Marketing/Sales

[jen]

Hello,

Anyone here could give us advice on how and what is the best form to market our website?

Do we need to use PPC for our website, any suggestion would be greatly appreciated. We want our website to come top on search engine, is this done via PPC, how about SEO?

I feel that due to the unique nature of the business we may not need to do so much on PPC as long as we get our keywords/tags right, or am I wrong to assume that. We've contacted someone from here with regard to PPC. So we'll see how that goes.

We're looking for advice on marketing the website not just online but also to raise our profile off-line, to get visitors to our site, get more consumer membership and companies to join.

We're offering free listing to selected companies that join us in return of exclusive discounts for our members but we also would like to generate some paid advertising within the site in due course. Any suggestions and input would be very much appreciated.

Here is the website, www.theparentingcard.co.uk (it's pre-launch will get update early next week with details of companies that have joined). We've had excellent response but still need to do more marketing, sales and PR.

Thank you all,

Jen

[clairemackaness]

Hi Jen,

Not sure about PPC etc, but if your looking for cheap advertising I can offer you a space on my blank canvas for £2.50 that will last 6 monthshttp://www.clairemackaness.co.uk/Other%20pages/blankcanvas.htm.

I have found a good way of traffic increase is to post in as many forums as possible. Try some of the parenting ones like www.netmums.com

Good luck Claire

[Jayne]

Hi Jen,

You should look through old marketing posts, loads of really good info' on them. You can get lots of tips to help :D

Jayne

[JustOneUK]

We want our website to come top on search engine


:wink:

for what term? PM me the terms you want to appear at the top, and i will tell you how much chance you have of achieving that

James.

[directmarketingadvice]

Hi Jen

I'm guessing you're fulfillment cost is very low.

If so, I'd give serious thought to giving away a lot of memberships to start with (say 6 months membership).

You could do that through nurseries, playgroups, primary schools etc.

This'll get people signed up and using your service. If they're using your web site and getting value from it, some of them will renew and generate referrals.

Steve

[Rob]

Jen,

Great idea but you need to do some more work on your offer before you can expect people to sign up.

Here are some comments/thoughts:

You are offering an e-mail newsletter. Whilst you mention what it will include under the ‘how it works’ section it’s hidden away. On your home page, where you have the sign up box, include some text on what people will get when they sign up - other than disclosing their e-mail address! List the benefits of why I should get your newsletter

Under your ‘Discounts and offers’ page you say you have ‘hundreds of retailers’ – who are they? Do you really have them on board? There is nothing to compel me to part with my money when you have not listed the retail partners you have signed up. If you don’t have a large number then you have put your business on hold – this is the crux of your offering. You don’t into a traditional shop faced with empty shelves to be told by the shopkeeper that stock is coming soon and please come back again! A website is no different from a traditional shop and yet many people think it is.

I know you only have a few subscribers but you need to get some testimonials as quickly as possible. This will provide much needed evidence that people are getting benefit from the card.

On the right hand side of you page you have images and texts which include ‘20% off gifts’, 15% off designers kids clothes’ etc. They give the impression they are links but they don’t go anywhere. This would lead me to believe that the offers aren’t there and as a visitor I would quickly exit – no sign up.

Unless you have hidden away the retailers you have signed up I think you need to spend more time getting your proposition right. You have start contacting all the likely businesses and retailers and get them signed up. Don’t waste your money on any advertising yet as I genuinely think you don’t have much to offer at the moment. You’ll just be throwing your money away.

Get this right; come back to the forum and then we can start giving you some great ideas!

[jen]

Hello guys,

Thank you so much for your all the great advice. As I've mentioned the site is pre-launch hence not much details about any companies that have joined however we're doing some update this week and those who've joined us will be listed in our online parenting guide. We had to put the site up to show prospective companies of what the scheme is about.

Claire - thank you for the offer, once we've put everything in place we'll be looking at reciprocal links, ads etc. so we'll be in touch. We have heard of netmums so we'll be checking it out. Thank you.

Jayne, thanks for the tip, I searched through the marketing old post and did found some interesting and helpful post.

James - thank you for the offer - is it for SEO, PPC (sorry not so familiar yet) I've sent you a pm.

Steve - thanks for the idea - we're looking into competition/free membership promo. But we're actually giving a guarantee that should they wish to cancel membership say after a month/two months then we'll refund their membership fee, would this be a better promotion?

Rob - thank you for taking the time to post and for top advice. We've sent you a pm.

Many, many thanks.

Jen

[JustOneUK]

James - thank you for the offer - is it for SEO, PPC (sorry not so familiar yet) I've sent you a pm.

ppc is ok if you have a nice advertising buget to burn, if you pay for people to come to your website you need to make sure that once they are there they will part with some ££££'s, so carefully review your conversion figures and possibly rebuild key pages

RE: PM

Didn't get one.

James

[directmarketingadvice]

Steve - thanks for the idea - we're looking into competition/free membership promo. But we're actually giving a guarantee that should they wish to cancel membership say after a month/two months then we'll refund their membership fee, would this be a better promotion?

Guarantees are a good idea and the guarantee period should be shorter than the renewal period. Probably 60 days is the best guess.

However, guarantees and targeted free trials are totally different animals.

You'll find it a lot easier to go to organisations and say "I'll give your clients free memberships" than "I'll sell your clients memberships with guarantees".

If you're going to succeed, most of your signups are going to be renewals and word of mouth. For both you need existing clients.

One way to get some existing clients is to have them brought in for free.

Steve

[Rob]

Jen,

I have just pm'd you with replies to your other queries in case you've not see it.

[Tammi]

Hello Jen,

You could have a look at the link contained in my signature... it's an 18 part self learn marketing course which is available either as an entire course or in sections. It's very good and it does work...
If you've any questions please feel free to pm me.

Tammi