Online Marketing, relative newbie, do be gentle...

[Shirlee]

Hello all!

Gosh am I glad I've found this wonderful site. I've spent countless hours perusing blogs, articles and the like for answers to questions and for the most part have ended up with more questions! I finally realised that given the subject of my post I should seek the learned advice of the real people in the know..other business owners! You've probably read hundreds of posts just like mine and I do apologise if a thread exists that discusses the same aspects but I felt I needed advice tailored to my situation

I run a small independent fancy dress hire and sales shop in Hampshire. We have 4 members of staff and have moved three times in the last 5 years, not by choice but hey ho, we are in a great shop now and have found business to be good and relatively steady. It could always be better right?
We've been trading in the same town for 30 years and have enjoyed custom in regards to that but being an army town we often have an influx of new folks in fairly regularly, our two relocations have probably confused people who may not have visited us before and think we are 'new' to the town lol.

We currently have various social media outlets and a website which we update fairly regularly. At the moment we have PPC Advertising package of sorts with Yell/Hibu or whatever they are calling themselves these days! It seemed to be doing the trick to begin with but given that my knowledge or rather understanding of rankings and such have grown since we've had it, I'm not sure we are getting what we desire out of it. It's supposedly based on a 'regional' keyword aspect. For example we chose 3 towns/areas to be covered in, so if someone searches for 'fancy dress Farnham' we should be the first to come up or at the very least near the top, I check regularly and from what I can tell we are either being pushed further down by paid ads or by organic listings of business not necessarily in the same vicinity! Our budget is £50pm which I know is not a lot but I honestly am not sure about things like Adwords as it seems quite complicated and quite pricey.

My question is what the general consensus is for the best or rather tried and tested online advertising for a small business. Our reach would need to be fairly local, roughly within a 50 mile radius so national coverage would be unnecessary! Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I really want to get a good handle on it but I find certain types of digital marketing very very complicated or so particular they would yield little results. Please help!!

 

[AllUpHere]

What landing page are you sending PPC traffic to? I just had a look at your site and can't find a suitable page.

 

[fisicx]

I know you! I live up the road in Eggars Hill.

Bin Yell/Hibu right now. Anything they are doing is a complete waste of time. Like AllUpHere suggests, there isn't a good PPC landing page anywhere on the site. In fact there is a good page anywhere on the site. sorry to be so blunt and grumpy but that's the truth. Can't say why because website reviews are only for full members. I can come see you in the shop tomorrow if you like.

 

[Shirlee]

Well our home page is meant to be our landing page :-/ we get compliments on our site all the time, maybe they are from people who know less than I do lol www thedressingupshop com

 

[ethical PR]

Listen to @fisicx he knows his stuff and take advantage of his kind offer to come and see you.

However although online and social media should be part of your marketing mix, with a business like yours that can generate repeat customers, don't forget one of the first rules of marketing - focus on generating business with your existing customer base.

How do you keep in touch with existing customers?
Do you send them special offers? discounts? incentives to refer you to friends and family?

There's a great visual and seasonal aspect to your business. Sure you are doing this already but thinking about how you can use your customers to spread the word online and how you use key events throughout the year from Easter to Halloween to create photos's, video's and graphics to support your marketing.

 

[fisicx]

we get compliments on our site all the time

I bet they are your friends, family and customers. What you don't know is what everyone else thinks. How many people visit the site bounce straight off? Those are the people you need to convince, not existing customers as they will always say nice things. It's like you could come to work with your pants on the outside and people will stil lsay you look nice because they don't want to upset you.

PPC needs to land on very specific highly targeted pages. For example you could have a PPC advert inviting people to come to the shop - that would need to land on your contact page with a map and a picture of the shop and details of where to park with a mention that you will pay for their parking if the hire a costume.

Apologies if I upset you when I said your site wasn't that good. I do tend to blurt out stuff I regret later. But here's an example. You have a gallery of costumes. None of them have captions so I can't call you on the phone and ask if you have XYZ available for hire on Saturday. Or fill in a form to book that particular costume for the weekend.

 

[Shirlee]

Hi @ethical PR we sure do, we have a great email newsletter service powered by madmimi which is so user friendly I would recommend it to everyone! We also have a facebook business page and a fan page which we update and have used to get people involved as both customers and loyal friends, getting them involved in parades and photo shoots and such. I certainly will take any advice given! I designed or rather edit the site that we have via a company called squarespace, they are lovely and super helpful. But maybe it's not the way to go :-/

 

[Shirlee]

Hi @fisicx, not at all! I would not be here if I did not want advice, I just thought that the site seemed pretty good, ( goes to throw herself on her sword......lol ) I know what you mean about the gallery, there are limited functionalities that exist depending on the template you choose, the captions are there but you have to tap on the pic to enlarge and hover over, bit weird lol. I thought our info was clearly laid out on distinctive pages but maybe I've filled it out with guff lol

 

[Shirlee]

We have over 3000 costumes with multiple variations so it would be quite difficult to have all those images on the site to represent what they would look like on different individuals as they are also adjustable. Our aim for the site is for it to intrigue and be a lure to the shop if you will, like most websites obviously but in our case our stock needs to be viewed and tried on in person to get the full aspect of whats on offer.

 

[fisicx]

You could have an astounding website. But not with squarespace. Look at your site on a phone. Click to see the menu. I can't even read the labels. Over 70% of all browsing is now done on phones and tablets. The site has to work well on these devices more than it does on a desktop.

Would you like me to come see you tomorrow?

 

[Shirlee]

Do you mean the text is too light?

 

[fisicx]

Yes. And too small, in the wrong place and you don't even need to hide the navigation. But this is just one tiny thing out of hundreds of improvements you could make.

 

[Shirlee]

It would be great if I could get your advice, the only problem is we get quite busy before the weekend so I have a feeling we'd get interrupted a lot lol would it be ok to correspond through private message for the time being? Sorry that probably sounds really ungracious!

 

[Shirlee]

I think I know what you mean, again the template is fairly fixed on most functionality aspects. I assumed probably wrongly that the design would be in keeping with a fairly usable UI given how cool the company looks ( Squarespace. )

 

[fisicx]

...would it be ok to correspond through private message for the time being? Sorry that probably sounds really ungracious!

No probs. Skype works as well, search for fisicx.

I can come in next week when it's quieter. It's not as if I have to travel far.

 

[UKSBD]

I think the site is almost great.

The main reason being because it looks like what it is, an addition to a real bricks and mortar business, lose that look and feel and you risk looking like all the rest of the cheap online costume hire places which I assume isn't your market.

If you're doing local online marketing I would be inclined to have a landing page that features more photos of not only the outside of your shop but also the inside, you're not trying to get me to hire/buy a costume online (there are loads of sites that do that), you are trying to get me to visit the shop.

Where are your interior photos of a bustling, packed costume hire shop, photos of you/staff helping people decide, photos of locals trying on costumes in the shop?

Gallery is good as it looks genuine rather than the usual stock stuff you see, combine that with photos of shop, staff, etc. and if I was within 20 miles I would come to you.

Look too much like other online costume shops, you attract the people just looking for cheap costumes which is a race to the bottom.

 

[billmccallum1957]

Have to agree with Fisicx and disagree with UKSBD, the site looks really poor (not going into a site review, far too much to comment on), but...ALL CAPITALS DOES NOT LOOK GOOD and the Latest News has not been updated since last year.

I tried to look at what costumes you had for men, but no pic's????

 

[elad]

I bet they are your friends, family and customers. What you don't know is what everyone else thinks.

I think their site is really impressive, one of the best I've ever seen in fact! Swallow your opinions! Its so professional.

 

[neils3]

There's some good idea here, I think Squarespace is a popular option among many now and think you should be able to incorporate these ideas into your existing site.

Play on your earlier point of luring customers in, perhaps a better template design, some awesome images and clear "how to find us" details should be at the top of your list.

Once those changes are made, you can then re-look at your marketing.

 

[justinaldridge]

@Shirlee what are the areas that you are targeting with PPC and what others areas are you trying to target?

 

[AllUpHere]

It looks like a business you are trying to drag (kicking and screaming) out of the eighties, and it's not coming quietly. A lot of the images of clients etc in their fancy dress look like you have scanned really old photos. People are used to seeing decent images every day on social media these days, so images like this give a very bad impression. Anyway, before I risk running into 'site review' territory I'll leave it there with the website.

If I were you I'd take a step or two backward and have a look at your marketing strategy generally (if you have one). The site (and what you have tried to do with PPC) are a fairly reliable indicator that it's time to rethink your wider marketing efforts. I certainly wouldn't be paying to send any more traffic to that site.

 

[justinaldridge]

It looks like a business you are trying to drag (kicking and screaming) out of the eighties, and it's not coming quietly. A lot of the images of clients etc in their fancy dress look like you have scanned really old photos. People are used to seeing decent images every day on social media these days, so images like this give a very bad impression.

I really agree with this comment...I didn't say it as I didn't want to get into a website review discussion but it's a really important point for your whole marketing strategy.

 

[Shirlee]

Wow what a mix of opinions! Thank you all for taking the time out to post your thoughts. @elad @UKSBD Thank you for your compliments, nice to know I haven't completely failed in my efforts haha! I think my ideas for the site came from the premise of being clear and simple, for example the navigation is pretty clear and the content in regards to how to find us is pretty clear, not sure where I can improve on that. I've seen other shops sites in the past and found them to be fairly basic and a bit cartoonish? But not in a good way, not sure I'm explaining very well lol. I suppose as I'm in the business I'm very close to it and struggle to think as a consumer rather than as the one providing the service, our in shop service is excellent and if you've ever visited us I'm sure you'll agree ;-) we love what we do and we try to make the customers experience a fun and memorable one, but if that's not translating to our site, that's a problem. I am open to all opinions after all you are all potential customers! PPC will only be effective if once you land on the site, you want to stay for a bit and hopefully come see us in person ;-) I think I do find I suffer from blank canvas syndrome, I go to build a page and then wonder what would look good where and how much info to detail.

 

[Shirlee]

@AllUpHere Hahah Well I'm not sure I completely agree in the general sense but regarding the pics I can see what you mean. A fair few are what customers send to us and so we have to use the image in the quality they sent us, although I try to edit. We wanted customers to see other customers wearing the costumes at a party rather than models wearing them but if they are not being shown off in their best light then that needs to be addressed.

 

[AllUpHere]

@AllUpHere Hahah Well I'm not sure I completely agree in the general sense

That's because it's your business and you already have a deep rooted opinion which is based just as much on emotion as fact. I assess the marketing and business development strategies of businesses like yours every single day (and tell them how to put them right). I don't expect you to simply take my word for it, but do yourself a favour and do a little bit of research around basic marketing strategy, and see if anything starts to jump out at you.

If after a bit of research you are still struggling, feel free to get in touch and I'll give you a list of things to think about.

 

[fisicx]

It's always difficult to take criticism of something you have poured many hours of effort into. I felt the same when one of my sites was ripped to shreds. But I took the advice given, made the changes and saw an overnight improvement. As I said in an earlier post, the site has great potential considering your location and the local population. Like AllUpHere I can see a number of immediate changes you could make that would start getting more people through the door.

PPC will only be effective if once you land on the site, you want to stay for a bit and hopefully come see us in person...

Nope. That's not how PPC works. All you are doing is wasting your money.

 

[UKSBD]

Nope. That's not how PPC works. All you are doing is wasting your money.

Care to expand on that?

 

[fisicx]

People clicking on an advert expect to land on a page that delivers the product or service they were looking for. In this case they want to buy or hire a fancy dress costume. The website doesn't provide this service, it expect the visitor to note the address and then traipse across town to check if the costume they want is in stock. Ergo: PPC isn't going to generate any new business with the current website. That's why it's a waste of money.

But...

If the landing page was a list of all the costume (or a good number of them), properly categoried with images and whatever and a 'reserve this costume' form. They would be more inclined to go to the shop. PPC could work in this case.

I live 5 minutes away from the shop. I would rather make sure they have what I want on the day I want it before I go to the shop. I do the same before I go to B&Q - check online to see if they sell the tool I want before I drive over. I asked in the pub last night and most people do the same. And they use a phone to do it more often than not.

 

[UKSBD]

People clicking on an advert expect to land on a page that delivers the product or service they were looking for.

That very much depends on the keyword.

If I want to hire a fancy dress costume, I search for, "fancy dress costume" (and similar)

If I want to find a fancy dress costume shop, I search for, "fancy dress costume shop" (and similar)

In other words, the product or service I am looking for is the shop.

 

[justinaldridge]

and a 'reserve this costume' form

That's the key point in all of this. PPC is great...as long as you can track it, otherwise you can waste a lot of money.

You need to somehow be able to identify that the PPC traffic is relevant and having a "Reserve this costume" type call to action is important.

"Reserve this costume today"
"Check availability of this costume"

That sort of thing to make them take an action on the site, before they go to the shop, that makes it much easier to manage an effective PPC (or SEO) campaign.

 

[fisicx]

If I want to find a fancy dress costume shop, I search for, "fancy dress costume shop" (and similar)

In other words, the product or service I am looking for is the shop.

In which case you don't need PPC. The competition is so low you could rank #1 for anything local. And guess what, they dominate the SERPS for just that.