News & Articles

 download and print this article as a pdf file

The primary marketing tool for any online business is email marketing. You use it to develop a relationship with your customers and other people interested in your business. By opening your emails and clicking on the links they will give you valuable feedback on how you are doing and what they are really interested in. And if they really like you they will reward you with their custom and maybe their loyalty.

Building your lists of email addresses

You should only collect the email addresses of people who have agreed you can contact them. Their permission is the vital ingredient to your success. Conversely sending emails to people who have not asked for them (spam) is both illegal and pointless. You are far more likely to upset these people than to persuade them to place an order.

Here are a few suggestions on how to build your lists.

• Encourage people to place their first order – by far the best way to collect email addresses is to persuade people to place an order with your online shop. Existing customers will be the most valuable of all your email addresses as it will be easier to persuade them to order again.

  Getting people to place their first order can be extremely difficult especially if you are a new business. Almost certainly you will need to do something really special to first get their attention and secondly to persuade them to place an order.

  At the time of writing Santander (Bank) are running an advertising campaign where they are giving £100 to all new current account customers. In effect they are buying new customers. It also shows how difficult it can be to persuade people to change their habits, even for a big company.

  Generous special offers to encourage people to give you a try are therefore the order of the day. Free delivery works well, as does money off. It doesn’t really matter if they only spend a pound because they will be giving you that oh so valuable email address.

• Sign-up form on your website – give people who have not registered for online shopping on your website an opportunity to receive your emails by placing a sign-up form prominently on your website. Make it clear what you will be sending them and how often. Keep these people on a separate list to your customers so you can send them different emails.

• Ask people – ask everyone who contacts you if they would like to be on your mailing list. You may also want to ask “have you ever shopped online” and “would you consider buying online from us”. Segregate them into different lists so you can send emails that are more appropriate to them.

• Create a competition – a chance to win a prize in return for an email address. Again be open and honest about what you are doing and make it clear what you will be sending and how often.

You will need to be persistent as growing your list of quality email addresses will take time and effort. There are no short cuts because their permission is vital to your success. Sending people emails they haven’t asked for simply doesn’t work and can do damage to your brand.

Creating and sending your emails

Sending messages to your customers and other people interested in your business is all about building relationships and developing customer loyalty. Remember that relationships are a two-way thing so work hard on your part and be careful not to disappoint, you may be rewarded with a sale. Get it wrong and you may get dumped!

• Contact people soon after you have collected their email address. If you forget them they will probably have forgotten you.

• Regular, expected contact works best. People tend to shop weekly for food so send an email out each week around the time most people are placing their orders (Monday/Tuesday).

• Each message should contain one or more real benefits for the recipients – special offers, discount vouchers and useful information like recipes and meal ideas all work well.

• Make sure your messages are relevant to your audience. An email offering free delivery on your first order, for example, will not apply to your regular customers and may harm your relationship with them. However for people who have registered but not yet placed an order it would be very appropriate.

• Use links in your emails to find out what interests people. By starting off a topic and then providing a link to the rest of it you will find out what people are reading. It will also keep your emails shorter and easier to read. If you are promoting a product then link straight to it in your online shop.

• Pay attention to the subject line if you want people to open your emails. It should be short, truthful and contain a benefit for the recipient. Open rates can also be improved by putting your trading name at the beginning of the subject line.

• Personalise your emails. If you start your email with a “Hello Tony” or similar it makes people feel you are talking to them personally.

How well did you do?

After sending your emails it is important to analyse how well you have done.

• Open Rate (how many people opened your message) – was this unusually high or low? Factors that can affect opening rates include the subject line (was it compelling enough?); the message contents (did you check it wouldn’t be confused with spam?); the time you sent the message (had everyone gone home for the day?) and even the previous campaign you sent (if you didn’t live up to people’s expectations, you may have lost their trust for good.)

• Link clicks – are some links getting more clicks than others? This may be due to the call to action you are using or simply the placement of the link in the message.

• Unsubscription rate – if this is more than 1% you have got a problem, you may not be targeting the right people or your content simply might not be interesting enough.

• Opening time – when are people actually reading your message? If it’s some time after you sent it then maybe adjusting your send time may increase your open rates.

Summary

Work persistently on your email marketing from the very beginning as ultimately it is the route to a successful online business. Use advertising in association with generous special offers to gain new customers and then use email marketing to persuade them to order over and over again. Write and send regular emails from the very beginning even if you only have a handful of email addresses to write to. Learn from every email you send by analysing the open and click statistics. And above all only send emails to people who have genuinely given you their permission to do so.

Learn more about Online Connector, our own email marketing tool.

 download and print this article as a pdf file

Encouraging past customers to order again is the most effective form of marketing and email marketing is the weapon of choice for online businesses. However there are a few other things you should also consider doing.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

This is the process of improving your website so it appears higher up in the search engine rankings making it more likely for people to visit your website. The three main things you need to do are:

• Make sure your HTML code is compliant – if it isn’t then the search engine robots may struggle to index your site. They are far less tolerant of errors than web browsers are. To check code compliance use the free validation service at http://validator.w3.org/ or install a tool like HTML Tidy (http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett/tidy/) in your web browser.

• Get your content right – the text in your web pages should contain the keywords that the people you want to find your website will most probably use when they search. If the keywords aren’t there then it is impossible for the search engine to make a match. It’s that simple.

• Get other websites to link to your website – a link from a popular high ranking website is by far the most valuable so concentrate on quality rather than quantity. Here are a few things you could do:

  • join a reputable industry association to get your website listed on their website
  • write a blog – write good articles that other people will want to reference
  • get involved in other blogs and forum – note you should only link to your website when there is a good reason to. Blatant self-promotion is rarely tolerated.
  • talk to the press – if you can give them a good story or business insight they may link to your website from their article
  • suppliers – if your suppliers list where their products can be bought you should be there

Use web master tools, freely available from Google and Bing, to help you analyse all the above and inform you of any problems with your website.

Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)

Pay-per-click advertising (PPC) is where search engines display your advert alongside search results and you pay when someone clicks on it. Google AdWords and Microsoft adCenter (Bing) are the main players.

We have found PPC to be a double-edged sword; it can be a phenomenally effective way to advertise your business and also a useless drain on your money.

PPC works well when a significant number of people are searching for something, like a goose or three-bird-roast at Christmas. Once your keywords are attracting the right audience simply increasing your advertising budget should increase your sales.

When there isn’t a significant number of people seeking to buy what you are selling then advertising can only attract people who in the main don’t want to buy. It is easy to exasperate this problem by adding poor quality keywords in an attempt to get more clicks. If the interest isn’t there then it may be better to keep your money in your pocket until Christmas when it can be used more effectively.

Getting your keywords right is the key to effective PPC marketing and must match your objective. If your objective is to get traffic to your website then use every keyword that might work. On the other hand if your objective is to get online sales then you need to be much more selective about the keywords you use. Keyword phrases like “buy beef online” will probably match more effectively than just “beef”, which will also match with people who have no intention of buying. You should consider discarding keywords that match too broadly.

The advert you display when the keywords match will have a big effect on whether someone clicks on it or not. As well as reflecting the keyword match it should also be crystal clear what you are offering. “Buy free range chicken online” will attract people who are interested in buying free range chicken whereas “Trana Farm Shop” will attract a wider audience, which you will pay for. Creating specific adverts for different keyword groups will work better than a general advert associated with your business that you use with all your keywords.

When someone clicks on your advert make sure they go directly to the web page where they can buy. For example if your advert is “buy rump steaks online” then link to the rump steak page on your website and not the home page.

Monitor and analyse the effectiveness of your campaigns making adjustments to get the best possible results. When you are satisfied you are achieving your objective you can consider increasing your budget.

Facebook

Facebook offers a way for an individual to create an additional page to represent their business. It will appear as a completely separate entity. If you think a significant number of your customers may be using Facebook then this may be a good way to interact with them creating an interest in your business.

If you choose to have a Facebook page then you must be prepared to put interesting information and images on it. Concentrate on people interests like stories about your team, day-to-day happenings and interesting events.

Online Connector offers a way to put a sign-up form on your Facebook pages to collect email addresses. This is a great way to get people to sign up to your email marketing. (Does not work on Facebook groups).

Failing to write on your Facebook page and answer any comments may give a negative impression of your business. Try to dedicate at least 15 minutes every day to Facebook so you don’t fall in this trap.

Twitter

Twitter is a short text message broadcasting service where you publish messages which will be read by people who choose to follow you. They view your messages on their computer or mobile phone.

Use Twitter to quickly and easily tell your followers interesting things like “first of this season’s asparagus arrived at our farm shop today”.

When you create a marketing email in Online Connector check the “Twitter it” box. A tweet will then be posted in your Twitter account when the email is sent. This is a great way for people to receive your marketing emails without having to give you their email address.

Just as with Facebook failing to write regular tweets may reflect badly on your business.

Follow us on Twitter

Summary

Google Adwords is a great tool to get new customers at Christmas time who you then send your regular marketing emails in an effort to persuade them to buy from you more often. Social media like Facebook and Twitter are great tools to quickly and timely interact with your customers. There is also a good chance that people who are comfortable using these applications would also be comfortable shopping online. Use web master tools to improve the way search engine robots see your website and thereby improve your position in search results. To analyse the volume of traffic visiting your website and where it is coming from use Google Analytics.

download this article as a pdf file

 download and print this article as a pdf file

Introduction

We wanted to provide all our FoodCommerce clients with a blueprint on how to market their online shops and consequently offered Whitegate Farm Shop our services in return for sharing the data we gathered.

We chose Whitegate Farm Shop because their FoodCommerce online shop had only just been launched and little had been done to promote it. They have a well established Farm Shop selling mainly meat from animals reared on their own farm. They were also local to us so we could visit them easily should we need to.

Summary

During our marketing campaign leading up to Christmas 2008 we took ninety-five online orders. A really pleasing result considering that the website had only been launched in September. Our campaign began on the 17th November and up to that point the website had received three orders.

Website traffic from 17th Nov to 19th December - click on image for more statistics

To drive traffic to the website we used Google AdWords, which proved to be an extremely powerful tool and ultimately very good value for money. It did however require some thought and application before we managed to drive the right traffic to the website. Our goal was clear, we wanted people who were looking to buy online their Christmas geese, turkeys and other Christmas meats to visit the website. At the end of the campaign we had spent 2.85% of the value of our orders on Google AdWords.

Some people registered on the website but did not place an order so we followed these up with marketing emails sent through Online Connector. Our job here was to help people in deciding to place an order on the website. To make a strong association with the website we designed our email template to look similar. Our messages were always clear, simple and to the point. We spent £20 on Online Connector over 2 calendar months.

And lastly we reviewed the website. Our goal again was very clear, we wanted the people visiting the website to place orders. If they didn’t like what they saw or didn’t see what they expected we knew they would quickly continue their search elsewhere.

With our campaign in place we used Google Analytics to monitor how we were doing. This enabled us to see where our traffic was coming from, the keywords people were using to find us, and whether people stayed on the website or left straight away. We used this data mainly to fine tune what we were doing in Google AdWords.

Google AdWords and how we used it

Graphs of costs and clicks in AdWords

Google AdWords is used to create and manage adverts that primarily appear at the top or side of a Google search result. They also appear in advert blocks placed on other peoples websites and on Google search partners.

It works because your advert is only displayed to people who have already declared an interest in what you are offering. When their keywords match with your keywords your advert is entered into a bidding process. Whether your bid is successful and your advert appears in their search result will depend mainly on the amount you are prepared to bid and the budget you have set. If the person searching then clicks on your advert you pay Google the amount of your bid. This type of advertising is often referred to as “pay-per-click”.

We created our Google AdWords account and within it a campaign for Whitegate Farm Shop. Generally we went with the default settings which meant our bidding amount was set at “auto” and our budget amount £30/month. The geographical area was set to England, Wales and Scotland so we only advertised in the areas we delivered to. We created a single generic advert with a link to the website home page and then put in every keyword we could think of. We then sat back and monitored the campaign in Google AdWords and Google Analytics.

It soon became apparent that this wasn’t working at all well. On the first day the average cost-per-click worked out at 30p, so after only 4 clicks we had broke our daily budget. When this happened Google no longer displayed our advert, so it wasn’t seen during the prime surfing hours at lunch time and in the evening. We were also perplexed by some paid traffic coming from the USA, people we didn’t want as they could not order from the website.

The first thing we did was take control of the bidding amount and set our bid maximum at 10p. This meant we could now get at least 10 clicks in the day. We were a little concerned that by bidding this low our advert would never be displayed, but this did not turn out to be the case. In December the Christmas market got busier so we decided to turn this up to 15p to make our bid more competitive. Towards the end of the campaign, when we knew just how effective Google AdWords could be, we raised this to 25p to catch as many last minute orders as we could.

The paid traffic from the USA was quickly dealt with by turning off “content”, this is our advert being displayed on other peoples websites, but unfortunately it was doing it all over the Globe. Sensing a loss of revenue Google soon wrote to us suggesting we turned it back on, but we ignored them.

Advertisement on Google search

We then retired our single generic advert and replaced it with separate adverts for goose, turkey, duck, chicken and three bird roast. We simplified the wording so it simply said what we were selling and that they could buy online for Christmas. The link in each advert now went directly to the relevant product page rather than the home page of the website.

Instead of keywords we now used key phrases. These required a more precise match with what we thought potential customers would type when they searched for their Christmas goose or turkey. Any keywords we thought were too vague or unnecessary we deleted including “Whitegate Farm Shop”. There seemed little point in displaying our advert when the website appear at the top of the list for this keyword search. If they clicked the advert we would have had to pay.

The targeting of potential customers was now much more precise and as a result we began taking orders. Our daily budget of £1 however still wasn’t going very far and continued to run out very early in the day. With our new found confidence we decided to increase our budget and the immediate effect was more orders. Eventually we were to set our daily budget at £20 . Quite how far we could have pushed this we don’t know as Christmas came too quickly and ruined the fun.

Email Marketing with Online Connector

Online Connector is our own email and text marketing service. You use it to create and send great looking emails and then get feedback on how well you did. Our goal during this campaign was to encourage people who had only registered on the website to place a Christmas order.

An email template was created that was similar in design to the website. We did this to create a strong association with the website and the Whitegate Farm Shop brand. All the emails we subsequently created were then based on this template.

In total we sent out four email campaigns and in every case we ensured our message was customer focused, concise and with clear calls to actions. The last three emails were only sent to people who had not yet placed a Christmas order.

As an experiment one of the email campaigns we sent out, Fresh Christmas Ideas, had no text, only images. This meant the recipient had to download the images to read the message, an action which would indicate to us they had opened the email. We found this did increase the opening rate however the click-through rate was the lowest of all.

Our email performance compared to similar industry figures

Optimising Whitegate Farm Shop’s website

It was crucial that having driven people to the website they immediately saw what they expected and ultimately liked it enough to place an order.

We gave the “Home” page a Christmas theme which began with an image of the free range geese grazing in the fields. This was followed by a short message explaining Christmas ordering and then thumbnail pictures of all the Christmas products that linked through to the associate product page. At the top of the right column we added a graphic inviting people to register for customer rewards. Clicking this opened a pop-up window where people could enter their email address and name.

Over the course of the campaign we were to add details to the “How to Buy Online” page several times. The feedback we were receiving told us that customers not only wanted to immediately see what they expected, as with the “Home” page, but also wanted to be able to study in detail how ordering from Whitegate Farm Shop actually worked. Our challenge was to present this information in a clear and easy to read way.

Conclusions

Taking into consideration that the Whitegate Farm Shop website was little known, our campaign only ran over the period of one month and the relatively small amount we spent with Google AdWords and Online Connector we have been truly delighted with the ninety-five Christmas orders we received.

In the coming year our challenge is to continue building the online customer base and convert the seasonal shoppers into regulars. We intend to use the same tools as we did here along with incentives and rewards.