Hello BHW My E commerce store needs help :(

I have been smoking an electronic cigarette for the last 4 years now and loved them so much I decided to help others get there hands on affordable electronic cigarettes. When I first started out I was making a ton of local sales to everyone I knew and even had a little affiliate program going locally to encourage others to spread the word. I have saturated my local market it seems and only a few of my buyers remained hardcore electronic cigarette users. I have them as clients now which is great and brings me monthly revenue.

I then decided to ramp it up a bit and start up a online store. I have run a community for years and never seemed to have trouble getting traffic. Now this e-commerce store is starting to frustrate me I am investing all I can into seo efforts but we all know that takes time. Since the site is newer it can take even longer to rank for some of my higher competition terms. I am working on it though. My monthly costs though are slowly draining my bank account and I need to start making more sales now!

I tried facebook ads but the cpc was so high it produced negative ROI. Which is never a good thing. My prices are very competitive on a national level so I really feel it is a simple problem of traffic = conversions. So how does one drive traffic without the organic rankings. I tried to run adwords ads but they do not allow electronic cigarettes.

One of my thoughts was to start up an online affiliate program and offer a percentage of all sales. Something like 15% I would be able to easily swing. The problem is then I run into the problem of finding affiliates.

I have facebook, twitter, and youtube videos up although I do not know much on this areas or how to utilize. Twitter really just seems really spammy and my followers dont seem very active and the ones that are just are trying to sell me services. I have 53 Facebook fans but they are mostly family and friends trying to help me expand my reach. I guess I can upload more youtube videos but getting views to them seem mighty difficult.

I have a supplier account on the major electronic cigarette forum. There rules are very strict on where I can post. I am trying to think up some cool contest just to get my product in peoples hands for free and hope they spread the word about how fast our shipping is.

What do you think my next move is? I dont want to just sit around and wait for my SEO work to kick in. My organic traffic is slowly rising but I know there are so many more things I can utilize. Where can I get cheap USA based traffic that may convert? Anyone have any affordable local marketing ideas? I just feel like I am banging my head against a brick wall at times.

Thoughts and Input please. Thanks

-Jimbo

Have you tried a PPC campaign on the content network? I'm not an expert on the e-cig market but I'd say go look at what your top competitors are doing. They've obviously experimented & figured out what works to drive sales. Then see what you can mimic to improve your own store.

Since you're an avid user of the product you're promoting, have you put up any video testimonials? This would be a great topic for you to create your own YouTube group around & then post up weekly videos - testimonials, reviews of different brands, talk about your own experiences, etc. You've got the passion there so these would flow really naturally & not take a ton of time. And I'm sure it's a topic you could get a really active group built up around.

Invite people who've made similar videos to join your group. Make sure you tag your videos w/relevant keywords. Place a link in your video as well that links back to your e-commerce store.

Set up an autoresponder if you haven't & capture emails of prospects as well as buyers. Send out periodic specials/deals to your buyers too.

Just a couple ideas...

GreatThing said:

Have you tried a PPC campaign on the content network? I'm not an expert on the e-cig market but I'd say go look at what your top competitors are doing. They've obviously experimented & figured out what works to drive sales. Then see what you can mimic to improve your own store.

Since you're an avid user of the product you're promoting, have you put up any video testimonials? This would be a great topic for you to create your own YouTube group around & then post up weekly videos - testimonials, reviews of different brands, talk about your own experiences, etc. You've got the passion there so these would flow really naturally & not take a ton of time. And I'm sure it's a topic you could get a really active group built up around.

Invite people who've made similar videos to join your group. Make sure you tag your videos w/relevant keywords. Place a link in your video as well that links back to your e-commerce store.

Set up an autoresponder if you haven't & capture emails of prospects as well as buyers. Send out periodic specials/deals to your buyers too.

Just a couple ideas...

Click to expand...

Thank you very much for your input. I was thinking I need to do more videos myself. I have mail chimp set up on my site and I capture emails when people order or when they sign up for my mailing list. Where else can I put this info to help capture more email leads? I have not tried the content network I figured since adwords wont approve my ads at all because of the product I am promoting that I was just SOL.

I will start making a lot more youtube videos and try to actively promote my brand on youtube. This will also give me content to give my facebook fans. Does anyone think its worth it to buy facebook fans to increase my reach. I figure my target market is smokers and about a third of adults smoke that if i purchased 1000 fans that may give me 300 interested prospects. Maybe could help me get more youtube views.

If anyone also has any experience with other ad networks that are not the major players ie google, msn I would love to hear from you.

Also if anyone has any ideas how how to find affiliates to promote my products that would be great too! Please keep the ideas flowing. I know I can make money in this market and I like the idea of e commerce and getting rid of the middle man and just taking a small cut for myself.