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What is the most valuable skill a store owner can learn?

by Meta Morph
9 replies
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I've been trying to think of a new skill to learn that will really propel my online store to the next level but I'm having some trouble coming up with something solid and wanted to get the opinions of the people in this forum.

The question I pose is this:

"What is the most valuable skill that an online store owner can learn in terms of ROI"?

Meaning what is the skill that will pay off the most in long term monetary terms...

Would it be PPC, facebook marketing, SEO, web development, customer service, logistics, outsourcing, accounting?

What do you say? What is the single most valuable skill that you can learn in eCommerce?
#learn #owner #skill #store #valuable
  • Profile picture of the author ronrule
    #1 would be re-engaging past customers, and developing an ongoing remarketing strategy as you acquire new ones. This will be primarily by email, and you'll increase your revenue by an average of 30% with no marketing costs. That number can go up even higher if you can base what products are remarketed on aggregated buyer data, so you're showing customers products they're likely to buy at the individual level. It's also constant brand reinforcement, so even if they aren't ready to buy what your pitching they'll remember your name when they need something.

    Other than that, I'd say focus on paid traffic and don't worry about SEO. Paid traffic converts better, controls costs, and lets you focus on optimizing your site for conversions instead of worrying about "what Google likes".
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    Ron Rule
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    • Profile picture of the author Meta Morph
      Originally Posted by ronrule View Post

      #1 would be re-engaging past customers, and developing an ongoing remarketing strategy as you acquire new ones. This will be primarily by email, and you'll increase your revenue by an average of 30% with no marketing costs. That number can go up even higher if you can base what products are remarketed on aggregated buyer data, so you're showing customers products they're likely to buy at the individual level. It's also constant brand reinforcement, so even if they aren't ready to buy what your pitching they'll remember your name when they need something.

      Other than that, I'd say focus on paid traffic and don't worry about SEO. Paid traffic converts better, controls costs, and lets you focus on optimizing your site for conversions instead of worrying about "what Google likes".
      so it would be fair to say that you think building an email list and PPC are the most important skills?

      interesting...

      now are you outsourcing PPC or handling that yourself...I would never outsource SEO but PPC...that might be a bit different....
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      • Profile picture of the author ronrule
        Originally Posted by Meta Morph View Post

        so it would be fair to say that you think building an email list and PPC are the most important skills?

        interesting...

        now are you outsourcing PPC or handling that yourself...I would never outsource SEO but PPC...that might be a bit different....
        You already have an email list - your customers become it.

        Of course that doesn't mean you shouldn't still have a "subscribe" option, but you need to split test this on your site first. I've found in some cases asking for the email before the sale puts customers into "Wait" mode - they subscribe instead of making a purchase, hoping some "deal" will be sent to their inbox. On other sites it doesn't make a difference, so it's all about the quality of traffic you're getting. It's worth testing either way, if the conversion rate drops take it off and only market to customers.

        As for PPC, if you've never done it then yeah I would recommend having it managed by a reputable PPC marketing firm (Google has a list of AdWords Certified agencies you can browse on their site). There's some setup to it to doing this right, including setting up eCommerce goals and funnels in Google Analytics (so GA can determine which ones came from paid clicks). Someone who knows what they're doing with AdWords can rock a PPC campaign that returns 400-2000% ROI depending on the cost of the goods you sell. There's more to it than just setting up the account and bidding.

        The biggest advantage to PPC is that you can multivariate test your landing pages to improve conversions without worrying about SEO and rankings. The mistake most people make is they look at their site-wide conversion rate and say "My margins are too thin for PPC", without thinking about how much they could potentially improve that rate if they weren't worrying about things like keyword density and on-page optimization. Personally I prefer paid traffic over organic (for a lot of reasons - namely that my PPC campaigns convert as high as 15% vs 2% for organic), but if you must do SEO, your PPC campaigns can drop visitors on pages that exist outside of your site's primary navigation so you don't have to worry about ranking them.
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        Ron Rule
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        • Profile picture of the author Meta Morph
          Originally Posted by ronrule View Post

          You already have an email list - your customers become it.

          Of course that doesn't mean you shouldn't still have a "subscribe" option, but you need to split test this on your site first. I've found in some cases asking for the email before the sale puts customers into "Wait" mode - they subscribe instead of making a purchase, hoping some "deal" will be sent to their inbox. On other sites it doesn't make a difference, so it's all about the quality of traffic you're getting. It's worth testing either way, if the conversion rate drops take it off and only market to customers.

          As for PPC, if you've never done it then yeah I would recommend having it managed by a reputable PPC marketing firm (Google has a list of AdWords Certified agencies you can browse on their site). There's some setup to it to doing this right, including setting up eCommerce goals and funnels in Google Analytics (so GA can determine which ones came from paid clicks). Someone who knows what they're doing with AdWords can rock a PPC campaign that returns 400-2000% ROI depending on the cost of the goods you sell. There's more to it than just setting up the account and bidding.

          The biggest advantage to PPC is that you can multivariate test your landing pages to improve conversions without worrying about SEO and rankings. The mistake most people make is they look at their site-wide conversion rate and say "My margins are too thin for PPC", without thinking about how much they could potentially improve that rate if they weren't worrying about things like keyword density and on-page optimization. Personally I prefer paid traffic over organic (for a lot of reasons - namely that my PPC campaigns convert as high as 15% vs 2% for organic), but if you must do SEO, your PPC campaigns can drop visitors on pages that exist outside of your site's primary navigation so you don't have to worry about ranking them.
          what do you find converts higher for ecommerce, having the landing page as the homepage, section page, or product page?

          Also, why not do both SEO and PPC it's not like it has to be either or...
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          • Profile picture of the author ronrule
            Originally Posted by Meta Morph View Post

            what do you find converts higher for ecommerce, having the landing page as the homepage, section page, or product page?

            Also, why not do both SEO and PPC it's not like it has to be either or...
            Never link someone to your home page with a paid ad unless they're searching for your business name. Send them right to what they're looking for.

            If they're searching for "camping gear" or "tents" put them on a category page, if they're looking for something more specific then drop them right on the product page.

            As for SEO, I don't bother with it anymore. Paid traffic tends to convert better, you aren't restricted to a "Google-friendly" structure, you can have as many keywords as you want driving visitors to the same page (or the same keyword to different pages - your choice), and it gives you predictable revenue that continues regardless of search engine algorithm changes. Look at it this way... lets say you did PPC, took a ton of effort and time setting up your campaigns, optimizing them for which keywords converted, etc. then one day Google accidentally deleted your AdWords account and told you to sign up again and start over. All of that time and effort wasted, and in the meantime your site is making no sales while you set everything back up.

            That's pretty much how SEO works... you spend all of that effort and energy and you never really "own it". You're accepting mediocre conversion rates and you're just one algorithm or aggressive competitor away from a total loss of revenue, unless you're equally aggressive in maintaining it, which costs about the same as a comparable PPC campaign. I know different people have different opinions on that, but that's mine. I talked about this in greater detail on my most recent blog post if you want to check it out.
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            Ron Rule
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        • Profile picture of the author jta89
          Originally Posted by ronrule View Post

          You already have an email list - your customers become it.

          Of course that doesn't mean you shouldn't still have a "subscribe" option, but you need to split test this on your site first. I've found in some cases asking for the email before the sale puts customers into "Wait" mode - they subscribe instead of making a purchase, hoping some "deal" will be sent to their inbox. On other sites it doesn't make a difference, so it's all about the quality of traffic you're getting. It's worth testing either way, if the conversion rate drops take it off and only market to customers.

          As for PPC, if you've never done it then yeah I would recommend having it managed by a reputable PPC marketing firm (Google has a list of AdWords Certified agencies you can browse on their site). There's some setup to it to doing this right, including setting up eCommerce goals and funnels in Google Analytics (so GA can determine which ones came from paid clicks). Someone who knows what they're doing with AdWords can rock a PPC campaign that returns 400-2000% ROI depending on the cost of the goods you sell. There's more to it than just setting up the account and bidding.

          The biggest advantage to PPC is that you can multivariate test your landing pages to improve conversions without worrying about SEO and rankings. The mistake most people make is they look at their site-wide conversion rate and say "My margins are too thin for PPC", without thinking about how much they could potentially improve that rate if they weren't worrying about things like keyword density and on-page optimization. Personally I prefer paid traffic over organic (for a lot of reasons - namely that my PPC campaigns convert as high as 15% vs 2% for organic), but if you must do SEO, your PPC campaigns can drop visitors on pages that exist outside of your site's primary navigation so you don't have to worry about ranking them.
          What would you suggest is a recommended daily budget for a store that sells items with an average selling price of $1500-$2000. A daily budget just to gauge conversions etc, and use some of that data to split test.

          Thanks
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          • Profile picture of the author ronrule
            Originally Posted by jta89 View Post

            What would you suggest is a recommended daily budget for a store that sells items with an average selling price of $1500-$2000. A daily budget just to gauge conversions etc, and use some of that data to split test.

            Thanks
            Whatever you can afford to lose in the next 30 days divided by 30.

            What I mean by that is the mental side of it... Plan to spend money that you won't see a return on to get the information you need, so your NEXT month you can focus on only the things that worked during the test month.

            Keep in mind that you will make SOME sales to offset it, but unless you got lucky out of the gate it probably won't cover itself during the test phase. But that's OK, that's the point. There are 100 different things a person might search for where your product is the solution, but maybe only 5 of those keywords will actually turn into sales. You can "SEO it" and guess which words those are, or you can test them all so in a couple weeks you can knock out what didn't work and funnel your cash toward what does. Once you have consistent buyer traffic that's converting at a predictable rate, then you can focus on tweaking the pages to try and get that rate up higher.
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            Ron Rule
            http://ronrule.com

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          • Profile picture of the author kjamesnv
            Originally Posted by jta89 View Post

            What would you suggest is a recommended daily budget for a store that sells items with an average selling price of $1500-$2000. A daily budget just to gauge conversions etc, and use some of that data to split test.

            Thanks
            This is how I would do it:

            First, calculate a target CPA (Cost Per Action). Lets say your average sale is $1500 and your gross profit margin is 33% ( $500). How much would you spend to make $500? Lets say factoring expenses and overhead you would spend up to $200 to get a sale. That ( $200) is your target CPA.

            Now you need to estimate your CPC (cost per click).

            Suppose your projected conversion rate is 5%. 5% of $200 = $10. This means you can spend up to $10 per click on PPC to hit your CPA.

            With that information I would do a SMALL test with a max CPC of $10. I would generate maybe 100 clicks and then analyze the data very carefully. What was the actual CPC and CPA?

            Take that data and repeat the process but most importantly identify obstacles. You might find some key words produce a great CPA and other are weak. Or you may find some products don't convert well.
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  • Profile picture of the author tantykimi
    I think customer support is a huge skill to have. I think if you can treat customers well, then they'll return to your site and will recommend you to others. Obviously you need to be able to deliver what you promise, but customer support is vital.
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