If you’re a sole proprietor working for yourself, you still need to do some online marketing. The cheapest and easiest way to do this is through social marketing. However, start becoming aware of how you can position yourself as an expert in your field through alternative means.

1. Mistake #1: Bombarding your friends with the same selling point over and over. If you’re on Facebook or MySpace, it’s likely that you have professional contacts as well as personal contacts. I like to do all my marketing through LinkedIn, and keep my Facebook account more for personal use. I know there are some hard core social marketers that would debate this point, but it’s just my personal preference. If you get a large connection group on LinkedIn; these people expect a professional network to be utilized to facilitate business. Try commenting on other people’s posts to position yourself as an expert. Remember your audience when you’re thinking about delivering a marketing or selling message on any social network and make sure it’s appropriate for the reader.

2. Mistake #2: Not creating a personal brand for yourself with a clear identity. Remember most people will buy your product and service because of you; not the product. If you’ve started your own company, your company and your own personal brand are the same thing. Don’t be afraid to be front and center in your marketing message. If people can see a picture of your face (or a video) they will be more likely and trust you as a person; therefore buying your product.

3. Mistake #3: Not making use of the best available tools. No one will know about you unless you get yourself – your name and your company – out there. Outside of social marketing online, where are there some areas in your community that you can position yourself as the leader in what you do? Are there events, fundraisers, charity auctions, community service, or other projects that you can align yourself with that will promote your name for free? I always carry a stack of business cards in my purse and hand them out readily at social events, even if it’s not a business function.

I hope this helps!

Marne

No one wants to admit this; but it seems like small to medium size publishers are having trouble selling their ad inventory. If you’re in this boat on this one; don’t despair, there’s a way out.

1. Make sure you’re maximizing your network buys by doing more than one deal. If you have Google as your default network, consider signing up with another network and compare which one is making you more money. Having more than one keeps them both honest.
2. Look at the feedback that your users are giving you and really determine who your demographic is. Once you know definitively who is coming to your site; you’ll get a better understanding of who might be interested in advertising to these users. For example; if your site caters to women who are about to give birth, there’s a myriad of companies out there that have baby products they want to sell to that woman. Go to Google and type in “baby products” and see who the paying advertisers are for those words. Pick up the phone and call them and offer them your demographic. In most cases, advertisers aren’t buying ads on your site because they don’t know about you.
3. Hire a sales person or a firm to sell your ads for you. Online Media Diva, Inc. has a great program we offer clients to sell your inventory on your behalf. Make sure you hire people with at least 5 years of experience. You don’t want to have to spend time teaching someone the ropes.

Happy Selling,

Marne

Regarding shopping cart providers, there are two main functions of an online retail presence:


1) CMS (Content Management System) to manage the items being sold.

2) Checkout / merchant processing.


Lesser but important also are:


3) Analytics. Tracking customer behavior on the site, abandonment locations and rates.
4) Process flow design. Does the site lead people into the sale, or put up roadblocks to conversions?
5) Abandonment mitigation tools.

If the retailer does not have internal IT staff, then hosted providers for 1 & 2 are a requirement. There are many hosted providers out there, and each has benefits and detractions.

For CMS, we are affiliated with retailondemand.com which is a fully hosted solution www.retailondemand.com. It’s easy to manage and they will set everything up and maintain the infrastructure. You just manage the items you want to sell. It can include full payment processing etc.

Others are www.shopify.com, a very easy, inexpensive way to get started in online retail, and have Google analytics built in. http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/ecommerce/ Yahoo can provide everything you need, though at a higher transaction cost A search on Bing or Google for “Hosted ecommerce Solutions” will provide many more. Keep an eye on transaction rates and monthly charges. Many offer a trial subscription, so trying out a couple is a low pain way to get a feel for what you like. If you have a CMS already and wish to add merchant processing, then a simple option is Google Checkout, though its better suited to small to medium business and does not scale well to enterprise levels.

Some of the most memorable online shopping experiences that I’ve had have been bad ones! If you have a website and are selling your product online through a shopping cart, you need to put some thought into how you are going to develop the website and make it easy for the user to buy your product or service. Did you know that nearly 60% of all users abandon a shopping cart? Reasons vary from high shipping costs; the process is confusing, etc. If you can implement these simple steps, you will capture more sales online.

1. Your website is not cluttered with too much text, pictures, ads, and navigation is not easy for the user to buy the product.

2. Your site is not user friendly. Make sure discounts, shipping time, and cost are noted next to the product. This will ensure that a customer does not go back and forth and then abandon the shopping cart in frustration.

3. Customer doesn’t know how where they are in the check out process. Make sure the customer knows where they are in the shopping process at any point of time. And allow customers to review the steps they have taken as well make changes throughout the process.

4. Customer forgets what’s in his/her shopping cart. Use tools like placing an icon of the product in the basket so a customer always knows at a glance what he has placed in the shopping cart. This is known to increase conversions by over 10%!

5. Customer can’t make changes dynamically in their order. Make sure to include editing tools in the shopping cart so that customers can change quantities, sizes, or number of items they are purchasing.

6. Shopping process is not clear and is confusing. Keep the design clean and simple and always let the customer know how many steps left and what to do next.

7. You’re not clear about your return policy, shipping costs, guarantees, etc. Make sure to spell out all of these items somewhere in the process.

Happy Marketing!

Marne

I love it when I meet a person that has a great idea for a business and they are all fired up. I meet these people often at networking events, parties, through friends, etc. I love seeing their expressiveness and joy come out when they describe their passion and how they are going to make a lot of money. Did you know that we each have at least 2-3 million dollar ideas every single day? How many times have you heard of someone else “stealing” your idea and making a lot of money on it? “Ah! That was my idea!!” I have that so many times in my own life; and I know you have too. The biggest reason that stands out in my mind when I hear a good idea from someone and why they aren’t making a million dollars from it right now is action. In order to make your dreams come true, you need a plan; and then you need to take action on it. I know this concept sounds so obvious, but I hear from people about 100 excuses about why they are not taking action to make their dreams come true.

No action, no money.

If you’re reading this blog, you already realize the internet is here to stay. If you have an idea, you will absolutely need an online presence. I don’t care if you’re selling a product, service, or just you, you need to get an online presence and then market the holy living heck out of it; online and off. Every single time I meet someone at a networking event, I say, “Marne Semick, The Online Media Diva.” It’s a brand. I repeat it over and over and over to everyone I know. Guess what? I’m known as the Online Media Diva. When I get an opportunity to speak in front of large groups, I always say my full name, my company, and my 30 second elevator pitch. Keep repeating it everywhere you go. Get the elevator pitch right, and make sure everyone understands what you do in one sentence.

Back to online…so, we’ve talked about the need for a website. Now go through the steps to do social marketing, post videos on YouTube, and do some podcasting. If you represent yourself in the marketplace as an expert, and you know what you’re talking about, you will be rewarded for that. Here’s the thing that is keeping you from taking your idea to a money making business. Action. I hear so many excuses around action items: “I don’t have time to post on Face book.” “I don’t know how to do the videos myself.” Or, “I don’t have the money to hire anyone to do that for me.” Guess what, it’s not hard and it won’t take you much time or money. The idea is to get started and take action on your ideas. If you aren’t – someone else is going to take action and get a reputation for the very thing that you want to do with your life.

Get out there and make it happen!

Joyfully,

Marne