On The Market

Posted on 6 Jun 2002 at 16:42

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Setting up an online store is different to starting a traditional retail business. There are many advantages, not least of which is that the overheads can be a fraction of those involved in running a high-street shop, but there's one big potential downside: it's trickier to let people know about your store. As you don't actually have a storefront in the real world, opening for business online doesn't necessarily mean doing business online.
If your online store is another channel for an existing business which already has a customer base, this makes it easier to promote your site. Start telling your customers, however you acquired them, about your online channel. Advertise your web and email addresses extensively wherever possible. Once your e-commerce shop is up and running, every advertisement and piece of business stationery should carry your online contact details. If you're starting an e-business from scratch, though, you must work harder to attract visitors and your site marketing plan will be different.

Get your site noticed
Your key marketing objective is to deliver traffic to the site. Just behind that is the need to convert visitors into buyers. The products or services you offer for sale and the kind of people or businesses you want to sell to should shape the tactics you use to get people to visit your site. Your budget and time restrictions also affect the scale of your marketing ambition. Profit margins on the goods you sell, the cost of an average purchase and potential volume of sales all influence how much cash you should spend on promotion and advertising. If you have drawn up a business plan and worked out your budget, you should know your limits.
Drawing up a marketing plan is not particularly difficult although it can appear so, especially when you attempt it for the first time. To create it, consider your targets: sales and the number and type of customers. You must decide on the best way of carrying messages to people, which will encourage them to act and to buy from you. The nature of the offers you make online and the ease, simplicity and friendliness of the e-commerce site will have a large effect on whether people buy or simply browse.
Remember that even if someone visits and doesn't buy, this doesn't mean they never will. It's important to get them to visit in the first place so that if their buying needs change in the future, they will think of your site and return there to buy. Also bear in mind the rule that most businesses make 80 percent of their profits from less than 20 percent of their customers. It's clear that a significant amount of your marketing should aim to identify browsers as well as buyers.
Capture data on visitors if you can. One method is to offer a free incentive for simple registration that is promoted prominently on your site (next to your privacy policy). The best websites offer an opt-in email newsletter, and building an email mailshot list should be high on your e-business priorities. An email mailshot costs virtually nothing to distribute, unlike printed material which has to be paid for in the first place and then costs real money to post. Ensure that you do not send your mailshot to people who have not requested it, though; being a spammer is no way to advertise your online store. Try to encourage casual visitors to your site to opt in so they can hear more from you.
You don't need to splash money on software tools to help you manage your lists and mailshots: it's possible to do email merges using Microsoft Word and Outlook. A little effort cutting and pasting from a database or spreadsheet into your email client is sufficient until you reach the point where it makes sense to spend money on software solutions.