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Amongst new ecommerce entrepreneurs, there is a sense that the big challenge of getting an online store off the ground has to do with generating traffic to the website. They tend to think that if you just find enough buyers you’ll be bound to sell lots of products.

That’s certainly accurate in the sense that you need lots of targeted traffic to your website if you want to generate sales. However, simply having visits won’t ensure a healthy bottom line. In order to get profits month after month you have to have plenty of conversions from that traffic.

In this article we are going to give you a handful of tips you can use to jumpstart your ecommerce conversions starting today. Let’s begin by defining a successful website visit…

Figure Out Which Conversions You Need

The first step in boosting ecommerce conversions is defining what a good outcome looks like on your website. More often than not, that’s going to be a finished sale. However, if your customers make decisions in stages then a “conversion” might mean downloading a buying guide or getting them to watch a demo video.

Once you know what your goal is, it’s easier to set up your online store in a way that funnels visitors towards that outcome.

Upgrade Your Marketing Tools

In some ways, we seem to be entering a golden age of ecommerce. Not only are there tools for advanced analytics and mobile-friendly programming, but also content management systems that allow you to track buyers on a contact-by-contact basis.

You can use these platforms to streamline your marketing, customize offers, and refine your landing and product pages over time.

Offer Social Media Specials

Social media sites haven’t exactly replaced search engines, but they are influencing buyers more than ever. If you can build a strong following on Facebook or Twitter, for example, you’ll have the ability to broadcast coupon codes, live events, and limited-time offers to your audience.

Each of these can generate fast sales at high margins, particularly if you create a sense of urgency in your social messaging.

Make Use of Reviews and Testimonials

Buyers like reading about product specifications and seeing informational videos. When it’s time to share their credit card number, though, they want to know what other customers like them thought about your products. That’s where real-world reviews and testimonials can carry a great deal of weight.

By making it easy for buyers to leave their feedback, and for shoppers to find verified reviews, you increase your own credibility and make your product pages more persuasive.

Remove Any Barriers to the Sale

Most customers will be a little bit nervous placing an order with you for the first time, even if they feel good about your products and prices. So, sharing information like industry awards or money-back guarantees can go a long way towards easing their minds.

The biggest barrier between you and a new customer is one of doubt and skepticism. When you put trust indicators in your online store to show that purchases are safe, you take away a big mental stumbling block that could otherwise keep buyers from submitting an order.

Need More Ecommerce Firepower?

At Kinetik IT in Arizona we have helped dozens of entrepreneurs to launch – and even revive – their ecommerce websites. Whether you need help with design, programming, or online marketing, our team of creative experts is here to help. Contact us today to schedule a free consultation and online store review!

Are you sick of seeing visitors come to your website without completing a purchase, signing up for your newsletter, or otherwise taking action to further a sale? Do you have plenty of searches and social visits, but too many bounces and too few revenue-generating results?

If so, you might need one of our seven proven tactics for massive website conversions. Let’s look at some tools you can put to use in your business today…

#1 Better Traffic-to-Landing-Page Alignment

Wherever your web traffic is coming from, visitors have something on their minds when they arrive on your website. Keep those “pain points” in mind as you put your landing pages together. The more a potential customer identifies with your marketing messages, the easier will be for you to persuade them to take the next step.

#2 Instant Discount Codes

It goes without saying that price is a big consideration for a first-time customer. They want to get as much as they can for the lowest possible price. By offering instant coupon codes for new customers you can sometimes nudge otherwise-reluctant buyers forward so they feel comfortable placing their first-order on your website.

#3 Customer-Focused Information Offers

In situations where there is a big purchase or decision to be made, you can’t always persuade a prospect to take a huge step all at once. What you can do, though, is offer a very targeted piece of information (like a downloadable e-book or video) that helps them to see the value of what you have to sell. That gives you a way to follow up with them again later and get them thinking about your solutions.

#4 Targeted Video Testimonials From Customers

Online marketing can present you with a catch-22 situation. On the one hand, your content has to be compelling if you want to generate results. But on the other hand, if your content is too good buyers will be skeptical of your claims. By showing them video testimonials from other real customers you can break through their hesitation and allow them to move forward confidently.

#5 Money-Back Guarantees on Your Products

Just like testimonials, money-back guarantees help prospective customers to remove some of the perceived risk from a transaction. If they know they can recover any cash that has been spent in the event that they aren’t 100% satisfied, then there isn’t much of a reason for them to hesitate in buying.

#6 Dynamic Content and Individualized Offers

It’s easier than ever to integrate dynamic content into your website. These could be pages, offers, or even pop-up ads that change based on browsing history, shopping cart behavior, etc. Given that no two buyers have the exact same needs, integrating that kind of individualized approach to your marketing can be a huge boost to conversion rates.

#7 Retargeting Ads That Give Buyers a Second Chance

Internet marketers are starting to realize what great salespeople have known for decades: that “no” usually isn’t a final answer. With retargeting ads, you can give buyers additional chances to come back to your website even after they’ve failed to convert on the first visit. In some businesses these campaigns can triple or even quadruple conversion rates.

Ready to Boost Your Website Conversions?

If you want to see more visitors coming to your website – and turn more of those visits into sales opportunities – you need a creative team that understands what it takes to generate real-world results you can see in your bottom line. Contact Kinetik IT in Phoenix today to schedule a free consultation!

Branding is a big topic. It’s such a big one, in fact, that amidst all the talk about logos, identities, and style sheets, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that it isn’t an abstract concept. The fact of the matter is that building your brand can help you boost sales. We know because it’s a story we’ve seen play out again and again.

Wondering exactly how the money you spend on improving your brand and image could come back to you in terms of new sales, accounts, or appointments? Let’s look at a few of the most obvious ways…

Branding is about Instant Impressions

When you have a great brand in place, you'll make a sharp first impression on potential customers, colleagues, and even employees. That means you have an immediate advantage and people are more apt to decide to work with you. That’s because they began the relationship assuming you are competent, professional, and trustworthy.

Conversely, when your branding is vague or underwhelming you don’t begin with any of these advantages. That makes it harder to establish the right tone later.

People Recognize Brands over Products and Prices

Business owners often assume customers buy based on price. That's certainly a factor, but it’s definitely not the only one. Just look at the way many people will pay premiums for certain types of clothing, food, or luxury items even though more cost-effective choices are available.

When people know and like your brand, they are more likely to buy from you even if competitors sell similar products or services for less.

Strong Branding Builds Trust

The real goal of your branding effort should be to establish an identity in the marketplace that is instantly recognized by anyone within your customer base. That is, when they see your logo they know exactly who you are, what you’re about, and why they should work with you instead of taking their business elsewhere.

All of this comes back to an issue of trust. When you have a strong brand, it means buyers implicitly trust your marketing messages in a way they don’t trust others.

The Right Branding Campaign Can Increase Referrals

Although we’ve touched on the advantages of branding in a one-to-one setting, it’s also true that you can increase positive referrals and reviews with a strong brand. Buyers feel more comfortable recommending businesses that are known to others. Furthermore, we all have a subconscious bias towards being associated with winning and success.

When your brand is strong enough people will want your prestige to rub off on them. That means more introductions, better candidates for your job openings, and bigger opportunities to expand.

Good Branding Improves Conversion on All Marketing Campaigns

Your brand doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The more well-known it gets, the more effective the rest of your marketing is. When people know your image and message they are more responsive to email, online ads, and even print offers. That, in turn, boosts your brand even more.

The bottom line is that a strong branding effort tends to be self-fulfilling over time. The more you put into it, the bigger rewards you’re going to get out of the process later.

Need Help With Your Company’s Brand?

At Kinetik IT in Phoenix, we have helped hundreds of companies to establish themselves as leaders in the marketplace. From logos and visual identities to brand development and style sheets, we know what it takes to separate your business from the competition.

Contact us today to schedule a free consultation and see what we can do for you!

As a business owner or executive, there is probably a lot you want from your web design team. You need the best of their artistic instincts, responsiveness when you have questions, edits, or revisions, and technical expertise when it comes to things like search engine optimization and social media marketing (to name just a few items).

However, your web design partner needs some things from you, as well. And, the better you are at giving them what they need, the easier it’s going to be for them to not only meet your expectations, but blow you away with the perfect layout and online marketing plan.

A lot of business people don’t necessarily understand this, and end up sabotaging themselves as a result. To help you avoid that, today we want to give you seven ways you can help your web designer to do their best work… and to help yourself in the process.

#1 Be Patient During the Discovery Phase

Often, the start of a business web design project feels like a whole lot of talking. That’s because long conversations are exactly what should happen when planning a new website.

If they are any good, your design team is going to want to know what your company is all about, where it came from, who your customers and competitors are, etc. The better understanding they have of this information, the easier it’s going to be for them to design a website and online marketing plan that matches your needs perfectly.

Some clients like to rush through this process, usually because they are excited to start seeing new design ideas. That’s understandable, but the discovery phase is the foundation upon which your website will eventually be built. Be patient, share as much information you can, and realize that you’re helping your web designer to make you more profitable with every answer or insight.

#2 Put the Focus on Your Business Goals

Your creative team can help you to attract new leads or customers, improve your recruiting, or even boost online sales. What they can’t do, though, is rewrite your business plan for you.

Everything about designing and promoting a website gets easier when we work with someone who understands what it is we are trying to accomplish. There are a lot of possibilities, but you should come into the process with some ideas about the bottom line targets you would like to reach. How do you want your business to affect your website? What specific and measurable goals would you like to see reached?

There are a lot of things that can go into your website and online marketing campaigns, but not all of them are right for your business. To achieve a sense of clarity and make sure you get the ROI you want from your new online presence, it’s crucial to know what you’re trying to achieve.

#3 Provide Prompt Feedback When You Can

One thing every web designer dreads is a period of unbroken silence from a client. This happens when we submit a site map, outline, or potential design and hear nothing in response.

There are lots of reasons clients might not respond, of course. They could need a day or two to think about things, or might be busy with other projects. That’s all normal and understandable. But, when the silence goes on for weeks, bad things happen. For one thing, we might begin to wonder whether you actually like the work we’re doing. More importantly, we can lose focus and momentum on your project, meaning the entire job will take longer to finish.

You don’t have to get back to your web designer immediately, especially if they’re asking for a decision or opinion. However, by being prompt with your feedback, you help them to stay focused on your project and do their best creative work.

#4 Try to Be Specific With Requests

If failing to get any feedback is a huge challenge, then getting feedback you don’t understand is an even bigger one. That’s exactly what happens, though, when clients don’t express themselves in ways that are straightforward.

When possible, tell your web designer that you prefer something “lighter” rather than saying you want “more energy.” Show them the design you really like, instead of asking for a new layout. See if you can be specific when talking about elements like fonts, colors, and spacing.

Being clear when you communicate with your design team makes everything more efficient, even if it’s just to say that you don’t like what you are seeing. The more specifics you can point to, the less chance there is you’ll find the next design idea to be disappointing, too.

#5 Give Your Web Designer Time to Work

Let’s begin this point by admitting that it isn’t fair to suggest clients should respond promptly while web designers need time to pull out their creative best. Still, it’s a fact that artists in any field can get tired, sick, or overwhelmed. When that happens, you’re better off waiting a little bit longer than you are rushing the work.

Sometimes, a new client will begin “checking in” weeks before their initial design is due. When that happens, we have to love their enthusiasm, but also try to slow them down. We’ve been around long enough to know that the goal isn’t to produce a design as quickly as possible, but to come up with something that they’re going to love (and that will help their business).

When you rush your web designer too much, there is a chance you’ll get something that’s not quite as good as it could have been. As long as they’re keeping within agreed upon deadlines, give your creative team the space they need to give you their best.

#6 Give Your Web Designer Great Content to Work With

The design and layout of your business website are important, but even the most talented artistic minds can’t help you if your content (that is, the images and writing you provide) isn’t up to par.

It’s important for you to know that and act accordingly. If you plan on generating your own content, and supplying things like images yourself, then it’s best to get started early in the web design process, so you aren’t rushing to complete them later. Alternatively, if you want your web designer to have content generated for you, then make that decision from the outset and give them some direction to work with.

Ultimately, content on your website will attract search engine visits and persuade potential customers to buy from you. Give your web design team great ingredients to work with and they’ll turn them into something perfect for your business.

#7 Don’t Disappear After Your Website Goes Live

We often caution business owners about hiring a web designers who seem to disappear into thin air once a site goes live. You want a creative partner who will be around to offer continuing support, web analytics reviews, website audits, and content updates. In other words, ongoing service and online marketing are important to your success.

Sometimes, though, things happen the other way around. Clients get their websites launched and then disappear completely. This is difficult for us for couple of reasons. First, we miss out on the chance to see how their business is growing and expanding, which is the most rewarding part of the process. And second, we can’t help them stay up on the latest trends and best practices, which means they don’t get the full value from their website over time.

If you choose a quality web design team, consider them to be your marketing partners going forward. If you disappear, they can’t help you achieve the results you’re looking for.

Want a Web Designer Who Can Help You Grow Your Business?

If you put these seven pieces of advice together, they all amount to one simple philosophy: that web designers need to work together with their clients to not only build the perfect site, but to create a winning formula for new sales.

That mindset has helped us become a leader in Arizona web design and online marketing for more than a decade. If you want to work with a creative team that puts your results first, contact Kinetik IT in Phoenix today!

As part of our web design and internet marketing process, we often evaluate the competitors our clients will have to face. We perform a competition-analysis to see who they’ll be up against, and whether they have any reason to worry.

The challenging part about this part of the job is coming across a company that is so firmly entrenched online that it can take months or years for our clients to catch up. The best scenario is when the situation has is reversed, and we know none of the other business owners out there are going to be able to duplicate our work without starting massive campaigns on their own.

In some cases, a competitive edge can be so big that a business won’t even try to compete on line. Today, we want to show you exactly what it takes to scare your online competitors away…

Streamline Your Responsive Website

In order to dominate online, you have to have a modern website. That means a responsive layout with mobile compatibility. It also means streamlining your menus and user interface so visitors can find the information they need very quickly. Do that and your website will be more helpful than anyone else’s.

Use Your Blog Regularly

Nearly every business website includes a blog, but most marketers don’t actually use them. But because Google treats every new post as a fresh page of search-friendly content, blogging once a week or more gives you a massive search visibility advantage over the competition.

Target Your Search Terms for Niche Markets 

A classic mistake in search engine optimization is to target big, generic search phrases. That makes it easy for your competitors to get around you by focusing on smaller groups. Decide who your buyers are, in which geographic areas you want to target. That’s a great way to shut out the competition.

Refine Your Google AdWords Campaigns

The best way to beat a competitor in online advertising is to simply be more efficient. You don’t have to spend more on Google AdWords, for instance, if you have high Quality Scores. But, if your campaigns already feature search terms with 9/10 or 10/10 scores, it’s hard for the competition to match you in visibility… much less search advertising profits.

Generate Buzz on Your Social Accounts

It’s not how many social followers you have, it’s how tuned in they are to your marketing messages. Nobody cares if you have 10,000 fake followers, but if every one of your posts gets many likes and shares, you’re going to get a lot of social exposure. Compose messages that get buyers talking and you’ll be doing something most other business owners can’t.

Build up a Strong Online Reputation

A good online reputation is an enormous advantage in today’s digital marketing world. That’s because buyers are likely to Google your company and products before they make a purchase decision. Rack up more great reviews than the competition and you’ll win customers they can’t.

Grow Your Email Subscriber List

When you have a healthy and growing email subscriber list, you have an instant and almost free way to reach thousands of targeted prospects at a time. Even better, you get a chance to contact them directly without having them hear from your competitors in the first place.

When you have most or all of the items on this list covered, you don’t leave the competition any room to step in and steal your customers or grab attention from your prospects. If that sounds like the kind of position you want to be in, we hope you’ll take a minute to call or email our team today so we can begin a customized plan for your website.

 With giant online retailers like Amazon, Zappos, and even eBay constantly expanding their reach, it can seem like there’s no room for smaller e-commerce sites to grow and thrive. But, having a few really big fish in your pond doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t be profitable… or that you can’t actually outsell them.

While it’s true your business might not have the resources they do, or the established customer base, you’re probably going to enjoy one advantage that the others can’t – you can focus on one market or industry while they have hundreds (or thousands) to stay on top of. In other words, you can dominate your niche without having to worry about competing with everyone else. You don’t have to beat them at everything, just the game you choose.

Leveraging that advantage takes a bit of strategy and an adjustment to your mindset, but it can be done. In fact, there are lots of small e-commerce retailers out there who are competing, and winning, against much bigger competitors every day. Here’s what you can do to follow their example:

Don’t try to outspend another business when you can’t. Simply pushing up bid prices on pay-per-click ads, for example, isn’t likely to work over the long term. All you’ll do is create a bidding war that you’re almost bound to lose. Think about spending better, not bigger.

Consider pricing very carefully. The same goes for lowering prices. If you’re going up against a major chain and trying to underbid them, where do you think that’s going to lead in the long term? There’s a reason these companies can sell products for insane prices during a Black Friday sales push – they have the extra cash to burn if it means winning a customer. 

Find ways to add value for customers. When customers visit your big competitors’ websites, they’re probably going to find low prices mixed with generic product information. One way you can set yourself apart is by giving “value-added” services. These could include customer reviews, videos, product comparisons, and other types of content that buyers won’t find elsewhere. These can be worth more than you might think in a customer’s mind.

Practice viral marketing. For as popular as the biggest businesses might be, buyers don’t usually have much loyalty to them. They’ll take their business elsewhere if they can find a lower price or a better deal. Smaller companies, on the other hand, can use a little more personality in their marketing, developing fervent fans and followers every day. Often, these men and women will “root for” a smaller competitor and keep buying from them even if it costs a little more.

Don’t merely accept it as a given that you can’t compete with the Goliath in your market. You might be surprised at what you can do to draw customers in, and keep them coming back, to your e-commerce site if you just give them a good enough reason.

It’s a simple question, but not so easy to answer: is your website scaled to your company’s needs? In a world where online giants offer one-click checkout and where nearly everything under the sun is available for purchase, mere mortals must find a way to compete. The key is in creating an enjoyable, efficient customer experience. 

Online consumers are fickle. Recent research from the RightNow Customer Experience Impact Report has found that,

• 86 percent of U.S. adults will pay more for a better customer experience.
• 89 percent of U.S. adults who’ve ever stopped doing business with an organization due to a poor customer experience began doing business with a competitor.
• When asked specifically how companies can better engage with consumers to spend more, 54 percent said to improve the overall customer experience.

The takeaway is that customer experience—not just the product itself, price, or customer service—is a  key determining factor in measuring business success. Customer experience has its roots in both website and database design. If either of these is lacking, your business will suffer. To create an ideal customer experience, Tony Barbagallo, Chief Marketing Officer at Clustrix, stresses the need for a “a rock-solid, 100 percent fault-tolerant scale-out database that improves website availability.” 

In addition to a slowly-responding website, the lack of proper database design causes a lack of data integrity. This can lead to unwanted consequences such as duplication of records, missing information (data), and orphaned records. At Kinetik I.T., we design databases using primary keys, relationships, unique indexes, constraints, required fields and other objects. The end result is guaranteed data integrity.

Focusing on customer experience is a cornerstone of our success whether the project is simple or a large-scale professional ecommerce system. To ensure your customer has the best possible experience, we create clean, functional, captivating and easily navigated web interface designs guaranteed to help keep customers away from your competitors. To learn more about database and website design, and a wide array of other services and products, visit www.Kinetik-IT.com or follow Kinetik I.T. on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.

When choosing an online shopping cart, there may not appear to be many nuances; however, consider that cart abandonment is one of the major problems common to all online retailers, regardless of industry. And the issue is widespread: studies indicate that 68 percent of shoppers abandon their shopping cart before completing a transaction. Some businesses report up to an 80 percent abandonment rate. 

Shopping cart abandonment has led to an annual loss of billions of dollars and climbing. According to Forrester Research, the estimated total of annual abandoned shopping cart revenue will reach $31 Billion dollars.

Most research indicates that consumers stop the purchase process due to unexpected costs like shipping and taxes as the top reason followed with “I was just browsing” as the second highest reason for cart abandonment.  It is important to keep these behaviors in mind and remember that consumers usually don’t purchase the first time they visit.  With that said, optimizing features and functionality of your shopping cart is a critical part of increasing ecommerce.

In any ecommerce situation, the shopping cart is the conduit of a company’s income.  Making a well-informed decision in choosing the right shopping cart is of primary importance. There are several factors to consider. Just like choices regarding your website’s design and functionality, you must decide whether to use out-of-the-box software, or to create a custom e-commerce solution.

The website Practical Ecommerce offers these suggestions for must-haves in an online shopping cart: 

•      Large, Functional Product Images
•      Product Reviews
•      Layered and Faceted Navigation
•      Single-Page, Fast Checkout
•      Search Function (Supporting site search)
•      Coupons and Discounts
•      Product Import and Export
•      Easy Integration with Third Party Solutions
•      Analytics and Sales Reporting

Ecommerce functionality should fit your business needs, and creating a custom online shopping cart allows your  website to drive revenue to your business and encourages consumers to complete that transaction. 

To learn more about services and products – including how custom designing an online shopping cart can help your business – visit www.Kinetik-IT.com or follow Kinetik on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.

Launching a new e-commerce website can be a bit daunting. There’s so much that can go into the planning and execution, and getting it wrong at launch could spell disaster for the entire enterprise. Fortunately, there are lots of ways to get it right, but the key lies in proper planning. Here are the three things you have to consider during those planning stages of your site.

1. Think About the Boring Stuff: Sure, designing the storefront and how customers will interact with it is easily the best part of building an e-commerce store, but there’s so much more to it than that. You have to consider lots of other factors, particularly those that aren’t quite as much fun. There are big financial concerns behind an e-commerce site as well as security and legal matters that must be considered. Simple stuff like ensuring your merchant accounts are updated and ready to handle electronic transactions as well as more complex factors like PCI compliance and sales tax all have to factor into the planning phase at some point.

2. The Shopping Cart Matters: There are lots of free shopping carts online these days, but they’re very basic. You’re only going to get an “Add to Cart” function and a total. You have to be able to have the functions customers are looking for like shipping cost estimates, product recommendations, and more, so look at your options carefully. Customers expect more thanks to big retailers like Amazon and Target, and if you can’t offer it, they’ll find someone who can.

3. Think About Structure: Your design team will likely call this Information Architecture, and the more products you offer, the bigger concern this has to be. You need a good way for customers to find what they’re looking for, so feel free to browse competitor sites to see how they do it.

      E-commerce site planning can get a little complex, but we can help. The IT consulting firm Phoenix trusts most, we’re here to help every step of the way. To learn more, and to stay up to date contact us at www.kinetik-it.com or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.