Owners of Australian Food Merchants, Brad Foote and partner Sandra Guzzi have taken a similar approach. They launched their Australian online food site just one year ago selling fine Australian foods, many unique to this country, ranging from exotic spices to wild hibiscus flowers in honey, from a base in Perth, Western Australia. Like the customers of You’ve Been Gifted, this business sells mainly to Australian buyers with a small number of overseas customers. When starting out, they employed a firm to help them with search engine optimisation for the new site, and Brad says this was an essential part of marketing their site and one which they continue to address. They combine this with online advertising through Google and with Yellow Pages Online. “E-newsletters are also important to our marketing approach as they bring in repeat business”, he says. “We collect a person’s email address when they purchase from us and we periodically send out an e-newsletter which acts as a reminder that we’re there and allows us to showcase our new products.”
“Technologies are emerging as new ways to attract and retain consumers—and often with a significantly lower cost of entry“
When considering using email as a venue for marketing a business take care to comply with the relevant anti-spam legislation. This requires that emails are only sent when there is express or implied consent to do so and where the message includes the sender’s details and a method for the recipient to opt-out of receiving future messages. To ensure the message is read and not consigned to the junk mailbox it is incumbent on the sender to ensure it is relevant to the recipient. In addition, when creating an email marketing campaign, be aware that bulk emails to a generic ‘customer’ are less likely to return a result than those that are personal and tailored towards the needs and tastes of the particular recipient. For a business to be able to do this properly, a rich array of purchase data should be retained for all customers—just having an email address won’t be enough.
For Bronwen Ryan, director of Marketing for Business Success, an important part of marketing any website is to focus on the user experience. Beyond the basics of creating a website that is easy to use and has a logical flow to it, Ryan says there are other important things to consider, particularly when you’re selling on the internet.
“It’s important to make people feel comfortable and secure,” she says. “Ensure you include your phone number and information about your refund and warranty policies as well as a method visitors can use to contact you if they experience problems. A privacy statement is also essential to ensure customers will be confident in giving their personal information to you.”
She also recommends creating a rich site. “If you want people to come back regularly to your website you need to provide something of interest to bring them back. For example, if you sell surfboards your website may provide information on the best beaches to surf in Australia and a link to other websites that contain information on the weather and tides.”
There are many upcoming technologies showing potential for use in marketing an online site, though many are still in their infancy. As Tamara Mendelsohn, Forrester Research suggests, “When it comes to creating closer relationships with customers, retailers have other options today that have not yet been exploited by competitors. Technologies like blogs, podcasting and Really Simple Syndication (RSS) are emerging as new ways to attract and retain consumers, and often with a significantly lower cost of entry.”
In his research investigating the impact of peer-to-peer technologies like user review sites, discussion forums, and blogs on the finance industry, Benjamin Ensor of Forrester Research concludes that “smart firms will use the same emerging technologies to communicate with customers, gather customer insights, and develop stronger customer relationships”.
One of the exciting things about the web is its continual state of evolution and change. While there are some constants, there are new technologies appearing all the time that offer new opportunities to web businesses for attracting new customers and for better servicing relationships with their existing ones.
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