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Have you ever noticed that reports on the economy are always “better than expected” or “worse than expected” but rarely “on target” or “as expected”? With the media telling me every day that I should hold onto my money and not spend it, it’s no wonder we all fear a bad holiday season.

But I refuse to subscribe to all of the doomsday news. I’m not oblivious to the fact that there’s real news out there that isn’t positive. However, I believe one thing you can never underestimate is the need for people to spend money, and I mean “need”. We are a society that loves to buy things; it’s in our blood and yes, we may not spend as much as we did last year, but there’s an eternal flame burning a hole in our pockets.

For months, I’ve advised our customers that working smarter this year is the key to a successful holiday season. If there are fewer dollars being spent this year, be sure you’re grabbing as much share as possible. My hope is that you’re head is spinning from a “better than expected” holiday season and you’re looking for more ideas to maximize your post-holiday sales.

To help with this article I asked some of my fellow e-commerce experts about what they believe are the key things store owners need to do to start their 2009 off on the right foot. After reviewing their feedback, I realized that in large part these are things that you should already be doing and if you’re not, you may be paying a heavy price.

Analyze Your Traffic:

The old adage rings true that “if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got”.

Now is the time to take a good look at your analytics to see how your site performed. Look at the bounce rates of your web pages and take a look at your cart abandonment rate. Most experts would say the 50-60% range is an average cart abandonment rate. If you’re seeing a much higher rate, be concerned because this means your customers found something wrong once they decided to check out. Maybe your shipping rates are too expensive, maybe they were confused by a less-streamlined checkout process, maybe they lost confidence in the security of your store once you asked for a credit card. The cause may be difficult to pinpoint, but the results could potentially be detrimental, so REVIEW YOUR ANALYTICS and start figuring out positive changes.

Evaluate Your Site Objectively:

Asking a friend, co-worker or relative what they think of your site is not effective if you’re looking for productive changes that could increase your traffic or conversions. Have your website evaluated by a professional Conversion Analyst that understands best practices in e-commerce and can offer you valuable tips on what you’re doing right or what you need to do to better optimize your sales. This includes evaluating the aesthetics of your site from header to footer, reviewing your checkout process and evaluating the friendliness of your search engine content.

Segment Your Heroes and Zeros:

Look at what products sold best and worst and create special sections on your site to highlight each in a way that will give them better selling potential. The Heroes that made your holidays a better year should be on your homepage or in a “Hot Items” section that is easy to find. Conversely, create a “Clearance” or “Specials” section for the Zero’s on your site.

BLOG! BLOG! BLOG!

Really, it works. Blogging is such an easy way to build a community with your customers, and by the way, it doesn’t hurt your Search Engine Optimization. Launch a free Wordpress blog and brand it to look like your store, then, just write, write and write.

Most “Blogiphobes” tell me “I don’t know what I’d write about” and then proceed to tell me all about their business, how they got started or what products they love. Sometimes, I’ll stop them to point out “you’re blogging right now” and they begin to understand just how easy it can be. Blogging is not about determining if you’re Mark Twain or Emily Dickinson in your writing style, it’s about talking about yourself, your family, your products, your store, or anything about which you’re passionate. SELL ME and do it by engaging me in a dialogue that I’m interested in, which should be you or your products!!

Determine Your Marketing Efforts

What marketing efforts did you not participate in that you regret? Did you keep up your pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns? Are you still not convinced about e-mail marketing? Are you blogging? Are you maximizing your Search Engine Optimization?

1. Ramp up your PPC campaign to focus on your post-holiday deals and keep attracting new customers.
2. E-mail Marketing, if managed properly, is very effective for informing all those new customers about continued deals at your site. Remember those “Hot Item and Clearance” sections you created? Get the message out to your customers to come back for post-holiday deals.
3. Blog – okay, I’ll shut up about it now.
4. You still need to attract new customers, so make improvements to your SEO by revising your content to be more keyword-rich.

You can take these as post-holiday tips but they’re really tips you should continually make for your e-business to stay successful. Don’t accept a struggling economy as a reason for less than desirable sales; be the exception in a struggling economy by working smarter than you did last year. 2009 will be a great year for you if you understand that a large part of the results are attributed to what you’re doing to improve your business strategy. When the economy is truly great again, you’ll be much further ahead in the game. eBiz

Good or bad, we’re a society obsessed with spending; we’d rather shop for a piggy bank than use one.

Solid Cactus, Inc. has designed or redesigned more than 3,000 e-commerce sites. Solid Cactus is an Inc. 500 company and was named one of the "Best Places to Work in Pennsylvania" in 2006 and 2007.

All posts by Solid Cactus | E-Mail the author

In October, it’s costumes. In November, it’s turkeys. In June, it’s grills. In December, well, you know.

Seasonal products may only be hot at only certain times of the year, but running a seasonal e-commerce business is a year-round task.

Halloween is approaching, but online costume shops have been busy since January. Tamir Nadborny of CostumeKingdom.com and StarWarsKingdom.com prepares for next year’s Halloween early.

“For us it begins in January. There really is no off-time,” he said.

“It’s year-round prep,” says Cynthia Ryan of ChildrensCostumesExpress.com. “I need to know what movie characters are hot because I don’t want to get stuck with a dud.” She usually starts ordering in January.

“It’s not rocket science, but it’s an art form,” Nadborny says. “You have to know the hot sellers and stock them. The earlier you order, the earlier you can figure out what the trends are and get more allocation. That way, when everyone wants the hot costume, you have it,” Nadborny said. “We order very early in the year because the manufacturers need lead time to project their sales so they can deliver all the goods.”

Ryan says that last year Transformers and Hannah Montana wigs were huge.

“I could have sold a thousand of them if I had them in stock.” she said.

Nadborny banked on consistent Star Wars appeal and opened a niche costume shop.

“Star Wars is consistent year after year. And this year with the release of the animated series they are introducing a lot of new characters. The manufacturers required new licenses to update the older ones around movie releases. It gives a fresh look to a brand that has been out there 30 years. We definitely stock a ton of Star Wars items.”

Ryan says when Sesame Street’s Abbey Cadabby party invitations began to sell out at her local Target she realized it would be a costume trend this year. “There are princess parties year-round,” said Ryan.

Dressing up is not just for Halloween after all. “When there are summer movie releases, there is always a rush for those costumes, like with Iron Man or the Hulk,” said Ryan.

“Thanksgiving, Christmas, Mardi Gras, Easter and then it’s Halloween again,” said Nadborny. “There are Renaissance Fairs and kids love to wear costumes year-round. Volume gets heavy in the middle of September and goes more haywire everyday.”

Robert Marshall owns ChristmasMouse.com and plans early. Way early. He does his e-commerce tweaking right after the New Year.

“Our ordering is 75% complete in January,” he said. “We like to do something with Solid Cactus to improve our site in January and February, and then in March we add new items,” he said

Seasonal Marketing

Nadborny says e-mail marketing has been effective for his costume stores.

“You constantly have to keep in touch with customers through e-mail. We do aggressive off-season promotions and restructure our website. We promote other holidays that provide a chance for business,” he said.

“I don’t spend much on advertising in the off-months,” says Ryan. “If I do something earlier, it’s usually with a focus on one costume,” she said. “I gear toward party themes during the off-times. I look in the stores to see what invitations they are pushing.”

After the Season

Halloween costumes change yearly. So what do stores do after the celebrations and costume parties pass? Have sales,
of course!

“I try not to go crazy with discounts because people still buy them for Christmas gifts. If shoppers can’t find a costume in a store after Halloween,” says Ryan, “they hit the web and they find it.”

“The end of season is one of the most aggressive in our field,” says Nadborny. “Come November, we slash probably about 60-70%. We got an order yesterday for $350 worth of clearances.”

Marshall’s retails shops are year-round Christmas stores stocking about 30,000 items—and trends in Christmas items are pretty consistent. Two popular exceptions: icicle lights and fiber optic trees.

Ryan leaves other seasonal stores with some advice:

“Try not to think of it as a seasonal item- there is always somebody out there looking for what you have!”

Senior Account Mananger at Solid Cactus

All posts by Donna Talarico | E-Mail the author

When the going gets tough,
the tough get creative.

There is no better time than the present to embrace that phrase and live by it. Let’s face it, the economy is taking its toll on everyone right now and the ones who creatively market their products and services will be the ones to come out on top.

So what is an online merchant to do? Make sure that you (and your e-business) are seen as experts in the field and position yourself as a credible source of information and products!

Blog, Blog, Blog!

Blogs have come a long way in the past year. What used to be second and third tier media have now made it into the mainstream and should be part of every e-business plan. If you’re selling trains, you should be writing about the new special edition from Lionel or some new must-have accessories for your platform. Blogs get indexed very well in the search engines, so use keywords in your paragraphs that people will be searching for and that wil give links back to your store when mentioning the specific product that you sell.

Market to existing customers.

Every customer who places an order on your site can be a repeat customer. If you’re not doing anything to bring that person back, you’re leaving money on the table. E-mail marketing is one of the best ways to market to your existing customers. For a reasonable investment, you’re keeping them informed and up-to-date on new products, special offers and what’s going on in your store. On average, you should be touching your customer with an e-mail campaign two times per month. But be compelling! E-mailing them to say “hello” doesn’t cut it. E-mailing them a coupon for 15% off their next order is a win. E-mail Marketing to current customers has higher returns than any other online marketing method.

Spread the virus.

Viral marketing is hotter than ever and is perhaps the most creative thing you can do to spread the word about your company. Have a funny, captivating flash application created that’s funny enough that it’s going to be forwarded to everyone in your customer’s address book. Create a video and put it on YouTube that features your products being used in an entertaining way that will get people watching and sharing. Create pages for your business on MySpace and Facebook and keep them updated. These are especially effective when your target market is the under 30 crowd. Become an expert on LinkedIn using their ‘Answers’ and generate traffic to your site through effective tell-a-friend campaigns.

There’s no such thing as a free…
oh wait, yes there is!

When we sold our pet supply division, we wanted to stay e-commerce owners, so we opened a lawn and garden site (neeps.com). To start us off, the only form of advertising we used was listing our products in the comparison shopping engines (CSEs). We used FeedPerfect to manage the items and watch profitability. We were astonished with the sales we generated without any other form of advertising. More than a year later, the majority of our ad spend is still directed to the CSEs. Feed Perfect is available with a special 45-day free trial, just use the promo code “ebizsept” at FeedPerfect.com. Invest a bit of time into setting it up and give it a try. You’ve got a free ride for 45 days, so take advantage of the revenue opportunity!

Market yourself.

You know your products better than anyone. Remember that you are the expert in your field, so flaunt it a bit! Here is an example of how this can pay off. When we still operated our pet supply businesses, we weren’t doing any business locally. We had a 20,000 square foot warehouse and a $5 million dollar inventory, but no local sales. Looking to capture some of the local business, I teamed up with our local talk-radio station and bought two hours of time on a Saturday afternoon. I did a call-in talk show about pets, sponsored by none other than our company! You might not have the time or resources to do the same, but you could create “expert” videos using a webcam and YouTube!

“The Pet Guy” Show ran for five years on two different stations, generated a buzz in the community, boosted our local sales and gave me more recognition as “The Pet Guy” than the owner of a high-tech company in coal-town.

I’ve been off the air for three years now, but my reputation still carries. I was recently approached by The Luzerne Foundation, a local non-profit agency, to “star” in a commercial promoting a benefit Texas Hold-Em tournament they’re having, but not as Scott from Solid Cactus - as Scott, The Pet Guy. The video features me and five dogs sitting around playing poker. (Check out the video on our blog, http://blog.solidcactus.com.) It’s viral, It’s on YouTube, I blogged about it, I was the expert and it’s creative marketing. Who can ask for anything more?

Co-Founder, President & COO of Solid Cactus

All posts by Scott Sanfilippo | E-Mail the author

Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas and Hanukkah are right around the corner. So now is the time to get your pre-existing e-mail marketing strategies in shape, or to start new campaigns.

Just imagine, an e-mail solution where you could ensure your customers are receiving personal, relevant, timely, branded and professionally designed and written e-mail that they want to receive. It’s real, it’s happening and it’s here for the taking.

E-mail marketing is much more than simply sending an e-mail with a generic layout and no ability to segment, track or feature event-triggered sends. Forget what you think you know about e-mail marketing. Let’s explore e-mail’s limitless options, including segmentation, optimization and tracking features so you can have a successful campaign this holiday.

Fact: E-mail IS the holy grail of marketing. In no other area of the marketing exchange can you so directly target the people whom already patronize your services than through your current customer base.

Fact: It costs anywhere from five to eight times more to gain a new customer than to retain a customer. When you consider the price of your time, advertising and Internet marketing costs, the answer becomes obvious – e-mail is the perfect solution. E-mail marketing is the most sought after present and future of direct-to-client marketing available. E-mail marketing’s Return on Advertising Spend, (ROAS), is triple PPC at 7% - currently making it the most sought after marketing tool.

Follow these tried and true tips tested to ensure you’re ready for the rush this holiday season!

1. Qualified List Building – Without a good, qualified list, your e-mail campaign is going nowhere. Strike a balance of asking enough questions to get a great list without asking too many questions of your potential client. Pertinent information to ask for segmenting purposes (we’ll get to that in a bit) are gender, city, state or birth date. Wait until a later time to ask what types of products they’re interested in and how often they’d like to receive communications.

2. Professional Appearance –Sending a generic e-mail simply by slapping your logo into a pre-designed template will not brand your companies identity and will show your customers you’ve put little effort into your campaign. With a professionally customized design, your clients will expect your e-mail to have a clear, concise and consistent message, blast after blast. This is where a managed solution stands above the rest.

3. Segmentation – Segmentation is the pinnacle of optimizing your campaign. If your current solution isn’t offering advanced segmentation opportunities, you’re missing the chance to properly communicate with your customers. I know what you’re thinking—sorry! No more is segmenting only about splitting your domestic from your international customers; it’s about communicating directly to your clientele based on their preferences, previous buying history and more.

If there’s a group you want to more adequately target while receiving the greatest return on investment for your send, segmentation is the answer. You can target only men, ages 25-49, who live in the eastern half of the United States and have ordered sports gear in the previous 18 months. Why waste the money and resources to send a generic advertisement to customers that don’t apply? With segmentation you know your clients are interested in the products and will increase your conversion rates, all with the proper split of a list.

4. Personalization – Segmentation is an example of personalization. If you’re not personalizing your e-mail, you’re not getting the most out of your campaign. Most e-mail programs will allow you to personalize the subject line and insert a first name. More advanced solutions allow you to dynamically insert personalization based upon your client’s interests.

Everyone is accustomed to “Hello (insert name).”

But advanced solutions allow you to speak directly to your client. Make them feel you have more of a one-on-one relationship and that your e-mail is targeted directly to them, such as:

Hello (insert name),

Thank you for your recent order of (dynamically insert product). We really value your business and your continued commitment to our company since (dynamically insert first purchase date). Because of this we’d like to offer you (dynamically insert saving offer based on pre-set variables) off your next purchase. Thanks again for your loyalty and happy shopping!

With such a personalized message your client’s will know they are important, valued and respected for their individuality. Wouldn’t you rather receive promotions that benefit you then clogging your inbox with useless offers? This way you optimize and increase your conversation rates at the same time.

5. Event-Triggered – If you’re communicating with your clients based on their preferences, you’re getting the message. E-mail is a commitment with a motive. It helps you stay in touch with your clients, lets them know you care about them and offers them a service, be it by a promotion, a newsletter, a whitepaper, etc.

E-mail solutions with event-triggered capabilities are a great way to get the most bang for your buck this holiday. Utilizing database information, you can automatically send customers birthday wishes, anniversary wishes and automated reminders for product refills or special promotions to counter shopping cart abandonment.

Whatever you do, don’t let that customer slip away. If they’ve made it to the cart you know they are at least partially interested. Use e-mail to entice them to complete the transaction with a “Where Did You Go” e-mail and offer them additional savings like 5% off their order if they submit today, or free shipping if placed by a predetermined time.

6. Testing – If you’re starting your first e-mail campaign this year it’s best to do so as soon as possible in order to test, test and test. Test your subject lines, test your content writing style, test your coupon offers, test your images, test your design, and test your landing page design.

By using a solution that offers heat maps you can track which aspects of a design received the most attention in each e-mail. If one area wasn’t a success, change it, while keeping the positively received areas the same. After several campaigns you’ll have a layout that is ideal to your clients’ likes. This process takes time. To have the best layout ready for the holiday rush, you’ll need to start with an optimized managed solution today!

7. Tracking/Reporting – If your solution isn’t offering you the best reporting then all your efforts are for naught. My best advice is to utilize a solution that offers advanced reporting and tracking features. You can send, send and send, but if you’re not getting the numbers to justify, improve and optimize your campaign you’re not able to maximize your conversion success.

While some solutions may offer limited reporting resources, Solid Cactus’ high-end solution is the crème de la crème. If you want it we can track it; opens, clicks, forwards, subscribes, unsubscribes, web pages visited, conversions, heat maps, click-through performance and more. Utilize this information to retarget your customers with unique campaigns.

Reporting allows you to improve relevancy for greater long-term success. Did a client click but not open? Send them a follow-up offer. Did they click-through, roam around and not buy? Based upon their pages visited, track items where they have shown interest and remarket featuring those products. The options are endless and the results are staggering. I can’t say it enough; sending personalized, qualified e-mail will make you profitable this holiday and throughout the year.

8. Create a Marketing Schedule – E-mail marketing is not simply about sending a blast when sales are low. E-mail is a way to keep your brand in the forefront. Customers will think of your company–your brand–first, because your e-mail consistently shows up in the inbox offering them services that benefit their lives.

As an e-commerce store you have a goldmine sitting at your finger tips. Retarget to those customers who have shopped with your company, know and respect your brand and trust you to bring them the best services possible.

By sending personalized more relevant communications customers want to open, read and act on – you’ll drive your sales, grow your opt-in subscription list and improve your ROI. E-mail marketing allows you to easily follow the most important rules in marketing: keep in touch with your clients, understand their needs and reward their loyalty.

Solid Cactus, Inc. has designed or redesigned more than 3,000 e-commerce sites. Solid Cactus is an Inc. 500 company and was named one of the "Best Places to Work in Pennsylvania" in 2006 and 2007.

All posts by Solid Cactus | E-Mail the author