This might be the best product description ever

This might be the best product description ever

I was looking on Marketplace for some bookshelves for my office and I came across – possibly – the best product description I’ve ever seen. 

It says: 

Selling a bookcase if anyone is interested in not driving all the way to Ikea, dealing with people touching everything, getting lost in the maze of products, carrying the books to the car, driving home, trying to work out how you got it into the car so you can get it out, finally removing it from the car and end up completely exhausted, remembering you still need to get it from the car to the lift, then hoping you can get it all in the lift without the doors closing and potentially losing it, then getting it from the lift to your door and into your house/apartment, one day many days later deciding to build them, getting frustrated and having a domestic, getting back into it, realizing the dog must have eaten one of the pieces even though you know it was you, building minus that piece anyway, telling yourself it will be fine, putting it in place, telling your partner it’s done, they comment why is it slightly twisted, having an argument saying they can build it next time and then having it sit where it will remind you for the rest of time you should have just bought this one and lived happily ever after … you’re welcome.

I was in hysterics reading this! And I’m writing this blog at least 12 months after I took the screenshot of this ad. It was memorable.

When you think of the alternative copy they could have used… they could have ended up with something boring and forgettable just like all the other listings there. 

While images are super important because the human brain processes an image 60,000 times faster than text. When looking at an item in a physical store, customers can pick the item up, look at it from all angles, touch and feel it, and even try it on. They can’t do that when shopping online. So it’s your responsibility to replicate that experience as much as you possibly can. Images are the most powerful way to do that. 

Not only that but 80% of people remember what they see, compared to 10% of what they hear and 20% of what they read. 

However… I remembered this ad because the copy (words) made me feel. It evoked an emotion in me and planted itself in my memory. 

The writer of this ad identified the pain-points of the alternative solution (going to Ikea and putting a flatpack together yourself) and they have overcome those pain-points with humour and wit. They painted a picture using only words – “realising the dog must have eaten one of the pieces” – haha!

Seriously, is this not the best ad copy you’ve ever seen?

Now, think about how you can use this ad copy as inspiration to zhuzh up your own product descriptions. 

 

Here are my 3 tips to creating memorable and emotion evoking product descriptions: 

Tip 1: Avoid trying to be too professional or fancy 

Just write like you talk. Pretend you’re talking to a friend if that helps. 

Tip 2: Identify pain-points your customers have

We’re talking about their real pain-points, the ones they don’t want you to know about. Then, overcome them in your copy. 

Tip 3 : Use humour and wit 

If this is within your brand voice, don’t be afraid to bring the lols. Laughter is a great memory anchor. 

I don’t know who to credit this advertising gold to, but if it was you, thanks for the lols. 

Megan Winter

Megan is an inspiring, brilliant and fun digital marketer and has worked with some of the fastest-growing eCommerce brands in the world.

Megan loves helping purpose-driven online store owners to make more income and achieve more impact. 

How to block people from commenting on your ads or posts

How to block people from commenting on your ads or posts

In a recent podcast we discussed trolls and how if you have an online store, you may have encountered trolls or at least some negative comments along the way. Click here to listen to us chat about what trolls actually are, why they do what they do, how we recommend that you deal with them and avoid fuelling their fire, and more. 

I’ve had a few people ask us “how do I ban someone from my page?” so in today’s blog I’m going to show you! 

You might not actually be being “trolled”. When the same person keeps commenting on your posts with trolly or totally irrelevant content, it could be:

  • A bot
  • A troll
  • Someone from your competition (sadly, this happens)
  • Someone who has too much time on their hands 

Now, while sometimes these comments are nasty or malicious, if they aren’t from your target audience or just completely irrelevant you might not want them on your Facebook ads or posts. 

So what can you do? 

You can continue to hide or delete their comments however if they keep doing it it may be time to ban or block them. 

“When you ban someone from your Page, they’ll still be able to share content from your Page to other places on Facebook, but they’ll no longer be able to publish to your Page, like or comment on your Page’s posts, message your Page or like your Page.” – Facebook

You can easily unban them at any time. 

You need to be an admin of the page you want to block someone from. 

 

How to ban someone from commenting on my Facebook posts and ads via page settings:

  1. Go to Settings of the page
Facebook page settings

2. Go to People and Other Pages

Pages and other people Facebook

3. Select Banned People and Pages from the drop down menu

Banned people Facebook page settings

4. Select + Ban a Person

Ban a person from your Facebook page

5. Type in the name of the person you want to block. Double check the profile picture matches that of the person you want to block. Once done, select Save.

Like I said, hopefully, you aren’t getting trolled. If you are, it’s really important to remember that trolls throw negative comments at you because, by definition, they’re people who deliberately provoke others online by saying inflammatory and offensive things. They live to make people upset and angry.

It’s just what they do. It’s how you choose to deal with them that matters.

Don’t fuel the fire.

Trolls love it when you engage. It’s fuel to their fire. The only way to kill the fire is by starving it of oxygen. Follow the steps above to ban their butt. 

Become Unstoppable! 

Of course, the best comeback is to become Unstoppable and have a thriving online store in spite of them!

If you want to learn how to sell more on your online store check out our eComm Ignitor® course.

13 tools we use and recommend to grow your online store

13 tools we use and recommend to grow your online store

There are so many tools out there, it’s hard to know which ones to trust. Let me share with you the tools we use and recommend to grow your online store.

First up, let’s go through some video creation tools. Video is thumb-stopping and engaging and you really do need video in your media mix. Video has traditionally been expensive and hard to make. But with these apps, you can create video easily and quickly, yourself…

1. Inshot

Inshot is an app that allows you to edit videos on your phone. Crop, trim and merge videos together, add text and stickers to your videos to create engaging videos for your social media. You know those reels where people click their fingers and change outfits… you can easily create those using Inshot. Available on Android and Apple devices.

2. iMotion

Stop motion or time-lapse videos are super thumb-stopping and engaging. They are essentially a bunch of still photos stitched together to make a video and are relatively easy to create. iMotion is an intuitive and powerful time-lapse and stop-motion app for iOS. There are also plenty available for Android – just search “stop motion” or “time-lapse” in the app store.

3. Boomerang

Boomerang is another app that lives on your phone. It’s a video creation tool that allows you to create looping videos. Videos are thumb-stopping and engaging and boomerangs are quick and easy to create. Tip: when creating a boomerang, make one flowing movement and Boomerang will create the looping effect for you. The mistake that most people make is they do the looping movement when recording the video.

4. Clips

Clips is a free app that comes with iPhone. It allows you to add captions automatically to your videos as you talk. Winning.

Ok let’s move onto to some of the other tools we recommend for growing your online store:

5. Canva

Canva is the ultimate design tool for non-designers. You can remove backgrounds from your images in an instant and create all the assets you need for your promotions, social media and website elements.

6. Later

Later is the social media scheduling tool for Instagram that we use and recommend. You can plan and schedule your Instagram feed. We plan our posts on desktop, and it also has a phone app that we use to make any last-minute changes or tweaks.

7. Facebook Creator Studio

We schedule IGTV and Facebook posts natively within Facebook.

8. Google Developers PageSpeed Insights

Having a fast-loading site is essential. Not only is it important for a good user experience, but Google also looks at how long your site takes to load. Google’s number one job is to give it’s users a good experience, so it’s less likely to send people to a site that is slow to load (no one wants to wait around while your page loads). Use this free tool to check your page speed and get insights around how you can improve yours.

9. Tinypng

One of the most common reasons a site is slow to load is the size of your images. Use tinypng to reduce the size of your images before loading them into your website.

10. Google mobile-friendly test

As with page speed, being mobile-friendly is imperative to the user experience factor of your site, as well getting the green tick from Google. Remember, Google’s number one job is to give it’s users a good experience, so it’s less likely to send people to a site that doesn’t work on mobile.

Use this free tool to test how easily a visitor can use your page on a mobile device.

11. Google analytics

Know your numbers. This is something we tell our students and clients on repeat. Use google analytics to track and measure the important metrics on your site. It’s free to install and use. You can’t manage what you don’t measure… so make sure you have this installed on your site now.

12. Shopify

Now for the main attraction. Your website. Shopify is the only platform we recommend to build your online store on. Why? It’s easy to build, easy to use, easy to update and specifically for eCommerce. It integrates with marketing and advertising apps, has an abundant number of plugins available and will grow with you. If you aren’t on Shopify, we highly recommend checking it out.

13. Klaviyo

And finally, email. We recommend Klaviyo for email marketing your online store. It integrates with your online store, is easy to setup and use and you can track exactly how much money you’ve made via email marketing.

So there you have it, 13 tools we use and recommend to grow your online store. Comment and let us know which tools you use, and if we’ve missed any.

3 reasons why no one is buying your offer

3 reasons why no one is buying your offer

You plan, prepare and promote your offer, expecting the sales to roll in. If you get it right, they will. But if they don’t there are usually 3 reasons for this.

There is nothing worse than putting your time, effort and money into planning, preparing and promoting your offer and… crickets.

If this has happened (or is happening) to you, don’t despair, you may be able to tweak a few simple things to turn it around.

This recently happened to Elizabeth, one of our Ignitor students, recently. She had an amazing sale on but no one was buying. Together, we look at the following elements, she made a few tweaks and like magic people started buying. However it’s not magic, it’s simple marketing.

A failed promotion sucks at the time, but I encourage you to look at it through a learning lens. Work out why it failed and improve it in real-time, or learn for next time. The beautiful thing about eCommerce is that you can make changes to your website and digital marketing instantly.

Ok, so let’s look at the 3 reasons why no one is buying your promotion and what to do about it.

Number 1: You’re telling the wrong audience

You may have the best promotion in the world but if you’re telling people who don’t care, of course, they aren’t going to buy. Dig into your analytics and see where your traffic is coming from and who is viewing your promotion. Where are you promoting your sale? Is it in a large group where your offer may get lost in all the noise, or is it in a very niche carefully curated group? Is it to a bunch of people who’ve never heard about you before, or is it to people who know, like and trust you.

You may also be telling no one. If you are relying on organic marketing alone, you may be missing out on people who are hanging out for the exact promotion you’re running. Social media is becoming a pay-to-play environment and even just a small budget to the right audience can deliver great results for your promotion.

Number 2: Your offer sucks

If lots of the right people are seeing your promotion but they aren’t buying, they are literally telling you that your offer sucks. It’s a tough pill to swallow but the truth is in the market. Your customers will tell you what they want – and what they don’t want – through their purchasing behaviour.

Now, here’s the thing. It could be that your offer is one that people don’t want… or they aren’t clear on what it is. If it’s the latter then you fall into reason number 3.

Number 3: Your messaging sucks

Confusion is the enemy. If people don’t know what they are buying, they simply won’t buy it. If you have an amazing promotion you need to communicate it in a clear, concise and compelling way. Don’t leave people guessing.

Look through a learning-lens and tweak, tweak, tweak

So, if you are in the middle of a promotion that isn’t going so well, look at these 3 reasons why no one is buying from you and tweak, tweak, tweak.

If you have run a promotion that flopped in the past, look at it through a learning-lens and work out what you can do next time to improve.

Written by Megan Winter

Megan is an award-winning marketer and has worked with some of the fastest-growing eCommerce brands in the world.

Megan loves helping ethically-produced, heart-centred, soul-driven online store owners to make more income and achieve more impact. 

Should I Invest in Facebook Ads or my Website

Should I Invest in Facebook Ads or my Website

We recently got asked this question by one of our Ignitor students and it was such a good one I wanted to share it with you.

“Should I spend money on updating my website or use that money for Facebook ads?”

Such a great question. And the answer to this question really depends on a few important factors. There is not a blanket answer.

If you want to sell more on your online store there are simply 3 ways to do this:

  1. Increase the number of people coming to your website (traffic)
  2. Increase the number of people buying from your website (conversion)
  3. Increase how much they spend at the checkout (order value)

So, should you invest in Facebook Ads or your website?

If you have lots of traffic coming to your website and no one is buying, then you need to improve the conversation rate of your website.

If you don’t have anyone coming to your site, then you really need to get some traffic to your website to see if it converts or not.

If you have traffic but aren’t getting any sales:

Ok, if you’re starting with lots of traffic and no conversion, there could be 2 issues.

  1. The wrong people coming to your site
  2. Your website needs to be improved and optimised for conversion

Have a look at your google analytics and see where your traffic is coming from. If you’re confident that you’re attracting the right people to your site but they aren’t buying, then yep, it’s time to improve your site.

A good conversion rate in eCommerce is around 3%. If yours is lower than this you can improve your conversion rate in a couple of ways:

First, let’s look at 5 behind the scenes tech checks to run on your website to make sure you’re optimised for conversion rate. If you need to increase your conversion rate start by running these 5 tech checks.

Next, you want to make sure that when people hit your site they have a great user experience. Let’s look at 5 onsite must-haves your online store needs to make sure you’re optimised for conversion rate.

If you need more people to come to your site:

Typically a good conversion rate is 3%, but if you don’t have anyone coming to your site you won’t be able to draw any conclusions on your conversion rate. If you have a really high conversion rate but hardly anyone is visiting your site, chances are your site isn’t getting the exposure it needs to grow. Your mum buying your products doesn’t count. A data set of less than 1000 unique visitors per month, you need more traffic.

What we recommend here is that you get your website as ready for traffic as possible yourself. Shopify allows you to setup your online store quickly, cheaply and you don’t need any web development skills. Don’t spend thousands of dollars building a fancy schmancy online store. Start with the minimum viable product.

Then, run traffic to your site and see if it converts.

As we always say in our program, until you test, it’s just a guess. So don’t worry about getting your site perfect, get it out to market and let your customers tell you if it’s working or not.

Remember, your website is not a tattoo

So start where you are.

If you have less than 1000 visitors per month, spend your money getting people to your site and pay attention to what the data is telling you. You can learn how to get more people to your site in our course eComm Ignitor.

If you have more than 1000% people per month and your conversion rate is less than 3%, spend your time (and possibly money) improving your conversion rate. We teach this in our eComm Ignitor program. We can do a website audit for you and highlight exactly what you need to improve.

Written by Megan Winter

Megan is an award-winning marketer and has worked with some of the fastest-growing eCommerce brands in the world.

Megan loves helping ethically-produced, heart-centred, soul-driven online store owners to make more income and achieve more impact. 

5 reasons why now is the best time to be online

5 reasons why now is the best time to be online

When we were interviewed by Xero last year for their Rebuilding Australia, The Role of Small Business on how small business was fairing during Covid19, we were reminded that the best time to setup your online store is… yesterday.

Those who were already online flourished last year. And will continue to thrive into the future.

Now is the absolute best time to have an online store. If you have an online store or are in the process of setting one up, you couldn’t have picked a better time and here’s why:

1. Customers were forced to adopt online shopping and now it’s the norm

eCommerce has been on the rise for some time, however during COVID19 late adopters were forced to try their hand at online shopping.

This gave them a taste of how quick, easy and convenient it is.

2. Delivery services were forced to become more robust

Again, during the pandemic of 2020 delivery services such as Australia Post were forced to meet demand.

We are nowhere near where the States are in terms of delivery efficiency however COVID19 was a catalyst for a more robust delivery network across Australia.

3. It’s the way of the future so there is a lot of resources being invested into the industry

Because eCommerce is the way of the future a lot of resources are being invested into creating new technologies, tools and services.

Also if something happens like Apple updating its data policy and the way we use Facebook ads changes, there are dozens of thought leaders working out how to get around it.

You can literally just follow our lead.

4. Tools are easy to access and use

You are spoilt for choice when it comes to cheap and easy tools to grow your online store.

5. Super low barrier to entry

And of course the obvious reason, super low barriers to entry.

You could set up a fully functioning online store from your kitchen table. In fact some of our most successful students and clients started their online store from home on a shoestring budget and have grown and scaled along with their business.

You don’t need lots of fancy equipment and high-tech software to launch a highly successful online store.

So if you have an online store, well done you! If you’re thinking of focusing your attention on creating or growing your online store, now is the time.

Written by Megan Winter

Megan is an award-winning marketer and has worked with some of the fastest-growing eCommerce brands in the world.

Megan loves helping ethically-produced, heart-centred, soul-driven online store owners to make more income and achieve more impact.Â