Breakthrough Ecommerce

Most businesses are making it incredibly easy for organised criminals to steal critical data, according a new report from Verizon Business.

While organised crime is getting more and more innovative about online crime, many businesses seem to be going backwards and failing to comply with even the basic security standards.

The reasons seem to be a combination of ignorance, laziness and a surprising reluctance to invest in securing customer and company data.

Organised Crime is Coming to Get You

The Verizon report found that 285 million records were compromised last year (2008), and that 91% of the attacks were by organized criminals.

That is, security breaches are no longer the domain of teenage hackers just looking to make a name for themselves. Your data is now a major target of organised crime, which is investing considerable time, money and resources to get at your sensitive information. Read the rest of this entry »

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A while back, I put together a list of 10 free tools to enable you to build an online business for free. (Actually, it ended up being 21, but who’s counting.)

Anyway, I already have another 10 that I just have to tell you about, that are not only free but actually really very useful.

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Ecommerce, Freebies, Online Marketing | 2 Comments »

photo credit: ttarasiuk

Email is still the killer online marketing tactic, however, making sure your carefully crafted email gets through to the intended recipient, let alone read, is a real obstacle course.

Undelivered and bounced emails are the bane of most online marketers, and the reasons emails bounce can be endless and labyrinthine.

Given that email is still one of the most effective online marketing tools, it is well worth fine-tuning everything about your email campaigns to get the maximum return you can. (See Email is Still King of Online Marketing.)

Recently a fellow Goouze and Linkedin contact, Kathryn Millette, Internet Manager at R. G. Barry Corporation, asked why her latest email was triggering high spam scores and being bounced.

A quick look at Kathy’s email immediately revealed some obvious, but all too common problems. Read the rest of this entry »

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And the Top Five Things To Do First

Ninety nine percent of online advertising doesn’t work. Two more reports highlight the appalling click thru rates generated by online ads. One from Adtech and another from ABI.

photo credit: Pascale PirateChickan

After a study of more than 10 billion banner inquiries across Europe, Adtech found the average click-through rate fluctuates between 0.11% and 0.19%.

That’s a 99% failure rate for attracting visitors to your site. Any sporting coach with a 99% failure rate would quickly find themselves looking for a different line of work.

So why do so many people keep wasting huge amounts of money on something that is a total failure: In a word: HOPE.

But as a good friend of mine always used to say, “Hope is a t*#d with a cherry on top.”

For those of you who are ready to abandon hope and try the world of effective marketing then enter here. Read the rest of this entry »

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photo credit: kimberlyfaye

More than 90 percent of all online marketers and businesses are leaving vast amounts of money and business on the table by ignoring conversion rate optimisation.

A recent survey by Alterian found that less than half of the marketers they surveyed use any sort of analytics.

Of those that do, many find it hard to interpret the data, and less than 10% regard analytics as a vital tool in improving their business results.

Alarming as the results are, they are not surprising. Optimising conversion rates and using analytics go hand in hand. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Conversion Rates, Ecommerce, Online Marketing, Web Analytics | No Comments »

photo credit: saguayo

I could have easily come up with a 1001 tips, but that might have been too much to digest in one sitting. As I say on my main site, most online businesses are suffering from”The Death of a Thousand Cuts“. With conversion rates till stuck at around 2.0 percent, for the vast majority of online businesses, there is still plenty of work to do. So, in no particular order here are are the first 101 tips to boost your online results: Read the rest of this entry »

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How the Online Giant Makes a Classic “Noobie” Conversion Faux Pas.

The other day I rediscovered the Google Analytics blog . A great read and one I instantly wanted to add to my RSS feed list.

However, for the life of me I couldn’t find the friendly orange RSS button. See screenshot. No matter how hard you look, you won’t find it.

“What?” I thought. “What’s going on? Surely not?”

Eventually I found it after scrolling down the page and finding the universal orange button below the fold.

“Below the fold? Is anyone still making this mistake?”

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A recent survey by Datran Media shows that good old email is still the number one tactic for producing online marketing results.

Over 80% of the marketers surveyed said email was the most effective online marketing tactic, followed by search at over 57% and display ads at 42%.

(Interestingly the survey didn’t ask how much they spent on improving onsite conversion factors, but that’s a whole other story.)

Email’s dominance is not particularly surprising; it has always been a highly effective online marketing tactic.

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Ecommerce, Email Marketing, Online Marketing | 2 Comments »

To put it simply - validating your site (making it standards compliant) will increase your conversions, sales and profits.

It will also prevent you from getting sued.

If ever anyone ever tells you that your site’s validation and compliance doesn’t matter be afraid, very afraid. This is a warning bell that says they don’t understand the requirements and responsibilities of business. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Conversion Rates, Ecommerce | 2 Comments »

A real life example.

Today I signed up a client to Jobthread , an easy to use jobs board service. I heard about Jobthread from the wonderful Society for Word of Mouth , (SWOM) which I in turn found out about from Michele Miller of Wonder Branding and co-author of "The Soccer Mom Myth ".

I found out about Michele from Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg at Future Now who I was fortunate enough to have worked with many years ago.

This is a very definite path, and one I can personally recognise.

Can This Be Measured?

Read the rest of this entry »

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