Marketing your online shop

Marketing your online shop needs to bring you customers and pay for itself. My hobby horse is that I would rather work on search engine optimisation, Google AdWords, recommendations and PR than spend large amounts on television, radio and newspaper ads. And some of the best marketing starts with the shop itself.

The video is from April 2009. I discuss my experiences and views on marketing online shops at that time.

Marketing your online shop needs to fit the business

I know some people will give me a beating for this opinion: I do not have much faith in radio, television and large print ads as marketing for online shops.

I have tried various options, and at that point I had not personally met anyone who had shown me a good return from big campaigns for an online shop.

That is not the same as saying they do not exist. In the video, I say that a few people have shown me that my view does not fit their particular situation.

If you work very locally, a 500-kroner ad in the local paper might make sense. So you also need to look at where your customers are and what the ad costs.

My main avenues are search, recommendations and PR

The forms of marketing I particularly believe in are search engine optimisation, Google AdWords and viral marketing.

PR belongs here too. Perhaps it is not marketing in quite the same sense, but it is close enough for me to include it as an important opportunity.

I return to the more specific disciplines in the other chapters. Here, I mainly want to talk about recommendations from people who have already shopped with you.

A good shop is a powerful form of marketing

Viral marketing is one of the things I find most interesting. It can feel like free marketing when customers tell others about you.

But of course it is not entirely free. Building a shop with good products and service so good that people want to recommend it takes effort and costs money.

In return, you can save on support, hassle and marketing expenses. So one of the best things you can do for your marketing may be to build a bloody brilliant shop.

Create such a positive experience that customers want to spread the good word.

Give happy customers something to pass on

Once customers have bought their goods, hopefully they like you. When the goods arrive and meet expectations, they may be even happier.

In the video, I suggest the idea of putting something in the parcel that lets customers share a discount code with three friends.

My example is that the friends get ten per cent off their first order and the customer gets five per cent as a thank-you. It is a historical example of the thinking, not a ready-made campaign model.

I also explicitly say in the video that the model may be on the edge of consumer regulations and needs a lawyer’s assessment. That part should not be forgotten when reading the example from 2009.

Berlingske used similar thinking

I compare the idea to Berlingske Tidende, which over the years got my father to give a month’s subscription to someone he cared about.

He was happy to give that gift. In return, the newspaper had a chance to gain a new subscriber if the recipient wanted to continue afterwards.

That is the sort of thing you can work backwards from: How many people who try the product become paying customers, and what are you willing to pay to bring them in?

In the video, I recall that during the Jubii years we could get a few hundred kroner for a new trial subscriber to Berlingske. I mention several possible amounts and am not precise about the figure, so the point is the model itself.

Learn about the options

Read the chapter carefully and explore the different ways to market your shop. I also refer to marketing books and mention Marketing Warfare as one of my favourites.

But start by having a business customers are happy with. That makes it much easier to get recommendations that can bring new customers.

Give your marketing a real push and work on what creates value for your shop. Also read E-pusher about my experiences of selling online.