The Sprout Social Index found that 7 in 8 social messages to brands go unanswered within 72 hours.
According to Sprout Social we should be moving towards reacting to social messages the way we react to customer service messages. We would never let 7 in 8 customer service emails go unanswered.
Further highlighting the problem, the index shows social messages sent have increased by 21% in 2015, while response times have increased by 4%.
To combat this problem, Sprout Social says your business should be instituting a fully functioning social communication strategy by
Content marketing can be a bit of a buzzword, but it means more than ever when we are talking about local marketing strategies.
Interruption-based advertising is losing all it’s power with the ability to record TV, the ability to mute ads, or use AdBlock on YouTube.
What’s great about content marketing is that it isn’t advertising. It is relating.
Local businesses have the leg-up over national brands when it comes to content marketing, because they can relate to their audience on a personal level.
When you are a local business you can implement an online / offline strategy. For example, sponsoring a charitable event and offering a coupon for posting a picture from the event.
To keep your social media strategy fresh, it is important to keep up on the latest trends and best practices. Social Media Today put together a quick list to keep you on track!
First, keep up on etiquette and ethics. One major rule to social etiquette is to not broadcast all your own content. You should be sharing relevant content from other sources as well.
Second, you should be customizing your content for each social platform. What works on Twitter will probably not work on LinkedIn without having adjustments made to it.
And lastly, you should be continuously researching your target audience’s preferences. Your audience’s interests may change, or more importantly their priorities can change, so it is important to know what they care about.
Best Ecommerce Platforms for 2015 – Pt. 2 – Shopify
If you search Google for “ecommerce platforms,” you’ll find a lot about WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento, and Bigcommerce. If you do a little digging, you might find Miva, a longstanding ecommerce platform that’s not as well-known. Each platform has its own selling points and drawbacks. For some businesses, hidden drawbacks to any given platform may eventually overshadow that platform’s selling points. In this in-depth series, we’re examining the benefits and drawbacks of 5 major ecommerce platforms. In Part 1, we talked about WooCommerce. In Part 2, we’ll look at Shopify. Let’s dive in!
Shopify:
Shopify is a major player in the ecommerce game. With 150,000 active stores, Shopify is responsible for an incredible amount of online commerce. Shopify offers a range of responsive themes, Paypal integration, blogging functionality, a CMS (content management system) and a fairly basic abandoned cart email integration. In that regard, Shopify is generally competitive among ecommerce platforms. However, Shopify has some serious drawbacks which entrepreneurs should consider before committing.
Watch out for those transaction fees!
The biggest problem with Shopify is its transaction fee schedule. This is tied to your choice of payment gateway. If you go with Shopify’s own gateway, Shopify Payments, you’ll be charged 1.8%-2.4% plus $0.30 on every transaction. The percentage charge depends on your plan tier. If you want to use Shopify Payments, you’re in luck. But if you want to integrate with a 3rd party payment gateway, you’ll pay two transaction fees every time you make a sale: one to your 3rd party, and one to Shopify itself. In this scenario, Shopify’s fee goes down to 0.5%-2.0%, depending on your plan tier. Keep in mind that you’re already paying Shopify for the software and hosting. If you’re considering Shopify, you should really crunch the numbers on your projected sales and margins and see how this all adds up.
Shopify’s discount functionality is also limited. The only discounts you can apply are percent off, dollars off, and free shipping. Clearly, these are the most common discount types; but what about scenarios where you need a different type of discount solution? Miva’s built-in discount functionality is far more robust. Without add-ons, Miva offers volume pricing, add-on products, basket discounts, buy product X and get product Y, product discounts, and two types of shipping discounts—entire order, or per-product.
Some developers have claimed that Shopify’s code is not lightweight. Shopify contains in-line javascript at the beginning of the page. Experts generally recommend using external javascript or putting it at the end of the page. Note that Miva in stock configuration has no in-line javascript at the beginning of the source code.
Shopify gives you two shipping methods out of the box. However, carrier-calculated shipping rates aren’t available in any plan below the $179/month tier. This puts smaller operations at a disadvantage. In Miva, shipping options are in no way tied to your website hosting setup.
Overall, Shopify provides a good value to startups and small online stores that don’t need unlimited functionality and have big enough margins to take the transaction fees. Shopify is feature-rich, and those features will work just fine for many smaller operations. However, the limitations we discussed could hamper a store that starts to take off. That’s a key question that entrepreneurs should ask themselves when considering an ecommerce platform: will this software still serve me well in 3 years? In 5 years? In 10 years? And in the case of Shopify, as business grows, how will those transaction fees add up over the years?
The Bottom Line
Shopify offers excellent functionality and features. However, its transaction fee schedule represents a serious drawback for businesses doing larger sales volumes. In this regard, Shopify is more suited to small operations that will stay small. For larger operations, or for fast-growing stores, Miva and Magento offer more freedom and flexibility and have no inherent transaction fees. Note, however, that they may be more expensive than Shopify to get off the ground.
Best Ecommerce Platforms for 2015 – Pt. 1 – WooCommerce
Google “eCommerce platforms,” and you’ll probably find a lot about WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento, and Bigcommerce. Dig a little deeper, and you might find a longstanding platform called Miva. Each of these platforms has its strengths and weaknesses. For some businesses, the weaknesses of any given platform may heavily outweigh that platform’s strengths. In this in-depth series, we’ll take a look at the benefits and drawbacks of 5 major eCommerce platforms. We’ll also look at what kind of business each platform is most suited for. As one of the Top WooCommerce Developers, we’ll be kicking things off with our analysis of the WooCommerce platform.
WooCommerce: Great For Startups With Small Budgets
WooCommerce is an online shopping cart plugin for WordPress. As such, WooCommerce can only run on WordPress installations. WordPress is the web’s most popular blogging platform and content management system, and it’s only gotten better in the last few years. With the WooCommerce plugin installed, it’s a great option for anyone just starting out in online selling.
The WooCommerce plugin itself is free, making it even more optimized for startups with low budgets. However, the free plugin lacks some extensions. Certain shipping options, payment gateways, extension of product fields, and other functions require add-ons. Some of these plugins are free, but most require a purchase. For more complex online stores, WooCommerce isn’t free at all, due to the number of plugins that must be licensed.
Because WooCommerce was developed by WooThemes, it allegedly runs best on one of their WordPress themes. Most of those aren’t free. Because the plugin is open-source, WooCommerce users do not have access to phone or social media support. However, users who purchase a WordPress template from WooThemes do have access to the company’s support forums.
For simple operations, and for entrepreneurs with simple requirements and zero budget, WooCommerce can’t be beat. However, for larger stores and established operations, WooCommerce can’t provide the full functionality and flexibility of Miva or Magento. Magento requires extensive 3rd party development to reach the level of functionality that larger ecommerce firms will require. Miva requires less development to get a new store to market, but it may still require some, depending on the new store’s business model. Though development costs more than plugins, larger stores see the value in having storefronts, checkout procedures, and product features optimized to their exact market needs. Because WooCommerce is WordPress-based, WooCommerce users depend on existing plugins to modify site functionality. In Miva and Magento, the possibilities are almost endless.
The Bottom Line:
WooCommerce is great for simple operations and low-budget startups. However, it doesn’t have the extensibility of larger and more expensive platforms like Miva and Magento. As such, it may not be suitable for low-budget startups with complex storefront needs. But for bloggers who already use WordPress and want to start a basic online store on the same domain as their blog, WooCommerce is perfect.
Miva Suivant ReadyTheme Customization: The Sky’s The Limit!
If you use the Miva shopping cart platform, or if you’re looking to start a Miva store, you’ve probably heard of Miva ReadyThemes. These themes offer beautiful, functional styling right out of the box. However, they look even better with a little customization. Here at 216digital, we regularly customize Miva ReadyThemes for our clients. One of our favorite recent projects was a redesign via ReadyTheme for D’Andre New York, a seller of fine shearling coats. In this post, we’ll talk about that project and explain the Miva Suivant ReadyTheme customization that we performed.
D’Andre New York: A Great Product Deserves a Great Website
D’Andre New York sells fine shearling coats. These jackets feature beautiful, understated styling. Since they’re made of real wool, the moisture-wicking property of the material gives the wearer natural climate control. That means shearling coats can be worn comfortably in summer or winter. With this natural flexibility and their finely-tailored lines, shearling jackets are the pinnacle of outerwear style. Of course, high quality comes with a price tag. Shearling jackets typically range in price from $1000 to $3000.
D’Andre New York’s target customer is affluent, style-conscious, and expects high quality. If the product itself delivers on all these—which it certainly does—then shouldn’t the website that sells the product display that same excellence? That was our reasoning, and Tatiana, owner of D’Andre, agreed. She wanted a redesign of her website, something that would showcase the beauty, durability, and value of her shearling products.
D’Andre’s Legacy Site
D’Andre New York’s old site had excellent functionality, and it had served the business well for years. However, the site was built in the days of low-resolution screens, and it looked a little small on today’s larger monitors. Worse, the site was built long before the mobile responsive revolution. It was awkward and cumbersome to use on a mobile device. With more and more customers shopping and purchasing products directly from their phones, D’Andre stood to lose out on potential business. With each sale worth a few thousand dollars, D’Andre needed to convert every prospect who came their way.
D’Andre New York’s legacy site in mobile simulation. Get ready to zoom and scroll!
It wasn’t just the resolution and lack of mobile responsiveness that worried us. D’Andre sells a fine product to an affluent market. We believed that D’Andre’s old site didn’t quite convey the level of luxury and comfort that wearers could expect from a shearling jacket. We thought the site ought to display the excellence that D’Andre’s shearling coats provide. Clearly, it was time for a redesign.
Miva Suivant ReadyTheme: Almost Ready To Rock And Roll
Miva ReadyThemes give Miva store owners beautiful, functional online stores right out of the box. But as with all cookie-cutter solutions, ReadyThemes leave a bit to be desired in the details. A little customization takes a Miva ReadyTheme to the next level. D’Andre New York had chosen the Miva Suivant ReadyTheme. We agreed that this theme was perfect for a retailer of fine shearling jackets. It just needed a few tweaks.
For starters, the Miva Suivant ReadyTheme has a large header. This isn’t necessarily a problem—except that by default, that header anchors to the top of the screen when the user scrolls. It’s not too noticeable on desktop, but on a mobile device, that pinned header eats up a lot of real estate. For every client using the Suivant ReadyTheme, we routinely recommend customizing the header. In D’Andre’s case, we changed the header so it wouldn’t stick to the top of the screen. We reasoned that users know where the header is. They know to scroll up if they need to use the navigation bar. This change significantly improved the user experience of D’Andre’s new website.
The header wasn’t the only tweak that the Suivant ReadyTheme needed. With the ongoing evolution of SEO (search engine optimization), Google now values good content more than ever, and many web users find value in useful, informative content. Blogs and magazines can display the entirety of a piece of content without compromising other organizational goals. However, in an ecommerce setting, selling product is critical. Too much content on a product or category page could keep the all-important buy buttons hidden from site visitors. Yet content is critical for SEO! What’s a webmaster to do?
For all our clients doing customized ReadyThemes, it’s a simple fix. We custom-code an option to display the first 150 characters or so of the content, followed by a “read more” button. This gives us the best of both worlds: 300+ word content for SEO purposes (and for those readers who want to educate themselves fully), and product imagery and buy buttons still displayed above the fold for users who are close to making a purchase. For D’Andre New York, this solution was a no-brainer.
Optimizing D’Andre’s Onsite Content
Speaking of content, it’s one of the most important components of branding. Content that doesn’t convey the right brand impression negatively affects marketing. In the case of D’Andre New York, we recognized at once that Tatiana’s great luxury brand needed content that created an opulent, luxurious impression. With Tatiana’s permission, our SEO content writing team began writing new copy for the D’Andre website.
Our process was simple. We researched other luxury brands, such as Rolex and Mercedes-Benz, to get a feel for the appropriate voice and tone. We settled on two points of focus for D’Andre. For Tatiana’s women’s collection, our content revolved around the word “elegance.” For the men’s collection, we chose the word “achievement.” These words matched D’Andre’s brand perfectly. With these two ideas in place, the rest of the content flowed. The result was a unique, memorable brand identity in all D’Andre’s onsite content.
Image Optimization: A Key Element In Ecommerce Marketing
Customers want to see what they’re buying. In the case of D’Andre’s fine shearling coats, customers want to see not only the overall look of the jacket, but also the elegant details of accents and trim. With D’Andre’s old site, product images looked small on larger screens, preventing customers from getting a complete picture of the jacket they were considering. Every product image on the site existed in two separate files: a tiny thumbnail version, and the full-sized version. Since the thumbnail had to be created manually in an image editor, and since both images had to be uploaded manually, the old system required double the work on catalog updates.
Enter the Miva Image Machine. This state-of-the art functionality dynamically creates multiple image sizes from one image file, eliminating the need to create thumbnail sizes manually and upload them separately. The Image Machine also allows alternative images. These show up as thumbnail images below the main image on a product page. Users can click on any of these alternative images and view the full-sized image in a popup. This allows store owners to provide multiple views of a product, giving customers a sense of what the product looks like from different angles.
The Bottom Line
We saw at once that Tatiana’s company offered a great product. We wanted to improve the overall value of her brand by optimizing the impression her company made on web visitors. With a little Miva Suivant ReadyTheme customization, Tatiana’s redesign was ready to go, clearly communicating the luxury and style that customers could expect from D’Andre New York.
It was a pleasure to work with Tatiana. Through deep market analysis and ongoing communication, we formed a partnership with her to improve the marketability of her brand. We think you’ll agree—the new D’Andre New York website looks beautiful, fully matching the luxury and elegance which D’Andre offers its customers.
If you’re considering a responsive Miva design for your ecommerce store, get in touch with us today. We specialize in Miva design and development, and all our work is fully mobile-responsive. Whether you need tweaks to a Miva ReadyTheme or a ground-up custom design, we’ll turn your vision into a reality. Drop us a line, and let’s start talking about your next big thing.
Completing The Miva Design Picture with SEO Content Writing
So you have a killer Miva design for your online store. You’re ready to sell your great niche products to a hungry market. You’ve heard about SEO (search engine optimization). You don’t know quite how to do it, but you hope to pop up on the first page of Google someday. You keep checking, but your competitors are bumping you down to the 4th, 5th, even the 6th page of search results. What’s going on? Why aren’t your niche customers flocking to your great Miva design?
Miva Design: A Skeleton In Need of Flesh and Blood
Don’t let me confuse you: mobile responsive design is critical to the success of any online store, but it’s only part of the picture. Think of a great Miva design as the skeleton on which you’ll hang the healthy, athletic body you’re building. One critical component of that body is your store’s products. Okay, you’ve got that covered. But the final element—and the most difficult to master—is engaging, well-written content.
The doomsday predictions on increasing web use and decreasing literacy have turned out wrong. If anything, the web has all of us reading more than ever. It’s not how much we read that’s changing—but what we read, and how we read it. Tapping into this knowledge and using it strategically in your content writing is critical to engaging your customers—which, by the way, is critical in SEO.
People search the web for everything imaginable. As this article from Search Engine Land explains, people use Google not only to find specific websites, to get information, and to buy things, but also to delve deeper into a topic for which they have only basic knowledge.
Engaging, Useful Content: The New SEO Rocket Fuel
How can content improve your business’s SEO? That depends on what you’re selling. Take a step back and look at your market. Most markets that can support online stores also have knowledge and entertainment angles that businesses can leverage into blog posts.
Think about it: the only transaction you make without needing further information is your regular grocery shopping. You always get the same kind of toothpaste. You buy whatever toilet paper is on sale. This kind of market—which sells simple, cheap commodities that everyone needs—doesn’t have much of a content angle to it. But niche markets, which sell specialty products to a base of avid enthusiasts, are another story entirely!
Let’s look at it from the user’s perspective. (By the way, that’s the first rule in content writing!) Say you’re a car enthusiast. You just bought a car for customizing, and you’re joining a passionate community who modify this make of car. You’ve customized other cars, but you know very little about the specifics of this model. You want to learn about common modifications, inherent design strengths and weaknesses, and possible pitfalls before you start taking things apart. You google something like, “X model powertrain customization.” You find a great blog post at SomeKindOfCar.com/blog that explains not only the basic characteristics of the stock powertrain in your car, but some of the most popular mods to the powertrain. The post has a few links in it leading to the aftermarket car parts you’ll need for these mods. You buy the parts, noticing that the online store lives at the same URL—SomeKindOfCar.com.
Guess what? The folks at SomeKindOfCar.com just sold you the exact parts you wanted, using SEO-guided content writing.
Leveraging Content Writing for SEO
Writing great content to improve your business’s SEO takes more than an ear for language and a deep knowledge of your products. A good SEO content writer couples three things together: the artistic ability to write with power and precision, the technical knowledge of the subject matter, and a strategic SEO vision derived from detailed keyword analytics tools.
Good SEO writing isn’t just search engine food. It isn’t a poetry contest, either. It hangs squarely between best technical practices, informative coverage, and engaging style.
That’s a demanding list to hit. Many businesses can cover one or two of these requirements in-house, but not all three. If you can’t hit all three of these with your existing staff, consider outsourcing your writing to a dedicated SEO content writing team.
At 216digital, our content writing team researches every client’s market for topics, style, and voice. We analyze our clients’ existing writing on landing pages and blog posts (if a blog exists). We formulate recommendations for improving landing page copy, and we watch these changes jack that page up in Google search. Through consistent communication, we nail down a blog voice for each client. Then we crank out informative, well-written posts day after day—all of it strategically informed by our extensive suite of keyword analytics tools.
If you’re ready to watch your site leap through page rank, get in touch with our SEO content writing team today. We’d love to start talking about your next big thing.
A Snapshot into the World of Digital Marketing, Right Now.
June 8th, 2015
We compiled three of this week’s biggest highlights from the Digital Marketing World. Prepping you to impress and swoon the most well read Digital Marketing experts.
During the mid-90s I was working on a project in the UK. As luck would have it, it was also the first time in my life that my home town team (The Cleveland Indians) made it to the World Series. Traditional media coverage in the UK was pretty good for sports like cricket, golf and soccer but not so much for American baseball. I discovered a small dial up internet provider. After installing 5 disks on my laptop, and dialing in on a landline, a whole new world opened up to me. This was great! Not only could I keep up with my home team, sadly they were swept in 4 games by the Atlanta Braves that year, but I could do research and buy stuff. I was hooked and knew that was the business I wanted to be in.
So, fast forward a few years and, in 1999, e-Business Express was born. The concept was simple, provide a single source where small businesses could go to provide everything they needed to launch and grow an online business. Recently we changed our name to 216digital, Inc., to reflect our evolution into a full service digital agency in Cleveland, Ohio (216). Today our people come from diverse backgrounds but all have one thing in common – they’re passionate about building online businesses. And that’s cool.
As we turn the page on 2014, we’ll begin a new era in our history. We’re changing our name from e-Business Express to 216digital, Inc..
15 years ago we began as an ecommerce hosting services provider. Our new name reflects our evolution into a full service digital agency and location in Cleveland, Ohio (216).
As of January 1, 2015, e-Business Express will officially become 216digital. While our name will change, our commitment to provide market leading digital services for you will continue to grow. We hope to be your digital agency of choice in 2015 and many years to come.
