As an online retailer, you probably have your own recipe for marketing online. A little of this and a dash of that usually works well for you. Of course, if you don't stay up to date with the latest online marketing trends, your recipe may not be as good as your competitions'.

Over the past several months, Froogle, the e-commerce comparison-shopping tool from Google, has been gaining popularity. (for additional information, see our previous discussion of Froogle in the Nexus v. 3.09 at http://nexternal.com/nexus/ezine.asp?Newsletter=16) If you're not using Froogle in your marketing recipe, you should be. Over the past couple of weeks, Google has rolled out some exciting new changes with regards to Froogle – just in time for the holiday sales rush. As a result, Froogle is gaining significantly more traffic from the Google web site. This is big news. Last week, Froogle started appearing at the top of Google results for many consumer goods search terms and currently Google is linking to its Froogle site from its homepage.

As it currently stands, the cost of getting your products listed in Froogle couldn't be better. It’s free. So, if you want to reach the broadest possible audience with your marketing at a cost effective price, you’ll want to include your products in Froogle since their results are now showing up at the top of Google search results. Of course, we’re all aware that Google is the leading search engine on the Internet.

To simplify the task of listing your products with Froogle, consider using a software service that automates the process of creating a file that can easily be uploaded to Froogle as a data feed.

‘tis the season for holiday gift giving. As we all know, holiday shoppers are flocking to online stores in droves. If you sell your goods online, you’ll want to try to reach the broadest possible audience. One way to do that is by taking advantage of viral marketing by adding a tell-a-friend feature to your online store. This is a very simple and cost-effective way for your visitors to easily tell their friends or family members about your products and your site through a fancy pre-formatted e-mail. They just click a button to open the tell-a-friend window, add their friend's email address along with a quick message, and then off it goes. Before you know it, the viral marketing concept has begun to work its magic. As your seemingly passive shopper tells 2 friends, who each tell two more of their friends, who each tell two more, before you know it, you'll be bursting at the seams with new orders.

If you’re selling gift items, the tell-a-friend feature is a must have. For example, little Johnny might be looking at one of your products and then click on the tell-a-friend button to send it to his mother with the text, “Mom, this is what I want for Christmas!” Or in the case of couples buying gifts together, "Hey Honey, I am thinking of getting Grandpa this golf picture for Christmas. What do you think?" It’s that easy. It’s a simple but very effective sales tool to help you spread the word to promote your site and products. After all, the easier you make it for your customers to articulate their desires, the more likely those desires can become a reality – to your benefit.

As the holiday shopping season is now in full swing, stats from November 2003 online sales are now rolling in. Online shoppers have been very busy, buying online to the tune of $8.5 billion last month. That's 55% more than in November 2002. Also, Shop.org reported that more than half of online retailers saw sales increases of at least 25% over the weekend following Thanksgiving vs. the same weekend a year ago. With growth rates like these, it’s hard to imagine a better time to be selling online than now.

To subscribe to this ezine, please click the link below:
http://www.nexternal.com/nexus/subscribe

To read previous versions of this ezine, please click the link below:
http://www.nexternal.com/nexus

Copyright 2009 Nexternal Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be republished in whole, or in part, without the express written consent of the publisher.