e-business

Marketing a web 1.0 business in a web 2.0 world

So I have this little e-retail gift shop going that only recently started. For the 8 odd moths that it has been around, it seems as if the whole idea of doing business on the internet has become a completely new concept – As if, if my online business is not Web 2.0, cool, beta or social, it better die and rot in hell.

Now, the business is doing well, but all the old knowledge and sensibilities about marketing online seem to have changed. I need to make the gift shop, a web 2.0 cool beta social destination of networking. But the question is, can a web 2.0 cool beta social destination of networking actually sell gifts just like an ordinary online gifts shop with great quality customer service, state of the art pricing and really good inventory? Nope! have a look around these web 2.0 things and 90% of them don’t even know how and if they are going to make any money. If you are not as big as myspace or youtube – you’d be a very lucky to even make a few hundred dollars a month with a web 2.0 site.

So I was thinking about it, and it hit me – you don’t have to be web 2.0 to utilize the “social internet”’s enormous potential as a branding and marketing tool, Which is why – right here – I am going to chart down an agenda on how I am going to go about using the world of the second generation of the internet to promote and raise awareness about an good old web 1.0 online shop.

Step 1 – Participate.
The so called social internet is definitely social, but not socialist! The culture and values of the technology industry still remain full of individualism, and that is something that I have liked about the internet right from the start.

The first step in the agenda is to participate in this social internet – with the selflessness of an open-source programmer. If there is something I come across and I think it’s cool or I feel the need to debate, I must spend a few moments and post a comment – and because I am trying to promote my gifts site, the web 2.0 sites and blogs that I am going to need to start subscribing to would be related – all e-commerce, gift ideas, online shopping blogs etc would fall into this category along with the “deals” section of digg and other websites – of course wherever I leave a comment, there is also a backlink to my website – taking care of the fact that there is no spamming happening, and the participation is all very relevant – backlinks to my shop only where they seem appropriate. I have also literally deleted everything from my bookmarks toolbar on safari. In place of which, all I have are two bookmarklets. “add to del.ici.us” and “my del.icio.us”

Another very important place to participate is yahoo answers, google answers, and whatever similar thing msn may also have. I already signed up for yahoo answers and there are tons of questions that I can answer that are related to my industry – and in more than a few occasions I can direct the askers to my shop. for example, if someone asks – “what can I buy my mom for her birthday” I can safely answer that with links to a few products on the store that I think are very relevant.

I can go on and on about this, but you get the idea…

Step 2 – contribute

While participating in all things web 2.0, there are quite a few things that are yet to be added to the socio-web-o-sphere, contribution could be as simple as digging an article I find somewhere about which gift wrapping paper to use while giving a 4 year old her birthday gift or why the girl you are just about to propose to would like you to do so with a diamond ring and not CZ.

Step 3 – Blog, and use RSS
I think RSS is one of the coolest inventions that the internet has come across in a while. I have virtually replaced sending out the traditional newsletter, and in it’s place started to suggest all customers and visitors to the shop to take a look at the blog, and subscribe to it’s RSS feeds so they can keep updated about the best deals, latest products and great gifting ideas.

Another major change I did to my shop was to offer, alongside a downloadable PDF catalog, a full RSS catalog – updated real time. That has been huge, a lot of customers have subscribed.

Step four – those tiny buttons
I have them here, why not on my store? Below every product listing, There will be a few of those tiny buttons, that allow you to add a page to digg, del.icio.us – and because it is a shop that I will be adding these too, the list will include social shopping wishlist managers like wists.com, gifttagging.com, thisnext.com and others that I gradually come across.

That’s it for now! i will post more ideas as soon as they come.

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