The Big eCommerce Conference - Part 2

Welcome back! Thank you for all you lovely comments and feedback about my write up so far of The Big eCommerce Conference.  The next seminar was delivered by Suzanne Dibble, who I know from Twitter (@law4mumprenuers).  With the brand new Cookie Law coming in to play a couple of days before the conference Suzanne was keen to teach us what this meant to our websites.  For those that think the only cookie is filled with chocolate chips, Suzanne explained what internet cookies are and what they do.  Cookies store data of website users, which is done in the background without us knowing and tracks users habits on various websites.  I reguarly delete my cookie history on my own laptop and advise you all to do so too, as too many cookies from the internet has a similar affect as real cookies, it makes your system sluggish and slow! 

With the new EU law coming into play here in the UK this month we now all need to make sure we are compliant.  However at the eleventh hour the directive shifted the goalposts as there were concerns that the new cookie law would affect an already struggling British economy.  So should we all be rushing to ensure we have a cookie policy on our websites? A question that remains unanswered however Suzanne advised that we should all try to comply with the new laws.  Therefore you will need an opt-in consent form for all users of your website. Businesses can get a cookie policy widget from www.heartinternet.co.uk/eu-cookie-law.html and there is also a Wordpress plugin available for cookie consent, I am yet to find one, but will let you know when I get a moment to look! 

Another point raised by Suzanne whilst discussing cookie law was the need for websites to have a privacy policy.  The cookie policy can be an extension of your privacy policy.  As a blogger I am not yet sure how this all affects me and I assure you I am investigating this and when I know I will update you, incase as bloggers we need to take action.

Pinterest is still a hot topic for debate with regards to copyright law and I am not even going to try and tackle this hot potato as so many other bloggers have dealt with it so well.  At the end of the day you need to decide about using Pinterest, but I urge you all to pin carefully and wisely, ensuring the links you pin from are the original image source.  If you do not want people to pin from your blog or website there is a code available to block pinners.

Suzanne then moved onto explain that Twitter, Facebook and Blogs all come under the CAP Code, the Committee of Advertising Practice.  All advertising must be legal, decent, honest and truthful.  You can sign up for email updates regarding the CAP code here.  Continuing the seminar we were reminded that all email marketing should be done with opt in boxes, to ensure we were gaining peoples permission to send regular email newsletters or campaigns and that as direct sellers we must ensure we have a 7 day cooling off period period. 

The internet is so huge that measuring and ensuring compliance to the numerous laws is a huge undertaking and we all know that there will always be somebody avoiding compliance.  However I think it is important as responsible business owners that we should make sure our own affairs are in order and legal to avoid future reprimands that could affect our businesses dramatically.

What are your thoughts? I know as small businesses we have so many hats to wear and law is probably the most complicated.  Suzanne's website can be found at www.lawyers4mumprenuers.com if you would like some help with understanding the legal minefield.

I will be back tomorrow with more ideas and information from the conference as well as some fabulous finds to commemorate The Queens Diamond Jubilee.

Have a wonderful afternoon,

Zoe

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The Big eCommerce Conference - Part 1

Yesterday I set off early to travel down to Woking to attend The Big eCommerce Conference, hosted by b:web.  I have chatted with Zoe Brown, the MD of b:web, on Twitter for a while and know how passionate she is about helping small businesses get the most from their websites. Some of you may remember that  Zoe was the designer behind the Riot Raffle website.  So I was thrilled to be able to finally meet Zoe and her team.  I was also able to finally meet Isa Maria, of The Noisette Academy.  Isa has become a dear friend via twitter and email and has been somebody I have wanted to meet in person for a long while.  Fresh from her trip to Rwanda, Isa is full of ideas and plans so be sure to join her on The Noisette Academy and follow her progress.  Joining Isa and I at our table were Gabrielle of The Green Gables and Katie of What Katie Did Next.  I have met both Gabrielle and Katie previously and was delighted to meet up with them both again.

Leather & Liberty Print Purse from What Katie Did Next

I know from all of the tweets you sent me, thanking me for the live tweets from the conference and the RT's, that many of you want to know more about what I learnt yesterday.  I want to share so much with you all but because I have come away with pages of advice and ideas I don't now want to write a huge essay of a post! So I am going to spread it out over the next few days and as so many of you are small businesses, online and as 'real' retailers, I hope it all helps.  I will aim to condense the content from the conference, offering you all the key points from the different seminars and workshops. So here goes!

Having perused the conference programme I was still undecided which workshops to attend, but the line up was impressive.  The speakers were all informative and most were inspiring.  The first seminar was with Matt McNeill, an email marketing expert and founder of Sign-Up.to.   Having been planning to start weekly email newsletters as part of the bigger and even better Zoe & Drew I was keen to learn about planning and running sucessful email campaigns.  Matt's seminar was incredibly informative and I have plenty of notes to help me create my own email newsletters that people will open.  Interestingly Matt stated that email marketing has the highest return with £1 spend creating £40 revenue.  Key factors for good email marketing include -

• Build expectation - tell people how often they will receive your email newsltters.
• Sell it to them - give people a reason to sign up, perhaps you will share product previews, discount codes, exclusive offers.
• Keep subject line short and concise, no more than 50 characters - make people want to open your email.
• Never have photo heavy content - often emails are opened on mobil devices which often leave blanks where images should be. People will just click delete.
• Best time to send email newsletters/campaigns are Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday during office hours.  Optimum time to send - Thursday around 11am!

I then had to choose which workshop to attend and chose 'Sucessful Online Local Retailing' which proved very interesting.  In  a world doiminated by internet shopping it was interesting to see how local retailers are adapting to the online and real worlds of retail.  I defiantely believe there is a shift in our retail habits as we crave real shopping experiences yet still need the options of online shopping.  James Puddicombe of Voodoo, explained one of the key factors is community.  Local reatilers can be part of online shopping communities but also be part of our real communities. They know what we want as local shoppers and can be part of our community.  Local retailers are often passionate about what they sell and this means their marketing is authentic as they know and love what they sell.  They should also use this when writing the copy for their websites, using their own voices, not generic product descriptions that you find on websites such as Amazon.  So even though there are so many website selling similar products, local retailers can suceed in the online market as well as their local market, by being passionate and owning their niche, their topic. 

Do you already send email newsletters? Have you found a tried and tested method that works? Do you agree that there is a shift in our shopping habits? I would love to know what you all think.  Now seems a good place to stop as the conference took a coffee break! So I will be back soon with more, including ways to stop you using social media to much and why you need to be blogging for your business.

Have a fab day,
Zoe
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