Kick It Up A Notch In 2008 - Web Hosting Provider Explains

The holiday cyber shopping frenzy is finally winding down and what a year it was! According to com.Score, 2007 was a banner year for holiday shopping with sales totaling 28 billion, up 19 percent from 2006.

Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday exceeded predictions. But did customers enjoy their online shopping experiences? Not entirely, according to a survey conducted by ForeSee Results which found aggregate satisfaction with leading online retailers 1.3% less than last year.

“In an economy where consumers are feeling pinched economically, it’s even more important for retailers to meet their customers’ needs online,” said Larry Freed, CEO of ForeSee Results.

The top-rated online retailers for the 2007 holiday season were Netflix, Amazon.com, L.L. Bean and QVC. The most improved sites were Costco (up 4.3%), Zappos (up 4%) and Avon (up 3.9%).

So what can you and your web host do to build on the momentum and keep your customers coming back for more in 2008? The answer to that may actually be a question. And the questions in question are not questions you ask yourself. They are questions that you ask your customers. Consider conducting a survey to ask your customers about their online holiday shopping experience. Keep the survey short and sweet and focus on the key qualities that can make your site successful. Once you have the survey data in hand, work with your web host to implement changes that will increase your customers’ satisfaction.

Web Hosting Provider Offers Tips for Your 2008 Marketing Strategy:

• Keep in mind that former customers are almost always future prospects. Stay in contact with your client base. Find or develop other products that will appeal to them. Stay focused on the adage that it is cheaper to keep an existing customer than to recruit a new one.

• Focus on your target market. If you find yourself attracting too many prospects who don’t have the money to buy your product or service then you need to adjust your strategy. Work with your web host to develop strategies that attract prospects that have an intense desire for your products coupled with money to buy them.  

• Get ahead of the pack. Set yourself apart from your competitors by offering an exclusive benefit your competitors cannot copy.  Think outside the box by turning standard business practices into exclusive offers that are not available elsewhere.

• Clarity is crucial. Make sure your key messages are crystal clear. Crowded pages are almost always counterproductive. Simplicity is the key. Here’s the product, here’s a picture of it, here’s the price and here’s the shopping cart. In the case of items that are similar, yet different, links to them should be displayed not on a product page but on a category page. (A category page is one level up from a product page, and it offers links to a broad array of products).

Even though ecommerce businesses can be extremely lucrative under the right conditions, bear in mind that having a site on the web doesn’t mean you’ll automatically reach millions of readers. There may be millions of people capable of accessing your site, but it’s up to you to develop the strategies that will get them there and keep them there. Resolve to work with your web host to kick it up a notch in 2008 and this could be your best year ever.

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