eCommerce Diversification: An entrepreneurial game changer
By Ernie Mitchell
HTF Columnist
When I was a child growing up in the early 50s one of the cartoons that played before the Saturday matinees at the old Tivoli Theater in Spencer, Indiana depicted a character with a hooked cane that he used to pull unsuspecting pedestrians into business establishment.
The passerby victim was always portrayed as a not too bright hay-seed looking character while the hawker with the hooked cane was always a fast-talking city slicker.
Typically, when the unsuspecting victim lumbered by the store keeper’s door the city slicker would reach out from inside the doorway and grab the hay-seed around the neck with the hook of the cane and quickly pull him inside. Usually there was something said to the effect of: “Come here boy - I got a deal for you!”
Looking back, I don’t know why the hooked cane city slicker, hay-seed encounter was so funny but it always got a laugh from us kids in the front row.
Wouldn’t it be great if we had some sort of secret but ethical “hookedcane passer-by grabbing” marketing tool that could be used to pull customers into our stores and shops?
There is such a tool and considering how little it is being properly exploited by brick and mortar merchants it might as well be a secret. It’s called eCommerce Diversification and it opens up a whole new universe of markets and products.
Diversifying into eCommerce can offer new, innovative ways to serve existing customers with existing products and services and it can even be used to find new products and services to market to new markets. Whether you are a third generation brick and mortar business or a home based star t-up, diversifying into eCommerce can be an entrepreneurial game changer.
The Internet and Internet marketing is coming of age. Rules of engagement that can be followed and applied for profit are starting to solidify. Conducting eCommerce is no longer an insiders-only game reserved for deep-pocket, ahead of the curve techno-types. Entry doesn’t have to be expensive. In my opinion, sensible entry into eCommerce requires more “study” time than money, therefore bringing large amounts of cash into the eCommerce game, especially early in the game, doesn’t guarantee success.
Yes, I am aware that most businesses already have websites and that many of those websites are administered by professional firms that have been successful in securing good positioning in the search engines. Sadly, for every website that has good search engine ratings, hundreds do not. It’s also a fact that high search engine ratings are fluid and can disappear overnight. Most websites, even those with high search engine ratings, are only scratching the surface of their true traffic and therefore income potential.
The key to success in eCommerce lies is luring targeted traffic to your website’s landing page and then in converting that traffic into multiple sales. Instead of a hooked cane to drag prospects to your eCommerce store like in the Saturday matinee, modern marketers use a myriad of tricks and techniques to draw targeted visitors into their cyber stores.
The technique most skilled webmasters employ to make websites search engines friendly is called Search Engine Optimization or SEO. Serious eCommerce entrepreneurs employ many more ways to attract targeted traffic. Many techniques like Article Marketing, Video (youtube) Marketing, Opt-in email (Autoresponder) Marketing and Social Media Marketing are inexpensive and extremely effective. There are also off-line options for driving traffic to websites. I’ve had success driving traffic with print (newspaper) ads and postcards. Buying traffic or PayPer- Click (PPC) can be an expensive arena for the novice but once mastered (be careful!) can produce fast fortunes.
If you want to prosper, learn how to generate targeted eCommerce traffic! When you have a website that attracts traffic Google and others will pay you to place ads on your site/s. When you have traffic there are also thousands of others people’s products that you can sell via affiliate programs. Affiliate Marketing is big business with commissions ranging from 20 to 50% per transaction. Lastly, when you have traffic you can also sell your own products. Once you learn how to generate targeted traffic you may decide you no longer need your existing product/s.
A word of caution: thousands of unscrupulous hucksters with long hooked canes lurk in cyber space waiting to snare newbies with get-richquick stars in their eyes. Beware of get-rich schemes. Here is a reputable forum (The Warrior Forum) where you can learn more about the fine art of Conducting eCommerce: www.warriorforum. com.
Ernie Mitchell, Moose Lake Hill, Orr MN, © All Rights Reserved 2010.
