Yes. But first, let’s all take a minute to be thankfully we’re all running businesses in 2012. Even as recently as just 15 years ago, product marketing was tough. It took a lot of actual, physical leg work to sell your product. Online today you can cast your marketing net wider than ever before.

Your website is the cornerstone of any marketing effort you undertake. Make sure it’s ready for the attention

No matter where or how you market your product, you will ultimately lead people back to your website. Make sure your site is easy to navigate with the menu  at either the top or left side of the window, written in an easy to read font.

Your site should also be easy to find. Choose the words and phrases that your customers use to describe your business. The easy way to discover how your customers actually search for you is by using Google’s free Keyword Tool. Check how frequently searchers use the terms already on your site and find new ones that you hadn’t thought of using.

If you don’t already have an email newsletter, read this article to learn how to get your email newsletter up and running by the end of the day. Make sure your e-newsletter sign up is easy to find (in the top half of the page) and enticing.

Offer your customers something they want even more than your newsletter: a deal! Target your deal to the type of product you sell. Product discounts or free shipping deals work best for physical products, while PDF whitepapers or how to’s work best for knowledge based products.

Here are 3 more online product marketing tactics you can use to grow your business

Social media: This is a great way to sell your product online because it’s free, and it helps you harness the power of those who already love your products. Share special deals available only to your Facebook fans and Twitter followers, and share interesting content that directs readers back to your website.

Affiliate marketing: Join an affiliate marketing network like Shareasale to get your logo banner on the websites your potential customers visit. To learn more read my review of Shareasale.

Daily deal sites: These sites can be an amazing way to build buzz around your product, but like any marketing method it can have it’s downsides. Learn if daily deal sites are right for your business by reading this article.

Which product marketing tactics do you use? Share your favorites in the comment section below.

 

Congratulations! You’ve invented an amazing product, and now it’s time to bring it into the market. While this can be an overwhelming stage in your entrepreneurial career, it’s well worth the butterflies. Today I’m going to walk you through how to market a product.

Step 1: Know your customer

Until you can identify your target market, you don’t know where your customer shops, what she buys or her preferred marketing methods. Be as specific as possible, for example, instead of saying your product is for men, a very big group, say dads 35 to 50.

Step 2: Craft your sales plan

Mapping out your sales plan will help you decide what your sales goals are and how you will achieve them. Here are some things to address:

Choose your markets: The easiest place to start selling your product is online through an e-commerce stores, Etsy, or eBay. After you’ve built a track record of sales, you can approach local stores.

Sales goals: Defining your sales goals will help you move forward with your business. Choose goals like selling X number of products from your website in 6 months, or getting X stores to carry your product within the year. Your sales goals may shift as your business grow, but it will help you monitor your progress.

Landmarks: As well as including number of products sold and revenue earned, your sales goal should include a timeline that maps out landmarks in your companies growth, like your first wholesale account or your 100th customer sale. Review your timeline periodically to ensure you’re on schedule.

Step 3: Spread the word

Before customers can buy your product, they need to find it. There are plenty of free ways to market your product, one of the easiest being through bloggers.

Connect with bloggers who write for your target market, and offer them a free product in return for a product review or two free products, one to review and one for a reader giveaway. Choose blogs with lots of activity (regular posts and comments from readers), preferably one with active Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Step 3: Sell and learn

The next step in how to market a product is to learn more about it – ideally from your customers. Unlike friends and family, customers have no motivation to tell you what you want to hear.

Collect feedback via email, or by setting up a survey on a free site like Survey Monkey. Ask about the product, how it functions, if that shipping packing protected it sufficiently, etc. You can use the information to make your product even better.

You can also use this time to look for new markets where you can stretch your wings like craft sales and events. The selling you do in these early days can also help you shape your final price in preparation for the next step, selling to stores.

Step 4: Selling to stores

Just like selling your first unit to your first customer, selling to wholesale customers requires prep work, from finding the correct contact to organizing your marketing materials. When you’re ready, read last week’s Q & A What was your strategy for selling to stores?

Now that you know the basics on how to market a product, I hope you’re excited to take the next big step in your career. As you do, please share your experience in the comments below.

This is one of the questions I hear most frequently. Believe it or not, many otherwise confident business owners become shy or feel overwhelmed when it comes time to start selling to stores. They worry they’ll say the wrong thing or miss out on the sale. That’s why I’ve written this quick, five step guide to help you find success.

Selling to stores will help boost your bottom line and expose your products to an entirely new group of customers.

Step 1: Let’s make a list. Your first step is to make a list of the stores you want to contact. You can start local and make a list of stores you’ve visited, pick a city where your shirts already have some traction through your web sales or search online for stores sharing your keywords.

A Google spreadsheet can help you stay organized. Make a column for each of the following:

• Store name
• Contact name – Ideally you want to contact the owner, manager or buyer directly.
• Phone number
• Address
• Email address
• Notes – Use this space to note a few details about the store like what types of products it sells and who its customers are
• Follow up – This column is so important that it’s gets it’s own step, number 5.

Step 2: Practice your pitch. You need to know your product inside out. Ensure you can answer procedural questions about payment terms, shipping policies, minimum number of units per order, etc.

Be prepared to explain why people by your product, which retailers carry your product and how many units they move each month or quarter.

When you can respond to these questions without hesitation it will raise your confidence and enhance your professional appearance with retailers.

Step 3: Prepare your sample packs. Your first contact with retailers will happen in the next step, but you want to make sure you’re ready when they are. Have linesheets, order forms brochures and other promo materials ready, as well as sample of your product and shipping materials.

Step 4: Reaching out to retailers. Now it’s finally time to get in touch. Send your retail contacts a quick email outlining the benefits of your product and your typical customer. Ask the retailer outright for an opportunity to meet, schedule a phone call or Skype.

This next step is the easiest part of selling to stores and crutial to your success.

Step 5: Follow up. Don’t give up if retailers don’t respond to your email immediately. These are busy people and they may need a reminder. Follow up with retailers via email a week to 10 days after your initial email, and again the week after if you still haven’t heard back.

Your goal is to keep your product on the retailers mind, even if they don’t carry it this time around. It may take a few tries, and even still you may get a no, but in many cases your persistence will make all the difference in the world.

Share your experiences selling to stores or ask your burning marketing questions in the comment section below. Your question could be the next one I answer.

 

The explosive growth of eCommerce is making business ownership a reality for even more aspiring entrepreneurs, which means I get a lot of questions about what’s the best shopping cart software for you to set up your online store with.

I know many of you use sites like Etsy and Airfire to sell your products, but opening your own store with its own shopping cart will help you get the most out of your online business by letting you control how your customers shop.

To help you make the choice that’s best for you, here is my take on choosing the right shopping cart software:

1. Shopping cart plugins for WordPress or other CMS

If you want to set up your site in WordPress, using a shopping cart plugin in (a lot of which are free) might seem like the best way to go. Here are some pros and cons:

Pro: For the non-tech savvy, WordPress and other CMS (Content Management Systems) make starting your own online store easier (and more affordable) than ever. The WordPress interface is easy to navigate and a range of customizable shopping cart software plug-ins make getting your first sale a breeze.

Con: There are a LOT of WordPress plug-in out there in the world, and you may have to try (and buy) a few before you find the one that works for you. For the best results, choose only WordPress approved plug-ins and read users reviews thoroughly to decrease your chances of buying a clunker.

2. Hosted Shopping carts

A hosted shopping cart is one where you pay a monthly fee to host and run your online store.

Pro: Big Commerce, Volusion and Shopify are three of the most popular hosted shopping carts on the market. The biggest pro of using a hosted cart is that it keeps your entire store in one place, from invoicing to shipping, and all of the programing work is done for you. You also have access to their customer service, which is like having an IT person on staff should something go wrong.

Con: Those who have more than basic programing skills may find the templates available on hosted shopping carts a bit limited, which make them better for those who are unfamiliar with web programing. If you want to customize your shopping cart, you’ll most likely have to hire a programmer/designer to do it for you. And the monthly fee can increase if traffic to your site increases, too.

3. Self-hosted shopping carts

Pro: Using a self-hosting shopping cart, like Zencart, offers the most control and flexibility for those with programing  skills. Because you’re uploading your cart to your webhost, you don’t need to worry about price increases or the host company making changes that will effect the look and feel of your cart. And you don’t have to pay any monthly fees for your shopping cart.

Con: The learning curve can be a little steep for those without any programing skills, so you’ll have to rely on your programmer or web designer to keep your cart up to date with any enhancements or security updates, which can be very costly.

My bottom-line recommendation

If you’re serious about having a successful online store, I recommend going with a hosted shopping cart. While WordPress is great, it was built as a blogging tool, not as an e-commerce tool. Yes, there are a lot of e-commerce plugins available, but I know many entrepreneurs who have had to switch from WordPress because there were too many issues with the e-commerce plugins.

On the other hand, hosted shopping carts were built specifically for e-commerce, so all the features you could possibly want (like zooming in on a picture, tracking shipped orders, offering gift cards, or selling your products wholesale) make it easy for you to run your online store. And your store is automatically upgraded if there are any security issues or if there are any new features available (like a Pin It button, for example). And having a dedicated customer service line available to help you if you have any issues is a lot more reliable (and quicker) than always reaching out to your programmer or web designer.

Which shopping cart software option do you use? Tell us which and why in the comments section.

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