Vin65 Blog

Keys to Success #3: Attracting Prospects

While its obvious that attracting prospects to your website is a key to success... how do you attract more customers?

A successful website will place a strong focus on search engine marketing. For organic search (free search) this means managing content, metatags, marketing urls as well as finding relevant outside sources to link into your site. 

Typically search engine marketing also involves some form of pay per click advertising, especially for new websites and business start-ups.

But don't think of search engines as the only way to attract prospects. Stormheok wine from South Africa sent out free wine samples to avid wine bloggers (and ran an extremely successful campaign this way). Being involved in forums, blog posts, social media (such as facebook), and other online communities are great ways to attract prospects.

Of course there are lots of offline marketing ideas to attract prospects to your website including traditional advertising, soliciting referrals, viral campaigns, etc.

May 25, 2008 at 1:07 PM

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Keys to Success #2: Content Management System

The second key to having a success website is having a content management system. Not just any content management system, and not just to manage content, but to manage your e-store, inventory, customers, prospects, and your entire website and e-business.

A content management system (CMS) needs to be intuitive. The website administrator should be able to easily create and edit pages, products, prices, create promos, coupons, send out mass mail, etc.

The goal of the CMS is to manage content without having to learn a complex database, architecture, or computer system. It should assist you in managing your website and e-business rather than dictate how to run it.

A modern system will have open API’s to integrate with your POS system, your shipping partner and/or fulfillment house, your merchant system, and possibly other integration points. (The CMS shouldn’t dictate which vendors to use, but rather allow for integration to be plugged in).

It should have a great reporting system for sales reports, user analytics, customer reports, etc. It should have modern tools such as the ability to create blogs, photo galleries, event calendars, user ratings, etc (or at least allow for these tools to be placed into content). It should allow for total control of your e-commerce and of your customers. It should allow you to easily gain access to your data and import and export customers, products, etc.  It should allow for plug-ins and customized features.

The bottom line is to have a successful website, you need a CMS that is empowering, not prohibiting.

May 20, 2008 at 10:18 PM

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Keys to Success #1: Intuitive & Attractive Design

People make first impressions in about 6 to 8 seconds. When a customer visits your website, what is their first impression? What do they immediately assume about the quality of your company?

A lot of pretty designed sites are still dysfunctional. Design goes beyond just the look… design encompasses both the overall image and the way that the look and feel guides users through your site. The design needs to engage your users and guide them through the different purposes of your site.

Whether it`s ordering a product, modifying your account, or subscribing to a mailing list, the design should enable your users to easily accomplish these tasks.

A website with an intuitive and attractive design will have simple and obvious steps for beginners without making intermediate or advanced users feeling to basic.

Your website design will make a difference in the success of your website. Users will either be turned on and engaged or they will be turned off and shop elsewhere.

May 14, 2008 at 9:01 PM

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What Makes A Successful Website?

We have been studying website performance for a long time and this is a topic I’m pretty passionate about. Why do some sites outperform other sites on the same platform?

Our parent company, K1 Technology Corp has been in business since 1999. We have numerous sites that sell 6 figures a month and sites with only a handful of orders a month. We’ve had sites escalate in sales very fast and also had sites with their order volume die. We have sites consistently sell 5 figures monthly sales numbers year in and year out.

So what is the formula for success on a website? Is it attractive design? Does search engine marketing matter? Is it features such as customer ratings and reviews, blogs, photo galleries, newsletters, etc? How about having the right copy and call to actions in the right place on the site?

The formula for success is probably a loaded question, and no one factor will determine your success (although a lot of single factors can bring you down). Over the next few weeks we will be blogging a lot more about the formula for success.

I know this is a brand new site, and there isn’t a great blog readership yet, but I would like to hear from you what you feel is the formula for success? And maybe not the formula, but what are the one or two factors that have or have not made your site successful?

Leave your comments below.

May 7, 2008 at 10:57 PM

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Welcome to Vin | 65

This is the obligatory first blog post. Rather than just a typical 'hello world' post, I want to take a look at 'why another e-commerce wine company' and 'who we are'.

Why Another E-commerce Wine Company

There are a lot of companies that focus on e-commerce in the wine industry. At least once a month we hear about another e-commerce company in the wine portal.  Each of the companies above has some core competitive advantages. Each of these e-commerce companies also have weaknesses.

At Vin | 65 we have an incredible content management system, a decent set of e-commerce features, some really nice contact relationship management features, as well as a great reporting suite.

We hope you take the time to read through the Platform section of our website, or better yet, call and request a free demo to see what we are all about.

Who We Are

Our parent company, K1 Technology Corp has been building websites since 1999. We have large e-commerce systems with multiple currencies, multiple price level, etc and we have a lot of much smaller content only sites.

In the wine industry, we have some large sites. We currently power the e-commerce system at Crush Pad. We also have numerous smaller wineries and wine retailers on our platform.

We are a smaller company. We are Canadian (based out of a town just outside Vancouver, Canada – which is directly north of Seattle). Most importantly, we are very passionate.

Have a question? Feel free to post below.

May 6, 2008 at 10:35 PM

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