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 »

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 »

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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 | 3 Comments »

How Web 3.0, the Semantic Web Will Affect Everything

The web of the future is going to make content supreme. What’s more, it’s going to make it incredibly valuable in ways that may finally see content creators get real reward and value for their efforts.

Almost since the start of the modern web, industry experts have been continually saying that Content is King: And they’ve been right, but now they’re right in ways that they couldn’t have possibly imagined.

The coming semantic web, known variously as the data web, microformats, FOAF, RDF, Linked Data, Web 3.0 and a whole host of new acronyms is pointing to big changes in cybersphere.

Yahoo recently announced it was embracing semantic web standards , and has already released some interesting tools that point to the future. Many are seeing this as a good thing and direct challenge to Google.

The End of Google?

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Some interesting reports have recently been released detailing what techniques and strategies many direct marketers are using to acquire and keep customers.

Direct marketers are usually the sharpest cookies in the marketing arena because they are obsessed with producing financial results, and will usually do whatever it takes to turn a dollar. (No bad taste jokes please.)

Therefore, they are usually worth listening to as they can always back up their marketing strategies with hard results.

The Number One Tactic

According to Target Marketing’s Media Usage Report, the number one tactic for getting more customers and giving the strongest return on investment (ROI) was direct mail.

That’s the printed, personal letter in an envelope with stamp kind of mail. Read the rest of this entry »

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Traditional offline marketing is one of the most effective ways of driving qualified customers to your online business.

However, it is often totally overlooked by many in the ecommece and online marketing arena. Scratch any online marketer and you’ll find an almost obsessive focus on search engine optimization, search engine marketing and online advertising.

There will probably be some talk about email marketing, and, if they are really on the ball, a discussion about conversion rate improvement, but traditional offline marketing methods will probably barely rate a mention.

As a business owner, this means you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to drive customers to your site and generate revenue.

Traditional marketing’s effectiveness at generating online customers was recently highlighted in research by The e-Tailing Group.

It found that consumers are most motivated to go online after:

Read the rest of this entry »

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