21
Mar
Facebook Connect: When, Where And How To Connect With Customers
Now that you know the advantages Facebook Connect offers your online store, we wanted to give you some tips on how to best leverage the social feature.
WHEN:
Knowing when & where to use Connect is key to leveraging it’s social power for your store. Don’t jump the gun with an early pop-up window for two reasons:
- 99.9% of users HATE pop-up windows.
- Asking users to connect too early may cause more of them to decline because they are still checking out your site; they aren’t committed to the process yet.
Instead, encourage users to Connect with a less forcefull call to action further down the purchase/ interest process than your homepage.
WHERE:
If you need some ideas on where to place your call to action, just think about where the social feature makes sense.
For example:
- account creation page
- product review section
- post-purchase
- forums/community areas
HOW:
Facebook Connect has much more potential than just making a registration easier. It offers you tons of unique and interesting ways to connect with your customers and their social networks.
For implementation inspiration, check out how these eCommerce sites are connecting with their customers:
LEVI.COM – SOCIAL SHOPPING
When users come to levi.com, they are encouraged to shop socially by clicking on the “like-minded shopping starts here” call to action. By connecting with Facebook Connect, customers can share Levi’s products with their friends, “Like” them, or find “Top-Liked” products across their network.
AMAZON – SOCIAL GIFTING
Amazon uses Facebook Connect to make gift card purchasing as easy as possible. When a user Connects with Facebook, they can purchase gift cards for friends that will be posted to their friend’s wall on the day of their choosing, like their birthday. The beauty of this use of Connect is that users only have to complete three steps to purchase the giftcard: sign in with Facebook, create the card and then send it on.
HEINZ – SOCIAL EXCLUSIVES
Heinz used Facebook Connect to promote and create buzz for their new product. Who would talk about Ketchup on Facebook? Not many people. At least until, Heinz launched a limited edition flavor, but only allowed Facebook fans to purchase it before it went on general sale. Using Connect, Fans could purchase the new flavor and recommend it to friends. So how did the Ketchup Connec campaign do? Heinz sold 3,000 bottles of their flavor to Facebook fans, gained 14,000 new fans and the buzz they were looking for.
Interested in adding Facebook Connect to your 3dcart store? 3dcart’s Facebook Connect feature is now available through the app store for $199. For more details or to get started, visit store.3dcart.com/facebook-connect-for-3dcart.html.
21
Mar
3dcart Offers Facebook Connect To Merchants
Earlier this month, we talked about Facebook Connect and how it is revolutionizing the way online business leverage the power of social media. Now, 3dcart merchants can tap into that power with 3dcart’s new built-in Facebook Connect integration.
3dcart’s Facebook Connect add-on displays a button on the “My Account” and “Checkout” pages. If the customer clicks the button, they automatically sign in using their Facebook account. First-time customers and return customers who chose not to save their personal information must fill out their payment information separately, ensuring no privacy issues.
The premium feature offers online retailers:
More Conversions
By simplifying sign-in, customers can bypass creating unique IDs and passwords, removing a major barrier of entry to a potential sales conversion (and future conversions). With more customers identifying themselves before they buy, retailers gain powerful insights on their audiences, enhancing revenue generation.
Empowered Social Marketing
With access to customer data and social graphs, retailers gain immediate visibility into audience behavior, interests and favorite brands. Facebook connectivity also simplifies how customers share the products they buy and the online retailers they frequent.
Personalized Interaction with Customers
Identifying customers immediately gives retailers the opportunity to target recommendations based on previous purchases and interest-based information. Relevant products are more likely to catch a customer’s eye, increasing the chances they’ll buy.
3dcart’s Facebook Connect feature is now available through the app store for $199. For more details or to get started, visit store.3dcart.com/facebook-connect-for-3dcart.html.
Image via Lakeshorebranding.com
07
Mar
Facebook Connect for Ecommerce: What You Need To Know
Can you think of an online sign-up process that DOESN’T require an email address for completion? Its almost as assumed that a user has an email address, as they do a home address. And with good reason, today almost every online user does. With an email address a merchant can reconnect with users post-purchase, reach out after an abandoned cart or send them a coupon for their next purchase. While capturing emails adds a layer of communication to you customer relationships, it doesn’t tell you anything additionally about your customers. Email lets you communicate, but not necessarily connect.
However, Facebook Connect can do just that. Facebook Connect allows users to use their Facebook account to connect to third-party sites ( like yours). Facebook explains the significance.
Facebook Connect is the next iteration of Facebook Platform that allows users to “connect” their Facebook identity, friends and privacy to any site. This will now enable third party websites to implement and offer even more features of Facebook Platform off of Facebook – similar to features available to third party applications today on Facebook.
Connect can be used to bypass the signup process or anywhere you want to add a layer of social content. Connect is a great way to deepen & personalize customer relations.
And don’t worry about hassling your customers – TechCrunch reports that 50% of visitors to ecommerce sites are already logged in to Facebook. And users are becoming more comfortable with the practice: according to Facebook, 30% of its users actively engage with third party websites through Facebook Connect each month.
There also huge advantages Connect offers over traditional sign-in methods:
Identity Authentication
Unlike Twitter and other less personal social networks, Facebook is a stickler for making sure users represent themselves with their real names and real identities. When users login with Facebook Connect in your store they bring their real identity information with them including basic profile information, profile picture, name, friends, photos, events, groups, and more.
Leverage Friends
Facebook is the ultimate social network with over 500 million users, so you can bet that your customers have Facebook friends with similar interests & shopping habits 
Facebook Connect allows merchants to add a rich social context to their stores allowing customers to see which of their friends have already created accounts in your store. Think of how much more inclined to trust your store ( & purchase from it) a customer would be if they saw a friend had also created an account in your store.
Increase Registrations
There are a ton of reasons why merchants and developers LOVE Connect, but so do customers. Customers love bypassing long sign-up processes with just one-click. The ease of use can result in HUGE increases in registrations. Just how huge? Facebook reports that sites that use Facebook Connect see a 30% to 200% increase in site registrations
Gain More Reviews
Not only are customers more likely to complete the registration process, the ease of signing in with Connect makes it easier for returning customers to review your products. Facebook claims that sites using Connect see 15% to 100% increases in user generated content like comments and product reviews. And we all know how valuable reviews are in ecommerce!
Stay tuned for more posts on how to leverage Facebook Connect for your 3dcart store!
09
Jan
Adding The 3dcart Shopping Widget To Your Blog
SEMSEOWizard.com is one of our favorite bloggers for ecommerce SEO and social optimization tips. The Wizard is a big fan of 3dcart and has some awesome tutorials worth checking out.
One of which is this awesome tutorial on how to add the 3dcart shopping widget to your blog like this:
01
Dec
Google Rolls Out YouTube Analytics
Google announced in a blog post yesterday that released the next generation of ‘Insights’ called ’YouTube Analytics’.
YouTube Analytics, which was rolled out over the course of yesterday, replaces their previous YouTube feature ’Insights’ which had enabled channel creators to track who is watching videos and where those vistors came from. Google wrote that this about replacing their previous feature: “Now we want to make it even easier to learn about your audience, so we’ve replaced Insight with YouTube Analytics. ”
Strikingly similar to Facebook’s insights, YouTube Analytics provides useful information for merchants including:
- A Quick Overview: A new overview provides all of the information that you care about quickly, while also enabling you to easily access more detailed information.
- More Detailed Reports: Analytics now includes more detailed statistics so that you can have a more precise understanding of your content and audiences.
- Audience Builders: Discover which videos are driving the most views and subscriptions.
- Audience Retention: See how far viewers are watching through your video in the new audience retention report.
Google created the below infographic to explain the update further:
24
Oct
Monitoring Your Reputation Using Google Alerts
As every online merchant knows, online reputation can make or break a store. Its important to monitor online conversations mentioning your brand’s reputation both good and bad.
When you come across a negative comment or conversation fast enough, you can reach out to the user and hopefully reverse the situation. What started out as a bad review of shipping methods could turn into a positive review on customer service! When you come across positive mentions of your brands, thank the users! Just a simple acknowledgment and a personal connection can turn online reviewers into brand advocates!
But how do you make sure you know what users are saying about your store with the millions of websites, online conversations, tweets, and Facebook updates?
While there’s plenty of expensive brand monitoring tools, Google’s free alert system gives you plenty of tools to stay on top of your brand.
Google alerts allows you to setup basic alerts or customize the alerts using advanced search operators. You can set up alerts to let you know the minute your brand is mentioned, daily updates, or weekly. You can also choose to narrow down the list of sources to news, discussions, blogs, video, realtime or everything – our advice is set your alerts for everything.
You can set up to 1000 alerts and also recieve alerts in multiple languages. Google lets you choose whether you want to receive your alerts by email or RSS feed.
TIP: Set alerts for all the ways a customer could mention you: misspelled, add a .com, put extra spacing etc. For example – 3d cart, 3dcart.com, 3dshoppingcart,
Google alerts are great because not only can they help you stay on top of your brand, they can help you stay on top of your competitors and the industry at large. Alerts are a powerful tool so be creative and think outside of the box.
Here’s some ideas for alerts:
- Brand mentions
- Mentions of competitors
- Industry news
- Sites looking for guest bloggers within your industry
- Someone asking an industry question
- Upcoming networking opportunities/events
- A link with your desired anchor text
- A potential new customer asking about your product
30
Sep
5 Tips For Marketing Digital Products
The digital revolution didn’t just revolution how you shop, it also revolutionized what you shop. Instead of physical goods, many merchants are selling bits & bytes in the form of e-books, mp3 music files, downloadable images, software, videos, & product keys. With a different form of product, comes a different method of marketing.
5 tips for selling digital merchandise
Focus on a niche
The key to selling digital downloads is focus. Focusing on a specific good , topic or service, allows you to better market your products, promote your products to a specialized target audience and build strong SEO on industry keywords.
Use standard file formats
I know it doesn’t sound like marketing, but using standard file formats(PDF for ebooks, MP3 for audio files, etc.) ensures all users will be able to easily download and use your products. If you choose to use a format that is not standard, you cut you could cut your customer base in half.
Give Previews
Give your customers a little taste of the digital product before purchase. For example allowing your customer to read two chapters of your ebook, playing the first level of your gaming software, or listening to samples of your music before downloading. Pick your previews wisely. You know your products – make sure the preview of your merchandise are as alluring as possible. If your third chapter is really gripping include it in the preview. If your song has three chart toppers, allow those as previews.
Promote immediacy
A considerable upside for customers buying digital downloads rather than physical products is immediate access to the product. Promote the immediate accessibility to your customers by marketing your products as an “easy, no wait” solution.
Secure downloads with serial numbers or keys
If you are selling software, consider implementing serial numbers or keys validation. Adding a validation process protects your businesses from digital piracy. Serial numbers & keys also communicate to the buyer that a purchase is necessary i.e. they can”t find the product on an illegal downloading site. 3dcart allows you to upload a list of serial numbers and distribute each one of these as orders are received on your website. You can have just a preset number of keys and reuse them between customers—or, you can actually enter a unique serial number for each customer and eep track of who activates your software online.
22
Sep
Growing a Lucrative Facebook Fan Following
Below is a guest post by Dewey Halden, the Director of Sales at SearchSpring
Unfortunately, cultivating a large and lucrative Facebook fan following isn’t as easy as just installing an app. As with any long-term brand building or PR campaign, success takes a little planning and diligent execution.
Fortunately, it’s not rocket science either.
The name of the game is getting customers to consume and share content with their friend networks so retailers can virally market themselves, promoting repeat business form existing customers and attracting new customers. More…
15
Sep
Faceted Navigation Converts Higher
Below is a guest post by Dewey Halden, the Director of Sales at SearchSpring.
The results are in: The giants of the E-Commerce industry: Amazon.com, Zappos.com, Lowes.com, Dell.com..you name it, have all proven that attribute-driven, dynamic, faceted navigation is the best navigation method for maximizing conversion rates of users who browse.
Make it easy and intuitive to find the right product, and the shoppers will purchase more often.
Faceted navigation:
Makes exploring intuitive It enables Shoppers to navigate whats important to them (price, color, brand, size, ratings anything) in the order that makes sense to the customer. One shopper may select price range first, then a rating, then a color and end up at the same products as another shopper who clicks the same refinements in the opposite order. Shoppers are completely free from constraints of the pre-determined paths.
Enables a shopper to visualize their navigation path. Refinement choices update quickly after each click, making remaining choices crystal clear. The dreaded “No Results” literally never appears because faceted navigation never misleads the shopper into selecting an incorrect combination of attributes.
Makes it easy to “back out” of refinement selections. With Faceted Navigation, a user can ‘back out’ without affecting previously selected refinements. Stores find that they receive more multi-item orders because shoppers have an easier time navigating to accessories after purchasing primary products.
Allows for customization. Faced Navigation offers strategic placement of color paletes, pick grids, price sliders, and shopper-provided social navigation (ratings, pros, cons) extend faceted navigation’s effectiveness even further.
SearchSpring‘s faceted navigation can yield an astonishing 20% increase in conversion rates, A/B tests have shown, when compared to heirarchy style and pull-down refinement style navigation systems.
Faceted Navigation can be added to existing category pages without affecting SEO. Using AJAX to insert faceted navigation into a category page from a hosted service, shoppers benefit from improved navigation while spiders experience the same page, including all the same links to other pages on your site. Spiders largely ignore AJAX, and therefore generally don’t follow faceted navigation links.
Dewey Halden is the Director of Sales at SearchSpring. SearchSpring offers advanced site search, faceted category navigation, Facebook product search, mobile site search, and automated SEO of site search terms for 3dcart stores.
08
Aug
eCommerce Video: Tips for Effective Product Videos
Using Video in eCommerce: Tips for Effective Product Videos
Is seeing really believing? Not always, but in eCommerce ‘seeing ‘ can translate into buying.
Think about it – eCommerce allows shoppers to browse hundreds of thousands of stores from the comfort of their couch. The only major advantage brick and mortar stores have over eCommerce’s easy, convenient and efficient purchase process is the ability to see, touch, and feel the products.
Until hologram eCommerce (HCommerce?) arrives, the best way to let a customer experience your products is through videos. Videos can immerse customers into buying experiences, display company personality, drive additional traffic from other channels like YouTube or Vimeo, and can even give your SEO a boost. The idea of providing videos for your customers may not be revolutionary but over 68% of online merchants are not taking advantage of the benefits videos can offer.
Product videos can be extremely effective selling tools. Ecommerce giant Zappos.com does a great job of providing simple & effective product videos for their customers.
http://www.youtube.com/user/ZapposGear#p/u/22/iM2hwFhNsKY
Here are a couple of things we can learn from Zappos’ effective product videos:
- Brevity is genius. Keep your videos short. Think less ‘Lord of The Rings’ and more movie trailer.
- Be personal. Show your customers who you are. Don’t be afraid of showing some personality. Steer clear from cheesy lines and puns. Act like a friend not an infomercial pitchman.
- Speak clearly. Plan what you’re going to say ahead of time and practice a few times before turning on the camera. Your customers want to know what you’re saying so speak slowly and clearly.
- Think like your customer. What would you want to know about the product? What would you want to see? An intuitive product not only can further the customer in the purchase process but also can help build trust & credibility.
- Showcase your high-quality products and emphasize the unique features that set the product apart.
- Use a minimalist background. Use a plain wall as a backdrop to focus your audience on what’s really important.
- Don’t keep your customers in the dark. Make sure both you and your product are well-lit. Avoid annoying shadows by moving around lamps and other lights until the shot is picture perfect.
- You don’t need professional grade camera equipment to make a useful video for your customers. All you need is a digital or computer video camera, editing software and a little determination.
