Wednesday, September 30, 2009
The Benefit of Bundling
There are a couple different ways to bundle products. You can sell multiples of the same product, giving your visitors a discount for buying in bulk, or you can sell many different products in a bundle, still allowing your visitors to save money, but receive a variety of items.
The benefit of bundling products is that it entices buyers to purchase more than they normally would. If a visitor is looking to buy golf clubs and gold balls, and you have a bundle that includes those two items along with a golf glove for just a little more money, they are more likely going to by the bundle instead of buying the products separately, because they feel as though they are getting a deal.
By bundling you are able to maximize your profit, getting your visitors to purchase more of your products and increasing the likelihood that they will come back to your website in the future for the great deals that you offer.
Ask about HIT's Recommended Products Module and how you can take advantage of cross-selling and up-selling on your website.
For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Varying Price Points When Promoting Products
This means that when you are suggesting products to your visitors for a potential cross-sale or up-sale, you want to promote products that have a wide range of prices; some that are expensive, inexpensive, and mid-range.
By doing this you gain the possibility of getting more sales. Those visitors who are impulse buyers are very likely to add an item to their shopping cart at the last minute if the item is inexpensive. Some visitors just want a one-stop-shop for all of their needs and will buy the more expensive products that you promote. Others may not buy any of the items you suggest right away, but by letting your visitors know that you carry that item, they are more likely to come back to your website for it in the future.
Promoting products related to what your visitor is searching for and making sure those products vary in price points ensures you are not missing out on an opportunity and are achieving the highest sales potential for your website.
Ask about HIT’s Recommended Products Module and how you can take advantage of cross-selling and up-selling on your website.
For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Keeping Products Related When Cross-Selling and Up-Selling
When attempting to cross-sell and up-sell, make sure that the products you are promoting are in some way related to what your visitor is looking for. When your visitor searches for a particular item you gain valuable knowledge as to what interests that person has and need to use that to your benefit.
It does no good to promote ballet shoes when your visitor is searching for golf clubs. You want to promote other items that the client would be interested in, such as golf balls, bags, tees, or apparel.
If you bombard your visitors with a myriad of products that are not relevant to what they are searching for, your visitors are more likely to ignore your suggestions and not notice a product that they could potentially be interested in.
Cross-selling and up-selling are integral parts of creating a successful online store. Making sure the products you promote to your visitors are related to what they are searching for will increase your bottom line and keep your visitors coming back.
Ask about HIT's Recommended Products Module and how you can take advantage of cross-selling and up-selling on your website.
For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Using Pictures and Videos With Your Testimonials
Using a picture of the person giving the testimonial can help a visitor to your site relate more to what is being said as well as give the testimonial more credibility. Your testimonials will be less likely to be assumed as phony when a picture and name is included with it.
Another way to make the testimonials on your site more credible and interactive is to include video testimonials. Having one of your satisfied customers record a video testimonial for your site will not only provide the words that can help persuade someone to use your services or buy your products, but you have the added benefit of body language. Excitement, appreciation, and satisfaction are conveyed much better through body language and through a persons actual voice than through the written word alone.
For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Keep Pictures Relevant to Your Website
Stock photographs may be pretty and look professional, but they are often times generic and are difficult to relate to the text and information on your site. Try using pictures of your products being used or your employees performing the services you provide.
One idea when deciding on what pictures to use on your site is to think of a caption you can include for each picture. If you can provide a caption that conveys information to your customers or is something you would want a visitor to your site to read then use the picture on the site. If you cannot, then maybe you should not use the photograph on your site.
By keeping the pictures relevant to your site, they will serve as more than just filler. They will make your site a more effective marketing tool.
For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Don't Misuse or Overuse Pictures on Your Website
customers. However, just like too much text on a website may turn off a visitor to your site, too many pictures, or pictures used poorly, can also be detrimental to your website. Following are some things to keep in mind when using pictures on your site.
The pictures and graphics you use on your website should not detract from the text. They should guide the reader to what you want them to do, whether it is to buy your products, to call your place of business, or some other call to action. Too many pictures can be distracting and can make it hard for visitors to your site to even find the information you want to convey.
Using pictures, graphics, or animations on a site should not only be used because they look “cool” but should support the overall purpose of your website, which should be to market your products and services to potential customers, or to provide information to your visitors.
For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
The Benefits of Not Using Stock Photography on Your Site
Trust
Studies have shown that images of real employees are often more effective than images of models. They add a level of realism and improve peoples' feelings of trust towards your company. With so many websites and so many people competing for everyone's business, trust is an important way to stand out from your competition.
Relate
Stock photographs are typically very generic and it is difficult to find ones that can actually relate to your website and products. People can relate more to photos of real employees and customers using your product or services.
Marketing
The purpose of your site should be to help market your business or products. Taking good quality pictures that actually relate to the content on your site will help improve your site's ability to market your products and services more effectively.
For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.
Monday, September 21, 2009
More Common Site Design Mistakes and How To Avoid Them
You’ve spent a lot of time designing your site and marketing it. It is hard work to market your site and has probably cost you a lot of time and a lot of money. You are getting visitors now – and no one stays to see what you have to offer/sell/say. There are a lot of reasons this might be so but today I want to go into a common mistake that costs people a lot of visitors – slow loading pages. The number one reason people get annoyed and leave a page is because it takes forever to load. Making them wait for graphics isn’t going to wow them; it is going to irritate them.
Graphics aren’t the only thing that can cause your site to load slowly though, and are also not the only thing that can annoy your visitors to the point where they want to leave. Slow loading and distracting flash banners and entry pages, music that you force them to listen to and slow loading java scripts are all killers and will turn your viewers/buyers away quickly. Unfortunately we have social networking sites these days like MySpace that have made these kinds of things popular – believe me there is a world of difference between a MySpace page and a page you are using for commercial purposes. Under no circumstances should you use annoying animated gifs or bright and flashing Flash banners – nothing screams out “leave here immediately” more.
Don’t mistake me, MySpace can be a great tool and can be a form of marketing for you in itself. You can and should make a MySpace page to network and promote your regular website. I would have it designed so it matches the look of your webpage, but don’t base your website design on the design of a MySpace page! Looking through MySpace pages you can see in any five pages pretty much every violation of good website design. Why spend all that time and money to get people to your site so you can then hold them captive and make them watch something that you think is great but they may or may not is interesting. Just let people get on to the business of buying something from you. Make it easy for your customers to spend money with you.
For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Avoiding Common Mistakes in Marketing Your Website
Today’s topic is something that I’ve been thinking about for a while. Looking around the web at different professional sites and keeping track of trends is sometimes a full time job in itself. I’ve seen a lot of sites out there and many different approaches to marketing them. One thing I see over and over that makes me want to leave a site immediately is obvious misspellings. Nothing turns me off faster and makes me trust someone less. Why would I trust someone to perform a service for me or sell me a product if they can’t even take the time to spell check their website content?
Grammar and punctuation mistakes can be forgiven. Much of the time I don’t even notice them until or unless I’ve read the material several times. However, misspelled words stick out like a sore thumb. They are distracting and unprofessional. Whenever I see them I think to myself how sad it is that the person doesn’t care enough about their reputation or their customers returning to take the time out to use spell check.
Use a spell check in your word process program, hire a professional writer or just take your time and check each word, but whatever you do, avoid misspelled words on your site. There is absolutely no faster way to turn your customers away from you than to have blatant misspellings. At least let someone else look at the text you’ve written and proof read it for you. There’s absolutely no way you can build credibility and a reputation for reliability unless you show you’re willing to go to the work of making sure the text on your site is correct. After all, if you go to a site and the first thing you see is “Welcom too are websid” believe me it says worlds about the care you’ve taken and what a customer can expect from you. Leaving a detail like that unfixed can make someone believe you are trying to run a scam or rip them off. HIT Web Design employs a staff of full time writers who do nothing but spell check our customer’s content and our own website content as well. This is the least I can recommend to someone wishing to look and sound professional to their customers and site viewers.
For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Marketing Your Website - Tips and Tricks
There are definitely a myriad of ways to market your website and your web based business. Some of those you might overlook because you may not think of a website as part of a traditional media campaign. Some of the least expensive and yet surprisingly effective ways of marketing your sites are some of the oldest in the book. Some things you can do that are commonly overlooked –
Make sure your website address is on all brochures, business cards, letterhead, email signatures etc. Basically anywhere you print your business address and phone number needs to have your web address as well.
If you have a yellow page ad, newspaper ad, TV and/or radio ads…all these should include your web address. Television and radio ads can be very effective especially in a local market. Newspaper definitely shouldn’t be ignored, and a yellow page ad can often be invaluable.
If you don’t have one already, develop some kind of free gift that you can give to your customers that has your web address on it. Pens, key-chains, refrigerator magnets, plastic squeeze bottles, hats, bags – a nice item that can be fairly inexpensive if you order them in bulk and has great keeper value are small thumb drives. Give these out at every opportunity and have your branding and web address all over it.
Develop magnetic signs and/or vinyl lettering for your vehicle with your web address and your branding on it. Not only does it get your branding and your web address out there, it gives you an opportunity to speak to people about it if you do it uniquely enough to grab people’s attention. It also might give you the ability to deduct business expenses involving your automobile. Check with your tax professional for details.
Ads on local movie theatres ‘between show’ slides can have a surprising return if the ad is effectively done. Other ways to get your site out there are billboards, mobile billboards, flyers, grass roots word of mouth campaigns, ads in trade magazines or specialty magazines can be effective too. The bottom line to advertising and marketing is doing whatever gives you the best return on investment. Keep track of where your customers come from in order to decide in the future where your precious advertising dollars and energy need to go in order to get the best return on your investment. It takes a lot of hard work and energy to make a business work and a website is no different.
For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Email Marketing - What Software Should I Use?
E-mail marketing is a great way of reminding your customers who you are, getting your brand in front of them, providing them with useful information and helpful tips as well as great deals you might be offering. How do you implement it though? That’s where a great software program can be invaluable. HIT Web Design has an easy to use and easy to understand piece of software we can install on your site called the Stay-N-Touch. After researching different options out there on the web I would have to say this is definitely the standard that all software should be judged by.
I will list the qualities of Stay-N-Touch and say that any software you decide to go with to help you with your e-mail marketing program needs to have these functions to be of true use to you.
- Create and manage highly targeted mailing campaigns
Mailing list builder, newsletter editor, subscription forms, auto responders, tracking, reports and more. All in one place. - Customization and Personalization
Send personalized and customized emails to all recipients, groups or to custom mix of mailing groups. - Custom fields
Create multiple custom fields and use them in the newsletter body, mailing lists and subscription forms. - Advanced tracking and reports
Track mailing campaigns, click-throughs, and get detailed mailing reports. - Automatic bounced emails
The system will automatically move bounced email addresses to a special folder. You can make these emails active again or delete at any time. - Multi-language support
Supports over 50 main world languages. These include European, Asian, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and other languages. - Advanced auto responder
Create a series of unlimited follow-up auto responder tasks. Choose basic, multiple or mailing campaign auto responders. Choose a start point: any date/time or deliver emails once a user joins your mailing list. - Full support of huge mailing lists
This software tested successfully with 300,000+ mailing lists. - Easy-to-use interface makes administration a snap
For more information as well as a complete demonstration, please visit http://hitenhancements.com/stayntouch.shtml or call your customer service representative at 1-866-211-0743.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
E-mail Marketing - Tips On a Successful Campaign
You’ve decided on an e-mail marketing campaign through your double opt-in, offering bonus services, discounts, helpful information and tips to all your customers. This can be very successful or it can be downright frustrating, and a lot of what happens with it depends on you and avoiding some common pitfalls that can take the energy out of your campaign before it even begins.
One of the first things you want to do make sure you’ve put an obvious “call to action” on your e-mail that cries out to the customer as soon as they open your e-mail; this is the same concept we talked about when creating your website. You want to make it as easy as possible for your customer to buy from you so in order to capture their attention you need to provide them with an easy to understand opportunity to buy as soon as they see your message. If a customer doesn’t see what you want them to do they usually won’t search; they will close that email and go on to the next one. Also make it easy for them to understand what they are getting out of doing what you’ve asked them to, otherwise, what is their motivation?
Another tip is to make the e-mail (if it is an HTML based e-mail especially) consistent with your corporate look, website and other marketing, no matter what media it is. This helps with branding and helps your customer understand immediately it is message from you. Inconsistency in marketing messages can look ‘messy’ and can have a detrimental effect on the message you are trying to convey as well as an overall harmful effect on your corporate image. It makes you look unprofessional, inconsistent and can portray you as an entity that can’t be trusted. A unified look in marketing efforts provides instant branding as well as a sense of security in the reliable look.
You should also be consistent with the times you send out e-mail messages. If you do it too frequently you will run the risk of alienating your customers, but not often enough and they forget who you are. There is no real rule about it but putting your name out there in front of your customers at least once a month should be considered your minimum. Any other kind of time line will have to be determined by you and how often you feel your customers need to hear from you or can tolerate yet another marketing message.
For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.
Monday, September 14, 2009
E-mail Marketing - How To Do It Right
As I mentioned in Friday’s web log, E-mail marketing is an extremely efficient means of keeping yourself in touch with your customers. You can use it to give your customers helpful hints and tips, answer frequently asked questions, as well as provide you with opportunities to get your products out there in front of your customer base, introduce new products and generally keep your brand in front of them in a helpful, non-intrusive and generally inexpensive way. But how do you get that list of customer e-mails to begin with? If you’ve sold to them, as part of the process you can ask them for their e-mail address, but it is critical that you ask the customer if it is OK for you to send them e-mail messages from time to time, otherwise you run the risk of alienating them. But how do you get e-mail addresses from people who haven’t purchased from you but may be interested in what you have to offer? There is a simple way that is easy to implement on your site and relatively inexpensive; it is called confirmed subscription opt-in, or, the “double opt-in”.
Confirmed subscription opt-in or double opt-in is a method for those seeking information from you to confirm with you that it is actually them asking to be included on your mailing list. The customer or potential customer fills out a short form on your website asking to be included in your mailing list. Once they submit the form, the form sends them an email that they have to respond to in order to complete the subscription. They are confirming, twice, that they actually want to receive the e-mails from you that you send out, be it informational, marketing or otherwise. This prevents anyone from posing as someone else and entering their email address as one that wishes to receive the information you send to your email list, be it marketing information, FAQ’s, a newsletter or sales opportunities. The potential abuser may put in a second parties email but doesn’t control that person’s email address therefore eliminating this particular scam. Not only does it confirm that they want to receive information, it is also a way of confirming that someone is likely to spend money with you and is genuinely interested in your products or services.
For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.
Friday, September 11, 2009
E-mail Marketing - What It Is
E-mail marketing is an enormously effective tool to keep yourself in touch with your customers when utilized in a legal (non-spam) way, and can benefit your customers as well as provide you with opportunities to get your products out there in front of your existing customer base, introduce new products and generally keep your brand in front of them in a positive and cost effective way. Depending on how effective and helpful you make the message you’re trying to get across you can significantly increase your bottom line. In reality e-mail marketing is so inexpensive even if it doesn’t have a significant return; almost any amount of return becomes worthwhile.
The great thing about e-mail marketing campaigns is it doesn’t matter what size business you are, it is just as effective for a small business as it is for a large business; in fact, sometimes it benefits a small business considerably more. A good e-mail opt-in database can be worth infinitely more than what you spend on it to begin with as it can be used in so many different ways. Not only can you use it to get a marketing message across, you can use it as an ambassador of good will to your customers, sending them out helpful hints and tips, as well as utilizing it to follow up with customers who have purchased from you lately. It can have many, many different uses. However, with all that said let’s examine and define exactly what a decent e-mail marketing campaign is, and what it isn’t.
Wikipedia defines E-mail marketing as –
E-mail marketing is a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fundraising messages to an audience. In its broadest sense, every e-mail sent to a potential or current customer could be considered e-mail marketing. However, the term is usually used to refer to:
- Sending e-mails with the purpose of enhancing the relationship of a merchant with its current or previous customers and to encourage customer loyalty and repeat business,
- Sending e-mails with the purpose of acquiring new customers or convincing current customers to purchase something immediately,
- Adding advertisements to e-mails sent by other companies to their customers, and
- Sending e-mails over the Internet, as e-mail did and does exist outside the Internet (e.g., network e-mail and FIDO).
You can find that definition at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail_marketing. This definition pre-supposes that you are not e-mailing people that haven’t asked to be included in your mailing list. Sending unsolicited e-mail is called ‘spam’ - so what is the difference between e-mail marketing and spam? E-mail spam is defined loosely as unsolicited, bulk, commercial e-mail. Most people find e-mail spam to be distasteful at best.
HIT Web Design offers an easy to use email marketing program called Stay-N-Touch. For more information on Stay-N-Touch, please visit http://hitenhancements.com/stayntouch.shtml or call 1-866-211-0743.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Know Your Competition and Know What Sets You Apart
Search the Internet to see what your competition is offering to their visitors. Are your prices comparable? Are your prices a little higher, but you offer free shipping? Do you have a larger selection? More experience?
Let everyone know that you are better than your competition by sending out monthly newsletters. Include testimonials and customer reviews on your site and in your newsletter. If you need help becoming better than your online competition, trust the industry experts at HIT Web Design.
For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
How Can a Monthly Newsletter Impact Your Business?
Newsletters can be used to
- Introduce customers to your employees.
- Show off your years of experience.
- Introduce new products or services.
- Highlight one or more of your products.
- Advertise upcoming sales and specials.
HIT Web Design offers the Stay-N-Touch marketing program. This uncomplicated database allows you to collect valuable customer information. With Stay-N-Touch, visitors to your website can choose to opt in to your e-newsletter.
If you need help creating a professional looking newsletter that contains knock-your-socks-off content, HIT Web Design’s experienced writers and designers can create a newsletter for you at an affordable price.
For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Price vs. Quality
Take some time to search the Internet for companies that offer similar products. For example, let’s say that you have an online shoe store. You specialize in sandals, flip flops, and other summer shoes—all offered at a great price. You don’t sell name brand shoes. Instead, you offer lesser-quality products at a great price. You aren’t competing with nike.com, teva.com, or other brand name sites. You probably aren’t competing with small businesses that sell name brand summer footwear. Your competition is the company that is selling products of similar quality for a similar price.
In addition to your online competition, you’ll want to consider your real world competition. If you are offering a product or service to a specific geographic location, learn what types of products and services your competition offers as well as the costs of those products and services.
For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Can Free Shipping Really Increase Sales?
That doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to offer free shipping. Find out what your customers want. You can do this by giving your customer a choice at checkout—free shipping or $5 off a purchase of over $50 (or whatever other discount you choose). A second idea for split testing is to have two sites, one that offers free shipping and one that doesn’t. Track your results and see what works best for your online business.
If you aren’t offering free shipping, then make it clear how much shipping will cost. According to PayPal, 43% of online shoppers do not complete a transaction because shipping charges were higher than they expected.
Free shipping shouldn’t be offered at the expense of an inferior product or at a large increase in product cost that is passed on to your customer. You know your products and should know whether or not free shipping is appropriate for your e-business.
For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Becoming an Industry Expert
Certifications are a good way to help site visitors gain your trust, but they also help show that you are an expert in your industry. Many industries offer certifications. If they don’t, then try to get published in an industry magazine or newsletter. Include a link to the magazine or newsletter on your website.
Another way to show that you are an expert in your industry is by continual blogging. If you want to become an expert in your industry, see what the industry experts are blogging about. Begin to research what the experts are researching, and then blog about your own take. Once you become an industry expert, you’ll get visitors that you normally wouldn’t get. You’ll get sales opportunities that didn’t previously exist. You’ll be better, in some ways, than your competition.
For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Gain Visitors’ Trust by Using Trust Images and Icons
Take a look at our website, www.hitwebdesign.com. On our landing page, we have the Inc. 500 logo. We have been featured as one of Inc. 500’s fasting growing companies for the last three years. Click on the “Read More” link and you are taken to a page that has almost a dozen more trust images, including Entrepreneur magazine and Google Adwords. You want to become qualified to receive trust icons that are offered in your industry. This not only helps with trust, it also shows that you are an expert in your industry.
For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Update Your Website Often
Part of the process of updating your content is updating links. If you have links that go to blogs or other websites, check them often to make sure that they still work. It’s easy to get frustrated when you start clicking on links that go nowhere. Frustrated visitors won’t stay on your site.
If your site isn’t up to par, don’t worry. There are several web design companies that can redesign your site for a fair price, including HIT Web Design.
For more information, please visit http://www.hitwebdesign.com or call 1-866-211-0743.