5 TIps To Cross Ecom's Rubicon
Smart merchants are beginning to cross the ecommerce rubicon between content and commerce. Discover 5 Tips to cross your online store's ecommerce rubicon.
5 TIps
* “Magazine” your content
* Curate from brands
* Curate from customers
* Lean & Visual Win
* Tie In Email, Social & Mobile
Going to incorporate @Guillaume Decugis and Scoop.it's ideas on Lean Content on this not very lean post too. I set aside some content to keep the post pinging with fresh content.
Evergreen means our team will refresh the content (or ask for help from our Ambassadors to do so) regularly. Not all content is equal. Places in our "evergreen" regularly scheduled updates category must be earned (lol).
So help 5 Tips to Cross the Ecom Rubicon earn evergreen status, or better yet contribute your thoughts and we will curate in.
Crossing the Rubicon between content and commerce is the BIG ISSUE in online retailing today. Discover our tips to cross and add yorus.
Ecommerc's future is going to be a symphony of feeds. Use SellWare.com to help manage the sell anytime, anywhere future that is coming fast.
Ecommerce For Everyone
There are some web marketing lessons learned best by creating an online store such as:
- Words Matter as they lead (or don’t) to conversion.
- Design Matter as it leads (or doesn’t) to conversion.
- Money Is The Best Metric.
- Money Helps Create The Best Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
- Money helps create a testing culture.
Creating a store is so easy, we developed Curagmai's Bookstore with Amazon's Associates tool in about half a day, everyone should have an ecommerce store these days.
As Rodney said in Back To School - Shakespeare for Everyone!
Read our Ecommerce For Everyone post:
http://www.curagami.com/magical-thinking/news/shakespeare-for-everyone-ecommerce-lessons/
& Visit the new Curagmai Bookstore
http://www.Curagami.com/books.html
Do you have an affiliate store you want to share? Email martin(at)Curagmai.com and we will create a gallery of cool stores for personal brands, companies and B2B marketing teams.
Learning Ecom
There are some Internet marketing lessons you can only learn if you sell something. Amazon makes it so easy to add a bookstore to your site every site should have one...if only because there are some things about web marketing you can only learn by selling online.
Curagami's New Amazon Power Bookstore: http://www.curagami.com/books.html
Vote For Your Favorite Sites
Everyone has a favorite online store AND most want online retailing to improve. Curagami is in the "improve ecommerce" business, but we can't create change alone. We need your help.
Please take a few minutes and tell us what online stores you love and why. Oh, and bet we missed some cool, great and wonderful stores so let us know who we missed and we will add your faves into our survey.
Together we can improve online commerce :). Thanks, Marty & Team Curagami
http://www.curagami.com/magical-thinking/news/favorite-online-stores-survey/
Disrupt Or Die
Sorry you are too late. You won't be able to win the tactical warfare my team and I did. Your ability to create meaningful differentiation with tactics is over. So BURN YOUR WEBSITE DOWN.
Not literally, but we need to SHOCK Small to Medium Sized Businesses (SMBs) into an important realization - it's BLUE OCEANS or ELSE. Why bother putting up a 4 page site no one will care about, share, link, like love or think about ever again after they've visited once.
Instead of wasting your TIMEM and TREASURE why not BLOW UP what you think you should be doing, discover blue oceans and create lasting competitive advantage. Costs are the SAME, but one has the shelf life of a May Fly why the other may just provide the ROI needed to do the next cool thing.
You know were we would VOTE and if you are going to miss Exinent's Ecommerce Meetup in the Triangle of North Carolina tonight you can play catch up with our Haiku Deck.
http://www.curagami.com/magical-thinking/marketing/the-new-ecommerce-meetup/ ;
Market Makers
Market makers have a special ability to synergize seemingly disparate information into a coherent and seductive story. My friends at Moon-Audio (http://www.Moon-Audio.com) are market makers.
Helps that they make great products. Their Silver, Black and Blue Dragon audio cables get thumbs up reviews from buyers around the world because they WORK (they make even the best headphones sound better).
But there is more to being a market maker than making great products. I was married to a market maker for more than twenty years so I'm familiar with the strange alchemy needed to find, explain and convince the rest of us about THE NEXT BIG THING.
We humans are skeptical and over marketed to and preached at. But we depend on market makers to filter our too chaotic world inot NEED TO KNOW and CAN IGNORE. Drew Baird is a NEED TO KNOW and NEED TO LISTEN TO market maker. This guest post (by me) on their site shares tips on becoming a market maker and the special benefits won when achieved.
While writing content for online environments you must think of the following paradox: reading is the PRIMARY action performed on the web. AND people try to read as LITTLE as possible (online) 20%!...
Magento is a great system for building e-commerce websites; it’s not bad for marketing them either. Out of the box there are no truly bad default settings for SEO and it offers handy functions to m…
Martin (Marty) Smith:
Great "set up" tips here. We agree. Magento has no "default" bad SEO / SEM settings as some "shopping carts" do. Some of these tips were new to us and they are easy to implement / understand.
Web Migration Trauma
Website migration creates seo, traffic and money trauma. We share 5 website migration tips so your next web heart / lung transplant helps you gain not lose:
- Up Your PPC Spend.
- Tighten Your Site Maps & create SILO based maps (advanced).
- 301 never 302 and Watch Webmaster Tools like a hawk for 494 Page Not Found.
- Create highly social & shareable content like contests and games.
- Know your 80:20 Rule and creating supporting content BEFORE the migration.
Included ADVANCED tips too in case you are a high risk player OR more advanced in your SEO knowledge.
Avoiding ASP .Net Storefront
ASP Net Storefront may be good for many things but online commerce for Small to Medium Sized Businesses is not one of them. Here's why:
We do NOT recommend ASP .Net Storefront for SMB online stores.
Deep Dive Moon-Audio Web Analytics
Spending the day (and probably most of the weekend) deep diving #googleanlaytics listening for the music of http://www.Moon-Audio.com. Here are a few of the questions I like to ask every quarter:
* YTD vs. LYTD sales by product & brand.
* Site heuristics (time on, pages viewed, bounce YTD vs. LYTD.
* Top 10 Internal searches (compared to last time we looked).
* Top content.
* Referring sources.
* New vs. Returning YTD vs. LYTD.
* Growth in social.
* Most linked, shared & reviewed content (will be their Dragon Audio Cable so check against last bench marks).
* Review the funnel (top entry / exit, Recency, Frequency, Monetary RFM values).
* 80:20 rule in product sales, brands and content.
Read more about analytics deep dives on G+: https://plus.google.com/+MartinWSmith/posts/EHq6vvSJhxf
If you are interested in ecommerce and live anywhere near the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina get down to @RTPFrontier and attend @Exinent Ecommerce Group Therapy. Should be fun and cathartic for all.
Asking the right questions in the right way is key to online marketing success. How SMBs can compete with Amazon isn't as important as what is their why and how are they learning from Amazon's web marketing power.
Ecommerce is changing fast. This Scenttrail Marketing post shares and explains 30 "must master" to win ecommerce strategies and tatics.
Want to provide some great unboxing experience for your customers, but don't know where to start? Learn the basics on transforming a package into a gift.
Martin (Marty) Smith:
We think mobile + social makes the "unboxing experience" one of the hidden blue oceans of ecommerce. Why don't more ecom sites have galleries of videos and pictures of people sharing their "unboxing experience". Answer: most online retailers think their job is to sell stuff. Not so much these social / mobile days.
Now our jobs revolve around creating sustainable online communities and finding ways for your customers to share unboxing is like Christmas morning over and over. Why wouldn't you want to SHARE your customers' joy at their unboxing?
Oh, btw, better make sure your unboxing experience over delivers (so ASK for help from your best customers if needed to make your unboxing better).
30 Ecom Strategies & Tactics To Master
No wonder most ecommerce teams feel overwhelmed. Off the top of our heads we came up with 30 complex "mini-systems" that must be mastered to create greatness in online commerce.
Gone are the days when a little of this and that could win the day in online retail. Today all 30 of these tactics and strategies dance together requiring sophisticated understanding of individual trends, tools and ideas to win.
Things change too fast to really KNOW anything. Instead teams must surf waves, learn and fail fast and then wax up their boards for another wild ride.
Did we miss any BIG IDEAS your ecommerce team is managing. Soon we will support this infographic with a http://www.Curagami.com post to further explain each strategy and tactic. In the meantime let us know what we missed in comments or email martin(at)Curagami.com.
Thanks and remember DEEP SLOW BREATHES and if you aren't having FUN your visitors will know. They will feel it.
CampSaver (located in Utah) is a prominent online Magento store proffering branded camping products to the sports/camping enthusiasts. They are one of our esteemed clients. Hiremagentodeveloper provided them an elite set of Magento development solutions.
Martin (Marty) Smith:
Friends showed me this cool use of tabs to create "stores within a store" a bit ago. We love the idea of one database and multiple stores (though that is not as easy as it should be). We also love the idea of dedicated "silos" that can address marketing archetypes and personas.
Unbounce Rocks, But...
We love +Unbounce, but need a great product page template. Yesterday it was easy to get lost in +ThemeForest et al. Anyone know of a great product-page-like Unbounce template
Thanks, Marty & team Curagami
Ecommerce Strategy vs. Tactics
Which comes first ecommerce strategy or tactics? Trick question. Doesn't matter as long as you end up swimming in a blue ocean.
In 2014, e-commerce was gradually divided into two groups based on how they treated home page design.
Product grid home page
Custom design home page
Pros
Most changes can be done via backend fast and easy Amuses visitors and ties brand with positive emotions Is remembered easily Adds to the stylish image of the brand/product
Cons
Card design/grids look alike on hundreds of shops No identity or design to remember Requires additional time and resources.
Martin (Marty) Smith:
We see this trend too. We also think animated backgrounds will capture some of the "bleeding edge" sites. We also think some ecommerce design is forgetting the core mission - conversion. Ecommerce design needs to be subtle and out of the way with clear pointers to WHAT you want your customers to do NOW.
Read Don't Make Me Think (or re-read it as it only takes a few minutes) and remember to not make the MUSEUM the subject. The museum should wrap around the art (products) and make it EASY to BUY. Oh, and it doesn't hurt to be CLEAR about what you are all about in SECONDS since that is how much time you have before visitors are on to something else.
Does your website have game? It is going to because gamification and games are how you win hearts, minds and loyalty over time online.
FedEx Ecommerce Summit
Will be presenting the New Ecommerce to about 100 Small to Medium Sized Businesses in Atlanta at Georgia Tech on 4.16. Here is the agenda:
* Know Thyself (video notes done). * Ask the right ?s.
* Share Thyself.
* Ask for Help.
* Favorite Tools.
We are working on video notes for each section.
Find the Ask For Help: The New Collaborative, Curated, Community Ecommerce Haiku Deck Here: http://shar.es/1gJbLS
Find Know Thyself Marketing Master Class video notes here:
https://youtu.be/OvJ92tZ2dtA
The Little Haiku Deck That Could
Our Asking Ecommerce Questions Haiku Deck (http://shar.es/1g6S5q ) is becoming the little deck that could. To say these slides are a testimony to the power of fast feedback loops and iteration is an understatement.
With three sets of video notes (more coming soon) and three major changes based on feedback from attendees at conferences where we've been presenting the little deck that could Ask For Help: Asking Key Ecommerce Questions proves another important point - everything is a curated conversation now.
Thus the power of @Scoop.itand thus Google's QDF (Quality Deserves Freshness) demand. When we started this little deck had a few hundred views. Now, thanks to feedback and support from those providing the feedback almost 2,000 people have learned to do the hardest thing in the galaxy (at least for American men) - ASK FOR HELP!
Thanks for all the help we've received creating the little Haiku Deck That Could. Marty
April Showers - Beware The Responsive Rabble
Responsive is so much more than most realize. Sure you can get a template to LOOK okay, but without redefining your site's functionality, design and information architecture you are "responsive" in name only. Problem is MOBILE FIRST = PAIN for many.
Pain comes in two forms one usually under marketing's control and one not. Understanding the FLATTENING of websites in a post-mobile era means doing less BETTER. Since much of IA can be done within Magento's categories or a CMS's tune engine marketing usually has the means of production.
Not so much when it comes to functionality shifts. Redesigning a cart to be "mobile first", for one PAINFUL example I'm glad I'm no longer an Ecom Director to have to manage, is out of marketing's hands after wireframes go to the coders.
The REAL challenge is some SEO sensitive champion needs to be watching over your site's RESPONSIVE metamorphosis or PAIN will be a vast understatement. SEO changes inside the code can create spider-traps and other problems.
Programmers take efficient straight lines. Problem is some of those efficient lines can KILL your website. Promise to create more content about how to protect what you have and get some more even after a responsive re-design soon.
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