Practical Wisdom 30 lessons from the frontline of e-marketing Andy Redfern and Ben Mawhinney

Introduction Andy Redfern, CEO, EthicalSuperstore.com Ben Mawhinney, Head of Online Marketing, EthicalSuperstore.com EthicalSuperstore.com is the leading ethical online retailer based in the North East of England. We: – Have 150,000 customers – Sell 8000 different products – Have a 400,000 unique visitors a month – Run shops for Natural Collection, Cancer Research, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, the Green Party, the Guardian Eco Store, Divine Chocolate and many more

What we will talk about Paid e-marketing techniques – When you pay someone else to drive traffic and conversions to your site Unpaid e-marketing techniques – Those times when it just your personal blood, sweat and tears that get people coming (and hopefully coming back) to your site

Paid – Google Adwords No Goal tracking or Conversion Tracking? Don’t bother. To agency or not to agency? “Green Kettles”, “Easter Eggs” and “Christmas Stockings” – Keep it simple. Make sure all your URL’s terminate in the right place! Send people to the destination that they’re expecting. You’ll get better conversion rates.

Paid – the rest Don’t even think about MSN, Yahoo and the rest if your Google Adwords strategy is incomplete. (Apart from Brand. Protect your brand). Don’t buy traffic. Don’t get involved in paid link exchanges. Unless your selling dating or pranks don’t even think of social media banners.

Paid – Affiliate traffic Affiliate recruitment – Set a low barrier to entry for anyone – Headhunt the best Make sure your affiliate model works for repeat purchasers Make them feel the love – Keep banners, feed and programmes up to date

Paid – Comparison and Review sites Maintaining an accurate product feed optimised sensibly for humans and search Google Products – its free so why wouldn’t you? ROI, ROI and ROI – No site is worth it for “branding” so cut if it doesn’t perform

Paid – the dross Link Exchanges – Maybe but usually no “We’ll get you visitors” – Definitely no Buying mailing lists – Usually no

Unpaid – Search Engine Optimisation Its a whole organisation task – Every department is involved! Identify your most important keywords and key phrases Google emulates people – so best to write for people first!

Unpaid – Twitter, Facebook et al Minimum – protect the brand – Fan page, Twitter account, cause page, myspace, Bebo Tweet, tweet and more tweets – Opted in comms with people willing to be contacted several times a DAY – where else can you do that? Devolve, decentralise and empower – Zappos has several hundred Twitterers

Unpaid – Bloggers, RSS and News Make sure you submit your blog to BlogCatalog, technorati, etc. and make it easy for readers to share your content Make friends with everyone who blogs about your “space“ – send them stuff for review – 50% of something small is better than 0% something big – Engage, comment and add value Sticky content – e.g twitter directory

Unpaid – Get them to open the – compelling subject lines Get them to click through to your site – competitions, surveys, offers, feedback, reviews Test the offer – AB mailings, segment for different geographies, buying and profile, think carefully about frequency

Unpaid – Free stuff ePR – article submissions – Works best with relevant content and no more than 2 links Directory submissions – DMOZ\Google Directory still relevant but hard to get listed – submit but don’t stress – Focus on specialists for your space that deliver value Use whitepapers or other virtual freebies for gathering opted in lists

Final thought... Social media is like sex. It’s fun to talk about and read about, but you can’t truly comprehend unless you do it.” George Colony, CEO, Forrester research

Thank you!