.
You also need to pick your keywords that go with your ad.
My organic search analytics are giving me some keywords, but I don't know if that means I should use them, or not.
Google also rates the "quality" of your ads, and that helps get higher page placement.
I have much to figure out.
Problem #1, Google has so many keyword analysis applications, I can't figure out what to use. There is some actual phone support so I may see what they say.
Problem #2. When I spoke to the nice phone lady, she was talking about $3.50 to $4.00 per CLICK. Whoa! That is a very high customer acquisition cost, because one click isn't even guaranteed to convert to a sale. And most of my products are in the $10-20 price range.
Problem #3, The ad space is tiny. What do I say? Ads should have a "call to action". The person who sees the ad should DO something. Join a mailing list. Make a purchase. Enter my contest.
Problem #4. AIEEE! I just noticed that the ads I was playing with....Google was RUNNING THEM! Crap. It wasn't a lot of money, but I did not want to RUN them. I was playing with them. GRR!
So there are 24 chars for the headline
35 chars for "description, line 1" and 34 more for line 2
And then yo get your url.
As I understand it, InterCapitalizingURLS GetsHigherClickThroughs.com
We shall see
The ad that accidentally ran resulted in 16 clicks and zero "conversions."
No clue what a good ratio is.
You also need to pick your keywords that go with your ad.
My organic search analytics are giving me some keywords, but I don't know if that means I should use them, or not.
Google also rates the "quality" of your ads, and that helps get higher page placement.
I have much to figure out.
The Contest
Not even two days ago, I launched a contest.
The prize is something I'd love to win my own self. So that's a good sign that others will lust for it too. In fact, maybe I need to take a photo so that people can wrap their lust around specifics instead of vagaries.
But the prize is $200 worth of high end makeup.
Visitors submit makeup tips. We (Makeup Deal of the Day), select the best 10 tips. (Wish we'd picked 20.) And we then put those tips up for visitors to vote on. The one with the most votes, wins the prize.
What do I win by giving this away? More than I could have even originally thought about.
I'm using Wufoo to generate the forms. The first 3 forms are free, but I will probably start paying them. I think their forms could be useful for many things.
http://www.makeupdealoftheday.com/pages/makeup-tips-contest-200-worth-of-makeup-to-the-winner - for the contest.
The prize is something I'd love to win my own self. So that's a good sign that others will lust for it too. In fact, maybe I need to take a photo so that people can wrap their lust around specifics instead of vagaries.
But the prize is $200 worth of high end makeup.
Visitors submit makeup tips. We (Makeup Deal of the Day), select the best 10 tips. (Wish we'd picked 20.) And we then put those tips up for visitors to vote on. The one with the most votes, wins the prize.
What do I win by giving this away? More than I could have even originally thought about.
- I pull people to the web site who might not otherwise visit
- By signing up for the contest, they agree to be on my mailing list
- I can use the tips to generate search engine content, and search engines LOVE content
- I can submit the contest to contest and sweepstakes sites to generate more backlinks
- Hopefully people tell their friends about the contest
- When we are down to 10 tips, I'm sure that everyone will tell their friends to go vote for them, generating more site visits.
I'm using Wufoo to generate the forms. The first 3 forms are free, but I will probably start paying them. I think their forms could be useful for many things.
http://www.makeupdealoftheday.com/pages/makeup-tips-contest-200-worth-of-makeup-to-the-winner - for the contest.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Networking?
I wish I could find more people who have been down this path. In particular, I wish I could find more people who are making a living at ecommerce. I'd like a network.
But so much of what's happening now, is like thousands of sharks all in a feeding frenzy. Each is trying to snack on the other sharks around it. And it spins faster and faster until you can't see anything because you're blinded by bubbles and blood in the water.
Anyway, in my own sharky way, I'm trying to monetize this blog. So, now if you're reading me, you get ads too. ;-p
But so much of what's happening now, is like thousands of sharks all in a feeding frenzy. Each is trying to snack on the other sharks around it. And it spins faster and faster until you can't see anything because you're blinded by bubbles and blood in the water.
Anyway, in my own sharky way, I'm trying to monetize this blog. So, now if you're reading me, you get ads too. ;-p
Stats and stuff
In one week:
3.55% of my traffic is coming from "organic search" (GO ME!)
34% of my visitors come from FaceBook
I had 115 web site visits the day I launched.
I only had 100 yesterday, but that may be because I just started filtering myself out. I don't have today's stats yet.
My mailing list is nearly at 60 but my goal is to have 500 by the end of this month, so I have a long way to go.
My FaceBook page has 71 fans (or maybe FB doesn't call them fans anymore.) I don't remember which day it launched, but the page is less than a week old, so that seems pretty good.
I'd like to look at some of these stats next Thursday.
3.55% of my traffic is coming from "organic search" (GO ME!)
34% of my visitors come from FaceBook
I had 115 web site visits the day I launched.
I only had 100 yesterday, but that may be because I just started filtering myself out. I don't have today's stats yet.
My mailing list is nearly at 60 but my goal is to have 500 by the end of this month, so I have a long way to go.
My FaceBook page has 71 fans (or maybe FB doesn't call them fans anymore.) I don't remember which day it launched, but the page is less than a week old, so that seems pretty good.
I'd like to look at some of these stats next Thursday.
The First Week
In the first week of my journey, I learned that Google has become the King of the World in ways that anyone not involved in ecommerce, wouldn't even know.
Each time I think I have at least a view into everything that Google does that relates to my business, I find out that I barely know the mile high view, let alone the details.
Google has:
Google now owns me. Google knows everything I do. Everything must talk to Google. I must learn all of their interfaces and study all of their reporting.
I pour through documentation and tutorials every day.
Google may have a reputation for great usability, but in fact, all of it seems ponderous and much of it remains obscure to me. There are google things I should be doing that I haven't even discovered yet.
I am certain of this.
Each time I think I have at least a view into everything that Google does that relates to my business, I find out that I barely know the mile high view, let alone the details.
Google has:
- Google Merchant
- Google Analytics
- Google Blogger (right here!)
- Google AdSense
- Google AdWords
- Google Sites (I don't use that one)
- Google Webmaster Tools
- Google Checkout
Google now owns me. Google knows everything I do. Everything must talk to Google. I must learn all of their interfaces and study all of their reporting.
I pour through documentation and tutorials every day.
Google may have a reputation for great usability, but in fact, all of it seems ponderous and much of it remains obscure to me. There are google things I should be doing that I haven't even discovered yet.
I am certain of this.
This is the story of a journey
I used to be a software engineer.
I used to be a software designer and usability expert.
I used to be a lot of things when I left Silicon Valley for the Wild, Wild West of Las Vegas and left the world of technology behind.
Six years later, I feel like Rip Van Winkle. The world has changed when I wasn't looking. Nothing that I knew about the world of internet commerce applies anymore.
This is a story of a decimated economy, a dream of a future, and the story of a technical person, who was asleep at the wheel, waking up to a new world.
This is my story of finding my way through the jungle of hype, hope, promises, SEO, social networking, twitter, FaceBook, all in the quest of creating a new business.
This is the story of Makeup Deal of the Day. My new ecommerce site that sells high end cosmetics at budget prices.
You can find my web site at www.makeupdealoftheday.com
I used to be a software designer and usability expert.
I used to be a lot of things when I left Silicon Valley for the Wild, Wild West of Las Vegas and left the world of technology behind.
Six years later, I feel like Rip Van Winkle. The world has changed when I wasn't looking. Nothing that I knew about the world of internet commerce applies anymore.
This is a story of a decimated economy, a dream of a future, and the story of a technical person, who was asleep at the wheel, waking up to a new world.
This is my story of finding my way through the jungle of hype, hope, promises, SEO, social networking, twitter, FaceBook, all in the quest of creating a new business.
This is the story of Makeup Deal of the Day. My new ecommerce site that sells high end cosmetics at budget prices.
You can find my web site at www.makeupdealoftheday.com
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