Grant Your Start Up Wish Wednesday: How Do I Create a Strategy for Building Web Traffic for My NEW eCommerce Site?

It’s Grant Your Start Up Wish Wednesday again! (If you missed our first one, click here) Today we’re featuring new member, Start Up Princess Corey Olauson of Orem, Utah who is one of the very few Start Up Princesses that I’ve had the pleasure of mentoring in person since we’re all spread out over the universe. Corey’s Wish was that I look over her Business Plan before she proceeds with getting funding from the bank (she already has a grant and also funding from family) to launch her business.

We met recently at a park while our kids played and discussed her strategy to launch an innovative eCommerce site that will feature original greeting cards by freelance artists from all over the country. I spent a lot of time reviewing her business plan and discussing Corey’s internet marketing strategy because she didn’t cover it at all in her marketing strategy and it is a key element, a critical point for her company’s success. It is not enough to create a $4000 website and assume you’ll get traffic.

Here is what I recommended to Corey to develop a strategy to building online traffic for her eCommerce store:

#1 Online Store=Online Advertising. Forget Direct Mail and Print Advertising for the Launch (she was planning on paying $500 for 10,000 people to receive a postcard that would invite them to her site; direct mail campaigns are not recommended for internet sites because the consumer has to remember to get on the computer and type in your URL).

One study I read on Marketing Sherpa said that a company spent $10,000 on a full color back cover ad with their URL printed and had a contest link for them to get a poster signed by a celebrity, the company received only 2 contest entries from the ad!! Then they spent $6500 on internet advertising and received over 8500 applicants clicks on the URL. They will never do print advertising for their website again.)

Possible Solution: She would be much better off spending $500 on Text Link Ads on high traffic websites with similar demographics that would allow a consumer to directly click and purchase on her site.

#2 Think Strategically: Who does she know who already has a great client base who she can advertise with in trade of her products? Perhaps she teamed up with a children’s site and offered them 50 holiday cards to give away to their clients at Christmas time in trade for a link to her site in their next newsletter or she develops an affiliate program that would help people to have an incentive to refer clients.

#3 Press Releases: Corey was going to plop down $200 when they launched for a PR Web press release, instead I recommend she get a FREE $200 coupon from Ponn Sabra for PR Web and do FREE Press Releases every week, then cut back to 2x a month as she gains traffic after the first year

#4 Start Blogging NOW even before the site is done so that Google begins to recognize content. From what I understand, it takes anywhere from 1-3 months for Google to recognize content from a NEW website and she doesn’t have time to lose, particularly since she’s going to be low man on the totem pole when Google DOES recognize her site. Even though her site is being developed they could create a blog on the site by using a WordPress.org template (she will have to have this installed on her new site). By blogging regularly about the artists (if they are well-known), her products that will be released soon, she’ll be able to add valuable content. Strategically written posts will begin to send content to the search engine and if she is regular about it she will start her website with much higher rank than if she were to do NOTHING until the site was done and ready to launch. She could also start to trade links and build traffic that way through blogrolls.

Blogs on ecommerce sites are most valuable and beneficial when you write targeted posts by building the right traffic (in this case, people looking for cards). When posts are written strategically with keywords that relate to what people would be searching for if they were looking for original art greeting cards. Prior to writing your first post, set up your blog “categories”, based on the research from using a free keyword search tool to help you identify which phrases in the card industry are searched up to 500 times a month to find the right keyword.

A great example of a company with an outstanding blog (one of our highest referring blogs actually, Thanks Lisa!) is U-Handbag of London. I don’t even consider myself a crafty girl and I just love these photos and descriptions…oneday I’ll get up the courage to buy some of these supplies and make myself a purse fit for a Start Up Princess. But the reason I love this blog is because it made ME want to be crafty (my idea of crafty is putting my daughter’s hair in a ponytail). That is precisely why Lisa’s blog is succeeding– she’s painting the dream of “why I should want to create my own beautiful handbag, a vintage, sleek, custom piece no one else will own, but me…ok! I’m convinced,” I click over and PURCHASE. Not to mention she generates more SEO by writing regular content.

#5 Develop the Client List Now and Prepare for the First Newsletter; I recommend that she gathers email addresses of her friends, family, etc. (with their permission) and create a newsletter on Constant Contact so that once she does launch she can send them a newsletter and then monthly keep in touch with them about new designs, etc. offer specials and LINK back to her site.

Good Luck, Start Up Princess Corey!