Here's a great, though seemingly unusual idea how to promote your company's popularity and sales. Create a company mascot. You're probably thinking how utterly childish and unprofessional but just the opposite. A mascot will generate happy positive feelings in potential customers and it lends a bit of personality to your organization. This will do wonders for your selling techniques. Your mascot is there to promote your brand or products' sales and to develop awareness and positive feelings when people think about or see an advertisement for your company. Though the general rule is "Don't judge a book by its cover' when it comes to product packaging or website popularity, good and positive design is the main way to attract interest.

When you institute a smiling and friendly mascot it lends a cheer in the air. It allows browsers or customers, even those having a hard day, a bit of lightening up when they see the smiling character on your website or product package. Creating a mascot in bright colors causes your packaging to become an eye catching and attractive looking product which draws the eyes of the consumers towards your direction. Bright colors especially are well known to benefit product sales.

When you visualize the cereal aisle in your local supermarket,your thoughts automatically drift to include the many boxes on the stocked shelves. You envision the bright colors and smiling features of the characters prominently displayed on the assortment of brands available. Whether its the three "Snap, Crackle, and Pops" of Kellogg's Rice Krispies, the smiling monkey on the outside of the Coco Pops, or good ole Captain from Cap'n Crunch, characters definitely promote interest and sales. +

Not necessarily does your mascot need to be cute and cuddly to get you the sales you want. many customers look for the mascots with a bit of attitude. A mascot is there to attract attention, and keep your consumers interested in your product. So whatever will get people is optimal for mascot creation!

Who doesn't recognize the bulging eyes of the Geico frog. He eyes you from the billboards and TV commercials encouraging you to check more into his company's policies. Or the familiar face of MR Clean baring his muscles with that smirk on his face off the bottles of cleansers available. How about the Pringles can? The point is you want to create recognition among customers and brand loyalty which is easily achieved by establishing a familiar figure!

When creating a mascot particularly for the online market, you need something versatile, with the flexibility to be used throughout the entire branding campaign. Take for example, the Twitter bird. It is constantly being duplicated in various forms by Twitter's loyal fans and friends. Your mascot must be able to easily be added to the emails, websites and eventually product packaging for your company.

One last important tip is to create a mascot which is timeless. Do your research to find out which character won't go out of style or look too old fashioned a couple of years down the line. You want your mascot to be able to positively represent your company for many years. A mascot will probably need a bit of modernization here and there every couple of years, that's okay as long as the general image remains the same, to keep those loyal customers returning.

Twitter is a social networking site created in 2006 and has since become extremely popular worldwide. It enables quick communication between one and his 'followers' (subscribers) via text-based tweets. The way you build your network in Twitter is by following others, then engaging them in conversation. Due to its overwhelming popularity many businesses are creating accounts on Twitter to gain more followers and keep up with the latest. There are a variety of resources for business to take advantage of using Twitters applications.

As in all social media sites, you're only limited in your gain to the extent that you limit yourself. Think out of the box and broaden your horizons to fully use Twitter and all its benefits.

In the business world, branching out or networking with others in similar industries or locations is a great way to get ideas and spread your name. Many businesses find that using Twitter for networking is a quick and effective method. In addition, communication with customers and prospective consumers can be achieved in an efficient and friendly manner via posts and tweets. In a recent survey, over 80 percent felt that companies that use Twitter for customer service make a better impression with their consumers, a two-fold gain!

Twitter is a wonderful way to monitor customer feedback and to hear what others think of your products and services. It's a valuable way to pick up information about perfecting and enhancing products. In marketing it is important to listen to what is being said about your product/service because companies need to satisfy their customers in order to keep their businesses up. All this can be accomplished with minimal customer-employee interaction so you don't stand to lose out due to an employee's hard day or a customer's difficult spouse!

Twitter boasts applications useful for promoting company events, specials, and services. Its a great way to spread awareness and increase the traffic flow to your site. Another application is Twitter's own search engine which is helpful for monitoring your online reputation.

Twitter allows you to engage in conversation with your followers. It allows conversation to flow; it is not meant as a solicitation device. Talk with people, discuss your product, add your insights. Refrain from sales pitching, like check out my website/blog at www.mysite.com,etc. Rather post your site on your bio/profile so if someone is interested it is available, and if they're not it will be when they're ready!

Use your imagination to figure out how to best use Twitter's functions for your online business. Whether to spread your popularity, exposure to help your PPC campaign or just to strengthen customer realtionships. Explore and develop what is available to assist you in reaching out to a larger audience.

A surprising tip for ecommerce merchants looking to promote sales (who's not) is to create a blog. Some might perceive it strange to create a blog linked to an ecommerce store but it does have a couple of very beneficial advantages. When a customer browses through your store or completes a purchase, it shows he or she has an interest in the products you market. Creating a blog is then beneficial as other satisfied customers will transmit over their feelings and ideas on other products that you sell that they enjoyed. This may result in a larger number of visitors transforming into returning customers! A blog is also good for sharing tips, posting promotions, and new inventory alerts. Additionally with the rise in social media there is a high chance that someone may share a blog post on any of the numerous social media sites available. This will definitely get the traffic moving in your direction.

Interesting and attracting content such as video clips, surveys, and refreshing articles about interesting topics posted in your blog are a great way to generate click throughs that will encourage readers to visit your store out of curiosity and interest. Try adding in some exciting content and your readers will take care of the rest!

In order to create a strong relationship to keep your customers loyal you need to express yourself in a conversational and friendly tone in your posts. Try to send out the message that you are a people organization with views and interests like they are and not just a store to complete a purchase from and move on. Sound interested in their experiences and smooth out any any bumps in a pleasant and friendly manner. By following the conversations taking place on your blog you can gain insight into what your customers are looking for and what will encourage them to return.

Use the opportunity of all the social media sites available to check out what people on these sites feel about your company and product. Spend a couple of minutes a day searching for keywords related to your product and read the comments surrounding them. This can give you valuable insight on upcoming trends, keyword optimization, or even ways to improve your pay per click campaign. The social media news site, Digg, is a wonderful resource for finding out the above mentioned information.

With just a couple minutes investment each day or even week, you will be on your way to finding out what really makes your customers tick. You can create relationships and gain important insights about your customers and products in a exciting and interesting way!

After you have completed the web design on your site, it is important to do a quick recheck to ensure that your website gives off the effect you want. There are a couple of things to check over to make sure that your website is optimized to convert your browsers into customers.

Starting at the very top, check out your headline or title. Does it grab the attention of the reader, with something catchy or intriguing to encourage him to read on further? Are the font and design clearly displayed?

Take a look at your opening paragraph. People expect this to set the tone of the website. if they find it compelling, they're usually in. On the other hand, if its a boring, unexciting read then with a click they're gone. Imagine your opening paragraph as your face to face sales pitch. Does it project the image you're trying to bring across? Also, be sure that your advantages and benefits are stated explicitly and clearly. People don't want to have to decipher codes to see what is in the offer for them. by the time they would've figured it out they're pretty much gone.

Try to use enthusiastic and positive language. Your offer should use realistic and believable wording so readers wont doubt the authenticity of your site. No doubt you are targeting a wide variety of ages, nevertheless your readability level should be approximately for grade six or seven; clear and easy to read words.

The layout and structure of your page are important too. They should be easy on the eye, yet eye-catching too. Make use of white space, to break up the text and give ample space for the graphics. Try for plain backgrounds as opposed to bold and confusing ones. Imagine that you were a new visitor, would the page, at a glance, compel you to read on, or does it look too crowded to waste time with?

Give incentives for completed orders. Having conspicuously placed, "order now because..." tags offering special offers for orders placed now is a wonderful way to keep your visitors shopping and continue on to the checkout. The same applies to a website offering a service; place "call now" with a toll free number in noticeable places together with special promotions for orders completed at the present time or the same day.

Last but not least is to ensure that your visitor feels comfortable that this is a reputable and authentic site. Before placing orders and giving over private information people want to check out the authenticity of the site. Have your phone number, address and all policies clearly stated , giving no reason to doubt your site's credibility.

Most important is to constantly be on top of your website. Be on the lookout for ways to improve your site's design, to make it even more appealing for your prospective customers. Put yourself in their shoes, and imagine what you as a customer would want for your online shopping experience.

Many times a business looking to increase sales may send out a catalogue showing the products they carry. Its a wonderful tool for product browsing since its on hand and visible til it gets thrown out! In addition not many ecommerce businesses produce catalogues which makes it a unique attention grabber. Although this is a great engine for promoting sales many times they are limited in being able to provide customers interactivity. At times the space constraints or the coloring in the catalogue leaves much to be desired in describing the virtues of the product. Companies that carry a large variety of products sometimes cannot create a catalogue large enough to accommodate all they have to show.

It may be worthwhile though, to send out a catalogue to complement your website. Give the buyer a taste of what you have to offer and then direct them to log on to your website. Make sure to include your URL in obvious locations on each page of your catalogue to encourage people to check out your website. This is where a good web design can play an important role too. You need something that appeals to the customer's eye, something that makes it easily conducive to shop and complete a purchase.

A online store can be customized more than a standard catalogue to suit the needs of your website visitors. It helps to reduce customer hesitations by exploring the benefits of the products, enhancing the features, and detailed product descriptions. There is also the advantage of offering spontaneous promotions to urge a customer to complete his decision.

Many large online retailers surprisingly revert to good old print catalogues to deliver their targeted content, to get out their products and broaden their audience. They've discovered that despite or in spite of the latest technology many customers find the online shopping experience overwhelming and frustrating. Many customers prefer a more personalized and content relevant option.

Whichever method you currently use, it may be beneficial to look into producing a print catalogue, to attract even those customers who are not computer-savvy. A catalogue may even work just to pique people's interest and invite them to look into your business online a bit more. Its a wonderful way to spread the word about what you need to offer.

Have you ever tried to complete a purchase over the phone , only to be connected from department to department, repeating your request over and over again, getting sent from one annoying clerk to another? After hanging up the phone I'm sure the first thought flitting through your mind was 'I am NEVER doing business with that company again..' or something to that effect. The main benefit of online purchasing is minimizing human contact. A minimum of human contact means that prospective buyers can browse and find the products they are looking for without interaction with people. There is no loss of sales due to obnoxious sales clerks or scatterbrained and unhelpful sales personnel. Or due to lengthy hold time on the phone. In addition it saves your company from having to answer the same questions over and over again. A FAQ (frequently asked questions) section on the website takes care of many of the common issues that come up.

Because you don't have salespeople selling the product, you need to create attractive product descriptions to 'sell' the product in their stead.

You need to write something that will quickly capture the attention of the shopper, a compelling description that will warrant a second look by the web-surfer. Using key descriptive words that gives the reader a jolt, a' what did I just read, this sounds good' feeling. Words such as better, nice, pretty, good, etc probably won't provide much descriptive value. You need to be more specific. Describing a coat as 'A warm and comfy jacket' won't grab attention like 'A bear-hug feel with that sleek look you were looking for'. You need to speak to the customer, to try to create a positive mental image of the product. Describe the product's features in detail.

Generic descriptions probably won't impress the buyer. They won't help prospective buyers figure out the differences between your product and your competitor's product. It's very important to point out those features that make your product unique, that sets you apart from the competition. It might be a money back guarantee, personal support, etc. Whichever you choose, use it to help your prospective customers want to purchase from you.

" A picture is worth a thousand words" . Where it is applicable try to post pictures of the product you are marketing. People love viewing the items they are looking for and it helps to answer many obvious questions.

A tip to keep in mind is to try to place yourself in the buyers' shoes. Try to imagine the questions you would have, and the information you would want to know before purchasing a product. Include the answers to those questions in your product description to facilitate a smooth shopping experience for your customers.

When running a promotion or special on your home page make sure to include details about it on your product pages too. This way customers don't need to click back and forth between the home and product pages. Its also an additional advantage to have a promotion staring your customer in the face; a little pressure to complete his purchase on your site without looking elsewhere.

Once you get to know your audience and how to get their attention, create product descriptions that will speak to them. Try to include the most attractive information to direct the attention of even the most discerning shopper to your site and product.

Many times marketers invest considerable time and effort in SEO to increase their website traffic. Many of them are successful and have a lot of visitors to their websites. But many times that's where it stops. Frustrated retailers are wondering what is the cause of this problem, where browsers are not turning into buyers. The solution to this low conversion rate may be as simple as site usability. Is your website user-friendly? Is your website a bit too cluttered with information making it difficult for the viewer to effectively navigate through it to find what they want and purchase it? It is important to check that your internal search feature is working properly. Many times frustrated people will leave a site prematurely due to glitches in the search feature.

In the online world of retailing it is very important to focus on getting objective feedback from other users on a site's usability. No more is usability testing a costly endeavor that only the big companies can afford. There are many effective tools available that allow you to test out and make improvements to your site in an objective way without a major expense! I will attempt to explain a couple of these methods.

Five Second Test is a free service that helps you easily figure out what are the most attracting elements of your user interfaces. Five second test is used primarily to locate calls to action, optimize a landing page, and to split-test. It is based on the principle that most visitors to a site don't have a long attention span and will usually spend only up to five seconds viewing a specific item/article before shifting their attention to other parts of the page. Basically you upload an image to be viewed by random web users who will view it for just five seconds. Then they will indicate the areas of the image that caught their eye by clicking on the screen. Additionally they describe via text field what they noticed on the places they clicked. Based on their opinions you will get a better picture on what is the most striking aspect of your offer.

For the imaginative brainstormer out there: If you are preparing to launch a new concept and would like some professional feedback before you send it out try using Concept Feedback. It allows you to receive quick responses from a group of professionals by simply uploading a concept, advertisement, website, or even a logo using Concept Feedback. And if you want to make sure that the reviewer rating your idea is really in the know, each reviewer has a reputation score to ensure that you choose the best feedback.

If you want to find out what people do on your website, CrazyEgg is probably your best bet. For just $19 a month you can track up to 25,000 visits monthly (and $99 for up to 250,000) and see what people are clicking on and what they just fail to notice on your website. Just enter the URL of the page of interest that you want to track, customize how long you want the test to run for and CrazyEgg will provide one line of JavaScript to be applied to your site. You will see all kinds of heap maps and overlays helping you discover what people like the most about your site. Another freebie: Google Website Optimizer allows you to test out different variations of promotions, headlines,and designs on real visitors and find out which version is the most successful. In addition it is fully integrated with Goggle Analytics.

If you're looking for fast results UserTesting.com costs $29 and usually has results available in an hour. You receive a Flash video clip of a pre-screened visitor speaking his thoughts as he browses through your site. It also comes along with a written summary of what they enjoyed or disliked about your site and what would have caused them to leave altogether. 4Q by iPerception is a free survey that allows you to learn why someone is browsing your site and whether or not they are completing their tasks. It can also help you understand the reason for someone leaving without finishing up. It is compatible with any website and only requires a couple of lines of code. An additional advantage is that it allows you to create conversations and relationships with your visitors in a simple , clear way and can provide key information on the overall usability of your site.

Try them out and see which method works best for you. It is a sure-fire way to get to the root of the browser-not-turned-buyer problem.

Google is universally known to be the most popular search engine. Coming up just behind Google is known other than You-Tube, the video library. There are more searches done on You-Tube than on Yahoo! and even Bing to name a few. Many people when looking for a product will search on YouTube to see if perhaps there is a video demonstrating or promoting this product. Seeing the product in action is a wonderful way to view how the product actually works. Studies have shown that vendors marketing the same products, one with a promotional video, one with just a regular online advertisement, people were more likely to view and eventually purchase from the vendor with the video about his product.

When creating a marketing video there are a couple of things to keep in mind:

YouTube traffic is dependent upon focused keywords that surround the video, much like in regular search engine optimization. Search engines work by scouting around the Internet, following links to find new and updated websites, and saving copies of its results. The saved copies are then analyzed by sophisticated algorithms to properly categorize and rank the websites. These results will determine where a page will come up in the search results for the item or product it is marketing. Using relevant keywords when titling your video is as important as proper titling for a website because you want your video to be ranked and to come up when people search for the products you are marketing.

Placing your website name in the video is an important measure to keep the traffic flowing from viewers on YouTube to your actual website. Another interesting tip can be to actually have a call to action in the video itself ... "Don't forget to visit our website..."

Selecting an accurate video category is extremely important to guide potential customers to view your products. Try to be as specific as possible so that there is a better chance of your video ranking higher up in the search.

Last but definitely not least is to make your video enjoyable. Make sure it is not too long and drawn out so people don't lose interest halfway through and therefore connote your product as 'boring'. It should be something easy to understand and comprehend for all potential customers.

Remember to keep the basic SEO rules in mind, the same as for any other search engine, make it clear and understandable and you will be on your way to increasing your sales in this new venue.

Holiday shopping is in full swing and with the economy today people are more likely to think a long time before purchasing, compare prices, and weigh pros and cons, than in other years. It will be to your great benefit to decide on special promotions during these weeks to increase customer interest for your products and increase traffic to your site. It is also important to evaluate your keyword rankings to see if your website is listed in the top ten search results for your targeted keywords. A recent study has shown that people look mainly at the top 10 results on the first page with the amount of viewers drastically dropping by the second page.

Once we have prospective buyers trafficking our site, it is up to us to encourage browsers to become buyers. Many times, people will browse a website, select a couple of items, place them in their shopping cart and... leave them there for a couple of days! while they hem and haw, compare, etc. I'd like to propose a solution to remedy the problem.

We need to secure this prospective customer browsing our site and give him a reason to want to buy NOW. Try offering a special incentive to complete the purchase now. Offer a small discount, free gift, even a free shipping promotion. Every customer loves a good bargain and won't want to risk losing out on your special offer. Use creativity in your offer. Track the customer's browsing and offer a gift he'll be interested in. A real incentive to get them to close the deal! An additional idea to keep in mind may be to encourage people to sign up with their email address. This gives you the opportunity to follow up, and even to send out coupons and discounts with a one day expiration. It reminds the customer, hey i was interested n a product on that site and if i buy it now, i can save! Studies show that a follow up email a day later results in in an up to fifty percent reconversion rate.

Another important facet is creating trust. You need to communicate your online store's trustworthiness by showing clear guarantees and contact information. Make sure to display company phone numbers in prominent locations and to post clear and straight-forward return policies.

At this time of year it's imperative to grab the opportunity of high sales and strengthening customer loyalty that this season offers. Its a chance not to be missed and it's relatively easy to make the best you can out of it.