Online Marketing - Marketing Don

How To Stay In Business In 2009

Let’s face it, it is harder to sell your products today than it was 12 months ago.  Not only is it harder, but net revenues are dropping.  With all the discounts, promotions, and coupons to encourage sales, net revenues are getting smaller and smaller.  On top of all of this, it actually looks like it might be getting worse before it gets better.   There are a few things you can do to get through these tough times. 

In 2009, you are not going to make more money from selling each product online.  One the ways to compensate for this loss is to sell more of each product.

Think “dollar store” marketing rather than trying to hit that home run and sell a few products at a huge profit margin.   You normally sell 500 products a day at a net profit of $20 each ($10,000 a day).  You are now seeing not only the number of sales drop to 400 a day, but your net profit dropped to $15 ($6,000 a day).   In today’s economy it is going to be very difficult to bump up your net profits, so the alternative is to increase the number of orders.  To match your previous revenue number of $10,000 per day, you will need to sell about 667 products a day instead of 500 you were selling (667 products x $15 = $10,000). So let’s take a look at increasing products sales. 

STEP 1: Increase your current revenue streams

1. Increase the number of paid search engines
I will assume you are selling your products in Adwords, Yahoo, and MSN Adcenter already.  It’s time to explore and test those 2nd and 3rd tier engines.  Remember, we are not looking for blow out revenue numbers.  We are simply looking to increase the number of orders while maintaining a positive return on investment.  Even if the other main paid engines are generating tens of thousands of dollars a month and these little 2nd and 3rd tiers are only netting $500 to $1000 each, keep them open.  You will see why in a minute.  Examples of some 2nd tier engines are Ask.com, 7search, MIVA, search123, and there are various niche ones and country specific ones as well if you search for them online.

2. Increase the number of shopping engines
If you are not in Google base and you sell products online, I want you to stop reading this article, go to your google account, sign up and get your products in their asap.  It is 100% free.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but you have absolutely nothing to lose.  We sell a lot of products through google base.  Did I mention it was FREE!!!  If you are already using shopping engines, using the same concept as above, add more of them. 
 
Here is a list of some shopping engines (in no particular order):
Google Base FREE
The Find FREE
Yahoo shopping
Shopping.com
MSN shopping
Bizrate
Like
Shopzilla
PriceGrabber
Nextag
Smarter
Become
Shop.com

Monitor everything closely at first, but once they get going, again, you can generate anything from a lot to a little bit more per engine.

All said and done, let’s you are averaging $1000 a month each.  Depending on the size of your company, you may think individually this is not worth it, however in these slow, low margin times, when you add up those 5 new second tier engines and 5 new shopping engines at $1000, you are at $10,000 a month.  This side extra $10,000 a month could mean the difference between layoffs or closing up shop.

3.  This one has to do with search engine optimization and usability best practices.  I am not going to go to deep into them because they are all over the internet, but will add a quick list of must do’s:

a. Each product/service should have its own webpage
b. Each page of your website should have a totally unique title tag, meta tag, and content.  If you sell red sticks and blue sticks, do not simply replace the words “red” and “blue” on those product pages and tags.  The tags and content need to be 100% unique.  By doing this, you may add 1000’s of pages to the search engines search results and increase your chances of long tail sales dramatically.
c. Go through your website as if you were going to buy something.  Ask a friend to do that as well.  You will be surprised by what you see.  “Buy” button hard to find? Once you find the product are there clear instructions on what to do next? How long is your check out process?  Is it simple, fast, and easy to buy your product or service?
d. Using your analytics program, which is an absolute must have, look at your bounce rates, and where people are leaving your site.  Why are they leaving?  Also, it is time to start testing! Test upsell pages and adding x/y promotions.  Test different promotion modules- is “Save Up To 50%” better than “Free Shipping?”

STEP 2:  Time to add new multiple stream of income
It is time to step back from your business.  You look at your business everyday and you are immersed in it.  It is time to step back and look at your business as if you were an outside consultant.  What are you missing? Do you sell shoes?  Are there popular brands or models you are not selling?  Get those brands and start selling them.   Do you have an affiliate program?  Look into starting an affiliate program and have others sell your products for you.
What payment types do you accept?  Do you ship overseas?  By simply adding PayPal as a payment method you may increase the number of sales not just due to the addition of a new way for your customers to pay, but our overseas sales increased as well because it is a trusted source of international payments.  Remember, we are not looking for one home run, we are looking to increase the number of sales through multiple channels and “payment method” is just another channel.