Principles of an Effective Offer

There are two important elements in creating an effective promotional offer. It should:
1. Qualify the visitor.
2. Be delivered at low cost to the merchant.

Perhaps you’ve visited websites that offer some sort of monthly drawing for a popular prize like an iPod. Such a drawing will help the website develop a list of prospects that would like an iPod, preferably a free one. My feeling is that this is primarily effective if you are selling iPods. Only an offer that directly relates to your products or services means that you are building a qualified mailing list.

The term “low cost” is a relative one. For some companies, an offer would…

A basic rule of thumb in social media marketing is that, in order to gain influence, you must actively participate in the communities of which you are a member. That means commenting on blogs, participating in forums and message boards, joining fan groups at major social networks like MySpace or Facebook, and dialoging via online chat on sites like Twitter.

Participation in social shopping sites such as Judy’s Book, Kaboodle or ThisNext is a good thing as well, and essential to any effective marketing strategy. However, I liken all of these activities to getting a seat at someone else’s table. How much better would it be to get your…

PeC: Most search traffic is at Google. Why should ecommerce companies consider pay-per-click ads at Ask.com?

SHIOYA: No advertiser will reach all search users by running a campaign with a single search company. The payoff of any search marketing campaign eventually hits a plateau because there are only so many keywords and price adjustments that can be made. Ask…

The participating ecommerce merchants are: Dave Norris, House of Antique Hardware; Justin Hertz, MuttMart; Chris Stump, Only Hammocks; Mike Feiman, PoolDawg; Dan Stewart, Xtreme Diesel Performance; Roman Kagan, Appliance Parts Pros; Cindy Barrileaux, Write Your Best; Claudette Cyr, Gear-Source; Mike Butler, Bloom Designs Nursery; Kristen Taylor, Juvie; Jeff Muchnik, RedBox Tools.

The responses for three of the ten merchants follow below. The answers are shown to preserve anonymity.

Pec: Has your ecommerce business been the victim of credit card fraud?

FIELD TESTER 1: Attempted fraud, but nothing that ever actually went through.

FIELD TESTER 2: Hundreds of fraud attempts, but I think we actually only got stung once for a small amount.

FIELD TESTER 3: Yes, we typically see a handful of…

The first question is much easier than the second, so let’s start with it. When a website such as Flickr offers an API it provides a method for other applications, such as other websites, to access its content. In the same way a person can visit Flickr and be presented with web pages, an API provides a way for computers to visit Flickr and be presented with the requested content.

Here’s an example. Say a user…