We communicate with our customers and site visitors even more than we realize. Each of those communications is a place to invite customers to engage with us. Oftentimes we miss those opportunities, simply because the thought hasn’t occurred to us. Here are three opportunities you may not be taking to ask customers for more engagement:

1. Welcome to Our List
When a customer joins your newsletter you probably send them an email welcoming them. What does this email contain other than a standard welcome message? If you’re like most businesses, little else. Modify that welcome message to invite your customer to your Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Youtube or other social media accounts. If you have a special contest or event coming up you want them to take part in, make mention of that. Don’t overload the message with too many calls to action, but be sure take advantage of this missive to give customers an additional way to connect.

2. Thank You Page & Thank You Email
When a customer makes a purchase, they’re making a very clear statement about their interest in your brand. Use your thank you page and thank you email to ask the customer to become a Facebook fan, share a coupon for your website with a friend, or visit your blog.

3. Newsletter
Most companies use their newsletter to announce sales, share coupons or promote new products. The focus tends to be on getting a customer to make a purchase. While this is a reasonable goal, you should also make greater engagement with your audience a goal. Invite your customers to share pictures of themselves using your product, ask customers to follow you on Twitter, or ask them to write a review of your product online.

Do you know where your site visitors’ eyes are drawn? Get the answer with 5 second test, a free online tool that lets you see where the visitor’s eye is drawn. Test your site usability. Figure out if people are noticing that banner about your new promotion.

How this works:

1. Take a screenshot of the page you want to analyze
2. Fill out a simple form
3. Upload your screenshot
4. Ask people to take a peak
5. Testers look at your page for 5 seconds and list up to 5 things they remembered about it.

Easy enough? If you try it out let me know what you think.

Like many of the people who read this blog, I have a shop on Etsy.com (as well as shops on sites like 1000 markets and Art Fire). That said, having my own website is completely indispensable. While sites like Etsy have some good qualities, here are a few reasons I couldn’t be without a website of my own:

1. Convenience
My own website is a lean, mean, streamlined machine. It takes orders, it collects money, it sends out notifications when orders get shipped. The manual effort involved with dealing with the orders that come through my website is kept to a minimum.

When orders come from other sources, like Etsy, I have to manually enter those orders into my system. I have to double and triple check that I haven’t made any errors while copying over the order information. Since most of my orders just come through my website, the amount of time I spend manually managing orders is kept to a minimum.

My own website also doesn’t allow an order to be “complete” until a payment is collected. Since sites like Etsy separate the purchase and payment process, it’s possible for a customer to “buy” and not pay. That means I have to track them down and if that doesn’t work I have to request a refund for transaction charges. All those issues just aren’t a concern with customers that come through my own site.

2. Too Many Logins
Sites like Etsy break one of the most important rules of e-commerce, they require logins. When it comes to selling online, the goal is to make life as easy for the customer. This means not requiring them to register for an account and not requiring them to remember a username and password.

Sites like Etsy require customers to log into both Etsy and Paypal! That’s two logins. If the customer is new to both services that’s TWO accounts they have to create just to buy something. As a customer I know I’m unlikely to actually jump through that many hoops to make a purchase.  On my website, customers just enter shipping and payment information and they’re done. There’s no logins to remember, there’s no account creation involved.

3. Branding and Customer Relations
When I hand out marketing materials, I just want to promote my own brand. I certainly don’t want to send customers to a website that hosts my business and my competitors’ businesses.

Additionally, when someone comes to my online shop, I want to offer them lots of ways to keep in touch. I want my mailing list sign up form on every page they see. I want links to my Facebook and Twitter pages. I also want a way to reward loyal customers with coupons. Having my own website allows me to do all of that.Using a 3rd party service puts too many restrictions on my ability to customize the visitor experience.

4. SEO
A lot of the business I get online comes from organic search. Having my own website allows me to optimize for search engines to my heart’s content. I can create as many landing pages as I like. I can make sure keywords appear in the title tag and URL. Using an Etsy shop doesn’t give me that kind of flexibility.

Alternatives
So what are some alternatives to putting all your eggs in Etsy’s basket? Here are a few ways to get going on a website of your own:

• Big Cartel The customization is pretty flexible but you’ll still be using Paypal. It sill cuts down on a lot of the other issues I mentioned above, and is very artisan friendly
• Volusion A highly flexible hosted solution but it will cost you. Pricing starts at $24.99/monthly. That said, the cost of not having your own site might be well above that each month.
• Shopify Another flexible hosted solution with a monthly fee, packages start at $24/month.
• Yahoo Stores A flexible hosted solution with monthly fees starting at $39.95/month
• Zencart A free shopping cart you can install on your own. This solution requires more technical expertise and you’ll have to get your own hosting package that supports PHP and mysql, but if you’re looking for the cheapest option, this is one to consider. If you’re not so technically inclined, you may want to hire a web designer to set up your Zencart site for you.

Disclaimer: I have NOT used any of the services above. I can’t vouch for their awesomeness. I have a custom shopping cart for my business. That said, if any of you out there in blog-reading-land have tried the above services, feel free to chime in about your experience with them.

Every day I check out the 100s of subscriptions in my RSS feed about marketing, PR, advertising, branding, social media, and a host of other topics of interest to small businesses that sell online. Most of what gets posted isn’t earth shattering but I reserve Fridays for the best reads of the week. So here you have it, the most valuable things I read in the business blogosphere this week:

• Small Business Social Media Checklist
• Linkbait Exlained
• Free SEO Tools
• Making Your Copy More Magnetic
• Writers Block? 30 Topic Ideas for Your Online Store’s Blog
• Stuff You Need To Know If You’re Hiring a Web Professional
• Things You Need to Know About Online Defamation
• Free Shipping: The How To Economic Model

Link love will be a regular Friday feature. Think of this as reads to tide you over for the weekend. My newsletter subscribers may be used to getting this type of content monthly, so if you enjoy my monthly newsletter, be sure to tune in on Fridays for suggested reads.

Everyone loves getting a little something extra for free. Why not add some wow factor to your packages by sending customers a little something extra with every order.  Many brands just send flyers, business cards or an invoice with their orders. Customers tend to throw such things away and you know what they say “out of sight, out of mind.”

Why Give Swag?
It engenders good will for your brand. People will remember that ordering from you is fun because their purchase comes with a free surprise. The freebie should also serve as a promotional tool. Give them something they won’t throw out so they won’t forget about your brand. If you sell pet products, a free dog or cat toy with your logo and URL on it is a good choice. If you sell cosmetics, a free make up brush with your logo and URL might make more sense.

What To Send
Make sure whatever you decide to send fits with your brand and products. If you sell art, a postcard with a print of your work might be most suitable for you. If you sell candles, a free votive holder might be a better fit. Be sure to pick something that, cost-wise, makes sense for your company. If your average order is $50 you can afford to offer a more expensive freebie than a company with an average order value of $10.00

Some Examples of Great Swag

• 1″ buttons
• Stickers
• Bottle Openers
• Pens and Pencils
• Mini Samples (great for bath and body, cosmetics or edibles)
• Postcards
• Chip Clips
• Keychains
• Magnets
• Post it Notes

Where To Get It:
A quick Google search for promotional items will probably bring up loads of websites where you can have promotional items custom made. A few places I’ve used in the past are:

• http://www.123stickers.com/
• http://www.stickerguy.com/
• http://www.buttonarcade.com/
• http://www.vistaprint.com/

All of those companies, in my experience, do good quality work for a great price.

Got a resource for great promotional items? Got a cool promo you use for your business? Ever received something especially neat in a package from an online order? Feel free to share your expertise below in the comments

Last year I published an article about the importance of building a tailored press list, so today I want to show you a couple of handy tricks for actually seeking out publications to put on your press list. In my original article, I mentioned checking things like amazon.com and blogrolls for ideas but here are a few additional tools to consider:

Similar Web
This handy browser plugin can be used to find websites similar to a website you already know about. You can enter modishblog.com for example, and Similar Web will suggest Design for Mankind, Rare Bird Finds, Poppytalk and a host of other design blogs you may or may not know about.
Check it out at:  http://www.similarweb.com/

Quantcast
Quantcast is primarily a site for gathering traffic data on high traffic websites. You enter a URL you’re interested in and Quantcast will tell you how much traffic it gets, what types of visitors it gets and most importantly what sites the same audience frequents. If you design wedding invitations, maybe you’d want to search for theknot.com. If you scroll to the lower right under “audience also likes” you’ll see a list of other sites you might want to put on your press list. You can also click each of those links and see where their visitors go, thus generating even more ideas for your press list!
Check it out at: http://www.quantcast.com/

Your Competitors
You may notice that a lot of your competitors have press pages on their websites, browsing through these pages is another great way to find out about press outlets that might be willing to give you an editorial write up. Make a list of all your competitors and check out their press pages, take note of any publications they’ve received press from that you don’t have on your list and be sure to add them on.

Most people don’t put out on a first date, that includes your customers. What I mean by this is that people rarely buy the first time they hear about a brand. Winning customers over is often a process, not a one shot deal. Sure, some people will happen upon your e-tail shop and buy immediately, and that’s great, but it’s probably not going to be most of your customers. That’s why it’s important to understand how the cumulative effects of your marketing efforts result in sales.

1. Price point affects time to convert
If you’re selling a more expensive product, it’s probably going to take longer to convert a customer. The more expensive the item, the more time customers need to get comfortable with your brand and decide to invest. If you’re selling a $2 item it’s probably pretty easy to get people to throw down cash for that, a $200 item or a $2,000 item is another story.

The more you expect customers to spend, the more time you’re going to need to build trust and affinity with your audience.

2. You need better analytics
Consider this scenario:
I see an ad for a jewelry shop on my favorite blog every day. Mother’s day is coming up and after seeing this same ad for a couple of months, I decide to take a gander at what they’ve got. Maybe their price point is too high for me right now, maybe it’s just not mom’s taste.

Now imagine another couple of months goes by and I realize I need to get a birthday gift for my sister. I know she likes robots and I do a search for robot gifts on Google. The same jewelry shop I saw on my favorite blog comes up in my search because they happen to have robot necklaces. I click and find just the right thing and place my order. I feel comfortable with this shop because I’ve heard of them, maybe I don’t remember where or how, but the name is familiar and they have the right thing at the right time.

To a not-so-hot analytics program, it would appear the sale came from organic search. To a more sophisticated program, you’d discover I’d been to this online shop a few times. Each visit helped familiarize me with the brand and increase my comfort level.

My point here is that building a relationship with a customer takes time. The analytics software you use should capture each exposure your customer has to your website to give you a better picture of where your sales come from, and how long it takes for customers to convert.  It’s also important to keep in mind that even that analytics software can’t account for the number of times your customer saw an ad for your brand or an editorial mention about your brand. The customer may also have been to your website from both work and home computers, thus appearing to be two different visitors. All of these different touch points contribute to a customer ultimately making a purchase.  Even if you can’t track every single one, it’s still a good idea to gather as much information as possible.

3. You need to build a relationship
So, we’ve just talked about how customers probably aren’t going to buy the first time they hear about your business, they might not even visit the first time they hear about you. When they ultimately do pay a visit, they still may not buy right away. What can you do about this? Going back to our first date analogy, you can pretty much ask the customer if they’d like to see you again (ask ‘em on a second date).  You can do this with a number of tools. Some examples include:

• Invite your website visitors to join your email list.
  Make this process as easy as possible. Have a field on EVERY page of your website in a prominent position that the customer can use to enter their email address to get on your mailing list. Don’t ask for name and birthday and all that other stuff. You’re being too forward and making it too difficult to connect, make the email list sign up as easy as possible for the customer.

• Invite your customer to your social media hang outs.
  Make sure it’s easy to find you on Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Flickr, Youtube — whatever social media sites you hang out on, make sure the customer can connect with you there. Add links to all your social media pages throughout your website so customers who prefer to connect on social sites can do so.

• Make your website stickier.
  A sticky website is a site that keeps people coming back. You can make your website sticky with a variety of tools including a good entertaining blog, a game, a useful widget, a message board. Pick something that’s most suitable for your brand and test different features to see what your site visitors seem to like.

Bottom line: Don’t expect instant results from every marketing effort and don’t expect a sale with every website visit.  Do be visible through multiple channels (editorial mentions, search engines, ads, etc) and do aim for that second date, a chance to win the customer over in time, everything else is gravy.

Pitching your products to the press is a pretty essential part of running an online retail business. The trouble is, all your competitors are pitching too, so if you want attention, you’re going to need to stand out. It’s not always enough to have a cool product, you need a way to make your product more interesting than your competitors and you need to pitch stories that are timely to create a sense of urgency.

One way you can do this is with a calendar of  press-worthy events. What do I mean by this? Look through the calendar and plan out your year. Look for opportunities to make your brand part of the year’s upcoming events.

Will you be premiering at a fashion week? If so which one and when? Figure this out early so you can tell fashion bloggers.  Will you be raising money for the Human Rights Campaign in June? (June is LGBT Pride month) If so, alert some gay press well in advance, so you can get an editorial mention that coincides with your event.  Maybe you sell baby clothing and you’ll be hosting a cutest baby picture contest this spring? If so, it’s not too early to tell parent magazines and mommy bloggers.

When I plan out my year for my e-tail shop, I look for ways to make my brand newsworthy each month. I come up with a list of who will care and make plans to pitch them in advance. It gives editorial contacts a reason to feature my brand now, rather than “maybe eventually if we’re looking for content.”

When you plan your year’s calendar of events make sure you’re picking events that are most relevant to your brand’s image and figure out all the ways you’re going to promote the event. Getting press is a big and important slice of the pie, but plan your newsletter releases and social media updates to generate interest as well. Sometimes press is generated from general buzz about something you have going on.

Ready to get started? To get ideas for your calendar, take a look these handy resources:

• 2010 Special Months
• International Observance Days on Wikipedia

Related Extra Credit Read: Making Charitable Work Part Of Your Brand Identity

2009 was a busy year for my online retail website.  Here are the 3 best things we did this year to grow our brand.

1. Blogging. We made it a regular habit to update our blog. We post about topics of interest to our customers and give away a free product each month to a fan that comments on our posts.
Why it worked: New content + free gifts is a great way to keep customers engaged. It gives people a reason to check in regularly and keep our brand in mind.

2. PR. We sent out lots of inquires to our Ultimate Press list and the elbow grease paid off with lots of press.
Why it worked: We sent customized pitches to each of our press contacts and we targeted publications that were most relevant to our brand. Each press hit not only brought immediate views and sales, but press hits from over a year ago still bring in new visitors and conversions.

3. Google Products. We set up a feed on our website to push all our product listings to Google’s product search. I was surprised to see how much people use that search tool to find stuff to buy, we definitely saw an uptick in sales once we implemented this.
Why it worked: People searching Google products are looking for things to buy so it’s a pretty high quality source of traffic. Since we were able to make our feed automated, there’s no need to worry that we’ll forget to update as we add new products to our catalog.

What were your best 2009 moves for your business? What do you have planned for 2010? Stay tuned all month for my list of suggested business new year’s resolutions.

Every month I send out tips and articles on my Creative Entrepreneur’s Newsletter. If you haven’t been following all year long, here are the highlights. These are the articles my subscribers viewed the most:

• 7 marketing mistakes to avoid on Twitter
• Time Management Tips For Small Business Socializers
• 9 Rules of Facebook Promotion Every Small Business Should Know
• 22 Things You Don’t Know About Your Customers
• How To Get Your Work Into Stores
• Dos and Don’ts for Getting Your Website Optimized Before the Holiday Rush

I have lots of good stuff queued up for 2010 so stay tuned.