Ebay sales!!!!

[Jim Riley]

I feel guilty too! Sales up 320% on last year since Christmas :-)

I suspect our market is somewhat different from the traditional consumer segments though.

We've focused on:

- Intensifying Google adwords campaigns (many more campaigns, testing ad variations; spending a lot of time stripping out underperforming key words, focusing on key territories etc etc)
- Sending out further promotional material and order forms with all orders
- Significant increase in direct mailing activity - using Mole End Marketing as the data-mining app (if youy havent tried this - and your have potential for repeat customers - try it now!)
- Intensive use of email newsletters + aggressive investment in customer sign up for newsletters
- Blog/RSS feed promotion
- Spent more time working on website optimisation - particularly landing pages
- Made sure that we submit regular XML feeds of our entire website (Actinic + content pages) to all the major search engines
- Testing and monitoring the effectiveness of all the above with Google Analytics (another "must")

Compared with last year..we've:
- Abandoned ebay (complete waste of money and time)
- Abandoned exhibition promotions
- Stopped all other forms of advertising (e.g. magazines)

I guess if there was one thing I would focus on during a quiet period, it would be creating new, relevant content to support an e-commerce site. Google loves it; potential customers love it. It will drive your organic site stats higher, help you build a customer/prospect database, and position the business better for the next upturn in spending?

Jim

[Legends]

I feel guilty too! Sales up 320% on last year since Christmas :-)

I suspect our market is somewhat different from the traditional consumer segments though.

We've focused on:

- Intensifying Google adwords campaigns (many more campaigns, testing ad variations; spending a lot of time stripping out underperforming key words, focusing on key territories etc etc)
- Sending out further promotional material and order forms with all orders
- Significant increase in direct mailing activity - using Mole End Marketing as the data-mining app (if youy havent tried this - and your have potential for repeat customers - try it now!)
- Intensive use of email newsletters + aggressive investment in customer sign up for newsletters
- Blog/RSS feed promotion
- Spent more time working on website optimisation - particularly landing pages
- Made sure that we submit regular XML feeds of our entire website (Actinic + content pages) to all the major search engines
- Testing and monitoring the effectiveness of all the above with Google Analytics (another "must")

Compared with last year..we've:
- Abandoned ebay (complete waste of money and time)
- Abandoned exhibition promotions
- Stopped all other forms of advertising (e.g. magazines)

I guess if there was one thing I would focus on during a quiet period, it would be creating new, relevant content to support an e-commerce site. Google loves it; potential customers love it. It will drive your organic site stats higher, help you build a customer/prospect database, and position the business better for the next upturn in spending?

Jim

Hi Jim

Great info for all us finding it tough after the Christmas glut.

Lots of food for thought!

Cheers

[acompton]

Is this last post spam? The urls aren't Actinic sites and the poster works for an SEO. There's another, similar, post in the e-commerce section.

Alan

[Mike Hughes]

Is this last post spam?

I would say so and the mods seem to be very slow on the uptake in deleting it. I'm also surprised at the number of member accounts which are their just to spam a www link. I think it should be forum policy that only links to actinic sites are allowed unless genuine links to help members.

Mike

[cdicken]

Hi chaps. Thanks for pointing out the spam. The posts have been deleted and the account has been banned.

[Mark H]

I would say so and the mods seem to be very slow on the uptake in deleting it. I'm also surprised at the number of member accounts which are their just to spam a www link. I think it should be forum policy that only links to actinic sites are allowed unless genuine links to help members.

Mike

Er - would you include my sig in that? I wouldn't like to think that forum members found it inappropriate.

[Mike Hughes]

Probably not. I realised after posting that actinic partners/designers etc should be able to link to their website, but there could be some greater clarity on what is / isn't allowed.

Mike