Hey guys,
So I've had some decent success in black-hat affiliate marketing. I've had a few $100k+ months and while the money has been good, the instability has weighed heavily on me so I decided to pursue something consistent and fully white-hat. I also wanted it to be a force for good and something that brings joy to people's lives.
I decided to steer clear of the raw affiliate marketing side of e-commerce and decided instead to build an e-commerce brand in my country, South Africa.
I decided to go the stationery, novelty and gifting route - similar to a brick-and-mortar store from Australia that has done extremely well in South Africa: Typo.
Here's the website:
www.starbox.co.za
As you can see I poured a lot of work into sourcing local product, product photography, modified the
I ran a pre-marketing campaign at low budgets to gauge brand reception and generated a fair number of page likes and followers which I used to build custom and lookalike audiences.
My approach to live marketing has been to run general product spreads for clicks to the home-page and then run carousels to build interest in individual products. I'm getting Add-To-Carts at a relatively low cost but Purchases just aren't happening.
Anyway, I guess what I'm asking for is some perspective and to get some input on what I can do to better market these products and improve the website.
If you get add to carts but few purchases, my first question is what is your delivery cost and how early in the process does the customer know?
And I don't mean the absolute price on the store - more important relative to the products that get added to cart then don't generate a sale, and to alternatives for such products in their area.
The initial approach is to treat each product like its own affiliate offer and optimize for it and work your way on expanding from there.
In essence, you don't completely decide what to do from the beginning but you let data guide you - maybe you have to pivot the store based on some hot product + audience combination you find.
Great job on your business setup. Hopefully you are able to turn things around.
This won't help conversions, but just noticed a very minor issue on your fb about page where the instagram account link is https://www.instagram.com/https://ww...com/starboxza/ instead of the intended https://www.instagram.com/starboxza/
Are your customers getting far enough through the cart process that you have their contact details?
If so, try emailing them and asking what prevented their purchase. I'd probably phrase this as "I'm absolutely not trying to persuade you to purchase - I'd just like to know what went wrong so that we can fix it in future!"
This is one of the things I love about ecomm vs affiliate work (particularly black-hat) - you can actually enlist your customers as allies and helpers.
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As a side note - if you've spent a lot of time sourcing local work and supporting local suppliers, try shouting about it in your copy!
That approach often works well - people trust something made close to them more, and also it gives the warm fuzzies of supporting local craftspeople with whom they can identify more easily. And it makes the product distinct and memorable to boot.
Hope those two points help!
To add to what @caurmen said about your local sources, try to enlist them as well.
See if they can link to your site, send out a mail to their customer list, post on their blog etc. Your site looks great, so it shouldn't be too much to ask.
One thing I would work on ASAP is tell people what you're about on the front page.
Right now, I am puzzled by Mallow dreams and Modern Memphis.
Yes, when I continue and start looking, I know they are sets of products, it could have been a subscription box as well with stationary coming every month. After all, your tag line is: we deliver delight.
I personally think you are being too clever:
- cosy - perfect for winter - How does that seduce me to click?
- stationary - the write stuff - Great if you are trying to impress your friends with clever puns, but you should be selling here
The site looks great, photography is spot on, but the copy really isn't working for you.
Products suffer a bit of the same: https://www.starbox.co.za/collection...ts/kooshty-kup
"Top Billing, Zero Spilling"
Yet in the bullit points, not a single bullit about spilling:
This travel mug is made from glass and 100% BPA-free rubber
Splash-proof silicone lid and a silicone band to help you grip and to keep your drink nice and warm
Fits perfectly into your car’s cup holder
Wash before first use
Dishwasher safe, top shelf only
Microwave safe – remove silicone lid and rim before placing in microwave
Yes, I see "splash proof", but I associate that with water coming from an outside source. Not like spilling.
Apart from that, big issue is your target audience. Where is that hungry crowd of people that want what you've got? When are they hungry for it?
Are these products great gifts for when people get a new job for example? (solving problem of not knowing what to give for that occasion)
Or do you want to target start-ups that need to look cool to attract people (solving a recruitment issue)
Or are your customers people who want to stand out from the crowd?
All of these could be true, or not your target market.
But something for you to figure out. By making ads and starting to target and figure out what works.
Hope it works out and keep us all updated - would love to see yo do well with this!
Thanks very much for the advice guys!
So I've taken an affiliate approach to this and started treating each product as an offer as manu_adefy suggested.
I think I got so attached to the idea of the brand and what it meant to me that I pushed the marketing aspect to the back of my mind, taking for granted that my past success with marketing would instantly translate.
I'll post an update in this thread once I have some results to share.
Thank you so much for the detailed advice pekadis.
If you check out www.starbox.co.za you'll see that I've already begun to apply some of it.
I am going to go through the copy for all products tomorrow and refine it to better sell the products.
Will continue to update you guys.
Great - I see an improvement already.
Keep us posted!
Nice webdesign =)
Your website did load very slow for me, and the scrolling was not fluent,
https://gtmetrix.com/reports/www.starbox.co.za/2mgRvjgp
Never run ads to the homepage, always run ads for products. The ad should link to the product page or a product funnel.
The product descriptions are very short and didn't get me all too excited.
As well I'm missing some customer reviews or social proof on the site.
It's the first I check out when I buy from a new shop online.
You can let friends and family buy something with discount/free and let them review in return.