How Automation Can Supercharge Marketing For Your Online Business

  • Jason@DPD
  • June 25, 2019
  • No Comments

Online businesses have so many more opportunities to market than pre-internet brick and mortar stores. But with those opportunities come some challenges. You’re expected to show up in so many different places and have a presence in so many channels. Email marketing, new social media platforms all the time, mobile marketing, etc. 

How do you keep it all going at once without dropping the ball? Where do you find the time?

According to HubSpot’s State of Inbound report for 2019, The top marketing challenge for companies was generating leads and traffic, followed by proving the ROI of their marketing methods and obtaining the budget to pull it all off. Marketing automation tools can help you with all three. 

Automating your online marketing can help you generate more leads and grow your traffic, analyze exactly the ROI you’re getting on your marketing, and reduce your costs making it easier to hit the budget. 

What can automation do for you?

Automation allows you to leverage online tools and technology to save time and effort. You can automate communication, lead nurturing, content scheduling, research and analytics, and social media processes. All of this lets you get more done in less time, saving money while you reach more clients. Here are some examples of how you can use online marketing automation to reach more clients in less time:

Communications

When leads reach out to you online, how long does it take them to get a response? If the answer is longer than a few minutes, it could be costing you new customers. We live in the age of impatience and a lead who is actively looking for your products and services will quickly move on to the next provider while awaiting your reply. 

You can automate emails to respond to inquiries, giving you more time to provide an answer to the question being asked. You can do similar things with social media messenger apps, like Facebook Messenger. Chatbot technology can even carry on a simple customer service or marketing conversation for you, providing leads and current customers with simple information and answers instantly.  

Lead nurturing

You can automate the nurturing process by setting an automated sequence of messages through email, messenger, or even text messages. This allows you to follow up and stay top-of-mind with your leads automatically. 

Content scheduling

If you use a lot of content to market your business on social media, it can take hours to schedule posts to different platforms at the best times of day for each. This process can be automated, allowing you to paste the content into a tool which schedules on multiple platforms at specified times throughout the day. Finally, you can handle all your social media posting at once and let it trickle out at the perfect time.  

Aiming at the Right Target

Before you think about online marketing automation tools, you have to consider what you want to achieve and the best way to go about it. A few questions up front will save you a lot of trial and error later on. 

What tasks should you automate?

You’ve got a lot on your plate. Marketing involves a lot of different steps and not all of them are prime targets for automation. You have to determine which ones take up a lot of your team’s time, without the need for human decision making and judgement. 

Repetitive tasks that your team perform in the same way, over and over again, will save the most time and give the best results if automated. The repetitive and sometimes boring nature of those tasks (let’s be honest) also creates a higher risk of mistakes. That can be prevented by automation.

What tools should you use?

Some of the top online marketing automation tools are discussed below. For now, think about the tasks you’ve just decided to focus on. Chances are there are several tools on the market to do each of them. You’re looking for the ones that fit your budget and the unique needs of your company for that task. 

Who’s in charge of those tools?

Automation tools save tons of time and effort and streamline your day to day marketing, but they do still take time to set up and master. Decide who in your organization will be using these tools and what the learning curve looks like. The makers of these automation tools want you to succeed and continue using them. Many offer free training, support, and even certification. 

Re-evaluate 

Automation tools can help you track ROI, but how do you track the ROI of the tools themselves? Before you start using a new tool, take a look at the results you’re getting and the time and energy you’re putting into that specific task. Once you’re up and running with a new automation tool, compare your new results to see if the tool is helping you improve your outcome. 

Top Marketing Automation Tools

Hubspot

Hubspot offers a range of automation tools in its marketing suite, depending on the level you purchase. You can manage and segment your email list, build automated email campaigns, and connect everything to the built in CRM. 

Pardot 

For a product with a bit more of a sale process, Pardot can be a great option. It automates and streamlines the sales process, allowing you to track, nurture, and score leads. It also makes it easy to track ROI for your campaigns. All of this connects with your SalesForce CRM, since Pardot is made by SalesForce. 

Hootesuite

For social media marketing, Hootesuite offers pretty much everything you need. You can schedule all your social media posts in one place at one time. 

Hootesuite will alert you when your company or product is mentioned on social, so you can make the most of free publicity or put out any fires before they spread. You can also keep a close eye on the analytics of all your social media content. 

A few new automation tools likely hit the market while you were reading this article. Take a look at what’s out there and see how automation can help you make the most of your day to day marketing efforts.

Keys to Starting a Digital Product Store in 2019

  • Jason@DPD
  • June 18, 2019
  • No Comments

Whether you want to create a freedom lifestyle or just build a business that can scale, selling a digital product is one of the best options out there. Unlike a direct service, you’re not limited by the amount of time you have to provide it. And unlike a physical product, there’s no inventory, no shipping, and no worries about where your customers are located.

Once a digital product has been created, it can be bought and downloaded by as many customers as you can find. This means you can scale the business to any size while working from anywhere. 

So, what does it take to start a digital product store in 2019? The tools are definitely available. Here’s what you need to get started: 

A Great Product

Of course, you need something to sell. If you’re considering starting a digital product store, you may already have a product in mind or may even have it ready to go. If not, you’ll need to decide on a product and put it together or partner with a creator to sell their product. 

A digital product could be anything from a 99 cent song to a downloadable online course worth thousands of dollars. Books, music, software and apps, art, and digital courses are all examples of great digital products. You just need a product that provides value to your customers in some way. 

Picking the Right Name

Naming your store can be a fun process. Just make sure your creative juices don’t take you too far. You need a name that’s easy to remember and easy to spell. Complicated names and creative spellings can make it hard for customers to find your store. 

When you choose your name, make sure not to limit yourself too much. You may be selling a single digital product today but what if you want to expand and diversify down the road? Choose a name that works for more than one product and you can continue the name and reputation you’ve built with new products. 

Along with non-traditional spelling, avoid hyphens and other punctuation that your customers won’t expect if they’re spelling out your name after hearing it spoken (you want that word of mouth to work, right?).

Claim Your Domain

Your domain name is the address where your store will be found online. A short, memorable .com or .io domain name can make your digital product store look more established and professional. 

Name and domain go hand-in-hand. Take a look at available domain names while you’re deciding on your store name. If you’re able to get the .com domain name that matches your store name, you can make it much easier for customers to remember your URL and find your store. There’s nothing more frustrating than choosing a name you like and finding out the matching domain name is owned by someone who’s not even using it.

When looking for a domain name, consider your registrar options. The cost of your domain name may vary between registrars but hosting and security may be bundled together to provide a better overall price for your needs.  

Set Up Hosting

If your domain is the address where your store is found, hosting is the landlord. Your hosting company provides servers for your site. Choose a reputable hosting company to help ensure that the servers don’t go down (causing your site to be inaccessible) and that you get reliable customer service when needed.

Again, one factor in choosing your hosting company may be bundle services. Some offer free domain registration or easy set-up with the platform you’re using (like WordPress).  

Think Security

One thing many people forget about is an SSL security certificate. SSL certificates are a way to show the internet that your site is secure and trusted. It attaches a file to your site so browsers know you’re legitimate.  

Having an SSL certificate in place can establish trust with your customers, since a website without one is label “Not Secure” in the web browser. Even if the site is safe, this is unnerving for shoppers. In fact, you won’t be able to process online payments through a sight without SSL – at least not without a lot of extra steps and a special setup.

The SSL certificate is another thing you may be able to get bundled from your hosting provider. Keep that in mind when you shop for hosting and domain names.  

Secure, Convenient Payment Processing and More

Once you have all the basics set up on your digital product store, you’re almost ready to open your doors. But, of course, you don’t want a store if no one can pay you. Payment processing has to be set up to allow online card and bank payments from customers. 

There are several payment processors you can choose from and a lot of moving parts. Knowing which one to go with and how to set up payments on your store can be daunting. If you want to simplify the process and get started selling your digital product fast, look no further than www.getDPD.com.

DPD offers more than just payment processing. You can upload your digital product easily and DPD will provide seamless digital delivery when your customers purchase your product. No more worries about delivery and fulfilment issues. 

Once your product is uploaded to DPD, you simply paste the “buy” button to your site allowing DPD to handle the payment and order processing for you. You bring in the customers and DPD does the rest. All for a flat monthly fee with no transaction fee per download, so you can scale as high and as quickly as you want. 

You can also use Zapier to connect DPD to many 3rd party apps like Mailchimp and Google, Analytics, making it easier to track your business and grow your sales. 

Are you ready to go from ambition to making your first sale in no time? DPD makes it possible. Click to learn more and get started now

How Proper Social Proof Can Double Your Digital Product Sales

  • Jason@DPD
  • June 11, 2019
  • No Comments

Social proof has been a “thing” for years, but it’s still one of the hottest trends in marketing today. Why? Because it works, and it’s just what you need to send your digital product sales into the stratosphere. Simply put, people like what other people like and they buy what other people are buying. It’s the same dynamic that is making influencer marketing is so hot right now. 

But how can you leverage social proof to make a difference in your bottom line and your digital product sales?

With the growth of social media and the corresponding growth of technology, social proof is relevant to marketing on a scale that Robert Cialdini likely never imagined when he first coined the term in his 1984 book, Influence.And while influencer marketing is important, social proof goes far beyond influencers, with testimonials, good reviews, expert opinions and blurbs, personal recommendations, and more, playing a role. Let’s dive deeper into how you can capitalize on several forms of social proof to grow your digital product sales.

The Power of a Good Review

People want to be where the action is and they tend to buy what other people like. The numbers show this is resoundingly true as at least 85% of us read reviews online before spending money at a business! 

In fact, according to BrightLocal, 91% of us trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. So while you definitely want to leverage influencers and personal recommendations as much as possible, you want to focus heavily on getting reviews, especially those in the four-star and five-star range. Reviews can make a difference in 66% of all purchase decisions – that’s huge.

Why Bad Reviews Matter for Digital Product Sales 

People may not always speak up about good experiences, but they definitely speak up about bad ones. Having a bad customer experience go viral can be very damaging to your future sales as well as your business’ brand. When your overall rating loses a single star or goes from a four-star rating to three, you can lose 5-9% in sales.

These numbers are significant, however realistically, not everyone will decide not to purchase based on a single bad review, and in fact, having some negative reviews can actually help your digital product sales. After all, people prefer to buy from brands that have a four-star rating, and actually trust these products more than those with five-star ratings. Why? Because no one has a perfect reputation, and people are naturally suspicious of products that have all five-star reviews. 

So how can you leverage a bad review into higher digital product sales?

That’s where this aspect of social proof gets really interesting. People tend to trust brands that acknowledge the bad reviews and respond to them over those that sweep the problem under the rug. So turning bad reviews into an opportunity to improve client communication and solve new problems, you can actually turn a bad review into higher digital product sales.


And there’s something else to consider, too. Some consumers search specifically for negative reviews and these folks can actually end up being some of the highest converting, by as much as 85%. So when you handle your reputation management the right way, not only do you appear trustworthy and authentic, you demonstrate that you care about your clients and their needs. Plus, it may yield an opportunity for an updated review or a new positive one. And there’s no better social proof than that!

The dangers of using negative social proof

There should be no doubt in your mind by this point that social proof is a powerful option to grow your digital product sales. However, keep a close eye on your messaging. You want to focus on positive aspects rather than negative. For an example this, consider when the Arizona Petrified Forest posted three different signs to keep people from stealing petrified wood. 

This one actually reversed the effect and led to more vandalism: “Your heritage is being vandalized every day by theft losses of petrified wood of 14 tons a year.”

Can you guess why? 

It sends the message that everyone else is doing it. And with that, people tend to figure: “why not me, too?”

So, while you want to use social proof to increase your digital product sales, you want to be sure you’re doing it the right way.

How to integrate social proof into your product page

At this point, it’s really a no-brainer that you want to start leveraging social proof to increase your digital product sales. But what types of social proof do you want to add to your product page?

Testimonials & Reviews

Testimonials from clients you’ve worked with can be indispensable, as can those great reviews. Choose a few that are really great, and select short, meaningful blurbs from each that will really speak to your target client.

Logos

Are there some big names you’ve worked with? Adding their logos to your sales page boosts your credibility. After all, if big names are working with you, you become that much more attractive to more clients.

Badges and accreditations

If you have trust seals, certifications, or accreditations, add those too. Just like logos, these badges offer social proof that will grow your digital product sales, to the tune of up to 30% and sometimes higher! In fact, Blue Fountain Media’s A/B test with a Verisign trust seal increased sales by 42%.

Live sales numbers/notifications

These are a relatively new addition to the social proof game. Notifications pop up on your screen showing when other people purchase the product. Remember how social proof is about liking what other people like? This gives social proof in real time and shows how popular the product is. If you add this to your page, your digital product sales will start converting higher!

The bottom line

No matter how you slice it, social proof is the key to increasing your share of the digital product sales pie. However, be sure to start integrating social proof mindfully to make the most of its power. And, don’t be surprised when your digital product sales grow in a big way!

The Truth About Chargebacks and Disputes on Digital Deliveries

  • Jason@DPD
  • October 24, 2012
  • 10 Comments

We often get asked as a pre-signup question for DPD if our system will help vendors fight chargebacks and disputes from buyers. Usually vendors have been burned in the past by unscrupulous buyers downloading their product and then doing a chargeback, leaving the vendor out of luck.

We deliver terabytes of downloads like games, music, video, graphics, and ebooks for thousands of vendors, so we’re in a pretty good position to spill the beans on this one.

They want to know if anything can prevent chargebacks for digital orders.

The short answer? No.

Why You’re Going to Lose A Chargeback

PayPal

PayPal has built their business on security and safety for buyers. This makes them nearly 100% biased toward siding with buyers when it comes to chargebacks and disputes. This is not the court system where vendors are innocent until proven guilty. In every case we have ever heard about (and trust me, we talk to a lot of vendors) PayPal seems to start with the logic that “The seller is wrong.”

We have never heard of a single case from any of our thousands of vendors where they won a PayPal dispute even with IP addresses and download logs. If a customer disputes your charge through PayPal you will lose the money, period.

Edit: A couple vendors have responded and said that they won a PayPal dispute in cases where the person who filed the dispute didn’t actually follow up on the dispute process, so PayPal decided in the vendor’s favor. So hey, at least if the person that does the chargeback is lazy you might have a chance!

We’re a PayPal partner. They’re our #1 payment processor in use with DPD and they probably wouldn’t like that we wrote this, but it’s the truth.

Just about everybody who is buying stuff online has a PayPal account. If you don’t accept PayPal then you’re turning away a huge number of sales. PayPal knows this, so they have very little motivation to change their dispute practices.

Credit Card Processors

For Visa and MasterCard the credit card processor dispute and refund polices are controlled by the issuing bank so the enforcement of chargebacks vary broadly. One chargeback might be handled by Wells Fargo and another by Chase or Citibank.

In the vast majority of cases we have heard about the only way they will side with you in any dispute case is if you can provide a tracking number and proof of delivery for the order.

By tracking number we mean a USPS, UPS, or Fedex tracking number in the US (or other carriers internationally). By proof of delivery we mean “signature required” where the person who ordered the product actually signed for the delivery. Letting UPS leave it on the doorstep without a signature doesn’t count for proof of delivery- “The neighborhood kids must have stolen it! I didn’t get it!” works for a dispute.

For Discover and American Express the policies are set by the credit card company. From what we have heard with other vendors, American Express seems to be more willing to hear the vendor’s side of the story, but as with all internet transactions the deck is still stacked in the buyer’s favor. Unfortunately, we really don’t have enough experience with Discover to offer valid feedback on them.

The trump card for all disputes? Simple- the buyer only has to assert that the item was not as described. Easy. The credit card company says you didn’t sell them what they thought they were getting, the buyer get’s their money back, and that’s it. They win the dispute.

What can you do about it?

Sadly, not much.

However, a tactic that has been said to work by some vendors is this:

Buyers are looking for instant digital delivery and you’re looking for peace of mind from chargebacks. A simple solution to this is to bundle your instant download with a tangible good. When a customer makes an order of your digital/tangible bundle, they get the instant delivery they are looking for and you ship them an item (which could be just a sheet of paper with download instructions, or a CD with a copy of their order) via the cheapest method you can with proof of delivery. In most cases in the US, that’s Postal Mail with signature confirmation.

When a dispute comes up you can reference the proof of delivery and hold off the “I didn’t get it” claims.

Of course, this comes at a price. Instead of just hanging out and collecting payments for your instantly delivered download without any action on your part you now have to mail something out in a timely maner. But, if you’re plagued with chargebacks it might just be a viable alternative to eating the lost sales.

[box]The information in this post is based on our real world experience talking to and supporting the vendors who use DPD to sell downloadable products. We welcome any outside experiences or tips in fighting chargebacks and reversals![/box]