eCommerce Know-How

How To Get Customers

You had an idea.  Then you built your website.  And THAT wasn’t easy.  Okay, big sigh of relief.  Sit back and watch the customers and the money roll in.

“If you build it, they will come”?   Well, not in real life.   You’ve built it.  Now, you need to go find them.  If people aren’t visiting your site, it won’t matter how great your products are or how great your website design is, that virtual “Going out of Business” sign will soon have to go up.

Good news: there are lots of ways to get customers to your site.  Bad news: there are lots of ways to get customers to your site, so you need to pick the right ones, spend the right amount of money, and execute correctly.

To get you started, we’ve provided information on some of the tools you can use to get customers. But this is just a starting point.  Do your research, get the help you need and implement your plan

  • SEO (Search Engine Optimization) - You’ve seen it in action every time you Google. 
    • SEO is the art and science of increasing your ranking on search engines.  It is based on “keywords”.  These are the words typed by users into the search engine and that are associated with your site.    For example, if you are selling golf accessories and a customer types  “golf balls” in a search engine, you want your site to appear – and ideally on the first page of the search results.
    • It’s critical to select the right keywords.  There are a lot of SEO experts (providers, solutions) and there is a lot of expertise (books, classes, best practices and key questions checklists) out there.  It’s a complicated and evolving process.  Get help!
  • PPC (Pay-Per-Click) – This is where you pay every time your ad is clicked on.  You pay for sponsored ads and prime positioning on search engines and for banner ads.
    • PPC advertising is a very time consuming process and should be carefully planned to make sure the correct audience is being targeted and budgets aren’t quickly blown. There are many companies that can help in this arena.
    • Even if you plan on outsourcing this initiative, it’s wise to make an effort learn the basics and best practices so you can communicate with your providers.
    • PPC keyword campaigns should also align with your SEO initiatives.
    • Advertising copy is also crucial to attract the right type of customer. Don’t waste your budget because of bad copy writing.
  • Affiliate Marketing – Let others promote your business for you.  For a fee.
    • Affiliate markets work to promote your business by displaying your products and services, along with those from hundreds of other websites, to potential customers.  There are a lot of different ways to do affiliate marketing so be sure to do your homework to find what will work best for you.
    • Affiliate marketers can charge in various ways:  pay-per-click, pay-per-lead or pay-per-sale.   There are a lot of different ways to do affiliate marketing so be sure to do your homework to find what will work best for you.
  • Viral Marketing – The good kind of “virus”, this refers to a clever form of marketing where the promoting is done by “amateurs”.  In the old days, this was “word of mouth”; now it leverages social networking. The whole point of viral marketing is to create a buzz and allow customers to share that buzz with others.
    • Viral marketing has many forms (YouTube, Facebook, Blogging, etc.) and there will probably be 5 more by the time you read this. 
    • There are simpler ways of implementing viral marketing. A simple “Refer-A-Friend” in an email or site is another way of going “viral”.

     

  • Do you have strategies to share?
  • Other questions?  Contact us.
  • Good articles and blogs on the topic – let us know.
  • Need more hands-on help?  Talk to one of our consultants.
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