[Ebook] 103 ways to sell a new product

103 Ways to Sell
a New Product
A comprehensive guide to driving sales and maximizing profits
online and offline

Content
CHAPTERS
INTRODUCTION ....………..…………....….………..………....……... 6
TIME ....………..…………....….………..………....……... 7
SOCIAL MEDIA ....………..…………....….………..………....……... 13
COMMUNITIES ....………..…………....….………..………....……... 62
CONTENT ....………..…………....….………..………....……... 84
TOOLS ....………..…………....….………..………....……... 115
EMAIL ....………..…………....….………..………....……... 120
COMMUNICATION ....………..…………....….………..………....……... 128
PAID ....………..…………....….………..………....……... 136
OFFLINE ....………..…………....….………..………....……... 182
GUIDES
Upsell Effectively …..….8 Influencer Outreach …….14
Holiday Campaigns …..….9 Strategically Sell to Friends …….15
Segment Holiday Gift Guides …….10 Word of Mouth …….16
Get an Early Start …….11 Pull a PR Stunt …….17
Unofficial Sales Holidays …….12 Tumblr …….18
2

Instagram Strategically ….…20 Host a Meetup …….78
Get Pinteresting …….27 Get Featured by Uncrate …….82
Start Tweeting …….43 Polyvore …….83
Work on LinkedIn …….45 Offer Social Proof …….85
Boost Your Brand’s Facebook …….46 Recycle Content …….86
Use Your Personal Facebook …….48 Reword Discounts …….87
Facebook Page Shop Sections …….49 Round Numbers ….…89
Go Live on Social …….61 Perception of 9 …….90
Local Businesses …….63 Create Urgency …….91
Volunteer Locally …….64 Provide Comparison …….92
Enlist Employee Help …….65 Create Content …….93
Exclusive Groups …….67 Get Interviewed …….94
Support a Cause …….69 Product Description …….95
Hack Upvotes …….70 Write an Outreach Blog Post …….96
Post on Deal Sites …….71 Make YouTube Videos …….97
Get Active on Forums …….72 Get Controversial …...101
The Reddit Community …….75 Start a Blog …...102
Target Niche Marketplaces …….76 Make a VIral Video …...104
Post on Craigslist …….77 Guest Blog …...105
3

Try Unique ………....108 Less Choices ….....132
Press Release ………....109 Establish Trust and Security ..…...133
Get Reviews ……..…..111 Secure Your Site ..…...134
Plan for Mobile Ads …….…...112 Simplify Checkout ..…...135
Localize Your Offering …….…...113 Freebies ….....137
Offer Free Help …….…...114 YouTube Ads ….....140
Design Your Niche …….…...116 Instagram Retargeting ….....141
Exit-Intent Offers …….…...117 Offer and Group Discount ….....143
Countdown Timers …….…...118 Remarketing ….....144
Use Heatmaps …….…...119 Instagram Paid Shout-Outs ….....145
Email Signatures …….…...121 Host a Giveaway ….....146
Referral …….…...122 Host a Contest ….....147
Industry Mailing Lists …….…...123 Try Affiliate Marketing ….....148
Email Your Pre-Launch List …….…...124 Work with LinkedIn ….....149
Develop E-Mail Lists …….…...125 Coupon Codes ….....150
Mystery Discounts …….…...127 Sponsor an Event .…....152
Sell Your “About” Section …….…...129 Develop a Loyalty Program .…....154
Money Back Guarantee …….…...130 Shopping Engines .…....155
“Free” Giveaway …….…...131 Reddit Ads .…....158
4

Polyvore Promoted Products .………...161
Try Twitter Promos .…….......162
Buy Banner Ads ……........166
Get a Boost with Digg ……........168
Try Bing ……........169
Google Adwords ……........171
Facebook Ads ……........179
Billboards ……........183
Distribute Flyers ……........185
Create a Commercial ……........187
Undercover Marketing ……........190
Sticker Campaign ……........191
Flash Mob ……........192
Fairs ……........194
Use Print Ads ……........197
Sidewalk Chalk ……........202
Go Door to Door ……........203
5

Apprehensive at the thought of attempting your first sale? Don’t be! Many successful
entrepreneurs can attest that the first sale is a tough milestone, but it’s also one of the most
exciting and most important ones. It’s exciting because reaching this stage, where many “idea
people” can only hope to be, means you’ve already conquered the arduous processes of
brainstorming, designing, and refining. It’s also an important milestone because this is the
“make it or break it” stage, where the viability of your idea is put to the test.
At GearLaunch, we wholeheartedly support your entrepreneurial spirit and want nothing but
your success. We’ve put together this guide, 103 Ways to Sell a New Product, to help you
start on the right foot.
Good luck and happy selling!
6
INTRODUCTION

TIME
Marketing at the right time is the difference between making or breaking a
sale. In this chapter, we’ll go over time-sensitive marketing tactics to acquire
customers when they’re most apt to convert.
7

Upsell Effectively
The upsell tactic on its own can be effective, but when combined with an affiliate marketing
program, upselling is a force to be reckoned with.
Consider how many times you’ve added fries to your McDonald’s order simply because the
cashier asked you “would you like fries with that?” at the end of your order. Upsells can be
extremely effective if you can figure out the right item to suggest at the right time. We
recommend following the fast food order example. Customers are already in a buying mood at
the checkout point. All they need now is a great offer from you.
But how can you use this to complement affiliate marketing so that they drive the sales for
you? Business owners who have cracked the code on upsells offer affiliate marketers 100%
commission on the product sale, but collect their own earnings through successful upsells.
8

Holiday Campaigns
For major retailers, holidays don’t start and end on a specific day. Holiday marketing
campaigns can be month-long affairs with additional offers following the actual date. Take a
page from their book and avoid limiting your efforts to 1 or 2 days prior to the celebration date
because it will cost you big sales opportunities.
For example, your Valentine’s Day marketing might look like this:
While celebrations take place on February 14th, your marketing campaigns should be ready
to go by mid-January with major ramp-up happening two weeks before Valentine’s Day.
Additionally, you can run parallel promotions for “Singles Awareness Day” which occurs on
February 15th.
Simple things you can start with include adding themed assets to your store, adding special
greetings to your email communication, and creating themed social media posts.
9

Segment Holiday Gift Guides
If your store offers a wide range of products, tailor gift guides to specific segments of
customers and their recipients. For example, target parents with graduation gift guides for
their high school graduate.
Creating gift guides can also help ease your customers’ pain points as they scramble to
search for the “perfect gift.” Take Fortnum & Mason for example. With Mother’s Day right
around the corner for those in the UK, the retailer provided a selection of gifts targeted to
adults shopping for their mother.
10

Get an Early Start
Customer acquisition ultimately determines the success of a business, and yet the majority of owners
will not give it much thought until the day of launch rolls around. By then, their marketing efforts are
already behind.
You can stay ahead by:
1. Thinking about customer acquisition prior to launch.
2. Using a service like Launchrock to collect emails from visitors interested in early access or a
promotional offer. The special thing about this particular platform is that it integrates social
media into the subscription process, creating the potential for viral growth from a seemingly
regular promotion. Launchrock pages look like this:
Following sign-up, your visitors are shown a message stating that they will receive the promotion if
they tell others about your site through email and/or social networks.
To maximize the potential of this tactic, make your incentive irresistible. Depending on your customers,
try something along the lines of: “Increase your chances of winning by inviting your friends” or “Qualify
for a bonus prize when you invite 3 friends.”
11

Unofficial Sales Holidays
During November and December, major retailers will dedicate plenty of time and resource to
marketing the major sales holidays – Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday. But
there are hidden opportunities to be had among the “unofficial” sales holidays. Have you
heard?
This graph from Custora shows ecommerce revenue by day for 2015 versus 2014:
The ticks in revenue data outside of the major holidays mark additional earning opportunities
for e-tailers. These are just a few to consider:
Green Monday (December 14th) – eBay coined this one in 2007 to reference their best
sales day in December. As you can see from the graph, it remains a popular day for business.
Super Saturday – The notorious last Saturday before Christmas typically triggers panic mode
for procrastinators.
Free Shipping Day (December 21st) - While many businesses are beginning to offer free
shipping across the board, Free Shipping Day initially began in 2008 as an effort to extend the
online shopping season past its peak on Cyber Monday.
If you plan on participating, don’t forget to submit your website to freeshippingday.ca and
freeshippingday.com for free traffic.
12

SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media is the perfect bridge between personal and business
communication. When done right, these brands can enjoy a snowball effect
in brand awareness and – most importantly – sales.
13

Influencer Outreach
Do you know an up and coming influencer within your space? Working with smaller
influencers are better suited for a new business like yours because they do not receive as
many endorsement requests as larger profiles, which increases the probability they’ll notice
and accept your offer.
Send the influencer an email explaining your interest in working with them, and why the
relationship is mutually beneficial. Let them know that you’d like to send them a sample if
they’re willing to promote it to their followers or provide you with a review.
Do note that this happens frequently depending on the influencer’s popularity. You shouldn’t
be discouraged if you don’t get the response you’re looking for.
14

Strategically Sell to Friends
One of the easiest sells you will ever make is by approaching a close friend or family member
in person and then convincing them to make a purchase. However, there’s a finite number of
times you can do this . When you reach this point, it’s time to turn to social media – or more
specifically, Facebook.
The social media giant has a powerful search function that goes beyond finding contacts to
help you locate users interested in keywords related to your offerings. For example, here’s a
quick search for “My friends who like cats”:
Try different keywords until you have a healthy list of connections, then send each user a
personalized message.
15

Word of Mouth
Beyond easy first sales, your friends and family can contribute to a specific marketing strategy
that countless companies attempt to implement: word-of-mouth marketing. Brands have come
to figure out that many of us would rather rely on recommendations and referrals from our
immediate network to form our purchasing decisions. Ask yourself this: do you believe what
advertisers are telling you in a television commercial or would you rather trust
recommendations from close friends and family members?
Getting more people who do not work for your brand to evangelize your products can
contribute to tremendous success – but be mindful with your approach. For example, your
parents telling others how cool your t-shirts are probably won’t do you much good. Here’s the
better way to approach this:
● Consider their social circles.
Your friends and family are made up of different individuals according to gender, age
group, interests, and personalities. One or more of these combinations will resonate
better with your target audience so it’s important you take specific notes. This will help
you launch more specific and relevant marketing campaigns that will yield better
returns.
● Get their testimonials.
Once you determine the individuals best suited for the job, ask them to write
testimonials for your product and your brand. These will come in handy when you
create marketing material.
● Share it.
You can suggest they share the testimony on their own profiles or you can share it
yourself and tag them.
16

Pull a PR Stunt
You’ve undoubtedly seen them: an event so taboo, weird, ridiculous, hilarious, amazing, or
secretive...that you just had to share.
And that’s how PR stunts go viral. Hitting any one of these traits can increase the likelihood of
your stunt bringing tons of attention to your brand from everyone including the press.
Before you act on any ole idea, conduct a brief survey with friends and/or family first. PR
stunts are not a new occurrence, and plenty of people try to best the last outrageous event –
only to be met with criticism. PR stunts don’t necessarily need to be dangerous, costly, or
embarrassing to work.
For example, recall JCPenney's #TweetingWithMittens. By live-tweeting the 2014’s Super
Bowl game with plenty of typos, JCPenney had Twitter users wondering if they were drunk.
As it turned out, it was only #TweetingWithMittens, the brainchild of ad agencies EVB and
Victors & Spoils. JCP stated the campaign was a success, netting more than 10,000 Twitter
followers that night and 130,000 mentions.
The best part: it was fun, safe, and free.
17

Tumblr
If you are confounded by Tumblr, know that you’re not the first. The platform is all at once a
blog and social network that supports posting and sharing images, video, audio, and short
pieces of writing in a format similar to forums. We recommend utilizing Tumblr in a way that’s
reflective of your brand, whether that’s posting only specific type of content or dishing out
ingenious commentary on popular posts.
A few advantages of Tumblr is that its content can be accessed directly whereas a network
like Facebook makes content available only to Facebook users. This means anything you
create will get indexed by search engines and count towards increasing your visibility.
Would Tumblr be a good match for your business? Fifty percent of Tumblr’s user base is age
25 or younger. If your business targets the younger market, Tumblr is perfect. But even if this
isn’t your core demographic, Tumblr's search visibility benefits and popularity should make it
at least worth an experiment.
Let’s look at what you'll need to start using Tumblr for your business:
● Create an account.
Tumblr may feel restrictive at first as a blogging platform if you’re used to publishing
longer articles on a powerful CMS like Wordpress. But that’s exactly it – Tumblr wasn’t
made for lengthy articles. Tumblr users have shorter attention spans and prefer easily
digestible pieces of work.
When you create your account, this will become your default blog. Be creative and blog
with a theme in mind. Yes, the theme should be related to your business but should not
center around it. In this aspect, Tumblr is similar to Instagram. Users don’t come to
Tumblr for direct-sales and product-only posts. It may be helpful to browse around on a
personal account to get ideas for where you should take your brand’s account.
● Engage with others’ content often.
As with any social media platform, listening and engaging are key to gaining active
followers. Search for posts on topics related to your business and your theme. Browse
for accounts that publish popular and engaging items, then follow them.
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● Spend a few minutes each day to "like,” reply, and share (aka “reblogging) Tumblr
posts. Experiment with various posting times and types of content e.g. links to
interesting stuff, original photos or videos, brief pieces of writing, etc.
A tool that makes sharing content easier is Tumblr’s "bookmarklet" that sits right in
your browser. When you see something interesting online, simply click the bookmarklet
to quickly create a Tumblr post. You can also install Tumblr's mobile app on your
phone or tablet.
● Use tags.
Tumblr users often discover each other through tags. Pay attention to tags on popular
Tumblr posts for topics that interest you. You can save tags in order to track them for
the latest posts.
Use tags on your own posts when it’s relevant so that users who don’t follow you, but
are tracking the tags, can see your content. It may seem tedious, but tags will help
expand your network.
19

Instagram has come a long way since its debut in 2010. The social media platform’s recent
upgrades has the ecommerce crowd turning heads. With notable features such as Library,
Business Accounts, and Shoppable Ads, Instagram joins its parent company (the ad-savvy
Facebook) in enabling businesses to reach 500 million active monthly users in a natural and
noninvasive manner.
For perspective, Instagram was used by just under a third of U.S. brands with 100 employees
or more in 2015. Fast forward to this year and that number is expected to increase by 70.7%
(eMarketer). If that’s not a call for ecommerce business owners to mobilize, we don’t know
what is!
Start with this guide and learn how to sell apparel on Instagram in 2017.
1. Optimize Your Instagram Profile
We need to start with the basics: your brand’s profile page. In order to leave a lasting
impression, you will need to do several things:
● Add a high-res profile image – The face of your brand can be an image that says it
all or you can stick to your logo. In either case, ensure that it’s high-quality and
correctly sized.
Instagram Strategically
20

● Create a professional bio – Unless you've claimed it for your own, this is not the
place for hashtags. Keep your bio clean and error-free. Speak to your target user in a
manner representative of your brand and briefly convey what you're all about.
● Include a link – Add the URL to your *landing page* in the designated URL section.
Why use a landing page instead of your homepage? Put yourself into the shoes of a
visitor converting to a buyer and consider how much of an obstacle a homepage
presents. The visitor now has to jump through several hoops before they can locate the
one item they really wanted. A landing page solves this by smoothly transitioning your
visitor closer to the buy button.
2. Gain More Followers
Your Instagram is a repository of future traffic for your store, and the potential to grow this
repository is the true power of this platform. In other words, you need to have a strategy in
place to actively increase your following.
● Self-Promote – If you're just starting out and gaining followers sounds like a daunting
task, don't fret because you already have a handful of potential followers.
Instagram can link to your Facebook where your friends, family, and fans already
reside. Add them through this connection.
Before you jump to promoting your new account through status updates, make sure
you have a good reason as to why everyone needs to follow you on an additional
channel. Will you have content specifically catered to you Instagram community? Are
you running a special incentive for your new followers?
Remember, most people won't go out of their way to follow yet another account without
having a good reason.
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● Cross-Promote – Cross-promotions are common practice on Instagram. If you’re
unfamiliar, it’s simply an agreement between two profiles to give each other shoutouts.
The key to implementing this properly requires that you work with a non-competing
(think complementary) brand that shares your target audience but not product offering.
As you can imagine by it’s popularity, cross-promotions are an easy and effective
method to quickly gain followers. However, the mutually beneficial nature of this tactic
means you are limited to brands that share a similar number of followers to your own.
Try this approach to start cross-promoting:
Step 1: Do your research and put together a list of complementary brands that
have a similar follower count to you. If you notice an account has recently
cross-promoted someone, take it as an indicator that they’re receptive to the
idea and prioritize reaching out to them.
Step 2: Compose short personalized emails to propose a cross-promotion.
Briefly explain the benefits of this tactic and why your accounts would
complement each other well - you need to demonstrate that you've actually paid
some attention to their brand.
Step 3: Stand out from the many requests that popular accounts undoubtedly
receive by sending a follow-up.
Proactively Participate
Businesses often make the mistake of giving their competition the cold shoulder on
social channels, not realizing this is actually an opportunity to poach the competitor’s
followers. If executed well, proactive commenting and liking can bring more followers
your way. It all boils down to dedicating the time and practicing sincerity.
● Do your research and develop a list of direct competitors for you to keep tabs
on.
● Set aside time on a daily basis to engage fans who have left comments on your
competition's recent posts by liking or replying to the comments (when it's
relevant).
● Go through your competitors' list of followers. Engage with the real and active
22

● accounts by liking and commenting on the posts. Make sure your comments are
personalized, positive, and clearly show that you’ve paid attention to their
profile.
Bulk Follow and Unfollow
If this method sounds familiar to you, it’s because bulk following and unfollowing was
formerly a popular Twitter strategy to gain followers.
Many Instagram followers who would love your products don't follow you simply
because they’re not aware you exist...yet.
Step 1: To find the ones with a higher likelihood to convert, comb through the
list of followers from your competitors’ profiles and begin following them. These
specific followers have already expressed an interest in an offering similar to
yours. Give yourself an hour each day to do this. You’ll find that you can
average about 100 follows per hour.
Step 2: Run a quick search on Google Play or the App Store for an “unfollow
app” that unfollows people who do not follow you back. Give each batch a full
day to follow you back before running the app.
Take note to limit this tactic. Instagram does not take kindly to this technique and has
internal triggers in place that may hurt your discoverability if you abuse the system.
3. Create Great Content
23

While ads are not always ill-received on Instagram, relying on ads at such an early to grow
your Instagram marketing can be a waste of money. The platform already gives you plenty of
opportunity to garner attention organically. For new or small businesses, organic growth is
your ammo.
Optimize Images
Figuring out the type of images that return the highest engagement for your brand will
not be easy. A lot of this process involves learning and optimizing your images through
trial and error.
● Use a service like Iconosquare to analyze the post details that works best for
your account i.e. time, filters, hashtags, etc. Use these stats to finetune your
future posts.
● Always stick to the recommended image size. Instagram encourages you to
upload photos that have a width of at least 1080 pixels with an aspect ratio
between 1.91:1 and 4:5.
● Continue testing. Even though you’ve nailed down a few details that seem to
increase engagement, your goal should always be to improve it. You will not be
able to do this if you stop experimenting with content and context.
● You must maintain an active account. Aim for 2-3 posts per day. While this
seems a lot when you're crafting engaging content, there’s no guarantee that
every follower will catch every post. Sharing more than one post per day also
gives you more room to experiment for optimal posting times.
Add Variety
Each one of your posts should sell, but not in the way you think. There’s a limit to the
number of times followers can stand to see product posts so it’s critical you find a
balance between “other” content and product posts. But that doesn’t mean non-product
posts can’t sell your brand and its values! Try adding your branded touch to these
ideas and incorporating them into the rotation.
● User-generated content – 92% of consumers trust recommendations from
friends and family over advertisements. People trust people -- this is the power
that user-generated content harnesses. By featuring real customers who are
24

● happy with your products, you offer social proof that has the potential to create
positive sentiment and heighten brand engagement.
● Behind the Scenes – Add depth and character to your brand by offering a
sneak peek into what happens beneath the pretty surface. Because this part of
business typically remains hidden, #bts content can spark interest among
followers.
● Creative Product Feature – Showcasing your products is important so there’s
no need to nix these types of posts altogether, but you can certainly feature
them more creatively. Everyone has already seen product on white
backgrounds. Instead, try selling the lifestyle behind your product.
● Original Memes – So long as your humor is tasteful and rightly aligned with
your target audience, posting memes is A-OK. You can even step it up a notch
to really show off your brand's creativity by using photos of your team (with their
consent of course).
● Educational – Your followers obviously find some interest in your niche. Teach
them something new about the industry.
● Guest Hosts – Similar to cross-promoting, you can enlist the help of someone
cooler to take over your account for the day. Guests not only add a breath of
fresh air to your profile, but their affiliation also draws the interest of their own
fans to your brand. That’s why it’s important you find someone who is
representative of your brand and values.
Step 4: Optimize Your Landing Pages
25

As your follower count increases, your store traffic will also increase. But before you start
celebrating, remember that acquiring followers only adds to the top of your sales funnel. The
next step is to send followers to relevant pages that are optimized for purchase decisions.
These are critical pieces of your landing page that you'll need to pay particular attention to:
● Keep focus on mobile viewability when designing your landing page because the
majority of your Instagram traffic will be on their mobile devices when they find you.
This will affect your navigation, search, shopping cart, CTAs, and payment options.
● If you’re not a copywriter, now is not the best time to practice. It’s easy to sound overly
salesy or cheesy. Head over to Upwork or Freelancer to find a conversion-savvy
copywriter.
● Avoid killing conversions by adding a URL like this:
http://noonewillclickor.sharethis.URL/becauseitstoolengthy. Instead, create a
shortened, branded, and trackable URL with Google Campaign URL Builder.
● Just like your Instagram posts, never stop testing your landing pages – whether that
means tinkering with product descriptions, alternating product offerings, adding
customer reviews, or something else altogether.
● (Optional) Make your Instagram shoppable with services like Foursixty or Dash
Hudson's LikeShop.
26

Get Pinteresting
Originally a wishlist-like platform, Pinterest has grown into an inspiration and shopping
destination for many of its 150 million monthly active users ([Pinterest,
2016](https://blog.pinterest.com/en/150-million-people-finding-ideas-pinterest)) – users who
are not so easily acquired by quick hacks or spammy tactics.
Effectively marketing on this social platform will require more than pinning every item from
your store. Let's go over how to sell apparel on Pinterest.
1. Create or Convert Your Account
One of Pinterest's major strengths is the suite of marketing features available to Business
Accounts. What exactly is in the toolbox?
● Pinterest Analytics – Thanks to rich tracking information, you can determine which
pieces of content from your profile and your website jive with your audience and what
that audience looks like.
● Promoted Pins – Pinterest's version of paid ads, they look like native pins but show up
more frequently in relevant search results and feeds. Promoted Pins are current only
available to US, CA, or UK-based business accounts.
27

● Rich Pins – There are 6 types of Rich Pins – app, movie, recipe, article, product, and
place – all of which provide additional information within the pin itself. Instead of
manual input, Rich Pins will help you automatically pull information such as the price
and availability of a specific item from your store.
● Newsletter – Get business-oriented Pinterest news and updates straight from the
horse's mouth.
Pinterest designed these tools specifically to help businesses maximize the platform's
marketing effectiveness. For this reason, we encourage you to create a Business Account. If
you have an existing Personal Account you'd still like to use, Pinterest also allows you to
convert to a Business Account.
2. Create a Pin
Similar to creating content for any other channel, successful marketing on Pinterest will
require you to understand two things: the kind of content your target user wants to see and
how to ensure the content you've created gets seen.
Know What Your Audience Wants
A study conducted at The University of Minnesota examined 32,200 Pinterest profiles
and analyzed the distribution of their pinning activity based on category and gender.
28

The X-axis shows the 33 Pinterest categories, and the Y-axis shows the relative proportion of
each topic within gender. You can read the full paper here.
Going by the chart, you may be tempted to zero in on the most popular categories.
However, your first concern should be relevancy and then popularity. If your brand has
nothing to do with food and drinks, then avoid dedicating a board to summer cocktails.
Optimize Your Pins for Search
Pinterest functions as part visual search engine for many users and part actual search
engine for others. Therefore, if you don't create easily searchable content, then you
may very well not create content at all.
Image Guidelines
Follow these guidelines to increase the likelihood that your pin reaches its
target.
● Image Size – All pins are 736px wide with an unlimited height. While tall
images do perform better, be mindful that the length of your image
doesn't become overwhelming.
● High-res – Avoid using stock photos as much as possible, and use
original high quality images instead. Your images should not pixelate in
the expanded view.
● Light and Bright – Light images are re-pinned 20x more than dark
images.
29

SEO Guidelines
SEO for Pinterest search is much more straightforward than bigger Internet
search engines – think "relevant keywords."
Step 1: Use Google's Keyword Planner to find keywords related to your
business and pins
Step 2: Include these keywords in your pin's image file name.
Step 3: Use these keywords when writing your pin descriptions. However,
as a general SEO rule, avoid sounding "keyword-y." Your description
should still flow naturally even with the keywords included.
3. Get Views and Re-pins
We've only grazed the surface by creating great visual content. Next, we need to focus on
increasing views and shares.
Connect Other Social Accounts
Gaining new followers organically for any social media channel is undeniably a tough
task. Luckily, you can connect existing social accounts to your new Pinterest for
Business account.
30

Connecting your social accounts not only helps grow your Pinterest following, but it
also bridges your distribution channels to get your content shared more easily and
more frequently.
1. Head over to "Account Settings"
2. From the menu, click "Social Networks"
3. Add your Twitter and Facebook accounts
Time Your Pins
A single "best time to pin" does not exist because it heavily depends on your target
audience. For example, the optimal time to grab the attention of fitness fanatics in
California will vary greatly from a dedicated homemaker residing in Vermont. The only
sure way to confirm this information is to consistently test your pinning schedule.
Use a Call-to-Action
Even though your pin has a link, it doesn't hurt to remind your audience to take action.
In fact, pins with CTAs get 80% more engagement (BrandonGaille, 2013).
4. Gain New Followers
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Connecting your other social media accounts will help increase your follower count to some
degree, but this should not be your primary means of gaining followers. The value in
Pinterest is to tap into a new stream of followers who have a higher tendency to purchase and
the purchasing power to buy more.
In the study from the University of Minnesota we'd referenced above, researchers found three
factors largely influenced whether a Pinterest user will follow you or not.
Image Source
And they are:
● How many accounts you follow/how many accounts follow you
● Your number of pins
● Your number of boards
In order to turn your account into a follower magnet, you'll need to commit to the improvement
and maintenance of these three factors.
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Find Friends From Other Social Networks
Reach for low-hanging fruit first and connect with your friends from the other social
media accounts you've linked.
1. Click on your business name in the top right corner of the screen.
2. In the dropdown menu that appears, click on "Find Friends."
3. Choose the social networks you’ve connected to find friends, then follow them.
You'll likely get more follow-backs here because you already have a relationship with
these people beyond Pinterest.
Post Regularly
Similar to "the best time to post," there's no definitive number of times you should post
per day. Case studies from numerous sources have found success in frequencies
ranging from 5 to 30 posts per day. The optimal number for your account will heavily
depend on your target audience's level of activity. Start at 5 posts spread throughout
the course of the day and gradually increase until you reach 30. Which frequency
seems to earn the highest engagement, shares, and traffic?
With a posting schedule of 5 to 30 pieces of content per day, Pinterest can sound like a
big time commitment. Don't let the numbers scare you because the majority of your
pins do not have to be original content. There's content everywhere that can make up a
good portion of your posts – just make sure the content is relevant and you've credited
the correct sources.
Stay Engaged
Successful social media for brands is ironically less about the brand and more about
catering to consumers. Take a page out of their book and provide others with a reason
to engage with you by proactively engaging with them first. Beyond responding to your
followers' comments and questions, you need to proactively re-pin their pins, like their
pins, and participate in the community.
Provide Meaningful Responses
Don't be bland and post generic comments such as "nice pin" or "this is great" on every
post. Pinterest users know what you're up and you'll end up wasting your own time.
Instead, leave thoughtful comments that demonstrate your interest and knowledge on
the subject.
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Note: There is such a thing as too much commenting. Pinterest considers commenting
too often spamming and it can lead to the suspension of your account. Limit your
thoughtful responses to 2 or 3 times per day.
Go Where the Popular Pins Are
The Popular section on Pinterest houses top performing pins based on the combination
of re-pins, likes, and comments. It's also the section that will offer you the most insight
into successful Pinterest strategy, so find popular boards that are relevant to your
business and start taking notes.
A portion of your thoughtful comments should go to the pins in the section. Again,
make sure the pins you comment on are relevant to your business. This virtually acts
as free advertising because your brand name becomes exposed to the people who
follow those boards.
Contribute to Others' Boards
Dedicate time to building relationships with owners of popular group boards or the
board's other contributors, and then request an invite to be a contributor yourself.
If you can contribute quality content, the board's followers will likely become your
followers too.
On the flip side, you can create your own board and invite your followers or popular
accounts to contribute. We don't recommend this method until you have some clout to
your Pinterest name.
Collaborate with Influencers
Pinterest has its influencers too, and it's exposure to these influencers' followers that
can really boost your Pinterest reputation.
Start with baby steps by following their boards, re-pinning their pins, and leaving
thoughtful comments to their content. Slowly build familiarity to indicate your interest in
their specialty and ideas before initiating a collaboration.
There are several ways you can work with Pinterest influencers.
● Invite them to contribute to one of your boards.
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● Once you've proven your level of expertise, offer to contribute to one of their
boards.
● Show that you pay attention by offering ideas for their boards.
5. Promote Your Brand
Pinterest is an additional channel to pump new prospects into your sales funnel. In order to
keep that funnel consistently topped off, you'll need to make a habit of best practices that will
contribute to the growth and promotion of your brand over the long term.
Get Rich Pins
Rich Pins, as the name implies, enriches your ordinary pins with valuable real-time
information – automatically.
Pinterest current offers 6 different types of Rich Pins – app, movie, recipe, article,
product, and place – each offering its own set of features aimed at boosting
engagement and direct traffic to your site.
Specifically for ecommerce business owners, we recommend making good use of the
product pin and, if you've been keen on blog content creation, the article pin. Check out
what they look like in action:
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Product Pin
This product pin by Urban Outfitters
features an official link to the store’s
site, updated pricing, and a detailed
description.
To see a complete list of metadata
for product pins, please click here.
Article Pin
This article pin from CNN comes with a
prominent title, a branded logo, a brief
description, and a call-to-action.
To see a complete list of metadata
available for article pins, please click
here.
Image Source: Pinterest
36

How to Set up Rich Pins
Because Rich Pins display metadata from pages on your website, you may
need a hand from your web developer to edit its contents.
Step 1: Decide on which pin(s) you want.
Step 2: Find your pin from the menu on the left and determine which meta tags
you need to add to your website.
Step 3: Choose any page on your site that you've added the appropriate
metadata to and [go here](https://developers.pinterest.com/tools/url-debugger/).
Step 4: Enter your chosen URL into the validator form field and hit "Validate."
Step 5: Correct any mistake you see through your site.
Step 6: Select your option below based on how your web page was marked up:
● HTML Tags, if you used Open Graph or Schema.org formats.
● oEmbed, if you used oEmbed format.
● Shopify, if you have a Shopify site.
Step 7: Click "Apply Now." Your Rich Pins will populate within the hour.
Note: You only need to validate and apply for one link per domain.
Add Variety to Your Content
The content you distribute or share on any social media channel acts as an extension
of your brand. However, that doesn't mean you should feel restricted to using one style
or one format of content. And most of all, please refrain from posting only product
images. Pinterest users congregate for interesting and inspiring content. It's your job to
deliver. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
● Gifs – Short and sweet, gifs contain dynamic content that’s rich in meaning and
rarely considered spammy. They're the essence of a good CTA.
● Lists – We are so consistently bombarded with information that we've become
accustomed to skimming or skipping information altogether. Lists are perfectly
37

● designed to accommodate the modern attention span – they're short, precise,
and easy to read.
● Guides or Recipes – These references strip lengthy explanations down to
fundamental instructions that help readers better understand the subject matter.
● Memes – Funny always wins, but it's also difficult to get "funny" right. Get honest
feedback from a friend or family member before you post.
Link Your Pins
Rich Pins automatically offer valuable information, but adding a variety of content
means not every pin you publish will be a Rich Pin. And that's ok.
Normal pins still offer an important piece of information: a link to your site.
Prioritize Popular Boards
As you accumulate pins into boards, move better performing boards to the top of your
page. This way, you increase the likelihood of converting and acquiring users who are
visiting your page for the first time.
6. Track and Optimize
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Pinterest Analytics provides insight into the performance of your campaign and the audience
engaging with it. The conclusions you draw from this information will help you improve
content, engagement, and conversion.
Here are a few questions this feature will help answer:
● Which of your pins and boards do people love the most?
● How does your target user compare to your actual Pinterest audience (i.e. gender,
location, interests, etc.)?
● What kind of devices are users on when they pin your content?
● For more information on the analytics data available, check out this Pinterest Analytics
guide.
Ready to [access this nifty feature]()? Pinterest Analytics will first require you to create a
Pinterest for Business account (done!). Second, you'll have to [verify your
website](https://help.pinterest.com/en/articles/confirm-your-website).
...and ta-da!
7. Bonus: Advertise on Pinterest
We have 3 reasons for keeping Pinterest ads as a bonus step:
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You can only promote existing pins. It would be a waste of your marketing budget to
immediately upload and promote new content. By holding off, you can access the best
type of content to target at the best type of user.
Runnings ads on Pinterest is a short-term fix to an acquisition challenge that requires a
long-term answer i.e. growing and engaging with the Pinterest community. If you
choose to run Pinterest ads, we recommend using it to complement a strategic
approach.
Let's begin!
Determine Your Goal
Pinterest ads, or Promoted Pins, are native ad units i.e. regular-looking pins that you
pay to have displayed to more people. Pinterest offers 3 types of ad campaigns to
support your business goals.
● Awareness: Raise brand awareness by getting your business in front of new users.
You pay on a CPM basis.
● Engagement: Boost engagement with your pins by reaching users with higher intent
and probability for interaction. You pay on a CPE (cost per engagement) basis, where
"engagement" is defined as: a close-up, repin, or click.
● Traffic: Drive traffic from your promoted pins directly to your website. Traffic
campaigns are PPC (pay per click) ads.
Setup for all three types of campaigns follow the same steps.
Step 1: Choose a Campaign Goal
Head over to [ads.pinterest.com](https://ads.pinterest.com/) to select 1 of 3
campaign goals, and name your new campaign.
Step 2: Pick a Pin
As we mentioned earlier, you can only promote existing pins. To ensure your
money is well spent, pick pins that have performed well for your intended goal.
Pinterest offers filters where you can quickly view your most clicked and most
2.
3.
40

repinned posts from the last 30 days.
Step 3: Pick Your Audience
In addition to choosing your audience, this is also the time to determine where
you will send users who click on your ad. We recommend customizing a landing
page that matches the contents of your promoted pin.
For audience targeting, you can opt for a general approach based on user
interests and keywords. Interests are restricted to a set list, and keywords are
provided through Pinterest recommendations or manual upload.
Alternatively, you can get more specific by targeting existing customers, people
who have visited your site before, or users whose profiles match those of users
already interacting with your Pinterest content.
Additionally, you have the option to target by location, language, device, and
gender.
Step 4: Pay for Results
Next, enter the maximum amount that you're willing to pay per action taken on
your ad. Pinterest will automatically let you know if your bid is competitive and
good to go or if it's too low.
Remember, if your bid off wins, you won't necessarily have to pay that amount.
You will only have to pay the amount that beats the next highest bidder.
Review your information. If everything looks good, click "Next" to submit your ad
for review (24 hours). During that time, submit or update your payment
information so that you're good to go as soon as your Promoted Pin gets
approved.
Step 5: Track What's Working
To set up conversion tracking, go to the Ads menu on your profile. Select the
conversions you'd like to track such as page visits, sign-ups, purchases, etc.
Copy and paste the code generated into the body of page you want to track.
41

Abide by Best Practices
Pinterest makes more money when your ads work – it's within their best interests to
help you. Having said that, go through [Pinterest's Advertising
Standards](https://about.pinterest.com/en/advertising-standards) to ensure you're
setting your ads up for success. Some key points to definitely note are:
● Be authentic and honest.
● Create high-quality and interesting content that elicits action.
● Avoid sensitive topics
42

Start Tweeting
Twitter can be a powerful marketing tool for many online store owners without requiring a
large investment in time or money. Not only is it easier to gain followers on Twitter, but you
can engage with Twitter users before they commit to following your page.
The following is a quick strategy to get you started on marketing through Twitter.
1. Create a target audience – Twitter is home to a diverse crowd, which means that
chances are high that your target audience frequents this particular network. If you
have yet to do so, define these users and include specific information such as age,
gender, location, interests, etc. This may seem tedious but it will help you understand
how your target users interact on Twitter and how you can best align your brand to
capture their support.
2. Take advantage of search – Once you’ve clearly defined who they are, you can utilize
the search bar or try Twitter’s Advanced Search to confirm that your target users exist.
For example, here are the top results for “need cat tshirt”:
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3. Establish credibility.
Now that you can confirm that there is a demand for your business, you’ll need to
establish your presence on Twitter. Without credibility, consumers won’t feel secure
buying from you.
You can establish your brand by doing a few things:
● Be consistent – regularly be online and available to interact or address
concerns. Consistency also applies to content--share relevant content regularly.
● Have a strong voice – know your brand. If your brand is a person, what would
they be like? Establishing a brand voice also ties in with consistency. Make sure
the content you share is a reflection of your brand. Not sure where to start?
Twitter has a few guidelines on What to Tweet.
● Support a cause – Businesses concerned with social good are more easily
accepted.
4. Make a sale.
When your profile has some substance and you’re ready to make a sale, try one of
these:
● Deals – Offer exclusive discounts to your Twitter followers.
● Engage – Using the search option, respond to relevant tweets with a link to your
product or offer user a good deal. However, remember not to spam every
person who mentions a need.
● Follow up – if you discover someone discussing their interest in your product,
don’t hesitate to reach out. If it happens to be a customer, ask about their
experience and retweet positive comments.
44

Work on LinkedIn
LinkedIn, as a social network for professionals, is traditionally considered a better lead
generation platform for B2B companies while remaining a conundrum for B2C companies.
This doesn’t mean LinkedIn will not work for you, rather it may take some tinkering to figure
out if LinkedIn is better for sales, brand development, or something else altogether. Here are
a couple of things you can start doing to figure that out:
● Promote your people (brand development).
LinkedIn is a great place to show off the awesome talent on your team. It can be
something as simple as spotlighting an employee each week by sharing their photo
along with their tenure, job title, a short quote on why they like their job, and a fun fact
about them. This gives the public a rare look into your company culture and
personality.
● Promote your page (brand and lead development).
It’s needless to say you should share relevant content on a regular basis, but if no one
reads it, then you might as well not have shared anything. Set aside a budget to
promote your page so that others who don’t currently follow you can get a glimpse into
the community you’re building. One of the perks of LinkedIn’s page promotions is that
you can target individuals by job title, industry, location, and more. Targeting ensures
that your marketing spend will go towards people who could directly affect your bottom
line.
45

Boost Your Brand’s Facebook
Brands that rely heavily on Facebook to acquire customers experience an emotional roller
coaster every time the social network updates its algorithm. This is because the updates
typically result in less reach and more ad spend.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t maintain a presence. Facebook pages remain an easy
way for prospects to find more information on your business, review how others may feel
about your brand, as well as a means for you to distribute information to them. Needless to
say, many brands have full-fledged user acquisition strategies behind their Facebook pages,
so we’ll only go over a few quick wins you can immediately obtain.
● Test the call-to-action (CTA) button on your page header.
Split-test to see which CTA results in the best results for your goal. Typically “Watch
Video,” “Shop Now,” and “Contact Us” are good choices to start with.
● Add videos and create playlists.
Videos uploaded directly to Facebook can be put into playlists. This is a great place to
show off how-to tutorials, product features, DIY tips, and more – all while showing up
better on people’s timelines.
● Share behind-the-scenes (BTS) photos.
BTS photos give a face and character to your business, which helps consumers more
easily trust and identify with you.
● Offer exclusive deals and discounts.
Give fans plenty of reasons to return to your brand’s Facebook page. Share special
deals and offers that expire within 24 hours.
● Host a contest.
Try posting a funny photo and running a caption contest to keep fans entertained.
While it helps to offer discounts or freebies, contests do not always need them.
Instead, you can feature the winner or give them a shoutout (or both).
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● Engage other Facebook pages.
Interact as your page with other business pages, and "like'' your connections’ pages.
Liked or tagged pages will often return the favor, and mention or like your page in
return.
● Share milestones.
Keep fans in the loop with company happenings through your page so they feel part of
your community.
● Add other social media pages.
Add Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and other tabs to your Facebook page to give
potential customers and fans a big picture of your company’s culture and brand.
● Test time and content.
Start strategically split-testing to see which posts boost engagement. Start with a
simple schedule: post every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at a specific time with a
specific type of content. After 4 weeks, switch one weekday out with another (e.g.
Tuesday instead of Monday) and see what performs better.
47

Use Your Personal Facebook
As of June 2016, Facebook announced it will prioritize posts shared by friends and family over
those by publishers, brands, and other pages. This is good news for you as you build your
brand from scratch.
There’s nothing wrong with using your personal Facebook to promote your product. Rather,
it’s a matter of controlling the number of times you post and the type of content you include.
Here is a helpful gauge for how often certain actions should be taken with your personal
profile:
Rarely: Post direct links to your product or homepage
Sometimes: Show off a particularly nice testimonial or press mention
Often: Engage with others, whether it’s directly or through content they share
Always: Include a personal message in things you share
Finally, remember that your personal Facebook is exactly that--personal. Continue to share
photos, articles, liking and commenting on people’s posts, and being a normal user.
48

Facebook Page Shop Sections
The "shop section" feature, which allows users to browse and purchase products directly
within Facebook Pages, was actually rolled out to a several thousand pages in 2016.
The shop section sits in the left menu.
As shown in the example above, this is a new opportunity for different groups beyond just
brands and businesses to participate in a seamless ecommerce experience (e.g. causes,
charity, entertainment, etc.)
49

While availability is still limited, we know the feature will be a huge benefit as adoption grows.
● Easier discovery and purchase – Everything a user wants to learn about you or your
products is now contained in one environment, your Facebook Page. This removes a
significant number of pages that buyers have to visit between discovering your Page,
clicking an external link to your store, conducting a search for reviews on your products
and business, and finally completing a purchase. Every additional page visit becomes
a risk that your user drops off. Purchases in-app, on the other hand, can occur faster
and easier.
● Meet users in the medium – More than 500 million people access Facebook strictly
from a mobile device. This is an especially important statistic because research
indicates that mobile users regularly use only five mobile applications. Leveraging
Facebook's mobile ubiquity should not be a question.
● Leverage an existing fan base – Because this feature becomes part of your Facebook
page, you already have a community that shares the interest you represent. Promoting
your product posts to this audience is certainly an easier sell than cold targeting.
● Generate conversation – Standalone shops do not give you the same capabilities to
generate a conversation that a Page does. You have the opportunity to post content
that keeps your community engaged and repeatedly coming back.
In short, the benefits of adding a shop section to your Facebook Page boils down to creating
an easier buying experience for fans as well as an easier selling experience for you.
We don't say "easier" in the sense of rudimentary. The shop feature offers a selection of
robust shopping features. However, their availability will depend on your Page location.
US Facebook Pages may offer these features:
● Upload products and product description. There is no limit to the number of physical
goods you can upload, nor will you need to have a product catalog uploaded anywhere
beforehand.
● Customize your inventory. You have the option of dividing your products into different
collections or categories.
● Sell directly from your Page. Your customers can browse and buy without leaving your
Page. Alternatively, you can also redirect them to an external checkout page once
they’re ready to complete the purchase.
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● Manage orders. With the ability to manage orders, you can record the status of orders,
cancel orders, and refund orders without ever leaving your Page.
● Monitor insights. You have visibility into the number of views, clicks, purchases, and
profit for each product
Non-US Facebook Pages may offer these features:
● Upload products and product descriptions. There is no limit to the number of physical
goods you can upload, nor will you need to have a product catalog uploaded anywhere
beforehand.
● Feature products. You can showcase a number of products.
● Get insights. You have visibility into the number of views and messages you've
received for each product.
Now that we've covered many of the benefits and functionalities of the shop section, let's
activate it for your Page. Again, depending on where you’re located, your set-up options will
also vary.
● US Facebook Pages: You can choose to have customers complete their purchases
within your Facebook Page or you can send them to an external checkout page.
● Non-US Facebook Pages: You can allow customers to message you in order to learn
more about your products or you can send them to an external website to complete
their purchase.
We have provided the appropriate directions for setting up shop sections in each situation on
the next page.
51

Let Customers Check out from Your Facebook Page
1.) From your Facebook Page, click the Shop tab from the left menu.
If this is not an option, click Settings from the top-right corner of your Page, then click Edit
Page from the left menu.
52

Next, click Add a Tab and click Add Tab next to the Shop option. The Shop tab should now be
visible on your Page.
2.) Review the Merchant Terms and Policies, check the I agree to the Merchant Terms and
Policies box, and click Continue. Enter your password if prompted.
53

3.) Choose the preferred currency for your shop. This currency will apply to all of your
products and cannot be changed without deleting your shop section and creating a new one.
4.) Choose Check Out on Facebook, and click Continue.
5.) If you have a separate email to communicate with customers, Facebook, or payment
processors, uncheck the Use this email address for customer service inquiries box and submit
an alternate email address.
Choose either PayPal or Stripe as your payment processor, and click Submit. For either
choice, you will have to connect an existing account or create a new Business account.
Your shop is ready to go and you can start adding products!
54

Send Your Customers to an External Website to Complete Their Purchase
55

56

4.) Choose Check Out on Another Website and click Continue. For each product you upload
to your shop section, you will now be prompted to submit the website.
5.) Click Save.
57

Send Your Customers to an External Website to Complete Their Purchase
58

59

4.) Choose either Message to Buy or Check Out on Another Website. Then, click Continue.
5.) Click Save.
A quick note for business owners as you proceed to upload products to your shops:
Regardless of location, your shop is only visible after you’ve added at least one product that
has been reviewed and approved.
60

Go Live on Social
While both Facebook and Instagram Live are fairly new features, its predecessors –
Periscope and Meerkat – have demonstrated powerful marketing potential. Many businesses
have already jumped on the live-streaming trend, hedging their bets on a pattern of
tremendous payoffs for early adopters of social media trends. We encourage you to strategize
for conversions and dive in now!
There are many ways you can use Facebook or Instagram Live to grow your business. For
example, offer a live view of your product, host a Q&A session, or even take your customers
behind the scenes. The point is to establish a connection between your brand and the public
so they trust you enough to buy.
61

COMMUNITIES
Online communities are no different than offline communities – they’re
groups of people who share interests, experiences, ideals, or goals. In this
chapter, we’ll show you how to tap into the power of communities, both
online and offline.
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Local Businesses
Teaming up with local businesses is a great way to establish and expand your customer base.
The secret lies in whom you choose to partner with. Find businesses that target an audience
similar to yours without competing in product or services i.e. complementary businesses.
Here are just a few ways you can partner up with other businesses:
● Host community events
Bar crawls, block parties, and the like are a great way to draw in more customers. By
collaborating with businesses in your area, every effort from generating event buzz to
setting up to managing costs gets shared.
● Promote each other on social media
Called cross-promoting, local businesses can work together on social media to
promote and increase each other’s following audience.
● Offer joint discounts
Who doesn’t enjoy dinner AND a movie? By teaming up with a complementary
business, you can offer a deal for a complete package. You don’t have to limit yourself
movie theaters, of course – simply a local business that complements yours will do.
There are endless ways to partner with other businesses—just use your imagination! Teaming
up with the right company can lead to increasing your business and finding new customers.
63

Volunteer Locally
An effective approach we’d previously discussed was pledging some of your sales efforts to
support a cause. If that’s not an opportunity for your brand, perhaps volunteering locally is. By
involving yourself, you have the opportunity to earn respect, loyalty, and support from an
entire community.
To find volunteer opportunities near you, use sites like VolunteerMatch.
64

Enlist Employee Help
According to the 2013 Edelman Trust Barometer, “Employees rank higher in public trust than
a firm’s PR department, CEO, or Founder. 41% of us believe that employees are the most
credible source of information regarding their business.” Every employee, regardless of role or
duties, has the potential to leverage this trust in your company’s favor. So how do you
mobilize employees?
The easy way out is to hand out t-shirts to your employees with your logo and contact
information, but in order to drive sincere and proactive support – whether it’s sales or talent
recruiting – you need to turn your team into brand ambassadors, i.e. employees who are
connected, motivated, and engaged. According to Gallup, “companies with high employee
engagement levels have 3.9 times the earnings per share when compared to those in the
same industry with lower engagement levels.” Now, the question is: how can your business
be part of the former?
1. Create a Reward Environment
Employees recognize accomplishments that get rewarded. However, when those
rewards are limited to just the sales team (as is tradition), you miss out on a big
opportunity to build brand ambassadors. Recognizing all employees who go the extra
mile instills pride and accountability within every member of your team.
Additionally, these rewards don’t always have to be monetary. Part of creating a
successful reward program is developing an environment in which your employees feel
motivated and supported. Open channels for communication that allow individuals to
connect with each other, share opinions, celebrate successes and milestones, and feel
part of a close community. Instead of feeling like they simply work for someone,
connected employees are likely to be more proactive i.e. become brand ambassadors.
2. Encourage Social Media Activity
While a strong social presence may be important for your business, don’t
underestimate the power of your employees. A study conducted by the MSLGROUP
found that social media posts from employees reached 561% further than the same
posts shared by company pages. This can have big implications for brands that
empower social media advocacy among employees.
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3. Exemplify Effective Leadership
Because brand ambassadors essentially put their reputation on the line when they
recommend a brand or product to their network, it’s unlikely the majority of your
employees will market your brand until they feel confident and empowered – both of
which can only occur through education. However, instead of sitting employees down
with reading material, lead by example.
Beyond worrying about profitability, good leaders possess excellent communication
skills and practice transparent policies. When employees have a clear idea of how the
company's leaders respond to conflict and adversity, they will have natural guidelines
to follow.
In 2015, The Harris Poll found that open communication encourages employees to see
a brighter future for the company. And when your team is encouraged by the
company’s positive outlook, their confidence grows.
However, this will not happen in a single day. It happens over time with multiple
channels of communication such as newsletters, emails, 1-on-1’s, Cookies &
Communication (a GearLaunch practice), and more. Do your part to ensure employees
have the latest on company initiatives, successes, goals, and news. This information
not only ensures they accurately represent the brand no matter where they may be, but
also reminds them of the bigger community they belong to.
Bonus: Employee Appreciation Day is an annual event. While we encourage you to
appreciate employees everyday, why not turn this into an extra special weeklong celebration?
Use this opportunity to try out our tips to get employees to market your brand.
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Exclusive Groups
Consumers all want to be a part of a special select group, even if it’s only an illusion crafted
through clever marketing. The more privileged your customer feels, the more they buy into
your illusion.
The key to offering exclusivity is giving consumers the illusion that a barrier to entry exists.
Ask yourself two questions: what is the perceived value of your membership? What do you
want out of your members. Here are several examples of successful membership
implementations.
● Costco
Have you ever shopped at a Costco warehouse? At every Costco exit stands someone
akin to a bouncer. While they won’t ask for your proof of age, they will ask for you
Costco membership. If you don’t have one, they will redirect you to the membership
services area. Beyond physical access to the store, why would consumers want a
membership?
For a fee, Costco gives its members access to bulk discounts and specially discounted
pricing for health, business, entertainment, and subscription services.
● Safeway
Safeway employs a different approach to its membership. Because they function under
a different business model from Costco, Safeway offers its membership to anyone
given they willingly sign up. Instead of making money upfront, Safeway uses this
information to improve targeting, coupons, and sales.
● Coin Collecting
Coin collection – one of the rare instances when the item’s value is exponentially
higher than its perceived value. This particular method plays on an item’s limited
production to create the appearance that the purchase is an investment – there will
only ever be a small number of the particular item in the entire world.
This "limited edition" tactic doesn’t just play up the sense of exclusivity – it also
contributes to justifying purchases at a higher price point because they are really
making an investment.
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There are many approaches to exclusivity, but keep in mind the general rule when
implementing yours: something denied to one person becomes exclusive to another, and
anything exclusive fetches a higher demand value.
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Support a Cause
We keep talking about niches, but what does that mean? Check out our blog post here for a
better idea.
When you focus your product, you focus your marketing, and therefore you focus your time
and effort. This makes the entire marketing and sales cycle much more efficient, especially
when you’re just starting out.
A great example is to sell for a cause. Why? People support causes when they feel strongly
about something, and passion is much easier to sell to. Craft your product around this e.g.
create a t-shirt that reads “End Hunger in San Francisco.”
While this technique simplifies a lot of the marketing strategy for you, fundraising for charities
comes with its own set of rules. You can get a better idea through this idealist post.
GearLaunch does not currently support fundraising campaigns. Please read more about our
policy on Charity.
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Hack Upvotes
Many communities offer their members the power to upvote posts – if users find the post
funny, engaging, interesting, or some combination in between, they can show their approval
by voting the content to move up in the sea of submitted content. As upvoted posts move up,
more users will see it. And as it continues to gain more momentum upstream, visibility
increases. That could mean a couple of things for you depending on the contents of your post:
brand awareness or conversions.
Achieving this requires several steps:
1. Choose your community wisely. Keep in mind the guidelines we’ve previously provided
for taking advantage of forums, and choose one that offers member the option to
upvote.
2. With the community in mind, create two offers – one offer will be part of your actual
post and the second will be in a follow-up email to those interested in your first offer.
The efficacy of this tactic largely depends on how well suited your offers are.
3. Post your first offer into the community you’ve chosen with a unique URL so you can
track it. Remember – most community members will not appreciate anything that’s
heavily salesy or self-promotional. Try to find other successful posts that have properly
promoted an outside product and model yours after it.
4. Once someone redeems your first offer, follow up with an email containing the second
offer your know they can’t refuse. However, in order to redeem this second offer, they
must go back to your first post and upvote it. If you need to, require they respond to
your follow-up email with a screenshot as proof.
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Post on Deal Sites
Listing your products on deal sites will require rolling back prices on the items you offer, but
you stand to gain several benefits:
● Grow your database
● SEO
● Move old merchandise
● Brand awareness
A strategic approach to daily deals or flash sales site may prove beneficials if the pros listed
above outweigh the cuts made to your profit margins. Check out the deal sites below to
assess for yourself:
● Stacksocial
● Bitsdujour
● AppSumo
● Fatwallet
● Wowcher
● Wahanda
● Dealtastic
● MightyDeals
● HotDeals
● SlickDeals (you need an account in good standing, but if you can generate this, the
forum has great traffic)
● Ozbargain
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Get Active on Forums
According to PostRelease, one in five Americans use forums to discuss and recommend
products, and 64 percent of women online post product recommendations on message
boards. Forum users are also generally net savvy and open to making online purchases. All of
this means forum marketing has the potential to be a high ROI tactic.
Here’s how to effectively use forum marketing as a part of your online marketing strategy:
1. Find the right forums.
Where there’s an interest, there is bound to be forum for it. Successful forum marketing
means finding the right community for your business.
You can ask around or try doing a simple Google search for your industry’s keywords
plus "forum". For example, if you’re selling shirts with funny cats on them, try “cat
lovers forum.”
You’ll undoubtedly come across hundreds of forums, so narrow your list to 5-10 that
will be worth your time. We suggest some of the following criteria, but feel free to tweak
it to better fit your preliminary process:
● At least 1,000 members and 10,000 posts.
● At least ten to fifteen new posts on a daily basis.
● Cannot be overrun with spam.
● Avoid forums hosted by or teeming with your direct competitors.
2. Create a forum account.
Seniority is hugely important in forum communities with older registrants receiving
more deference than newer users. In fact, some forums even prevent new users from
posting for the first few days after registration. However, don't let the idea of being new
to an online forum discourage you. You'll have plenty of opportunity to build
relationships, establish credibility, and authority in the forum community.
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3. Read community guidelines thoroughly prior to posting.
In order to register, you will need to agree to the forum’s user agreement and posting
guidelines. As a business, it’s important you read these rules and guidelines carefully.
There is a lot of legal jargon in these documents so it’s understandably tempting to
skim, but some of these guidelines can severely affect your freedoms within the forum.
Here are concerns you should look out for:
● Are you allowed to place links in your posts?
● Are you allowed to promote your business?
● Are commercial messages allowed in signatures?
● Are you allowed to contact other members for commercial purposes?
● What restrictions are placed on new members?
● What special privileges are given to veteran users?
Violating rules can quickly start you on the wrong side of the community and prevent
you from building good relationships, trust, and credibility with the forum community.
4. Pick a good username and avatar.
These two will be the first things anyone notices about you.
● Pick a username that’s easy to pronounce and remember.
● Avoid extensive and bizarre number combinations or weird misspellings.
● Do not pick a username that means something only to you and no one else (e.g.
your favorite grade school teacher's initials).
● Avoid using offensive or controversial pictures for your avatar
5. Craft a compelling profile.
A solid profile tells other members you’re not there to troll and you are willing to put
your name behind what you say. Feel free to share methods of getting in touch with
you and hobbies or interests, but avoid sharing potentially polarizing information such
as political or religious affiliation. Only share information you wouldn’t mind made
public.
If the forum allows you to link to your social accounts so be sure to take advantage!
6. Introduce yourself to the community.
Many forums encourage new users to introduce themselves to the community with an
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introductory post. Include a short description of your background and that your main
goal is to contribute and learn. Do not attempt any marketing pitches in your first
post--it will most likely get you banned.
7. Spend some time lurking.
Here’s one situation where it’s a-ok to lurk. Forums tend to build communities that shun
and haze newcomers so refrain from immediately posting. Spend a little time getting
used to the jargon, special quirks, and social norms. Learning this info will help you fit
in more easily.Spend some time reading the forum to get a sense of the community's
special quirks and cultural norms. Figure out who the influential users are and note
which topics are perennial favorites. Learning this information will help you fit in more
quickly.
8. Add value to the conversation.
Providing helpful and insightful answers will be your “in.” These situations are
opportunities to demonstrate your expertise and to generate good will. If you can,
backup your advice with links to trusted sources. Don’t forget to follow up and respond
to questions quickly. Forum interactions can sometimes move very quickly.
9. Add your website to your signature.
Signatures are blocks of text attached to the end of all your posts. Most people use
signatures to display their favorite quotes or links to their favorite websites. If
self-promotion is allowed, a short description of your business and a link to your
website is the best way to go.
10. Save the drama.
Never forget that this is a public space and everything you post will forever be available
for everyone to see. Do not get drawn into heated arguments, and resist the urge to
respond to criticism. If you get banned because of an argument, all your efforts will be
wasted.
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The Reddit Community
With over 1 million subreddits, or divisions of the community that share an interest, Reddit is
almost undoubtedly home to a niche group that would be highly interested in your products.
Do your research to seek these groups out, but the same rules apply here as they do for
approaching forums – do not immediately jump in and begin selling your products. If your only
interest stepping into the door is only self-interest, the community will boot you immediately.
Reddit only works if you are a contributing member of its society. That means you need to
provide value through engaging content before you can see any value in return.
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Target Niche Marketplaces
As an online store owner, sometimes it’s easy to forget that your products can also be housed
and offered elsewhere. While there’s no need to relist every one of your products, it’s
important to test other channels such as Etsy and Poshmark i.e. marketplaces that serve a
more targeted demographic unlike eBay or Craigslist.
Listing through niche-specific marketplaces will grant your products visibility to the site’s
existing traffic and consumers who are actively searching for goods. However, just like eBay
and Craigslist, niche-specific marketplaces will not help you build a stronger brand – you exist
in their domain – so test these sites sparingly to make your first few sales and understand
what buyers want more of. Then, use these learnings for your own store.
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Post on Craigslist
Craigslist is a great general marketplace to launch your products.
Don’t get stopped before you start.
Because Craigslist is such a useful marketplace for everyone, many have shamelessly taken
advantage of its reach to maximize their efforts. This has led to Craigslist’s strict crackdown
on anything that looks like it could be spam. Here are few tips to keep in mind:
● Try not to post too many ads for the same product.
● In general, posting too much will get your posts flagged and removed.
● Don’t try to beat the system and spam different cities.
Let’s get started!
1. Head over to the Craigslist homepage. If you’re redirected to your location’s
subdomain, simply click on the Craigslist logo in the upper left corner.
2. Click “Post to Classifieds” to get started.
3. Choose your seller option and the category your product falls under.
4. Now, it’s time to create your post. There’s plenty of opportunity at this point to create a
post that others can’t ignore. Here are a few tips to get you started:
● Use creative and eye-catching titles to stand out from the crowd.
● Create funny or clever product descriptions. Believe it or not, these have
gone viral in the past.
● Keep your images high-quality and clear. Viewers don’t have much to go
on when buying online and generally want every detail they can get.
● Make it easy for them to contact you for more information.
● Link to your product page.
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Host a Meetup
Because meetups are often started by individuals like yourself, they offer a great opportunity
to build your network and to create new opportunities for your business. In order to help
organize these types of offline meetings, many social networks have taken it upon themselves
to offer various event organization tools. However, the expert in this space remains
Meetup.com.
Before jumping headfirst into organizing your own meetup group, consider joining one first to
interact with the community as well as attending an event. When attending your first meetup,
here are a few things you can do to make the most of your experience:
● Cross promote online – Whether it’s through social or email, use this opportunity to get
to know businesses that complement yours. Promoting each other’s content is much
easier when it’s not a conflict of interests.
● Guest blog – There are many benefits to guest blogging. This is a great way to build
the relationships to get you there.
After testing the waters and attending a meetup, evaluate if the time and costs of hosting a
meetup is outweighed by the value it brings to your business – remember, every business is
different.
1. Set up a Meetup account.
Setting up a Meetup account is rather straightforward.
● Visit www.meetup.com and sign up by entering your name and email address.
There is an option to sign up via Facebook but only do so if your Facebook
account reflects your brand messaging and standards.
● Under “Settings,” fill out the fields completely. Use your log as a photo and
connect with your business’s social profiles.
● Log in and click “Start” at the top when you’ve got an idea and some details
about your first Meetup.
● Next, fill in the location of your group, and up to 15 relevant topics. Add your
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group’s name, description, what your members are called, and a web address.
● While Meetup is free for attendees, Organizers have to pay dues ($45 for a
three month term, and $72 for a six-month term, on top of the flat annual rate of
$19 per month).
● Now you’re ready to begin organizing Meetups!
2. Host a Meetup for your business.
Meetup.com can help you achieve a number of business objectives including (but not
limited to) extending your audience reach and brand visibility, increasing sales, and
conducting market research.
We’ve provided some helpful information for when you’re ready to put together your
own meetup.
Prior to the event, you should:
● Ask yourself if your meetup is emotionally compelling.
You want these events to resonate with your audience so leave a lasting
impression by creating positive memories to associate with your business.
● Tastefully brand your Meetup.
While this is an opportunity for you to market your business, it shouldn’t be
treated as a formal marketing event. If you include sponsors, then make sure
they respect your request not to overload attendees with advertising either.
● Be considerate of everyone’s time.
They’re just as busy as you are so give them appropriate time to RSVP.
● Communicate everything to your invites.
Do not assume that just because you can infer something that they will do the
same.
● Ask for contributions.
If you’re hosting this event solo and can’t completely cover the costs, don’t be
afraid to let attendees know that you need to charge, especially if you’re a small
business.
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● Pick 15 topics when creating your group to ensure maximum visibility.
● Clearly describe what the group is about, who should join, and what they can
expect.
● Share your meetup using your various social media channels to grow
membership.
● Add notable attendee profiles onto your event page to increase attendance.
● Attach handouts and worksheets to your Group and request that members bring
them for use during your event. This is a chance for you to incorporate branded
messages on the materials, but remember not to overwhelm attendees with this
branded material. Have a handful of copies at the event in case anyone forgets.
During the event:
● Grab plenty of pictures and video at your event, and make sure attendees sign
release documents beforehand so you can publish them. Create excitement for
photos and videos to be uploaded following the event.
● Whoever is helping out at the event (yourself included) should be dressed in a
fashion that appropriately reflects your brand.
● Never forget to thank people for attending in person when possible, and online
when necessary.
After the event:
● Be consistent in scheduling meetups, and once you’ve nailed the theme, stick to
it. You’ll soon be recognized and positively associated with a valuable series of
events.
● Follow up with attendees for feedback, and act on those insights. Pay attention
to those who take the time to reply.
● Upload photos into your Meetup Organizer profile.
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● Share event photos and video on your social media channels.
● Connect with your Meetup attendees online on their social networks and stay
engaged to increase the likelihood that they continue attendance.
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Get Featured by Uncrate
Uncrate is the leading buyer's guide for men. With over 9,000 items covered and more than
1.5 million monthly readers, Uncrate is widely known for digging up the best of the best men's
products. But its readers don’t just like looking at cool products, they like buying them too.
Getting your product featured on Uncrate can drive significant sales and lead to other press
opportunities.
However, getting featured is by no means a walk in the park. After all, these guys are the
purveyors of cool – there’s no formal process for that. Some companies get discovered by
Uncrate, but others have had success after contacting the company to tell them about their
product or even sending over a sample.
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Polyvore
Launched in 2007, Polyvore remains a growing social site for brands to interact and engage
with followers while also driving traffic back to the brand’s own website.
The value in Polyvore lies in its strong ROI for brands. While Polyvore’s average return on ad
spend for merchants is $6:1, Polyvore quotes an average basket size of $383; significantly
higher than Instagram, Twitter, Wanelo, and Facebook.
Unlike traditional comparison shopping sites, Polyvore offers the ability to adjust ad bidding
based on device with a mobile bid modifier – desktop bids are modified by a positive or
negative multiplier. Mobile often performs differently compared to desktop, so having the
ability to adjust at the device level allows merchants more control over return.
There are plenty of ways to promote your products on Polyvore, but we’ll focus on a couple of
direct response options and how to establish your brand within the Polyvore community.
Engagement (Sets, Collections, and More)
Create your profile and request a merchant badge to begin connecting with the Polyvore
community as a brand. You first step should include building your own “sets” or “collections”
of items that users can like or comment on. Grow engagement by reaching out to individual
users and liking or commenting on their content.
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CONTENT
Content marketing is not just a buzzword – it’s a highly effective marketing
strategy – and it’s not going away. In this chapter, we break down popular
approaches to content and the different hacks that make it so powerful.
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Offer Social Proof
When others start talking about your product in a positive light or even recommending it, the
act validates your brand and business in the eyes of new prospects. This often occurs in
natural conversation, but you can replicate the validation factor through customer reviews and
testimonials on your website and social channels. Social proof helps potential customers trust
your new business.
If you’re lacking in this department, put together a list of your customers and everyone who
has come into contact with your business. Reach out with a friendly, personal note to ask for a
few kind words if they enjoyed their experience shopping with you. In order to elicit a good
response rate, consider running a raffle for those who submit or post an answer.
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Recycle Content
Someone out there is actively searching for a product you offer, but due to the newness of
your business and the nature of SEO, they probably will never find you. This is why content
creation is so important. By creating content that your target demographic is searching for,
you increase the likelihood of getting found organically by an audience with higher purchase
intent.
An easy approach to crafting great content is recycling content from elsewhere. Please don’t
mistaken this for plagiarizing or stealing content – neither of which we encourage because it’s
illegal but it will also have serious consequences on your SEO.
Rather, we do encourage you use what you’ve learned from other reputable sources to spin
together a creative conclusion (with proper credit given). For example, head over to Quora
where knowledgeable community members provide answers to every question you can think
of. Pick a topic you know your target user keeps tabs on and read through the questions
listed. What common questions come up around this topic? Is there new information you can
reveal to your user? Recycle the information you’ve learned here e.g. “best of Quora”
summaries or shareable lists.
We encourage you always giving credit where it’s due – it may even result in the source
sharing your content.
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Reword Discounts
Which one sounds better to you? "Buy one, get one FREE" or "Buy one, get one 50%"?
Yes, they both mean the same thing but "free" is still a very special concept. According to
research by Dan Ariely, our penchant for it appears to be almost hardwired into us.
In his book Predictably Irrational, Ariely discusses an experiment using Hershey's Kisses and
Lindt chocolate truffles. For your reference, Lindt truffles are considerably more expensive
than Hershey's Kisses for its taste and quality.
In the first round, participants could buy truffles for 15 cents (about 50% off the original cost)
or a Kiss for 1 cent. Nearly 75% of participants favored the better price and quality
combination of the truffle offer.
In the next round, the cost of each item was reduced by one cent – 14 cents for the truffle,
and 0 cents (free) for the Kiss. Even though the price difference between both items remained
the same, the results changed drastically.
More than 66% of participants now chose the free Kiss.
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Relieve Pain
One of your greatest influences over a customer exists in your ability to help them avoid pain.
This doesn’t always equate to physical pain – consider stress, heartbreak, self-esteem, etc. In
what ways can your product alleviate their negative emotion?
Once you’ve got that figured out, you’ll need to openly state what the pain is before
introducing the solution. For example “Stop stressing about Christmas shopping and grab a
custom throwback tee for everyone this holiday!”
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Round Numbers
There will be instances where the magic number 9 (from our previous chapter) may not be so
magical. Research indicates that consumers process pricing information differently for round
numbers (e.g. “3") versus non-round ones (e.g."3.99"). So which price format is best for you to
drive a purchase? The answer is not quite that straightforward.
Monica Wadhwa and Kuangjie Zhang, assistant professors of marketing at INSEAD and at
Nanyang Business School respectively, set out to find the answer.
They found that consumers use feelings to process round prices and reasoning to compute
non-round prices. This means the best price format for your business depends on what
products you offer. Is your business more geared toward emotional stimulation or practical
applications?
For example, products geared toward entertainment or luxury (emotion) can benefit more
from rounded prices: price a handbag at $499 instead of $499.99. However, for purchases
with a practical application such as a phone charger, use $29.99 instead of $29.
If your product seems to fall into the grey area, consider one of the experiments the
researchers conducted where participants were given camera options for a family vacation
(leisure) and for a class project (practical). The participants chose rounded prices for leisure
and non-rounded prices for practicality.
With that in mind, understand whether consumers see your offer as a feel-good purchase or a
utilitarian purchase.
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Perception of 9
Here’s another way to convince consumers they’re getting a better deal: use the number 9.
Have you noticed how frequently prices end in “.99”? Economist Tim Harford some
explanation for 9’s frequent occurrence. Briefly, it’s thanks to something called the left-digit
effect, which suggests that the mind places the most emphasis on numbers to the left of a
decimal and ignores the end of prices. The other explanation is that consumers perceive
they’re getting a deal when prices end in ".99".
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Create Urgency
The more time you give a visitor to make a purchase, the less likely they are to buy. Solve this
issue by creating a sense of urgency with messages and promotions like “One Day Sale,”
“Last Chance to Save,” “25% Off, Today Only.” Your visitors are more likely to buy when there
is an urgent call to action.
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Provide Comparison
"...not $100, not $75, not even $50"
Can you hear the infomercial host? Can you see the giant price tags with red “X’s” crossing out the
more expensive price? Comparison is a trick often used in advertising to convince consumers they are
getting a great deal.
It’s easier for us to perceive tremendous value or savings with a product when we can see the
difference. This works especially well for numbers: $189.99 seems like a great deal when compared
with $10,000, but as a standalone, $189.99 can sound a bit pricey.
On the other hand, recall the infomercial voice you just heard. Most people do not find that pleasing,
and may actually distrust it. The challenge for you will be to execute this tactic artfully. You shouldn’t
cheapen your brand or business, but still make a compelling comparison.
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Create Content
Creating content is typically a strategy that depends on creating and optimizing content over
the long term to lead prospects through a marketing funnel. Sound familiar? That’s because
It’s very similar to creating products for your store – the more focused you are, the easier it is.
And just like selling your products, content also comes with two options: marketplace or
self-hosted. For this instance, it’s better to publish to a marketplace where there are already
active readers and people looking for content. Undoubtedly, part of that audience will contain
users within your niche.
This is not the place to sell your platform. Rather, use this opportunity to write articles that
would catch the attention of your target user such as “25 Things Only Gearheads
Understand.” If you’d rather not write, try your hand at podcasts or videos. Here are several
places you can publish your content:
1. Medium
2. Inbound
3. LinkedIn Pulse
4. GrowthHackers
5. HackerNews
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Get Interviewed
Getting your time in the spotlight is not as hard as you might think. The media is always
looking for industry experts and will often allow a brief plug for your business in return. If you
have unique insights on the industry or your niche, you should pitch it to a relevant
publication. Most publications openly disclose directions for sending pitches so just head to
their website. Most will also request that you submit a description or outline of your pitch 2 - 4
weeks in advance with a minimum word count. Often times, there will be a 30-day period
following your article’s publication where you can not publish the content elsewhere.
If you find this to be too much of a time constraint, keep daily tabs with the help of Help A
Reporter Out (HARO).
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Product Description
Is your product’s description compelling enough to sell itself? Are you enticing your audience
with benefits or simply describing the features? The secret to product descriptions lies in
making your customer feel great about about their purchase before they’ve even made it. F
Follow these steps:
1. Know Your Customer – Contrary to belief, your product descriptions need to be
customer-focused, not product-focused. You need to know your target consumer inside
and out. What makes them laugh, cry, or buy? Also consider the content they like to
read and the types of sites they visit. All of this will help you understand how to engage
them. the right tone of voice that will engage her.
2. Turn Features into Benefits – No one understands your product like you do. No one,
especially new visitors, will understand the features like you do. Potential customers
are more concerned with how the product benefits them. How will this product improve
how they feel or what they? What problems will it solve? Go beyond just listing facts
and start telling visitors how those facts benefit them.
3. Be Brief – You can probably talk on and on about your product, but the product
description should not be the place to try it. Utilize what you learned from step 1 to craft
content using tone and vocabulary that appeals to your potential customer, but keep it
short. Hook readers with your headline, then use bullet point to attract attention to key
points.
4. Write and Rewrite – Now try your hand at putting everything together. Your first draft
may be rough around the edges but that’s what second and third drafts are for.
5. Optimize for Search Engines – This step should only be utilized if it doesn’t detract
from your content. Consider using key phrases in headlines, body, and images.
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Write an Outreach Blog Post
Outreach posts are an indirect way of making a sale. Depending on your most popular channel –
whether it’s social media, your blog, a print publication, etc. – use it as a means to feature influential
individuals in your niche. We specifically refer to outreach posts as an indirect sales tactic because
you should not ask for anything in return from those you feature. If the individual you featured finds the
content interesting or engaging, they may just re-share it with their larger audience.
In order to increase the likelihood of this happening, we recommend using your blog to create lengthier
content. Here are a few quick steps to get your started:
1. Choose a “smaller” influencer so that your post and social shares won’t get lost in a flooded
inbox.
2. Conduct a quick review of popular content the influencer has created as well as content they’ve
shared. Are you able to pick up any patterns?
3. If applicable, include this pattern in your own blog post. However, it’s most important you create
content that the influencer’s audience will find valuable or engaging. Don’t forget to include a
small snippet on the post’s relation to your product, and then link to it.
4. Once you’ve created the post, send a personal email to those you’ve featured and link them to
the post. You do not need to outwardly ask for anything in return.
Even if your post does not get reshared, the post itself contributes to your SEO efforts. Remember,
good content can go a long way in improving your site’s discoverability thanks to the crawling
algorithms of search engines.
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Make YouTube Videos
If you’re even considering adding video to your marketing strategy, then you have to be on
YouTube. No other video site comes close to the reach and influence of YouTube.
YouTube organizes its videos into user-hosted collections, also known as channels. Any
registered user may create a channel where they can publish original content or link to videos
in other channels.
With the current plethora of channels, how can you effectively create a channel to market your
business? We’ve got a few pointers:
● Get found.
Think of your YouTube channel as a TV Network: more video views = channel
popularity. However, the major benefit of a YouTube channel is you can improve the
odds of your videos getting discovered through on-site and Google search.
Optimizing your videos with relevant keywords in titles, tags, and descriptions can help
users discover your videos through related searches.
● Title
It’s best practice to place your keywords first and name second (e.g. Train Your
Cat to Fetch - Pawsome Cat Agency). Keep your title within 50 characters, but
make sure it describes the contents of your video.
● Tags
These are your video’s main keywords. YouTube may or may not place more
weight on your first few tags, so err on the side of caution and prioritize your
most important keywords. You’re allowed 120 characters, so take advantage
and try to use all of them.
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● Description
Just like any other content you create, you don’t want viewers to watch your
video, then never come back. Include a call-to-action in your description to
usher viewers to the next piece of content you own (e.g. another video, your
website, a landing page, etc.). Use the same keywords from your title in the
beginning of your description because the first 3 sentences will be displayed in
search. Don’t forget to include your website URL here.
● Closed Captioning
Captions not only aid the hearing-impaired, it’s an additional opportunity to
include keywords. You have the option of adding captions manually or using
YouTube’s services. We recommend adding them yourself since YouTube’s
automatic captioning service is not the most accurate.
● Cards (formerly annotations)
Ever notice those text bubbles that randomly pop up as you’re watching a
video? Cards typically contain important information that viewers shouldn’t miss
or calls-to-action (e.g. “Subscribe for more videos”). While the different types of
cards can be useful for highlighting key parts of your video, use them sparingly
or else they’ll become annoying.
● Thumbnails
YouTube automatically generates a thumbnail for you, but considering the
thumbnail’s impact on clicks, you may want to upload a custom thumbnail.
Choose high-contrast, captivating images that work well in small and large
formats. The best size for your thumbnail image is 1280 x 720 pixels.
● Create entertaining and engaging videos.
Now that you’ve got those guidelines down, let’s get to one of the most common
questions from new YouTube users: the different types of video content you can
produce.
● Intro Video: This video welcomes visitors to your channel and should provide
brief info about your, your business, and the videos you post.
● Tutorials: Show your audience how to do something.
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● Product Demos: Walk your viewers through a common use case for your
product.
● Testimonials: Interview a happy customer, or feature testimonials submitted by
customers.
● Behind the Scenes: Give your viewers a tour of your office or introduce them to
your team.
● Tips and Tricks: Share information that will help your prospects
● Presentations: If you have a conference or speaking event coming up, plan on
recording it to share with viewers.
● Webinars: Most webinar software will provide an option to record your session.
Share them to YouTube.
As you produce and test various types of content, carefully track which types best
resonate with your audience.
Keep in mind that videos uploaded directly through Facebook perform better than
YouTube videos shared to Facebook. Consider using Facebook’s own uploader if
you’d like to distribute there, and using YouTube for all your other social accounts.
● Get your videos promoted.
Distribution through your existing channels means you’re reaching the same number of
people within the same network. Promotions are a means to amplify your reach across
other networks for more views and new prospects. Here are several tips to grow your
subscriber list and views.
● YouTube provides enough tracking data for you to see which users are most
engaged with your content. Consider building a relationship with these fans
Engage to nurture possible brand ambassador relationships.
● Collaborate with other businesses in your niche to create co-branded content,
and agreeing to promote each other’s’ content.
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● Engage in a meaningful way with viewers by leaving thoughtful comments on
other people’s videos, and responding to comments left on yours.
● When you’re guest blogging, consider adding a link to a relevant video of yours
your brief bio.
● Share your videos with your email list and encourage them to subscribe to your
channel.
● Always use playlists to ensure that viewers are sent to another relevant video
once this one current one ends.
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Get Controversial
There are plenty of ways to generate controversy, but you should never pull a stunt that goes
against your company values or ruins your reputation. Yes, there is indeed a way to do
controversy the right way. Instead of getting yourself caught in a scandal, take a surprising
stance in a conversation or post interesting stats on an industry-related topic to get others
talking.
If you use social media at all, then you’ve most likely seen this type of post gather heated
conversations. An individual or business takes an unpopular or surprising stance on a topic,
garnering the attention of those who strongly agree or strongly disagree. It then grows into a
storm of tagging and sharing as more people get in on the debate.
This isn’t a tactic that will work for every business. If you do opt to try it, it’s important that
you’re ready to support your controversial position with facts, and that your stance never gets
personal. That may sound difficult--creating a division within someone’s behavior, beliefs, or
feeling of belonging without getting personal, but it can be done:
● Examine canons in your industry.
We don’t mean the explosive kind, but hopefully you’ll fire up some debates by taking a
stance against a general rule of your industry. Because this is a stance against a belief
of the industry, you’re not personally attacking anyone.
Also, if you can ride the coattails of an influential individual, trending topic, or fad, you
can gain additional exposure.
● Take a jab at something everyone in your industry does (and obviously that you
don’t do).
A smart way to take a stance on this is to deliver research and data as evidence. In this
case, you’re simply a messenger. Additionally, a debate with legitimate sources will go
much farther than one purely based on personal experiences.
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Start a Blog
This won’t be the first or the last time you’ll be encouraged to start a blog. This is because
blogs are a single function that serve multiple immensely useful purposes. It not only drives
traffic, but will continue to do so long after the content is published. It is also a channel for you
to express thought leadership and company values. A truly successful blog will build
community and loyal customers. What’re you waiting for?
● Know your customer.
The success of a blog will depend on how big of a following it builds as well as the type
of followers. Because your goal is to make a sale, these followers should largely be
your target buyers and existing customers. Getting to know them will help you create
better converting content.
● Create remarkable content.
Know your target audience but not sure where to start with content creation? Try these:
● Dig through old customer emails for questions that come up frequently and turn
you answers into a blog post.
● Survey your customers for content ideas.
● Create “how-to” posts to explain a common task for your customers.
● If you know there are resources your customers are often scrounging the
internet for, then create a list of dedicated sources.
● Blog on a regular basis.
A grave mistake business owners who start a blog often make is starting off with
enthusiasm and them completely coming to a standstill. It’s important to understand
that it will take several months to build up a bulk of resources, and blogs will rarely
provide immediate gratification.
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● Get subscribers.
It’s not likely that everyone who engages with your content is ready to buy immediately.
However, many will feel comfortable subscribing for more content if they like what they
see. It’s in your best interest to begin collecting emails in order to build out your
marketing list.
● Post your content to your social accounts, but be mindful of your audience on
each platform. Also take the time to craft unique posts for each platform. It’s
disappointing for a user to see the same post on Facebook, Twitter, and
LinkedIn.
● Did you mention another business in your blog post? Don’t forget to tag them
when you share on your social accounts.
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Make a Viral Video
We can tell you right off the bat that there’s no one definitive way to creating an organically
viral video. That’s not meant to discourage you. It simply means a few things:
● Don’t quit too soon because we’re all trying to figure out the magic formula.
● Don’t get too complicated--even babies can do this (see: “Charlie Bit Me”).
● Have fun. This is creative project and uniquely reflects your brand.
While we’ve got no secrets to reveal to you in this department, we can provide several
common features that many viral videos share. Let’s start with types. Viral videos typically fall
into the following categories based on emotions they evoke:
● Shock: “Well, I didn’t think he’d do that!”
● Awe: “How did he do that!?”
● Extreme: “Did you see how high he did that from!?”
● Happy: “Aww that’s so sweet of him.”
● Educational: “I learned to do that.”
It doesn’t end with falling under an intense emotion. As you’ve hopefully come to notice thus
far: if you build it, they will not come. The other piece is distribution.
Viral videos require viewers to do a lot of sharing, but this effect can occur a lot faster if your
videos get into the hands of the right people, namely “influencers.” Influencers are
authoritative figures in specific communities. They have a lot of followers, and therefore a lot
of sway. Their share is a validation to their followers that “yes, this video is pretty cool.”
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Guest Blog
Don’t be intimidated by the thought of guest blogging. You’ll find that many up-to-date blogs
are very open to accepting guest posts because it keeps their content inventory refreshing.
For you, the biggest benefit to guest blogging is reaching a new audience. Because you want
as many readers to be interested in your business as possible after reading your post, you
should aim for blogs that are related to your industry.
● Do a Google search.
As you come across relevant blogs, keep track of potential articles you could
pitch. Try the following phrases, and replace them with your industry specific
keywords:
● [Keywords] “submit a guest post”
● [Keywords] “guest post”
● [Keywords] “guest post by”
● [Keywords] “accepting guest posts”
● [Keywords] “guest post guidelines”
An important thing to note is how active the blog is. Don’t waste your time on a
blog that hasn’t been updated in awhile--this is typically an indicator that the
blog is not a critical source of traffic for the owner.
● Do your research.
Blog owners are protective of their blogs and their audience. The last thing you
want to do is send a generic pitch with a lackluster article that really doesn’t
resonate with the site and it’s audience. As someone who potentially has a lot to
gain from this relationship, you need to do your due diligence before submitting
a proposal.
● Become an engaged reader.
Follow the blog like a normal reader would and get to know the content.
What level of writing does it consist of? What type of content is being
covered? Is it theoretical or is it more specific? Knowing this will help you
tailor the structure of your own post.
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Additionally, engage with the community so that you’re not a strange face
when you express interest in writing. Comment, like, and share on social
channels to show that you understand and relate to the community.
● Look specifically for other guest posts.
Gauge the general sentiment for guest posts. Do they perform better or
worse than regular posts? If it consistently looks bad for guest bloggers,
this may not be worth your time.
Also pay attention to the names of guest bloggers and their background.
Are these awesome people you’d love to have your name aligned with?
Or are their backgrounds completely different from yours--to the point
where your article may be an outlier?
● Make your pitch.
You absolutely should abide by the following guidelines when pitching:
● Review the guidelines.
These pesky things exist for a reason, especially if this is a popular blog.
The owner probably gets a lot of pitches and has streamlined the
process. Don’t get penalized before you even get your foot in the door by
not following the rules.
● Send a personal email.
Don’t send a canned email. If they’re not worth your time writing a
personal email, then your email is not worth their time reading it. Add a
little effort to learn their name and indicate that you understand the
community they created.
● Explain why they should accept your proposal.
Don’t forget to tell them why you should be a guest blogger. This is not
the time to be shy--share links to posts you’ve published in the past that
received a lot of engagement.
● Write a great post.
You don’t have to be Hemingway to write a good post (there’s an app for that), but
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there are certain components in a blog post that separate the good from the
needs-improvement. Let’s get started:
● Does this guest post have to be the greatest thing you’ve ever written? That will
depend on the blog you’re submitting to. If that seems to be the type of content
hosted on the blog, then yes.
● This is not about your business. Refrain from promoting your store and
products. You will get the opportunity to add this stuff in your author bio.
● Indicate that you regularly follow the blog by crafting your post with similar
elements. Are there lots of images, quotes, or special formatting?
● Encourage readers to comment at the end of your post.
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Try Unique
One of the best ways to stand out and get your products flying off shelves is to be unique,
especially if you’re competing in a crowded space. SImilar to pulling a PR stunt, this doesn’t
have to be costly or embarrassing.
Recall French Connection’s hit t-shirts. The brand knew it hit marketing gold when they added
the letters “UK” for the United Kingdom to the company letters “FC.” The combined words
“FCUK” proudly displayed on t-shirts were scandalous enough to get people talking and
wanting their own.
Consider adding your own unique twist to your product.
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Press Release
Considering the limited number of popular news sources available versus the amount of news
available, the chances of your press release generating coverage are, realistically, low.
However, there are other benefits a press release can provide such as backlinks and showing
up in Google. Of course there is also the original also the possibility you get coverage and
sales, so for some businesses, it’s worth a shot. Here are a few helpful hints to tip the scales
in your favor:
● Make sure it’s news.
This may sound like a no-brainer, but you need content that people will want to read. If
the public isn’t going to care, the news sources definitely won’t care. What’s
newsworthy? Here are a few ideas:
● Store launch
● Product or service launch
● Major sales
● Receiving an award
● Major Partnerships
● New findings and stats
● Write a good press release.
The easy part about writing a press release is that it doesn’t need to be fluffy. Get right
to the point, add necessary detail, and you’re done. You need to provide relevant
information for journalists to cover your story. This is the breakdown of a press release:
● Heading: This needs to be brief but also grab the reader’s attention. Don’t
mislead with your headline.
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● Sub-heading: This is a single sentence that elaborates on the heading and tells
the reader what to expect in the body.
● Opening paragraph: The opening paragraph will contain the bulk of the news.
Include the pertinent details and why this is important news.
● Body paragraph: This may be more than one paragraph that goes into further
detail. You may include quotes, statistics, research details, and case study
excerpts here. If you would like to include links, use only 2 - 3.
● Conclusion: This is a summary of the article and should include a call to action
or further details on where more information can be found.
● Boilerplate: Include a brief company profile and a point of contact with their info.
● Submit it.
It may be a good idea to hire a local agency or an independent contractor. Those who
are in the PR industry will know the ins-and-outs of the industry, both online and offline,
better than you do.
If you’d rather forgo the professional help, there are many online portals that will let you
submit on your own, such as PRWeb or PRNewswire.
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Get Reviews
There are a few benefits to gathering reviews from your customers:
● Increase brand credibility and trustworthiness
● Word-of-mouth marketing (92% of customers trust recommendations from people not
ads)
● Constructive criticism
So let’s get started!
1. The best place to get started? Google Search. You’re looking for trusted reviewers
whose words have sway in the community you’re selling to. Try running these search
queries:
● [your product] blog, [your product] reviews
● [your product] sponsored post
● submit my product for review
2. From here, create list of sites you’d like to contact. Alternatively, you can also contact
them as you find them--just be sure to keep track of whom you’ve already reached.
When approaching a blogger, be genuine. Don’t send scripted emails. Instead, try
casual and conversational For example:
● Hi [first name]!
I’m Kim, and I recently started my own line of t-shirts. I would like to send you a
sample t-shirt for a product review. What are the steps involved?
Thanks!
Kim
Every product is different and every community built around that product type is
different. Unfortunately, this means we can’t give you a list of review sites to go to, but
with a little patience, we’re positive you’ll find influential bloggers.
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Plan for Mobile Ads
Mobile ecommerce offers ripe opportunities for internet marketers and conversion experts to
extend their product reach through both advertising and organic means.
However, It seems that many online store owners have yet to figure out potential customers
are viewing their site through a mobile browser. Failing to construct this experience will result
in lost business.
Here is an example of an excellent mobile ecommerce site:
Fortnum & Mason
● Simple navigation and display
● Shopping cart page fits everything on one screen
● Each product features a detailed description (not picture)
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Localize Your Offering
If you know your product has the most potential in a foreign market but have yet to localize
your site, then you’ve already missed out on sales. The first step into foreign markets is to
make your website available in local languages. While this level of customization demands
some software upgrades and constant attention, the benefits are just too great to ignore.
Customers are much more comfortable spending money when they can interact with your
store in their native language. This will open up new revenue streams that land-based stores
couldn’t possibly touch.
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Offer Free Help
Your site does not always have to focus on selling. Sometimes, the biggest selling technique
is to offer help at no charge. For example, if your latest item is a t-shirt with a black cat, link to
a helpful blog post on how to dress the shirt up or down. Inspiring different ways to wear the
item could make your viewer want the shirt even more.
Adding information in place of an upsell contributes to building trust and adding vital content
to your website.
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TOOLS
Jumpstarting your marketing efforts can be an uphill battle if you don’t have
the right tools in place to get the job done. Here are several tools to help
bolster your marketing strategy and how you can best use them.
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Design Your Niche
Ecommerce is a crowded space with a lot of big and tough competition. But that doesn’t make
it an impossible arena to enter. As a small business, you actually have a huge advantage over
retail giants – the ability to hyperfocus on a niche.
The business model for most major retailers simply can’t accommodate niche interests – their
profit comes from marketing to the mainstream. Use this to your advantage and cater your
services to untapped markets.
Now, the big question is where to find these goldmines. If you have an interest or hobby that
you know well, start there. Otherwise, you can simply test and validate ideas through
Facebook ads. Your big seller may just be sitting at the intersection of completely random
interests that no other entrepreneur has thought of. So head on over to the Facebook ads
platform, and let’s get started.
1. Pick two broad, unrelated ideas.
2. With the targeting tool, select the “all of these” interests option since you only want
your ad shown to those who like both interests you’re intersecting.
3. If there seems to be a promising audience behind the intersection, start crafting a few
concept ads to test out your new idea before committing. Alternatively if the audience is
non-existent or too broad, start again from the top and narrow your focus.
Here’s a great non-retail example from Clash Royal. While the game has nothing to do with
home security or vans, they’ve crossed the two in a humorous manner to reach a new
audience.
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Exit-Intent Offers
An average 2 out of 3 shoppers who reach your shopping cart page will bounce without
completing a purchase. To prevent this, implement an exit-intent tool where visitors are
bouncing most frequently.
By detecting mouse-movement, this useful tool can help detect when customers are about to
leave your store at the shopping cart page and show a last-minute offer (e.g. a discount code,
free gift, or free shipping). Exiting shoppers are elastic to lower prices and promotional offers.
A last-minute deal that offers lower prices or free shipping will make them seriously
re-consider, and actually purchase.
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Countdown Timers
Consumers take action when there’s a fear of missing out. Think of Black Friday or every
“limited-time only” sale that occurs nearly every month.
The savviest marketers understand this and even sell online accordingly. The most common
example of this tactic is the countdown timer. Press visitors to purchase before they have a
chance to further procrastinate and change their minds. Try a timer like the one below right
next to your product.
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Use Heatmaps
Heatmaps are visual web analytics tool that can help you improve conversions. They provide
insight into visitor behavior on your site – elements that capture their attention, areas that get
ignored, and things you need to adjust to accommodate. Here is one example of how you can
use heatmaps:
Click Tracking
These heatmaps indicate different levels of clicking activity on your page – ranges of red and
orange for high activity and ranges of green and blue for low frequency. An area that should
be in red is your call-to-action. If you find that it’s blue instead, try relocating it and or changing
its design in order to make that sale!
On occasion, you may find high clicking activity where there shouldn’t be any and it’s
important to understand why. If it’s an image of a product, ask yourself if it’s a popular product
people want or are they mistaking it for something else?
Other times, you may find that a number of people are clicking on links that take them to a
third party’s site or to a less important page such as your blog. If this is the case, eliminating
the links from the page can improve conversions.
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EMAIL
Your email approach has to demonstrate a deep understanding and respect
for your audience and their needs. In this chapter, we’ll focus on a few
effective tactics to add to your marketing strategy.
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Email Signatures
Most people overlook how often their email signatures and public profiles are read. Inject a
link to your store anywhere you can – from email signatures to Instagram profiles. This may
translate to marginal traffic but may very well result in a sale.
Here are bonus items you can also include:
● Social Media – You can either include a link to your personal accounts on sites such
as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, etc., or you can include links to your
company’s accounts.
● Your Blog – The helpful content on your blog may capture the attention of the visitor
for longer.
● News about Your Business – News that your company is doing exceptional work will
promote greater brand awareness.
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Referral
Referrals work in a manner similar to brand ambassadors. Someone is putting their reputation on the
line to back your brand. This is an act of confidence in your brand and service so the chances of just
anyone willing to do it are unlikely. Instead, try this:
1. Put together 2 lists: your customers and those who have interacted with you or your customer
service.
2. Send a personal email or call each person on these lists. First, ask for feedback on their their
experience. Next, ask if they can refer you to anyone who may be interested in your product.
3. Follow up with these referrals by email. Use the address line to immediately address that you
were referred by so and so.
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Industry Mailing Lists
Are there free newsletters related to your product? Perhaps you have a tshirt design that
speaks to a very specific community that also runs a monthly newsletter. Many publications
like this constantly look for content contributors. Reach out politely with your offer – be sure to
include your product page and your passion or experience on the topic.
For example, Indie Game Magazine is the only online magazine of its kind, publishing reviews
and news on indie and casual games only. They openly accept content submissions and
suggestions.
Are there publications like this available to your target audience?
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Email Your Pre-Launch List
Creating and maintaining email lists will become an important part of your marketing efforts
because it helps you establish rapport with your customers and fans. Therefore, your
pre-launch email list is the best place to start as you’re getting ready to open up shop. This is
because the names on this list have chosen to enroll, indicating intent and interest – a barrier
you’d have to get over if you started elsewhere.
To share an exclusive announcement with this group, use a service such as MailChimp. If you
have not built a pre-launch list and can’t fully do it in time, you can move on to the next tactic.
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Develop E-Mail Lists
There has been debate over the effectiveness of email marketing, with many chalking it up to
a waste of time. This is simply untrue. Those who find email marketing ineffective may be
doing it incorrectly by purchasing email lists or simply sending irrelevant content.
Users who opt into email lists are more responsive, more connected to your business, and
more likely to purchase from you. This means every subscriber is a win, whether you’re
gaining one per week, one per day, or one per hour.
If you have yet to work on building your email list, or you've run out of ideas, here are 25
simple ways to do so.
● People subscribe to read more content when it’s awesome, so create amazing email
content. You can curate cool content from around the web, but preferably tailor your
content to the popular stuff that initially got you the sign-ups.
● Make it easier for your subscribers to share emails they like. Include share CTA’s in
your email.
● Run a contest or giveaway and have entrants include their emails at sign-up. Increase
their chances of winning when they share the contest with friends.
● Take advantage of your company’s email signatures and add a link that leads
prospects to a landing page where they can subscribe.
● What are issues that your customers face frequently? Provide helpful information in the
form of an offer and require interested visitors to provide an email before they can
download it.
● Use your social media outlets to promote existing giveaways or lead-gen offers.
● When guest blogging, encourage readers who may be interested in reading more of
your content to subscribe to your blog. Remember to link to a form where they can
submit their email addresses.
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● Collect emails at live events such as trade shows or speaking engagements.
● Not planning on attending an event? Host your own (e.g. meetup, hackathons, lunch
and learn, etc.), and collect email addresses at registration.
● Encourage any prospects currently receiving direct mail from you to opt in for email
communication instead.
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Mystery Discounts
Here’s a quick tactic to get your subscribers clicking! Let email subscribers know that they’ve
received a discount in a specified range, but they won’t find learn the amount until they click
through to your site.
Offer a deal good enough and subscribers won’t just click – they might just start buying.
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COMMUNICATION
Communicating your brand’s positioning to your target audience is the
foundation of any marketing strategy. Therefore, it is key to develop strong
messages that will connect with your customers instantly and effectively to
highlight the benefits and advantages of your business.
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Sell Your “About” Section
As the group with the largest spending power, Millennials are increasingly interested in
products for more than just utility. They want to purchase from companies with a compelling
history or cause. Take advantage of the space your “about” page offers to tell your story.
Your company story should highlight different elements for different purposes. The people in
your story will let your customers know they can trust you to fully provide the product or
service you offer. The narrative and context will render their support if your convictions align.
Both components are absolutely necessary.
Here are 5 ways to optimize your 'about' page to engage your customers and increase sales:
1. Keep It Simple – Writing your 'about' page is not as difficult as people make it out to
be. You don't need to make a mission statement nor do you need to outline a list of
company values, and you are certainly not making a pitch to get your business funded.
Simply let the customer know who you are and how you got here.
2. Share the Whole Picture – Your company story is exactly that – a story. So structure
it in order: past, present and future. Customers want to hear what you did before
starting the company and what paths led you to where you are now. Then, they
certainly want to know where the company is headed and that you aren't going to
abandon the product they love. Telling the whole story can leave many feeling inspired.
3. Show off Your Team – Don't be afraid to feature the talent behind your business.
Customers want to see who packages their boxes and answers their phone calls – it
makes your entire operation more human and more relatable.
4. Don’t Skimp on the Facts – People love to share facts about the products they use.
Your “about” page is definitely a great place to give them something to talk about. A
simple "facts" section can help highlight your business into easily shareable
statements.
5. Show and Tell – Use photos, videos, illustrations, and quotes to value to your story.
However, avoid simply throwing in a photo gallery because you can – do it because it
makes sense within the narrative you’re crafting.
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Money Back Guarantee
If a visitor does not trust your brand, chances are unlikely that they will make a purchase from
you. There are several things we’ve mentioned in previous chapters that will largely resolve
this issue but one of the biggest things you can offer is a money-back guarantee.
By offering a guarantee, you immediately and directly address the fear that visitors go through
– that they will be swindled and never see their hard earned money.
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“Free” Giveaway
“A $100 value for free!”
There aren’t many words that sound better to a consumer’s ears than “free.” As a business
owner, you too should be delighted at “free” instead cringing because, if done properly, it will
create more sales at little to no cost.
Let the savvy marketer in you shine through to put a clever spin on something you should
already be doing, and then demonstrate the tremendous value of your “bonus.” Here are
sample “incentives” you can offer:
● VIP Customer Service
● Free Returns
● Free Consultations
● Email Support
If you choose to refrain from marketing these items as “free,” do include them as your general
service offering.
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Less Choices
In business, we tend to believe that it’s important to give consumers as many choices as
possible. Yet that may be the very reason that’s stopped a potential buyer from purchasing
from you. In a study on personality processes and individual differences, professors Sheena
Iyengar and Mark Lepper found that people are more likely to make a decision when
presented with a limited set of choices versus an extensive array. Moreover, participants of
the study actually reported greater satisfaction with their selection when their options had
been limited.
Carmine Gallo, a communications coach for some of the world’s most admired brands,
encouraged retailers to pay more attention to the "Rule of Three" because our short term, or
“active,” memory can only hold roughly three "chunks" of information at a time. When you
offer too many choices, you risk overwhelming and frustrating consumers.
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Establish Trust and Security
With headlines covering what seems to be a new hack every week, it’s hard for consumers to
fully trust transactions online. This lumps your business into that group as well. You have to
concern yourself with the following:
● Increasing motivation
● Reducing anxiety
● Reducing friction
The trustworthiness of your site will be a major factor in the success of your online business;
here’s how to start establishing that trust.
● Openly display security stickers.
Security companies will often times hand out stickers and tags so their customers can
display it in the open. While this is a great advertising tactic for them, it’s also a
message to outsiders that the building is protected. This establishes a sense of
security for customers. Your site should work in this same way. Have a clean storefront
and openly display the security measures you offer.
● Provide a safe transaction process.
Accept payments through a trusted service like Stripe, Paypal, or Authorize.net. These
companies are recognized for their work with retailers large and small, and customers
are far more likely to complete their purchase knowing their information is handled by
one of these systems.
● Be accessible.
The last thing a scammer would want is to put a face to their illegitimate operation. By
easily making yourself accessible, you will give customers plenty of peace of mind
when they debate making a purchase.
● Use customer testimonials.
92% of consumers trust recommendations from friends and family over advertisers.
Taking a cue from this statistic, your customers will undoubtedly turn to others to get
reassurance about purchasing from you. Show off customer testimonials on your social
channels.
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Secure Your Site
In order for customers to purchase, they need to trust your site. Even if everything looks good
with your online store and visitors are streaming in by the hundreds, you could ruin it all by
failing to get an SSL certificate.
At a time when cybersecurity and information theft are constant news headlines, consumers
have gotten better at recognizing red flags such as a missing SSL certificate. An SSL (secure
socket layer) certificate protects your customers' payment information and prevents your site
from cyber-attackers. It encrypts the sections of your site that collect sensitive information,
rendering it useless to unauthorized parties. Visually, it appears as a padlock symbol to the
left of the URL, and the URL will start with "https" instead of "http." In the absence of those
hallmarks, most people will assume the worst and immediately bounce from your store.
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Simplify Checkout
Ecommerce checkouts follow a similar and predictable pattern, but an overwhelming majority
want customers to sign up before they can complete the purchase. As important as getting
more customer information is, account registration hinders conversions for customers who
don’t have time or simply just don’t want to sign up.
Allowing guest checkout not only saves your conversions, but it also communicates to
customers that you care about their convenience that you would sacrifice an opportunity to
rope them in further.
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PAID
Organic vs. paid or incentivized acquisition are often approached by
separate teams utilizing different strategies, but it’s important to remember
that both are complementary forms of marketing. Together, these tactics will
generate more leads in concert than individually.
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Freebies
At first glance, freebies can sound like a big waste of money. However, with a little investment
and patience, freebies are guaranteed to boost sales. Here are a few successful examples
you can assess for inspiration according to the results desired.
● Result: Customers will pay more for a freebie.
We make plenty of assumptions about an item based on its price tag. If the cost is
cheap, we assume the item is cheap. Following that logic, one would assume that a
free item would be deemed completely worthless. And yet a study in the Journal of
Consumer Research found that freebies gifted for an expensive or luxury purchase,
were valued as a higher quality products with consumers willing to pay more for the
item on its own.
But...that sounds backwards! The explanation has to do with how we process and
assign value. When given a product with an inexpensive price tag, you have a natural
anchor to assign its value. But without a price tag, such as a freebie, we have to look
elsewhere for cues to the product’s value. Research indicates that if the primary item
(the one we paid for) is an expensive or luxury product, then the buyer associates the
freebie’s value to the primary item’s price tag.
To fully utilize this information, consider pricing your products to offset the cost of
giving away freebies. However, your pricing must still ultimately make sense – whether
it’s because customers are paying for better quality, exclusive brand name, or both.
● Result: Customers think you’re gifting a lot more than you actually are.
In the previous chapter, we discussed examining areas where you’re already
over-delivering in order to market it as a bonus. For this tactic, we take a similar
approach in creating a greater perceived value than the actual giveaway by taking
advantage of the general public’s neglect to do math.
In experiments conducted for a Journal of Marketing study, researchers gave
participants the option of receiving a 35% discount off of their lotion purchase or
receiving 50% more lotion for free. Even though the price discount was a better deal,
more people picked the latter.
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The problem appears to be that consumers are generally neglectful when it comes to
calculating percentages, opting instead to rely on emotional factors to guide their
decisions.
In order to test and apply this, offer your visitors two bonus options – one marginally
better than the other and leave it to them to make the choice. If your shoppers
consistently choose to get more product for free instead of simply reducing their
out-of-pocket costs.
● Result: More customers buy in order to receive a gift.
Mystery gifts have the potential to double a customer’s purchase likelihood. However, if
applied to the wrong type of product, shoppers can be up to 50 percent less likely to
purchase.
From a study in the Journal of Marketing, researchers from the University of Miami
found that free mystery gifts accompanying a purchase greatly increases the chances
of purchase, but only on items that trigger more emotion (called “affect”). On the other
hand, if the product triggers less emotion and more cognition (called cognitive), e.g. a
vacuum cleaner, this strategy may backfire because shoppers may perceive the gift will
be a boring item.
If your products are in the right market for offering mystery freebies, you may even be
able to get away with offering smaller gifts so long as the element of surprise is
maintained. The success of this method relies much more on uncertainty, fun, and
delight.
● Result: Customers start generating free traffic for you.
Are you familiar with “word of mouth” marketing? With 92% of consumers more likely to
trust recommendations from friends and family over advertising, word of mouth
marketing becomes a must for businesses, regardless of size.
Realizing the power of customers saying nice things, companies like Procter & Gamble
found the easiest method to get customers raving: free stuff. An article in the Journal of
Marketing found that getting free stuff got people talking about it 20% more while those
who received a freebie related to the product talked about it 15% more. Compare that
to recipients of coupons and rebates, who showed no change.
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If you’re interested in encouraging shout-outs for your freebies, it won’t hurt to ask.
Include a quick blurb in your packaging or emails with a snippet such as “We hope you
love this gift! Let us know and tag us in your selfie!”
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YouTube Ads
If you decide to take advantage of YouTube ads, you’ll join all 100 of the top global brands. As
YouTube explains, “We're...seeing strong growth in new advertisers adopting TrueView, as
the number of advertisers using TrueView grew 45% in 2014.”
You may be wondering why these statistics matter. If top global brands continue to get
onboard or return to the same format, it’s a good indicator that spending ad money may be
worth it here.
YouTube’s advertising resource page is a good place to learn more about the advertising
capabilities of the network. The following information is especially important:
● “Any video uploaded to YouTube can be an ad. Video ads appear before other
videos on YouTube, beside playing videos and in search results.”
● “You only pay when someone engages with your ad. If they skip it before 30
seconds (or the end) you don’t pay a cent.”
● “YouTube has a variety of targeting options that help you reach the right
customer for your business. You can target by age, gender, location, interests,
and more.”
● “YouTube has built-in Analytics that make it easy to see how your ad performs.
You can also make adjustments to your ad at anytime, and run multiple ads at
once to see which works best.”
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Instagram Retargeting
98% of visitors to your site will leave without making a purchase. However, those who return
thanks to retargeting ads are 70% more likely to make a purchase.
Until now, we’ve only discussed organic growth because Instagram bridges the social gap
between the personal and business space extremely well. As you approach the later stages of
Instagram marketing however, retargeting with Instagram ecommerce ads can help support
your organic efforts.
Step 1: If you have yet to install a Facebook Pixel on your site, head over to the
Facebook Power Editor to grab a pixel code that you can to place between the head
tags of your site’s code.
Step 2: From the Facebook Pixel tab click “Create Audience” and select “Website
Traffic.” Then enter the details that match your Instagram audience such as visitors to
your site within the last 30 days.
Step 3: From the Power Editor click “Create Campaign,” then add a name and
objective for the campaign.
Step 4: Set your budget and schedule, then “edit the audience” so that you only target
visitors who have previously visited your site. Next, you need to specify Instagram as
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the required “placement” for this particular campaign. If this is your first time advertising
on Instagram, you will be prompted to connect your Instagram account with Facebook
ads.
Step 5: Abide by Facebook ad guidelines and submit only images with the
recommended image size of 1080x1080px. If you include text, it should not take up
more than 20% of the space. For more information refer to [Facebook’s Instagram Ads
Guide](https://www.facebook.com/business/ads-guide?tab0=Instagram).
Step 6: Review, then launch!
Optimizing ads are an entirely different can of worms that will require another post. For now,
experiment with your ad creatives and targeting.
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Offer a Group Discount
Offering group discounts guarantees you two things: a minimum profit and increased brand
awareness.
The math is easy for this one. Consider the amount of profit you typically make from one sale.
Now consider how many guaranteed sales would it take to help you feel comfortable with
offering an attractive discount? The difficult part here will actually be aligning the numbers so
that you’re earning a good profit and your customers feel confident in sharing and getting their
friends on board.
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Remarketing
Advertising is not always about acquiring new customers – often times, it’s about remarketing
to the average 98% of your visitors who bounce without making a purchase. According to a
study by remarketing vendor Criteo, website visitors who are retargeted with display ads are
70 percent more likely to convert.
And if that’s not convincing enough, check out some of these other great benefits.
● Reduced CPI
● Better CTR
● Therefore: improved ROI
● More precise targeting
● Increased brand awareness at lower costs
Combine these benefits with the ease of setting up a remarketing campaign and it comes as
no surprise that plenty of marketers have hopped on board the remarketing train.
The ease of setup is thanks to the number of platforms available that streamlines the process.
Here are several great remarketing platforms to help you hook bounced visitors and generate
more sales.
● AdRoll: Reach your customers wherever they may be thanks to AdRoll’s partnerships
with advertising platforms like Facebook, Google, and Yahoo.
● G4 Native: These guys claim to consistently deliver post-click ROI of up to $8 for every
$1 spent by their clients.
● Retargeter: Their service is aimed at larger volume sites (think 30,000 unique monthly
visits)
● Google: A simple solution for anyone comfortable with Google’s AdWords platform.
However, you will be limited to the Google Display Network.
As you can see, there are many remarketing options available. Depending on your needs,
one of the platforms we listed may just do the trick.
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Instagram Paid Shout-Outs
With many businesses still trying to figure out Instagram, and Instagram still figuring out an optimal
sales experience, you may need to hash together several tools to make this particular tactic work.
Let’s start by clearing the air: Instagram ads are different from sponsoring an Instagram post. Where
sponsored ads will display under your brand and target an audience of your choice, sponsoring a post
is the act of incentivizing a popular account to endorse your product. We will be talking about the latter.
There are helpful solutions like Famebit, where you can post a listing that Instagram influencers can
apply to. On the other hand, you can go directly into Instagram and start searching hashtags for
popular accounts that consistently post content around your area of interest. Direct Message (DM)
these accounts to work out details on featuring your product.
In order to track the return on this tactic, give each account a unique URL or coupon code to share
with their followers.
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Host a Giveaway
Giveaways are always been a great way to create buzz around a new product. Some may
argue that giveaways will only incentivize interaction from people looking for a deal. However,
if done correctly, the viral nature of a contest can pay off with a lot of initial traffic and word of
mouth, expanding the presence and knowledge of your store and its products.
There are great apps available to help enhance your giveaway and expand your reach by
giving participants contest entries based on them sharing your store/products on social media.
Run your own contest or check out ViralSweep and Gleam to get your contest started.
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Host a Contest
If you’re not sold on the idea of hosting a giveaway because of its one-sided nature, running a contest
can promise more fruitful returns. As the host, contests give you the power to ask for more
commitment from your entrants through submissions such as designs for your next tshirt or a creative
tagline for your store. Contests not only get customers involved through proactive participation but can
also contribute content.
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Try Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a sales strategy in which you, as a business, reward one or more
affiliates for each visitor or customer acquired by the affiliate's own marketing efforts. While
getting someone to do the heavy lifting of marketing sounds great, it comes with a cost. How
can you quickly assess if an affiliate program right for you?
● Check your competition.
The easiest way is to check whether your competitors are running one. You can go
directly to their website where affiliate programs are often openly linked in the footer. If
you find that your competitors do indeed offer one, take a look at their commission
rates to gauge what affiliates expect in your industry.
● Weigh the pros and cons.
Affiliate programs give you access to a talented sales force, and because it’s
performance-based marketing, you only pay when they sell. In addition to that, you get
to set the commission for those sales.
But affiliate programs have their drawbacks. Your affiliates will likely compete with your
paid-search marketing efforts. Also, you can't fully control the message of your brand
exposure – this is the case if you work with affiliates who don’t play by the rules and
will rely on sketchy tactics like email spamming, false advertising, trademark
infringement, and other low-value practices. You must set strict promotional guidelines
and carefully monitor your affiliate partners to ensure that they remain in compliance
with them.
● Get started.
If you’d like to get started, your best bet may be to sign up with an affiliate network. It’s
possible to create your own network but it will be time consuming and requires better
understanding of how this strategy works. Try one of these affiliate networks:
● ShareASale
● Commission Junction
● LinkConnector
● Clickbank
● PayDotCom
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Work with LinkedIn
Most people think “B2B” when they think of marketing on LinkedIn. While they’re not wrong,
that perception closes a lot of opportunities – behind every business profile sits a consumer
with favorite brands, hobbies, and interests. In addition, much of LinkedIn’s audience is
college-educated with 2x the buying power of the average web audience. So before you close
the door on LinkedIn marketing, it might be worthwhile to try a few of these tips.
● Earn high-quality engagement with powerful targeting capabilities. Through
Sponsored Posts, Linkedin offers brands the opportunity to target consumers based
educational institution, occupational seniority, and LinkedIn groups they may belong to.
● Avoid going too far down the rabbit hole. Be careful that you don’t get too granular
with targeting or else you’ll completely miss out on potential new followers.
● Understand and work with the larger LinkedIn demographic – highly affluent and
educated users. Luxury and lifestyle brands or brands with high-end products should
take special notice.
● Don’t forget the reason why LinkedIn users flocked there in the first place. The
majority use the platform for professional development and job hunting. If
applicable, use content that pertains to to those two things.
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Coupon Codes
Whether you conduct all or only part of your business online, coupon codes remain an
excellent method of attracting new customers as well as reengaging old ones – who doesn’t
love a discount? However, as is with any promotion, be careful that you don’t offer too many
too frequently or you’ll join a race to the bottom.
Here are several different ways you can use coupon codes:
● Reengage customers.
Customers who have made a purchase once are more likely to come back and make a
second purchase versus a completely new visitor to your site. In order to maximize
your interaction with a customer, think of opportunities where a coupon would make
sense. For example, after they’ve completed a purchase, offer a discount they can use
on their next purchase as a thank you.
● Attract new customers.
This is where your hard work participating in forums and engaging on social media
comes in handy. Offer an exclusive discount within the specfic platform and tailor it to
those users.
● Upsell buyers.
The perfect opportunity to make an extra sale is while customers are already making a
purchase. Because they understand the product’s current price, offering an additional
product at a discounted rate may prove effective.
● Move customers from the “consideration” stage to the “buying” stage.
Customers often push purchase decisions off when there is no immediate need for it.
So create one! Offer a discount that expires soon.
● Build your marketing base.
Because you’re giving something away, don’t be afraid to ask for something small in
return such as an email address or a like on Facebook.
● Convert offline opportunities.
Add your coupon code to physical promotional collateral and pass them out.
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● Meet demand.
Add your coupon to sites that specifically house coupon codes for users to search.
Many shoppers often turn here to scout for good deals. Here are a few that may
interest you:
● RetailMeNot – For submissions, go here.
● Slickdeals.net – This deal sharing site has been around since 1999 and builds a
community around sharing deals. You can post your coupon in the forums.
Please observe and respect forum rules.
And one last note: don’t forget to track your efforts and the results!
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Sponsor an Event
Large corporations continue to pour billions into sponsorship budgets every year because
their branding benefits from the affiliation, heightened awareness among target audiences,
and an overall increase in positive perception of the brand. However, just because mega
corporations take advantage of large sponsorship opportunities, does not mean those are the
only kinds available. Small businesses can offer, arguably more effective, sponsorships to
smaller types of events.
Here’s how you can make the most of your sponsorship so that it leads to some serious sales.
● Pick the right thing to sponsor.
As a sponsor, you have plenty of options far and wide. Instead of leaving it up to
chance, you should consider an event that not only resonates with your brand but one
that is also attended by your target consumers.
Once you express interest, the offers will come flooding in. Instead of randomly
selecting just any event, it’s critical you assess if the right attendees will be present –
attendees that will make loyal customers and raging evangelists. Here’s a simple
recipe for picking the right events:
● Values: Don’t pick an event that misrepresents your brand. People remember
sponsors and the last thing you want is to be associated in a way that negatively
impacts your business reputation. Sponsoring an event is meant to build and
spread your reputation in a positive light.
● Price: While you’re a sponsor, you’re still a small business. You don’t want to
take out another mortgage just to sponsor an event. Consider how much of an
opportunity you gain from this before signing a check.
● People: Are the attendees part of your target audience? Will they ever be? Are
they ready to make a purchase? Will they ever?
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● Be prepared...to show off!
Once you’ve picked an event, this is your time to shine. Sponsors are usually given a
time and place to demo their wares or services. If you’re an ecommerce, don’t make
the mistake of showing up with just a banner of your logo. Bring products to demo or
sell. If this isn’t feasible, have laptops and tablets out where people can browse and
potentially purchase.
This part is important. As you’re preparing your materials, remember to create unique
URLs or discount codes to measure as much of your efforts as possible.
● Build your network
You’re gonna meet a lot of people at these things so seize the moment and get them to
like and follow your social pages, or even fork over their email address to join your
mailing list. Of course this means you’ll need to turn on the charm a little. Be sincere,
polite, and engaging.
A great trick to attract more attention to your table is to hand out freebies. Think
stickers, buttons, sweets, etc. If it had your logo on it, more people will want to find your
table as your guests walk around.
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Develop a Loyalty Program
Today’s consumers have more options than ever. In order to stand out in a crowded digital
marketplace, seek to differentiate yourself instead of participating in a race to the bottom.
While loyalty programs have yet to go rampant with ecommerce businesses, we’ve witnesses
promising results from various industries such airlines, hotels, and credit cards.
But loyalty programs don’t just end at acquisition. The nature of a loyalty program encourages
existing customers to repeat purchases. Forrester Research indicates that loyalty customers
purchase 13% more. Reading between the lines, that means more purchases and more site
traffic for less work.
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Shopping Engines
Shopping engines can deliver quick and immediate business but it’s important to consider the
pros and cons of listing your items here. The type of user searching so specifically for your
item will most likely be a bargain hunter, and the types of businesses that end up here can
offer the competitive pricing bargain hunters crave. This is a race to the bottom.
There are two circumstances where competing in this arena makes sense: you have product
you’re willing to offer competitive pricing for or you have a truly unique item that doesn’t have
competition.
If you’re keen on trying, then you’ll have a lot of options to evaluate. Some will yield a better
ROI than others. What works for one person may not work for you, so experiment. Keep in
mind:
● Sites with a lot of competitors can give you a better picture of its traffic, but now
you’ll have competition.
● Less competition may mean it’s not the traffic you need, but you’ll also more
likely get the sale if there are any.
● Don’t get discouraged too easily. Every revenue channel requires time and
optimization.
Ultimately, your choices will boil down to free or paid. We’ve listed major providers for both
groups:
● Free Comparison Shopping Engines
● PriceRunner: Good for targeting European and UK audience even if
you’re outside of EU.
● DealOz: DealOz is free for advertisers except for their books category,
which they charge $.0.35 per click (temporarily $0.45 until 10/10/2016).
You can find more information on their cost-per-click here.
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● Cost-Per-Click (CPC) Comparison Shopping Engines
● Google Shopping: Google Shopping is consistently a top performer,
generating more clicks and sales for retailers. Products submitted to
Google Shopping are displayed alongside standard Google search
results.
● Nextag: Prior to Google Shopping, Nextag generated the highest
revenue and conversions for paid comparison shopping engines. You can
list products, event tickets, real estate, and even travel bookings.
Additionally, Nextag’s bidding model allows merchants to bid at the brand
level.
● PriceGrabber: PriceGrabber features deals, coupons, and weekly
specials. Its bidding model does not have a minimum CPC requirement,
which means retailers can bid as low as $0.01. There’s also the
advantage of sending product lists to Yahoo Shopping and Market
Report, a research tool that tracks consumer purchase and product
pricing trends.
● eBay Commerce Network: Formerly Shopping.com, the eBay Commerce
Network bidding model provides greater flexibility with category level
bids. They typically generate high traffic – in part because their merchant
listings also receive exposure on Google Shopping.
● Shopzilla: For consumers, Shopzilla is a paid shopping site that highlights
similar products from various retailers. For merchants, Shopzilla is a
bidding tool that allows retailers to zero-bid ($0.00) on products that
convert poorly. Additionally, they’re a Bizrate partner, which means
merchants gain the benefit of Bizrate reviews on both Shopzilla and
Google.
● Become: Become is a smaller shopping engine which aggregates
research on products to include expert reviews, consumer reviews,
articles, buying guides, and forums.
● Pronto: Pronto is a user-friendly site for shoppers to find current sales
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and provides buying guides for popular purchases.
● Bing Product Ads: Similar to Google Shopping. Bing Product ads appear
on Bing search results with product details and images.
● Amazon Product Ads: Often found on product detail pages, search, buy
boxes, and tower ads, these ads benefit from traffic on Amazon’s
Marketplace. However, unlike the Amazon Marketplace, merchants can
link shoppers to an external web store.
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Reddit Ads
Redditors have an infamous reputation for crushing marketers who venture a bit too far. The
notoriety may serve you well though, considering the potential upsides of the Reddit
community: targeting users who have higher purchase intent for a fraction of the price
anywhere else. All it takes is understanding Reddit and being respectful of the community’s
rules.
Here’s a walkthrough and best practices for running an ad on Reddit.
1. Know the pros and cons.
The major value in Reddit lies in the millions of interest groups called subreddits. Not
only does this make targeting incredible, Redditors themselves have proven time and
time again that they’re keen on their opinions are influential.
But that can also lead to potential problems for you. Redditors do not appreciate
gimmicky sales tricks. Just try selling a crappy product too hard and you’ll regret even
creating a Reddit account.
2. Get the basics.
Your campaign (1 promotion on 1 subreddit) gets prime real estate at the top of the
page and remains there for a set period of time. All Reddit ads are purchased on a
CPM basis. If you run into questions at any point, Reddit offers a list of FAQs here.
3. Set up a separate ad account.
Since your Reddit browsing and activity history is public information, avoid running
campaigns through your personal account. Instead, create a new account for your
business.
4. Focus on subreddits.
Placing your ad on Reddit’s front page won’t make much sense unless you have the
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money to go the generalized route. Because the front page covers every category of
news and happenings, the users who frequent it are less intent on buying and much
less intent on buying a niche product. Focus instead on the valuable subreddits.
There are countless subreddits, even when you’re looking for a specific interest. In
order to target just the cream of the crop, you’ll need to set a standard level of
qualification. We recommend starting with these 3
1. Correct interest group
2. Minimum page-views to meet your spend limit
3. Appropriate content contributions
● Vetting Interest Groups
Anyone can create a subreddit. While this leaves you with a lot of options to
target, it can also leave you with too many options to target.
To minimize the work of sifting through so many communities, Reddit offers
“bundles” of subreddits, grouped by interest. Alternatively you can also use a
tool like RedditList.
These are only two of the resources you have access to, but we don’t
recommend completely automating the vetting process. Reddit’s combination of
anonymity and unique interests can take conversations to darker places that you
may not necessarily want your brand associated with.
● Minimum View Requirements
Every campaign has a minimum of $5 with CPM at $.75. Since you can
purchase up to 3 months out, you’ll need a subreddit that has at least 6600
pageviews over 3 months.
If the subreddit is particularly small, it may be tough to gauge. However, you can
get an idea of its popularity with the stat located on the right sidebar of all
subreddits.
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In order to reach 6600 views per month, a subreddit needs at least 73 visits per
day. If this stat counter is consistently low, then chances are you probably won’t
get the 6600 page views.
● Type of Content
This is where many marketers have gotten burned. Even though you’ve targeted
your interests, found an actively viewed subreddit, and submitted your
interest-related post, that won’t put you in the safe zone yet. It’s important to pay
attention to what’s actually posted before adding your own content. Some
subreddits have no 3rd party submissions whereas others are purely Q&A.
Tailor your post to the top performers.
5. Run a Campaign
Step 1: Start by visiting Reddit Advertising, and click “Create an Ad.”
Step 2: You’ll be taken to a new screen. Follow the instructions to build your ad.
Step 3: Choose your targeting or and/or create more ads.
6. Monitor and Optimize
9. Monitor, Analyze, Test, Iterate!
After launching your ad, be sure to check and respond to comments. Check your traffic
quality and run more tests to improve!
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Polyvore Promoted Products
If you’ve used a comparison shopping engine or Google Shopping before, then Polyvore’s
cost-per-click program will feel familiar when it comes to campaign optimization and the
format of search results.
As is with Facebook and Google’s ad platforms, a product feed is sent to Polyvore that
contains the title, description, price, and other relevant product data for the brand’s catalog.
When a viewer clicks on ads for products that pique their interest, they are taken directly to
the brand or retailer’s website where they can complete their purchase.
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Try Twitter Promos
Market Probe International found that 72% of those who follow small businesses are more
likely to purchase from them in the future. Sounds too good to be true doesn’t it? The good
news is that it indeed is true. The bad news is that amassing followers the traditional way is
not necessarily easy. Sure, you can buy them but realize those are empty followers with no
interest in you. Where do you go from here?
Luckily, Twitter comes with a powerful promotions platform to get your brand and your
products in front of the right Twitter users. The powerful piece of Twitter’s promotions is the
targeting options it gives you: gender, geography, interest, timeline keywords, and search
results keywords. Let’s get started.
Promotions on Twitter are broken down into a series of Goals:
Each of these goals will create a different type of promotion – Promoted Tweets, Lead Cards, and
Promoted Accounts.
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Promoted Tweets
Promoted tweets will show up naturally in the user’s timeline environment, only distinguished
by a small label at the bottom of the tweet. Users can then engage with your sponsored tweet
as they would with a normal tweet via favorites, replies, and retweets. This format is
particularly useful for reaching more users to drive conversation or more traffic to your site.
Because the goal here is engagement, you can try some of the following:
● Ask a question: Whether it’s for your own research or brand awareness, ask engaging
and fun questions geared at your target niche to grab the attention of devoted
enthusiasts. Additionally when other Twitter users see your conversations, you have
the opportunity to begin building a closer, more trusting relationship with them.
● Offer a coupon: If you’re willing to offer a deal for one of your more popular offerings,
tweeting a coupon code is a great way to bring more attention to your store.
● Introduce a contest: Promoting a contest through Twitter can help you gain more
entrants as well as generate more buzz around your awesome contest and prizes.
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Lead Cards
Lead cards visually resemble a tweet but instead of retweets, favorites, or replies, they have a
call to action. This format is particularly useful for driving specific conversions e.g. app installs
Promoted Accounts
Twitter actively suggests new accounts for its users to follow. Promoting your account can get
get your profile in front of new users.
Twitter also offers promotions at enterprise levels such as Promoted Trends and Promoted
Moments. Those are considerably more pricey and may not be appropriate for a smaller
business just testing the waters.
Manage Your Twitter activity
Finding time to manage your engagements on Twitter is important, but especially so when
you’re investing money to get your brand in front of new users. Make the most of your efforts
by responding to tweets, mentions, and direct messages in a timely manner (instantly if
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possible).
And, as is with any other marketing effort: keep testing!
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Buy Banner Ads
There is a lot of debate on the effectiveness of banner ads with many regarding it as a
too-old-school format of digital marketing, favoring newer and shinier inventory like native ads
or in-app ads. But here’s the thing: there’s a rhyme and rhythm to making banner ads sing.
Then why do they get such a bad rap? Unlike a lot of today’s different advertising mediums,
digital display ads don’t interrupt, so marketers who prefer the newer and flashier formats may
feel like they have the odds stacked against them when it comes to grabbing a user’s
attention.
“Old” as they are, banner ads face the same challenges any other marketing campaign faces.
Its success will require some patience and a lot of testing.The best performing banner ads are
visually engaging, timely, personalized, and most importantly: tested. Let’s go over how you
can implement all of this:
● Test buying ads at CPC and CPM
We’ve told you what cost-per-click (CPC) is, but what is cost-per-mille (CPM)? Instead
of paying per click, CPM allows you to pay per 1000 impression. Showing our ad to
someone will cost you money, regardless of whether or not they click. Which method is
right for your ad? You simply have to try both out to fully understand, but there are
several things you need to consider as you do this.
● Determine the costs of conversion.
Impressions, because they are non committal, cost far less--you can buy an ad
at $1 per click or $15 for 1,000 impressions. With these numbers, you’d need a
1.5% conversion rate (15 people who clicked) for CPM to equal CPC. On the
flipside, if your conversion rate is higher (e.g. 3%), then CPM would be much
more effective – $0.50 per click versus $1 CPC.
● Know your strengths.
Are your ads more effective or is your sales funnel more effective?
If your ads convert extremely well but your sales funnel could use some work,
CPM makes much more sense in getting as many clicks into your funnel as
possible.
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If your ads aren’t as effective as your sales funnel, then CPC should be your
choice. The guaranteed clicks will put people into your funnel where they will
convert better.
● Create great content.
If you’re looking to tell a complicated story full of emotions to get a rise out of your
audience, you may be sorely disappointed with banner ads. Viewers are intentionally
visiting the host site for information, videos, games, etc – not to look at banner ads.
Therefore you have a very limited time span to grab their attention. Here’s how to do it
with the contents of your ad:
● Compelling: If your content blends into the background – the place that no one
clicks – it will stay there. It doesn’t stop at animation, experiment with colors,
faces, and content that creates a sense of urgency.
● Concise: Within the few seconds you have, you need to get to the point
immediately.
● Context: Do you know where your ads are showing up? Consider the type of
content that natively sits there and the type of visitors who look for it. You need
to understand the context in which your ad shows up in order to be relevant.
● Take advantage of “dynamic creatives.”
When it pertains to banner ads, dynamic content is technology that allows you to
deliver unique, targeted experiences to your audience. This is hugely useful but
requires you to deeply understand your audience. Once you know this, you can upload
a variety of creative assets that get switched depending on the viewer.
● Test and optimize content and placement.
Our guidelines are simply suggestions and we realize results will heavily depend on
how you, our readers, interpret and implement them. So how are you supposed to tell if
your campaign is doing well?
The answer is creative testing. Keeping placement constant, switch our variations of
your content to measure performance.
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Get a Boost with Digg
Re-founded in 2012, Digg provides content to millions of users every month. With many
community features removed, Digg is far from its glory days. However, it’s traffic can still offer
Digg as a valuable place to advertise.
Digg offers a straightforward self-serve platform for ads. The self-serve platform does not
accommodate sponsored content, but you can email the business development team for more
details.
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Try Bing
Google Adwords is an obvious choice for many merchants when it comes to buying ads
online. Because of this, it has become intensely competitive (and costly).
That’s why you should consider a less costly network: The Bing Network (formerly The
Yahoo! Bing Network).
● What is pay-per-click (PPC) advertising?
PPC is a payment model for ads. You set a bid amount and pay it each time someone
clicks your ad.
When a prospect conducts a search in Bing, AOL, or Yahoo, your ad that contains
“relevant” keywords will display. Relevance here is determined as:
● Exact match: The search query must match your keyword exactly. For example,
if your keyword is “munchkin cats,” only searches for munchkin cats will trigger
your ad.
● Phrase match: The search query contains your entire keyword in the same
order. For example, if your keyword is "munchkin cats", searches for “adopt
munchkin cats” and “munchkin cat locations” will trigger your ad, but “cute cats”
and “little cats” will not.
● Broad match: The search query contains words or concepts related to your
keyword. For example, if your keyword is “munchkin cats,” similar searches like
“munchkin cats,” “small cats,” and “adopt small cats” will trigger your ad.
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● Get started.
Bing actually provides a great guide on how to create your first campaign and ad so we
won’t go over those in detail, but here are some pointers you should keep in mind.
● Ad networks typically offer free credit to first-time users, so do a quick Google
search for “Bing Advertising starter credit.”
● Bing has a keyword tool to help you get started, but if you’re still unsure, start
with 5 keywords that reflect your most popular products and 5 keywords for
more obscure items. Optimizing later on is much easier with just 10 keywords.
● Avoid making one generic ad to serve all your keywords. PPC ad campaign
success is equal parts keyword and creative, so make specific ads for each
keyword you plan on bidding.
● Include your bidding keyword in your headline. This is the first thing visitors see
and generally converts better because it matches the searcher’s intention.
● For your brief description, consider your unique selling proposition and what
other advertisers are not saying. You may have a better chance because you
stand out.
● Test, test, and test!
Technically, you could stop here, but please don't. PPC advertising is not a "one and
done" activity. Your campaigns need constant monitoring and optimization to improve
its performance.
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Google Adwords
PPC ads can drive plenty of new leads to your business. However, if done incorrectly, you
can quickly find yourself thousands of dollars under budget with no return in sight. To get PPC
campaigns working, start small.
A good place to turn to is Adwords, Google’s advertising network where online retailers can
place advertisements on Google search results pages, YouTube videos, and partner
websites. Adwords can have your ad on the first page of a Google search query in as little as
five minutes after setup.
So let’s go through what it take to create a profitable Google AdWords campaign. ∑
● Step 1: Research customer demand.
If there is no search interest in your product or service, then Adwords simply will not
work for you. We can figure this out using Google’s AdWords Keyword Planner tool.
This short first step can save you a whole lot of money, time, and effort.
● Head over to Google AdWords Keywords Planner and log in. Click on the first
option to “Search for new keywords using a phrase, website or category.” Enter
your main keyword, choose a category, then select “Get Type in your main
keyword (e.g., iPad case) and click the “Get ideas” button.
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If there’s interest for your product, you’ll see the exact keywords visitors are
searching for here, along with monthly volume, and suggested bid prices.
Average monthly searches: This is the average number of times people have searched
for this exact keyword based on the date range and targeting settings that you've
selected. In order to reach a good number of people who are more likely to be
interested in your offer, you’ll want to target keywords with an average of at least 700
monthly searches.
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Competition: This refers to the number of advertisers bidding on your keyword
relative to all keywords across Google.
Suggested Bid: This is the recommended bid for your keyword, calculated by
looking at CPCs that advertisers are currently paying. If you want your ad to be
more visible in search and display networks, you’ll either have to match or
exceed the suggested bid.
Combine this information with your website conversion to determine if you can
afford to run ads. For example:
Let's say you own a shop and you make $10 from every purchase. You've seen
that an average of 1 in 10 visits to your website results in a purchase. This
means that you make $10 every time 10 people visit your site. If you set a max.
CPC bid of $1, you’ll break even (advertising costs = sales). To make a profit in
this situation, you need to spend less than $1 to get a click on your ad--in other
words, you need to set your max CPC below $1.
● Step 2: Research your competitors.
In most industries, you’ll find plenty of competitors who have already tested and
optimized their AdWords campaigns. That means they’ve figured out which keywords,
ads, and landing pages work (or do not work) for your market. By performing a
competitor audit to assess these wins and fails, you greatly reduce your own risk of
loss. And in the case that your competitors are doing well, then this is a great
opportunity for you to do better.
● Use the right tools.
While that sounds fine and dandy, just how are you supposed to get this
information from your competitors’ AdWords accounts?
● KeywordSpy: This nifty keyword tool will help you find competitors, their
keywords, and the site’s spending on AdWords. Since you’re still
assessing your options, we recommend signing up for a free trial first.
● SpyFu: Similarly, SpyFu will help you find your competitors most
profitable keywords and ads. There are several pricing tiers, but using
some of SpyFu’s most basic offerings are free. Take a look here.
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Using either one of these tools, or a different one of your choosing, pay attention to
keywords that your competitor continues to bid for. The longer they continue to pay for
it, the better, because that means the keyword is driving sales. Hopefully we’re not
giving your competitors too much credit, but any a smart advertiser would pause the
campaign if it was not profitable.
It’s also important to pay attention to ad copy and what types of offers your competitors
are giving out. You need to find a way to differentiate yourself from all the ads you see
here.
● Step 3: Create a Powerful USP
Your unique selling proposition, or USP, is the unique value you can provide customers
who choose to do business with you. Without it, chances are slim that you’ll convert
leads into customers.
There are three ingredients to a successful USP:
1. Know your customer really well.
You’ve done plenty of research on your customers at this point. Now is the time
to put it all together so that you can craft a message that resonates with them.
● What challenges do they face?
● How can your product help them?
● Recall the keywords exercise, what words are they using to look for your
product?
● How urgently do they need a solution?
2. State why your solution is better.
You won’t have the opportunity to let your work speak for itself, so focus on the
solution you can provide. Tell them about your strengths and not your
accolades.
● What are you better at versus competitors?
● Keep your message clear.
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3. Boil it down.
Even if your product were truly amazing, you will still lose leads if they can’t
immediately see the benefits in doing business with you
● Can you sum it up in one sentence?
● This will help you immensely as you craft your Google Ad.
● Use your keywords.
● Step 4: Make an offer they can’t resist.
People are naturally suspicious, especially when they don’t recognize your brand or
product. These can be condensed into 4 major reasons why prospects will resist
converting on your awesome product. By addressing them, you can make your offer
irresistible.
● “I’m not getting my money’s worth.”
You won’t get the chance to sit them down and explain from beginning to end
why this product is worth their money. However, you do have the opportunity to
clearly define the values your product provides. This must be compelling enough
to overcome the price point.
● “That’s too good to be true.”
If it’s a great product, then why is the price so low? People are naturally
suspicious so offer them a reason to believe, whether it’s a moving sale or a
holiday.
● “I don’t recognize the brand. They’ll probably rip me off.”
Minimize this risk to your customer by offering a guarantee.
● “I like it, but what am I supposed to do now?”
Sometimes it’s as simple as telling your prospect what to do. You can’t assume
your prospect will wander around your website to piece information together.
Want them to download a coupon? Say so. Need their email for a subscription?
Make it obvious.
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● Step 5: Create ads people want to click.
Everything you’ve read in the preceding steps has boiled down to this: making ads so
compelling, your target users will have to click,
There 4 parts to your ad: the headline, description line 1, description line 2, and the
display URL.
1. Headline: For many visitors, this may be the only part of your ad they read.
● Use your keywords here because they will get bolded and indicate
relevance to a visitor.
● Ask a question. If your prospect agrees and nods, it could start the chain
reaction to a sale.
● Include a number. In a sea of text, the number in your headline will stand
out.
● Add the word “free” where applicable. Free is a power word.
2. Description 1: The first line of your product’s introduction.
● State your USP
● Reiterate your product’s benefits
3. Description 2: Both description lines will allow you 35 characters. This is your
last chance to craft compelling copy to attract and hook leads.
4. Display URL: Add your URL here.
● Step 6: Craft a high-converting landing page.
If a visitor goes as far as clicking on your ad, don’t make the mistake of sending them
to your homepage. If your prospect was interested in purchasing organic grain-free cat
food, they’ll likely be very confused to land on your homepage with no information on
how to purchase.
The page you send your paid traffic to is critical to the success of your entire campaign.
If it prospects can’t or won’t convert, then you’ve thrown money down the Google
AdWords drain.
Your best bet is to tailor your landing pages just as carefully as you tailored your ads to
visitors searching for your keywords. For example, if your ad offered a free sample of
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organic grain-free cat food, then your landing page should remain consistent and offer
a way to obtain that yummy free sample.
It’s common practice to use templates for your landing pages, but you should make
every attempt to create original content. Create copy that converts by keeping to these
guidelines:
● Hook with your headline: For many, this may be the only thing they read!
● Keep it clear and concise: In the rare chance your visitor does read your copy,
state the benefits of your solution in a way that they can quickly and easily
understand.
● Use formatting as indicators: Space your writing out and indicate important
points with bold formats or bullets
Google recommends that your ad content should be specific, relevant, attractive, and
empowering.
● Step 7: Track your conversions.
Conversion tracking helps you determine which keywords and ads generate sales and
which are draining your budget. Because you run an ecommerce business, conversion
tracking is pretty straightforward -- just use the built-in Google AdWords conversion
tracking.
● Step 8: Optimize
As much as we’d all love to sit back and relax after setting campaigns live, it’s
impossible. An integral part of successful PPC campaigns is continual optimization.
There are 3 key areas to improve your campaign performance:
● Keywords: If your keywords are generating sales profitably but you’re not ranked
#1, then gradually raise your bids. If your keywords are not generating sales
profitably, then lower your bids or pause the campaign.
● Click-through rate (CTR): Your ad CTR directly affects your quality score, which
determines your PPC. To optimize CTR, test different ads against each other to
see which version gets more clicks.
● Conversion rate: There are plenty of tools available to help you A/B test different
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versions of your landing page. If you’re just starting out however, consider using
Google Analytics Experiments.
Good luck!
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Facebook Ads
Facebook advertising is a leading paid acquisition channel over many others thanks to its
unique ability to target users by age, gender, and interest. Other advertising networks can
give you a guess with a percent of confidence but cannot guarantee it. For an ecommerce
business, this is incredibly powerful information for direct targeting.
However, with millions of businesses already advertising on Facebook, staying ahead of the
competition will be tough. If you’re new to Facebook advertising or feel that your ads could
achieve a better ROI, check these tips to get more sales.
● Buyer personas will Increase your click-through-rate (CTR).
Advertisers often make the mistake of creating generic ads in order to attract as many
people as possible. The end result is a bland ad that’s not very relevant to anyone.
Avoid this mistake by getting granular with your buyer personas. What’s a buyer
persona? It’s a representation of your ideal customer based on research and real data
on your existing customers.
Getting granular will help you create hyper-targeted campaigns that truly resonate with
your target audience.
● Target buyers.
You’re a business, so eliminate curiosity clicks and target users who will spend money.
Even though their clicks technically increase your CTR, those clicks still cost you
money. Avoid this by prequalifying your leads.
● Target interests precisely. Organize your campaigns into “target groups” of
closely-related interests. You need to keep the group size small in order to
easily evaluate the ROI of that group.
● People who like specific brands or products are more likely to spend money, so
instead of targeting users who simply like “yoga pants,” go for users who like
“Lululemon.” Find businesses that are complementary to yours.
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● Take advantage of your ad creative and eliminate curiosity by displaying a
product’s price. Adding a price will filter out anyone unwilling to pay that amount.
However, you must be aware that showing pricing immediately will not give you
an equal opportunity to justify it if that number is particularly high.
● Explicitly state your target market.
● Lock your content.
Don’t give away your content to everyone who wants it. Amazing content takes a
ridiculous amount of time and effort to create, and your ads are costing you money. In
this case, don’t feel bad asking for an email in exchange for giving up your content.
Why even offer content in the first place? Many businesses find it difficult to make a
sale on a Facebook user’s first click. By having a softer offer such as an ebook, a
discount code, or a template, you can add them to a nurture campaign to provide more
value and build trust--your opportunities are not lost if the user doesn’t immediately
buy.
● Use clean, clear, and brand-free images.
Images are arguably the most important part of your ad creative. Because Facebook is
a particularly visual platform where user feeds are always filled with loud pictures and
videos, your ad needs to be different enough to draw a user away from the distractions
(but not to the point where clicks are just out of curiosity).
● DO:
● Go for images of smiling, attractive faces when possible.
● Use amateur photos over stock photography, but make sure your images
are hi-res.
● DO NOT:
● Use unfocused shots – make sure the subject is in clear view.
● Include your brand – unless you’re well-known, users will not trust your
new brand, especially in an ad.
Most importantly, test 2 to 3 different images at all times, and delete the worst
performing image at the end of the week.
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● AIDA copy rules still apply.
Images can make or break CTRs, but ad copy is still crucial to helping viewers convert.
In order to make the most of your 90-character limit in Facebook ads, use the AIDA
model when writing copy.
● Attention: Use a headline they will hook the viewer’s attention.
● Interest: Generate interest through your description of the product’s benefits.
● Desire: Tell them why they need to click right now. You can use a discount
incentive or create a sense of urgency.
● Action: End with a call to action such as “Learn More” or “Buy Now.”
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OFFLINE
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With more companies increasing budgets for digital marketing, it’s easy to
forget that an entire world of offline marketing exists. Use these tactics to
your advantage while your competition is occupied elsewhere.

Billboards
Digital marketers try to avoid this medium because the efforts can be difficult to track.
However, it’s pretty obvious that the benefits outweigh these concerns – just take a drive
down any highway. So before you write them off completely, consider all the perks of billboard
advertising: the undeniable stream of traffic, the constant brand reminder, and increased
brand awareness, All of these things contribute to building trust and creating conversions. If
you do it right. Here’s how:
● The rule of six or less.
People are on the move when we they read billboards. That’s typically less than three
seconds to take in your message. If your business is so complex that you can’t make a
six-word impression, stay away from billboards.
● Feature one thing.
Perhaps you have a dozen different products and really want to show all of them off. In
which case, billboards are not for you. Again, even if you audience did have the
attention span (which they don’t), they are physically moving away from your billboard
so you need to have one singular focus.
● Don’t treat it like a direct-response ad.
Your other marketing efforts should do the heavy lifting when it comes to eliciting
commitment from your viewers. Billboards will best serve to build your brand,
recognition, and support campaign efforts. Billboards littered with phone numbers,
addresses and URLs will only disappear.
● Simplicity will always win.
Leave a lasting impression by being smart, keeping it simple, and demonstrating that
you understand the problem your target audience is trying to solve.
● Don’t get wordy.
In case you needed the reminder: billboards are a visual medium, not a print ad.
Consider how you can use the giant blank canvas to get attention and made an
impression.
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● More is ok.
Billboards are a mass market medium, but they need support. You want as many eyes
on your board as possible, but being present in only one location is going to strictly limit
your brand to travelers who use that route. Consider having billboards in 3 strategic
locations. If you understand your target market well enough, you should have a good
idea of where they live, work, and hang out. Make yourself visible in these locations. If
3 billboards is not in your budget, try mobile billboards.
● Test out mobile billboards.
Mobile billboards are an attempt to solve the problem of not being able to get the
location that you desire or getting to enough of them. You can hire mobile billboard
services to drive around the locations you want to be seen at during the times you want
to be seen, or simply park on strategic intersections.
These are specifically great for cruising around during major events.
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Distribute Flyers
Using flyers to advertise can be very effective marketing, but it shouldn’t be seen as your
standalone tactic. It’s perfect for small businesses looking try fast and cost-effective methods.
However, distributing flyers can quickly add up if you don’t keep an eye on printing and
distribution. So don’t let how “easy” distributing flyers sound fool you. Here are pitfalls you
need to consider and how to overcome them to run a successful flyer campaign.
● Know who your target audience is.
You’ll hear this one time and again but that doesn’t make it any less important. You
must identify your market and design everything with them in mind.
● Be clear and concise.
It’s not too different from a digital ad. If you hand them your flyer in the street, you have
approximately 5 seconds before they decide whether to keep it or tos it. Don’t force
your target to read the entire flyer before understanding what you’re offering. If it needs
a lengthy explanation, do it on one side but have the main side be simple concept.
● Make them an offer.
Make a limited time offer they can redeem on your site, and ensure it’s an offer
attractive enough that they’ll make the effort to go to your site.
● Include a call to action.
Congrats! You’ve got the right combination of things at this point and the viewer would
love more than anything to redeem this offer...but they have no idea how. They go to
your website, click around, and then you’ve lost their attention. Don’t fail to tell your
visitor exactly what to do. “Call now,” “go here now,” “enter ‘redeemflyer’ at checkout,”
etc.
● Find the most effective method of distribution.
Here comes the fun part! You can get creative with how and where you distribute--just
be mindful of others and rules against posting bills. Consider mailing them, car
windshields, newspaper inserts, etc. Whatever you choose, make sure you are
strategic and have your target audience in mind.
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Additionally, you may choose to track success through coupon code redemption or you
can keep track of the zip codes you distributed to and compare them against the next
couple of months’ orders and billing addresses. Use this to determine whether or not
it’s worth scaling your efforts – just a few sales out of 100 is usually a good indicators.
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Create a commercial
TV advertising is not the same powerhouse it once was. There are 3 major problems
advertisers face when it comes to TV commercials:
1. Ad-Skipping Technology: Just like internet browsers with ad-blockers, DVRs now come
equipped with fast-forwarding or ad-skipping capabilities. As an advertiser, this means
your ad will not be seen even if you pay premium pricing for primetime slots.
2. Measures of Success: There stands some contention when it comes to the metrics of
success for TV commercials. The industry still goes by an outdated and unclear system
that measures reach, the number of viewers that have the opportunity to view an ad
during a given time period while failing to provide a means to gauge true engagement.
3. Distractions: Distractions are no fault of TV advertising but it’s something important you
need to consider. You may have paid for your ad to play in millions of home, but
everyone in those homes may very well be on their phones, tablets, games, or one of
many other digital distractions.
In order to tackle these issues, you need to be strategic in your approach to commercials.
How will you grab attention? How will you hold attention? How will you know your ad was
worth the money?
Once you’ve assessed that TV is a medium you’d like to test, you will need to craft a great
idea and tune it until it’s something you know people can’t ignore.
Step 1: The Big Idea?
From day 1 to actual air date, your TV ad can quickly become expensive if you add on bells
and whistles. What you actually need is a big idea that will get your viewer’s undivided
attention. One example we love highlighting is Dollar Shave Club’s first ad. The big idea for
their commercial, "Our Blades are F**cking Great!", was a low-budget, single-shot take of the
founder introducing their company in an outrageous fashion. With more than 24 million
YouTube views, Dollar Shave Club proves the bells and whistles are negligible for TV ads.
Step 2: Write a Great Script
Put your ideas into words and onto paper. Remember, you have a very limited time frame to
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capture your audience and deliver your message. Avoid using long sentence. Keep it short.
Keep it zingy.
Your script needs to cover enough information so that the viewer can still discern what you’re
advertising without being in the room when it airs. Read the ad aloud multiple times to make
sure you don’t go over and under the time you’ve purchased. This is your time to cut and
revise the script.
Step 3: Will You Put People in Your Commercial?
The same rules from digital advertising apply to tv ads – some can be breathtaking,
eye-catching, and successful without showing a single person. This will be especially difficult
to replicate if you are new to commercials because people relate more easily to other people.
There are studies that indicate we subconsciously seek out faces. Use this to your advantage
by featuring your target demographic in the commercial.
As for whom you should feature, try to look to professionals first. You don’t want your
commercial to unintentionally look cheesy and amateur. If you must use friends or family,
carefully select individuals who can properly express your big idea.
Step 4: Hire a Production Company
Commercial production is a competitive space, so you will have some freedom to shop
around. Even if you know someone who can do it, it’s important you assess their work as you
would with someone you hire. Because the production company will be tasked with bringing
your idea to life through writing, shooting and editing, it’s essential that you carefully scrutinize
their portfolio.
Step 5: Plan Out Your Shots
Before you get to shooting your video, you need to plan out your shots. This needs to match
your script and show off what you’re offering. Let’s use a boutique clothing store for example.
You may have 10 different tops, 7 types of pants, and 4 blazer styles that you’d like to feature.
If you actually try to cram all of this into the typical 30-second or 60-second time slot, you will
overwhelm the viewer. Instead, plan on using a wide shot to showcase more of your clothing
selection at once.
Step 6: Audio and Video Must Match
Regardless of how carefully you plan your shots, it’s unlikely they’ll line up perfectly with the
audio. As you’re talking about the wide selection of tops, you wouldn’t want viewers to see a
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shot of trousers. Unless the mismatch is intentional for comedic purposes, align your audio
and visual during the editing process.
Step 7: Always Use a Call to Action
Unless you’re as big as Coca-Cola or Nike, you won’t have the luxury of airing commercials
for branding purposes. The last few seconds of your commercial should be saved for a
call-to-action to get viewers to become customers. Include all information relevant to
completing the action. If you want them to visit your website, then include the website.
Be sure you stay within the time allowance you purchased because it is not flexible. You will
risk cutting off the important CTA if you go over even a second.
Step 8: Schedule Your Ad Strategically
We may have started with your big idea as the success driver for a commercial, but if no one
sees it, then you might as well have not had the idea to begin with. This is why the placement
of your commercial is so important. The combination of time and channel will determine who
sees your commercial and how much the commercial time costs. If you’re a baby clothing
store, you would not want to schedule a 7:00pm Sunday ad on ESPN.
Step 9: Ensure Frequency for Maximum Impact
Outside of Super Bowl times, you should identify when your target audience most actively
watches TV in order to purchase enough air time for at least two broadcasts (more would be
better).
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Undercover marketing
Have you heard about Uber’s notorious recruiting methods from its early days? In short, they
hired undercover contractors to market Uber to the competition’s drivers. Uber received a lot
of raised brows when the sneaky campaign came to light, but it’s hard to deny the creativity of
their efforts.
We don’t encourage you use undercover methods to intentionally steal your competitor’s
customers, but you certainly can adopt clever aspects of the Uber campaign simply for
marketing. Hire contractors who would be good representatives of your brand to wear and
discuss your product at social spots such as bars and nightclubs.
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Sticker Campaign
One of the most effective guerilla marketing campaigns belongs to OBEY. Created in 1989,
Andre the Giant Has a Posse was a sticker campaign that quickly spread underground from
Rhode Island to New York, Los Angeles, and Boston. Within a few years, the stickers had
spread worldwide. The success of the campaign was in part due to the sticker’s unique
appearance which mimicked Soviet-style propaganda posters and its cryptic message. The
other piece to its success was the sheer manpower driving the campaign. Within a short
amount of time, everyone recognized the OBEY brand.
The counterculture-supported success of OBEY may be impossible to replicate, but let the
campaign inspire your own small-scale guerilla marketing campaign. Bumper stickers are
meant to be eye-catching and punchy. Create a witty message and stamp your Twitter handle
right next to it. Then, hand them to a select few who would definitely put it somewhere public.
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Flash Mob
Part performance, part social event, and part marketing experiment, flash mobs are sudden
gatherings of people who briefly perform an unusual act, and then disappear just as quickly.
This particular marketing stunt is not a new occurrence, but the evolution of video sharing has
contributed to its renewed popularity with audiences both offline and online.
So, interested in getting people curious, talking, and sharing the message about your
business? Here's a quick guide to organizing your own flash mob:
Step 1: Have an (original) idea
The success of a flash mob – whether that means total attendance, virality, media attention,
or overall enthusiasm – largely depends on its creativity and originality. If you’re only imitating
someone else’s idea, the fascination and novelty is already gone.
If you have no idea where to start, here’s some inspiration from a few successful flash mob
events:
● Pillow Fight Flash Mob
● Frozen Grand Central
● Dubai Airport Promotional Flash Mob
To increase participation for your event, try to avoid:
● Heavy commercial promotion
● Exalting or excluding a specific individual or group
● Charging fees for participation
● Expressing political opinion
Step 2: Timing is everything
The timing of your flash mob will depend on its complexity. If your event simply requires
people to show up at a certain time in order to conduct an easily achievable task, then you will
not need to give participants an extensive preparation period. The ideal time for scheduling
simpler flash mobs is at the end of the workday when more people are available to participate
in streets that will be more crowded.
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If you want to plan something more elaborate like a performance, you will need to give
participants more time to prepare or practice. Events that require more planning are most
effective on Saturdays in well-trafficked shopping and tourist areas.
Step 3: Get the word out
Each of these steps are meant to do the same thing: encourage participation. Depending on
the type of flash mob you intend to create, you may want to approach gathering participants
differently.
If your event is spontaneous:
● Create an anonymous email to invite 50 random people in your address book,
and ask them each to forward it to another 50 people. Remember to include
crucial details like time, place, and the spontaneous activity. The reason why we
encourage anonymity for a spontaneous event is because it plays into the
mystery and intrigue for your invitees, which increases the likelihood of them
recruiting more participants.
● Post to community sites like Craigslist.
If your event is elaborate:
● Use your own social circle to enlist help. Because this event requires practice or
planning, you will need to carry out many conversations and even rehearsals.
● Create a listing through sites like Yelp, Eventbrite, or even Facebook
Step 4: Step back and enjoy
Consider this mob your garden. You’ve provided the soil, fed and watered the seeds, and now
it’s time to watch the fruits of your labor grow. The excitement for flash mob participants lies in
not knowing what exactly to expect mixed with a tinge of doubt leading up to THE moment.
Even though you may be tempted to jump in and tend to your garden, refrain from doing so. If
your idea is worth it, trust that the mob will turn your garden into a jungle.
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Fairs
A great way to promote your wares is to participate in showcase events such as fairs. It’s your
opportunity to openly show off your products in front of potential buyers as well as rub elbows
with other industry professionals.
However, before you start googling away for upcoming local fairs, you also need to know that
there’s a chance you may lose money if you miscalculate the public’s interest for your
product. That’s why we’ve got you covered with tips and ideas on how to sell successfully at
this type of event.
Pick your warzone – shows come in all shapes and sizes, and not properly assessing these
factors can easily hurt your sales.
● Big shows with 100,000+ people vs. small shows with 500 people
● Large vendor shows with 300+ vendors vs. small vendor shows with fewer than 30
vendors
● Upscale shows vs. casual shows
● Paid admission shows vs. free admission shows
● 3-hour shows vs. 5-day shows
● Local shows vs.national or international shows
● Cheap booth shows for $25 vs. expensive booths for $1,500+
Which one will work best for you? That really depends on your business and where your
customers hang out. Let that guide your attendance.
1. Who Is Your Customer?
It really starts here. Assuming you have the answer, apply it to selling at a fair because
there’s a big difference between selling to crowd of cool 20-somethings and
middle-aged homemakers. The first thing your customer will help you determine is the
fair itself. While most events will not limit potential sponsorship opportunities by openly
disclosing their primary audience, you should already have a good idea of events that
your target users attend. If not, run a quick search for photos from the event you’re
considering and keep a careful eye on attendees pictured.
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Everything you do should be geared toward enhancing that customer’s shopping
experience – from your booth and layout to display and product selection.
2. Getting into a Fair
Most events sell space on a first-come first-served basis, and booths for good shows
will fly quickly. If you find a show you like and have properly assessed the viability of
your product, get you application in asap!
3. Interacting at The Fair
● Appearance: It may seem standard to rep your gear at your booth, but this may not
always work to your advantage. By wearing an item you sell, you are essentially
modeling it. For this situation to work, you must look like your target demographic. For
example, if you sell pink Bella tanks with inspirational fitness quotes and you are an
older male with a few extra pounds, then repping your product may not be the best
idea. In this situation, simply wear something clean and presentable. Make sure it does
not include someone else’s logo.
However, if you are a representative of your target demographic, then definitely model
your shirts. Make sure the one you model is clean and wrinkle-free. Additionally,
because it is the one getting the most visibility, make sure you have plenty in stock.
● Mannerisms: Few are born with the innate ability to sell. However, being in the
business of commerce, every entrepreneur has to figure out their own style of dealing
with the public. If you are not comfortable with an assertive attitude, attempting to
adopt that persona will never work. Be helpful and sincere. But most importantly, be
yourself.
● Generating Buzz
Smaller events offer less competition so you don’t have to invest as much effort into
standing out. However, it also means there will be fewer attendees and therefore small
sales potential. So how do you attract customers to your booth at a 500+ vendor
event? Skip the gimmicks – customers will get plenty of balloons, banners, free
drawings, etc from every other booth.
With every customer walking by, you get one chance to show off your products. If
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they’re too distracted by your flashing neon sign, then most likely they’ll miss your
shirts completely. You have an attendee’s attention for about 10 seconds. You need to
decide what you want them to do with that precious time – notice your name or notice
your product? Product wins.
How about incentivizing attendees to visit your booth for freebies or entry into a prize
drawing? Free stuff will undoubtedly draw attention but so do screaming babies, and
neither results in sales. Visitors chasing free stuff have no interest in buying. In fact,
you may actually end hurting sales by encouraging customers who are on the fence to
enter the giveaway for a free item instead. You need to attract customers, not just
traffic.
4. Display Psychology
Your booth is your temporary storefront so keep it attractive and simple. It will come naturally
to want to show off as much of your inventory as possible, but you need to resist. Consumers
get overwhelmed and frustrated when confronted with too many options. Instead, showcase
select pieces that communicate a cohesive message about your brand.
When deciding on the layout of your, there are 3 shopping best practices you should employ:
● Right to Left – Most customers will move or look to the right of your booth, then follow
through counterclockwise. Place items you want to highlight in the front right of your
booth.
● Low to High – Customers will browse items placed at waist-level first then move up to
whatever you have hanging on the wall. If your booth has walking room, keep items at
the front of your booth at waist-level and shift items further inside your booth higher up.
This helps those visitors passing by get a quick view of everything you offer.
● Cold to Warm – Consumer eyes will naturally travel from cold colors toward warm
colors. If you choose to display multiple shirt colors, place cool tones at the front of
your booth and warm tones toward the back.
And there you have it – our tips for successfully selling at fairs. If you like meeting people and
would like to diversify your sales medium, then this may be the perfect sales venue for you.
Fairs are often seasonal occurrences and offers a new and fun experience.
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Use Print Ads
What's black, white, and read all over? Your print ad if you get it right.
Conventional wisdom will have you believe that everything print is dead when in reality it
simply isn’t true. If you spread content across web and print, you can benefit from the
strengths of both. For example, by adding shortened URLs for your social media pages or
offering free downloads in print ads to encourage online follow-up, you’re not only gaining new
leads, you’re gaining new leads who are immensely engaged and have gone through two
barriers to at least learn more about you.
Take some simple pointers from us and start cross-pollinating your marketing mediums.
● Understand what you’re paying for.
There are several components to pricing you need to be aware of:
● Shop around
Make a table for the publications you’re considering and narrow your choices
down to the ones with the highest readership and lowest cost. A simple "cost per
thousand (mille)" or "CPM" formula can give you the cost of having your ad seen
by 1,000 people in a publication. This is a standard measurement across a
advertising.
Take the cost of an ad, divide it by the newspaper's circulation in thousands,
and you’ve got their CPM. For example, if you buy a $200 ad in a paper with a
circulation of 20,000, your CPM would be $200 divided by 20, or $10. It would
cost you $10 to reach 1,000 people in that paper.
Now compare that to a $300 ad in a newspaper with a circulation of 50,000.
$300 divided by 50 is $6, which is much better deal. Do a little computing for
each paper you’re considering to see which is the best bargain.
But always remember that no matter how little you’re paying, an ad in a
newspaper that reaches no one in your target audience will cost you more in the
long run.
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● Never pay full price.
For most magazines, you can easily go to their website and check the rate
calendar in their media kit. There, you will find the guaranteed audited
circulation, or “Rate Base,” in addition to prices for varying sizes of ads and the
volume of your purchase. Newspaper space is measured in 2 ways: inches per
column or lines per column. An inch is 14 lines, so you can easily convert line
rates to inch rates for comparison.
Once you have a good idea of what you’re looking for, you’ll need to get on the
phone with a salesperson to negotiate the price. The first quote, called the “open
rate,” is too high. You can usually get them to at least 30% lower than the open
rate.
No one expects you to actually pay the price listed on the site, even the
salesperson you’re talking to. You should always negotiate a better rate. You
should also note that committing to 6-12 issues can get you pretty deep
discounts.
● Negotiate position
You will need to consider where your ad will appear in the publication. Unless
there’s a specific reason why you want to be on the last pages of a publication,
be prepared to negotiate for a spot in the first half of the print.
● Beware of last-minute buys.
You can take advantage of highly discounted ads if you contact an ad
department shortly before the publication goes to print. This may be a great
strategy for some, but since it’s “leftovers,” you won’t have much say on the
position of your ad. More than likely, it will end up at the back of the publication.
● Ignore the fluff.
Magazines will rip you off for extra color or bleed. These costs would’ve made
sense once upon a time when ads were laid by hand. With printing technology
today, this shouldn’t be the slightest concern.
● Plan your campaign in advance.
With digital campaigns, you may cookie a visitor the moment the land on your
page and continue remarketing to them as they visit other pages. With print, you
have one
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opportunity per issue to make an impression. Therefore, depending on the
frequency of the publication you’re using, plan your ads up to 6 months in
advance so that your look and message stays consistent – you need readers to
recognize and trust your brand.
Have you noticed any competitor ads in publications you’re targeting? Study
these and work on your unique selling proposition by asking yourself "What do I
offer that the others don't?" This can become the focus of your campaign.
Next, think about your customers. What is their gender, age, education level,
and income? This will be your target audience, and you need to tailor your
language to appeal to them.
.
● Get inexpensive creative help.
As a small business, you probably won’t need the help of an advertising agency
just yet. There are other ways to get the professional “oomph” to help your ads
stand out.
For a fraction of what agencies charge, you can enlist freelance help on a
per-project basis. There are plenty of places you can search for freelancers
including: Upwork, Freelancer, and 99designs.
Most freelancers will be more than happy to show you their portfolio if it’s not
already on display as well as go over your needs. It’s important for you to
discuss their fees and examine the work they’ve put together for others. Have
they worked for other small businesses in your industry? Do you actually like the
work in their portfolio? How well received was their previous work?
Before any actual work begins, make sure you both have a written agreement
that specifically states the services they will provide, any milestones, delivery
dates, and the fees you will pay.
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● Write great copy.
Great design is an important part of your print ad but great copy is crucial. This is the
part where customers learn about the benefits, not features, that you offer. Features
answer “what do you do?” Benefits answer “how does it affect me?” Your offer needs
to clearly appeal to your target audience's desires whether it’s to be more stylish, elite,
popular, economical, or fun.
● Clarity is key.
Don’t say “low prices.” Say “All Tops 50% Off.”
Don’t say “Stay fashionable all summer.” Say “Maxi dresses for all size.”
● Don't forget to include the basics like the name of your store, a shortened URL
you can track, a business phone number, customer service hours, and dates of
the promotion.
● Conclude with a call to action. If a reader has stayed tune thus far, it’d be a huge
waste of your time and resources to leave them hanging. Be crystal clear about
what they need to do next. Should they “use this code at checkout,” or “check
out our site for more information?”
● Pick an uncluttered day.
When it’s possible, avoid placing your ads on days when it’s bound to get lost in the
shuffle. Wednesday is traditionally good for grocery stores. Thursday is a popular day
for retailers. Friday is a flood for entertainment offerings as people gear up for the
weekend. And Sunday is good because readers tend to spend more leisure time
flipping through the paper and paying more attention to deals and offers.
Also consider days of the week when your business is heaviest, paydays of large local
businesses, and just before holidays and local events, such as graduations and proms.
● Frequency is your best bet.
We see so many advertising messages on a daily basis that the average person has
grown accustomed to tuning it out. This means someone who’s seen your ads once or
twice is still unlikely to make a decision. Unfortunately, it’s at this point that most
businesses give up, not seeing a faster (if any) return on their investments.
The good news? The size of your ad is not nearly as important as its frequency. Unless
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there’s a special occasion, you’ll never need to purchase a full page ad. Running lots of
smaller ads can still help make an impact without blowing your budget.
● Choose the best placement.
Especially since your ads will be small, the placement of your ads are going to be
immensely important. You have two options when it comes to buying newspaper
space: “run of paper” (ROP) or “preferred position.” ROP means the publication will put
your ad wherever. Preferred position means the ad gets placed according to your
preference. Our advice is to go with a preferred position. Some may charge you extra
(in which case, don’t forget to negotiate), but many will be willing to honor your request
at no additional cost.
The best place to be? Aim to be on the right-hand page by the right margin above the
fold. The main news section is generally the best since it gets the most views, but if
there’s a section you know your target audience prefers, then don’t hesitate to
purchase space there.
● Optimize
Hopefully by now you’re seeing that print isn’t all too different from digital advertising.
As such, there’s still some testing and adjusting to do even after you’ve launched your
ad. A/B test headlines and other elements as you would a digital ad. Run one headline
in half the copies of one newspaper, then run the same ad with a different headline (or
illustration, size, etc.) in the other half. Track the success of each by including a
different code for the same offering on one half. In the end, count up the coupons and
you'll see which variation worked best.
You can also use this technique to test the paper itself. Run the exact same ad in
different newspapers with varying discount codes. Then count up the number of
redemptions from each newspaper.
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Sidewalk Chalk
Consumers are accustomed to digital ads. Use a different approach with sidewalk chalk to
grab their attention (and surprise). Craft a creative message in visible and well-trafficked
spaces to send consumers your way.
However, please be mindful of the law when you choose your chalk location.
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Go Door to Door
This may be one of the most overlooked sales and marketing techniques out there. Contrary
to popular doubts, this method can actually can work for digital, subscription, and physical
products. The tricky secret is being versatile enough to quickly create a personal relationship
with the consumer so that by the time you bring up your business, no one is offended. Selling
products door to door is a skill that’s acquired through much time and practice. We’ve got
some tips to help you along your way:
● Dress the part.
The first obstacle is getting people to open their door to greet you. Because they have
nothing to judge you by, a neat and friendly appearance is vital.
● Be respectful.
If the resident has a “No Solicitation” sign up, then your best bet is to turn around.
Similarly, if someone says they’re not interested, don’t press on. Say a friendly
goodbye and get on your way.
● No one likes being sold to.
Avoid diving straight into a sales pitch. Instead, start by building a relationship with
whomever opens the door. They’ll find it much harder to slam the door on you when
you’re genuinely nice and friendly.
● Provide reassurance.
Unfortunately, scammers are known to use door-to-door tactics as part of their
scheme. A likely reaction from anyone opening their door to you may be to lump you
into that group. To avoid this, make sure they know that you’re a verified individual at
your company, and there is a full guarantee that they can return the item any time they
want.
● Keep your chin up.
Avoid getting discouraged if you’re not met with a succession of yeses. Door-to-door
sales is tough, but the no’s are not personal.
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[Ebook] 103 ways to sell a new product

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