Monthly Archives: May 2015

19 ways to promote a new product on the web for free

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free-signSo you’ve got some pretty cool new stock for your online store – bonza!

Once you’ve got that sparkly item beautifully photographed and loaded safely in your Spiffy Store, it’s time to go to town with your marketing.

You don’t have to have a big marketing budget to promote your new product online.

Here are 19 ideas that will cost you nothing but a little bit of your time.

  1. Post a photo of your new product on your Facebook page, linking directly back to the product page on your store
  2. Tweet that cool photo and link out on your Twitter account
  3. Post the image and link on your Pinterest page
  4. Post the image and link on your Google+ page
  5. Make a creative photo on Instagram
  6. Write an update for your LinkedIn company page
  7. Take a short video of the product on your smartphone and load it onto your YouTube channel
  8. Post the video out on your other social networks too
  9. Use a #hashtag on social media whenever you mention your new product. For example, #shoes or #goldsandals.
  10. Post on social media more than once. If you do it just once, it may get lost in the noise of the newsfeed.
  11. Feature the product in your next newsletter
  12. Mention it in your email signature with a link
  13. Write a blog post about it. If it’s something to wear, you could discuss different ways to wear it. Remember to use the product name in the page title and headline.
  14. Write a traditional press release and post it on PR sites like Newsmaker. If you’re not sure how to do that, check out my post on how to write a press release.
  15. Monitor sourcebottle.com for free publicity opportunities and giveaway requests that would fit your product. You can sign up for alerts on the site.
  16. Search for popular blogs in your niche (fashion, lifestyle etc) using Google Blog Search or Alltop and send the blogger some information about your product along with some nice images. They might feature it.
  17. When you ship your new product, invite your customers to post a snap of them using it on social media with a #hashtag so you can follow the activity
  18. Slip a note about the new item into the package when you ship other goods
  19. Add a note and link in your automated emails to check out the new product in the store

There you go. A bunch of online marketing ideas for you that don’t cost a cent!

Updates to email notifications

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gmailThis is just a quick update regarding the email notifications that are sent out from your store.

Until now, all notifications sent out from your store were sent from our “noreply@spiffyserver.com” address.

We have now updated the notifications so they are sent from the Store Email Address that you set in the Preferences -> General Settings section of your store’s Toolbox.

Unfortunately, this can’t be the case for emails sent from domains that don’t belong to your store (for example gmail or hotmail).  If you’re using another email provider and want to use that address, you’ll need to set up an email forward from an email address that belongs to your store to your other email account.

You can the update your Store Email Address to the one on your domain, and all future emails will come from an email address that belongs to your store, and is less confusing for your customers.

Affected email notifications include the following…

  • Order confirmation emails sent to your customers
  • Shipping confirmation emails sent to your customers
  • Shipping update emails sent to your customers
  • Auto-responses sent from the contact us page of your store

Other emails sent out, such as order confirmation emails will still be sent from our “noreply@spiffyserver.com” address.

 

 

How to advertise on YouTube

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video advertisingDo you know you can run display and video ads on YouTube? Cool!

If you want to run video ads, you’ll need your own YouTube channel. That’s where you’ll store the videos. To find out how to go about setting your business up on YouTube, check out my post “Grab some YouTube action for your online store”.

The ad formats

There are a number of different ad formats on offer on this mother of all video channels. Before you begin creating your ad, it’s worth checking the AdWords policy page to understand the video specs you’ll need to adhere to and their advertising regulations.

In-stream ads – these are short video ads that play before or during a YouTube video, or on a Google Display Network video game or app. As the viewer can skip the ad after the first 5 seconds, you’ll only be charged if your ad’s watched for 30 seconds or more (or in its entirety if it’s shorter). That’s up to 30 seconds of free advertising!

In-display ads – these ‘static’ ads generally appear next to YouTube videos, in YouTube search results or the Google Display Network. They’re made up of a preview image and text. You’ll only be charged when someone clicks on the ad to view the video, so again, a certain amount of free advertising is available.

If you’re unsure what to make as a video, or how to go about it, read my post on creating video for your online store.

Set up YouTube advertising in AdWords

YouTube video ads are managed through Google AdWords. If you don’t have an AdWords account, head on over to our step-by-step guide and find out how to set one up. It’s not difficult.

To run YouTube ads, first link your AdWords and YouTube accounts via the ‘AdWords for video’ side navigation menu on any AdWords for video campaign page.

Set up a video advertising campaign in AdWords

To create your first video campaign, follow the simple step-by-step set up. Click ‘New campaign > Online video’ above the campaign table. Give the campaign a name, set the daily budget and choose your target locations and languages.

Create your ad

Next you get to create your video ad. Pick the video you want to use (remember it needs to be in your YouTube account), choose the format – in-stream or in-display – and fill in the ad details as requested.

Choose the type of people you want to see your ad

You can target your YouTube ads so they’ll only appear in front of the audience you choose. That way you’re not wasting money on people you don’t want to attract.

Select your target audience by typical demographics like age and interests. There’s also advanced targeting features like the contextual keyword option, so you can choose to show your ads near content relevant to those words.

If you want to ensure, or avoid, your ads appearing on specific pages in YouTube, the Managed Placements option will let you do that. It’s handy for targeting channels where the audience may be particularly tempting to you.

Once you’ve set up your ads, you’re good to go!

Check what’s working and what’s not

Just like text or display ads, AdWords offers you performance reporting on video ads. The reports reveal key data like which ads are the most popular and how much of the video is being watched.

By combining these insights with YouTube analytics reports, you’ll get a good picture of what’s working and what’s not so you can work on getting the best bang for buck!