NeboWeb's CEO outlines strategies you can implement now, and a few to keep in mind for the months ahead, to maximize your brand's online "shelf space."
What is online shelf space?
Online shelf space is exactly as it sounds. Similar to the shelf space at a store, online shelf space is easily accessible and appears in more than one location. For example, when you walk down the aisle at your favorite grocery store you may see Guinness at the front of the store in a Guinness display, in front of the beer aisle in another display, and in the beer aisle itself. The same principle applies online. When people go to the major search engines, shopping comparison sites, news outlets, or other sites that are relevant to your target market, you want them to see your products and/or services quickly and easily in an effort to persuade them to buy into your brand, product or service.
Initiatives still available this holiday season
It may be late in the game, but there are still available options to ramp up your online holiday sales this season. Some initiatives that could still prove to be effective in increasing holiday sales include multi-channel ecommerce campaigns, pay-per-click advertising, and even optimized press release creation and online distribution. Unfortunately, time has simply run out on other proven revenue-generating tactics such as search engine optimization, banner advertising, SEO PR and more.
Multi-channel ecommerce
One way to increase your online shelf space quickly is with multi-channel ecommerce feeds. Multi-channel ecommerce providers integrate sales across various multiple online arenas. In other words, they allow you to push your inventory directly into sites like eBay, Amazon, Froogle, Shopzilla and many more!
Moreover, firms like Marketworks specialize in providing multi-channel ecommerce solutions by pushing your inventory seamlessly to multiple online channels, thus maximizing your online shelf space. These firms also automate back office functions needed to ensure an efficient, streamlined ecommerce engine. Although there is not a lot of leeway, there is time to start driving your products across multiple channels this holiday season.
Pay-per-click advertising
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a quick and direct way to reach your target market, and simple campaigns can be set up very quickly. PPC advertising is a method of sponsored advertising which places a website's ads in a search engine's paid results, generally located to the right of the results page. PPC works like an auction in that advertisers bid against each other; advertisers then pay when users click on their ads. PPC ads rely on the use of effective ad copy, extensive keyword research, as well as bid management.
Depending on the size of your campaign, there is still time to get your PPC campaigns up and running before this holiday season gets in full swing. More sophisticated campaigns such as those that use keyword-specific landing pages are probably not likely to be implemented in time, but effective campaigns can still be created.
Optimized press releases and online distribution
Another great way to get immediate exposure is with optimized press release creation and online distribution. By optimizing and distributing press releases online (assuming the right online wire service is used), not only will the release have the opportunity to get picked up by thousands of sites the day of release, but it will often be picked up and archived by Google News, Yahoo! News and by a multitude of other sites that pull relevant news feeds.
This means that the press release's message gets instant online visibility. It's crucial to incorporate strategic keywords into the release's copy, with the most important ones linked to your website with relevant anchor text. Relevant links and anchor text increase the likelihood that the search engines will display your press release and/or your website when someone types in one of your keywords.
A word of caution: The press releases need to be newsworthy. Simply sending out keyword-filled releases will not only be ineffective, but will cost time, money, and serve to de-value your brand equity. However, if you have newsworthy items, I strongly suggest creating optimized press releases and releasing them on online wire services such as PR Web or WebWire.
Initiatives for 2007 and beyond
Some initiatives simply take time. Although each industry has different conversion rates across online media, some initiatives stand out as highly effective at driving traffic and sales. Read on for some online shelf space building ideas that increase brand awareness, drive targeted website traffic and increase sales, but cannot realistically be executed this holiday season.
Next: Three initiatives to implement in 2007 and beyond