Latest news
Online retail sales continue to climb
February 23, 2011
There maybe less money around but online sales are continuing to increase. January 2011 saw a 21% increase in online revenue spend to that made in January 2010!
All in all consumers spent a total of £5bn this January on goods from electrical items to holidays. It confirms January 2011 as the best post-Christmas shopping period ever seen online. The latest figures from the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index reveal that shoppers in the UK spent £83 per head on average that month.
There’s also evidence that shoppers spent most with multi-channel operators, suggesting that cross channel marketing is a winning favour with British shoppers.
To read the full article see bumper January online on the Internet Retailing website.
Social deals can help your business
February 4, 2011
If you sell to consumers there is a great marketing tool that is ideal for small businesses who only trade locally. Yes we are talking social deal marketing! Social deals are a great way of targeting potential customers within your desired location.
In today’s economic climate consumers are on the look out for deals and vouchers to save them money. Yes you may be giving these new customer a bargain but you have to look at the bigger picture – RETENTION!
You know these new customers are interested in your services or products as they have taken your deal – half the battle has been done! So here are a few pointers for getting the best out of social deals and retaining those customers.
1. Make sure you take the new customers personal details including name, address, email address and contact telephone number. Also try and get the more trick detail of date of birth.
2. Try and up sell products and services that are not included in the offer.
3. If you are a service provider (eg hairdresser, beauty salon) and before the customer leaves, ask them when if they would like to book their next appointment now. If you don’t ask you don’t get!
4. Make sure you have promotional material to hand to give the customer before they leave your premises. For example, a price list, business card, leaflet. Anything that has your company details on.
5. Use the customer details collected on their initial visit to contact at a later date either via letter, email or telephone to encourage further visits for a full price service or product.
If you are in doubt as to whether social deals are right for you have a read at this article – Capitialising on the Social Trends.
SEO Myths
December 10, 2010
For those of you wanting to do a bit of DIY Search Engine Optimisation, don’t start doing anything before you read the article posted below.
There are so many myths and misconceptions surrounding SEO that this might just give you an insight if you are new to the SEO game and terminology.
Read and learn – Search Engine Optimisation Mtyhs
so, you want to get a website?
October 17, 2010
So, the time has come to get a website for your business.
Before you go ahead, ask yourself two questions:
- Why do you want a website?
- What is it’s purpose or business aims?
Very rarely do these questions get asked before a website is commissioned.
A website needs to be built on solid foundations to aid your business growth and asking the two questions above will go along way to making sure you are putting those foundations in place. What has to be remembered is that simply getting a website is not enough. It needs to work for you and work hard. It needs to be the best sales person you can afford to pay.
THINK!
Think about what you want your website to do – is it to produce leads for your business services or is it to generate sales for consumer products. A website needs to be an extension of your offline business. Your offline business provides a revenue stream and your website needs to do the same. It is not a tool simply to give free information. It needs to sell you and your company! By asking yourself “why” and “what” you will be able to outline the aims of the site and how it will work for you.
Your website will also need to be marketed so your target audience can find it. Any website is marketable but the return on investment will very much depend on the right message being portrayed through your website and your website being inviting to the visitor.
THINK SOME MORE!
Another very common mistake is to get the cheapest website possible – this isn’t necessarily the best thing to do. Many, many people in this day and age will check out a company online before having any contact with the company. Therefore having a good web presence is essential. If your website is not in keeping with the quality of services or products you sell, then a bad website will only harm your business not enhance it!
No doubt you will have worked hard to build a good business reputation. Do you want to damage this reputation through a badly designed website that doesn’t give your business credibility? Your answer will likely be “Of course not!”
Your website should be an investment for your business not some cheap add-on so make sure you make the right decisions before commissioning a website build.
E-retail sales continue to climb
October 3, 2010
The e-retail sales for August 2010 are up yet again on the same month last year. The 15% increase clearly shows that consumers are spending more time and money online than every before.
With an estimated 31m UK consumers now shopping online, the question has to be asked why some retails still do not have an acceptable online presence to sell their products?
A good online selling platform, as in an e commerce or online shop, is becoming more and more essential to a retail trader’s growth. If retailers do not start to embrace the worth and power of the Internet they are going to struggle to grow and even maintain their business.
If you are a retailer without an online shop, talk to us. We can advice you of the best course of action to take to ensure your business continues. You need to invest now in getting that selling platform up and running. It doesn’t matter what the size of your business is, there are solutions to fit all.
If you want to take a slice of the growing e-retail business you can but you need to act sooner rather than later.
Google Instant – Good or Bad?
September 13, 2010
Last week, Google announced a new product called Google Instant. The idea is to speed up the search process for a user. The new product is to be rolled out in the UK, US, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Russia but only on the Google.com domain.
Instant works by showing search results as a user types and changes the results as a user continues to type the next letters . All the time, giving the suggestion of what search term a user might be looking for. Some are calling this type of search “smarter prediction.”
So how is this new product being received?
From a user point of view, people seem to like it, although it is taking some getting use to. It certainly is quick and you start to see the results, well, Instantly! Will it change the way people search? For me no. I don’t like to be told what I am looking for. There is an option to tun the instant delivery method off results of and I will be hitting that button!
From a business point of view, there seems to be a few concerns how this will affect SEO marketing techniques and the AdWords pay per click marketing platform. I seriously think this is a waiting game and it needs to settle down before there is any real need for panic! However, I have made a few observation below.
I don’t feel there will be any major changes immediately to SEO techniques for general keyword terms. However, I do feel that those sites that get traffic though more long tail search terms and phrases may lose out. Why? Because users see instant search results and therefore may not continue typing a long tail phrase. This potentially will affect the smaller business websites that can’t afford to compete with the big boys on SEO costs to gain those elusive page 1 listing for on a broader search term.
As for the AdWords, pay per click marketing, my main concern is really around the page impressions and how Google are going to count these in terms of an advert being displayed. If they are to be counted it could seriously affect a PPC campaigns click thru rate (CTR). The CTR is a big factor in Google deciding how relevant an advert is to the users search.
Now, I am sure that Google in their wisdom, have thought about this and will inform AdWords advertisers in due course if this is going to effect anything in their account. I also can’t see Google doing anything that is going to harm their revenue stream.
I truly do believe the impact of Google Instant is a waiting game for marketers and businesses.
Supermarkets use Social Media for back to school campaigns
August 30, 2010
It has been reported this week that supermarket chains are using social media platforms to aid their back to school marketing campaigns.
The demographics of social media users is changing and the average age of a social media user has increased to the mid 30′s range. The age range of most parents of primary school children. Using social media is an ideal way to target parents as school uniforms and back to school in general, is heavily discussed on social media platforms and parenting forums.
Tesco has been using social media since January 2010 and launched a Facebook page to engage mums to display photos of their school days. Click here to view the full story on MarketingMagazine.
The power of social media marketing can be a powerful online marketing tool. Although MagnifyB do not offer social media as a form of web marketing, we certainly use it to market our own site and services and are seeing some success from this. Social sites and forums are a great way for smaller businessesma to gain traffic and links to their site – why don’t you give it a go for your business?
Managing a website
August 19, 2010
Ok, you have your brand new website to showcase the services you offer or the products you sell. Your website will act as a lead generation tool for your business or as a further platform to sell your products.
So, now it’d time to manage your website. But…………..
Do you know how to manage a website?
Have you got the time to manage a website?
How much time do you need to set aside every month to manage your website?
If you are managing your website, will your offline business suffer as a result?
Are there any financial costs involved,to managing your website?
The above questions are very rarely considered when a website is commissioned. Once you have a website for your company, it isn’t the end……..it’s only the beginning! Just as you manage your offline business you will need to apply management skills to your online business too.
How do you manage a website?
Most websites run off a CMS (content management system) that means you can easily update, add to and delete the copy or products on the site. Hopefully the company you commissioned to project manage and build your website will have provided you will a full training document with step by step instructions of how this CMS works. You need to make sure you fully understand this before making any tweaks to your site. If you tweak it wrong, you are likely to break the site and will have to pay to get it fixed.
A service site is much easier to manage than an e-commerce site or online shop due the volume of pages this type of site generates and the need to change homepage content regularly.
You also need to understand the importance of on-page SEO and use these tactics when you alter anything. Failure to do so will only result in the search engines not viewing your site as important enough to rank highly in the search engine result pages (SERPS) of a users search. Make sure when you are adding copy or products that you use unique copy (see post on unique web copy for the importance of this )
Have you got the time to manage a website?
Different websites need different levels of time to manage effectively. As mentioned above e-commerce websites need more management thus will require more time.
Online shops need constant alteration. Your suppliers may change their pricing structure; you need to alter your selling prices to reflect that change. Your supplier may discontinue a product; you need to remove from the website. Your supplier may bring out a new range that you know will sell; you need to get these products on the site as soon as possible. You may need to amend your delivery charge on items due to fuel or postal increases. The list could be endless is you have a larger e-commerce site (above 700 products or product variants.)
Everything you need to do and manage for an offline shop you need to apply to manage an online shop. Do you have the time to manage all these changes? Typically, the answer will be no.
Do not under estimate the time needed to manage a service based site though. Most service sites today have a news or blog section. (If yours hasn’t you need to have one added) This type of area is important to give service websites a way of adding pages to their sites that can be indexed by the search engines, offer linking opportunities from other websites, capture what is known as long tail key phrases and give the visitors to your site more in-depth information. It gives you the opportunity to add unique content that is related to the services you offer. Very much like this news item is relevant to the services MagnifyB offer. The news or blog area needs to be updated as least twice a month with a decent post (not Twitter or Facebook feeds)
How much time do you need to set aside every month to manage your website?
The answer to this question is likely to be the same as the answer to “How long is a piece of string?” A defined answer is impossible to give. It all very much depends on the size, functionality and business aims of your website.
A service site could be anything from ½ a day to a week per month
An online shop could be anything from 1 day to a full months work.(This can vary also depending on the time of the year and your selling patterns)
You also need to consider that the analytic data of your website needs to be regularly looked at and checked for patterns, problems and peaks so you can take in to consideration for marketing purposes. Also customer queries or requests for more information generated off the website need to be address in a timely manner. For online shops, you also need to think about customer care after an order is placed.
Where are going to find that spare time to do all this management? For many small to medium size businesses, there is no spare time.
If you are managing your website, will your offline business suffer as a result?
The short answer to this question is….. POSSIBLY!
You will no doubt have worked very hard and continue to work hard to establish your offline business in both reputation and branding. You need to apply this same hard work to your website. The answer to this question very much comes back to – Do you have the time to manage your website?
Are there any financial costs involved managing your website?
There will be direct costs and indirect costs to managing your site.
Many companies do not consider having a maintenance budget for when something goes wrong with the site. Websites can get bugs, these bugs need fixing and to get them fixed you need to pay a designer or programmer. You may also decide that you need to make amendments to the structure of your website based on customer requirements or problems you have found from your analytic data.
Indirect costs are mainly attributed to your time. You know what your time is worth and if you have to use that time to manage your website, this is an indirect cost.
With indirect costs it is better to evaluate if your time can be better spent elsewhere and actually pay some-one or a reputable website management company to actually manage the website for you. These costs then become direct costs. You will most probably find that outsourcing the management of your site is far more cost effective than if you manage this yourself.
Why more cost effective? Because website management companies have the skill, knowledge and knowhow to manage websites quickly and effectively, saving you money!
The website management and web content management services offered by are totally tailored to the needs of the site. Drop an email, info@magnifyb.co.uk give MagnifyB a call on 0114 2580088 or fill in the contact us form if you would like a free, totally no obligation estimate of cost for outsourcing your website management.
On a final note, what do you gain by outsourcing the management of your website? This is a simple 3 word answer – YOUR TIME BACK! Remember, your time is precious to you on so many levels, both professionally and personally.
Google change their UK trademark policy
August 6, 2010
Google has announced changes to their UK trademark policy that will bring it in line to their US policy. Currently, UK AdWords advertisers are not allowed to use trademark names in their advertising text without the strict permission of the trademark owner. Companies such as Apple and Sony have not allowed resellers to use their brand name in PPC marketing campaigns. Since May 2008, advertisers can bid on trademarks and brand names but can not use the the company name or brand in the actual text. In real terms, this has meant biding on the trademark or brand name is next to useless!
All this is set to change from 14th of September this year.
Some rules will still be set around using trademarks. One such rule will be that the advert must click through to a page containing information about the trademark or through to a product of the trademark. For example if you use the trademark of “Apple” it must link through to an Apple product or information about Apple as a company.
So what does all this mean in layman terms?
It simply means that e-commerce sites that sell branding products now have the opportunity to successfully bid on keywords and phrase to increase their sales using Google AdWords.
In our eyes this is no bad thing for the smaller e-commerce site owners, as e-retail sales are continuing to increase month by month, they have a better chance of getting a slice of this continuing growth.
Starting an e-commerce business
July 25, 2010
Starting an e-commerce business is no different to starting up any type of business. It takes investment in both money and time and you need to have patience. Quite a lot of patience! Many companies think getting a website up and putting products on there will enable them to start selling online. This is correct in principle but there are 3 main elements that need to be in place to have a successful e-commerce business.
- A website
- Products
- Marketing
Every business that sells products to consumers needs to have an e-commerce website in the very near future as peoples buying habits are changing. An e-commerce website will not only attract new customers but give your existing customers another means of purchasing from you enabling you to retain customers easier.
Before you go ahead with your e-commerce business you need to know and have decided what the aims of your website are, have thought about the logistics (delivery, dealing with orders and customer queries), what products you want to sell and how you are going to get people to your website.
The Website
Your website needs to be: user friendly; aesthetically designed to the products you sell; technologically updateable; and above all influence visitors to become purchasers. If any one of these elements are missing, you will not generate the sales you desire. The company you chose to project manage and build your site should ask you many probing questions to find out exactly what you want from your website. If they don’t ,stay clear from them as the website they produce is unlikely to work towards your business aims.
Products
If you have a business selling a large range of items in many different areas consider selling only items from one area initially. For example if you are a furniture shop selling furniture for every room in the house, think about only having beds, mattresses and headboards.
It is always better to start with a few categories of products and expand with other categories at a later date. Why? Several reasons:
- The more products you initially put on the site the more investment you will require both in time and money. Each product ideally needs to be uniquely written to aid in natural and organic search ( see news post Don’t copy it – Write it for product writing)
- The range of products could be spread too thin across the site and you are not giving the visitor enough choice within each category to turn them into a purchaser
- The ongoing website maintenance will take more time and be more costly
- You need to find the best way of dealing with the logistics of selling online for your business
Ideally you need to start with between 400 and 500 products on your e-commerce website. This gives a good foundation, range of products and volume you can cope with. Think about the suppliers you use too. If you sell bulky items, look at the suppliers that do direct to customer delivery – it will help in the initial stages.
Marketing
This is the big one! Without some form of marketing your e-commerce website will never be found and whatever money you have spent getting your e-commerce site up will be wasted. Initial marketing methods that can work well for e-commerce sites if managed correctly are:
- Pay per Click marketing in Google, Yahoo and Bing
- Product data feeds in Google products and shopping comparison site
- Ongoing search engine optimisation including link building
- Email marketing – ideally with an offer
- Direct mail campaign to existing shop customers with an offer
- Leaflet drops and print averts within the local area ( 20 mile radius) promoting the site launch
- Vouchers with shop deliveries with a discount offer for further online purchase or to give to family and friends
There are many other options that can be considered depending on the products you sell and the budget you have.
You can look at your e-commerce site as a separate business if you wish – this does give you the option to sell at different prices to those in your shop. However, a website will naturally push people through the door of your premies and by not promoting both as one business you are, in effect, reducing the ways potential customers can purchase from you.
Get the website, products and marketing right and you will be on to a winning combination for successful online selling.
For more information on the e-commerce package offered by MagnifyB simply go to our e-commerce website packages page or contact us on 0114 2580088 for an initial chat.