Tag: how to market your business

Try This Old Marketing Trick to Sell More Products and Services

August 6, 2015 / Gail Oliver, Online Small Business Consultant

by Gail Oliver, Online Marketing Consultant

I was in the drugstore yesterday and I saw an annual back to school favorite called the Teen Value Pack, which consists of 10 different skin and body care products from various brands packaged together in a box for a value price of $9.99 (retail value $42). Even though my kids may only need half the products in the packs (my son isn’t old enough to shave just yet), I still bought them because I felt like I was really just paying for one product and getting the rest for free.

The lesson here is that consumers love getting value for their money, and love getting many items at one expenditure almost feeling as if some were free. So, have you thought about bundling together your products and/or services?

There are a few advantages to this old marketing trick:

The customer might be more likely to go for the bundle because of the overall cost savings, allowing you to sell more product to one customer at one time, and hence make more money overall.
It is a good way to introduce new products and create future demand
You can take advantage of various selling occasions or events to create bundles or value sets around, such as Back to School, Having a Baby, Going on a Trip, New House, etc.

It can also be a way to quickly expand your customer base. Back when I was working for a computer software company, we wanted our customers to start buying the CD version of our software because it was much cheaper to produce. But a lot of people didn’t have CD-ROM drives in their computers (we’re going way back here). So the company bundled the CD version of the software with a top-notch CD-ROM drive (they worked out a deal with the manufacturer to buy them at a really good price). They packed the software and CD-ROM drive together in a box and called it the Blockbuster Bundle for the same price as buying the software on its own and they sold like hot cakes. Why not, it was a chance to essentially get a free CD-ROM drive. The end result was not only did we successfully get our customers to upgrade to CD-ROM, but we got a ton of new customers in the process.

So come up with a bundle that makes sense, offer it at a value price where you still make a decent profit, make it a limited time offer, and see what it does for your business.

No Sales? Get a Marketing Critique of Your Business for Just $99 and I’ll Tell You Why

My Latest Surefire Tip for Getting Publicity for Your Business

July 30, 2015 / Gail Oliver, Online Small Business Consultant

by Gail Oliver, Online Marketing Consultant

Do you ever get frustrated trying to get publicity for your business with the media outlets specific to your industry? For example, fashion magazines are besieged with requests from vendors to use their products in editorial, so how good are your odds? But you do have other choices. Have you ever thought about stepping away from your industry’s mainstay magazines and blogs, and try a different approach?

Let’s say I owned a restaurant, I would typically be trying to get a review or included in articles from local magazines, lifestyle and travel blogs, and as such would be competing with many others for the same editorial. However, consider a story pitch that would work with a different type of publication and have the same effect.

For example, I was recently planning a trip to Boston and I searched on Google for “Top restaurants in Boston”. One of the articles that came up was from the business blog, Business Insider, entitled “The 10 Best Restaurants For A Business Lunch In Boston“. Do you see where I am going here? Would you normally expect to see restaurant suggestions in a business publication? But this article makes sense for this particular type of publication.

Maybe you have a pet products business. You are likely always targeting the pet-related media. However, earlier this year the men’s fashion magazine GQ ran an article called, “The Ultimate Dog Accessories for a Gentleman’s Best Friend“. Would you have thought to pitch to them?

If you own a resort or tourist-related business, I imagine you are always trying to get featured with the travel media. However, Time Magazine ran an article last summer entitled, “7 Great American Vacation Spots That Won’t Bust Your Budget” as part of their money feature, and it listed and linked to several hotels, restaurants, bars and attractions.

What if you sell beauty products and you have had no luck with the beauty editors at the popular beauty blogs. But did you know that Shape Magazine, which typically focuses on fitness-related editorial for women, also has regular beauty editorial, even an annual beauty awards?

I hope this gets you thinking about how you can increase your chances of getting publicity for your business by targeting non-industry media with a story relevant to their editorial.

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18 Great Marketing Ideas for Selling Online

February 12, 2014 / Gail Oliver, Online Small Business Consultant

Looking for some truly awesome marketing ideas for selling online?

Whether you sell on Etsy, on Amazon, on Shopify or somewhere else online, these marketing ideas are from my 12-Month Marketing Strategy Plans for Online Shops.

These detailed downloads are super easy to follow and will help you drive more traffic (and sales) to your online store.

18 Marketing Ideas for Selling Online

Highlight any publicity your business has received with an icon or shoutout on your store page banner. For example, “As featured in this month’s issue of…”
Ask a local photography class to take highly stylized, creative photos of your products as a class project. As a result, you get free high quality product photos to use.
Create a gift card for your store and promote it on your home page and at the end of every product listing.
Add text fly-outs to your product photos that highlight special features or a target customer that would benefit from this feature. See this post for examples.
Get a free Square.com reader for your smart phone, so you can sell your products by credit card anywhere, anytime (out of the trunk of your car, if need be). You also get your products featured in Square’s online shop for free.
Apply to have your products included in monthly subscription boxes to get in front of potential new customers. It can be sample sizes or even a coupon.
Instead of always going after the end user, try to also target potential business users for your products such as restaurants, small hotels, fashion stylists, interior decorators, daycare centers, dog groomers, event planners, AirBnBs, and so forth.
Post something nice about a prominent brand company to your social media sites and tag them on it and they will likely repost it to their social media sites (so your business now gets seen by their followers).
Change or add your shop categories depending on the time of year, and make them as detailed as possible to really attract interest.. For example, Valentine’s Gift Ideas for Kids, Beautiful Holiday Decorating Ideas, New Fashion Jewelry for Fall 2022, etc.
Put your shop logo and url on your smart phone case, lap top, lap top bag, coffee travel cup, yoga mat and anywhere else other people will see it as you travel throughout your day.
Create a free list or checklist that promotes your business or is something your target market would be interested in. For example, if you sell jewelry, create a “10 Classic Jewelry Pieces to Own” list or if you sell wedding products, “Six-Week Countdown Wedding Checklist”.
Attend a popular music or sports event and wear a t-shirt that has your store name and url printed in a large readable font on the front and back.
In your product copy cover the 5 Ws (and one H) and tell customers what it is, who will use it, when they will use it, why they will use, where they will use it, and how they use it (if applicable).
Offer and promote an ongoing discount to trades, professionals, students and/or seniors, whichever is most applicable.
Join a Facebook fan page of something you are truly interested in, like a favorite TV show. Just join in the conversation; never use it to promote your business. Your avatar and Facebook user name should say it all.
Use your social media avatar like an ad, to promote your latest product or sale.
Have a fridge magnet made with your online store url. Then ask friends and family to put it on the refrigerator in the lunch room of their work place, in addition to their home fridge.
When sending out customer packages at Christmas, include a recipe card with a Christmas cookie recipe on it. Make sure your store name and url are also clearly on it. This is something they will keep and pull out every Christmas, reminding them of your store.

Download One of My 12-Month Marketing Plans!

Over 300 tactics to try for advertising, promotions, sales, publicity, SEO, content marketing and social media in my 12-Month Marketing Strategy Plans with plans specific for what you sell, including:

Great Marketing Examples: BaubleBar

December 4, 2013 / Gail Oliver, Online Small Business Consultant

Today I am offering a great marketing example with an online store that markets itself really well – Bauble Bar. Specializing in fashion jewelry, they offer some really unique and smart marketing tactics that you may want to consider for your E-comm business.

1. Uses Instagram to Get Customers to Share

Great Marketing Examples

At the bottom of their home page, Bauble Bar displays photos from customers wearing their jewelry. They offer an incentive for their customers to upload the photos by giving away three $100 gift cards each month. The key is they also have to include the hash tag #BaubleBar. This is a great way to also connect with your customers and get them to recommend you to their friends on social media.

2. Promotes Best Sellers

Great Marketing Examples

Also along the bottom of the home page you will get a constantly moving list of Bauble Bar’s Best Sellers. It is always a good idea to point out to your less-than-savvy fashion customers which are the hot pieces so they will jump on the trend.

3. Has a Monthly Treasure Find

Every Monday and Friday, Bauble Bar secretly marks down two of their products to $10 and $20, respectively, and then they email clues to their customers who sign up to find the deal on the site. This is not only a brilliant way to get people to join your mailing list, but to also take advantage of those customers who are always looking for a deal.

4. Offers Kids’ Line

Bauble Bar offers a small line of affordable jewelry products for young girls, which allows them to branch out into other target markets, but the same buyer (i.e. mothers buying for daughters).

5. Puts a Time Limit on Sales

Sometimes when you indicate that a price has been marked down, people may still not jump on it because they think they have time. But if you indicate that it is only marked down for a limited time, they will act now.

6. Lists Product Categories at the Top

I love how Bauble Bar lists the product categories in large text above the product listings (they do list the categories on the side as well). When you have a large inventory it always helps to give buyers options to quickly narrow down the list to what they are looking for, so they don’t give up in frustration.

As you can see, Bauble Bar is a great example of a company really trying to engage their customers in a variety of different ways. It’s no wonder that there’s a waiting list for so many of their products!

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I have consulted for thousands of small businesses since 2012, and my advice has been featured in the NY Times, Success Magazine, Yahoo Business, American Express, Big Commerce, Business2Community to name a few – so this is professional advice you can trust!

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3 Marketing Ideas To Try To Get Holiday Shoppers

November 18, 2013 / Gail Oliver, Online Small Business Consultant

The big holiday shopping season is upon us.

If you need marketing ideas to get holiday shoppers into your retail store, then try these three marketing tactics and see if they bring in the buyers you are looking for.

1. Relook at How You Are Using Twitter

Please stop just tweeting out your products. It doesn’t work. Instead, create and then tweet out a Pinterest board, with a really attention grabbing title like Gifts for Men Who Have Everything (i.e. and make sure a few of your products are amongst them). Use the trending hash tags #gifts, #Christmas, #Pinterest #BlackFriday and you’ll see better results. Use the camera icon in the bottom left corner of the Twitter box to include a photo of the board. Encourage people to RT.

2. Use the Senses to Draw Shoppers In

If you have a retail shop, place of business or are exhibiting at a show or event, draw people in ways you can’t always online. Through smell, sight, taste and sound. Decorate your store windows, door, signage, shopping mall cart, whatever you’ve got. It doesn’t have to be for Christmas, it can just even be for winter and it can be something quirky like Anthropologie using marshmallows as snow in the photo above (note: you can also use a cool window display to get publicity in your local paper). Have holiday music playing and piped out into the street (if allowed). Have some sort of amazing scent, whether it is food or a holiday scent like cinnamon luring them in. Hand out hot chocolate or pumpkin lattes with your business name on the cups. Bring the spirit and you’ll bring the shoppers.

Store Window at Anthropologie

3. Display Quirky Signage

People love funny, love quirky and they love quotes. Put up interesting signage that gets people talking, and in this case, are good calls to action. Sometimes people don’t need much convincing to buy something they probably don’t need, especially at those Black Friday sales (44% of Black Friday shoppers buy for themselves).

marketing ideas holiday shoppers

One of the best ways to drive endless, free and qualified traffic to your business is through a blog. If done correctly, over time, one blog post can bring anywhere from 2,000 to 20,000 visits a month. And SEO has proven to convert the highest into sales, more so than email, advertising or social media. I offer a blog writing service if interested!

Tag: how to market your business

Try This Old Marketing Trick to Sell More Products and Services

No Sales? Get a Marketing Critique of Your Business for Just $99 and I’ll Tell You Why

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