Shipping products is a large part of selling on Amazon. Get it wrong, and you could end up spending over the odds getting your products to buyers. This can lead to frustrated shoppers and increased outgoings – not ideal.

By optimizing the shipping process and choosing the right delivery options, you can dramatically cut costs in this area, improving your bottom line and increasing overall revenue. 

The tricky part is knowing where to start. There are tons of different shipping options available, all with their own unique set of pros and cons. The best one for you will depend on the type of products you’re selling, the size and weight of them, and the delivery destination.

What Are Your Packaging Options?

One of the most common questions that crops up is about boxes for shipping. If you’ve ever wondered whether it’s cheaper to use your own box for priority mail or to use a flat rate box, you’re not alone. To help you get to the bottom of it, we’ve created a handy guide that tells you everything you need to know about shipping boxes.

The difference between the two is in the kind of postage you pay for. If you buy Priority Mail Small Flat Rate Box postage, you have to use a Priority Mail Small Flat Rate Box. The boxes are branded with the Priority Mail logo and design. If you don’t buy flat rate postage, you can use whatever kind of packaging you like.

It’s important to note that Priority Mail is just the name of the service class and you can use any box or packaging you choose. In the majority of cases, it actually works out cheaper to use your own packaging instead of a Flat Rate service.

The idea behind the Priority Mail Flat Rate service is that you pay just one fee regardless of the weight of your product or where it’s being shipped to. If it fits into a flat rate-branded box, you can send it.

It sounds simple, but the cost isn’t the only downside.

When you ship with a Flat Rate box, you have to use the Priority Mail Flat Rate service branding. This means you can’t use your own branding which can impact your customers’ experience in a negative way. It’s worth working out whether the minimal savings you might be able to make is worth the trade off of a potentially sub-par buyer experience.

Flat Rate Boxes vs Your Own Box

USPS Priority Mail service provides free shipping boxes for sellers to use. These come at no cost to the user which is a huge benefit when you consider that most boxes elsewhere cost between $0.25-$1 or more.

You can pick up Priority shipping boxes from the post office and they come in a variety of different sizes (we’ll talk more about this later). You can also order them online and have them delivered directly to your door. Again, this is free of charge and great for sellers who don’t live close to a post office.

The range of Priority Mail boxes available allow you to ship based on a fixed amount regardless of the weight of your products. The boxes are free to get your hands on, but will cost you to send them once you have packaged up your items and got them ready for delivery.

This can be particularly beneficial to sellers who regularly ship heavy products.

Here are the sizes of Priority Mail boxes available:

• Small flat rate box
• Medium flat rate box
• Large flat rate box
• Flat rate padded envelopes

Source

As you can see, there are plenty of flat rate options for sellers depending on the size of the products they’re shipping.

Alternatively, you can use your own box to send your packages in. The general difference between the two options is that Priority Shipping flat rate boxes cost more to ship but tend to deliver quicker than your own boxes. It’s up to you to decide whether speed or cost is more important to you, but it will also depend on the size of your items, their weight, and where you’re delivering them to.

It’s worth noting that if your products are under 2.5 pounds, then flat rate fees are often more expensive than shipping non-flat rate.

At Urtasker, our goal is to help you maximize your revenue and optimize your sales processes. So, with that in mind, here are some things you should be aware of:

• Flat rate is often only cheaper in a few situations, namely if you’re using flat rate envelopes or small flat rate boxes. As soon as you size up, the costs dramatically increase and it often works out cheaper to use your own packaging
• Flat rate boxes are delivered at the same speed as all Priority Mail, which tends to be between one and three days if you’re shipping to another US address
• Priority Mail flat rate shipping comes with full tracking, so both you and the recipient can keep an eye on where the package is at all times

Shipping Via Flat Rate Boxes

Now we’ve touched on the differences between the two options, let’s dig a little deeper into the details of using flat rate boxes.

How Much Do Flat Rate Boxes Cost to Ship?

For products that fall into the 1.4 pound range, Priority Mail boxes are often the cheapest way to ship. Like we said before though, this totally depends on the size of the box you use, where the product is being shipped to, and whether the destination is a business or home address.

Prices are mostly based on weight, dimensions, volume, and delivery address, so bear this in mind when researching your options.

Here is a general list of prices for flat rate boxes:

Envelopes are obviously the cheapest option to ship. Letter envelopes, gift card envelopes, window envelopes, and small envelopes all cost $7.15.

Padded envelopes and legal envelopes are a little more expensive, with the former clocking in at $7.75 and the latter at $7.45.

Small boxes cost $7.65, medium boxes are $13.20, large boxes are $18.30 and APO/FPO boxes cost $16.80. Look into the dimensions of each of these boxes to determine which one is the best fit for you and your products and calculate pricing from there.

Here’s how you can optimize the shipping experience:

• For items under one pound – ship via First Class Mail and select a box that keeps the weight limit at or below one pound
• For small items that weigh over one pound – some of the flat rate boxes available can save you money here, particularly small flat rate boxes, flat rate envelopes, and flat rate padded envelopes
• For items that weigh over two pounds – sometimes the Regional Rate (more on this further down) or Flat Rate boxes ship for less than your own box. Regional Rate A rates are very similar to the two pound Priority Mail rate. This means that you can ship in the Regional Rate A box for the same rate. In a similar vein, the Regional Rate B Box ships for pretty much the same price as a four pound Priority Mail box.
• For items that weigh over three pounds – it’s often cheaper to ship via FedEx or UPS depending on the size of the shipping box you need. However, FedEx and UPS both charge based on weight and dimensions and also add a $3-$3.50 fee for products being shipped to a home address
• If you’re shipping 50 Priority Mail packages a month – explore shipping services that allow you to ship via USPS Dimensional Weights

What About Regional Rate Boxes?

You’ve probably come across Regional Rate Boxes in your shipping research. They work in a similar way to flat rate boxes except there are only three weight tiers and the price is based on how far the package is going.

You can pick up the boxes for free (just like flat rate boxes) and, if your product is being delivered to anywhere in Zone 1-4, this option is usually cheaper than flat rate boxes.

Which Boxes Should You Use?

The best thing you can do is sit down and play around with the shipping calculators provided on each carrier’s websites. While flat rate boxes are free to pick up, they cost to ship, and sometimes this cost is higher than independent carriers even if they charge more for pickup.

We recommend starting with the UPS calculator and the FedEx calculator to get an idea about any savings you can make compared to Priority Mail flat rate boxes.

If you decide to use the Priority Mail service, you’ll need to calculate whether your own boxes are more cost-effective than Flat Rate Boxes or Regional Rate Boxes. Unless you’re sending packages in an envelope, it usually works out cheaper to use your own boxes. This means you can incorporate your own branding and ultimately provide a better customer experience for your buyers.   

At Urtasker, our mission is to help online sellers optimize their systems and their revenue. Shipping plays a huge part in this and choosing the right packaging option can save you a ton on unnecessary costs. Get in touch today to find out how we can help you streamline your sales.

In the digital age, humans remain the epicenter that drives innovation, visceral connectivity, and ultimately your success.

Urtasker has been delivering impactful, robust, marketing services with a global team of marketing professionals for years. With more than 500 clients harnessing the variety of Urtasker services, including Amazon Listing Optimizations, Amazon Account Management, and more, there remains one foundational component that Urtasker has not only maintained, but celebrated. This secret ingredient is humans.

While there is always a plethora of data to process, cross-pollinate and extrapolate, and while this data can guide us and steward our initiatives Urtasker has always believed that we are only as good as our people. The people who review the metrics, discern the learnings and craft strategies from the information. The people who understand that it’s not bots which buy products nor services, but rather humans.

Our team fundamentally understand that we must harness human innovation and ultimately connect with audiences on a visceral level to propel our clients potential.  

Omer Riaz, CEO of Urtasker, had this to say:

“The human element is often overlooked and should not be underestimated. Personal interaction aligns our clients with the best marketing consultant to drive their business forward to maximize revenues and profits. As well, one of our most coveted human characteristics is our ability to be creative. There is no mimicking human innovation, an epicenter of creativity and a synergy between our clients and alignment with our marketing professionals.”

Major media portals picked up on this news and Urtasker was recently featured in Yahoo Finance, MarketWatch, Seeking Alpha, ABC News affiliates and more.

We invite you to explore the links below and enjoy the media pick up as we continue to empower our services and your marketing growth with marketing experts, our team, our people.

	Yahoo! View Press Release		MarketWatch View Press Release
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	Virtual-Strategy Magazine View Press Release		KHTT-FM 106.9 [Tulsa, OK] View Press Release
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	KTVN View Press Release		KVOO-FM 98.5 [Tulsa, OK] View Press Release
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	Lubbock CW View Press Release		WFMZ-TV IND-69 (Allentown, PA) View Press Release

More than 50% of shoppers head to Amazon to find a product they need. But the increase in shoppers means that there are more sellers than ever to compete with as an increasing number of businesses see the potential of the marketplace.

So how do you gain a competitive edge?

Amazon ads help you stand out, get your products in front of new customers, and build a brand presence.

There are several different types of Amazon ads to leverage, each of which brings different benefits. If you’re wondering which type of ad you should use to maximize sales and reduce your ACoS, keep reading.

The Different Types of Amazon Ads

1. Sponsored Product Ads

Sponsored product ads elevate your listings so they show up top in relevant search results. When a shopper types in a keyword or phrase related to a product you’ve created an ad around, it’ll show up on the right side of the search results, at the bottom of the search results, or on the product details page.

This is prime real estate for Amazon products, and the prominent position of sponsored product ads helps you reach new buyers who are actively looking for products just like yours.

You can manually or automatically target keywords that are relevant to your products and buyers – the latter lets Amazon determine the most popular keywords, while the former lets you have a say on the words and phrases you want to include.

Sellers only pay for sponsored product ads when a shopper clicks on them, which means you have complete control over your ad budget and the bid amount you place on relevant keywords.

Sponsored product ads are identified by the “Sponsored” tag at the top of the listing in search results.

Why Use Sponsored Product Ads?

Sponsored product ads help you reach shoppers who are actively searching for products like yours. This means that they’re already a decent way through the sales cycle and are therefore more likely to buy. They also give you insights into the keywords your target audience uses when searching for similar products.

2. Sponsored Brand Ads

You might have also seen sponsored brand ads referred to as sponsored headline ads. Amazon rebranded this type of ad fairly recently in order to better capture its purpose.

The recent surge in online shopping has seen sellers on Amazon increasing their sponsored brand ad spending by more than 160%. Essentially, these types of Amazon ad shine a spotlight on your brand and up to three products of your choosing. Again, like sponsored product ads, you pay when a shopper clicks, not when Amazon displays the ad.

Keywords are a major component of sponsored brand or headline search ads, and you can bid on relevant keywords that you want your ads to show up for. Keyword research forms an important part of the optimization process in our services at Urtasker, and we take the time to dig into the most common words and phrases shoppers use.

Similarly to sponsored product ads, you can run automatic or manual campaigns, which gives you the choice of how much control you have over your ad campaigns.

You’re likely to see sponsored brands ads appear above the search results for specific, relevant search terms, below the search results, or to the left of search results. If a shopper is using the Amazon app on their mobile device, they might see your ad appear within the search results too.

Sponsored brand ads often have the seller’s logo in the corner and three product listings below it.

Why Use Sponsored Brand Ads?

Sponsored brand ads drive awareness for your brand and allow you to promote multiple products at once. This gives shoppers an overview of the products you sell, which maximizes your exposure and encourages more sales.

3. Product Display Ads

Product display ads present a competitive advertising choice for Amazon sellers. Instead of operating on a keyword search term basis, they focus instead on how your products relate to shopper interests as well as select categories. This gives your product valuable exposure to shoppers who are actively seeking what you’re selling and are already in “buy mode”.

Product display ads don’t appear in search results. Instead, they show up on related product detail pages, on customer review pages, and in merchandising emails. They can also be served outside of Amazon, including on Amazon-owned websites like IMDb, Amazon-owned devices like Amazon Fire TV, and on the Amazon Demand-Side Platform.

The sheer number of places a product display ad can be shown means you can reach a much wider audience – some of whom haven’t even made their way to Amazon yet.

There are often lots of sponsored display ads on product listing pages.

Why Use Product Display Ads?

Product display ads give you the opportunity to cross-sell and upsell your products to interested shoppers. This helps you reach a wider audience and connect with shoppers that are interested in buying or are already buying from your competitors.

At Urtasker, we specialize in creating and optimizing Amazon ad campaigns using the different types of Amazon ad to help you reach more customers. Get in touch today to find out which ad type is best for you and how to leverage the benefits of each of them.

Amazon is a fantastic place to sell your products and attract more buyers. Millions of shoppers head to the platform every day to purchase items in almost every category imaginable.

There is a lot of competition for sellers, which drives up the costs of Amazon ads unless they have been properly optimized.

By taking advantage of Amazon’s advertising options, you can maximize visibility on your products and reach a wider range of people who are interested in what you’re selling.

If you’re new to selling on Amazon or your business is still on the smaller side, you might be worried about how much advertising will cost and whether it’s really worth it. The truth is, the Amazon advertising costs can vary wildly depending on several different factors.

At Urtasker, we’ve worked with brands of all sizes that sell all manner of products, so we know that the cost of ads truly depends on what you’re selling, who you’re targeting, and what budget you have in mind.

Amazon ads work in a similar way to Google Adwords in that the higher you bid (or the higher your budget is per click), the more likely it will be that your product shows up in a relevant search.

How much you spend on your campaigns is entirely up to you, and you can set your budget to be as much or as little as you like. Obviously, a seller who has a huge budget will experience different results to a seller that has a much smaller amount to spend, but it can still be a fruitful way to generate leads.

Product type is a huge cost indicator, too.

For example, if you’re selling something like a t-shirt or a television, you’ll experience a much higher rate of competition than if you were selling something a little more obscure. The general rule is that the more listings there are competing for attention, the higher the price will be to advertise similar items.

Amazon Advertising Costs: The Average

Despite there being many different factors that go into determining how much your Amazon ads will cost, there are some guidelines you can go by.

Research has been carried out to identify the average costs of ad campaigns on Amazon, as well as the average cost per click and the average daily ad spend.

Here are some of the most important findings:

The Average Cost Per Click (CPC) is $0.97

The average cost for a click across the board is almost $1. CPC refers to how much it costs when a customer actually clicks your ad, not when a customer simply sees your ad in their feed and scrolls past it.

Amazon CPC is an auction-based process, which means the price that you end up paying is always just a cent higher than the next bidder. If your bid can beat $0.97 per click, there’s a high chance you’ll see good results.

Again, this cost will also be determined by the product you’re selling and its competition. Some products might see an average CPC that’s much lower than this, while others might be much higher.

The Average Daily Ad Spend is $381.48

This is the average for high volume Amazon sellers who advertise on a daily basis. If this seems high, don’t panic – you can always set your budget to a much lower amount and measure your results from that.

Your daily spend is completely determined by you and it can be measured in a number of different ways, including by base keyword cost or by ad groups.

The Average Number of Daily Conversions is 35

Amazon sellers that run daily ads see an average of 35 conversions a day. That’s a pretty decent number, although we can safely assume that this is based on the average daily ad spend listed above. If your daily ad spend is lower, you’ll likely experience fewer conversions and if your ad spend is higher, you’ll probably enjoy a lot more.

Amazon Advertising Costs Aren’t Set in Stone

There is no one-size-fits-all rule for Amazon advertising costs. Here, we’ve simply listed the averages that research has shown, but this can vary dramatically depending on the categories you’re selling in and the keywords you’re targeting.

The amount of competition you have and the budget you can set aside for ads has a huge impact on how much money you’ll spend and the results you’ll reap. If you want to compete with big-name brands for highly-competitive keywords, the cost is going to reflect that. It’ll essentially lead to a bidding war between brands, which will eventually drive up the average CPC.

If you have a limited budget, it can be a wise idea to lower your CPC and target less competitive keywords. For example, if you just have $500 to spend on a campaign, you can set your bid to $1 instead of $5. This means you’ll get 500 clicks at $1 per click or 100 clicks with $5.

It really depends on the goal of your campaign, too. If you simply want to boost brand visibility, going for the higher amount of clicks can work well. However, if you want to get more sales, you’ll need to target keywords that are further through the sales cycle which are often more expensive.

Our team at Urtasker are experts at running and optimizing successful Amazon advertising campaigns. Our thoughtfully designed Amazon PPC services help individual sellers reach the right people and sell more products without spending over the odds. To find out more about how we can help, book a free 30-minute chat with us at a time that suits you.

Urtasker has long been known as a trusted, valuable, full-service marketing agency. Offering a keen eye on revenue growth in many marketplaces, including Amazon and Walmart online, businesses gravitate to Urtasker as a trusted partner in their expansion and sustainability efforts. However, COVID-19 has changed the landscape for many businesses and now more than ever having the strength of a professional, seasoned, and global marketing team is proving critical to the survival of small and medium business alike.

Urtasker believes that uniting to survive this pandemic in a concerted effort will take time, dedication, as well as, generosity. We are all in this together and together we will not only survive, but rather, thrive.

Beyond the Words, there is Action

Urtasker has made the commitment to offer free brand analysis to any business that desires actionable recommendations on how they can grow and build in this unique economic landscape.

Omer Riaz, CEO of Urtasker said, “It has always been our mission to support businesses and ensure they have guidance and experience to lead them to success. There has never been a more critical time to set aside any hurdles which stand in the way of supporting businesses. Offering a free consultation allows us to give actionable guidance to business owners that they can implement immediately to make an impact.”

This noble cause has piqued the interest of media and dawned the wire of notable and credible sources, spanning from MarketWatch to Digital Journal, Yahoo Finance, and more.

We invite you to explore the press links below and help us to propagate our cause and free brand analysis. There is no obligation, just a sincere desire to help businesses succeed.

	Economy Watch View Press Release		Digital Journal View Press Release
	Yahoo! View Press Release		MarketWatch View Press Release
	PR Newswire View Press Release		NCN: Southeast – News Channel Nebraska [Beatrice, NE] View Press Release
	Benzinga View Press Release		Oldies 97.7 View Press Release
	996.9-FM The Bull [Lubbock, TX] View Press Release		100.7 The Score View Press Release
	Suncoast News Network [Sarasota, FL] View Press Release		DoubleT View Press Release

Recently, Urtasker has been featured on numerous major media outlets talking about our specialized digital marketing services. We’re dedicated to providing a broad range of services to small businesses on Amazon and other eCommerce marketplaces and are delighted to have had our brand covered by some big-name publications including New York City Post, FOX News, WRCB NBC Affiliate and more.

We know that the current challenges the world is facing have left small businesses lost and in desperate need of efficient solutions, which is why we are doing more than ever to pick up the slack for business owners.

Considering this, we wanted to share these services far and wide to give small businesses the hope they need to continue growing and expanding during these difficult times and beyond.

Unlike most agencies who only offer services to cover a small part of a client’s business, we specifically tailor solutions to each individual need. Our experienced team of assurance managers, copywriters, digital marketers, PPC managers, and graphic designers are well positioned to provide solutions to every need a small business might have.

Our goal is to free up time for small businesses so they can focus their efforts on growth and profit generation.

Read our press release here.

The press release was eagerly picked up by a large selection of major outlets. Over 100 publications have already shared our story and services with their audience, with many more features in the works. It’s already generated 137 search results on Google and we expect this to continue to increase as more outlets get their hands on the press release.

Here is a selection of publications that have featured Urtasker and our dedicated services so far:

1. New York City Post
2. Double T 973
3. 93.7 The Eagle
4. Fox34.com
5. Kake
6. 2 News
7. Lubbock
8. Magic 106.5
9. My Lubbock TV
10.  Oldies 97.7
11.  RFD TV
12.  96.9 The Bull
13.  Telemundo Lubbock
14.  WBOC
15.  WENY News
16.  WFMJ
17.  Fox 40
18.  WRCBtv
19.  107.7 Yes
20.  100.7 The Score
21.  SNN News
22.  Dateline Carolina
23.  Erie News Now
24.  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
25.  News Ok
26.  Daily Herald
27.  The Buffalo News
28.  Minyan Ville Finance
29.   Ask.com
30.  My Mother Lode
31.  Starkville Daily News
32.   Big Spring Herald
33.  The Punxsutawney Spirit
34.  Wapakoneta Daily News
35.  Th e Saline Courier
36.  SM Daily Express
37.  Mammoth Times
38.  Decatur Daily
39.  The Inyo Register
40.  The Evening Leader
41.  The Kane Republican
42.  Observer News Online
43.  Malvern Daily Record
44.  Sweetwater Reporter
45.  Statesman Examiner
46.  The Post and Mail
47.  Business Times Online
48.  The Ridgway Record
49.  Guymon Daily Herald
50.  Poteau Daily News
51.  The Antlers American
52.  The Community Post
53.  Wedbush
54.  Fat Pitch Financials
55.  Value Investing News
56.  Phoenix Arizona Business News
57.  The Evening Leader
58.  Lethbridge Herald
59.  Deer Park Tribune
60.  Borger News Herald
61.  The Chronicle Journal
62.  Winslow, Evans, and Crocker
63.  Life Pulse Health

We continue to roll out our specialized digital marketing services to growth-minded small businesses around the world. This is just a taste of what we can offer – to find out more and start the conversation about how we can help you, contact us today.

Amazon reviews are a highly trusted source of feedback from other customers.

Not only do they provide social proof for your store, but they are one of the key factors taken into account in Amazon’s search listings. The more positive reviews you have, the higher your product is positioned.

Did you know that small businesses account for 99.9% of all United States businesses? It’s true. The vast majority of markets are made up of the little guys. Mom and pop shops, artisans, and teams of close-knit startups are all essential, contributing drivers of the economy.

Every day, hundreds of thousands of customers visit Amazon and place millions of orders. Some are loyal to specific brands and are looking only for those brands when they open their browsers. Many others, however, know what type of product reviews they want but don’t have a strong preference towards any particular brand.

Thanks to Amazon’s A-to-z Guarantee, customers know that they can safely try out products from brands that they aren’t familiar with because their purchases are protected by Amazon. If anything goes wrong with the shipping process or the product, or even if they simply aren’t satisfied, customers have 30 days to return their item for a full refund. With this in mind, there isn’t much risk for them to try a new brand.

So how do you entice a customer to choose your brand and product over the rest? There are of course plenty of factors that can help to convert a potential customer into a buyer including keyword optimization, a clear title, and a competitive price. But one of the most important factors of all is product reviews.

When presented with a handful of similar options, a product’s rating will often be the deciding factor for many consumers. Product ratings with a higher number of product reviews are considered to be more legitimate and easier to trust than those with just a few. For this reason, Amazon sellers are always looking for new ways to bolster their product reviews.

Many methods used to gain product reviews aren’t legal

Unfortunately, most of the methods that Amazon sellers have come up with in the past are not allowed within Amazon’s Terms of Service. Amazon has strict rules against generating product reviews that are either inauthentic or left in exchange for some kind of compensation.

For example, paying for product reviews or agreeing to exchange positive reviews with other sellers is strictly prohibited. These methods are obvious enough breaches of the rules as they are designed around boosting review counts with fake reviews. But did you know that it is also illegal to offer free products or discounts in exchange for positive reviews?

Anything that is explicitly designed to incentivize positive reviews is against Amazon’s rules. Even when you ask for a review using a legal method like an email campaign, you aren’t allowed to ask for a “positive review”; you can only ask for an honest review. With such serious rules in place, it is best to stick to legal methods of acquiring product reviews to avoid any account penalties or suspensions.

Email Campaigns are legal and effective

The vast majority of customers will not leave a product review; many don’t have the time and many don’t even think to. Unfortunately, there are a lot of consumers that only think to leave a review if they are dissatisfied. If they are happy with their order and it works as expected, they don’t think to say anything about it.

This is what makes email campaigns so effective. A gentle reminder that product reviews help both Amazon sellers and other Amazon customers is often enough to push a buyer in the right direction to leave a review. Sending these emails after every purchase is a great way to generate product reviews, but doing so manually would take up a ton of valuable time.

Fortunately, there is a better way. Services like FeedbackWhiz help Amazon sellers to fully automate the process. Unique email campaigns can be built for each product, and smart tags like [PRODUCT NAME] will populate with order-specific details so that they come out looking customized without having to be built one at a time. Once you have your campaigns set up, they will run like clockwork and work with every sale, leaving your time freed up to use on other matters.

Sending out the first email right away

Instead of jumping right into a call to action, one method to use when creating an automated email campaign is to send out an early email just to establish a rapport with your customer. This email can be scheduled to go out as soon as an order is processed or shipped on Amazon. For example, the first email might look something like this:

Asking for a product review when the time is right

Now that you’ve established a relationship in the first email, you can make a call to action in the second. Before sending out the second email, make sure that the customer has had enough time with their product to actually have the chance to formulate an opinion on it.

For example, a new toothbrush will be used daily right away, so a buyer will likely know within a week how they like the feel of it. On the other hand, you might want to wait two or three weeks before asking for a product review on a set of crafting beads as it may take a little while for the buyer to have time to work on a new project.

With FeedbackWhiz, you can schedule emails to go out in specific time intervals such as “two weeks after the item was received”. Each product in your catalog can be customized with unique email templates and automated schedules.

Here’s an example of the second email:

Of course, these templates are just examples. Depending on your brand and the products you sell, it might make more sense for your templates to include fun images and GIFs or detailed instructions on how your customers can use their new product. Regardless of how you set up your automated email campaign, consistently asking customers for product reviews will lead to more reviews coming in. And those extra reviews could be what separates you from your competitors.

Overview

Being an online business owner or e-commerce seller means one needs to give more detailed thought into how the business is going to be managed on a day to day basis. This will invariably depend on individual circumstances, resources, time constraints, overall objectives, preferences as well as service and production needs.

Marketing is a powerful business tool. The internet age has provided a whirlwind of opportunities for every hardworking dreamer that wants to fly without wings. The world of eCommerce and internet has proven to be a lucrative arena for those who want to benefit from the promises it beholds.

Regardless of the parameters, one thing is certain: online business owners crucially ‘need’ to plan and manage resources effectively, to ensure continued profits, growth and consistent success. And one of the most vital of these resources is the art of Marketing!

Another important question is do you think that you are doing great as an online marketer?

Here are 5 ways online businesses and e-commerce entrepreneurs can successfully market and grow their businesses while increasing profits:

Social Media Branding

Make sure your company’s vision and products are effectively communicated online via powerful branding.

Make the branding of your company, products, and services on social media visually appealing!

Human beings are creatures of visual stimulation. We thrive on it. And we act on it.

Think about ads on television about fast food; the way they trigger your visual senses with close-ups of juicy burgers on a bun, splash of ketchup and mayo, steamy golden fries and cool soothing soft drink! It’s all visual; making your mouth water!

Thus, make your visual branding inviting to look at – since if the ad didn’t invite and entice the eye, no one would read it!

Post daily across major platforms like Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and others for maximum audience engagement and brand positioning.

Knowing Your Audience

Knowledge is power! Being aware of the “market landscape” and knowing who your competitors are and what they are offering, is a powerful weapon!

Whether it’s running FB ads, sending Emails to your list, writing Landing or Sales Pages or simply promoting a Blog post, the art of persuasive social media marketing and attention-grabbing content depends on understanding your audience!

Do your research on what are your audience’s pain points, their needs, wants, desires, struggles, preferences.

A successful e-commerce social media marketing strategy should understand people, have a strong insight into their needs and wants and be empathetic towards providing a solution to their problems.

In essence, great social media for e-commerce business and the associated marketing is simply a direct conversation between you and the consumer.

Remember, writing something doesn’t mean that you’ve “communicated” it.

For example: if you’re selling a mattress, then communicate the benefits of the mattress to the audience (relieving back pain, uninterrupted good night’s sleep, etc).

Customers don’t buy products, they buy the experience, the vision and the benefit THEY believe they can get out of them. And it’s your marketing efforts’ job to MAKE them believe of it!

Keep Track of Costs for SMM

SMM (Social Media Marketing) is your backbone for global audience engagement, lead generation, brand recognition, product visibility and other integral factors that determine your success as an eCommerce business.

So, keeping track of your SMM costs is crucial. You don’t want your costs to negatively impact your SMM.

To make your SMM tactics and campaigns more effective, you need to:

• Layout a clear plan for your goals and objectives with all your social media presence
• Dedicate a strong team to manage your social media channels and platforms
• Assign a realistic cost range to each social media outlet for advertising and promotions
• Use measuring tools to keep an eye out on progress and social media effectiveness
• Utilize Google Analytics and other resources to keep you in the right direction

How to Create Catchy Social Media Posts

As human beings, we are creatures of emotion. Love, hate, jealousy, fear, pity – all are forms of emotion that make us beings of empathy and intellect. We use that intellect to make decisions via ‘Free Will’. Human behavior can be controlled if the free will can be controlled.

How do you control free-will? Through the power of sheer persuasion! And words have the ability to fuel persuasion via creating beliefs, images, stories, and narratives that captivate the heart and consume the mind.

So for your social media marketing, if you’re writing to persuade, you have to hit the gut before you get anywhere near the brain. The part that decides “I want that” is emotional and often subconscious. If your premise doesn’t work emotionally, logic will never get a chance to weigh in.

If you flip that emotional switch, the sale (or other action) is yours to lose. Because our logical minds do eventually step in (usually in a way that makes us think we’re driven by logic in the first place). If your premise is not credible (as in it’s too good to be true), you fail.

Create catchy posts by:

• Using powerful and interesting images, captions, headlines
• Use audience psychology and pain points address their concerns and problems
• Offer solutions and features/benefits, by differentiating yourself from competitors
• Use easy to read the language, no technical jargon or complicated words

Use Paid Promotions

Paid promotions are powerful for generating warm traffic that is already looking for what you’re offering online. Platforms like Google, Bing, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and AdWords are critical when it comes to harnessing successful results from paid promotions.

Paid promotions give you:

• Large audience outreach, connecting you to millions of people
• Brand positioning by enhancing the visibility of your product to the masses
• Opportunity to build credibility and trust
• Earn higher profits through solid lead generation and sales

If you don’t have paid promotions already in your Social Media Marketing strategy for E-commerce, you need to do so as soon as possible. It will be game-changing and will pay dividends down the road.

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