Showing posts with label Facebook store. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Facebook store. Show all posts

Thursday, 1 November 2012

Facebook testing new way to sell online

According to an article published in the US, Facebook are currently testing a new way to allow users to sell their products on the social media site, in the form of classified advertisements. 

The project, dubbed "Marketplace", will allow users to create their own advertisements on items they currently have for sale and then have them appear on their friends news feeds. While this seems to be very similar to Facebook's current promoted post feature, it is believed that the new feature may allow users to add pictures, specifications and other information a person may need when deciding to purchase a product.

How could this help a business?

When you first read what the project is looking to provide, it seems like it will be more of a tool to help causal sellers get rid of one or two items they have lying around. However, from the perspective of an ecommerce store, this could be a great way to give your more popular products a boost in sales and awareness.

With fast Christmas approaching, you may have a few products in your store that sell better than others. There are the products that you would use within this "Marketplace" feature. People who follow your business would then be exposed to these products, allowing them to either visit your ecommerce or your Facebook store in order to purchase the product or view similar products you have for sale. Not only that, the fact your product can be see by users on their news feed, they have the option to then share your product with all the friends on their friends list. This means that this feature can allow your products to be exposed to literally thousands of people within seconds, dramatically increasing the traffic and sales your store will receive.

Just like the promoted posts, this feature will require the user to pay a certain amount in order to have the classified advertisement appear on the news feeds on your followers. The exposure your products could achieve, emphasises the need for all businesses to correctly engage with their social media pages to ensure they get the highest number of followers possible. 

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Tuesday, 23 October 2012

How a Facebook store can improve all areas of your business

When setting up your ecommerce store, we understand the difficulties that sellers face in being able to stand out from the crowd, get people aware of your business and generate interest in what you have to sell. Although Facebook has seemingly ensured some hard times in the last year, the social media site stills offers a Facebook store option for all businesses to take advantage of.

However, many businesses tend to believe that this selling platform is only beneficial to large brands who have a large interest and followers on their Facebook business page. While in some regards this is true, it doesn't mean that a Facebook store can't be beneficial to smaller businesses in a number of different ways. We at eSellution provide everyone who signs up for a free ecommerce store, also with a free Facebook store as we believe having a Facebook store provides any business with a number of benefits.

First and foremost, it exposes all of your followers, whether they are customers or not, to the products you have to sell. Now, while a Facebook store may not be a fantastic selling platform, the channel compliments your ecommerce software package enormously by being a great marketing tool. Many people who follow your Facebook business page may be doing so just to see any offers or promotions you run and as they may be doing this for a number of different businesses, they would be reluctant to leave Facebook and view an external site just to browse through your store. Like I said earlier, your Facebook store allows Facebook followers to view your products without having to leave the social media site. If they do then find a product that they like the look of, they will either purchase it through the Facebook store, or this initial interest in a particular product will compel them to visit your ecommerce store and make the purchase there. 

With your products appearing within the social media site, your Facebook store also allows you to improve your brand awareness, as customers will be able to share any products they view in your Facebook store with friends linked to their account. As the link to your store is within Facebook, the friends that do receive this link will be more likely to click on it as they will see it as much more trusting than if it were just an external link. Again this is great product exposure and could result in some of these people deciding to also make a purchase as they look to gain recognition for their peers by shopping at the same place.

A Facebook store is very simple to set up and run. Like all of your ecommerce platforms we offer here at eSellution, it can all be managed through our easy to use dashboard. There is no extra worked required at all, the items that you have imported into your ecommerce store will simply be replicated into your Facebook store. 

With over a billion active monthly users and an average of around 300 friends per user, you can image how many extra people your products can be exposed to simply by having a Facebook store. 

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Monday, 22 October 2012

How to increase your social media followers

If you're someone who runs their own business page, a fan page or any other organisation page, you know that having as many followers as possible is the ultimate goal in helping increase the brand identity of your business. Whenever we have a new client joins us here at eSellution, one of the first things we do is look to ensure their social media pages are fully optimised to provide the best benefit to their ecommerce store.

Whether it's on Facebook or Twitter, there are a number of different things you can do on each platform to give yourself the best chance of gaining as many followers as you possibly can.

Facebook


Customise your page

When you set up a business page for your ecommerce store, you want to add all the information anyone visiting the page would need as soon as possible. This means placing your business logo as your display picture and adding all other information such as what your business is, how long you have been in business and any other contact information such as URL, telephone number and email address. This information should be added before you starting posting content on your wall or invite people to follow your page.

Invite your friends

The easiest way to get the ball rolling is to ask all of your friends to follow your business page. Once they become a fan of your page, the notification will appear on the news feed of all their friends, allowing them to also see your business and possibly follow you. This is the easiest way to create that initial brand awareness and get as many people as possible becoming aware of your ecommerce store.  

Welcome message

Something you can look to do as an added personalised touch for each of your followers, is to send them a thank you message and welcome them to your business page. While this may be more difficult to do the more followers you generate long term, for the initial stages on your social media page, this allows each of your followers to gain a personalised experience on your business page, ensuring they feel valued right from the start. 

Vary your content

While you want to post content on your wall on a regular basis, the success of your Facebook page comes in being able to post a variety of content. The great thing about Facebook is that you can post pretty much any content you like. This means you can post regular status updates, links to your website, pictures, videos, articles like I said, pretty much anything you want. The more varied content you post, the more chance you have of not only engaging with your current followers, but enticing new users to follow your page.

Time you post

Although you will get engagement from some of your followers no matter what time during the day you post content, there are statistically times during the day where engagement levels will be higher than others. To optimise your engagement levels, you should look to post your content either on the morning, during lunch hours or during the evening, as these are the times when the higher proportion of users will check their social media accounts. 

Open a Facebook store

 While having a Facebook store on your page won't drastically increase your sales, it is a great marketing tool to make people on your Facebook business page aware of the products you sell without them actually having to leave the social media site. This works by placing a "My Store" tab on their business page which a user can click on and view your products. If a customer finds a product on your Facebook store that they are interested in, they can choose to their make the purchase through Facebook or visit your external ecommerce or eBay store to do it. If you have yet to set up a Facebook store, you can get a Free Facebook store from us today


Twitter


 Customise your page

 Like Facebook, as soon as you have created your Twitter business page, you need to update all of your information so that anyone visiting your profile knows who you are and what you offer within seconds. On top of that, you should also provide an external link to your business.

Follow as many people as you can

 As soon as you have everything set up, you should begin following as many people as possible. However, by this I don't mean simply follow anyone and everyone. As your profile is a business and not a personal account, you should only follow important figures in your field of interest. Following these people will allow more people to become aware of your Twitter page and if you post content that people find interesting, then some of these people will also decide to follow you.

Start Tweeting

 Unlike Facebook, there are certain limitations on what you can Tweet. Generally, you should be looking to only post status updates, pictures and external links for people to access. These external links can be to your online store, your latest promotions or any articles you may have produced.

Avoid personalised Tweets

 Again, as this isn't a personal Twitter account, no one following your business page wants to know what you are doing, where you are going or what you had for your lunch. Anything you post on your Twitter page should be only aimed at helping improve your business's image and generating sales.

Interact with people

 The great thing about Twitter comes in the ease in which you can interact with anyone; friends, family, customers or even leading figures in your industry. This communication is an integral part of not only improving your brand image, but making your business seem more personalised and more of an important figure within your industry. You may even try to reach out to one of these leading figures in order to get them to retweet one of your posts or engage with something you say. Although, due to the amount of people who try to engage with them on a daily basis, you may find that your Tweet receives no response.

Retweet

 While it's important to get your own tweets out there, it's also a good idea to retweet other peoples Tweets. This come be done for a number of different reasons; you find something interesting that someone else has posted and you want to share it with your followers or you simply want to give someone a helping hand by making as many people as possible aware of someone's post. The long term success of this is that, when you post content, you may find that some of these individuals decide to return the favour and retweet your content to their followers.


Get your free ecommerce store now: http://www.esellution.co.uk/pricing.html



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Tuesday, 16 October 2012

Is Pinterest the best for your business?

Okay, so you've decided to embark on a social media campaign to increase the social media standing of your online store. When prioritising which platforms to focus on your decide that Facebook and Twitter is the best way to go as they traditionally have been the best platforms for success. However, is Pinterest now usurping Facebook and Twitter's dominance as being the best social media platform for an ecommerce business?

While Pinterest has a substantially lower average monthly usage than the other two social media platforms, it can be a much more efficient tool for your eBay, Facebook store or any other ecommerce store you may have, as it's overall package can be much more efficient in helping improve your business as a whole. 

Although Facebook allows you to post a variety of content such as videos, images and status updates, Pinterest allows you to not only promote all of the products your store sells, but allows people who aren't linked to your account to stumble across them and then use your account as a gateway to purchase from your store. 

The success of Pinterest comes in its minimalist design, relying on purely a visceral appeal through its images, rather than using text or any other content to add weight. Added to that is the levels of engagement it creates as users are able to visit and ecommerce store of a product image they have discovered, share it with friends or leave a comment for others to read.


From the perspective on an online store, this is a great marketing channel to use in conjunction with your ecommerce software, allowing you to increase your brand image, as more users can view your products and potentially share them with their friends, increase traffic to your site through the profile links placed on the image as you originally "Pinned" the image and increase your conversion rate as you know anyone visiting your store through this channel has done so because they are already interested in one particular product. 

While you shouldn't overlook other social media platforms and focus solely on Pinterest, the success of any business social media campaign lies in being able to  effectively incorporate Pinterest along with all other social media platforms in equal weighting. Whenever you have a new product or range added to your store, you should update your Pinterest content to ensure that any new images are placed on your relevant boards.

The success of Pinterest's layout is emphasised by the fact that eBay are employing a similar layout style as their new home page design within the coming weeks. 




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Thursday, 13 September 2012

Beginners guide social media success

When running an ecommerce store, the ability to effectively engage with your community through your social media channels is going to be important in helping bring traffic to your site and encourage them to purchase. However, for those who may not use social media often or may be new to running an online store, where should you create social media accounts and what should you post?

Where to post?


While the two obvious social media sites you definitely need to look at are Facebook and Twitter, these shouldn't be the only two that you focus on. Today, there are a number of different social media sites that are able to get a high number of users interacting with their site each day. These platforms include Pinterest, YouTube, Google+ and also social bookmarking sites such as StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious and Reddit. Placing your content on each one of these sites is going to allow as many people as possible to become aware of your business name and what it is you offer. This, albeit limited initial engagement, forms the basis for your customer relationships, increasing the chances of you generating traffic and sales. 

What to post?


So now we have decided where we need to place our social media content, the next thing we need to decide is what are we actually going to post? Well what you post depends on what it is your business offers and how much time you have to spend on it.

Blog Posts - This isn't a sales piece, rather an informative piece that is related to your business. So if you run an electronics store, you may write some articles on the latest technology news or how certain electronic products could help make managing your life easier. Your blog posts are a great way to not only improve the ranking of your website through keywords, but to also create a platform to inform and engage with your customers. Within your blog you can also place links letting people know how they can access your online store.

Products - The more places you can show off your wears to people, the more chance you have of turning them into customers. You should be placing images on all of your social media sites on a regular basis, showing off the most popular products you have for sale and also any new products that you add to your store. While the best social media sites for showing off your product images are Facebook and Pinterest, there is nothing wrong with placing them across all of your social platforms. The strength of social media comes in the ability for users to share these images between their contacts, meaning your content can be exposed to a whole new customer base who didn't even know your store existed. 

Sales and Offers - In terms of providing content to make sure you are able create a popular social media platform, this is the most important. As we have mentioned in the past, the majority of people who follow a business on social media sites, do so to find out about the latest sales and offers. For this reason you should make sure that as soon as you decide to launch promotion, you place it on your social media sites for everyone to see. You can also choose to reward your social media followers by creating a promotion specifically for them. This would allow them to enter a specific code you have posted on your social media account, which they can then use to receive a discount on a product. Not only does this make your social media followers feel more valued, it also attracts new customers to join your social media channels just to find out about these offers. 

Also, when running a promotion, you can also look to increase customer engagement by creating a promotion that specifically requires them to give their opinion, possibly through some sort of voting system. For example, you could post four items from your store on a specific social media site, such as Facebook and ask your fans to vote on which item they would like to see a discount on. This way you are placing a promotion on an item that you know will be popular with customers and will also get sales. 

Answering Questions - Sometimes it is the simple things that are going to bring you the greatest success. While posting blog content, images and offers are all very important, sometimes answering a question from a user could be just as effective. Answering any queries users may have not only makes them feel more comfortable about purchasing from your store in the future, it also helps give your business a personality, making it seem much more approachable and trusting in the eyes of potential customers. 

Social Commerce - Within today's world of online selling, social media is not only a place to interact with customers, but is now also a platform where you can sell products directly to the customers. If you have your own Facebook store, you are able to have customers purchase items directly from Facebook. Depending on the items your store sells, this could be a popular platform as they would not have to leave Facebook to visit a third party site and you could also take advantage of a customer's buying impulse by allowing them to purchase a product as quick as possible. 

Get your free ecommerce store now: http://www.esellution.co.uk/pricing.html

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Wednesday, 29 August 2012

The basic guide to social commerce

As we have highlighted in recent weeks, Social commerce is becoming an ever increasing part of online selling. Businesses who actively engage is social commerce see greater levels of interaction, traffic and most importantly sales. Social commerce is a great way to help your online business develop their own brand identity and generate increased levels of profit.

However, if you have yet to look at social commerce for your business or are looking to improve the efficiency in which you carry it out, what are the basic steps you should look to do correctly to give you the best chance of success?

Today we are going to look at the different social media sites you should be advertising your business on, explaining what they offer in terms of promoting your brand.

Facebook

The most popular form of social commerce for any business with over 900 million regular users. Creating a page for your business allows you to provide your customers with various pieces of information such as product images, sales or simply sociable information to engage with your customers. It is this engagement which makes Facebook such a valuable tool. While customers engage with your website in terms of making a sale, there is not really any form of informal conversation. Facebook allows you to not only speak to your customers, but it also allows your customers to speak to you, ask you questions and give opinions regarding your business. If you are looking to get your business's social commerce platform off the ground, Facebook needs to be your first port of call. Facebook has also developed it's own F-commerce platform within online selling as a number of businesses now sell products directly on Facebook through a Facebook store.

Twitter

Allows users to follow your business through your Twitter page. They will then be able to see any status or product information you display through your Tweets. People can then respond to your Tweets with their own messages or Retweet your message for people who follow that user to then see, giving you the chance to increase your brand awareness and gain more followers. However, what you must always bear in mind is that the majority of people only follow you on both Facebook and Twitter to find out about any sales and offers your business is running. For this reason you should look to engage with your followers on a regular basis and provide them with the information they require. This could mean offering certain discounts solely to these people who have followed you on your social media channels. 

YouTube

Whether you decide to use YouTube or not for your business depends entirely on what it is your business does and what types of marketing techniques you use. As YouTube is a site for sharing various videos, your business needs to have the relevant content for this platform. This means if you have created any promotional ads or other video content, you should put it on YouTube as it will greatly increase the number of viewers you have for your content. If you run a business that sells various goods, such as an eBay store, you can look to create a slideshow displaying the images of products you have for sale in your store. A customer may then come across the slideshow, find a product that they like the look of and then visit your online store to purchase the product. 

Pinterest

Like YouTube, Pinterest is another social media platform that specialises solely in visual content. However, rather than displaying videos, Pinterest displays images which you can pin to various boards for people to see. Like I said earlier with YouTube, if you run a goods store, you can 'pin' images of your products on to Pinterest for users to see. If a user finds an image that appeals to them, they can access the profile of the person who originally pinned the image and find a link to visit the store that has the product for sale or share the image between their friends. Either way it is great for an online store as you gain an extra platform to advertise your products for free, you can gain sales through people becoming interested in your products and you can also increase your brand awareness through your products being shared and seen by numerous people. 

Fancy 

This is a site operates pretty much the same way to Pinterest but isn't as well known with just under a million user, compared to over 11 million on Pinterest. Like Pinterest, the site allows you to add images with you have come across on the web for your friends to then see and also "re-fancy" them if they like the look of the image. However, the problem users are finding with the site is that it is much more commercialised than Pinterest, seemingly taking away the feel of social sharing it offers. That being said, Fancy is a great way for online stores to sell their products as it is much easier to access the a store once the customer finds a product image they like.

eSellution: www.eSellution.co.uk



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Thursday, 23 August 2012

Social shopping sales set to soar and how to take advantage of it

Social shopping sales are set to rise 44% by the end of 2014 according to research carried out by auction site, eBay. The figures suggest that the amount spent through social shopping channels such as a Facebook store will grow to £3.3 billion.

But what does this growth mean for eBay stores and how can they take advantage of these increased figures?  Well while eBay will always be great platform for store owners to sell products to customers for the foreseeable future, sellers should be looking to take advantage of social shopping by creating both Facebook stores and Facebook fan pages for their business. As I have explained in an article yesterday, there are many positive reasons as to why you should have a Facebook store and that's before you even begin to consider the extra revenue that has been suggested by eBay's research. 

However, if having a Facebook store is just too big of a step for you right now, you must ensure that you definitely have a Facebook page for your business, as social media plays a large role in the majority of people's lives As your brand grows, more people become interested in your business and become fans of you on Facebook, to find out about products, sales and other news to do with your business. This social interaction is what builds up trust and turns fans into buyers.

While Facebook fan pages are a great platform for any online store to promote their business and interact with their customers, eBay's head of mobile shopping, Petra Jung, suggests that this increase in social shopping is particularly great for female shoppers: "Many shoppers, particularly women, want fun and inspiration as much as information when they shop, and social networks are a great way to seek out a friend’s advice, see other people’s style, and get ideas.”

The whole point of social commerce is to create engagement, and encourage users to buy your products. Generally women are more interactive than males in sharing information and products through social media sites like Facebook. If you run a women's clothes shop for example, social media is a great way for you to share images of your products with your customers, allowing those fans to then share the images between their own friends, achieving a large amount of product and brand exposure in a short period of time. 

Social commerce is an ever increasing platform for online sellers. If you have not already created social media accounts for your business, you should go and create them as soon as you have finished reading this article. The quicker you set it up, the quicker you can start generating traffic to your ecommerce store and the sooner you will start getting your part of that predicted £3.3 billion revenue. 

If you already have a Facebook fan page, you need to make sure that your levels of engagement are as high as they possibly can be, meaning you interact with followers through status updates, comments and images numerous times each day. It's no good creating a Facebook fan page and just leaving it alone for people to become fans of if they choose to do so. Like all parts of business, it takes hard work and effort. You need to give users a reason to follow you. This means posting thought provoking information, providing images of products and placing information about sales in your store for users to see. The more information you provide to them, the more they are going to interact with you and the more chance you have of getting these people to turn from social followers into social shoppers. 

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Wednesday, 22 August 2012

Why your business needs a Facebook store

 When setting up on online business, many people tend to overlook the need for a Facebook store as they don't believe that customers will be willing to purchase through social media. While this stance was correct a number of years ago, many customers have now opened up to the idea of buying through Facebook.

While many businesses have a Facebook fan page, telling users about products, sales and containing external links to access their online store, many people can often be hesitant to leave Facebook. Another benefit of having a Facebook store for your business is the ability to take advantage of a customers buying impulse. If a customer comes across a great deal for a product in your store, it perks their interest and makes them want to buy it. The longer the customers goes from coming across the offer to making the purchase, the more this buying impulse fades until eventually they don't want it anymore. Running a Facebook store is similar to having a mobile store in the sense that you need to make the checkout process for both platforms as quick as possible. Allowing customers to buy products through Facebook means that they don't have to spend time travelling from Facebook to your store, they can purchase through Facebook, taking advantage of a customers buying impulse.

With over two-thirds of all Facebook fans, following a business to find out about the latest products and sales, it makes sense to give these customers the option to purchase products instantly through Facebook. 

However, one thing you need to take care of when setting up a Facebook store is that you do not use Facebook credits as the currency customers use when purchasing products. If your Facebook uses Facebook credits it is going to make customers very hesitant to purchase from your store. Essentially how Facebook credits work is that the customer uses their money to purchase Facebook credits and then uses those credits to purchase things across the social media site. Like I said earlier, the key to making your Facebook store a success is a quick checkout process. Using Facebook credits not only delays this process, but also makes your store seem slightly less trustworthy in the eyes of visiting customers.

The more places you sell your products, the more customers and always you are going to generate for your ecommerce store. If you are worried about the added effort that running a Facebook store could entail, there are a number of multichannel shopping cart software platforms that can help you do this with ease. We at eSellution can help you achieve this with our multichannel ecommerce software, enabling you to sell products across Facebook, eBay, through your own ecommerce site and across mobile devices. What's more, you can easily list and manage your products as well as monitor your stock levels with our stock synchronisation features. For more information about how we at eSellution can transform your online business CLICK HERE 

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Thursday, 16 August 2012

Breaking down the barriers of social commerce

While many people use social media on a daily basis both for social interaction and to promote their business, many online stores do not feel that social commerce is a worthwhile endeavour unless you are a large brand with a huge social following. However, with almost a third of all online users, purchasing products over the Internet, social commerce is a great platform for any business, big or small, to attract a wider customer base. 

Within the next five years, it is believed that the total sales made through social commerce will reach over $30 billion. While the vast majority of this amount will go to large brands and corporations, it underlines the potential success any small business can achieve by tapping into this ever growing channel. 

When many businesses have been asked why they do not spend time fully exploring the potential social commerce can give them, many tend to state the belief that customers would be hesitant in using the credit card details to purchase a product over a social media site. This view is in fact unfounded with 45% of all social media users stating that they would be comfortable in providing their credit card details in order to purchase a product.

It's not only the willingness to purchase products that makes social commerce a profitable seller platform, but also the ease in which customers could then inform other people about the product they have purchased, with 35% stating that they would be more likely to share their purchased product when purchased through a social media channel as opposed to through an ecommerce store. What this means is that not only would you be able to gain a number of sales, you would also increase the reach that your store can gain, possibly resulting in you being able to gain additional sales through the sharing of that original purchased product. 

However, while there is a willingness for customers to purchase products through social media sites, many people are hesitant about using social media currency such as Facebook credits in order to purchase products. If you do decide that you wish to set up a social commerce store, you should look to set it up so customers are able to pay instantly with real currency, as opposed to first having to purchase currency specific to that social media channel. 

It is believed that by the year 2015, 50% of all online transactions by large brands will be made through either social media sites or mobile devices. This huge figure demonstrates the need for you to look at a social commerce platform for your small business in more detail.

If you do decide that you wish to expand your business across social media platforms, we at eSellution can help you get it underway: Click here for more information

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Tuesday, 7 August 2012

Facebook stores and the importance of having one

As businesses look to sell their products to as many people as possible, they are now exploring new and innovative ways to sell these products across different platforms. This has resulted in the belief that mobile commerce will be the next big thing in online selling. Although this is true, other platforms for selling your products shouldn't be overlooked as they can still provide you with a large number of customers. One of these platforms that has seemed to have gained a particular bad rep over the last few months is the Facebook store.

The general belief of many people is that Facebook stores are only beneficial to large brands who have millions of followers regularly engaging with them. However, while this selling platform is a great addition to large corporate brands, Facebook stores are equally important for anyone running a small online ecommerce store. The great value of Facebook is, and always will be, the enormous amount of people using the social media site every day. While their numbers and share prices have seemingly dwindled in recent months, the number of active users the site has is still substantially higher than any other social media site. 

Now you may read this and think "I already have a Facebook fan page for my business, why would I need a Facebook store?" Well although a Facebook fan or business page does allow you to make users aware of your online store, having a Facebook store will allow you to take advantage of a customer's buying impulse. If you don't have a Facebook store and a customer sees an item of your Facebook business page that they like, they would then have to leave Facebook in order to navigate to your website, find the product in your store and then complete the checkout process. Right from the start you may end up losing customers as they may be reluctant to leave Facebook to go to a third party site. Furthermore, if the customer does decide to leave Facebook to take a trip to your online store, by the time the customer has gone from Facebook to your site and found the product, they may have lost that impulse to buy that they previously had meaning they will no longer want it.

Having a Facebook store means that customers can instantly buy items from you through Facebook. They don't have to visit another site, they don't have to then locate the product all over again and most importantly, they can instantly act on their buying impulse. When they see an item of yours that they like on Facebook, they simply select it and complete the whole procedure without ever leaving the social media site. 


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How to create a successful marketing campaign

Whether your a small ecommerce business, a large corporation or a charitable organisation, creating the perfect marketing campaign is something that we all strive for. We want to create something that makes a number of people aware of what the business is, creates an interest in the products or services that business offers and then compels them to visit your store or site to act on this impulse.

If you are running a small ecommerce store, the success of your various marketing campaigns is going to determine how successful your store will be. When planning out your marketing campaign, you should look to consider four key areas which have become synonymous with all marketing campaigns: 

  • Attention - Grab the attention of your audience. This doesn't have to be anything specific to do with your business, it could simply be something that is entertaining and compels users to view it. Essentially, it is the hook that will draw them in, giving you a chance to then advertise your product. Some of the most innovative marketing campaigns have created this attention by simply showing the craziest and most random things that they possibly can.
  • Interest - After you have drawn them in to your marketing campaign, you next need to create an interest. This is where specific audience targeting comes in to play. If you create a campaign and then send it to anyone and everyone, you are going to find it much harder to create high levels of interest. What you need to look to do is aim your marketing campaign at individuals who you know will have an interest in your product. This will ensure that you are focussed on creating as much interest as possible. However, there are exemptions to the rule. For example, if you run an online eBay store that provides a wide range of clothing to males, females, small children and babies, then you target demographic is going to be anyone and everyone. In this case you should look to broaden your campaign to really as many people as is feasibly possible rather than focussing on a specific target audience.  
  • Desire - Now that you have peaked their interest, you next need to create desire within your audience. This essentially means that you need to make your audience think that they have to have an item or service from your store. Depending on the type of products that your business offers, the way in which you create those levels of desire are going to differ. If you run a store that offers a number of different goods, you could look to offer products at a discount or make your audience aware of unique items you sell that your competitors don't. The first two steps have essentially got the crowd in and set the stage, now it's up to you to promote your products to your audience in a way that is going to leave them with no other choice but to purchase from your store.
  • Action - There is no point getting your audience all worked up over a product and then leaving them with no place to go. After you have got them hooked and ready to give you their money in exchange for goods or services, you then need to point them in the right direction to complete the transaction. The end of your marketing campaign should give users some form of action to purchase an item from your store. This generally involves providing the address of your ecommerce store, eBay store or Facebook store.
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Tuesday, 17 July 2012

What eBay's 'Like' and 'Want' Buttons Could Do For Your Business?

eBay are currently experimenting on their website by adding 'Like,' 'Want' and other social media buttons to some of their stores. 

If this becomes a standard feature across all eBay stores, how could this potential new feature impact your business?

Well, the obvious positive straight away is the ability to create greater interaction levels between your eBay store and Facebook. Having your customers 'Like' or 'Want' a particular product on your eBay store will provide two glaring positives. Firstly, it is great advertising! If someone likes or wants one of your products, the item will be added to their eBay listings and gives them the option to share with friends via Facebook. The notification including the product itself will then instantly appear on this person's Facebook news feed. This will mean that all of their friends will be able to see your product. Secondly, it will also provide a direct link to the product within your eBay store. That type of direct traffic is great not only for attracting customers, but also increasing your websites search engine ranking. Secondly, having a number of buyers 'Like' a particular product gives you an added indication of which items are currently popular with the wider public.

For those who run not only an eBay store, but also a Facebook store, this could be a fantastic way to increase your following within Facebook. If one of your items are posted on a persons wall, one of their friends may then look to see if they can find a fan page or store within Facebook that is linked to your eBay store. The main reason for this would be to see if your store currently has any news, sales or offers advertised on the Facebook page.

However, some store owners believe that this addition is a waste of time and one which would of been better spent improving levels of communication between the buyer and sell. The possible button additions have also been met with mixed views by eBay buyers. Some believe they are a great addition, allowing people to keep track of what they like, while others think it is somewhat an invasion of their privacy as others should not be able to see what products they like. 

While the positives of these buttons in the eyes of the seller are clear to see, time will tell as to whether it is something that eBay will integrate across all of their stores.
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Wednesday, 11 July 2012

How to build up fans for your Facebook store

Setting up your Facebook store is only the first step in establishing a successful online business. In order to build up a successful store you must look to draw in your customers. The way you do this on Facebook is by gaining 'Facebook Fans.'

There are a number of different reasons why people will become fans of your Facebook store. Many people do this too keep up to date with products, sales and information about the business. Based on this, it stands to reason that you should look to place as much information about the business and any future sales or promotions on to your Facebook page. 

Another strong tool in promoting your brand across Facebook and gaining fans as a result is to 'Like' similar businesses to the one you run. At first you may think "Why would I want to help my competitor by giving them more fans?" but the reality is that liking other businesses is mutually beneficial to both their business and yours. When you become a fan or their business, more often than not, that business will also become a fan of your Facebook store. Not only that, it also allows all of the people who are fans of that particular business to become aware of your Facebook store.

However, the best way to get fans on Facebook is simply by word of mouth. Get as many of your friends who have Facebook accounts to become a fan of your store as soon as possible. While you may think that having  a few people like your store wouldn't make any difference to your stores exposure, you couldn't be more wrong. When one person becomes a fan of your store, this action instantly becomes visible to all the friends linked to that account. This means that if this person has for example, 300 friends, 300 people will have just become aware of your business. If 5 people like your business who all have 300 unique friends, then your business has just become visible by 1500 people in a matter of seconds. 

When starting your Facebook store, it's steps like these that will help your business rapidly grow in no time!





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Friday, 6 July 2012

Are you utilising Facebook within your online selling profile?

Are you utilising Facebook within your online selling profile?

Sign up with eSellution to extend your store’s selling platforms

Why have a Facebook Store?

Following on from the previous article defining the advancements in social networking, in particular Facebook, eSellution have developed software which allows you to integrate a Facebook store to your online store, allowing you to target a broader marketing pool than ever before.

A Facebook store offers your business an additional means to increase revenue streams, direct pay options through our “shop & go” function, and a market that is yet to be explored and fully exploited.

Creating an additional tab on to your Facebook business fan page titled “Shop”. Users will now have the option to explore and purchase your products directly through Facebook. This will not only provide increased revenue streams but by encouraging them to “like” / comment on your products and Facebook store which will allow you to grow your following.

Features

• Use our unique Facebook designs and templates based on your brand image, or to suit a particular product group
• Create a Store tab within Facebook
• Sell within Facebook
• Stock Syncing through our CMS
• Encourage customers to “like” your items
• Enable customers to comment on your products
• Simple checkout

How will I benefit from selling via a Facebook Store?

Viral - is a tremendously influential and efficient form of word-of-mouth advertising by utilising the power and popularity of Facebook, this will significantly push the viral aspect of your marketing, thus expanding your potential client base on a daily basis without needing to invest time promoting your business.

Like/Comment – By commenting or liking products within your Facebook shop, information is posted on the customer’s wall, giving you an instant form of credibility. This opens your Facebook store to a whole new client base allowing for a more targeted form of advertising / marketing.

Stock Syncing – All stocks are synched through our CMS, allowing you to manage all stock, monitor best sellers, and control all features effectively and instantly.

Simple Checkout – Customers are not required to be redirected to any other Website as they can buy everything instantly on your Facebook store.


View the link below to see some of our unique and professional Facebook templates available to your business when you sign up.



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Advancements in Social Media - Facebook

Social Networking - Facebook

Are you aware of the value of using social media to sell online?


With over 900 million active users, Facebook has been widely recognised as the world’s most popular social media site. While many users create personal accounts to post status updates and interact with friends, in recent years many businesses have looked at taking advantage of this large member base by using the site as a way to promote their products and services through a Facebook Store. 

By creating a fan page for your Facebook Store, users will now have the option to explore and purchase your products directly through Facebook. The success of a Facebook store comes not only in the ability to create a store page on the site, but also create greater brand recognition through word of mouth. With more than 50% of Facebook users having over 100 friends linked to their account, a view or purchase on your store page not only comes up as a notification on the customers newsfeed, but also on each of their 100 friends notifications.

The like/comment feature available on the site also allows you to create levels of interactivity and feedback between the store and their customer base. This enables you to provide a greater service by tailoring your store to provide a service that appeals directly to your customer base, generating higher levels of repeat business.

The Facebook Store service also provides you with the ability to monitor and control your stock levels. This allows you to see how much of a specific stock you have remaining and which product is your best seller. This then allows you to focus your marketing strategy to not only increase sales of popular products, but make customers aware of other products you have for sale in your store.  
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