Re: Promoting a consumer oriented e-commerce site

From: Miki Dzugan <mdzugan_at_markneting.com>
Date: Wed 13 Feb 2002 10:57:06 -0600

Alex,

Without knowing specifically what your widget is I am
not able to suggest a specific promotion plan, but I
can share some guidelines regarding the cost
effectiveness of various site promotion tactics.

We have put together a chart of site promotion tactics
on our Web site arranged in order of relative cost per
customer acquisition. Briefly, the chart begins with
customer referral -- minimal cost per customer
acquisition -- and ends with banner advertising --
most costly. There are a number of tactics in between.
Here's a simplified version:

Least costly
<------------------------------------------------------------------------>
                                                               Most costly
Customer referral | SEO | Links Negotiation | E-mail |
Affiliate Program | Banner Ads | SE Paid Placement |

 From your description of your widgets, it does not
sound as though you have a compelling enough product
or service for it that customers are spreading the
news for you. And, I would suspect, that aspect of
the business is out of your control.

You have taken care of search engine placement, which
is the next least costly tactic (after customer
referral) on our chart.

You might consider some paid search engine placement,
Google's Ad Words, Overture, etc. but, if you already
have excellent search engine placement, those links
are not as effective as being high in the actual
search results.

On to the next tactic on the list, links negotiation --
what does that mean? If your site is listed in the major
search engines have you taken the time to seek out all
of the minor directories and places that list related
consumer products? If not, that is the next best place
to spend your time and money. (Link broadcasting services
or software don't do the job. You have to get your hands
dirty to get the right referral sites.)

Then there is e-mail. If your widgets are a one time buy,
then recurring traffic is not going to help you, but if
you have all kinds of different widgets that people might
need from time-to-time, I expect that you have developed
an e-mail list of customers, interested parties who have
agreed that you may e-mail them from time to time with
product updates and special offers. There are targeted
opt-in mailing lists to rent, also. (But don't even think
of buying those lists that are harvested from Web sites.)

Would an affiliate or partnering program be appropriate
for your site? Given your budget you could just do an
affiliate program if you did not do much of anything else.
The downside of affiliate programs is that they can be
time intensive to manage and take about six months to
start showing real results. If you do an affiliate/
partnering program, prepare to be in it for the long haul.

After that you begin to get into various versions of
banner advertising, and although you can make them more
cost effective than the usual programs, it will still
involve the "b" word.

The subject chart can be found at
http://www.markneting.com/images/Cost-per-Customer.gif

Hope this helps.

--
Miki Dzugan
MARKnETING

http://www.MARKnETING.com
Weaving the Web into Marketing Results

P.S.: If anyone on this list has comments about our chart
      I would be interested in hearing them.






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From: "Burcum Sakman" <burcums_at_hotmail.com>
To: online-ads_at_o-a.com
Bcc:
Subject: Customer Complaints Statistics
Date: Wed 13 Feb 2002 10:59:19 -0600

I have to prepare a report about customer complaints
on Internet. But first I have to find some numerical
data about the industries being involved in customer
requests and customer care most. Then I will focus
on a specific company in that industry to find more
about how the company is handling and dealing with
the customers online - both complaints and requests.
Do you know where I can get some recognized statistical
information ? That source may well be supplying some
 info on customer complaints. I appreciate it. Then
I can compare the call center and face-to-face data
with online complaints data.

Burcum



Received on Wed Feb 13 2002 - 10:57:06 CST