How would you promote an ecommerce store with $10,000?

[throttleforward]

As many of you know I recently launched my ecommerce store. I am currently working on improving the site based on the many great suggestions from the members here and from customers that I have met. As I am improving the site, my mind jumps to "what's next", and invariably the topic of advertising my newly improved site comes to mind often. So, for those experienced entrepreneurs out there, if you had $10,000 to promote and advertise an ecommerce store, what would you do and how would you do it?

p.s. - I was able to confirm how much one of my competitors spent on advertising per month. To achieve around $350,000 in sales/year ($120,000 in net profit), they advertise between $2000-5000 per month. I feel that my site is already superior to their site, and I carry many of the same brand names, so I feel that their sales are certainly within the realm of possibility.

p.s.s. - I live in Washington, DC, so there is a large amount of population density and a captive audience since many people work for the federal government in a security or safety-related field, and many people still vividly remember living here during 9/11

 

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[TheRiskTaken]

Affiliate marketing. You pay only for performance.

 

[Rakona]

just a one time shot of $10k?

 

[throttleforward]

Yeah - I was thinking about the next step after my site was 95% the way that I want it. I already did some trial google adwords campaigns, which were way too expensive, and running a banner ad, which has been ok in terms of getting traffic but I havn't gotten conversions. So, I was thinking "if I raised $10,000, and I was ready to fully promote a site that I was proud of, what would be the best way to spend that money, so that I could start to turn a profit and then use those profits to fuel more advertising?"

 

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[andviv]

Good to see another member from the DC area. Hi there, neighbor.

If I were you, I would designate $5K and try to convince (beg, cry, plea, etc) for snowbank or lighthouse to create a marketing campaign for you, and have the other $5K at their disposal for whatever marketing material or traffic they deem needed for your site.

I doubt they would do it for just $5K, but hey, worth trying, in my opinion.

 

[biophase]

I would toss most of it into SEO. I think your market is pretty competitive SEO wise, but you could probably dent it for $10k. Maybe spending $1000 a month for 10 months.

But since your site is brand new, you may be able to start at $500 a month and ramp up.

 

[MrPink]

What would you put that 500 dollars toward? Hiring people to build back links?

 

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[biophase]

What would you put that 500 dollars toward? Hiring people to build back links?

I would put some of the $500 towards SEO knowledge if you don't already know it. Learn on page SEO and optimize that yourself.

If I had a brand new site I would probably do something like this:

20% blog commenting
15% forums and forum sigs
15% article writing
15% profile links (like Angela's)
20% asking for links (within your niche, copy backlinks of the top 10 sites)
15% social bookmarking, social networking

You could probably order a few of each type for $50-$100. Asking for links is just tedious manual work, but you get the best links that way. I try not to pay monthly for links, but I would pay for permanent ones.

 

[biophase]

To achieve around $350,000 in sales/year ($120,000 in net profit), they advertise between $2000-5000 per month.

I am curious as to how you determined this. If this were true, all you would have to do is advertise $5000 a month and make $120k a year. This would be a no-brainer. How are they advertising?

 

[Enzo_82]

Try digg.com and also viral marketing. It is good to tell it to your friends etc. If the service is really good. they start to speak about it. Once I had tried high school viral marketing. It is really good thing, man.

 

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[throttleforward]

Biophase - I don't want to reveal the meathod that I used to determine this, but one could consider those numbers facts.

Also, the reason that I posed the question is that while yes, I could in theory spend $5000 and make that income "automatically", I need to know where to spend it so that I ensure a similar return on investment as my competator. I have very little way of determining where they are spending their advertising dollars, and since I have a very limited amount of "start-up" money, I don't want to waste it before it can kickstart this website into profitability.

I have very little experience in what a marketing professional actually does- for $5000 would they create a written marketing plan/document, place ads for me, just talk with me, etc?

 

[biophase]

Did a quick mock up of a new logo, let me know what you think.

 

[LightHouse]

I would not spend any money until quite a few changes are made to that sites usuabilty.

Some of the CSS is off on the front page.

The colored background blends all the text together, use white space and help the focus back on your content.

The home page is your landing page, you need to convey your message not hawk tons of products and links at people. wishlists/GC do you even have giftcards? I would eliminate all the un-necessary links on those pages.

Popular brands... these arent shows, this type of stuff people dont have brand preference on, newsletters, are you even sending one out? I think the use of that space should go to complete disaster management kits you all put together. Something someone can come in and know this is everything i need to be prepared.

just a few things off the top of my head real quick. No point in blowing money if you cant convert it and use the most out of that traffic.

Have you taken a look at your competitors sites? maybe screenshot 5 of them and post them and look them over. See what people are doing.

 

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[throttleforward]

Thanks for the insights lighthouse - in looking at my 5 major competators, there is a mix between homepage styles revolving around "hawking products", and having a homepage largely dominated by educational text regarding disaster preparedness. The best demonstration of this difference is between the two biggest players in this market:
Emergency Preparedness: Survival Kits and Emergency Supplies - education text, no products at all
The Ready Store - Emergency Preparedness, Food Storage, MRE's, and Freeze Dried Food! - very busy and distracting, products all over the place, but goes back and forth with quakekare for the top traffic leader in the niche

My site is obviously a simple, basic ecommerce templated site. Could I make a texted-based homepage, with links back to my current site/product pages? Or would you suggest just replacing where the products are on the homepage with text, remove the other choices on the left and right columns, and change the background color?

 

[LightHouse]

Thanks for the insights lighthouse - in looking at my 5 major competators, there is a mix between homepage styles revolving around "hawking products", and having a homepage largely dominated by educational text regarding disaster preparedness. The best demonstration of this difference is between the two biggest players in this market:
Emergency Preparedness: Survival Kits and Emergency Supplies - education text, no products at all
The Ready Store - Emergency Preparedness, Food Storage, MRE's, and Freeze Dried Food! - very busy and distracting, products all over the place, but goes back and forth with quakekare for the top traffic leader in the niche

My site is obviously a simple, basic ecommerce templated site. Could I make a texted-based homepage, with links back to my current site/product pages? Or would you suggest just replacing where the products are on the homepage with text, remove the other choices on the left and right columns, and change the background color?

the ready store is more in tune with modern layouts albeit a bit busy. They are not just hawking products though, they have images that convey their messege.

Under that they have an ask an expert box for the folks that do not know where to start, their thursday special and a coupon. they are trying to utilize the home page to hit all their different types of customer. This is something that is tested over time and not easy at all.

i got distracted and forgot where i was going with this....... LOL

 

[throttleforward]

Well my concern right now is that I have a very limited amount of money and no skills with creating attractive, photoshopped images. Is this something that you would consider an absolute requirement before starting to advertise? Could I get away with paying someone to create a nice, large banner that replaces where the products currently are (pushing those products down) that speaks to the mission of preparedness and links to our disaster education center (which I need to write)?

 

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[biophase]

My issue is that your site is not logical. Your categories have a logical order to them. Why is pet products first again?

Also, you cannot simply copy and paste descriptions and put cookie cutter images for all your products. It looks like a 2nd tier store. For example, why do you have 4 pet safetly vests when you can lump them into 1 product and just use product variations instead? You have 4 products with the exact same picture! Same with your lighted leash and lighted collar.

Also your Emergency Dog Food (Cat Food Sold Separately), Emergency Cat Food (Dog Food Sold Separately). Obviously if you buy dog food, cat food shouldn't come with it. If you are worried about the image showing both, change that and cut off the other product.

Do you really have to carry this? LOL
Body Bag - preparedcity.com Store

 

[LightHouse]

Well my concern right now is that I have a very limited amount of money and no skills with creating attractive, photoshopped images. Is this something that you would consider an absolute requirement before starting to advertise? Could I get away with paying someone to create a nice, large banner that replaces where the products currently are (pushing those products down) that speaks to the mission of preparedness and links to our disaster education center (which I need to write)?

Honestley, yes. Any work you do on advertising or money spent i would consider wasted until you do much needed work on the store. The items Bio mentioned above, those things you can do yourself. You can also get a template modified that would better suite your business. You are over estimating the costs of atleast getting it somewhat useable. The rest you can learn as you go. That is what i did, i started with 100% zero knowledge.

 

[throttleforward]

Thanks so much guys for the constructive criticism - when it comes to web design I obviously didn't know what I didn't know!

The product descriptions and pictures are areas that I am very embarrassed about - I would consider it one of my earlier "failure" lessons, as I noticed they were horrible last week. I am going through product by product and writing what I consider much better descriptions, eliminating duplicative products, and trying to find better pictures to use (I hadn't gotten to the pet section yet )

I guess I'll go to some web guys I know and ask if they will do some contract work modifying my template and adding an attractive banner-type image to the homepage. I'll also use my expertise in emergency management/EMS to write descriptive, educational product descriptions.

As for the body bag - that would be targeted for places that stock their emergency shelters. Unfortunately, having body bags is entirely appropriate (consider Katrina with dead bodies in wheelchairs in the Superdome - a bad situation for a variety of reasons that could have been avoided with the proper use of body bags). That's why I put them in the section dedicated to community emergency shelter supplies. It's something that is often overlooked.

Which I guess brings me to another point - target audience. Can you/should you have more than one target audience per website? If I want to sell supplies to emergency shelters (like cots, mass water, portable toilets, and yes body bags) should I just have a completely different site?

 

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[throttleforward]

Biophase - your body bag review made me laugh out loud. I am glad that you found our body bag suitable for your most exacting specifications. Next time I'll send you a package of toe tags - on us! Let all your friends know how satisfied you were with out body bags and everyone will receive a discount on emergency dog and or cat food!

 

[Anon3587x]

Biophase - your body bag review made me laugh out loud. I am glad that you found our body bag suitable for your most exacting specifications. Next time I'll send you a package of toe tags - on us! Let all your friends know how satisfied you were with out body bags and everyone will receive a discount on emergency dog and or cat food!

you sure it was Bio? lol

/shiftyeyes

 

[Rakona]

No point in blowing money if you cant convert it and use the most out of that traffic.

Highly agree with this point and a few others. If you're not converting with PPC, that's a problem, because your competitors are. Sitting out of that game is basically admitting defeat.

Since SEO has an expense, you are essentially hoping that cheaper visits (clicks / seo expenses) will come in low enough to hit your target CPA, but you're site still isn't converting...guess that's already been said.

$5k to make $120k in rev is a 24x return on ad spend. I know you'd mentioned you're positive about this, but it seems VERY, VERY high. If the average order is $150???, that means the cost to acquire a new customer is only $6.25.


I'd look at site design as mentioned, an update/facelift. But then I'd do some digging on who your best customers/prospects are. Some PPC research can do that.

are they just stocking up in case there's a tornado, or is you ideal client (the one that spends $1,000) the guy that has the underground bunker built in his backyard?

Final thing I'm wondering is what you're doing to sell more to the people that have already purchased? If you can upsell/cross-sell, then get them to come back with good email marketing, even direct mail. You should be able to afford a higher cost per acquisition of a new customer...then you can outspend your competition all day long.

 

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[throttleforward]

The figures that I saw had my competition at an average purchase of $216/order.

In the survival industry there are three clients:

federal/state/local governments trying to protect their employees at work and stock emergency shelters

parents, which breaks down into protecting their kids at home or protecting their adult children away from home

2012-types, who are those who believe that civilization in the United States is on the verge of collapse for a variety of reasons (some insane, some pretty good), and would like to survive after such a collapse.

The 2012-types clearly spend more money on a per-person basis. There is some product cross-over there between my store and others, but not a whole lot. I can target the cross over markets, and also sell them the idea that dying in tornado, fire, flood, or other more common disaster won't help them get to the 2012-like event. Frankly I don't want to have them as my focus for a variety of reasons, chiefly because I don't believe that their preparedness efforts are realistic or supported scientifically (for instance, a lot of these people think that by buying seeds, a grain mill, and a book, they can go out to some mysteriously unclaimed fertile land post disaster and start some sort of survival farm, which is of course wrong for a number of reasons.)But, if I have to, I'll cater to them. (in fact I probably will have to)

I want to target parents primarily. Sell to their sense of responsibility for their family, especially protecting their family when they are away at work, or when they are sleeping or otherwise vulnerable together (like on the side of the road in an auto emergency, or when there is a fire in the house that blocks the stairwell and they are trapped on the 2/3/4th floor, etc).

The Gov't buyers are clearly the biggest spenders in total, and we are working on selling to them. Their focus is less on how pretty the site is, and more on how I respond to their RFP's and make them happy from that end. In fact, for Gov't types, I wouldn't even need a website. I am working on targeting those buyers.

 

[Rakona]

checkout ioninteractive, they're big on segementing visitors upon arrival via paid search.

I'd see about guiding those three segments down different paths on the site, once they tell you which one they fall into. readystore has kinda done this with the government, corporate & best seller tabs.

I've done this more extensively with a company that sells a sealant product to contractors & retail. The contractor funnel is designed to get them to pick up the phone & start a quote, where the retail funnel is designed to find out what they're trying to fix, then direct them to the options for that fix.

I want to target parents primarily. Sell to their sense of responsibility for their family, especially protecting their family when they are away at work, or when they are sleeping or otherwise vulnerable together (like on the side of the road in an auto emergency, or when there is a fire in the house that blocks the stairwell and they are trapped on the 2/3/4th floor, etc).

Do you know for sure that's what their major concern is, or are you personifying what you think it might be? I'd highly suggest you check out Glenn Livingston's survey methodology, before you end up designing everything around what it might be.

You'll do better selling aspirin to someone in pain then vitamins to someone who's not... Just a thought...

 

[throttleforward]

Rakona - thanks so much for your helpful post - it had reminded me of the survey-style landing pages for websites that I had seen before, and helped to focus our efforts on creating a user-friendly, informative, targeted survey-style homepage. Now I have some concrete ideas to take to my friend who is a web developer, who will likely put the pages together for the cost of some beer and hockey tickets .

My partner and I had a great meeting today discussing how everyone found huge flaws in our site, and we came up with several actionable plans for implementing the suggestions people made here.

I don't regret putting up the site the way it is now - had we be paralized with having a perfect product, we would have never had a store in the first place for people to tear down. Now, with your feedback and the metrics we collected from our 1200+ visitors in our first month, plus the few sales we were able to generate, we can now go back to the drawing board and improve our site so that we can truly start to generate serious business and convert a much higher percentage of our site's visitors. In fact, the improvements have already started to occur.

Thanks so much everyone for all the help! I can only hope that through discussing this business building, bootstrapping, web development process I was able to help a few people out who had similar problems and concerns with their own businesses.

 

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[Smooth]

I agree with a lot of the other posters -- don't spend a dime on advertising until your website design is top notch. In this day-and-age, I think you can get your site in peak condition for under $500.

With the rest of the money, I would focus on building a following on social networking (a fan page on facebook, a twitter account, etc), emergency-preparedness related forums and blogs and SEO. With $10,000, you could probably take your marketing campaign to the real world as opposed to only online marketing.

Good luck!

 

[Rakona]

I don't regret putting up the site the way it is now

Absolutely, this is a never ending work in process, as you continue to make iterations based on data (feedback) I have no doubt you'll head in the right direction.

Keep us posted

P

 

[Russ H]

With $10,000, you could probably take your marketing campaign to the real world as opposed to only online marketing.

Good luck!

Smooth-

What do you mean by this? Are you talking about marketing that is NOT web-based/online?

If yes, what are you specifically thinking of? Ads? PR? What?

TIA

-Russ H.

 

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