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Archive for June, 2012

Email is Marketing: Using Your Email Address to Reinforce Your Store Brand

June 20th, 2012 by Todd Myers

Email is Marketing: Using Your Email Address to Reinforce Your Store Brand

As a business owner, if someone gave you the option to promote your brand daily with little or no extra cost or effort to you, would you do it? It’s surprising the number of retailers and other businesses who miss this opportunity every day by continuing to use free email services such as Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, or other similar providers for their primary email address.  Every time you send an email or someone grabs your business card with your generic email address (ex. User.Name@gmail.com), you miss out on the opportunity to reinforce the brand that you have worked so hard to build. By simply using an email address with your store name (User.Name@YourRetailStore.com), you create a professional image and a name that your customers can remember.

There are a lot of reasons why people opt to stick with a generic email. We’ve heard it all before …” I love Gmail, I use a free account for personal use and my store’s address for business use, I’ve been using AOL for years and everyone knows this address, I don’t see the point in switching it, etc.” Even though we provide our clients with 10 or more of these email addresses as a part of our service, they often go unused. For as many reasons that are given for continuing to use generic emails, there are even more compelling reason to make the switch.

Keep it Professional

When you see a generic email like User.Name@gmail.com, what is your first impression of the business? Maybe someone just getting started. A small business. Perhaps not very professional. An email address that matches the store’s domain instills a sense of confidence in the retailer; it provides a sense of legitimacy.

I’m also not a fan of adding a signature on a free email account that links visitors back to your website. Call me old school, but I believe you present a more professional front when both your email address and website link come from the same address. You don’t give out your personal home address and send all the mail from your store there do you? Why would you do the same thing with email?

Building Relationships is Personal

Like some people, you may prefer to keep your business and personal email addresses separate. Let me tell you a story about why you should reconsider. Only yesterday I was stopped on the street by someone who wants us to develop a website for his new bike shop. How did he find us? Not from Google. Not from our website. Not from some fancy brochure or marketing. Instead, he remembered we build websites from my email signature. His relationship with me is not professional, it’s personal. Our sons were in the same Cub Scout Troop a couple of years ago!

Marketing, Marketing, Marketing!

Email is marketing and it takes only minutes to add a signature to every email to constantly promote your business. Every time your customer sees your domain or store name to the right of the “@” symbol, that’s one more time for your name to be imprinted in their memory. If they go back to search through emails, will they remember how to find User.Name@gmail.com or will they remember to search for YourRetailStore.com?

If you absolutely can’t give up your free email account then at least configure it to pass email through your domain name. Many providers such as Google offer this as an option, and although a bit more to setup, people will see your store’s address even when using Gmail. This is great compromise – especially if you can’t live without your Google Docs and email.

So, if you already have your email address linked to your domain name, you’re on the right track for promoting your business and building your brand. If not, consider making the change because as a retailer, everything circles back to your business and you should be compelled to promote it at every turn. Make sure your email address is the same as your website address and always, always, always include a signature on every email message. You never know who might walk into your store because of it!

 

Google Products No Longer Free

June 15th, 2012 by Todd Myers

Google Products No Longer Free

On May 31, 2012, Google dropped a bomb on specialty retailers announcing it would start charging stores for listing their goods on Google Products (also known as Google Product Search). While I understand the need for Google to make money, I completely disagree with this approach.

Rewind 10 years and you’d hear a much different story from Google. Google started what was then called Froogle as a way to offer unbiased product listings to consumers. All stores, big and small, could submit their products to Google and know their listings would have equal footing as every other retailer. To me this seemed to be the same logic they applied to Search, and something Google itself has been vehemently defending since their inception, organic search results should never be influenced by paid advertising. However, requiring stores to pay for their listing on Google Products will ultimately give consumers biased listings and less choices.

I have been helping speciality retailers since 1998 so I may be a little biased myself but I can’t seem to get around the thought this is completely unfair to independent retailers. Mom and pop retailers have been fighting for their lives for years in their brick-n-mortar businesses and many have worked hard to succeed online. They have invested in creating great-looking websites, with features consumers crave and even the marketing to drive people to their site. However, for many retailers it is becoming more and more expensive to complete online. While I shop and buy products from big-boxed retailers such as Target and Nordstrom, I do not a want a world where that’s my only choice.

I also don’t agree in how this was executed. On September 22, 2011 Google changed their Google Product feed requirements. For many smaller retailers implementing these changes were both difficult and costly. I’ve talked to some retailers who didn’t get around to making these changes until earlier this year because it was either too expensive or was too difficult to implement technically. For me this is like the city where your shop is located requiring you to front the bill to improve the street lights and sidewalks to your store only for them to turn the main thoroughfare to your store into a tollroad.

Google has made so many great products like Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools and Website Optimizer, and has given them to retailers – for free! For that I’m grateful. However, it also makes me a bit nervous. What happens if Google tries to monetize other products such as Google Analytics? Where would we be then?

 

Reserving your Facebook “Username”

June 1st, 2012 by Kelly Pinkas

Facebook

You’re about to order new business cards and catalogs for your retail store. You want to put your Facebook URL on them, but the ID is too long to fit on a 2”x3” card and looks too messy on your printed materials. Have you thought about shortening your business’s Facebook address to something simple like “Facebook.com/yourstorename”? It’s easy to remember and an important part of strengthening your brand! It takes less than five minutes of your time, so why wouldn’t you?

Facebook refers to that shortened URL as your “username“. Some people refer to it as a “vanity” URL. Reserving your unique username changes that long crazy URL that looks something like this:

Facebook Long URL

To one that is easy to remember like this:

Facebook short URL

Having an easy to identify URL not only makes it simple to remember, it helps you to be found by both your customers and the search engines. When it comes to SEO, having the right keywords is crucial to getting found.

Before you get started, there are a few things you need to know about reserving your business username.

  • To avoid any unauthorized changes, Facebook requires you to be an administrator on your Facebook page.
  • Usernames can be reserved once your page has 25 “likes.” If you don’t have the required number, ask friends and family to “like” your page so you can get started.
  • Choose a username you’ll be happy with for a very long time -  because once you reserve a name, you can’t change it. You can only reserve a username once, so be careful. Check for typos and other errors before hitting “save.”
  • Ideally, your username will be the same as your domain name and business name – being consistent makes it easy for fans to find and follow you.
  • Your unique username must be at least 5 characters long and can only contain the alphabet, numbers and periods (“.”).
  • Periods (“.”) don’t count as part of a username, but some people prefer the visual break in the name. For example, retailstore2012, retailstore.2012 and retail.store.2012 are viewed as the same.
  • To avoid squatters (people reserving names and trying to sell them), Facebook ruled that usernames are non-transferable. If Facebook discovers that someone has reserved a name only to turn around and sell it, he or she will lose that username.
  • And of course, your username must comply with all of Facebook’s rules.

Reserving your username is simple. Just follow these few steps:

Facebook Page Name Drop Down Box

  • If a page has not received the requisite number of likes, you will receive a message letting you know that your page will be available at a future time.
  • Facebook will let you know right away if your username is available. You can also check ahead of time by going to Facebook and entering the desired address – if a page doesn’t come up, it’s all yours!
  • Once you’ve found a name that works, click confirm and start letting your customers and contacts know how to find you!

Facebook URL Username Available

If you’re on Twitter, your username should also be the same as your Twitter ID, which should be the same as your business name and domain name. You get the picture, consistency is the name of the game! You can change your Twitter ID pretty easily; so if Twitter doesn’t “match” Facebook, considering making the Facebook username the gold standard and adjusting Twitter.

 

What our clients are saying

  • "What I love about our site in particular we kind of feel like the store itself is filled with antiques it’s a little bit dusty, it’s the new mixed in with old, and the website absolutely  duplicates that feel." The Violet Hour  

  • "The E-Mail Marketing tool is very easy we have the basic three product template which we use about once a week…We can use our own images…we see which pictures people have clicked on so we know what kind of product to put up next time we send out an e-mail blast." The Violet Hour

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