As a retailer it’s important to realize that showrooming is not going to go away. So, instead of packing your bags and heading out of town for the virtual world, focus on other ways that you can turn your retail store into a place that shoppers want to experience as well as make purchases in. Here’s how to do it. Accept Reality Showrooming is here to stay. Consumers are going to compare prices, and they’re going to get the best deal they can and the most perceived value possible out of every purchase they make. Avoid Lines Find a way to make the in-store shopping experience have fewer lines. Apple…

Running a great affiliate program requires you to provide awesome tools for your affiliates. There are some really fabulous ways to create and develop affiliate tools for your program. You’ll need tools like an affiliate platform, landing pages, creatives and more. You will be successful if you follow these tips. 1) Chose a Great Affiliate Platform – There are many platforms to choose from, but the better platform you choose, the easier it will be for you to provide the right tools to your affiliates to use to market your products and/or services. 2) Ask Affiliates – If you already have in mind a few people who would probably want…

There is no question that multi-channel marketing offers a high return on investment. It doesn’t matter what your product is – if you’re not sending your message to multiple channels in multiple ways, you’re going to miss a large portion of your audience. Reaching more of your audience translates into higher profits. But, along with these profitable opportunities comes challenges. Keeping a Consistent Message It’s tempting when moving to a new channel for marketing to change your entire personality. However, you actually want to keep your message consistent no matter what channel you’re sending the message. Cohesive Branding Think about brands that you know. Taco Bell, Netflix, Facebook – all…

There is more to designing a website than putting up something pretty. Your website needs to speak to your audience in a way that describes your business to them in the words they would use. It should reflect boldly your unique selling proposition (USP). What Is Your USP? This is something you and only you can do for your customer. For instance, perhaps you “…deliver widgets on time, every time, no exceptions.” A USP describes what you do in a unique way, describes whatever action you will do for your customer, with a guarantee, in a short, simple way that your audience understands. Essentially it says what makes you so…

Face it – the entire reason you have affiliates is to create a way to duplicate your efforts in order to sell more products and make more money. In order to do this you need to run a fair and honest affiliate program that focuses on your return on investment (ROI), the needs of your affiliates, and the pain points of your customers. This can be quite a balancing act. Here are eight ways to achieve just that. 1) Create Awesome Products – No matter how great everything else is, if you don’t have fabulous products that your affiliates can proudly support and get behind, you will have trouble making…

When writing copy for different platforms, it’s important to take into consideration the mood of the social media network as well as your audience. The standards for email copy, website copy, and social media copy are different and there are things you should think about before you write the copy. Not only that, you don’t want to put the same copy up everywhere. You want to be innovative and fresh on each platform that you place any copy. Here are some questions to consider. 1. What Platform Rules Exist? – Each platform has its own rules that you should keep in mind before you create the copy for that medium.…

If you think that keywords aren’t important even today after all the search algorithm changes, you’re wrong. Keywords and keyword phrases are more important than ever. It’s still how your audience finds you, and it will be for a long time to come. It’s important to periodically clean and organize your keywords so that you can more easily use them on a daily basis when creating any type of content for your business. Find Keywords Using a keyword tool like Wordtracker or Google’s Keyword Planner you can create a list of keywords to use for your niche. When you first save the keywords you’re not going to worry much about…

Understanding where your own audience is in terms of these trends is important. You can use Google Analytics to find out what devices your audience is using to consume your content. If you’ve had a drop in visitors the last year, consider whether or not it could be because your content is not useful, relevant, or available in all formats. 1. Mobile Consumption Is on the Rise – It’s been said many times in many places. If your website isn’t mobile friendly now, you’re going to lose out big time. More people are consuming content via mobile devices today than they are via PCs. Many work places have blocked certain…