• Prepare Your Social Networks
• choose Your Social Networks Wisely
• Build A Following and Start Connecting
• Get Your Email Marketing Ready
• Lunch Your Landing Page
• Install Google Analytics
• Do Your Keyword Research
• Build Your Online Store
• Know Your Shipping Strategy
Prepare Your Social Networks:
As a general rule of thumb and regardless of your niche, you likely want to cover your bases with the Three largest social networks
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Even if you don't plan to use they heavily you should claim your name on both to manage your brand and prevent others from taking them.
In social media there's nothing worse than having different username on each network. Use a service like Namechk or know to search for consistent name availability across hundreds of social networks before chossing the name you want to go with.
Note: On Facebook you need to seed your page with 25 fans before you will be allowed you to change your page URL from a random string of characters to Facebook. Com/your brand. You can do this by either by inviting friends and family to your page or by using a service like Fiverr to purchase fans.
Choose Your Social Networks Wisely:
Beyond the staples of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter you likely want to join other key social networks. Some social networks will work better for your business than others. You will need to discover over time what works best for your brand.
If you hsve a very visual array of products or a brand that celebrates a certain lifestyle, visual and photo-centric networks like Instagram and Pinterest might be great options for you. If you plan to produce video content, you'll want to make sure you claim your name on YouTube.
Remember through, social networks require time and commitment to cultivate so only choose networks you can and plan to properly manage.
Set Up Your Profile and Cover Photos:
Next you want to set your profile and cover photos, as well as seed the social networks with some posts so new fans and followers will have something to look at and won't feel like they're the first people to the party.
Build A Following and Start Connecting:
Now comes the most difficult and time-intensive part of preparing your social networks for launch, building a Following Truth be told your first few hundred fans will be the most difficult to obtain therefore you want to dedicate some time every day to building your Following and connecting with your fans and followers.
Get Your Email Marketing Ready:
Now that you have your social accounts lined up, you need to get what will be one of your most important communication channel ready. Email Marketing has been proven time and time again to be one of the most effective marketing channels providing consistently higher return on investment.
Choose Your Email Provider:
There are many options on the market for managing your email marketing however you'll want to choose the best one for your business. A great start point is to consider which ecommerce platform you will be using and to look at which email providers integrate with that platform.
Some of the email services providers are MailChimp, Constant, Contact, Get Responses, Aweber, etc.
Launch Your Landing Page:
Your next step is to build a landing page. A landing page is essential for a few reasons. It will be your brands temporary home until you launch with your full website. Your landing page will begin to showcase your brand and teases your pre launch audience as to what to come.
Install Google Analytics:
Analytics are important to set up from day one. Analytics will give you valuable insight into your visitors and customers. In a physical store, you see your customer and you can easily chat wuth them. However, online you're essentially blind without analytics.
There are four steps to fully put in place Google Analytics for your online store:
• Create Your Google Analytics Account
• Connecting Google Analytics to Your Store
• Activating ECommerce Tracking
• Setting Up Funnels and Goals
Do Your Keyword Research:
Before you begin Setting up your new online store, it's important to do your keyword research. Keyword research is an important part of Search Engine optimization (SEO). The underlying value of choosing the right keywords is to help Google and other search engines understand what your ecommerce site is about and what products you sell. This in return increases your visibility by increasing the chance search engines will list your site in the search results when potential customers are looking for the products you sell.
Build Your Online Store:
Now that you've set up much of the essentials, you're finally ready to begin working on your actual store. This is a big task, so make sure you give yourself enough time. Now-a-days, to begin with you need not spend too much on development of an E-business or E-Commerce portal. If you want to own the site with the you can use open source like magento. All you need is a server space and development cost is comparatively small than developing it from scratch. If you are ok to operate the site on lease, you can use kartrocket, nationkart, storehippo, shopify, bigcommerce, 3dcart, etc. These Platforms charges you a nominal monthly fee based on the package you select and you are ready to rent an e-business platform. This is a good solution if you do not have a good budget for initial web development. You can read about them online in detail.
Decide On Your KPI's:
Before you launch, you'll want to define a few key performance indicators (KPI's) to monitor going forward. Defining the metrics that are important to you and your business early will help keep you on track and focused.
There are several key performance indicators that everyone should track for their ecommerce business listed below:
Sales Key Performance Indicators:
• Monthly Sales
• Average Order Size
• Average Margin
• Conversion Rate
• Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate
Marketing Key Performance Indicators:
• Site Traffic
• Unique Visitors vs Returning Visitors
• Time On Site
• Page Views Per Visit
• Traffic Sources and Referrals
• Newsletter Subscribers
• Social Media Followers or Fans
There are far more than the KPI's listed above.
Know Your Shipping Strategy:
Your Shipping Strategy is an integral part of your ecommerce business. Shipping profitable can be difficult and there's lots to learn, so you'll want to prepare carefully for it.
There are several important factors to consider including:
• Packaging Options and Materials
• Which Shipping Carriers to Use
• Shipping Time and Costs
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