Apologies for the long post!
We have a new drop shipping niche store that has been online for about 3 months now. We have been tweaking the site, fixing product entries, adjusting prices, setting weights to be as accurate as possible, doing cosmetic changes etc. We are just about ready to start some kind of marketing program and wonder if some of you might share what you have done that has been successful in any way.
I will give a bit of background -- I am familiar with web site design and have build a number of sites over the last 10 years or so. I have a background in wholesale in a brick and mortar environment for about 40 years, so I am not unfamiliar with how this is "supposed" to work and am capable of various tasks that would get this to work efficiently. What I would like is some feedback on what are some of the better ways to drive visitors to our store. Just starting out we have a VERY limited budget so this is what we are thinking:
- We have a Facebook business page and have made a couple of test campaigns to get an idea of how that all works. I am NOT a fan of Facebook, but it appears to be a necessary evil. The 2 small campaigns we ran supposedly targeted several hundred users, but resulted in zero visits to our store, just a bunch of "likes" on the page. So what ides are there to make the best use of it without spending a lot of money that does not drive traffic and conversions?
- Not a fan of Instagram, as I do not see any advantage to that platform as a business tool.
- We have a Twitter account and so far I think that is absolutely useless. We have made a few posts about some products to drive a little traffic, but no results. We have about 65 followers and get nothing to indicate that it is doing anything for us. Fortunately, it has not cost so far so we can take it or leave it, unless there is a strategy that we can use to make it more effective. There are Twitter ads and the cost is not unreasonable (promoted ads run about $100/month) but we as yet have not seen Twitter as a viable vehicle.
- We have a Google account (Adwords, Adsense, Analytics etc) and have not used them yet for marketing. We did not want to start any campaigns until the site looks and acts the way we want so that visitors have a good experience and are not turned off. I "think" I can work out the details of a campaign to drive traffic via display ads. We don't want to do a product sales promotion because that requires a Google Merchant account and products listed on Google Shopping. We tried that process with the Shopify Google Shopping app and it was a nightmare!! That app is junk and simply does not work. So we are going to stay away from that until such time as Shopify can get that working properly.
- As I said, we have a very limited budget for this at present. So we can put about $200 into this to start. If there is any return to it then we can increase that as we go. I understand that there are people spending thousands of dollars on this to get a big return and we are just not there yet! It is like going to Vegas. Only take what money you can afford to lose!
- There are some other actions we have investigated that are relatively inexpensive and promise a variety of actions and potential ROI, like expressflux.com with a $15 investment for a 30 day program that could give us some idea of what the possibilities are before we dump money into a Google ads campaign that would be poorly thought out and doomed to failure. Has anyone used Expressflux.com, and what were the results?
So, while it might seem that we are being cheap, we have a limited budget and want to get the most bang for the buck with the best potential for good return. We know that there are no guarantees and that we will have to try a few variations, or combination of things. to see what works. Just like the stock market, we need to get the most information about where to put our money that can give us the most informed return on the investment.
It would just be helpful if some of you that have had varying degrees of success, or failure for that matter, would be so kind as to give us some ideas and insights about what has worked or not worked that you have tried.
Thanks in advance!
The Globetrotters Outfitter
https://globetrottersoutfitter.com
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