5 Must-Have Tools for Content Creators and Website Owners
I like shiny new toys. The only thing I like better than shiny new toys are shiny new toys that make my job easier and improve the value and service Angie’s Copywriting provides to our customers.
The problem with all these toys is finding ones that work well AND save time. Lots of times, I find ones with one or two helpful features and this usually means entering the same information into multiple locations. Or, I end up tracking several applications at the same time.
Well, you’ll be happy to know I’ve found some brilliant programs. They’ve made my life easier, and as far as I’m concerned, they’re a must-have for anyone creating content or running a website.
Project and Strategy Planning — Trello
Fog Creek Software call their wonderful new program “a collaboration tool that organises your projects into boards”, but Trello is so much more.
A free collaborative organizational program, Trello lets you create lists and cards you can add to a virtual board. These cards can then be dragged and dropped between the boards as needed. You can label and filter them, add comments, a voting mechanism, checklists, due dates, and more. (Did I mention you can collaborate with others and even publish the boards publicly?)
Currently, I’m using Trello to organize and track:
Books I’m Writing – I name the board the title of the book. Then, I create a list for each chapter. The subheadings and topics in each chapter are represented by cards in the list.
Marketing Strategies – I have one list for ideas, one for onsite marketing, one for offsite marketing, and one for promotion/advertising. Then, I create a card for each segment. (The email marketing list might contain cards labeled “signup strategies”, “pitches”, and “landing pages” for example.) To help flesh out the concept on each card, I add URLs, ideas, checklists, due dates, and notes in the comments section.
Website Planning and Building – Trello is excellent for keeping up with the constant changes that come with new websites. I create a list for each parent page, cards for each child page, and add links to additional boards in the comments.
For larger websites, I create multiple boards: The first board is divided into steps. So, I’ll make a list for market research, design, structure, content, marketing, etc. Then, each of those lists contains cards that represent and link to yet another board for each of the major steps. (Under marketing, for example, there might be a card for social media with a link to a social media board, one for SEO with a link to the board with all my SEO plans on it, etc.)
Content Creation — As you might imagine, I work on a ton of content for clients, my sites, and sites I run in collaboration with others. While I use Google Calendar and RememberTheMilk to keep everything straight, I found I still needed something to keep track of ideas and what stage each piece is at. So, I created a board specifically for content creation.
To do this, I made a list for each step in the process (ideas, currently writing, waiting for editing, ready-to-publish, published). Then, I drag each idea from one board to another as I get them done.
Easy peasy, right? Trello could use a few tweaks to improve its usability, but they’re pretty new and they’re working like crazy to add new ideas and features. Overall, I am absolutely loving it.
Trello Pros:
- Able to keep up with constant change (drag and drop)
- Excellent collaboration
- Flexible (boards/cards/lists can be used for just about anything)
- Free
- Labeling, filtering, and card customization
Trello Cons:
- Unable to make a card represent a board
- Comments get lost on extremely active cards
- Inability to integrate with other software programs like iCal, Basecamp, and others
Email Marketing and Newsletter Management — MailChimp
For effective email marketing and management, you can’t beat MailChimp. I’ve seen it in action for businesses of various sizes, and it always impresses me.
MailChimp starts with easy-to-build signup widgets and forms. These simple forms collect and automatically add respondents to a list. Then, you can use an existing template or create one of your own to make your own HTML and text emails. (Recipients can choose which format they prefer when they sign up.)
You can schedule the emails to go out at a specific time, create and drip feed an autoresponder series, or send them out immediately. You can send an email out to everyone, or segment your lists to personalise the emails and get a higher conversion rate. MailChimp’s reporting feature and live statistics make it really easy to see how your campaign is performing.
MailChimp offers a number of other services as well including an inspector to ensure safe delivery, an RSS-to-Email tool, geo-location, split testing, and more.
MailChimp Pros:
- Super simple for non-tech types
- Make campaigns as simple or as complicated as you’d like
- Integrates seamlessly with a variety of other software programs
- Flexible campaign creation
- Free or very affordable
- Solid list management
- Excellent reporting feature
- Easy campaign duplication
MailChimp Cons:
- Takes a bit of tinkering when you first start if you’re inexperienced and have no techie know-how
- Would love to see more data collection involved
- A bit clunky when dealing with late sign ups or sending to a single recipient
- Can’t disable social sharing on some emails and not others in a single campaign
Product Marketing and Membership Software — Your Members
A membership plugin designed for WordPress, Your Members isn’t something I’d normally recommend for anything other than creating a membership site, but wait until you can see what it does.
Your Members includes full user management, payment gateway integration, content management, and a ton of other features. It also includes add-on packages for Facebook membership sites, secure video streaming/distribution, and more.
Currently, I’m using Your Members strictly to manage and market the ebook series I’m working on. This plugin will make it possible sell my ebooks individually (choose the ones you want), in bundles of four for a small discount (buy all the books on a specific topic), as an annual 12- month subscription (for all 12 ebooks), or for a significant discount. It will also allow me to offer additional content and ebooks, as well as deliver courses and other features.
I think this is brilliant for anyone who creates content. You can use Your Members to sell your works of fiction (think: a novel and a series of short stories, or releasing the novel as a series), videos, podcasts, products and educational courses, blog posts, web designs, images…If you can make it, Your Members can sell and manage it.
Your Members Pros:
- Create flexible packages and memberships
- Full content control (Hide or show full or partial posts)
- Tons of opportunities to upsell and cross-promote
- Super easy to install, set up, and customize
- Ability to create your own messages and emails
- Integrates easily with other software
- Excellent customer service
Your Members Cons:
- Requires an initial investment
- You need to plan how you’re going to offer your content very carefully
- Must make sure the right people have access to the right content
Social Promotional Tool — inviteApe
Social sharing and word-of-mouth marketing are becoming more and more important. A recent Neilsen study showed more than 70% of consumers trusted socially shared content over brands and official media sources, so why not use this to market your products and services? That’s where the inviteApe WordPress plugin comes in.
This tool allows your followers to share links and information to your website and rewards them when that share pays off! So, if I share a link about my buddy Glenn’s book, and you click the link, I get a free copy. Ok, maybe just a discount or some other free material, but you get the idea. I used it to share initial copies of my first ebook and I don’t have a single complaint.
inviteApe uses Gravatar to create personalised pages for you and all your followers without lifting a finger. You can redirect users and customise the offer however you’d like. It’s a brilliant, quick little app.
inviteApe Pros:
- Easy way to encourage others to share your content and expand your reach
- Very little setup required
- Works for just about anything, and with a little customisation, you can even use it to sell and sign people up to mailing lists
- Works easily with pretty much any theme
inviteApe Cons:
- Need an established social-based following that’s already sharing and paying attention to your content
- Must have a main offer and something to give. This “something” has to attract others who aren’t as familiar with your work and tempt them to share
Invoicing and Bookkeeping — Freshbooks
I love that Freshbooks has a dashboard where all of my clients can log in and see what’s happening with their accounts. The UI is pretty and easy for everyone to use, and it tracks everything involved in my projects including my time, expenses, how long it takes them to pay, how much is outstanding, and how much I’ve been paid for. Best of all? It’s priced at a level that’s suitable for individuals and small businesses.
Another thing I really enjoy about Freshbooks is that it integrates with tons of stuff. This means I don’t have to worry about setting up PayPal requests or copying and pasting the same information multiple times. I just set it up and go.
The time tracking is probably good for people who remember to turn the silly thing on and off, but for me, it just doesn’t work. I need something with automatic tracking, a desktop app that works on my Mac, and something that lets me assign the time to a project, without having to go back to the website. For this, I use Paymo.biz.
Paymo’s time tracking app still needs some tweaking because it’s a bit clunky, but it’s new. And I have to say that it’s the best I’ve found for Mac so far. (Paymo is actually another really good alternative to Freshbooks. However, I find it has more of a project management focus, which is why I chose Freshbooks. I also don’t generally use time to invoice, so it isn’t much of an issue.)
Freshbooks Pros:
- Slick, brandable interface for clients
- Easy and fast to track and send invoices
- Uploading options means you can keep all of your client’s files in one place where they can access them whenever they need to
- Snail mail and email invoicing. Also does recurring payments
- Affordable
- Integrates with Basecamp and numerous other programs small businesses already use
Freshbooks Cons:
- Time tracking is helpful, but it doesn’t auto-track movements on your desktop.
- Another set of log-in details for clients
- Initial setup takes some time
- Frequent tab switching when locating and setting up projects
Customer Relationship Management — CapsuleCRM
CRM programs have been a particular pain for me. I’ve tried a bunch, and I’ve found they all had major issues for me:
- Desktop-based — Really sucks when you travel and frequently switch machines, not to mention a huge resource hog.
- Affordable, but don’t do what I want — I hate having to track everything manually!
- Fantastic, but expensive — If I have to work six months to pay for client management software, I don’t care how well it works. It’s not worth it.
Capsule CRM integrates completely with Gmail, so I never have to re-add information. Just click the button to upload the email and it’s done. It automatically matches the email with the right client.
It manages sales leads, as well. As a small business, I don’t find this section as helpful, but I’m trying to get into the habit of maintaining it for that inevitable day when I realize I’ve once again grown bigger than I thought. Overall, the entire thing is quite intuitive and I no longer have to worry about losing emails to a server crash. (Just be sure to back this up.)
CapsuleCRM Pros:
- Stores contacts individually and as an organisation
- Integrates with other software and apps, as well as social networks
- Makes contacts and organisations easy to find, including any projects or opportunities associated with them
- Change an individual into an organisation or an organisation into an individual
- Merge multiple contacts
CapsuleCRM Cons:
- Doesn’t allow you to make a case into an opportunity or an opportunity into a case
- Doesn’t include cases and opportunities on the dashboard
- No way to search the content of emails? (There may be one, but I haven’t found it yet.)
- Tasks and calendar don’t integrate with iCal and Gmail tasks or other calendar/to-do apps
Content Collaboration — Gather Content
I’ve been looking for a suitable way to share and revise content with clients, and this quest brought me to Gather Content. It basically gives you a way to design mockups and insert content. You can then invite clients, designers, and others involved in the project, so they can revise and tinker with the layout and the various elements. You can assign pages, due dates, and upload content. When you’re done, you can export the whole kit ‘n’ kaboodle in one full swoop.
I don’t think I’m using it the way the developers had intended it, but so far, I’m pretty pleased with it. At the moment, I’m using it to design and layout new website content. I’m also using it as a temporary home for all the new content for my existing sites. I couldn’t care less about the design options, but I did have a play with them and thought they worked quite well. I’ll be testing this one further before adding it to my existing client routine.
Gather Content Pros:
- Easily create and move pages
- Files, comments and everything you need is in one place
- Project organisation is fantastic
- Keeps track of what’s due and when
- Easy for others to change things and make comments. (Revisions are all saved, so you can easily move from one revision to the next without losing anything.)
- Free!
Gather Content Cons:
- Having to play with the design is a bit frustrating when you just want to use it for content. You need to add a text box to the page before adding content
- Reloads the entire page when you switch from one page to another. Avoid this by opening pages in multiple tabs
- No integration with other software or apps yet
To Do List — Pegby
I’ve used RememberTheMilk to handle all my to-dos since I started my business. I enjoy it, and find it’s really convenient, but I have been playing with Pegby recently. It’s another one of those pretty drag-and-drop apps that you actually don’t mind playing with. You create one card for each item, and from there, you can add notes, files, and tags. You can push it off until later, or share the board with someone else and delegate the tasks.
This is fun for me, but not practical when things start getting overly complicated. Not to say it won’t work for someone else, but my brain simply doesn’t work that way. That’s why I’m still using RememberTheMilk to handle all of my long-term tasks. But, I’ve found Pegby’s Trello-like information radiator layout is a great option to manage my daily to-do list. (I’m still playing with it, so opinions here may change.)
Pegby Pros:
- Pretty, fun, and makes me want to get things done, so I can move the cards around
- Information radiator layout is ideal for daily task lists
- Free (Works on a pay-what-it’s-worth model)
- Collaboration is pretty simple
- Email cards to the board
- Paying members can make boards public and give them their own branding
Pegby Cons:
- Can’t simply tick off completed tasks if it’s an item with multiple steps
- Not really designed for long-term task management
That’s it for me. What sorts of tools have you recently adopted or been testing? Anything I should try?
*** Update ***
The other day, I tweeted a blog post and made a comment that I really liked the tag cloud the site was using. Today, Infomous replied to my tweet with a thank you and a gift! Turns out, it’s a tool. And they have a bunch of other really neat tools for analysts and publishers like this nifty alternative navigation system. Very nice, yes?
Blog Tag Cloud
Twitter Tag Cloud
Keeping the Copywriter Amused – May 12, 2012
I love a good link. You know the kind…they irritate you, inspire you, entertain you, or just get you thinking. That’s what I’d like to do here. As an added bonus, it’s the perfect opportunity to share the neat things I’ve found throughout the week. Ready?
SEO and Content Publication
I came across two great business-type links this week. The first is Matt McGee’s post on the downside to publishing content at specific times of the week or day. I published my thoughts on AngieNikoleychuk.com, but overall, it’s a good, quick read, if you haven’t seen it yet.
The second is from Monica Wright. She did a guest post on Raven Tools that addressed the worries non-SEO site owners often face when they start working with an agency or SEO professional. Again, she brings up some really important points and gave some really good tips that should help you get more from your SEO dollars. This is never a bad thing.
Internet and Website Security
ARS Technica covered a story on the .secure TLD. In it, the author introduced readers to a security researcher who just received $9 million dollars. And what is he going to do with this kind of money? Why, create a private area of the Internet for organizations like banks and governments, of course. This left me with quite a few questions, but you can read more about that on AngieNikoleychuk.com.
What If Your Copywriter Had a Dark Side?
On the fun side, I discovered a great site called The Depressed Copywriter. If you like good ads and Internet memes, this is the perfect site for you. While some of them are creepy, or just plain wrong, some of them are absolutely brilliant. They got more than just a few chuckles out of me.
3 New Tools For Creating Better Stuff
I enjoy Problogger, and I love trying out new tools, so this post by Neil Patel was right up my alley. (I’ve been following him on Twitter for quite some time. Super smart fella with some brilliant 140-character revelations, but I digress.) In the post, Neil recommended IFTTT. I’ve looked at this tool a few times during the past few months and have considered using it in a number of different ways. I think it has amazing potential, but I just can’t seem to sit myself down long enough to have a play with it.
I already use the last tool Neil recommends regularly for keyword research, but the second tool he suggests is the answer to my prayers and a fantastic alternative to the now-missing Google Lists and Google Wonder Wheel.
If you want to know what these tools are, you’ll have to read the post for yourself. It’s called 3 New Tools That Can Help You Create Better Content, Convert More Readers, and Conquer Higher Search Rankings. (Dear Neil, you need shorter headlines. On a side note, it worked. lol)
Speaking of tools, I’ve been looking for ways to easily manage multiple WordPress sites. Today, I came across InfiniteWP. It’s free at the moment, but I see there are premium addons coming. At first glance, it looks slick and easy to use, but I was wondering if any of you have tried it?
Anyway, that’s it for my wanderings this week. Cheers!
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Case Study: Stitches Online Marketing Campaign and Website
I really dislike shopping. The people, trying on clothes in a strange place, figuring out what size I need…it’s just a never-ending headache for me. When I do shop for clothing, however, Stitches is one of only three places I’ll go.
The Stitches website and marketing campaign is ok, but I would personally like to see them match their clothing and the hip, warm atmosphere of their stores. In real life, Stitches staff are friendly, helpful, and know a thing or two about fashion. They are eager to help you find different sizes or create looks, but if you’re with something else, they’ll leave you to it and just help you switch sizes and return the clothes to the racks.
In short, they’re intuitive to the needs of the customer, and I’d love to see this reflected in their online marketing. I hope they’ll find some helpful tips here, and if not, I hope that you’re able to get some good ideas or thoughts for your own website.
Stitches Email Marketing
One of the emails I received from Stitches looked like this:
They use ‘Add Sale to Your Style!” as their subject line. Now, I know who this email is from, and remembered signing up for it, but a subject line like that made me think twice about whether it was another spam mail or not. Sometimes, it doesn’t pay to be clever!
I guess my real issue with the tagline/subject line is that, when I buy something on sale, I don’t want it to look like I bought it cheap! I want it to be my dirty little secret. I DON’T want my clothing to look like I bought it on sale!
I think they could have come up with something far more effective. Even “Stitches Fall Fashion Sale” or “Fall in love with Stitches’ fall fashions” would have been better.
Once you open the email, you get this:
Looks good, right? Amazing sales! (To be honest, I can’t remember if it gave me a choice between text and html emails when I signed up, but if it didn’t, it should! They should at least add tags to the images so I can figure out what the email is about without downloading the images.)
My biggest complaint with this email is that I want to be able to click on the various sales advertised and immediately start buying! Unfortunately, when I click on the $3 knit tops and leggings ad, I get this:
And then this:
And when I click on the “graphics tees” ad, “graphic hoodies”, and the “amazing jeans” ad, I get the same thing. If I had wanted to click through for the faux leather jackets, I’d have discovered they disappear completely on the site, with no hint as to where they may be.
It’s really too bad they missed the sales opportunities in their email marketing campaign. I would love to see them code each ad separately, so that when I click on one, I can find the sales items instantly. Now, as soon as I land on their home page, I find myself thinking “where are they? Is it only certain styles? Are they in a different section?” Even if they linked them directly to the category pages, it would boost their conversions.
Website Marketing and Usability
I thought they might have coded the ads separately on the website homepage, but alas, these weren’t clickable at all. In fact, if you look in the bottom left corner of the main graphic, you’ll see there is a choice of 4 main home page graphics. This was difficult to spot and impossible to use. Clickable flash would have been a much better choice. This is prime real estate that could be boosting the interest in their products!
Well, I shouldn’t say none of the images weren’t clickable. The ’6 Reasons To Dream of Jeans’ article? When you click on the image for it, you immediately get a new tab with the main graphic and are able to page through a series of images depicting girls in various pairs of jeans. This doesn’t help me because I can see what I want, but still have absolutely no idea where to find each pair so I can order it.
Also, a bit of text about which body shape each style was best for, the benefits of each type of jean, or even how to tell the difference between the six styles would have been informational and given me a reason to look through them.
Category and Product Pages
I really liked their navigation and how, when you click on a category, the navigation stays open so you can easily switch between them. The text could have been bigger and easier to click, but it is one of the best designed features on the site.
The item pages like their graphics tees page was nice and clean and the products really pop out at you. That being said, I’m a little confused as to why there are jeans advertised above the fold in that section, or why they’re there at all really. The naming of the different products would have been a great spot for them to show off their creative side. Naming 10 shirts ‘graphic T’ tells me essentially nothing. Imagine: If I tell you they have a graphic T you should buy, would you know which one I meant? How about if I said the ‘Disgruntled Money Bags T’?
Have a look at their Monopoly themed t-shirt. There’s no text. I have no idea what the shirt is made out of. I don’t know if it’s going to end up being a dry clean-only item, and while we’re on the topic, why would it suggest belts to go with a t-shirt, when I’d be much more likely to buy a pair of matching jeans? Suggest belts on the jean product pages.
One company who does product pages astoundingly well is Think Geek. Their descriptionsare so much fun I’ve actually clicked through the different products just to see what they’d written. Stitches wouldn’t have to get that creative with their product pages, but information about the products written in a chic, hip voice would definitely improve their sales and help the customer connect with them a bit.
Overall, when I wander around on the Stitches website, I feel like I’m window shopping, rather than actually wandering in their store.
Their shopping cart software is mysteriously not working. Not sure why, but it was probably in my best interest. It could have been a very expensive night and my credit card would’ve been feeling the weight. (PayPal option would be great folks! Not sure what payment methods you offer, or if you have a secure checkout because, well, it doesn’t say and I can’t get to the checkout page.)
Their URL structure and titles are also quite unfriendly. When I want to bookmark certain products…say I’m watching to see when they go on sale…The titles tell me nothing about which product I bookmarked, there are no unique descriptions, and the URLs tell me nothing. So please, use referral strings, but for the love of pete, please do something with your titles! Even when they’re shared on social networks, there is nothing decent describing what I’m sharing and no way to manually change it myself.
Next point: When I want to buy a product, let me see the entire product…back, sides, top, bottom, whatever. Stitches does an excellent job giving me a close up, but I don’t want something dorky on the back of the shirt. The way it’s set up now, I can’t tell.
Social Media Marketing Strategy
This part was quite fascinating to me:
Remember that email I got? Well, if you click the Social Media icons at the top, it will take you to each one of its social profiles. On their website? NONE of them are clickable! I was quite disappointed when I had to fish the email out of the trash to find their social profiles. (The bottom of the page had a Facebook like button…so I guess my initial statement was a little inaccurate, but c’mon! If you’re going to have buttons above the fold, make them usable!)
Stitches On Twitter
Stitches does have a branded Twitter profile and its user ID matches the site URL. Two points for them! This is important because it makes them relatively easy to find and you know you’ve got the right one when you get there.
They’re interacting a little with other Twitter users, but they’re using the account mainly with Twitterfeed to tweet out links to teen fashion trends. I admit this made my heart break a little. For a store that’s so friendly and good at connecting with girls and guys 16-30, they’re not showing it here.
Most of their links are to Teen Vogue articles. Why are they not creating this stuff and hosting it on their own website? Where are the links to their great sales? Their fashion advice? Regardless, they’re generating a lot of ad revenue for someone else’s site. (This could be because their site isn’t working, but personally, they’d be better off to get the site fixed and tweet more of their own links than sending everyone elsewhere.) In short, their account needs balance and a human touch.
Stitches On Flickr
The Stitches Flickr stream is quite small, but considering the fact that it’s only been in use since April, I expected it. Unfortunately, like their emails and photo shoots, they don’t tell me what clothing the models are wearing, where to find it on their site, or even where I can find these photos online so I can see them in use. All it says is “BTS 2010″, which again, tells me nothing.
There are tons of opportunities here, and Stitches have missed many of them. I would love to see them embrace the power of this medium! What about customer photo shoots? Creative contests? Ten pairs of jeans you can put with a particular shirt that’s on sale that month? This last one could be great because they could put together ‘fashion packages’, so that when someone clicked on it, it would add all the clothing items from a picture or set of pictures to the shopping cart.
The Stitches YouTube Channel
I was quite happy to see Stitches is on YouTube! My first thought was that there were going to be great interviews with their fashion experts with tons of tips on stretching your wardrobe, the latest trends, makeup tips, or even just videos on *gulp* teen issues.
Well, they don’t have any of that, but they did upload two ad kind of things. Again, I’d love to see information in the description about the clothes shown off in the ad, links to the items, what their ‘Back To School’ collection was based on, what the trends are this season…something! I’d like to think that people would subscribe just to see their ads, but unless they take lessons from Old Spice, I just can’t see that happening…at least not people who will buy their clothing.
Stiches Facebook Fan Page
With almost 20K likes on the Stitches fan page, there is tons of marketing power here! They’re doing a pretty good job of using it too. Some people are uploading pics of themselves in the hottest Stiches fashions. Their video and notes sections have groups of ads (more than their YouTube channel) and they let you win tickets for a local event. They put up images of the sales ads, but again, nothing is clickable and there aren’t any links to where you can find these items.
Sadly, while fans are speaking up and sharing their love of Stitches, the company is doing very little interacting with its loyal customers. Even a quick note back to some of their customers would be a great investment. Also, why is their fan page opening to their wall when the hook for their visitors is on the free tickets page? Why not create a mini-ad page for people to land on?
Stitches did happen to reveal some information about their website on their Facebook page: Their site is down (duh! Lol) and the online store is being rebuilt. This is great news! I’m a little confused as to why they’d disable the online store before the new one is ready, but I’m hoping there’s a good explanation because they have to be losing a fair chunk of change. I’m also quite confused as to why they’d continue with their online marketing campaign. I thought the idea might be to convince people to go to their brick and mortar stores, but I can never find the fashions they advertise online in their stores!
Closing Thoughts On the Stitches Online Store and Marketing Campaign
If I could give any suggestions to Stitches at all, I’d strongly suggest that they study their competitors. What do they do well? What’s working for them? What isn’t working? What aren’t they covering?
They need to figure out exactly who their target audience is and find out what’s most important to them. Generate content they’ll find interesting and valuable, even if it’s just a collection of funny cartoons or jokes about the issues they face.
I’m going out on a limb here, but I think teenagers really want to see themselves in fashionable clothing. They want to feel welcome and accepted and they want to feel popular. This is where Stitches marketing power will come from. This is where Stitches will really be able to break their industry open and begin to claim a fair chunk of the market share. In fact, I’d love to see them come up with an online app that people can upload pictures of themselves and virtually ‘mix and match’ outfits. They could even use the images of schools, malls, or other popular hangout locations in the background.
They need to hunt out complementary businesses and figure out ways to team up and offer deals and opportunities their competition hasn’t. Music, beauty, magazines, electronics…there are an unending number of ideas and possibilities here.
Stitches needs to shake their corporate image and start to stand out.
Their site is also impossible to find in the search engines. They are in dire need of some SEO and some ad campaigns if they hope to revitalize their stores and making some serious profit.
Again, I wish Stitches well and hope they make use of their online marketing, whether they find and use the information in this post or not. (Which reminds me: If Stitches hasn’t got any sort of buzz monitoring or Google Alerts set up, they need to. They need to figure out what’s being said about them and use the information to their advantage.)
I also hope you were able to follow me through this audit/case study and pick up some ideas you can use in your own ecommerce stores.
Why Businesses Get Taken Advantage Of By Online ‘Professionals’
Jim Connolly of Jim’s Marketing Blog and I had a great conversation a short time ago about the vulnerability of businesses and people in general. We’d both agreed that, while many of these people are great at protecting themselves in the real world, they seem to forget about protecting themselves online.
I have a theory about why this happens…
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Think Of Web Professionals Like Babysitters…Sorta
You see, I look at the online world and the real one as being the same. The only difference is that the Internet has put real life on demand and under a magnifying glass. Mistakes and the true characteristics of human nature are far more noticeable, but when it gets down to it, you’re dealing with the same types of people, who have the same goals and methods as those we pass on the street every day.
Think of the Internet like hiring a babysitter. Even if you hardly know this person, you leave her in charge while you’re gone because you feel she’s trustworthy and will keep your kids safe. I mean, if you didn’t, you’d never leave her there by herself, and certainly not with the children!
Plumbers and electricians are similar. They could be one of the gangbangers on the corner at night, but once they don their ‘day clothes’, you let them into your home without a single thought about your safety. You have some level of trust in them.
The Internet is similar, in my opinion. Once we allow it into our home, we still feel secure and trust it as we would a good friend. We get so caught up in all the benefits and how much *better* it makes our lives, we often forget about the bad. We simply don’t give the dangers the same weight in the virtual world that we do in real life. Why? It doesn’t look dangerous.
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We Lack the Visual Incentives That Trigger Self-Preservation
When walking down the street, it’s not unusual for people to clutch their purses and bring their kids closer as they pass a gang of kids in a parking lot. It’s not odd for some to cross the street when passing a homeless person. They look undesirable, and maybe even frightening.
Getting back to the babysitter thing, most parents would never consider hiring a homeless person and putting them in charge of the kids. That’d just be dangerous! At least they look trustworthy enough to make us feel safe, right? Well, in some instances, the homeless person might be the better choice.
On the Internet, we can’t differentiate between the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ people just by looking at them. Almost everyone ‘seems’ nice. Well…what I mean is the creepy ones are kind of obvious, but it’s the dangerous ones who appear ‘nice’ that people need to be most wary of.
Things Sound Different In Text
The other issue professionals and businesses have is that even the most innocent of things can sound terrible when they’re typed and out of context (i.e. in a tweet or email). Sometimes, even the simplest of sentences can seem snarky, angry, or perverse. The same goes for someone who ‘sounds’ trustworthy. Since we can’t read a person’s body language or hear their tone when they speak, a lot of our perception is based on previous interactions with that person and pure assumptions.
So where am I going with all this? Simple.
Don’t just hand money over to someone you’ve never met without checking things out first. If you don’t feel confident with a particular company or provider, or if there are any serious doubts about their reliability, move on.
Be diligent, for Google’s sake! If you don’t know enough about the process to be able to identify the scammers, get recommendations from someone you trust or speak with someone who does know about the process. Both the provider and the client can tell when the other doesn’t know as much about a particular subject as they should. Trust me!
The other point I’m making with this whole thing is that both online professionals and clients need to protect themselves. While things like deposits might be annoying and make both sides uncomfortable, they’re there to protect everyone involved. There are times when a full upfront payment is necessary, and times when it’s simply not needed.
Don’t believe everything you hear, either. This world is full of miscommunications and complications that might seem one way at the start, but is actually something completely different when you get down to it. I’m not saying you should disregard good and bad reviews, for example, but use each of the puzzle pieces you find while doing research to determine what the entire picture will look like.
In short, use your street sense!
