The Carthook Show: Recent Episodes

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Today I have Aaron Zakowski with me, a facebook marketing expert who runs Zammo Digital Marketing. Today we’re going to talk about Facebook ads, what’s going on in the marketplace now, what’s new, and how to take advantage of Facebook advertising and retargeting.

Facebook ads have grown exponentially in the last few years. The opportunities with retargeting and the advanced new facebook pixel that’s been rolled out are tremendous. There are ways to build relationships with visitor and customers with lookalike audiences, and more.

On today’s podcast we’ll cover:

• The new Facebook Pixel, what the updates are and how they can help your business
• Different types of audiences on Facebook that you can prospect and how to identify the right audiences for your business, “Lookalike Audiences” and “Custom Audiences”
• Aaron’s “Evergreen Sequence to Retargeting Funnel” retargeting strategies
• Creating, testing and using an ad mix

We hope you found this podcast informative. To learn more about Facebook ads, check out Aaron’s website at http://aaronzakowski.com. To contact Aaron, you can email him at aaron@aaronzakowski.com or send him a message on Twitter to @aaronzakowski.

You can find this episode and all the others at Carthook.com/podcast.

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Jordan’s guest today is Thomas Smale, co-founder of FE International. FE International is a brokerage firm that specializes in online business sales. Thomas will share his experience in ecommerce and walk the listener through the general process of buying or selling an e-business.

Thomas says the most popular deal his clients are looking for are FBA (Fulfillment By Amazon) model. FE International has handled 360 deals since starting in 2010. Building a business should be approached as if a franchise will be built from the brand. This way when it sells there is no access training or further attachments for the seller. Documentation should exist for everything. Then hire out for the menial administrative tasks. Finally make sure the business produces a consistent product or service. Thomas advises sellers and buyers to use brokers.

He notes the following steps to his process:

• Look at the site’s traffic and audience.
• Consider the financial possibilities and look at the past financial history.
• Research the buyer’s background.
• Review the operations of the business.
• Encourage due diligence.

To learn more about Thomas Smale and FE International visit feinternational.com. You can also check them out on Facebook. If you want to contact Thomas directly send an email to thomas@feinternational.com.

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Today’s episode is an email love fest. I mean, writing email is how most of us spend our days, right? So I brought Kate Barret on the show. She’s the email marketing guru who founded Shine a Light Media. Shine a Light is an email marketing consultant firm that helps retailers develop, design, and improve their online marketing campaigns by getting the most out of email.

If your clients are already signed up for your emails, then you already know they’re interested in your services or your product. But what’s the next step? How you can you optimize the clients you already have? Comprehensive objectives, fresh campaigns, and uniquely segmented email lists are all part of Kate’s amazing marketing plan. She’s helped big business like Nissan and Marks & Spencer revitalized their campaign, and she’s on air today to give you the same tips she gave them.

TOPICS DISCUSSED

• Using email marketing the right way for your business
• Adding exciting new campaigns to your marketing strategies
• How to analyze your business and design specific, successful marketing objectives
• Katie’s unique technique for segmenting your email campaigns
• Writing tips for the content of your emails

RESOURCES

Katie is everywhere! Find her online on her website www.shinealightmedia.com where you can get free email marketing mini sessions and planning kits.

Keep up with the latest and follow her on twitter @katebarret

As always, you can find this podcast and all of our other episodes at www.carthook.com/podcast. And don’t forget to leave us a review on iTunes!

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If you’ve been listening to this podcast, then you already know I’m a huge fan of paid advertising. It’s my go-to, I recommend it to everyone, and I like to bring on guests who can keep me and my listeners up-to-date when it comes to developing new and engaging advertising strategies. Especially now that we’re approaching 2016, learning the most you can about digital marketing and social advertising will only help your business grow.

Victor Ramirez, owner of An Abstract Agency in NYC is my guest today. His agency specializes in social advertising and paid promotions, and he’s discussing how you can take a more holistic, user-generated approach to your online marketing plan. He’s here to tell us what’s working right now, today, for online retailers on Facebook and Twitter and how they can use this user generated content in their own marketing campaigns.

TOPICS

• What online retailers need to focus on when it comes to advertising in 2015-2016
• Using forums and social media to build your marketing strategy
• Using tools like Mention to build your online presence
• How to bring experience and storytelling to your advertisements
• How to get and use User Generated Content (UGC) in your next marketing campaign

RESOURCES

Follow Victor on Twitter @anabstractny

Visit anabstractagency.com to stay up with the latest from Victor, including marketing classes and networking events. Victor will be hosting a live-stream event to teach online retailers how to use Google Local this Thursday! http://anabstractagency.com/get-ready-for-holiday-google-local/

And remember you can find this episode and all previous episodes of the Cart Hook Show at carthook.com/podcast.

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We all collectively agree that online reviews are important, right? But how many of you have integrated automated review processes into your e-commerce business? Automated reviews not only make it easier for your customers and clients to give you feedback, it’s also key to bringing people back to your site. My guest today – Geordie Wardman – is calling all the way from Switzerland to talk about repeat customers, building your lifetime value, and how reviews can help rocket your e-commerce business to the next level.

As the chief conversion officer at his own business Wave Review, Geordie uses his software company to help online businesses like yours and mine manage our reputations online through reviews. He runs a few different businesses online, but what they all have in common is their reliance on automated review systems. Using reviews (like those you see or read on Amazon) can establish your brand, bring your product center stage, and help you generate a conversation between your business and your clients that will only work to establish your brand as a trustworthy and dependable business.

TOPICS

• How important integrations are when working with e-commerce platforms
• Our personal methodology for checking reviews and reputations online
• How to get more reviews on your site and for your products
• Geordie’s personal theme-based selling technique
• The product page optimization techniques we both use to increase sales
• Perks of private label selling vs. selling for other vendors

RESOURCES

Check out the Russell Brunson video Geordie and I talked about on today’s episode here https://www.youtube.com/user/RussellBrunson

Visit Geordie’s site at geordiewardman.com for access to his free video seminar: The Mindset of Pre-Selling Your Product, and checkout the WaveReview blog for more insight and tips for selling online.

Geordie has his own podcast too! Tune into stay up with the latest from his team.

If you have any questions after this podcast or want to get in touch for more information, email Geordie at geordie@gemm.tv or connect with him on Facebook at Facebook.com/Geordie.wardman

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I know a lot of us are stuck in our business. No matter what we specialize in – from online retailers to personal trainers – we’ve all reached that spot we just can’t seem to get a leg over. If you’re working to move up, then it’s time to revolutionize your marketing funnels. My guest today changes the rules. Instead of focusing on your products, we talking about what I like to call ‘Customer-Centric Marketing’.

Harneet Bhalla is a digital marketing genius who uses his insightful eye for business to help out entrepreneurs like us scale and grow our online businesses. In today’s interview he shares his personal advice on revamping your marketing campaign to focus on the experiences that really matter – the experiences your customers are having. And building on these experiences will not only grow your sales, it will also establish your brand as one of the most trustworthy and relatable brands on the market today.

TOPICS DISCUSSED

• How to create marketing campaigns organically and save money
• Establishing new marketing funnels with different techniques
• How to scale and grow your business with customer-centric marketing
• Becoming more than a business owner by using your own products

Harneet shares tons of useful insights on customer centric marketing at harneetbahlla.com – where you can contact him with questions, reviews, or even hire him as your consultant.

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Heard anything about sales funneling lately? We’ve seen the technique work for online info-marketers and e-commerce focused on items like e-books and manuals, but the question now is how we can translate the philosophy of a sales funnel into something the retail world can use. I’ve done a little research over the past couple of weeks trying to figure out a way I can engineer this stuff into my own business, and I reached out to a few funnel gurus for a little help. Richard Patey is just one entrepreneur who’s found a way to make it work for him. He shares a lot of his insight on his website www.funnelengine.com, but he goes into some pretty cutting-edge strategies with me on today’s podcast.

Richard created his consultant firm Funnel Engine to help other retail and e-commerce business owners cash in on sales funnels. He specializes in e-commerce and Shopify stores in particular, so his advice today is especially focused on those of us who are struggling to raise conversion rates. We all want everyone to stay on our sites as long as possible, but that takes more than just a sleek and modern buy page. You have to prove yourself as a reliable source of not only product but also of information. You can capture more emails and build a strong client base by creating something more interesting for your customers to engage in. Opt-in forms are all good and well, but informative blogs, helpful newsletters, and regular emails that focus on lessons, webinars, checklists, and the like are more likely to capture a customer’s attention. “You can kind of consider the marketing funnel as a sales funnel,” Richard says, “because you can actually see the revenue.” As each customer offers up their email to receive more useful webinars, the more likely they are to visit your site, engage with content, and purchase supplemental product in order to enrich their experience.

Listen to the newest podcast to find more insider funneling techniques as Richard shares the different marketing plans he designed and how each affected his bottom line, for the better AND the worse! He’s done all of the beta testing on his own techniques, meaning you are guaranteed to learn the most successful techniques, including:

• How to apply the marketing techniques of info-marketers to your retail business
• Investing in long-term marketing plans that produce long-term sales relationships
• Tips for capturing as many emails as you can
• How to build your website around successful funneling techniques
• Insider marketing strategies for 2016 e-commerce business trends

If you’re new to sales funneling, both Richard and I recommend the free webinar over at www.clickfunnels.com. It’s a truly eye-opening look at how you can use sales funnels to better your e-commerce business’ bottom line. Richard is also available for questions at richard@funnelengine.com.

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“Branding” isn’t just for livestock. And in today’s business world, many small entrepreneurs mistakenly think that branding is only a worry for the bigger companies. Nothing could be farther from the truth. With online shopping quickly becoming the only way people purchase their goods, every business owner (even the smallest ones!) needs to know how to create their brand in such a way that it sticks fast in their customers’ minds. But how do you do that? Where do you even start? Before you get overwhelmed about branding your business, I brought in an expert.

Vicky Nichols stayed up very late tonight – she’s all the way in Hong Kong! – in order to be on today’s podcast. She’s been a brand expert for the fashion industry for over a decade with her own website and business www.createafashionbrand.com/. When I asked her to break down branding for the small e-commerce business owner, she said, “Marketing is how you get your brand out there, but the brand itself, the identity that you have, the value that you have, that’s what’s going to sell your product.” And it’s your brand that people focus on. In the wide, wide world of the internet, it will be your brand that makes you stand out among the competition.

Building your brand successfully will take a lot of trial and error. Catering to your customer profile, targeting and re-targeting your clients, and learning how to apply the criticism and comments you receive from your customers are all key ways you can create a recognizable brand. Vicky goes over a few techniques of her own, and her tips include:

• What branding tricks to look out for in 2016
• Listening to feedback from loyal customers
• How to create the image of your ideal customer with customer profile research
• How customer service and customer relationships all fit into your brand

If you still feel overwhelmed by all the different ins-and-outs of branding, check out Vicky’s free Branding Guidebook on her websites www.createafashionbrand.com.

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On today’s podcast, our actionable insights come from John McIntyre, the email marketing expert and genius behind ReEngager.com. John created his website to help e-commerce and online businesses take advantage of one of the most lucrative media outlets today – email. “Almost everyone underestimates the power of email,” he says, and it’s true. Real money is made on the lifetime value of your clients, and email is the surefire way to reach out to them and stay in touch in order to build that lifetime relationship.

We all know email exists – we all use it too – but a lot of people don’t know how to use email marketing in the right way. Email is HUGE, and you can reach out to a lot of people all at once in a myriad of ways. John talks about the more valuable techniques you can use to establish relationships with your customers today without being overwhelmed by everything else. His main focus is building awareness and nurturing customers through email, and the tips he offers up on this podcast include:

• Strategies for helping customers through the ‘5 Stages of Customer Awareness’ until they are committed to your brand
• How to nurture and bring value to your customers so you can create that lifetime relationship
• His own 12 ways to successfully use email, including how-tos, promotions, and anecdotal blogs

ReEngager.com is up and running, so check it out if you need some extra help with your email campaign. Got a question? Email john directly at john@reengager.com or send him a tweet @reengager

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We all know how I think about software. I’m always saying that the more you focus on the software the less you focus on the customer, but my guest today brings some interesting points to the table that might change my mind – at least when it comes to re-targeting. Taking advantage of software like Perfect Audience or Facebook Re-Targeting Software can really bring about some positive growth. Scott Nixon, web-developer turned entrepreneur, has had success with many different small e-commerce businesses over the years, including Happy Herbivore and Meal Mentors. On today’s podcast he talks about how he made a few simple re-targeting changes to the way he sells his product.

Re-targeting your customers goes beyond regular advertising. Posting ads across social media and your web page will work for a certain percentage of customers, but when you have the repeat lookers who never buy, you need to find a way to re-target your brand that better suits their needs. They aren’t going to click on your ad when they already know it isn’t want they’re looking for. So how do you catch their attention? When I asked Scott about his re-targeting plans, he said, “I learned so much about branding and so much about behavior… that conversions happening without the click are more important than the click.” So you need to find a way to re-target your products and remind your customers that you have exactly what they’re looking for.

Scott says the best thing you can do to re-target your sales is to get started right away! Start small, focus on a few key products, and then move forward in such a way that lets you set it and forget it. Because re-targeting doesn’t cost a lot of energy, nor will it blow your business out of the water, but when combined with your existing advertising and marketing plans, it can round out your sales percentages by bringing back all those customers that have trouble committing to a purchase. Listen in today to find out:

• How to find the best deals and techniques for re-targeting software
• How to integrate re-targeting with your existing marketing plan
• How to get your ads to follow customers across the web
• How to find what works for you so you can create the right re-targeting strategy

Scott offers up more points in his book Return, which is available for purchase at LINK or you can talk with him directly on Twitter @citedalgrad or online at www.citadelgrad.co

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We know everyone uses Facebook, but how are you using it for your business? If you run an e-commerce business, you know the role social media plays in building your brand and your bottom line. And whether you use Facebook, Twitter, or any of the other unique – and extremely lucrative – social outlets available, you have to have a strategy in place in order to be successful. On today’s show, Mojca Mars tells us how you can navigate the realm of social media and find the right outlets for you. Mojca is a social media consultant who created and spearheads Super Spicy Media (www.superspicymedia.com), a consulting firm that works with clients all over the globe searching for ways to utilize social media correctly.

Using social media correctly is tricky. Your accounts can act as your web page, attracting customers and advertising sales, but there are so many different experiences on each of your social media accounts that it can be hard to find the right way to use it. “The wrong way to use it is just the promotion part. It is not just a promotional tool,” Mojca advises. Instead, she recommends using a combination of media links, including videos, outside articles, and interaction with your own followers to create a kind of brand awareness that makes your business look like a friend rather than a commercial.

Finding the right way to interact with your followers and build your sales will come with a lot of trial and error. Uncovering what works and what doesn’t will take research, but the strategies Mojca designs for business owners guarantee a longevity in the realm of social media. Listening in today, she will tell you:

• How to pick out the right social media outlets for you

• How to build your brand through social media

• How to measure social media success through awareness, engagement, and conversion tactics

• How to learn from other businesses’ approaches to media and apply it to your own

If you’re looking for a way to fit social media into your larger business plan, Mojca’s insight and strategies will be immensely helpful. Listen to her advice today, and reach out to her on her website at www.superspicymedia.com.

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Freelancers are instrumental to your success when it comes to business, but you can waste time, money, and other valuable resources trying to find the perfect freelancer for your project. How do you know where to look for freelancers? And how can you guarantee that they will not only be reliable, but that they’ll also give you the type of quality work you’re paying for? I have Robert Williams on the show today to answer those two very important questions. His website – www.LetsWorskshop.com – connects what he calls “highly-curated freelancers” with established and up-and-coming e-commerce business owners in order to create dream teams of business.

I can’t stress enough how integral freelancers are for hitting your business goals. You may have an idea for site design or marketing that the rest of your team can’t figure out how to implement. Maybe a design firm told you it was impossible. But when you hire a freelancer, you’re hiring an independent entity that thinks outside of the corporate box and brings in a unique skillset that can bring you fantastic changes in design, conversion, and sales that you may not have initially anticipated.

But even with these perks, Robert discusses how stressful finding a freelancer can be. It’s daunting to have an amazing idea and then let someone you’ve never met before do all the work on it. How can you trust them to fulfill your vision, or even complete the work at all? You want to make a return on your investment, and that’s why LetsWorkshop.com does the legwork for you. Robert designed his site to help e-commerce business owners like you and I:

• Find professional, qualified freelancers that are guaranteed through his site
• Expand your freelance pool in order to give your business the most options when it comes to web design, marketing, and social media management
• Avoid the spam and shady people that clog your inbox after you post a job
• Save money by removing posting fees and directly connecting you with freelancers through your own email service or Skype

Robert goes through all these useful tips with me today on my show, so listen in and find your own freelance team at www.letsworkshop.com/connect. Any questions? Tweet Robert directly @letsworkshop and open up that direct line of communication.

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Have you considered hiring a consulting and design firm lately? As a business owner, you can gain a lot of insight from a consulting firm. Most specifically, an outside perspective can improve your site and your sales by 2-3% per month. That’s what Nick of Draft is capable of, and on today’s podcast he talks about the radical improvements you can make to update your site and your sales.

Nick Disaboto is the founder of Draft Consulting Firm, a company that provides monthly A/B testing and on-going optimization for small businesses and their websites to increase traffic, returns, and sales. “I plan out a lot of different design changes for your site, regardless of what industry you’re in,” he says. In fact, on his website, he makes it very clear that he is here to work with the small teams and businesses in any field that can benefit from a quantitative assessment of their design. Too often consulting firms focus on the large enterprises and big businesses that pull in upwards of $500,000 a month, leaving out the little guy who could still benefit from A/B testing.

“People are taking a more reasonable perspective,” Nick says of design testing. He discusses how you can prepare for costs, invest properly, and learn to trust you intuition over the numbers. He compares it to taking a stab in the dark with a flashlight. “You can never know if any decision is going to make a difference,” he says. “I continued to be shocked at what fails miserably.” But learning to recognize patterns and see where clients respond positively is part of what he does with the on-going optimization and what we talk about on the show.

If you’re looking to find a balance between software management and customer service, and find new ways to drive your sales through web design and social media, take a listen to the podcast and check out Nick’s site at www.draft.nu.

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Today on the show my guest is X Wang, founder of Essence of Email. This show is all about getting your email marketing in order prior to the start of the holiday season.

The most important thing to do before we get started is to make sure your email list is in good order. This starts with cleaning out inactive subscribers. This may be a bit counterintuitive initially, but a clean list will allow for higher deliverability rates, and thus a higher overall conversion rate.

To reclaim those dormant subscribers, you can place them into a 3-4 email sequence that includes coupons, update to touch base, and then a notification that they will be removed from the list if not engaged.

Now that the list is primed for action, it’s time to put a written plan of action in place. This takes the emotion and guesswork out of the execution of your plan. The holiday times will be busy with fulfillment, social media marketing, and promotions, so now is the time to get a good plan in place.

Next up is to properly establish your analytics and metrics tracking. The details of where you track these metrics isn’t as important as doing it consistently. This can be done through your email marketing provider or Google Analytics, as long as it’s set up properly ahead of time.

Deliverability comes next. First you need to know if you have any issues. There are 3 main things to look at here:

• A service like ReturnPath or MailMonitorApp is the best way to do this. These do incur a minimal cost, but are well worth the investment to ensure that your emails are arriving in customers’ inboxes
• Use ‘dummy’ email addresses you own on different email providers (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.) and include those on upcoming campaigns. You will have to verify deliverability of these manually though
• Segment deliverability list by domain. Each provider will have different filtering rules, and can be optimized differently if you’re having low deliverability rates on one platform.

After ensuring that all of the sending of emails has been optimized, it’s time to ensure that the flow within your system is streamlined. How are new subscribers routed? Are content upgrades being delivered properly? What happens when customers make a purchase? Ensuring that these are all set up correctly will be key in ensuring highest possible customer satisfaction.

Autoresponders are they heart of any email marketing program. There are a few basics to keep in mind that will apply to almost all e-commerce store owners:

• Prospect Series - These are targeted for people who are not yet customers but just subscribed
• Welcome Email - to include incentive offer
• Social Proof Email - this could include social media or testimonial postings
• Product Feature Email - this could include reviews and highlighting specific products

• Incentive Reminder - give subscribers another chance to use the incentive you offered initially

• Post Purchase Series - These are aimed at getting existing customers to return to the store

• Welcome Email - Ask customers to take a quick survey, the results of which you can use for segmentation at a later date
• Brand Engagement - Building up social media presence, forwarding to a friend, or participating in a blog or forum are all great ways to build engagement
• Product Reviews - After delivery of the product, ask customers for a review. Special incentives can be used during reviews to differentiate from your competitors.

• Reorder/CrossSell/ReSell - Exposing customers to different products based on what they purchased initially

• Cart Abandonment Series - The highest ROI in your email campaigns

• There are typically 1-3 touchpoints: an hour, a day, and 3-5 days after a cart is abandoned.
• Only send an offer email once during this campaign series
• This is the first thing most e-commerce consultants will suggest, because it’s the quickest return that store owners will see

One last X recommends ahead of the holidays is to slowly ramp up the frequency with which you send emails. This increase in frequency has to be balanced between increasing sales with also maintaining lifetime value of subscribers, and minimizing unsubscribes.

Klavio is X’s preferred email provider for e-commerce store owners because it’s geared specifically towards store owners and has great integrations with shopping cart platforms.

To connect with X, head over to essenceofemail.com or email him directly at x@essenceofemail.com.

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Our guest today is Sid Bharath, he is a entrepreneur, marketing consultant, and writer. He is the marketing manager of the Lemonstand Blog. He also provides marketing consulting on a freelance basis and discusses Growth Hacking on his blog.

Ecommerce providers should care about content and customer relationship. You don’t have to spend a lot of money on advertising. It can be just as simple as creating a blog, or sharing on social media. Evergreen content (not marketing based) will continuously bring new traffic and visitors to your site and product. Jordan thinks that the best place to start with content creation is tp look at the frequently asked questions.

Sid adds that content doesn’t have to be about the product, but a need or emotion that connects to the product.

Whenever you need to stand out from the competition, you should ask yourself who else uses my product? Examples Sid gives for this point are $1 Shave Club and Harry’s, both are the same services and products, but marketed to different demographics.

The work put into a site and shopping experience will only increase your sales and find you an audience. A beautiful website set up on a budget will get just as much traffic as an expensive site set up.

Sid says to consider if there is an audience with smaller niche sites and purchase your online ads with them. Examples he gives are OKCupid! He says these can cheaper than the bigger platforms like Google Ads or Facebook. Figure out where the audience is and how to reach them where they are, not just blindly buying advertising.

Before Crowdfunding stores created products and launched them and hoped it found a customer base. Now companies can create a product idea and ask their existing audience if it is a desired product. Crowdfunding has changed the face of ecommerce and manufacturing. It has become a safety net to prove to a company and potential partners that a product can and will sale.

Sid’s final point of this interview has to do with the type of technology shoppers are using now and how a company needs to be aware of all the devices and access points their audience uses. Mobile commerce has become a common form of shopping. Many companies don’t put the time into a nice mobile site and lose a part of their audience. So invest in a multi-device sales strategy.

To reach Sid you can visit his personal site www.siddharthbharath.com or you can follow him on Twitter.

Thanks for joining us for today’s show, if you would like to give us a5 star review in iTunes that would be awesome!

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Today’s guest is Alex Harris of marketingoptimization.tv . A site offering ‘videocasts’ with topics about lead conversion, digital marketing and other related subjects. He started his career as a traditional designer in designing wall graffiti. Alex says he practically grew up with a spray paint can in his hand. In 2000, he started out as a website designer as his first job after graduation and it involved directing traffic to a website.

He left a successful job in 2011, as the creative director behind the eDiet.com website for 11 years and hasn’t looked back since then. He is now a successful entrepreneur and president of Alex Designs with 15 plus years of experience doing eCommerce, SAAS and Direct Marketing for several huge companies as a paid consultant. The man has many accomplishments including publishing a book called Small Business Big Money Online.

In this episode we’re going to talk about

• How to use Direct Marketing Direct Acquisition Tactics to make more money for your website designs because it now not hard to make a pretty website design but it's actually hard to convert.

What’s happening and what’s going on. Identify trends that are going to heat up for this year 2015.

Building a brand, why it's different now compared to how it was done a few years ago. Why it's a lot easier to sell online nowadays and to know what’s going on in a customer’s mind.

Why selling on Amazon is a great way to advertise an item you are selling. The importance of selling not just a product but also a great customer experience.

Using the Tripwire Analogy but on the internet.

If I were to create a brand that attracts buyers, I’d apply the methods mentioned in here and I am extending this invitation everyone because it works.

If you enjoyed the show today, I’d appreciate a review on iTunes. Thanks!

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Today we are talking with a good friend of the show Kurt Elster of Ether Cycle. He is the go-to-guy for Shopify and he has something to share with us, it is a 10 point success plan for online business. It comes from real life experience, and taken from a blog post he wrote about helping a store grow to $90k in 90 days.

Number 1: Setup a Theme

• Don’t go with free, pay a little money for it. A lot of times you can start with a simple Premium Theme, then modify it.
• When you go to customize a Shopify theme, spend the time and money on a good developer. Specifically Kurt recommends Out of the Sandbox and Pixel Unit.

Number 2: Optimize Your Site

• Continually work to make your site perform better. A/B testing, conversion rate analysis, and tracking user behavior are all best practices.
• When considering design aspects of a site, approach your site as a new customer. Think about what a first time visitor would want to see and do on your site.

Number 3: Invest in Professional Photos

• It not only builds SEO, but it also boosts trust in your brand. A good example of this is Lemonstand if you want to do this yourself, and do it like a pro.
• Using images and product descriptions from manufacturers’ websites means missing out on potential differentiation from your competitors.

Number 4: Use Automated Messages

• Start your email list building efforts early. This is one of the few universal truths in online business. Once you have begun building the list, start building a relationship with your customers through e-mail.
• Specifically for Shopify, Kurt recommends using the Kaviyo email marketing plugin.
• Make the message personalized and relevant to the content at hand. Take this chance to use the messages to show appreciation and to share more about your brand and your offerings.

Number 5: Use Targeted Ads Based on Previous Visits

• This can be done through Google and Facebook. Anticipate the next item or sale interest.
• AdRoll and Perfect Audience are great resources for doing this, along with the built in tools for Facebook ads.

Number 6: Use PPC

• Use Google Adwords to find the best customer base to target, but make an effort to be very focused and offer practical deals.
• Look-A-Like Audience is a great tool to create a profile similar to your existing customer base that can be great target for your PPC campaigns.
• As with most things, you get what you pay for, and it may be a good idea to hire an expert as soon as possible.

Number 7: Use Customer Development

• Ask your customers why they buy from you. This can be done easily by sending surveys and other follow up messages.
• A few great examples include: “Who would you recommend this product too?” and “What benefit did you get from this?” This helps you refine your target audience.

Number 8: Make Changes Based on Customer Development

• Make changes to your site, your business model, and your marketing campaigns based on actual customer behavior.

Number 9: Email Marketing to Existing Customers

• This is a great way to keep in touch with your customer on an ongoing basis.
• Do more, than sale discounts. If this is the only email you’re sending each month you’re missing a huge chance to continually build your brand and messaging to existing customers.
• At a minimum you should be emailing your customer list every 2 weeks, and not always about a sale or with a discount offer.

Number 10: Go buy a boat

• Scale your business, reinvest your profits, and grow!

For the original blog post that inspired this list click here. If you have any questions for Kurt visit websiterescues.com or connect on Twitter @kurtinc, or send an email to hello@ethercycle.com.

Thanks for joining us for today’s show, if you would like to give us a 5 star review in iTunes that would be awesome!

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Kai Davis of doubleyouraudience.com is an outreach consultant. He helps ecommerce stores, product creators and experts build an audience, increase traffic and increase sales. Kai helps owners manage their most valuable relationships so that they can focus on growing their business. Kai joins me today to discuss how his steps for outreach help ecommerce businesses thrive.

Kai explains that outreach involves building ongoing relationships with your target audience often through the use of bloggers and other initiatives that drive traffic to your site. Kai gives us a case study where he was able to triple the amount of traffic to a women's apparel company. The strategy he used involved outreach. He described in greater detail the steps involved in outreach that you can apply to your ecommerce store or product:

• How to find the bloggers who reach your audience
• Developing relationships with those bloggers so their content drives traffic to you
• How to use unique discount codes, raffles and contests through your targeted bloggers
• The extremely important role of building an email list
• How to manage an email list in more effective ways

Kai has a saying that SEO is dead, outreach is where you need to be focusing. He says there are no hidden secrets when it comes to SEO. Outreach is about building traffic and that will lead to links. .

Check out doubleyouraudience.com/l/cart-hook/ for a special offer Kai has put together just for CartHook listeners where you’ll get his content promotion checklist and a 60 minutes Q&A video about the outreach process. If you have any questions for Kai, drop it off for him at doubleyouraudience.com/ask . To receive Kai’s weekly newsletter head here, doubleyouraudience.com/newsletter. It’s packed full of tips and tricks.

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The use of mobile devices is growing at an incredible rate and that trend is something companies of all sizes need to be prepared to address. My guest today is Jonathan Stark, a mobile strategy consultant who helps consumer brands make the leap into the post-PC world that their customers are already living in.

Jonathan explains that a few years ago it was hard to convince people that they needed to move into mobile to better serve their customers. Recently big companies began to realize they better do something or they would be in trouble. Traffic coming in from mobile devices is greater than 50 percent. The desktop has plateaued and mobile is the new platform.

We talk about something called a mobile retrofit. It’s basically a band-aid that provides a drastically improved mobile experience by doing a few things. Jonathan explains what those things are that can make your site more mobile friendly now.

Jonathan talks about how to prepare for changes, which is a bit difficult because the changes are happening very quickly. He thinks it’s best to be as flexible as you can in all your decisions so you’re prepared for these fast changes. It’s projected that by 2020 there will be 4 billion smartphones in use globally. As mobile traffic is increasing at an amazing rate, he says you need to be prepared for that or you’ll be left behind. Jonathan says bigger companies often look at their peers to see what they’re doing, but it’s the upstarts that are going to dominate them.

Learn more about what Jonathan does and read addtional mobile strategy insights on his website, jonathanstark.com

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Taylor Pearson is my guest on this first episode of The CartHook Show. Taylor is an internet renaissance man who also happens to have a ton of ecommerce experience. He managed a ecommerce business in the hospitality market which saw over 500 percent growth in just 18 months.

Taylor and I talk about strategies and tactics to grow your ecommerce business. Taylor shares his biggest learning experience. We talk about understanding your target customer base. We also discuss using newsletters and email to tell the story of your product, rather than just always selling.

Two things that Taylor sees as important for the e-commerce business person right now are retargeting and autoresponders and we highlight what they will do for the ecommerce professional.

To find out more about Taylor, check out taylorpearson.me. Follow him on Twitter @TaylorPearsonMe. Taylor also has a book, The End of Jobs, which deals with his thoughts on how jobs are dying out and entrepreneurship is becoming more accessible than ever.

If you would leave a five star review for this podcast on iTunes, I sure would appreciate it.