| By Shari Davis, a SmartAge contributing writer
"Why should someone buy from you and not from a local store? People need a reason to buy online. It could be better prices, convenience or hard to find items," said Frank Baxter, webmaster and owner of Piano World.
Baxter is right. Once you have your store up and running—and a unique product to sell—you still need to attract customers who buy, not just browse. Here are a few tips:
1. Lower Your Prices
Offer specials that are limited to online orders. That way, your customers will feel like they "got a deal." "You promote a very few, select products that you can offer at a great price to win new customers," said Bruce Milligan, vice president of KOZ.com.
2. Send a Newsletter
Newsletters allow you to build a relationship with your customers. And, once you have their names and addresses, you can do all sorts of traditional advertising and direct marketing. "Make sure you actually provide something interesting, though. Your subscribers will bail quickly if you just send them a sales pitch every month," said Baxter. "We currently have about 10,000 names on our list."
3. Check Out the e-Commerce Newsletters and Magazines Online
You'll find a wealth of information that will not only help you get started, but continue to give you tips along the way. Check out Web Commerce Today at (www.webcommercetoday.com) or E-Commerce Times at (www.ecommercetimes.com).
4. Use Banner Exchanges
As many of you already know, banner exchanges give your site the visibility needed to generate sales. Put simply, your banner ad runs on other members' Web sites and their ads run on yours.
5. Subscribe to Search Engines
Search engines don't do it all, but let's face it, they do get a lot of traffic. That will allow your products or services to be reached by a wider audience.
6. Join an Affiliate Program
This is a good way to make a little cash and at the same time give your site fresh content. It's free and all you have to do is put another company's logo on your site that links to theirs. When people click on the logo and buy something, you get a portion of the returns.
7. Change/Update Often
You may have a cool site, but if it never changes, no one is going to come back to it. Imagine if your local grocery store never changed its signs, put anything on sale or added new products. "Want the word to spread about your site, give people a reason to talk about it," said Baxter.
SmartAge Corp., helps small businesses build a site, get traffic to that site, and sell products and services online. No longer do you need a big budget, or a consultant to help you launch your small business on the Web. Copyright, 1999 SmartAge Corp., San Francisco, CA. All rights reserved. |
