Hello, I have just recently started up a new online business. http://universitystore.com . For the past 15 years I have dealt with the College Bookstore industry typically offline, but now I am trying to attract more than just resellers - and colleges. How would I go about effectively marketing my website? Where do I begin? Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
Go to college campuses and offer students freebies if they come into your store. College kids are ALWAYS looking for free stuff/ discounts(I speak from experience, being currently enrolled in college in the US).
Thanks, but we already sell to over 700 colleges in the United States. We are the people who supply your college bookstore with all of their goods lol. What we are trying to do now is take our market from being primarily focused on college kids and take it to the average consumer that is not in college.
A customized Adwords campaign might be the answer for you. Setting up landing pages that que the related search topic in this case the searched book.
Thanks. I know about advertising, was hoping that there could be some other alternative to what I am looking to do.
I see you have an affiliate program. You could invest in affiliate training tools and resources that guide your affiliates to campaign to average consumers.
That is a good suggestion. Do you think the affiliate program could really pay out for us in the end though? We cannot offer much more of a discount. As we offer 10% discount for the customer of the affiliate marketer - making it easier for them to sell. And then we also offer free shipping on orders over $100.00 And then we also pay the affiliate marketer between 5-10% depending on which level they are on. With our already low prices, your looking at a possible 20-30% cut in price inc. shipping. What can I do to make this more effective if anything? For example coupon code: RJH2009 would safe automatically 10%, we make very minimal profits off this site, we just want to keep the products moving in and out, but we would also like to make a bit more than we do. We do approx. 3-5 million U.S business/year for colleges and security.
You can still offer that 5-10% to affiliates just create a focus on the affiliates creating bulk sales in order to receive a higher return. Looks like creating sales packages that range from $40 to $90 that your affiliates can promote would be a good option. As you can increase affiliate output and not go over that $100 free shipping ceiling.
Maybe I am missing something here, but what products would the average consumer who is not in college want??? Have you thought about changing the name of your site? Would UniversityStore.com appeal to the ones not in college? For me, personally, my eyes would stop after reading the url. Sorry, but other than having affiliates, and getting word of mouth going, there is no alternative to advertising when it comes to getting the amount of traffic you want (and I'm going to assume that you want at least daily traffic in the four digits on a consistent basis without having to work your ass off allllllllll the time). So many think that there is. There isn't. As a marketer, I can give you a long list of free ways to get traffic. Some very few have heard of, but just about all of them are not worth much.
If you want to appeal to the general public and not just university students, you need a new name. why would you want to do this anyway? Why not just dominiate in the university area and be happy with that. If I were you, i'd start a secondary DBA name and separate the two company but use the buying power of your existing company to get leverage on your new company.
I too would assume that you service is NOT for me, based on that domain name. How well do you keep in touch with existing/previous customers? Might you be able to encourage them to use your new site, or to spread the word about it? As I'm sure you're aware, too, you can't be all things to all people - what NICHE can you target? Took a look at the site, see you sell just about everything (I would have assumed it's books and book-related) - it'll be tough for you to compete with OTHER sites who sell similar products, such as Amazon.com. But good luck!