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6 Essential Shopify Apps For Medium Size Retailers

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If you’re an online store owner using Shopify, there are so many ways you can make your life easier.

There are plenty of Shopify apps to help you with all aspects of ecommerce entrepreneurship, but with so many to choose from that it’s hard to know where to start.

Luckily for you, we’ve come up with a list of 6 essential apps to have if you’re a Shopify store owner. Check out our list below to get inspired.

Recommended reading: The 5 Questions Everybody’s Asking About Shopify

Mailchimp for Shopify

Email marketing is an effective way of connecting with your customers — once you’ve got them subscribed to your mailing list, you can grab their attention with awesome offers and direct them to your store.

Having an email subscription tool like Mailchimp is super handy if you’re a medium size retailer. By now, you’ve climbed a few rungs up the entrepreneurial ladder, grown your store a bit more, and now you’re looking at ways to maintain existing relationships and build new ones.

Email marketing is a great way of doing this, and Mailchimp is the best of the best when it comes to email marketing tools.

The Mailchimp for Shopify app lets you integrate your Mailchimp account with your Shopify store easily. From here, you can import your customer information and use purchase data to create targeted email and ad campaigns that boost sales.

Facebook Store

You’re definitely missing out on potential leads if you leave out social media as a selling platform for your store. Facebook isn’t just good for advertising you know!

If you’re an established medium size retailer, then the Shopify Facebook Store app is perfect for you.

Sometimes people just won’t want to click through to your site. This is detrimental to your conversion rates — you’ve spent the time generating leads, and now you’ve fallen at the last hurdle.

Facebook Store lets you showcase your products or services on your store’s Facebook page and post collections to your timeline to highlight products. You can also build engagement around your items by tagging them in photos, which shoppers can click on to buy.

It’s an awesome app because it lets you reach more potential consumers, drives more traffic to your store, and provides an easy online shopping platform. Shoppers love it because they can browse, share or buy directly from your Facebook store.

Yotpo

It’s an awesome app because it lets you reach more potential consumers, drives more traffic to your store, and provides an easy online shopping platform. Shoppers love it because they can browse, share or buy directly from your Facebook store.

Yotpo is a cool — and free! — Shopify app that helps store owners to generate and leverage product reviews.

The majority of US customers consult reviews or ratings before making a final purchase. In this digital age, consumers want to know how they can trust online retailers, and how the quality of the product they are purchasing will be guaranteed. It’s fair enough — after all, you can’t physically inspect the product until you’ve received it, and that’s after you’ve parted with your well-earned cash.

That is where customer reviews and testimonials come in. They’re essential to building trust, and help to advise customers on the details and quality of your items. Yotpo helps you collect reviews, photos and Q&A from your customers, and compiles it into content for your site. This is essential for building trust in your store and increasing your online sales.

ReferralCandy

Apparently, every happy customer will tell nine more. Using a referral app to make the most of this lead generation opportunity saves you from missing out!

ReferralCandy is a really interesting Shopify app which you can use to incentivize customers to refer their friends to you. You decide what your referral incentive is — whether it’s coupons, exclusive offers or cash.

The app contains a dashboard where you can track referral information and metrics, as well as optimize your referral program. They’ll also chuck in automated reward delivery and referral reminder emails for good measure. (ReferralCandy integrates with Mailchimp so that you can track emails and referral campaigns).

Plug in SEO

This free Shopify app is essential to any medium size retailer. Maybe you’ve started up your own small online business, or you’ve bought a Shopify business and you want to scale up?

Plug in SEO is the difference between your business successfully growing or stagnating as a small online store.

You might sell the most awesome products at an incredible price, but unless your online store is search-friendly, you’re not going to generate enough web traffic to your site to make a decent profit.

Luckily, PIug in SEO can help to optimize your site to ensure that you’re ranking as high on the search engine results page as you can..

The app automatically checks for SEO problems with your page titles, descriptions, structure and much more, and flags them for you. They then give you clear and simple explanations, fix instructions and code to sort the problems out. A must-have for any medium size retailers out there.

Data Export - Reports

If you want to be successful in ecommerce, then you’re going to have to invest in a decent accounting app for Shopify.

As a small business owner, you’ve probably downloaded Xero or QuickBooks Online to sync your orders and refunds and run some financial reporting. These are brilliant for small retailers but can quickly become expensive for medium size retailers because of extra costs such as payroll services.

If you want to up your accounting game, then try out Data Export.

Data Export has received many great reviews on the Shopify app store. It’s got some great accounting and reporting features, and you benefit from setup and customization by Data Export’s reporting experts. For scalability, it’s a lot more friendly than other apps, and has a load of awesome features perfect for midsize businesses.

As you can see, there are some amazing Shopify apps available to you as a medium size retailer. These are 6 of the best — ones that we think are essential to your success as an ecommerce entrepreneur. They can help you with everything from SEO to accounting to marketing and more — all things that you need to get right as a midsize store owner.

Are there any that you’d add to our list? Let us know in the comments below.

Victoria Greene is a freelance writer and branding consultant who is passionate about sharing her knowledge and helping store owners get the best return on their ecommerce businesses. For all the latest on developments in ecommerce, marketing, and design, check out her blog, Victoria Ecommerce.

Penske Racing Shocks Receives Marketing Assistance from DaBrian Marketing

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Reading, PA – August 23, 2017– Penske Racing Shocks hand builds high-performance shock absorbers tailored to customer’s needs, and they wanted their website to match that performance. Perpetually driven to be the best at everything they do, Penske Racing Shocks gave DaBrian Marketing Group the green light to create a new Ecommerce website design and revamp the digital marketing strategy for the famous manufacturer.

web design services in Reading PA

DaBrian Marketing put a substantial amount of energy into giving the website a sleek new design. A combination of web design and search engine optimization (SEO) techniques made the new website a well-oiled machine for both Penske Racing Shocks’ customers and employees. Many of the updates were aimed at providing a smooth user experience while increasing the speed of the site.

After an in-depth analysis, the site was reorganized to allow potential customers to reach their destination quicker and easier based on specific racing style and environment. The ecommerce site’s product feed was also optimized to enhance user experience, help visitors find products easily, and increase product visibility.

Product feed optimization - ecommerce marketing

Today, the Penske Racing Shocks website is easy to use, pleasing to look at, and features live price updates, clear tax and shipping information, as well as convenient and secure payment gateways.

View the updated website at: https://www.PenskeShocks.com.

DaBrian Soups-up Penske Racing Shocks’ Ecommerce Marketing to Boost Sales

While the project has consisted mainly of web design, the professionals at the digital marketing agency have executed on other marketing initiatives as a part of Penske Racing Shocks’ Ecommerce marketing strategy. In fact, the first assignment DaBrian Marketing completed was a redesign of Penske Racing Shocks’ branded and product-descriptive flyers. The design of the flyers was the basis of the website design to ensure brand consistency.

DaBrian Marketing Group then provided a one-time social media marketing consultation to help Penske Racing Shocks reach more fans on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Aaron Lambert, Director of Competition, expressed his satisfaction with the partnership,  “Penske Racing Shocks number one goal is our customers. Whether it’s understanding how to rebuild their own shocks, tune their vehicle at the racetrack, or just find some information that will help them understand what they are buying. Here at Penske Racing Shocks we build championship winning suspensions, so we teamed with DaBrian Marketing to help give us that same quality in our marketing, website, and social media platforms. It’s been a great experience so far, and we are very excited to see our new website launch, as well as other exciting ideas coming down the line.”

As the relationship continues, Penske Racing Shocks plans to execute on email marketing campaigns for their Ecommerce website. Emails will be used to send newsletters, announce product updates, discuss maintenance availability, and remind users of forgotten items in their online shopping carts.

About Penske Racing Shocks

Penske Racing Shocks is the global leader in suspension technology. Formed in 1988, Penske Racing Shocks have a worldwide reputation for producing quality shock absorbers. Their mission is to supply customers with the best suspension technology and technical support available. Penske Racing’s office is located at 150 Franklin Street, Reading, Pennsylvania, 19602. Contact the company with questions or inquiries on their website, www.PenskeShocks.com or call 610.375.6180.

About DaBrian Marketing Group, LLC

Founded in 2008, DaBrian Marketing Group, LLC is a full-service digital marketing agency that provides original strategic digital marketing solutions for businesses. DaBrian Marketing Group’s services include email marketing, digital branding, search engine optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising, web hosting, web design, web analytics, social media marketing, and more. Company headquarters is centrally located at 500 Penn Street, Suite 201, Reading, Pennsylvania 19602. For more information about DaBrian Marketing Group, visit DaBrianMarketing.com or call 610.743.5602.

Using Email Marketing to Grow Your Business

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There are many tactics in the digital marketing realm from PPC, SEO, to social media marketing. The one that’s often overlooked is email marketing which is probably one of your biggest missed opportunities. It has an ROI of 3800%. When you pair email marketing with your Ecommerce store, the results will be outstanding. If you’re not familiar with email marketing, let’s set you in the right direction and explore some of the tactics you can try.

email marketing tips

How to Start Email Marketing

As with any marketing initiative, a clear strategy must be written to clearly align the business goals with your email marketing efforts. From there, create the process. Outline key roles, the frequency of each email, best practices for when your company should be sending out these emails, and any other features you’d like to take advantage of. Once you’ve outlined how you’ll be using email, pick the best email marketing platform for your company.

What Can I Send?

There are so many ways to regularly and creatively stay connected with your customers. These emails are critical in order to stay in front of your customers or those interested in your company. You can send an event invitation, a monthly newsletter, or announce a new product. I’m sure you’ve seen many of these in your personal inbox. But, think about which ones grabbed your attention and the ones you actually read. Having an appealing subject line and a unique element to each email is necessary for it to have any effect on your sales.

Email marketing tactics to grow your business

Set It, But Don’t Forget It

Automation is the simplest way for you to give each customer exactly what they would like to read. It gives you a chance to cross-sell, up-sell, and follow-up with your customers. Here are just a few ways you’d be able to take advantage of it:

  • Special Coupons – Deals based on a previous purchase.
  • Abandoned Shopping Carts – Get them to come back to your site and reconsider!
  • Recent Customer’s Email –  Welcome them!
  • Customer Re-engagement Email – Win back customers you haven’t heard from.
  • Best Customers Email – Reward those who support you.

Tell Them What They Want To Hear

Segmenting your lists simply means adding extra information to your email list that will help organize and target specific people. This is the best way to truly give your customers what they will actually need or want. Note which category of items they typically buy, their average dollar sale, or where they live. If your business is B2B, note which industry they are in. This way, you will be able to personalize your emails and make them more inclined to engage with your content. Your customers already receive many emails that they immediately delete if it doesn’t pertain to them. Make them read yours!

email marketing and digital marketing

Email marketing should not be forgotten with all of the ‘cool’, new tactics that are constantly being created. What ways do you see work best for your company? We’d love to hear about them in the comments below!

Want to learn more about Ecommerce? Download our Ecommerce eBook, now.
digital marketing ecommerce guide

Nonprofit Marketing Tips for 2017

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Nonprofits have several challenges in attracting individuals for their causes and converting those individuals into donors. To successfully promote and supply aid to those causes, nonprofits’ marketing efforts need consistent branding, effective use of Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and efficient use of marketing budgets to grow donations.

Based upon the economic climate and the job market, getting millennials and other individuals to donate to your nonprofit will become increasingly challenging without the following tools.

Nonprofit Marketing Tips for 2017
Vector Illustration by Vecteezy!

Build Your Nonprofit Brand

There are so many great nonprofits that it can be difficult for yours to stand out. Building and establishing your brand will help. Start by defining your nonprofit. Clearly state what makes your organization unique:

  • Why should people donate time and resources to your cause?
  • How do you emotionally or personally connect with your donors?
  • How do you directly affect your cause?

Answering these questions will build awareness and credibility for your valuable service and distinguish you to donors, everywhere. Once your brand is built, all parts must be consistent within your disseminated content – your flyers, social media posts, and videos. Live it and show it!

Master Your CRM & Database of Donors & Volunteers

Email marketing continues to be an effective marketing channel for nonprofits. People like to see positive messages from companies that do good work. To get the most out of your email marketing, organize your CRM database to personally reach out to donors and volunteers.

Don’t just send mass emails; make them count by generating unique interactions with individuals through certain segments of your audience. Identify what information resonates with these individuals to provide them with relevant information.

TIP: Personalizing your message to an individual will make her/him feel more connected to your cause.

Direct Mail to Make a Direct Impact

Direct mail isn’t dead! According to Inman, baby boomers have a high direct mail response rate. It’s worth noting that this generation also controls 70% of all disposable income. So, they have the money to donate to your nonprofit – don’t miss this opportunity!

Use your CRM to measure responses and limit direct mail to audiences that are more likely to take action. In other words: target your direct mail to those people that are going to make your nonprofit an effective source of aid for your cause.

Grow Your Online Fundraising

Social media and Google for Nonprofits are great opportunities to increase your online fundraising through awareness and meaningful interactions. You can bring your nonprofit marketing story to life with YouTube, Google One Today, and Google Earth Reach.

These platforms allow you to create valuable relationships with like-minded individuals from anywhere at any time. Share and connect your online fundraising across the globe.

Measure Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) and Market Smarter

Focus on measuring the ROAS of your marketing and fundraising campaigns. If a campaign didn’t yield results to justify the spending or effort, consider changing the approach or discontinue that campaign in the future.

With continuous shifts in demographics and consumer behavior, you’ll need to make informed decisions on where to allocate your time and money for long-term success. When you consistently measure the performance of your efforts through your ROAS, you will stay alert to those shifts.

What marketing struggles does your nonprofit consistently face? Tell us in the comments, below! While you’re at it, make sure to subscribe to our newsletter.

Email Marketing Strategies That Will Increase Your Ecommerce Sales

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As a fellow marketer, I bet we both can agree that it seems like we can never get caught up with emails. Our inbox is flooded with random people or businesses trying to gain our attention. As we skim past every subject line and choose which emails to open, which ones to actually read, and which ones to simply delete, we quickly determine the ones worth our time. If we do it, your consumers do, too. Your email marketing efforts need to be focused on what’s going to attract your consumers to open, click, and buy your products.

email marketing services in Reading, Pa - DaBrian Marketing Group

Connect your Ecommerce Store

To do this, integrating your Ecommerce store to your email marketing platform correctly is the first step. The data you need to increase your sales will then automatically populate. You’ll begin capturing their purchase history, following their path to your website, and learning more about the people they are such as their demographics, geographic location, and interests. Before you start seeing an impact on your ROI, you need to learn what to actually do with the information you now have.

email marketing services in Reading, Pa - DaBrian Marketing Group
Statistic Source in Image

Segment Your Email Lists

Sending emails to your potential or current customers is a great way to continue the communication between the two of you, but it doesn’t mean they are interested in what you have to say. By segmenting your lists, you can distribute emails directed towards that particular customer.

Types of Customer Segments:

  1. Potential Customers – Those who’ve shown interest, but never purchased should get an email to ensure you both stay connected.
  2. Recent Customers – If they recently purchased an item, you now have an idea of what they like. Send them a follow-up email with other similar products.
  3. First-time Customers – These new customers might enjoy a “thank you” email to feel more welcomed and appreciated.
  4. Repeat Customers – They have purchased more than once already. Make sure they stay your repeat customers by sending them a special offer or coupon.
  5. Lapsed Customers – Lapsed customers haven’t purchased anything in months. Become top-of-mind again by sending them a deal on the last product they purchased.
  6. Seasonal Customers – Say some customers only buy during certain months of the year. When this month rolls around, be the first name they see. Send them an email with images of what they usually buy.
This segmentation can get you started with sending out the right emails, but there many other ways to segment your lists, also.

Test your Content

Simply because you sent out an email, doesn’t mean you will actually get every customer to open it– We know this. Find out what makes them more inclined to open and interact with your email. A/B testing is the perfect way to do so. This is when you change one variable of an email and see which one performs better. You can test the sender’s name, subject line, send time, copy inside the email, and imagery (videos, gifs, etc.). Does a more blunt, factual approach work for your customers or do they enjoy more humor? Whichever email generates the most sales is your winner!

Click Here for A/B Testing Ideas

Rely on Automated Emails

In a study completed by eMarketer, it was found that B2C marketers who leverage automation have seen conversion rates as high as 50%. Automated emails are reminders and follow-ups of a recent consumer interaction. One of the most important automated emails is an abandoned shopping cart reminder. eMarketer also reports that an email notification about an abandoned shopping cart receives a 40.5% open rate. You know they’re interested, so tell them they need it and don’t let them forget.

Track What You’ve Earned

Whether you’re sending an individual email or an entire email campaign, it’s important to analyze the results. How do the open rates and click percentages compare to industry averages? How many unsubscribed from receiving your emails? How many sales did it generate? What was its average dollar sale compared to your other emails? Find out why a certain email performed better (or worse) than another. Constant analysis allows for constant improvement.

Perfect your email marketing now so you can start the New Year with just one more way to improve your ROI.

What challenges do you face with your email marketing efforts? Comment below, or contact us today to learn more about email marketing opportunities.

DaBrian Marketing Redesigns Mimmo’s Restaurant and Pizzeria’s Website

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Mimmo's Restaurant and Pizzeria's New Website Designed by DaBrian Marketing Group

Reading, PA- DaBrian Marketing Group, a full-service digital marketing agency , launched a new website for Mimmo’s Restaurant and Pizzeria located on Morgantown Road in Reading, PA. Like the newly renovated restaurant, the website has been updated with a new design and style that showcases the beautiful dining areas and highlights the cuisine that makes Mimmo’s the go-to restaurant for families, couples and events.

The new website allows users to quickly browse Mimmo’s extensive menu, find directions to the restaurant or check the hours of operation through desktop and mobile devices. Each page has been rewritten through DaBrian Marketing’s content marketing service which has captured the Mimmo’s atmosphere and story through words. Users may also learn more about Mimmo’s banquet and catering services and choose to fill out an application for services directly from the website. This makes scheduling a family dinner, corporate meeting or class reunion easier than ever.

The dine-in and take-out menus are also available. Diners may browse the hearty array of appetizers, dinners such as steak, seafood and pizza meals, and kids or specials options that are all prepared with fresh ingredients. The menu choices also include the selection of signature cocktails, draft beers, gluten-free items and desserts, including homemade cannolis.

Dozens of pictures taken by Dennis Wojtowicz capture the restaurant’s exterior, interior and ambiance to provide a visual tour of Mimmo’s. Guests will see the front dining room which is designed for casual dining, conversations and family meals, as well as the quiet, intimate area with couples in mind. They can also view the banquet room where up to 130 people can comfortably gather for family dinners, wedding and baby showers, corporate meetings or drinks after work. The peaceful outdoor setting features a grand waterfall can also be seen on the new website.

A staple of Berks County since April 1997, Mimmo’s Restaurant provides guests with an authentic Italian experience. Mimmo and Lucy, the restaurant’s owners, originally opened the restaurant with the intention of providing excellent cuisine and sharing their family history. In 2015, they decided to renovate and expand the space to provide a rustic Italian feel while sharing the story of their family through murals and decor. For the past 20 years, Mimmo’s has welcomed diners to reconnect and relax over dinner and drinks. The owners, restaurant and staff have grown to be part of the community and eagerly welcome guests to learn more at mimmos.org. For information on website design and content marketing, call DaBrian Marketing Group at (610) 743-5602, or by email at sales@dabrianmarketing.com.

About DaBrian Marketing Group, LLC

Founded in 2008, DaBrian Marketing Group, LLC is a full-service digital marketing agency, focused on providing original and strategic digital marketing solutions for businesses, that want to create digital awareness, increase return on investment (ROI), and identify insights that not only will help achieve goals but will also help to increase your business’s efficiencies.
DaBrian Marketing Group’s services include email marketing, search engine optimization, website design, web analytics, social media marketing and more. Company headquarters are centrally located at 500 Penn Street, Suite 201, Reading, Pennsylvania 19602. For more information about DMG, visit dabrianmarketing.com or call 610.743.5602.

Originally Published on Newswire