Mary and Me is the first client to feature in our new regular series of 'websites that work'.

Clients are always asking us how we have worked with clients to turn their website into an online business.

This series aims to outline how we achieve that with various clients big or small irrespective of what their focus might be.

The Client

Mary and Me has been a client of ours for almost 3 years - they are a small boutique in the main street of Dubbo NSW.

In that time, they have deliberately planned the growth of their online business as their budget allowed.





In 2009, they came to us about a web presence only, with numerous photogalleries to showcase their stock. The inclusion of an enewsletter soon after this start also helped them communicate with their clients locally and a rapidly expanding regional clientele. They saw considerable requests for clothing via their contact form only and after a year where ready to start selling online.

In 2010, they came to us to discuss the next stage of their 'online business' - and this was an exciting e-boutique. Our recommendations at that time also included social media, so a facebook face page was created as well to allow them to continue communciating with an expanding regional client base. Our focus with the develpment of the store was to include lots of references to their key brands, much sort out across the country. It was vital that good keyword references and tagging was put in place to capture women looking for brands and knowing nothing about Mary and Me.

During this time Mary and Me staff continued to participant in our in-house training  to further understand how our products can drive better results for their websites. Once the e-boutique started and Mary and Me's social media strategy kicked in, they saw a huge increase in site traffic, in the order of 500%. 

The Plan

In 2011, with the evidence of increasing visitors, the Mary and Me team knew that they could potentially achieve more online sales, so an opportunity to rebrand also meant an opportuntiy to revisit the ecommerce facilities at the site.

What more could be down to improve sales? 

Our recommendations where very much client based as well as SEO (search engine optimisation based) and included

• a member area for clients to keep track of their orders,
• wish lists to save their favourites for next time,
• speedy checkout with stored personal details
• Like and Share buttons for facebook and twitter
• Product Hover tool to showcase products
• As well as a blog to talk to their clients about fashion, trends and general style news

The outcome

A doubling of online sales in 3 months!

Socialnomics give their take on the 'fad' - you be the judge.

The numbers may be a little out of date, however the statistics remain the same ...

We are strong advocates of social media forming a key plank of your online marketing strategy.

So what kind of metrics are available to prove to those unsure that it really works?

A recent study by Foresee* would seem at first glance to indicate that social media channels are not providing significant boosts to website traffic.

The Foresee report indicated that whilst only 1% of site visitors come from a social media URL, 18% of site visitors report being influenced by social media to visit a website. 

However, the report goes on to say that this indicates that the current methods of tracking traffic are not necessarily suited to reporting on the true impact of your social media strategy and use of your social media channels ( Facebook & Twitter for example).

What the Foresee study did show was the following, the people who are influenced by social media

• have a higher average order size
• have higher customer satisfaction, and 
• have higher loyalty than those who aren’t influenced by social media.

I am currently blogging at Style Magazine a little 4 part series on social media 101 - the current update is Facebook!

So the video below is likely to come in really handy in helping you 'get' how to correctly tag people and businesses pages!

Share the love, Shout Out to your favourites, you never know when the love will come back to you!

Yes, He is from the states - but he is excitable!




Call if you would like some assistance!

Lots of great new work is on the cusp of being launched at present, so we have been a little tardy with our e-newsletters. We are soon to expand our team with more support personnel coming into key roles to assist you make the most of your website tools - so stay tuned and thanks for your patience.
Let's go on a Deep Dive into your site! Would you like to know more about how people find your site and what could be used to attract more people to your site? Taking a deep dive into your website doesn't need to be scary. That's why we are offering a free one hour 'deep dive' session with our in-house experts. All clients will be receiving a voucher as their site tools come due for renewal, or as part of our annual client meeting to renew your site. Suit Up! Call 1300 721 481 and quote our special offer code   SEO2011 Recent Launches Keep up to date with our latest launches, lots of e-commerce in the pipeline as well as some larger member driven websites.	FREE Web Seminar The 44 Gallons Small Business Online Workshops have been designed to assist small business with a desire to grow business online by taking advantage of the internet.  Interested? Book Now!   Dubbo Dates 16/4 and 4/5
	Upcoming Training We are fully booked for in house training, but slots are available for go to meeting sessions! April In-House Training - Email Marketing (Advanced) May - Go To Meeting Training - SEO Basics May In-House Training - E commerce (Products/Catalogs) - ADVANCED June - Go To Meeting Training - Understanding Reports
	Mission Control Make sure you keep up to date with the latest industry news as well as as tips to use Business Catalyst Better!

Sometimes people can find email marketing a real pain to format - I know, I do ours!

Here are some simple tips that will make this easier for you to do this well and become as good as the pros!

1. Keep them short!

Try and keep your campaigns short and sweet. This means less thinking and creating you need to do and this suits the attention span of the online reader.

2. Keep the ratio of images to text 50/50

A large number of email clients including Gmail, Hotmail and Microsoft Outlook 2007, block email images by default. So, as a rule of thumb it’s worth keeping a ratio of 50/50 images and text in your emails to ensure that your message is easily communicated to readers who have images blocked.

3. Ensure you have clear calls to action in the body of the email

Link back to products inside your store, sections of your website, or sign up forms that people need to fill in. You need to have a goal in mind for your email campaign.

4. Use tables to layout your text.

Email clients are not all the same and do not work in the same way a website works, so you need to use tables to layout your information. Plan your structure before you start and create your table - i.e. 3 rows with 2 columns for example.

5. Just send it!

To get people to respond to your email marketing and specials, you have to make it a priority. Get it crossed off your to do list and you will see how easy, cost-effective, and powerful email marketing can be for your business.

It’s like the lottery, unless you buy a ticket you are never going to win.

Remember several years ago when most websites had thousands of annoying pop ups occurring everywhere?

Everyone turned pop ups off!

What those sites were trying to do was to engage their potential clients, quickly with additional information that related to their product or service. They were overused and very annoying.

Circa 2011, we are seeing a return of this kind of engagement, but in a much more user friendly and non-instrusive kind of way.

Using MODAL POPUPS, you can have information pop up after a certain amount of time, or can be  triggered by a CALL to ACTION on the page that can serve a variety of purposes.

• Provide further information about information specific to the page
• Provide assistance when people are browsing a particular page for a period of time
• Encourage a customer to fill in their details for further followup
• Advise when a form has been filled in incorrectly.
• Make the most of the space on your page, but popping open more information that is relevant to that page.

We have a few clients utilising these techniques to mine for customer information in a quick and easy way - Western Plains Automotive is making great use of them on their new and used car pages to offer further assistance. KLR Marketing is taking advantage of this feature as well to encourage visitors to Grab an Information pack.

We even have a little example on our Web design page. A form automatically pop's up after people have been viewing the page for a while. This pop up guides them to interact with us quickly and is a great way to engage them instantly.

This modal dialog feature or LIGHTBOX effect is a great way to funnel your visitors into your sales pipeline, why not chat to us today about the possibilities of this little tool on your website.

Thanks Sauce Communications!

Great tips re using social networks - being authentic in your approach in the latest sauce newsletter.

Have a quick look Blendtec’s award-winning Will It Blend? campaign. The internet-driven initiative has generated more than 65 million page views and a huge surge in sales. 

A sense of humour helps in all scenarios!

and like all good salesman - there's more!

Will it Blend Part 2

• Ensuring support calls are handled in our agreed time frames for clients
• Develop positive relationships with our clients
• Develop and mentor your support team
• Prepare and analyse monthly client reports
• Provide hands on support as needed for our clients
• Meet with clients as required

Find this job on Seek here

Applications close 31/3/11