Magic Markets
The experts use marketing mojo on our tech makeover winner.
Since winning interland and Entrepreneur's website
makeover contest, Deborah Nail of Pursesnickety!
has been up to her handbags in improved technology. In a break
between fashion and accessories trade shows, Nail had a moment to
discuss the new marketing initiatives implemented by Pursesnickety!
and website services company Interland.
Knowledge is power. That saying holds especially true when it
comes to a business website. To that end, Nail has been receiving
web trend reports from Interland on the traffic that comes to her
site. The reports tell her how many hits the site receives, when
users visit and how long users stay on the site. "We are
clearly getting more visitors and sales," says Nail, 41.
To drive traffic, Pursesnickety! has joined Interland's
search engine advertising service, which generates advertising
links on popular sites like Google. Nail's husband and
"chief financial pursenality," John, 51, had tried
putting together a pay-per-click plan, but the process was tedious
and time-consuming. The couple is happy to let Interland deal with
those details now. "Each month, we get an e-mail report with
the click-through rates and the traffic we've received. That
way, we can react quickly and get the greatest possible advantage
in our marketing effort," Nail says.
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Though there have been many wholesale visitors, Nail has come
across an interesting issue with them. "In our industry, our
customers are still a little behind in technology. What we need to
do is encourage them to start using our website to order," she
says.
As it is now, customers tend to use the website as a catalog and
then e-mail or phone in their orders. Nail plans to introduce some
incentives like free shipping to get the buyers to take advantage
of online ordering. If that push is successful, it will save
Pursesnickety! a lot of time.
With the trade shows driving traffic to the wholesale side of
the website, Nail is now starting to focus on the retail side of
the business. The pay-per-click advertising is designed to help
generate retail sales. An e-mail marketing campaign is also in the
works to help boost sales during the busy holiday season. When we
catch up with Nail next month, we'll find out what the results
have been so far.