Posts filed under 'Marketing'
Those were the days
Growing up in the retail world, I was always taught that the most important decision in your business was location, location, location… remember those days?
When you run an Internet-based business, your “location” is nowhere… and everywhere. So what, then, becomes most important with this new “location”? In my opinion, branding. Part of that (not all of it) is having a logo that works for your business.
I personally am not artistic so needed design help.
Have you ever googled “logo”? The results: About 2,430,000,000.
Wow. That didn’t really help me.
My next step was to find logos that I like and find out who designed them. Well, what I found was that logos can cost anywhere from $25 to $5,000. Over the years, I’ve spent quite a bit of money on logos, and was consistently disappointed. I should have just burned my money!
Crowdsourcing
Then I read about Internet sites that specifically offer a bid process for logo design and other creative needs. I was intrigued! So I did my homework and found many sites that offer this service. I ended up using a site called crowdSpring (there are several others like Logo Design Team, 99designs and Hatchwise) and found the process fairly simple and painless:
I explain what colors I was looking for, font choices, pictures, etc. Throughout the process I could even change my mind on colors, etc… and then designers submitted their designs. I had the opportunity to rate the logos and even send a designer a request to tweak this or that.
After the deadline, I had 7 days to decide on the winner, and transfer the money to the designer.
My decision was based on how easy it was to read, if the graphic itself explained my business and how the logo looked in black & white. I also asked the designer I selected to make a few tweaks for me and they obliged after being awarded the money. All communication was done on the site and no names were used, only user IDs, which is great from a privacy point of view.
Cost?
CrowdSpring sets a minimum of $200 for a logo design project, but let me determine the time period for the bid – I chose 10 days. The company suggested that with a $200 bid, I could expect around 30 designs, but because of my past experience with logos, I wanted more to choose from, so I offered $325 for the winning designer (fees for the company are not included). I ended up with 77 logo designs to choose from for my company, SnorkelingOnline.
I found this a great way to crowdsource professional services, and especially perfect for an e-commerce company. I’ll be going back to CrowdSpring when I need to.
May 13th, 2010
Remember how, in the “old” days, folks would “call on” others and, if they weren’t at home, they’d leave their calling card behind? I haven’t been able to find an academic reference to it, but it makes sense that the modern-day practice of exchanging business cards stems from there. And even in this highly electronic day and age, there’s still room for business cards, as I’m sure you’ll agree.
But are you maximizing the use of your most basic calling card? And that’s nothing more than your email signature.
We all suffer from email overload – I’ve long since stopped counting how many emails I get in a day. Even when I’m not working or on vacation, I use my BlackBerry to delete unnecessary emails from my inbox, in an effort to keep on top of the traffic (sigh, it never stops!).
But I also know that when I send an email out, it’s a unique way to remind others of what I do, particular affiliations I have and things that are important to me.
Here are three tips to maximize your email signature as a marketing tool:
1. Proclaim yourself.
You normally include your contact information in your e-signature, right? Why not include hyperlinks to all the relevant data you think people should have access to? For example, these could be your website, blog or Twitter handle. How about your Etsy site or another storefront? If it’s in your signature, it’s right there for the recipients to click through to, yet you’re not hitting them over the head with it.
2. Add a visual touch.
Go one step further and add some visual pizazz to your e-signature; and a terrific way of doing this is by using a program such as WiseStamp. What’s cool about this is that you can actually embed the hyperlinks rather than simply include them, and you can also include select social profiles such as Twitter, SlideShare, etc. at the bottom of your signature. Here’s a screenshot from their site:
3. Put a shortening service to work for you.
Working on a special promotion? Use a URL-shortening service such as tr.im, bit.ly, ow.ly (or several others) to draw attention to it just above your signature block. For example, I used this as a way to raise funds around my birthday: “Why I’d like you to know how old I am: http://tr.im/K6Yi.”
Granted, it’s not often that a woman is proclaiming her age for all and sundry to hear, but if you use short but sweet copy and a dedicated URL, it’s an easy way to add to your marketing mix with almost no effort.
What other ways do you use your e-signature “real estate” to market yourself? Please share by leaving a comment below.
Image: Rich Bowen, Creative Commons
February 4th, 2010
The eBay message boards are filled with posts by sellers about how eBay’s new Best Match has taken seller’s items and made them nearly invisible to buyers. The result, of course, is a decrease in sales.
Trying to adapt to Best Match is a challenge for sellers and although time and energy should be put into maximizing Best Match results another essential course of action for eBay sellers is to rely less on eBay driving buyers to your listings and figuring out ways to drive buyers to your listings yourself.
I have compiled a list of ways to drive buyers to your listings to supplement Best Match. If any readers have any additional methods, please add them to the list.
Google Base Store Connector
Use Google Base Store Connector to get your listings indexed in Google Search results. Here is a link to the free program that will send your eBay listing info to Google: http://base.google.com/base/storeconnector/index.html
Alt Img Tags
This is a little bit of HTML code that you add to the photos that you have within your eBay listing. Search engines can only read text. If you add this little bit of descriptive HTML code to your images, your images have a descriptive text attached to them and this can possibly aid in increasing your listing’s search engine ranking and Google Image Search ranking.
Continue Reading January 26th, 2009
Social networking in an online setting is dramatically different than in-person networking.
Traditional networking involves swapping business cards at monthly meetings and having occasional lunches with a few new acquaintances.
In an online setting, social networking is about forming a vast community of people with common interests, and meeting on a platform where you can interact frequently with the use of online resources and tools. Through the platform and tools available from the social networking sites, users can submit content such as blogs, videos, and photo albums that help bring large numbers of like-minded people together quickly.
The more open nature of social networking sites is in contrast to the anonymous forums and bulletin boards that were very popular earlier in the decade. Those sites are rapidly losing users to more social outlets like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter.
Since MySpace first came on the scene, social networking has exploded. All businesses, particularly online businesses, should be watching and reaching out to their customers through social networking sites.
So, the question is: Why should a business be represented on social networking sites?
It’s about reputation management.
Continue Reading January 13th, 2009
There are many ways to advertise a website. The traditional ways are to buy Google Adwords, participate in a link exchange, submit your site to all the search engines, etc. These are all good ways to advertise; however, why not think outside the box?
We sell swimsuits. We have been brainstorming ways to get the product to the people. Here are some things we have done recently: We had some bling, bling shirts made advertising the site which we give to our favorite people. We bought some tank tops and had this fantastic gal decorate them with rhinestones. We wear them to events where there are sure to be people who will ask about the site.
We have our model wear selected suits when she goes to the beach. When she is complimented on the suit she hands out our business card. Every time she does this, we get a surge of traffic to our site! We have noticed our in-state sales have increased dramatically. She loves to show off her body (she’s gorgeous), she gets a free suit and we get free traffic! We are also having some inexpensive temporary tattoos made to add to our packages as a free gift with purchase. Everyone loves a free gift and it goes a long with branding. We conduct swim events which we advertise on our website. We conduct these at a hostess’ home. The hostess invites her friends to try on swim suits in the privacy of her home, with a personal shopper on hand to help the guests select attractive swimsuits. We do drawings for free cover ups and basically have a great time! The guests are given discount coupons for future website orders.
There are many ways to advertise a website, outside of the traditional methods! Try some – you may be surprised at the results!
Anne
August 1st, 2007