In the early days of internet marketing, everyone was talking about the importance of e-mail marketing and e-zines to build brand recognition and customer loyalty. But today, blogs seem to be the new buzzword. This phenomenon is not recent as we have been hearing about the benefits of blogs for a few years now. Yet, I will delve into this topic again because the benefits of blogs need to be reemphasized. In addition, it would be a good idea to compare the effectiveness of blogs with e-mail marketing and ezines.

So let’s start with its definition, blog is short for the word “web log”; that is, it is a website wherein entries are displayed in a reverse chronological order. Typically, content management systems can notify blog subscribers about new posts through RSS feeds. On the other hand, e-mail campaigns rely on third-party Email Marketing Service (EMS). Below are the comparison and contrasts between e-mail marketing and blogs:

Ease of Publication

Blogs are apparently easier and faster to publish compared to newsletters because the blog platform enables the user to write and immediately publish the content into the blog. Meanwhile, e-mail newsletters are not automatic because they need to be carefully written, laid out attractively using HTML, and copied to the web interface on the EMS website. It will then be scheduled for distribution.

Cost

Popular blog platforms including WordPress.com, WordPress.org, and Blogger.com are free. But it is almost impossible to find an EMS provider who will give free services so email marketers need to pay a certain fee based on the number of emails they sent out or the fee can also be based on the quantity of the mailing list.

Readership

Readership in blogs can be measured by the number of unique visitors on the blog and by the number of RSS feed subscribers. On the other hand, readership in e-mail campaigns is measured by the number of subscribers, open rate, and inbox delivery rate.

Subscriber List

Probably the greatest difference between a blog and an e-mail newsletter is its approach to reaching their visitors. E-mail newsletters have a list of e-mail addresses and these sometimes even include the name and location of the readers. Meanwhile, bloggers have no such list so they cannot effectively reach out to their visitors unless the visitors make the move to visit the blog themselves.

Which strategy will work best for you? No one can answer that better than you because both e-mail newsletters and blogs can be highly effective depending on how the internet marketer makes use of it.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Top online stores usually get a conversion rate of between 5% and 15%. You might be wondering how they can achieve this especially when your conversion rate is just a fraction of this percentage. Two popular merchandizing techniques are cross-selling and up-selling.

Cross Selling

Cross selling is basically just offering an item that is similar, an alternative, or an add-on for the product that the consumer is looking for.  Cross selling will enable the consumer to find just exactly what they had been looking for; this will increase the rate of completion. Cross selling can also lead to additional sales from the original selection because consumers found add-ons for their original item.

Aside from related items, merchants also use cross-selling techniques to showcase the best-sellers as well as high margin products from their store. There is always the possibility that consumers will be interested in these items so that can translate to a higher conversion rate.

Up Selling

Up selling is basically offering the consumer more expensive and better quality products from their original selection. If the visitors goes to a page and puts the item in the shopping cart, it is almost certain that he will purchase that product. But how can you utilize up selling in this case?

Well, a popular online approach to up selling is bundling; that is, the merchant can offer two or more products together at a discount. The merchant can also offer discounts on a particular product or service when the consumer purchases from the store. This will encourage the consumer to buy more products from your store.

Displaying the Options

It is interesting to note that there is a high rate of abandonment in shopping carts as consumers still decide whether they will really purchase the items they selected or not. In line with this, displaying both cross selling and up selling option in the product page as well as the shopping cart is recommended.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Ecommerce is a very competitive business environment to get into. In fact, a lot of small and medium scale business owners are intimidated just by the thought of competition against industry giants online because they fear that they do not have the necessary resources for this endeavor. However, this should no longer be a concern because a lot of ecommerce software has already been developed to give anyone a chance to be successful in e-business.

It is important to look for an ecommerce solution that is reliable and effective though. One such software is CoreCommerce. They have even partnered with RackSpace IT Hosting because this is a known company for Zero-Downtime network and Fanatical Support. In fact, Gartner Research even recognized RackSpace as a leader in the hosting business.

Another good thing about CoreCommerce is that no transaction fees are charged to your account. Most other ecommerce software providers charge these fees but CoreCommerce does not believe in penalizing businessmen for the success they worked hard for. Their goal is to simply provide their clients with the best ecommerce software and support in today’s global marketplace.

The CoreCommerce Software also provides a wide variety of features that had been specifically designed to meet the needs of their customers. Through years of feedback and research, the company has been able to develop the best list of features in the marketplace today including:

Security – has 128-bit encryption SSL, admin area access log, fully encrypted credit card information, multiple admin log, cutting edge firewall protection, premium bandwidth, daily backups, and multiple fiber carriers.

Order processing – one page checkout, automatic calculation of taxes, shipping options, accepts many kinds of payment methods, email receipts for both the customer and admin, unique order number, and batch order printing.

Website Look – the software can be heavily customized to match the overall theme of your site, ability to manage all the content in the store, various free ready-to-use templates, logo upload, favicon upload, search functionality, browse by vendors or categories, and sort by price features among others.

Search Engine Friendly – the whole store is search engine optimized, generates static HTML pages, header tags, meta tags, page titles, add custom content, and the bread crumb trails usage.

There are so many other features available from CoreCommerce that can help an ecommerce businessman set-up and maintain his online store successfully. But despite the advanced features they can take advantage of from CoreCommerce; this software is actually relatively easy to set-up. There are 5 basic processes that will tell you exactly how you can effectively use CoreCommerce.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Every internet marketer knows the basics of setting up a website including getting a domain name, selecting a web hosting provider, and putting content on the website. But there are actually many internet marketers have no idea where to start when it comes to setting up an online payment system.

As was in the previous article, two major options you need to consider is opening up a merchant account and a PayPal account. The thing is, knowing what to do is not enough because how would you know what kind of merchant account will be suitable for your business? Well, you can investigate each and every single merchant account in the market, but it would actually be a lot simpler if you can talk to someone who has been through where you are today.

Payment Processing brings together a lot of web owners who have experiences in setting up different kinds of online payment systems. Categories are divided into Internet Payment Service Providers, Electronic Payment Getaways and E-currencies, Fraud and Chargeback Prevention, Business, and the Payment Processing DOT cc.

The forums design looks simple and basic but users are not complaining because the forum contains tons of information that will enable any entrepreneur to successfully set up the payment systems for their websites. You can expect in-depth discussions and incredibly helpful tips from the forum members who don’t hold back information about their success. Payment Processing is definitely a great community where like-minded individuals can freely ask questions, share their thoughts, and basically learn how to make money together on the internet. And with more and more website owners adding additional features and payment options on their sites, I am predicting that this forum is going to be the next big thing as web owners strive to find the best payment processing available.

Popularity: 8% [?]