Keys to success for online businesses

Ok here are some of my findings and recommendations, after conducting literature search and review of E-marketing strategies, tools and techniques.

1. Products and price variety
The product variety is a key issue that determines a potential customer’s willingness to use your site. If visitors need to visit another website to find the products they are looking for then they may never return to you, therefore online business must provide differentiated product range and offer a complete service, rather than simply being the cheapest or most convenient source for a particular product.

2. Customisation and bundling
Online businesses should differentiate their the products and services in order to attract customers and build long term relationships, this should include, customisation and bundling which means offering a combination of products or services that the individual consumer needs at attractive prices.

3. Site design
The Internet is the primary point of interaction with the customer; therefore design is a crucial concept to attract new customers.

4. Ease to use websites (usability)
Sites must be easy to use and navigate, designed logically, so that a first time visitor can find all the products that is of interest, with the minimum number of clicks.

5. Customer acquisition
Customer acquisition is an important element of the online strategy...In further post I will elaborate on this and explain how to Identify and deploy effective and economical e-marketing strategies, tools and techniques for online businesses to improve their competitiveness and to enable them to strengthen their online presence.

5. Customer retention
Customers can switch loyalty online easily and quickly therefore enhancing loyalty through loyalty programs is an essential to any online business.
Customer retention can be achieved by the following:
1.Loyalty programs to increase customer retention.
2.Regular communication with site users either through newsletters or more personalized messages, to build their loyalty and build share of mind in a crowded marketplace.

6. Customer service differentiation
Online business should give their great attentions to customer’s feedback and the ability to respond rapidly to customers concerns.
They should for example invest in Live Text Chat system that enables customers to interact by text with customer service representative.