If you've been reading along since last January, you should have a pretty good idea of what kind of customer you're aiming at, as well as a record of your 2009 advertising efforts. Now it's time to go back and look at what worked, and what didn't.

To review our planning process over the last year:

Exercise 1

Reviewed ...

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We get a number of questions about the payment options available for you to receive your commission earnings. Here’s a breakdown from our Support team with answers to common questions. We will
break this down in 2 segments, Domestic (U.S.) Resellers and International Resellers. Note: The terms of the reseller agreement were updated on November 24, 2009 and these rules will apply beginning
with Reseller Commission payments for November 2009 (Paid in December) or 4th Quarter 2009 (Paid in December) for International Resellers being paid by check.

Check – To receive ...

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Back in January, we helped you create an advertising strategy for 2009. Now comes the MOMENT OF TRUTH, when we look at how each effort affected your business this year. Follow this three-step strategy to find out how you did:

Step 1. Add up the costs.

For each of your advertising efforts this year, make a list of "hard" costs – the fees you paid for Pay-Per-Click advertising as well as the cost of time you spent, say, passing out business cards at networking events.

Step 2. Calculate the benefits.

If you used Web-based solutions (promotional emails, banner ads, etc) and tied each effort to a marketing source code, it should be easy to come up with a total dollar figure for each effort. But that's not the only benefit to consider – don't forget the branding, goodwill and name recognition that comes from many advertising efforts. How many business cards did you pass out? And what about your email list – did you add legitimate opt-in addresses this year? Those are worth their weight in gold.

Step 3. Compare the benefits to costs..

When dollars and cents are involved, you can do a direct analysis by dividing benefit by cost. And if you can determine an hourly cost for your time, you can extend that model to include the hours spent writing and refining Pay-Per-Click ads, building a custom storefront, editing and mailing an email newsletter and other similar activities.

Calculations get trickier when you try to measure intangibles like brand awareness or goodwill. If you kept close track of everyone you swapped business cards with, and can match the networking events you attended to specific customer accounts, you can calculate the Acquisition Cost for each customer. Now you have an idea of whether your efforts made your business money. But wait — don't forget that that relationship got you a referral for three more customers. . .

Start planning for the next year.

Once you've analyzed each of your advertising methods, you'll have a pretty good idea of what's working and what's not. Decide if the unsuccessful efforts are failing outright, or if they might pay off with more time or with better measurement.

Expand whatever's working, discontinue what's not. Need new ideas? Refer back to Exercise 1 and pick another option or two to try in the new year. By this time next year, you'll have this down to a science.

Exercise #10 — Revisit your product mix

If you were with us last March, this month's exercise will be a breeze. But audience demographics change over time. So even if you reviewed your offerings against your audience back in March, it'll pay to do it again. By periodically checking your product offerings, you can minimize any missteps quickly, adjusting your product offerings before it cuts into your bottom line.

Pull the numbers

Start by using the Product Sales Report and Microsoft® Excel® to determine which products have sold best for you over time. You'll find the Product Sales Report under ...<< MORE >>

Email is one of the easiest and least expensive ways to generate additional income from existing customers. Regular emails remind your customers that you’re out there, ready to meet their needs as they arise. This month, we lead you step-by-step through the process of reviewing your current email strategy and creating a fool-proof plan for the next six months.

First things first
Any evaluation of email strategy has to start with your mailing list. After all, you could be sending out the best-looking and most relevant emails with the greatest offers ever, but if you’re sending them to a bad list, ...<< MORE >>

There are many ways to attract visitors to your site, but only one that’s free: Organic search listings. Organic search results are not like paid search results, whereby you pay Google® or another search engine to display your ad on the search results pages for a particular keyword.

Rather, organic search results are based (among other things) on the content of your site and how closely that content seems to match the searcher’s keywords. Because they’re not paid for, consumers tend to trust organic search results, viewing these listings first before reading paid ads.

Getting listed the old-fashioned way

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There’s no question that the domain and hosting industry is highly competitive, and that price is a factor in buyer’s decisions. But selling products at the lowest possible price isn’t always the best choice. Even a small change in price can change your customers’ perception of your business and your bottom line.

To find the optimum price that your audience is willing to pay, you’ll need to do some price testing. As you test, you’ll want to watch the following:

Conversion rate – This is the number of visitors to your site who actually buy the product you’re testing. By raising a price, you might find that you have fewer new visitors who buy, but that your revenue actually remains steady or even increases. You can use your free Site Analytics tool or Google® Analytics to measure conversion rates.

Return on Investment (ROI) – If you’re paying for marketing in the form of Pay-Per-Click ads, affiliate programs or banner exchanges, consider what each sale or customer acquisition costs you. Divide what you spent by the number of new customers you gained, and then compare that figure to how much the average customer spent. Not in the black? Increase your prices till you are.

TIP: Use Marketing Source Codes to track the revenue generate by individual offers or ad placements.

Refund rates – Is your pricing set at a level your customers feel good about, or do they regularly experience buyer’s remorse and have their orders refunded? Use the Order Refund Report in the Reseller Control Center (RCC) to monitor levels of refunds and look for patterns.

Setting up a price test
Within the RCC pricing options, we’ve provided the tools for you to run automated price tests. Before you start, you’ll need to decide the following:

• Sale duration –If you only make 1-2 sales per day and have very low site traffic, it could take a month or more to gather significant data. If you have hundreds of orders per day and thousands of hits to your site, a week of testing will probably be enough. No matter what duration you choose, keep an eye on the test so you can turn it off if it starts hurting sales. 
• Sale price – There are many ways to approach testing a sale price. You can do incremental testing over time, raising the domain price by $.25 or $.50 per test. Or you start with a price that’s closer to the top range in your market and then work your way back down to the sweet spot. It’s your call.
• Minimize variables –If you want a clear understanding of the impact of your price test, you need to minimize the number of variables you change during the test period. So if you’re planning a new advertising campaign, be sure to benchmark sales at the current price with that advertising plan before starting your price test.

Once you’ve determined your sale factors, log in to the Reseller Control Center to set up your automated price test. From the Product Offerings page, choose the product you’ll be testing and click the link to get to the Edit Prices page. 

If your pricing is currently set at minimum retail, you’ll need to change overall pricing to test higher prices. To quickly modify pricing for an entire product group, use the Quick Edit Pricing option. For example, if you wanted to test an overall price increase of $.50/unit you would:

• Set the Price to Modify = “Your Retail Price”
• Set the Price Point = “Suggested Retail Price + .50”
• Click “Calculate”
• Review the pricing to be sure it’s correct
• Click “Apply” to apply the changes to your storefront

At the end of your test period, you’ll have to decide whether to keep your prices at this level, or reset your pricing based on the results of the test. This type of test does not have an automated shut-off.

If your current pricing is above minimum retail, and you want to run a price test at a lower price point on an entire product group, you can use the Sale feature to run a timed test. To test an overall price decrease of $.50/unit you would:

• Set the Price to Modify = “Sale Price”
• Set the Price Point = “My Retail Price  -  .50”
• Click “Calculate”
• Review the pricing to be sure it’s correct
• Enter a Start Sale Date and End Sale Date
• Click “Set Dates”
• Click “Apply” to apply the changes to your storefront

With this test, your prices will automatically revert to your original retail pricing at Midnight PST on the date you specify for your end date. If you need to end the test earlier, you can reset the Sale Dates at any time to stop it immediately.

As your test is running, use the Product Sales Report to evaluate your test period orders against a control period (an “average” period of the same length, prior to the beginning of the test). If you’re reviewing results daily, look at the same day in the previous weeks and compare units and revenue. If you’re running a weekly or monthly test, check against non-test weeks for an overall picture of units and revenue.

Be sure to account for any holidays or advertising campaigns you might have run that would affect one period and not the other. Holidays may show a decrease in sales, while you’re likely to see a spike in traffic and orders the day you send an email campaign.

Once you’ve completed your test, you’ll need to determine if the new price did better or worse than the control. Did the following measures increase or decrease?

• New customers
• Orders
• Units
• Revenue
• Commission
• Conversions
• Return On Investment
• Refund Rate

Based on your particular goals, these factors will tell you if your test price is better or worse. If your primary goal is to build your customer base, New Customers and Conversions will be key factors for you. If your goal is to increase your income potential whether your customer base increases or stays steady, Revenue and Commission will be your key factors. If you want to maximize your advertising budget, Conversions and ROI are most important.

Once you’ve evaluated your test, it’s time to decide if you want to continue to test that price point or stay with your winning price. If a higher price worked better, you might want to see if you can push the window a little further and try another price increase. If your original price won, you might want to test a smaller price increase to see how that impacts sales.

Price testing isn’t a one-time activity. As your customer base and advertising efforts change over time, you should continue to price test to make sure you’re getting the greatest revenue from your target audience.

 

Find all the articles in the 2009 Reseller Marketing Planner series in the Reseller Roundup Blog.

Each month in eSeller we provide you with a seasonal trend snapshot for the top products in your portfolio with the disclaimer that the data is overall figures for resellers, not specific to your account. We provide this information so you can check you store activity against anticipated program trends. For example - as we enter into the fall months, domain sales generally pick up. The closer it gets to the winter holiday season in the United States, we generally anticipate a decline in new orders.

Why watch Seasonality?

By watching seasonality you'll get a feel for the ebb and flow of activity on your storefront. As you get to know your audience's buying patterns, short-term dips in sales won't seem so scary. You can use the patterns you identify to determine when you should employ more aggressive marketing techniques to acquire new customers and meet your target revenue and commission levels.

Depending on how often you have time to run and chart data and your sales volume, there are different ways to look at seasonality. You might choose to watch month-to-month as we do in eSeller to so that you can anticipate general market trends for your audience. If you are running regular marketing campaigns you might want to watch week to week, or even daily numbers.

By watching week to week you can get an overview of how a monthly email campaign impacts sales numbers, or compare a week with a popular holiday against a non-holiday week and see if the holiday has a positive or negative effect on your bottom line. If your audience shops on the holidays, you might want to tailor offers with holiday messaging.

If you watch day to day, you should be able to track the time your campaign hits the streets, and see how long it impacts your business. With a successful email campaign you are likely to see an immediate spike the day emails are received, then a fairly steep decline in response over the next few days. Watching day to day will also give you a picture of what days of the week your customers are inclined to shop. If you're reaching business owners, you're likely to see orders placed during weekdays and business hours. If they're hobbyists, you're more likely to see increased sales Friday - Sunday.

To create your own seasonal trend dashboard, decide on the date range you want to monitor and then use the Product Sales Report found in the Reseller Control Center and spreadsheet software to chart your data. Read the blog post "Product Sales Report Tips" for detailed instructions on running stats for overall sales or customer acquisition rates.

You can find the Product Sales Report in the Reseller Control Center under the My Reports dropdown menu.  This report allows you to compare product sales across two periods, if desired, or run detail for recent purchases.  Each Product Group includes a drilldown that will show you detail of the line items sold and indicate which sales were new purchases and which were renewals.
You also have several filters you can employ to get even more specific data:

• Dates -  choose the exact date range you want to report on.  If you don’t want to compare two periods, you can ...<< MORE >>

Unlike many industries right now, the outlook for domains and related services is bright. In fact, insiders predict a period of amazing growth – much like the growth that followed the dotcom crash. << MORE >>