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Diversify Your Product Offering and Target Demographics

08 2008 Friday

By Shiraz Madan in Featured

It’s common to see businesses obsessed with their “target demographic”. Tunnel vision leads them to blindly chase after a specific niche and pin their hopes and dreams that this ideal consumer will come knocking on the door.

The problem lies in competitive markets, where the target demographic is faced with a slew of options due to a saturated market place. What if APPLE solely focused its product development, marketing and advertising on age 18-24 year old, urban consumers?Not only would it alienate other demographics, but it would neglect other potential consumers who have a need for their products. APPLE created multiple commercials for the iPhone that showed a close up of a hand navigating through the phone with ease.

If you notice, at the end of the commercial an incoming call is made from an adult. We can see this from the photo tag that is displayed on the iPhone’s screen. Clearly, Apple was targeting an older demographic with this placement. Although many young adults will race out to purchase the iPhone’s latest release, APPLE understands the need to appeal to multiple demographics with the same product.

Another typical scenario is often seen in the nightlife. Nightclubs focus their attention on attracting women to their establishments. This is in hopes that a viral effect will take place, increasing demand from men to attend a venue where a plethora of women exist. I’m not saying this strategy doesn’t work, but solely focusing on women for a night club will be detrimental in reaching several other demographics.

Does your business burn too many resources on a single niche? Are you at high market risk due to dependence on a single demographic? If so, its time to:

A) research a secondary and tertiary market
B) research how these demographics consume
C) connect with multiple demographics

If your product happens to be a video game system you would focus on the 10-18 year old, male demographic. However, you should also create/alter your product(s) to reach the 25-35 year old male demographic that enjoyed video gaming in their younger years. We saw Nintendo achieve this when they released Mario Kart. Mario appealed to an older demographic that consumed video gaming at a much younger age with Mario Bros. The point being, don’t allow fear of untested waters or tunnel vision prevent you from reaching new consumers and experiencing longevity within the marketplace.

This post was written by SEO Design Solutions‘ VP Mr. Shiraz Madan who consistently refines the focus of our collective marketing and branding efforts through bringing fresh insight and vision to broaden our business horizons. If your business requires a fresh perspective with new eyes, then feel free to contact us at 1 (866) 471-5377 to see what opportunities exist.

17 Tips to Prevent Shopping Cart Abandonment

07 2008 Thursday

By Kalena Jordan in Featured

Recent research from Marketing Sherpa has pegged online shopping cart abandonment at almost 60 percent. That’s right - 60 percent!

Some advertisers will have their shopping cart right there on their landing pages. Others will link to it with a big BUY NOW button. Whatever method you use, the important thing is that you don’t contribute to the 60 percent fail statistic. Make sure your shopping cart process doesn’t sabotage the sales groundwork that your landing page has done for you.

Here are 17 tips to help you avoid shopping cart abandonment:

Tips and Tricks for Using eBay Search

07 2008 Tuesday

By Clint Herman in Featured

If you know what you’re doing, you can quickly find what you’re looking for on eBay. Here are a few golden rules.

Be specific: If you’re searching for the first edition of the original Harry Potter book, you’ll get further searching for ‘harry potter rowling philosopher’s stone first edition’ than you will searching for ‘harry potter’. You’ll get fewer results, but the ones you do get will be far more relevant.

Spell wrongly: It’s a sad fact that many of the sellers on eBay just can’t spell. Whatever you’re looking for, try thinking of a few common misspellings - the chances are that fewer people will find these items, and so they will be cheaper.

Get a thesaurus: You should try to search for all the different words that someone might use to describe your item, for example searching for both ‘TV’ and ‘television’, or for ‘phone’, ‘mobile’ and ‘cellphone’. Where you can, though, leave off the type of item altogether and search by things like brand and model.

Use the categories: Whenever you search, you’ll notice a list of categories at the side of your search results. If you just searched for the name of a CD because you want to buy that CD, you should click the ‘CDs’ category to just look at results in that category. Why bother looking through a load of results that you don’t care about?

Don’t be afraid to browse: Once you’ve found the category that items you like seem to be in, why not click ‘Browse’ and take a look through the whole category? You might be surprised by what you find.

Few people realise just how powerful eBay’s search engine is - a few symbols here and there and it’ll work wonders for you.

Wildcard searches: You can put an asterisk (*) into a search phrase when you want to say ‘anything can go here’. For example, if you wanted to search for a 1950s car, you could search for ‘car 195*’. 195* will show results from any year in the 1950s.

In this order: If you put words in quotes (”") then the only results shown will be ones that have all of the words between the quote marks. For example, searching for “Lord of the Rings” won’t give you any results that say, for example “Lord Robert Rings”.

Exclude words: Put a minus, and then put any words in brackets that you don’t want to appear in your search results. For example: “Pulp Fiction” -(poster,photo) will find items related to Pulp Fiction but not posters or photos.

Either/or: If you want to search for lots of words at once, just put them in brackets: the TV example from earlier could become ‘(TV,television)’, which would find items with either word.

So once you’ve found your bargain item, bid for it and won it, what if it all goes wrong? Don’t worry - eBay has a thorough dispute resolution procedure, and we’ll cover it in some depth in the next article, so you’ll be prepared if the worst happens.

Clint Herman is a successful eBay seller with over 6 years experience selling on eBay. He also loves teaching others how to sell on eBay. He is the author of “How to Get Started Selling on eBay,” which is a beginner’s guide to selling on eBay designed for people who are new to selling on eBay. The guide is available at http://www.beginnersauctionguide.com/ar.html

10 Ways to Put Your eBay Business in the Grave

07 2008 Friday

By Clint Herman in Featured

It’s extremely easy to put your eBay business 6 feet under. You have to be careful, even though you can start over from scratch without it costing you much, but is this something you really want to do? However, if you want your business to end up dead in the water, here are some simple ways to do it.

Lie about an auction item: If you say an item works fine when it sometimes doesn’t or if you say it’s in perfect condition when it has blemishes then you will have angry customers.

Mail the auction item whenever you feel like it: If you leave your customers hanging around wondering when their item is going to turn up then you will probably end up with no repeat buyers.

Let items end anytime: Few people will be around to bid on your auction if it’s ending in the middle of the night. You should go to the trouble of working out whether auctions will end at a good time.

Don’t bother with email: If you take the attitude that communicating with customers is a timewasters then your eBay businesses will end up on the chopping block fast. Communicate by giving informed responses to questions about your auction item.

Offer trash: Don’t get caught up thinking you can just sell any old tat from the market for a huge profit on eBay. Don’t let quality be someone else’s concern. At the very least, if you do sell an item at auction that is old, tarnished, scratched, etc. then be open and honest about this in your eBay auction ad.

Give no discounts: If you stand hard and fast to the adage that you will give no eBay buyers discounts then you are going to leave money on the table. Not only can you get buyers to buy more, you can get buyers to come back again.

Use visually unappealing auction listings: Things to do if you want to repel potential bidders: use a bunch of colors, flashing lights and animations. Write the entire auction description in CAPITALS!!!! Hey, might as well use big, red capital letters. Also, be sure to use the fonts Impact and Comic Sans, and for an extra special touch, see if you can figure out a way to add some music.

Don’t use pictures of your auction item: Not only do pictures give more information to your eBay bidders, but they will also give your auction more of a chance of getting checked out when buyers do searches. And I personally think having pictures in your listing can give bidders more of sense that they will not get ripped off by you.

Write short descriptions: Another eBay business killer is to be as brief as possible in your auction description. Also, try not too use too many mysterious abbreviations, and for goodness sakes do not just write the title again in the description box. Use reserve auctions: Now, this is a fairly controversial idea, but this can be one of the best ways to scare away your eBay customers. They’ll see ‘reserve not yet met’, and click that ‘back’ button before you know it. Luckily, they can always bid in a normal auction for the item somewhere else. Now I know this can be used properly, but try to avoid it as often as possible.

God bless, Clint

Upgrading Your Online Shopping Cart – 31 Benefits Your Next Shopping Cart Should Offer

07 2008 Friday

By Dan Janal in Featured

Are you thinking about upgrading your shopping cart so you can take advantage of today’s improved online shopping carts?

You might have started your adventures in e-commerce with a bare-bones system. But if you’re like most people, you’ve probably outgrown these simple carts.

If that’s the case, you need to consider these options:

31 Things to Look For When Choosing Your Next Online Shopping Cart…

Is the cart secure? Make sure the cart has verified security standards and is hacker safe. Those orders could be a major source of fraud that could run you out of business if you aren’t careful.
Can it import your existing client database?
Can it import your existing list of products and services?
Will it categorize your products and services so you can find items quickly?
Will it calculate shipping charges by different carriers, like USPS and overnight courier services?
Can it bill clients automatically each month if you sell recurring services like coaching, or products, like supplements?
Will it work easily with credit card processing companies?
Do they offer free product suppor
Could it offer A/B split testing of different ads, so you can test with ads are more effective?
Does it have an affiliate manager module to track orders made by your partners?
Can it send out automated messages so you can follow up with clients using automated messages and sales scripts that can save you time and make you money?
Are the prices reasonable?
Can you choose from a variety of services so you get the level of service you need?
Does it have features included, like affiliate program tracking and auto-responders?
Can it work with your website to do product upsells?
Does it offer coupons and discounts for consumers?
If you operate several companies, will they all work with one cart, or do you need additional carts? Good systems will let you take orders from different companies you own.
Has the cart been in business for more than five years?
Does the cart have testimonials from satisfied people in your industry?
Will it print an invoice?
Can I make the sales pages look like my website so it has the same colors, logos and layout so customers feel comfortable and has a positive experience?
Will it create a database of clients, prospects and newsletter subscribers?
Will it send out newsletters in HTML and TEXT?
Can it track undeliverable emails?
Does it integrate with QuickBooks so you can do bookkeeping faster?
Can you search by client name or client email address to find records?
Can you create reports to see the records of each person who bought a specific product?
Can you send messages to people who bought specific products?
Can you send personalized messages that include a person’s name, company, city and product purchased?
Can you become an affiliate of the shopping cart and recommend it to your clients?
Can it offer a security code to defeat spammers?

Modern shopping carts, like MyEasyOnlineStore.com have all these features and more. Don’t buy a cart that doesn’t have these services, as you will surely need them.

Serial Internet business entrepreneur, Dan Janal has built multiple six-figure income businesses using MyEasyOnlineStore.com. Now, for the first time ever, he’s revealing the hidden truth behind automating your business, making more money online & enjoying the entrepreneur’s lifestyle. Get his free special report, “How to Choose an Online Shopping Cart” now at: http://www.prleads.com/meos

5 Essential Secrets To Ebay Auction Selling Success

07 2008 Tuesday

By Michael Tasker in Featured

As Ebay grows with 70,000 new customers everyday adding to the 277,000,000 registered users, the opportunity to sell a product to this growing market becomes ever more attractive. But this is not any market. Ebay is a specialised market, full of hungry targeted buyers seeking out products in over 50,000 categories.

Yet to make serious money selling on Ebay takes learning, skill and belief that is required to operate any business. To be an Ebay auction selling success, you can’t just submit a product for sale and hope that bids will automatically appear. There are proven methods to ensure that your Ebay auction will be more successful than the competition. There are certain techniques that you need to adopted to ensure Ebay is a lucrative money making opportunity for you, not just a trickle of money but enough for you to then consider becoming a fulltime Ebay seller and joining the Ebay auction elite.

The 5 essential secrets to Ebay auction selling success are:

1 Do Not Have An Auction Reserve Price - Ebay is removing this option from some of its sites which is a sign that you should follow suit. Ask yourself this. Why would you bid for a product that has a reserve price stuck on it? You would be bidding in the dark not knowing if the auction would actually result in a sale or not. Maybe the Ebay seller is just testing the market. You don’t know so make sure you don’t put a reserve price on your Ebay auctione as this will deter prospective bidders.

2 Keep The Starting Price Low - Why? It attracts interest, which attracts bids often at a much quicker pace which then builds momentum which can lead to an Ebay auction frenzy. Now would you like to experience that? Depending on the product, a starting price of .99 c has been proved to attract bidders very quickly. Even if the product is of high value, a low starting price can result in a flood of bids each pushing the bid price up. And remember, an Ebay auction of a product requires bids to be success. If a potential bidder sees that the item already has bids they will probably be more likely to bid themselves.

3 The Important Ebay About Me Page - You should see this as the opportunity to sell yourself, gain credibility so any potential bidder will feel secure and can trust you. Ask yourself, would you bid on an Ebay auction where the seller had no profile, no details, you knew nothing about them? You probably would not and move on to someone you can trust. You need to include details about you and your business, how long have you been registered on Ebay, where you are situated, specialisations etc.

4 Ebay Feedback - As Ebay is impersonal, any details that will give the potential bidder comfort should be made available. It is prudent if you leave feedback for the winning bidder as soon as the item has been paid for. This shows that you are on the ball and wanting to here the winning bidders comments whether they are positive or negative. Negative feedback need not be damaging. Ensure that you act on it fast and even if there is negative comment on your feedback, potential Ebay auction bidders will see that this is far outweighed by all the positive comments.

5 Ebay Shipping - You shipping costs must not be another income stream for you. Overpricing is against Ebay policy and you will be found out. Ensure if you are charging shipping that the cost is clearly stated within the item listing. Would you like to win a bid only then to find out that there is a large shipping charge which appears excessive? Avoid these two issues.

In order for you to distinguish and separate yourself from the vast majority of Ebay auction sellers and power yourself into the Ebay elite, these secrets are essential for your success. And once you achieve a reputation as an Ebay auction elite, the potential to make very large sums of money selling on Ebay will be freely available to you.

Michael Tasker operates a successful information marketing business and continues to expand to various websites plus direct marketing channels as well. A lucrative money maker is Ebay and now available is a A-Z guide on how to become part of the 2% Ebay elite. The audio and transcript guide shows you everything that the elite use to generate huge amounts of money selling on Ebay. http://www.goodbyemoneyworries.com/ebaysign

How to Sell More Books Online with a Professional Online Shopping Cart

07 2008 Friday

By Dan Janal in Featured

I was absolutely shocked when I checked out a new client’s website. He is an author who wants to sell more books.But he doesn’t have an online shopping cart!

He expects people to call his 800 number and give him their credit card number over the phone.

He also asks people to send checks to his post office box.

While both calls to action might seen normal, they are so 1980!

In today’s world, people expect to pay online. And you as an author should have an online shopping cart in place to take their money.

Here Are 7 Reasons to Use a Professional Online Shopping Cart & Stop Taking Orders by Phone

People live in dozens of different time zones. Do you want to answer the phone at 2 a.m. your time because someone in England is having her first cup of coffee and wants to order your book?

People shop on weekends. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be out in my kayak on a weekend than sitting by the phone waiting for a book order.

Telephone tag. Let’s say you just appeared on a talk radio show and people are calling to order your book. They will get a busy signal since you can talk to only one person at a time. You’ll find that you have to call back a dozen people. If this happens, you run the risk of playing telephone tag - and possibly never connecting with them.

Expensive phone charges. When you return phone calls, you risk paying long-distance rates including international phone calling rates. Your cost of taking the order just jumped through the roof.

Too much time, not enough money. When you take orders over the phone, you have to be nice. There’s nothing wrong with being nice, but you have to engage people in a conversation: How’s the weather? Where are you calling from? How long have you been interested in this topic? If you don’t ask questions like this, people will think you are rude and might not want to buy your book! This all takes time. Is your time worth money? Well if you take 10 minutes to call someone and accept the order, you could be out $20 if you charge $120 an hour for consulting services. Now, if you have to make a lot of book order sales calls, you can be out hundreds of dollars.

When you only take order over the phone, you have to sell the person, not just take the order. Many authors are not comfortable selling on the phone. Or they are bad at asking for the order. You could blow the sale.

Too many mistakes. It is all too easy to misspell the person’s name, mailing address or credit card number. I call this unintentional dyslexia. You think you typed in “54″ and you said “54″ to the client, but you really wrote “45.”

If you had an online shopping cart, like MyEasyOnlineStore.com which is used by many authors including myself, you’d solve all these problems!

5 Reasons to Get a Professional Online Shopping Cart Now

Online shopping carts take orders 24 hours a day, seven days a week, without you being present.

It can handle multiple orders simultaneously. So if you get flooded with orders, your buyers won’t get a busy signal on the phone. Instead, they’ll get a confirmation note from the shopping cart that the order has gone through.

You can spend your time make money and creating new products, or providing services to your clients. You won’t spend time verifying orders.

No mistakes. People will type in their information correctly. If the credit card info is wrong, or if information is missing, the shopping cart will alert the buyer immediately.

Online shopping carts protect you from fraud. If the card isn’t valid, the shopping cart won’t let the order go through. On the other hand, if you get a bad check in the mail and you deposit it, your bank will charge you a fee. If you already mailed the product, then you will have lost the price of your product as well as the postage - and your time.

Add an online shopping cart to your website today and you will `sell more products and services while protecting your time and energy. And, it’s very easy to get started. Just go to www.prleads.com/meos for a special report on how to choose a shopping cart. You’ll even find information on how to get started today!

About the Author:

Author and Serial Internet business entrepreneur, Dan Janal has built multiple six-figure income businesses using MyEasyOnlineStore.com. Now, for the first time ever, he’s revealing the hidden truth behind automating your business, making more money online & enjoying the entrepreneur’s lifestyle. Get his free special report, “How to Choose an Online Shopping Cart” now at: http://www.prleads.com/meos

10 Ideas to Increase Your eBay Response

07 2008 Monday

By Clint Herman in Featured

So now you have a potential eBay buyer checking out your auction. They’re obviously interested in the item you are selling, or they wouldn’t be checking out your auction. Let’s say they’re on the fence about whether to buy or not. So how can you nudge them and get them to bid or buy? Well, check out the tips below.

Increase your picture quality: It’s been said over and over - a picture is worth a thousand words. If your picture is not good quality then it probably won’t matter what you wrote in your description Maybe you missed something important that a good quality picture would convey. If you have bad lighting or a background that drowns out your item then it will be worth little to nothing to those checking out your auction. Make sure people can see what you’re selling and consider using multiple pictures to show different angles and aspects of your item.

10 Tips to Help You Successfully Sell on eBay

07 2008 Thursday

By Clint Herman in Featured

Below you will find 10 simple tips to follow that are good for anyone who wants to sell successfully on eBay.

Tip # 1: Identify your eBay market. Come up with a list of items you are interested in and then take a look at eBay to see what’s selling and what’s not. The market research data you collect will be very useful to you later on. Analyze the market and you’ll start to see those items that always seem to sell for a good price.

Tip # 2: Check out your competition. Before investing money, take a look at what the other sellers in your category are up to. Dig in to get an idea about what their strategies are. Make a special note on anything their auctions are missing, because addressing these flaws in your own auctions is a powerful way to move in and beat them at their own game.

Tip # 3: Find a product: If you’re looking to sell the same item over and over again then get hold of a supplier for what it is you want to sell, and see what the best rates you can get are. Also, shop around to get the best deal. Every penny counts. If the eBay prices you’ve seen are higher than the supplier’s then you just might have a winner.

Tip 4: Start small: Don’t start out by throwing tons of money at your idea. Start slowly and see what works and what doesn’t; learn as you go. Remember that it doesn’t cost a lot to try out even the craziest ideas on eBay, and who knows, they might just work! Thinking outside the box is a good way to become successful.

Tip 5: Test and repeat. Keep trying different strategies on eBay until you find something that works. Then just keep doing that very same thing over and over again. The chances are that you’ve just found a good niche or a good way to sell.

Tip 6: Create your business plan: A business plan, even on eBay, is a good thing to have. It doesn’t need to be anything formal, just a few pages that outline your market opportunity, your strategy, the strengths and weaknesses of the plan and a brief budget. A business plan is more for you than it is for anyone else. If you treat your selling on eBay as a business and not like a hobby then this will push you toward success.

Tip 7: Invest and expand: Now is the time to pump money into your eBay business. Get your hands on more product and start spending more time on your business. Set a goal for the number of sales you want each week and increase it over time as you meet your goals.

Tip 8: Make it official: Once you’ve made some money from your eBay sales, you should seriously consider registering yourself as an “official” business. It’s not that expensive or hard to do and registering will go a long way toward credibility. A lawyer is the best person to help you through the process, but you can also get information online or in forums.

Tip 9: Automate: There are a lot of tasks you will find yourself doing over and over, like writing the same emails or auction item descriptions. This is the time to move some of this manual work over to automated software. You can also consider outsourcing these tasks to other people. You can automate a TON of your eBay business tasks.

Tip 10: Never give up: Even when times get bad and you think things won’t work out, don’t stop trying. Push forward until you succeed. If you keep working at it you’ll almost always find you will make a real breakthrough. Countless people give up on their eBay business right before they get their breakthrough. Don’t be one of them.

Clint Herman is a successful eBay seller with over 6 years experience in the industry. He also loves helping people start selling on eBay. He is the author of “How to Get Started Selling on eBay,” which is a beginner’s guide to selling on eBay designed for people who are new to selling on eBay. The guide is available at http://www.beginnersauctionguide.com

How the Right Shopping Cart Will Increase Productivity & Stop Your Online Business from Stalling

06 2008 Monday

By Dan Janal in Featured

Is your online business or home-based business stalling because you are drowning in administration details?You’re not the only one!
Many small businesses are one step away from phenomenal success, if only they could increase their productivity AND reduce repetitive tasks and paperwork.

After all, any time spent dealing with writing down orders or sending out emails one-by-one is time that you can’t spend selling to your prospects.

I’ve found that having a full-features shopping cart, like MyEasyOnlineStore.com can save me as much as two hours a day!

Here’s How to Choose an Online Shopping Cart That Will Increase Productivity & Save Time and Money Guaranteed

Make sure your online shopping cart has an easy-to-follow ordering system. For example, people can order my products and services directly from the shopping cart. They don’t have to call me on the phone to take down the details. Don’t get me wrong, I love taking orders, but it is time consuming and it takes me away from other tasks. And if a prospect calls when I’m on the phone, or away from my desk, then they get an answering machine and we begin that long task of phone tag. If you have an easy way for people to order online, you can take orders at any time of the day or night. Who staffs theirs phones at 2 a.m.?

A good shopping cart will automate such functions as sending receipts. Don’t you hate it when clients ask for a receipt? You can’t blame them. They need a receipt for their taxes and their accountants. But making a receipt by hand will take you at least 5-10 minutes even if you have a template and a system in place. Everything takes time! But a good shopping cart will automatically send a receipt to the new client - and to you, so you have one for your files.

If you send personalize messages to new clients, such as greetings, or training materials, you can automate this process with a good shopping cart. Thanks to the wonders of mail-merge, each message can print the person’s first name. If you want to get fancy, you can even automate other variables such as city, state and product purchased. It’s a great time saver and people will think your messages are truly personal.

A good shopping cart can create sales reports by any variable you can think of, such as total sales, daily sales, weekly sales, sales in a given period, as well as sales by product. You don’t have to depend on your part-time bookkeeper to create these reports for you any longer! You can get reports when you need them, not when the part-timer shows up for work.

A good shopping cart does NOT just take orders. It can send newsletters and other types of information you’d like to broadcast - such as invitations to teleseminars or special events. A good shopping cart can manage most client communications, so you save time and money by dealing with one vendor instead of two or three. Plus you will be working off of one database and not have to update two other databases hosted by a company that sends out newsletters or autoresponders. Why duplicate your efforts?

Make sure your shopping cart offers clients control of some aspect of their accounts. For example, if a client doesn’t want to get your newsletter any longer, they can unsubscribe by themselves without having to contact you by email. This way you don’t have to do the work yourself. Good shopping carts have information on how to unsubscribe contained in each message for your convenience.

If you use a good shopping cart, you can save yourself time and money if you know the hidden truth behind automating your business online. Luckily, I’m giving you the keys to the Mint with a free special report about how to select a shopping cart located only at www.prleads.com/meos.

About the Author:
Serial Internet business entrepreneur, Dan Janal has built multiple six-figure income businesses using MyEasyOnlineStore.com. Now, for the first time ever, he’s revealing the hidden truth behind automating your business, making more money online &enjoying the entrepreneur’s lifestyle. Get his free special report, “How to Choose an Online Shopping Cart” now at: http://www.prleads.com/meos

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