Interacting With Your Audience as an Ecommerce Business
This last weekend while I was at BlogWorldExpo, and one of the main themes that kept coming out of it was interacting with your audience.
Now if you’re a blog, that seems obvious. But what should you do if you’re a regular ecommerce site? Here are a few ideas
Start a Personal Blog
One of the problems with a lot of online companies is that they are afraid to show a personal side to their company. And yet it seems that the companies that are taking the time to do this are getting more interaction and better PR with their customers!
I actually had a chance to talk to Jeremy Schoemaker of www.ShoeMoney.com and I specifically asked him this question (well, this might be a little paraphrased, but you get the idea), “If you have an ecommerce site, one where you’re selling products like a store, would it be best to do your blog as a ‘company blog’ or still take a personal approach to it?”
His response: GO PERSONAL!
Here’s why: any company can have a blog where they post things like press releases, company updates, facts, figures, etc. But who wants to read that junk? With a blog you have a chance to have a personal face to your company - someone that people can relate to. This is very powerful because that person or face is the one that will be interacting with your customers and potential customers. People tend to do business with people they know, so having a ‘face’ to your business helps customers and potential customers to better know you. It’s one of the best ways to do interactive website marketing.
Interact with Bloggers
Having your own blog is only one step. Next you need to go out there and interact with other bloggers that blog about the topics in your industry.
Here’s the key to this one: these bloggers already have an ‘in’ with your audience. So you need to go and interact with that same audience. Don’t just go there to push your products. Go there to be part of the community, and over time become an important part of that community. Once again, people tend to do business with people they know!
So find out where your audience hangs out. What blogs are popular in your space? Go find out and interact with them!
Be Involved in Forums
Not everyone is into the whole ‘blog thing.’ Way before blogs came out there were things called forums. Well, they still exist and a lot of them are still very very active. This is another way for you to go out there and find out where your audience is and start to interact with them.
Similar rules apply here as when you interact with blogs. Don’t market to them. In fact, that’s the easiest way to get yourself banner from a forum!
I talked about Twitter a few days ago, you can read the post here: You Need to Start Using Twitter!.
Twitter is still a growing resource, and your particular industry may not be using it much. But I would still recommend getting involved in it. I’ve listened to several podcasts the last few days with big internet marketers and professionals, and they all agree that the social marketing space is the next big thing - and they’re all using Twitter.
For starters, you can follow me if you want. My username on Twitter is dan_patterson.
So there’s a few tips for you about interacting with your audience online. These types of interactions are not just for bloggers, they’re for everyone that is trying to create an online presence! Start with one technique, then branch out and become more and more involved with your audience. The internet is getting more and more interactive, and this is crucial for your ecommerce website marketing.
Related Posts
Build Trust With the About Us PageWhat is RSS?
How to Let People Contact You - The Contact Us Page!
A Tip on Establishing Crediblity for Your Online Business
Should Your Business Have a Blog Attached to the Site?
Great tips! I like what Gary V said - I want to be friends with everyone online in my industry - or something to that effect. The more you associate with people and get to know them, the better off you’ll be long term. Business is all about relationships: I can’t think of one job or business deal (especially a big one) that I got without knowing someone or having a connection of some sort.
BlogWorldExpo was great - I’m definitely going again next year!
[Reply]
Dan Reply:
September 26th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Nate,
I find it funny how sometimes we assume that we can stay ‘hidden’ online and still do business. When you think about it, it just makes sense that you would still have to interact with people if you want to be a success online!
[Reply]
Nate Moller Reply:
September 26th, 2008 at 10:43 am
For sure - the people that “sit on their thumbs” waiting for sales to happen may eventually get them, but it will take a lot longer than if they go out there and “hustle!”
[Reply]
Dan Reply:
September 26th, 2008 at 10:53 am
I think it’s also part of taking it to the next level. As you said, anyone can wait and sit on their thumbs, but it is so much more profitable to go out there and ‘kill it’ as they say.
I offend have a visit to Twitter.com - thats really good site. Get me there as harry username. I appreciate the types of interactions you follow… there. BlogWorldExpo is really great. I most of the time concentrate on one task and with its completion I move on to next, thats my way of doing business. Staying hidden is far for me.
[Reply]
Dan Reply:
September 26th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Hey harry,
I’m glad to hear that staying hidden is not what you do, cause staying hidden is the wrong way to go!
[Reply]
Interacting with your audience is definitely very important for an online business.
Simple-
Make yourself known and then just go on and on…
[Reply]
Dan Reply:
September 26th, 2008 at 9:36 am
seonext,
You really do have to become well-known in your audience if you want to get noticed. thanks for the comment!
[Reply]
A lot of people don’t bother to respond to comments on their own blog, but often the comment thread adds just as much value, both in information and in keyword variants, as the main article.
[Reply]
Dan Reply:
September 26th, 2008 at 9:37 am
You’re completely right. I admit that I’ve been a bit of a slacker in that area in the past. I just added this threaded comments plugin to make it easier! It’s a great way to interact with your audience because they’re already coming to you.
[Reply]
David Lindop Reply:
September 27th, 2008 at 2:08 am
great news… can you throw us a link to the plugin?
[Reply]
Dan Reply:
September 27th, 2008 at 7:32 am
Sure David, here’s the link to the plugin: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-thread-comment/
Yes I believe if you do the blog thing right you can definitely increase your revenue, but there are a lot of things that you can do wrong. For example spending too much time on the blog, and instead of letting your customers direct the conversations trying to control it yourself. In my opinion for most people working alone an online community us too large and complex a task, and will consume enormous amounts of time and bring in little to no revenue. Companies on the other hand that’s another story
[Reply]
Dan Reply:
September 26th, 2008 at 9:38 am
Good point, you really do have to be careful with what you spend your time with. in the end it all comes down to priorities. Spend your time on the stuff that makes you money, but then also make sure you work on the things that can help you make even more!
[Reply]
I couldn’t agree more, interacting with consumers as well is very important. I was wondering though, is there any free open source e-commerce software that you would recommend using?
[Reply]
Dan Reply:
September 26th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Using a blog is good, i recommend WordPress. Or, you could also set up a forum. PHPBB is a good one to use for that.
[Reply]
Can I get an amen? Thanks for this Dan. This is exactly the type of advice that a lot of ecommerce sites could take a lesson from. It’s one thing to have a store, it’s another thing to have a personality. 9 times out of 10, consumers don’t buy based on the store, but the impression they have OF the store. If you’re selling widgets and the next 5 guys are selling widgets, what’s going to make you stand out? What if consumer A could know a bit about you, how you make your widgets, what materials are used in your widgets, etc.? Personally..I’d rather buy from the devil I know rather than the devil I don’t.
[Reply]
Dan Reply:
September 26th, 2008 at 9:45 am
AMEN!
People really do buy from people they know, and as you said, even if either way they are a devil
[Reply]
well i agree that interacting with the customers is really very very important. Dan rightly said that people buy things from the people they know but one thing which i want to state here is that internet has been a great source for the people to knw each other hence the statement made by Gary V is damn true…….
[Reply]
Dan Reply:
October 2nd, 2008 at 6:45 am
I think it was Joel Comm that put out a Twitterpoll about what is the internet all about. He got a lot of good answers but didn’t get the one that he thought of: connections (or something like that). In the end the internet is really just a bunch of computer connecting that are allowing people to connect like never before. Use that power!
[Reply]
One thing I am sick of and that is sites or blogs with a way to contact them and when you do they never writ t back
[Reply]
Dan Reply:
November 14th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
Yeah, that is definitely a problem. If you’re going to provide a way for people to contact you, it only makes sense to reply!
[Reply]
In today’s world, interaction is the key and as you say, I like to buy from people I like and know more than to people I don’t know.
This is definitely a great reminder….
Cheers!
Alex.
online web stores
[Reply]
Thanks for this wonderful tips, e-commerce is being rampant this years with lots of people being already associated with the Internet.
[Reply]
Great topic. Twitter has been a tough one for many of our e-commerce clients to figure out so far. The good ones are pushing out relevant information on a routine basis relating to their products and not simply sending out coupons to push sales. You have to build trust within your followers first.
[Reply]
Excellent post. Its really a great topic for discussion. Interacting with the customers is really very very important. Thanks for this post Dan. This is exactly the type of advice that a lot of ecommerce sites could take a lesson from. Thanks a bunch for sharing such a great informative post. Keep blogging.
[Reply]
Great tips! Wow, thank you for all of these awesome tips. I am sort of new myself. I could use these valuable tips. Nice points really like this post. You hit a lot of thinks right on. Keep blogging. Looking forward to reading your next post.
[Reply]