For Sale!, Now that you've opened up your online business and
attracting customers to your ecommerce store or sales page. All of a sudden its much harder than you thought. Your blog about turning LEAD into GOLD gets more hits than your website. Why? It’s because no one really
cares about your business. The only person that's actually bought something from you is your mom, and she got help from her BINGO club. Nobody really wants to know what you have to sell
and no one likes being led to a sales page. Even if you think you’re offering
the most magnificent products ever, the golden toilet bowl, by default people are going to ignore you
unless they know who you are. And this is where the light should GO OFF!! UNLESS THEY KNOW YOU or your PRODUCTS!
Selling on Social Media is the RAGE?? Really?
Marketing your business on
social media is all the rage right now but simply posting your online store URL
on Facebook or any other social media isn't going to work. For one thing, most
people are extremely suspicious of any type of sales page they encounter. Anything
that even resembles a product page is just going to get passed on.
For example, whenever I click on any submission and am taken to a page full of products, I get pissed off and immediately leave. Ninity nine percent of the time I'm doing research or "window shopping", and on those social sites, I'm there to read about what others are up to or to just relax. My marketing and BS sensors are on full alert and I hate being led to a random store or ecommerce site. So what do you do?
You Need To Create A Connection
For example, whenever I click on any submission and am taken to a page full of products, I get pissed off and immediately leave. Ninity nine percent of the time I'm doing research or "window shopping", and on those social sites, I'm there to read about what others are up to or to just relax. My marketing and BS sensors are on full alert and I hate being led to a random store or ecommerce site. So what do you do?
You Need To Create A Connection
The other thing you need to
realize is that customers don’t necessarily shop at your store because of your
products per se. They are shopping at your store because you've created a
connection somehow. They want to buy from you because of the personality and your
store products. Don't get me wrong you will definitely find that one guy up at night that needs that hand warmer pizza cutter, which happens that your store sells.
The best way to illustrate this point is to tell a story about an experience I had at a company I used to work for. At the time, I was a hardware engineer designing circuit boards and I had to select a device to use in my design from 2 competing manufacturers.
Company #1 was the leader in their field. They produced devices that were technologically superior to every one else. Feature wise, their product was the device of choice among developers. Company #2 was not as well known but had a decent product. However from a technical standpoint, their product was not as powerful as Company #1 but adequate for most applications.
In any case, it should have been a no brainer to go with Company #1, but ultimately I went with Company #2 and a lesser known product. Why? It’s because Company #2 projected this aura of really caring for their customers and providing superior customer support.
Because Company #1 was already the leader, they didn’t dedicate as many resources in trying to help me integrate their device into my design. Finding literature and documentation was more difficult as well because I had to manually request access to each document, a process which often took several days.
Meanwhile, Company #2 had a very open philosophy with their documentation and it really showed on their website. All of their content was freely available and as a result I got to know their products better and felt more comfortable using their devices. Whenever I had any questions, they immediately sent an engineer over to help even for the most minor of problems. Over time, I even became friends with the sales guy and FAE.
I continued to use Company #2′s devices throughout my entire stint at my job and never even considered switching, ever. I was a loyal customer for life.
The key takeaway here is that the superior product isn’t always the one that sells and the decision to buy is not always about the product itself. If you can establish some sort of connection to your customers through your website or customer service, then you will have the upper hand. In fact, that is one of the main ways that a small niche store or boutique can take on a larger business. The key is to make people want to buy from you and no one else. And to do that you need to make your store standout. Company #2 snagged me as a customer because their emphasis on good customer service was plastered all over their website.
The best way to illustrate this point is to tell a story about an experience I had at a company I used to work for. At the time, I was a hardware engineer designing circuit boards and I had to select a device to use in my design from 2 competing manufacturers.
Company #1 was the leader in their field. They produced devices that were technologically superior to every one else. Feature wise, their product was the device of choice among developers. Company #2 was not as well known but had a decent product. However from a technical standpoint, their product was not as powerful as Company #1 but adequate for most applications.
In any case, it should have been a no brainer to go with Company #1, but ultimately I went with Company #2 and a lesser known product. Why? It’s because Company #2 projected this aura of really caring for their customers and providing superior customer support.
Because Company #1 was already the leader, they didn’t dedicate as many resources in trying to help me integrate their device into my design. Finding literature and documentation was more difficult as well because I had to manually request access to each document, a process which often took several days.
Meanwhile, Company #2 had a very open philosophy with their documentation and it really showed on their website. All of their content was freely available and as a result I got to know their products better and felt more comfortable using their devices. Whenever I had any questions, they immediately sent an engineer over to help even for the most minor of problems. Over time, I even became friends with the sales guy and FAE.
I continued to use Company #2′s devices throughout my entire stint at my job and never even considered switching, ever. I was a loyal customer for life.
The key takeaway here is that the superior product isn’t always the one that sells and the decision to buy is not always about the product itself. If you can establish some sort of connection to your customers through your website or customer service, then you will have the upper hand. In fact, that is one of the main ways that a small niche store or boutique can take on a larger business. The key is to make people want to buy from you and no one else. And to do that you need to make your store standout. Company #2 snagged me as a customer because their emphasis on good customer service was plastered all over their website.
The Secret To
Marketing A Niche Online Store
So what is the secret to
marketing your store? **Drum roll** The secret to marketing your online store
is to keep your customer engaged with your website by showing them your
personality. The secret is to keep your customer so interested in what you have
to say that they don’t even realize that you are selling to them. And to
accomplish this feat, you need to have engaging content.
In fact, I would argue that you shouldn’t think of your online store as a store at all. You should think of your ecommerce site as a content site that happens to sell products. Similar to a blog, if you have good content, the word will eventually spread, people will link to your website and you’ll get tons of organic traffic without having to spend much on advertising.
For our store, my wife and I engage customers by providing useful craft tutorials and other projects that can be created with our products for free. 70% of our web traffic comes directly through our content pages and a good portion of this traffic eventually goes on to purchase from us. I would say that initially, many of our customers don’t even visit our website to shop. Instead, they read about some of our cool DIY wedding projects and want to make it themselves. In the future, we also plan on adding video tutorials to our store as well.
Bottom line, the more you can engage with customers, the more you’ll be able to sell. Instead of a direct sales pitch, show them that you are a real person and that you are passionate and care about your products.
If you want to see a great example of this, take a look at what what my site webcreatingco.com. To understand what I mean, take a few minutes and check it out. My function is trying to sell YOU. That's my pitch. Of coarse I want to make a dollar at it, but most of all if you're successful, then I'm successful. I'm pretty sure, I'll get repeat business from you. So lets talk. Throw me a line if you think, I can help or if you have any ideas you'd like to bounce of me.
In fact, I would argue that you shouldn’t think of your online store as a store at all. You should think of your ecommerce site as a content site that happens to sell products. Similar to a blog, if you have good content, the word will eventually spread, people will link to your website and you’ll get tons of organic traffic without having to spend much on advertising.
For our store, my wife and I engage customers by providing useful craft tutorials and other projects that can be created with our products for free. 70% of our web traffic comes directly through our content pages and a good portion of this traffic eventually goes on to purchase from us. I would say that initially, many of our customers don’t even visit our website to shop. Instead, they read about some of our cool DIY wedding projects and want to make it themselves. In the future, we also plan on adding video tutorials to our store as well.
Bottom line, the more you can engage with customers, the more you’ll be able to sell. Instead of a direct sales pitch, show them that you are a real person and that you are passionate and care about your products.
If you want to see a great example of this, take a look at what what my site webcreatingco.com. To understand what I mean, take a few minutes and check it out. My function is trying to sell YOU. That's my pitch. Of coarse I want to make a dollar at it, but most of all if you're successful, then I'm successful. I'm pretty sure, I'll get repeat business from you. So lets talk. Throw me a line if you think, I can help or if you have any ideas you'd like to bounce of me.
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