Blogging is about communication and having good relations with your blogging community. Before you set upon the task of blogging for charity, you must make sure you have good relations with your fellow bloggers. This means you must show a genuine interest in their blogs and topics, and keep interacting with discussion and debates. Be sensitive to others and expect the same back is my blogging motto, whtehr you are blogging for a ecommerce business or personal reasons. If others feel respect and an affiliation with you, they are more likely to help you out when you raise awareness of charitable causes; after all, most people are generous and giving. Also make sure your co-bloggers know about the charity by giving them a website address and perhaps writing a few posts on the charity.

Why not use other forms to keep people interested? Videos often work and are a great way to appeal to others. You could record a message or state you will do something for charity, for instance, the good old baked beans in the tub money raising method. You could even record that and put it up online later on. People will respect you not only for do something for charity, but for embarrassing yourself online.

Appeal through social media websites as well, as this well you get into contact with different audiences, spreading the word as far as possible. The more people you access, the more money you are likely to raise. Use different social media websites to contact the different types of audiences who use Facebook and Twitter etc. You can use your blog and social media pages to ask your followers to spread the word further, enabling you to raise more money.

As you raise money for charity, you need to think about donation amount and how you will measure your progress. Before you set out, think of the target you need to reach and publicise this. Secondly, ask for a minimum amount, such as a £1, from each donator (which could be donated using paypal or a payment system). Asking too much will put people off, so it’s better to advertise a small amount, rather than scarring people off with a larger sum. Next, you need to figure out how you will measure the amount of money you will raise for charity, each day or on a weekly basis. You could announce the amount left you need to raise at the end of each week, a useful tactic to incite interest into your cause.

Don’t forget after raising your target amount to thank personally all those who donated or supported you. People appreciate a thank you and are more likely to support you in the future. You can also advertise on your ecommerce website that you help support a local charity, showing that your business has a social conscious, which often acts as an incentive for people to buy from you.

Using blogging for an ecommerce website is a useful marketing tool that can connect you with your target audience. If you are interested in building a cheap ecommerce websites, have a look at www.10poundwebsites.com

Create Promotional Products For Your Target Audience

For this marketing strategy to work, you need to create promotional products that are appropriate for your target audience. This means it has to be something useful they will use and will entice them to use your services or buy your products.

Those in the business of marketing agree that the best promotional items are the everyday items that people are going to use. Stationary for instance is a common promotional item as pens, notepads and sticky notes can be all used on a day-to-day basis. These everyday items act as a reminder in their daily life of you business, a useful marketing tactic.

Quality Over Quantity

Promotional items will act for most as the first impression, thus you want it to be a good one. Using lots of cheap promotional goods will give off the wrong impression, i.e. that your business is not classy or professional. Investing in some good quality promotional items will state to your target audience that you are a classy, reliable and professional business that can be trusted.

Add a Business Card

When using promotional goods to market your business; always add into the promotional ‘doggy bag’ a business card, so they know where and how to find you. Your business cards at this point must be well developed and demonstrate to the public what your business exactly is. So make sure it is perfect before you send it out. Secondly, think how you can incorporate your business card into a promotional product, as the public is less likely to accidently loose or throw away a promotional good. Many businesses use magnets or notepads for this purpose, as they act as a permanent business card.

Your type of promotional goods will depend on what type of audience you are targeting and what sort of business you are. Professional accountancy firms often use stationary to promote their business, whilst a fashion house may use fashionable badges or t-shirts. As you can see there are various promotional goods that can work for your business.

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Whether your delivery service if free or not, customers will expect their parcel to be in their hands on the day you said so. If it is not, expect a customer complaint, which could lead to them asking for their money back or even taking away their custom completely.

Avoid too many customer complaints – there’s always going to be a few- by specifying upon your website your delivery policy and options beforehand, this way a customer knows what to expect from your service. A shipping policy will be most useful as it readily informs the customer on when items are dispatched and what their rights are for refunds. No customer, nor seller, wants to waste their time fighting over dispatch times and refunds, so always make sure your have a section in your cheap ecommerce website devoted to policies.

Next, incorporate pricing delivery options into your ecommerce website. You will have different pricing options depending on if your ecommerce website is national or worldwide. For instance, you may need to have options for the air travel, or delivery by post, as well as what class the package is going by (i.e. 1-2 days, 3-7 days etc). When creating delivery date choices, always leave an extra day in the estimate in case any problems occur – this will hopefully mean that your packages are delivered within the estimated boundary, leaving your customers happy rather than angry.

To be successful in the eyes of your customers, always ship the product out to them as soon as possible. Everyone hates waiting for that email that declares that the item has finally been shipped after waiting several days since you ordered. The faster the delivery the better the reviews you’ll get as well as repeat customers. Also make sure you use a reliable delivery service, which will deliver your product as soon as possible in the condition it was dispatched in, as well as offer services such as package tracking.

My last tip is to keep in contact with the customer as keeping them updated will help them know when to expect their package. Send an email out to tell them when the item was dispatched or when it will be, and then an estimated date for delivery. Also be honest with them and always contact them if there has been a stock or dispatch problem. Giving a more personal service such as this will not only feel more rewarding but will encourage positive feedback from customers.

Improving your service and online content on delivery will help your ecommerce business run far more smoothly, as well as provide a better service to your custom, thus increasing sales and improving your reputation.

If you are interested in setting up a cheap ecommerce website for your business, have a look at www.10poundwebsites.com who sell cheap ecommerce websites. They have several ecommerce packages on offer available from £10 per month.

When you start up any business, you’ll need a business plan to demonstrate to investors your capabilities and to help you naturally expand as a business. A business plan is way of summarising your strategy towards your goals, as well as demonstrates the aims you are fulfilling and how you are so far. So far we have covered your aims, research and unique selling point, now we move onto finance, employees and skills.

Posts Held: Here you need to outline your team’s posts held within the company. Start off with management by describing what the duties and responsibilities the manager has. Then list the skills, relevant qualifications and appropriate experience.

Do this for each member of staff, outlining each sector they are responsible for, for instance supervising orders, marketing, finance etc. Also, outline the staff structure, this can be done by a diagram and explanation. This will help to show the structure of your organisation and how it works.

Moreover, if you are intending to expand, you may need to employ more staff. Outline what positions would be made available and how many members of staff you will need.

Activities: Next move onto to describing the daily activities that you and your employees encounter. Also, give an average on how frequently these occur. This section will enable you to see if there are any more activities that can be incorporated to make your business run smoother or expand. It will also help you examine the frequency of the activities and if you need to invest more time in these.

Yearly Financial Projection: This is for most the most difficult section as you need to predict your yearly incomings and outgoings, as well as include business risks such as loans and assets. This section is usually done visually by a flow chart, which shows the incoming money from profits and other sources and the outgoings (office, staff, phone lines, stationary etc). Obviously, if you are preparing for expansion, you will need to show where the investment will be coming from and how it will be paid back. If you are to find investors or take a loan out you must prove that you can profiteer and/or pay the loan back.

In addition, provide copies of any documentation, such as proof of website or contract for offices in an appendix. This will just prove that your business is up and running. You could also provide, if you do have them, the past year’s finances. This should enforce the fact your business is doing well and you are ready for expansion.

A good business plan is key to proving to investors or banks that you are a worthwhile investment. They also help you to plan how to reach your goals, enabling you to expand your business strategically.

If you are interested in setting up a cheap ecommerce website for your business, have a look at www.10poundwebsites.com who sell cheap ecommerce websites. They have several ecommerce packages on offer available from £10 per month.

Just like a shop, a virtual shop is expected to have just as good customer service. So when setting up an ecommerce website, expect to be busy as you will need to provide a good customer service to your internet based customers, here’s a few ways you can…

Point of Contact

Provide a place where customers may contact you. It should be quick and easy, so that even the busiest of customers have time to do it. You have the choice of email, an enquiries form and live chat. If replying to an enquiry via the form or e-mail as a service provider it is imperative that you reply within two days as otherwise the customer may lose interest. Although you won’t be expected to be on live chat all the time, it’s useful for customers who directly want to speak with a qualified member of staff for vital product information.

A sign up option for a newsletter may also be useful for customers who are in need of product of information. Include this tool on your ecommerce website as it will probably answer a few enquiries for you via one source.

Visible Prices

Customers hate not seeing the prices, so make sure that all your products have a visible price upon them. One big mistake many ecommerce websites make is the sign up option to view prices, which is off putting to most customers. Avoid this by making prices visible to all and state the P&P (postage and packaging) prices accordingly to item. Adding a shopping cart will also allow customers to see what they bought and the total cost, whilst they browse around the rest of the shop, making it easier for them to buy multiple items and keep an eye on the cost.

Payment: Gateways and Cards

Make sure your website has a payment gateway (i.e. PayPal, Google Checkout), which will safely and securely receive payment, as well as take various cards from the big providers, such as Visa, Maestro etc. Increased card diversity allows you to reach more customers, which should hopefully increase sales.

If you are interested in setting up a cheap ecommerce website for your business, have a look at www.10poundwebsites.com who sell cheap ecommerce websites. They have several ecommerce packages on offer available from £10 per month.

From a cheap ecommerce website, you can get a great number of services that will help your website reach and help your clientele. Although, it may not have the unique design a bespoke website does, it still hosts all the gadgets you may need as a seller.

Starter packages usually quote that you can have up to 75 products upon your website, but if you do need more product space larger packages will allow up to a 1000 products. You can also expect from an ecommerce package around 1 to 10 email accounts, depending upon the package you go for.

From most cheap ecommerce packages you can expect:

*Integrated Shopping Cart,

*Various Payment Gateways,

*Contact forms,

*Free domain registration,

*CMS in order to manage your content,

*A featured/hot or random product list upon the home page,

*To be able to customize logos and images, as well as create new pages and categories;

*And to be able to integrate blogs, plus so much more.

If you level up your ecommerce package you can expect so much more, including a higher level of feedback through a star rating system and better ways to measure your website visitor statistics (visitor analytics). Interaction with custom is vastly improved too as live chats enable customers to ask any questions they have immediately. Other hot gadgets including multiple access for admin and user level, as well as multiple currency and language support, enabling you to offer your services not only locally and regionally, but globally.

If you are interested in cheap ecommerce websites for your business, have a look at www.10poundwebsites.com that has a number of packages which include UK based web hosting.

The Mission Statement: The first part of the business plan is setting out your aims, goals and history. For instance, you may have many years of experience in sales and customer services, which you would note down in the summary. This experience is relevant because it shows what you can already bring to the business, a knowledge of sales and customer service. Before you project for the future, also describe what stage the business is in now (i.e. equipment used, if in an office etc) and how long it has been up and running or thought about for.

Now you should think about the future of your business. What are the goals for it? Clearly in the context of an ecommerce website, you want an increased number of sales and growth. But you will need to ask yourself at what rate you want to grow, after all you may not be able to cope with a fast growth spurt, so slowly but surely may be better for you.

Market Research: This is of great importance as it will inform your marketing strategy. First of all conduct your market research this will help you to discover who will visit your website and buy your products. Look at groups, such as age, gender, culture etc. Also consider the places where people might buy from, such as local, national and international.

After completing your research and translating it into statistics, then you can decide upon how you are going to market your ecommerce website to them. Write up your market campaign, which will demonstrate how exactly you will drive traffic to your website, as well as keep customers.

Your Unique Selling Point: What is your unique selling point? What will make internet users buy off your website, rather than others? Any business person knows always look out for the competition, but also learn from them too. You have to able to give exactly the same good deals as the competition, plus more. Always drive your unique selling point, whether it be free P&P or an environmentally friendly statement, as this will be what makes people buy your product over the competition. Remember your unique statement has to be true.

Look out for part two of the business plan which shall cover finance, employees and skills needed to run an ecommerce business.

If you are interested in setting up a cheap ecommerce website for your business, have a look at www.10poundwebsites.com who sell cheap ecommerce websites. They have several ecommerce packages on offer available from £10 per month.

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