E-Commerce Retailers: Marketing is the Lifeblood

Speak to any retailer, and she will tell you that her success is nearly all dependent on her marketing effectiveness.  So we decided to ask our panel one question:

Q: What marketing efforts have you found to be the most effective for generating sales? What has produced the lowest ROI?

Craig Wolfe, President, Celebriducks

Oh PR by far….our PR efforts have transformed the company as you could probably tell from our press kit letter.  That and doing custom jobs for professional sports teams and fortune 500 companies around the country.  It keeps feeding into the PR.

The smallest return on our investment has been in paid advertising in traditional gift magazines.  They are usually looking for what they are already familiar with!  They don’t set trends, they follow it…and here we like to think that we are creating them.

Betty Miller, Manager, Magic Senses

Let’s see… I would have to say mailing lists, coupons and “word of mouth” have been the most effective so far. Another great marketing strategy that we use on a daily basis is gaining customer confidence through excellent customer service.  When it comes to the lowest ROI, I would probably have to say giveaways.  That’s probably the most rewarding to us.

Lisa Sorrentino, Head Boob, X-Chrom

As a specialty online retailer, highly targeted online marketing has been most successful, namely in the form of email marketing.
The mass marketing efforts have been least successful in terms of ROI.

Eileen Parker, Cozy Calm

Specialize and target.  Then, go after those specific people online through social networking, blog reviews, and social media releases.  Crossover the online promotion with off-line publicity in narrowly targeted publications.  The lowest ROI is in being yet another fish in the pond and shot-gunning your efforts.  Differentiate your product from the online Wal-Marts.

Deb Babcock, Blue Sky Pottery

What seems to work best for generating sales in my shop is to constantly have new products for people to see when they stop by. I try to introduce several new items each day. I also have an ON SALE THIS WEEK section to encourage people to stop in often. Other things that have helped are hosting my own BOGO (Buy One, Get One Free) sale once a year and occasional discounts. I get the word out about them by participating in the forums, Twitter, group emails to past customers, and selected advertising. My lowest return-on-investment seems to be direct mail postcards that I used to send out to my customer base.

Kevin Ward, Global Crafts & Gifts With Humanity

Without doubt our own newsletters are the most effective and cost effective tool we have. Using Constant Contact has transformed our ability to communicate and manage our mailing lists.  Utilizing an affiliate network, Share a Sale, earlier this year is starting to show results, and from a ROI point of view we have control over the level of payouts. Well targeted vertical marketing sites have also proven good value, in our sector the site Pristine Planet has proven effective and a fairly low ROI. Google Adwords remain a constant favorite with an ROI far lower than regular shopping channels. In the end the success or failure comes from word of mouth and repeat custom, which can only be achieved through great customer service and quality products.

Sandy Raddue, Striking Graphics & Embroidery, Inc.

Search engine optimization has been the greatest bang for the buck. We’ve used a lot of advanced techniques, which have helped our customers find us without paying the search engines any money.
We also ship one or more coupons with every order, and distribute about 15,000 cards/coupons throughout the bowling centers across the country yearly.
Press releases have also worked well. We’ve done several in print magazines, a couple of joint releases, and (only) one targeted press release. We really need to do more. If I write them myself, they are an astonishingly good value!
The lowest ROI has been magazine advertising. The overall “alley cred” is upped by this advertising, but we haven’t seen a return close to our investment.

Teresa Fritchi, Managing Director/Chief Creative Officer, Thistle & Broom, Limited

When we do small ‘gallery exhibits’ featuring a selection of the products along with computers with the website navigable Thistle & Broom generally does five digit sales in less than four hours.

Traditional advertising efforts always tank.

Ana Maria Echeverri, Owner/President, FunIQToys Inc

The most effective for me have been Google Adwords and Shopzilla.  The lowest ROI has been local print advertising.

Ben Robinson, Bike Trailer Shop

Our organic search engine rankings are by far our most effective marketing effort.  We have done a few banner ads from time to time that have produced pretty dismal ROI.