This episode of Ecommerce News I’ll talk about some few new marketing strategies. Instagram Stories, Snapchat Takeover and some personal news that I think will benefit you.

Instagram just released the “Stories” aspect to the their feed . This is very similar to Snapchat’s My Story Feature, with the Stories being only temporary videos and photos that are strung together to form a gallery that tells a story. With this new feature you don’t to fear the sense of “oversharing” and you can get as creative as you want. These photos and videos will be gone from your profile and feed within 24. So those not so professional stories will be gone and have no effect on your profile. The benefit to yours business is these stories go to the top of the news feed. The story has a bigger impact and
As you may know the Snapchat takeover has become very popular with companies who let celebrities or artist take over their Snapchat for the day. This can also be of benefit to you, by letting your customers share their stories on your profile. Giving them exposure and increasing your Snapchat followers. At Bdancewear we let some of the Dance Studios take over for the day, showing either competitions or their every day at the studio. This increased not only brand loyalty but also makes our snapchat a little more interesting for others to follow.
On a personal note, I have finally moved to Santa Monica, so if you are in the LA area I would love to meet up and network. Feel free to send me an email. We have also hired a Marketing Assistant at Bdancewear and a Personal Assistant at Ecommerce. If you can afford to hire someone, do it! This could potentially double your output. Also having a managerial (more…)

Do you want find a way to build trust with your existing customers while at the same time showcasing your business to a broader network? Youtube is the platform that allows you to do that! If you can find a way to incorporate your products or relate them in videos, you will advance your business. Videos are valuable because they produce visual engagement between your business and customers. In this video, I will share 7 tips that will help you build your Youtube network and in return, traffic to your website.

Tip 1: Thumbnails

Thumbnails are one of the most important things you can do because people are looking at a series of thumbnails trying to choose what to watch so yours needs to stand out. Some ways you can accomplish that are including faces/eyes, good colors, and good contrast to name a few. These simple techniques alone can make your thumbnail pop out someone will be more likely to click on your video.

Tip 2: Not too Long

Videos shouldn’t be too long because it makes the viewer less likely to want to watch it. I personally would recommend 5 minutes or under realistically but the general principle is no longer than 10 minutes.

Tip 3: DIY

DIY’s have a lot of search engine power. Majority of people are visual learners so it is best to show them how to do something in a video. If you can think of a way to do a DIY with your product or relating to it, it will be a great move for your business. By doing this, you are also building authority and trust with viewers who are also potential customers.

Tip 4: Collaborate

With collaborating, you get to leverage the power of others. There are other people with big youtube networks and by collaborating with them you are able (more…)

Does you use Pinterest for your business? If you are reading this, chances are you are either thinking about how to implement it, or have used it but aren’t seeing results. If used correctly it can be a great tool for Ecommerce stores or any type of business. Many of the people who use Pinterest are pinning what they are interested in buying. That means they are potential customers that can boost your business. Through this guide, you will learn how to optimize your online Pinterest marketing strategy for creating sales.

 

Tip 1: Good Pin Practices

Good images are very important when pinning. Don’t just show a product in a Pinterest pin. A better way is to hook the viewers in by showing them something that they want to pin and share. For example if there is a protein company, instead of just using a picture of the product it would be more interesting to show how you can use it in a recipe. A protein shake with pictures of the different steps will attract any viewer by far over a simple picture.

Tip 2: Long Pins Do Well

 The reason for their proven success is because long pins take up more space and tell a story. At BDancewear we do how to DIY (Do it Yourself) costume pins and show step by step of the process. It tells the story sequentially and is visually appealing which attracts the viewer causing them to look at your more into your pin.

 Tip 3: Make Sure and “SEO” Pin Description

 Pinterest is actually a search engine; a lot of people go on Pinterest and search for many things like DIY ideas, how to bake a cake…etc. One of the things you can do is research. Find the keywords that your customers are searching for and using, then include those (more…)

In this day and age everyone is familiar with the platform Facebook. Chances are your family members, friends, and colleagues are signed up to the popular website. It’s a great for sharing personal stories, watching funny videos, and connecting with family members that live across the country. Well not only is it useful for those purposes but you can learn to implement the website to serve as a tool for the benefit of your business.

In this video, I’m going to show you 7 Facebook Marketing Secrets for your business. These are tips and tricks that you can use on Facebook to direct more traffic to your website and ultimately more sales.

 

Tip 1: Post Native Content

When posting, it shouldn’t come across as an ad. As someone is scrolling through their feed, the content should resemble what a friend might post. People will get “ad blindness” if it comes off as a business post which in return causes the post to be ignored. So aim to make the post look like it belongs on the potential customers feed.

Tip 2: Use Pictures

Images take up real estate and on top of that are more eye catching so make sure to with all your posts to incorporate pictures. If you compare a post with just text and another one that includes an image, you will clearly notice which one sticks out more on the feed.

Tip: Ask for Comments/Tags

There are many different ways to create engagement with potential customers. The first one is to ask for comments. You can do this by asking questions for example who is your favorite superhero or what do you think about this product? The next thing is to ask for tags. I sell dance clothing at my store so something I would say is to tag your favorite dancer, or tag (more…)

How to Shoot Professional Product Photos for Your Ecommerce Store

If you’re growing an ecommerce business, you might feel you have a million things to do to be successful. People define success differently, but one straightforward measure of it is making more sales.

One thing that will help you increase your store’s sales is focusing on your product photos. In this guide, I’ll go in-depth into product photography: why it’s important, what you’ll need to begin, tips and tricks, and more. Let’s get started!

Why do professional product photos matter?

As I just mentioned, including professional product photos on your website will help you sell more.

First, keep in mind that customers online can’t touch products before they buy, so product photos are the next best thing. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes: You don’t want to spend your hard-earned money, wait days for your item to get to you, and then realize the product isn’t even close to what you wanted, right?

That said, customers are less likely to take the plunge and buy online if they aren’t sure what they’re getting. You’ll want to combat uncertainty by including lots of photos showing your products from different angles.

The quality of those photos matters, too: 75% of consumers say the quality of photos on an online retailer’s product page is “critical” or “very important” while deciding whether to buy. So, including not just product photos but professional-looking product photos is incredibly important for your website.

Using amazing photos also brings an impressive collection of benefits…

Great photos:

• Are eye-catching and get your customers to start browsing your online store.
• Show off what your store is about and let your customers grasp your “look” or “style.”
• Accentuate your product copy to create a powerful one-two selling punch.
• Get shared on social media and bring traffic to (more…)

You have your online store all set up. It’s easy to use. It looks professional. Your products are added, and they’re all well described. You’re guaranteed to make money, right?

Wrong.

You can have the best website in the world in your given niche, but if you never get any traffic to it, you won’t ever make a sale. That’s why search engine optimization or SEO is vital to the success of your e commerce store. Search engine optimization is the process of adding elements to a website to help it appear high up in the results of search engines.

Each time someone searches for a keyword, Google’s algorithm determines which websites are the best and most relevant ones for the result. It evaluates this in two ways:

1. Through Elements On the Site. Google looks at certain things on websites to find pages that are relevant and useful to people who are searching. You can use on-page SEO to help Google see your site in the best way possible.

2. Through Links to Your Site. Google also examines how many websites link to web pages and what kind of sites are referring traffic to particular pages. A page that has a lot of incoming links from high quality sites will rank higher than one that has few or no incoming links or links only from low quality sites. You can use off-page SEO to improve your standing in terms of link placement.

On-page SEO is much easier for online store owners to control and should be your focus when you’re beginning your e commerce store. This tutorial will teach you what you need to know to complete it.

1. Use Keywords.

I have developed guides specifically related to keywords in the past, but if you’re unfamiliar with the term, a keyword is the word or (more…)

When I’m talking with people who are beginning the process of launching an online store, they’ll often ask me what the most important thing to do is when planning a website. The answer is keyword research.

When you open a brick and mortar store, customers will see your sign outside and come in to see what you have, but on the Internet customers can’t drive by your store to get interest in your inventory. Many of them will find you through search engines, which are powered by keywords.

Keywords are phrases that people type into search engines by Google in order to find something online. When people are shopping for something specific, they’ll type a few words into the search box and then click submit to find a store that sells it. The exact words and their order matters, and it can be hard to just guess what people will actually be searching for when they want to buy products like yours.

Keyword research gives you insight into what people are searching for online for the most and what phrases they are entering. You’ll need keywords for everything from naming your store to naming your products to naming your categories. I really can’t overstate how important it is that you invest enough time into keyword research if you want to succeed with an online store.

The good news is that keyword research is very easy these days, thanks to Google. The search engine offers a tool called the Keyword Planner that you can use to discover keywords.

Here’s an actual example from my online store. I sell dance clothing and had a particular pair of dance shorts that I was having trouble naming. The shorts had a very wide waistband that could be worn up as high waist shorts or folded down to wear as standard (more…)

A lot of entrepreneurs who are interested in starting their own e commerce stores are overwhelmed with the idea of actually getting the site put together, but if you break everything down step by step, it’s really not difficult to get a site up and running. I’ve created a series of videos and even have a complete course that walks you through all of the steps that you need to take to get an e commerce store up and running.

Of course, you need to begin by deciding what you need to buy, purchasing a domain name and developing a brand. Then, you need to find products and get your website’s framework in place. Once you have a basic website set up, you’re ready to start adding products to the e commerce site. How long this will take you will depend on how many products you’re selling, and the specific steps that you need to do to add products will vary based on what site platform you’re using. Still, there are some basics that will apply to all stores.

Here are some secrets and best practices that can help you add products in a way that will ensure you to get the most sales possible.

1. Remember SEO when you’re naming your products.

When you’re deciding what to call your products, you need to think of two things. First, you want to make sure that the title is an accurate, clear description of your product. After all, people will see the product listed on your category pages and need to be able to know which links to click to buy what they’re looking for. Next, you want to make sure that the title is something that people actually search for. This means that you want to include at least one good keyword. As an (more…)

Heavy web traffic to your online store is a beautiful thing. After all, you’ll never sell a single product if no one ever comes to your store. Still, just having people visit your website every day won’t make you money either. What really counts for success is being able to effectively convert site visitors into buyers.

For example of why conversions matter more than site traffic, let’s say you only had 100 people visit your site but that you managed to sell to 50 percent of them. That would mean that you would get 50 sales. By comparison, if you had 1000 visitors and only converted 2 percent you would only end up with 20 sales. Naturally, your goal would be to have both high traffic and high conversions, so that you can sell as much as possible and make a great profit.

The good news is that increasing conversions is much easier than boosting traffic, making it a relatively simple way to improve your website’s profitability without having to invest in more marketing and advertising. This quick guide will teach you how to increase your conversions whether you’re just starting out or have an established website.

Step 1. Don’t Make Me Think.

I got this idea from a book by Steven Krug. The concept is to make it so that buyers don’t have to do any work to make a sale. As an example, imagine if I gave you a candy bar and said it costs $1, you might be willing to do so. But what if I said you can buy the candy bar for $1 after you solve a maze? You’d say there is an easier way to go and buy a candy bar, and you’d just find a store selling one for the same price or maybe even more to purchase (more…)