BizRate Email Marketting - Anyone?

[Tomer]

Yes I email my customers every 1-2 weeks, the results were very low [only a small percentage repurchase]. I do not understand this. My prices are competive, I ship fast, all procuts authentic, everything should be fine.

Maybe people only need new fragrances every few months. I have only been online a few months [6 or so~] so still kinda hard to tell.

So far I made around 35% of the advertising cost, so we'll see a the end how much was the total. On the other hand, I got a few hundred email leads for future emailing.

- Tomer

[Tomer]

OK well the email traffic is pretty much ending now.

Results

So far, I got ONLY 1,500 visits. With about 33 orders.
ROI = negative! This didn't work out and I lost money.

Why did I lose money?
- first 10-15 orders, I had too many promotions running, low profits.
- only got 1.5k visits, I was supposed to get 3k [avg with BizRate]
- conversion rate a BIT lower then avg - but that's not too bad.

I'm talking to BizRate about the low click count. Maybe cause it was sent on Friday? Hope so!

- Tomer

[Ted S]

Having a no name brand (no offense, just reality) doesn't help but your creative and offer were solid for the mailing so unless they have stats to indicate that everyone else just preformed well and you didn't, I'd put a good chunk of the results on the delivery date and/or list quality.

[Ravedesigns]

Hey Tomer,

I just did a small direct mail test to 800 folks that completely bombed, but with your 33 orders here, if they order from you again and/or refer some other clients your way you'll have made at least some money.

Seriously though, I'm sorry this didn't perform as well as you'd expected. I know how disappointing it can be, but know that even the best marketers aren't successful with every promotion (they're lucky if they get one or two out of ten right!) and you've learned some valuable lessons here that will help in your future marketing efforts.

Just a thought - but have you considered doing any joint ventures with related businesses, maybe a website with a large list they could promote you to in exchange for a few bucks a sale? Having an ad in a newsletter like Bizrates is one thing, but having someone personally recommend you to their list would be even better.

Steve

[Tomer]

Hey Tomer,

I just did a small direct mail test to 800 folks that completely bombed, but with your 33 orders here, if they order from you again and/or refer some other clients your way you'll have made at least some money.

Seriously though, I'm sorry this didn't perform as well as you'd expected. I know how disappointing it can be, but know that even the best marketers aren't successful with every promotion (they're lucky if they get one or two out of ten right!) and you've learned some valuable lessons here that will help in your future marketing efforts.

Just a thought - but have you considered doing any joint ventures with related businesses, maybe a website with a large list they could promote you to in exchange for a few bucks a sale? Having an ad in a newsletter like Bizrates is one thing, but having someone personally recommend you to their list would be even better.

Steve

What do you mean bombed? Is that good or bad?

Yeah you're right - My big problem is that I can't get previous customers to purchase again. :/ I just started to use internal email marketing. Getting some of them to come back - but still not the most.

Well I haven't found a joint business at the same size as me to join together, not yet anyways.

- Tomer

[Ravedesigns]

Hey Tomer,

When I say "bombed", I mean it was a complete and total failure! I was just trying to get people to a website to give them something for free, and got only 1 out of 800 to take me up on my offer!

And by a "joint venture" I mean find someone who already markets to the type of customers you're looking for and see if you can get their help to market to them. For example, if your customers are mostly women, find a clothing or jewelry retailer and ask if they'll help promote your fragrances to their customer list. You could offer to promote their products to your list or you could instead offer to pay them a percentage of the sales they bring you or a fixed amount per client you get from them.

Cheers,

Steve

[Tomer]

Yeah that's a good idea - you know some merchants in this category?

- Tomer

[Ravedesigns]

Yeah that's a good idea - you know some merchants in this category?

- Tomer

Not directly - but spend some time with Google and look for sites you think would be complimentary to yours. See if they offer a newsletter for their clients and contact them to see if they'd be interested in offering your fragrances to them. Inquire to see if they'd let you place a small flyer in with the packages that they send out or maybe you could even sell directly to them and they could resell to their customers?

Steve

[Tomer]

Yeah I found a few and contacted them with no response. :/ Too bad cause it's a totally win-win situation.

BTW - BizRate reported that the other merchants in the email got around the same amount of clicks. So the average was 1,800 clicks, when they promised 3,000. Plus - this should be the busiest time of the year - so I would have to say that they are lying. :/

- Tomer

[Lastbutnotleast]

Thanks for sharing this experience Tomer

(your site is -once again- great anyway)

[Tomer]

Thanks a lot.

I'm still looking into trying another round with the emails in Q1. Probably early February, to get ready for Valentines day. :-)

They have a solo email campign - where they send your email to their list as their sponsor. So you get the whole email for yourself. That costs like $14 CPM [1,000 emails] with a minimum of 300k emails [$4,200].

- Tomer

[talkalot]

Good luck in your business venture. I hope everything will work better by February. And try to lower down your promotions so you can have better profit. Anyway, I think you have tested it that these promotions of yours don't do much. I don't that you completely turn off your promotions but try to make them less.