You store is built, the products are in the cart and the site is launched. Now you can sit back, relax and watch the sales roll in, right? Nope, now it’s up to you to get the word out.
See, online stores are a little different than setting up a shop in the local strip mall where you have the benefit of foot traffic and maybe your only competition is a store down the street or in the next town. Welcome to the Web where the world is at your fingertips and drive time and gas are not major concerns. The competition is endless so you have to work it to lure the customers.
1. On Your Website
- Define your unique selling point (USP). Both you and your competition sell organic, non toxic pacifiers but you offer free shipping. Make sure that information is in a visible position on your site.
- Customer testimonials about everything from the quality of your product or your excellent customer service say a lot about your store. Gather them and put them on every page of your site.
- Put a “refer a friend” button on your home page and on your product pages. Make it easy for people to spread the word for you.
2. Out in the Real World (Offline Promotion)
- If you have a brick and mortar shop, word of mouth from your existing customer base is key. Throw a grand opening party at the shop, invite your best customers, show them your website and give them a VIP coupon code to use online. Hopefully they will tell their friends (even the out of town ones) about your online store.
- Encourage word of mouth by offering a “refer a friend” program where the referrer gets a discount.
- Send out a direct mail announcement with a coupon code so you can track customers. A postcard is an inexpensive way to get the word out.
- Place ads in publications whose readership would fit your target market. Offer a coupon code specific to the ad so you can track the effectiveness.
- Get a booth at events and showcase your products and direct people to your website to view all of your products. Give them a special event coupon code.
- Send out press releases. Make a list of local, regional and national publications that may have an interest in your products, particularly if they are unique and would appeal to the readership. Many publications do product roundups where they highlight interesting items and provide the web address to purchase. Don’t limit yourself to print publications, notify blogs and e-Zines that may profile helpful products to its readership.
3. On the Web (Online Promotion)
- Send out email announcements with specials and promo codes. Do this regularly and keep the emails simple. Make sure to offer email signup on your website for sale notifications. Allow people to check mark what they are interested in so that they are getting targeted emails.
- Work the search engines. Use good keywords in the Title tags, META tags and page content and setup a Google Analytics account to monitor traffic. Let the search engines know where you are by submitting your URL. See the links below.
- Try to get inbound links from other websites that may have a connection to your product. For example, if you sell kitchen gadgets, form relationships with food bloggers that can recommend your products. Send them free products to test out.
- Get social. Use social media to gather fans and followers and update them on sales and promotions. Also offer them special discounts for being your friend. Don’t Twitter the same thing 15 times a day but maybe once a week offer a promotion or some tidbit of knowledge.
- Evaluate paid advertising options. If you want a quick, jumpstart you might want to consider pay per click options such as Google Adwords or Facebook Advertising. These are often good options for startup businesses that are waiting for their natural search engine ranking to increase. If you have a niche product and will not find yourself competing for lowest price, you might also consider submitting your product feeds to shopping comparison sites such as Google, Shopzilla, Shopping.com. Signing up is usually free, but many shopping-comparison sites — such as Yahoo! Product Submit, Shopping.com, and Shopzilla — charge a small “cost-per-click” fee each time a shopper clicks a link to visit your site.