From Marketing Sherpa: What a billion dollar site can teach us about “conversion”
Last month, March 2006, was our very first month with over $1 million in sales ($1.3 or so). Just when we were celebrating busting the million month mark, along comes this MarketingSherpa case study on JC Penney, which hit $1 *B*illion in online sales in 2005.
Before you say, “Yeah sure, that’s JC Penney; doesn’t apply to my online store,” read this case study. And of course, if you’re not already subscribed to all the Marketing Sherpa, you’re really missing out. And I’m not just saying that because Anne Holland, the editor/founder, is a friend. 
After you read it, come back here and leave a comment. My biggest takeway: many of us are oversimplifying things when we look at conversion simply as customers divided by unique visitors. Many people shop for awhile (pre-Christmas, pre-wedding, etc.) and just looking at each day’s sales over the number of visitors that day may be, literally, selling yourself short.
Read the case study and think about how much money you plan to spend on paid search. If you’re only looking at the conversion rate tracked in Google’s AdWords conversion tracker, you may be doing better than you think.
And you may be able to spend more, profitably, and build your customer base that much faster.
Read, think, and come back and share a pithy comment.
Posted by Brad Fallon on Tuesday, April 11th, 2006 at 1:12 pm 
[quote]Tactic #6. Build confidence and trust with consistent messaging[/quote]
That seems so important, but you don’t see that at many stores. JC Penney said they keep their site in connection with the current sales that are being advertised. Wow, such a simple thing to do.
How often have we seen a sale from a store and go to the site just to see a different message of ‘no sale here.’
Makes me think, if I were to run an adwords sale on divorce attorney software when the user clicks on the link they *better see a sale!* Else it just makes us (me) look bad, in that I don’t really know how to keep things consistent, and the potential customer won’t trust me as much.
-Ben
Great Topic Brad! Thanks so much for sharing with us. It’s more articles like this that I think can really make our online business stronger. One point in particular, the case study mentions, is about not using the manufacturer pictures, but rather using more vivid custom pictures on your site. I know from the Stomper course that MWF did this and is having great success, but what I don’t know is how much you think these custom pictures alone, contribute to increased conversions (and profit all together)? Would you, or anyone else, happen to have any statistics to share giving approximate conversion (profit) increases directly related to having custom pictures taken? Was conversion dramatically increased or were the gains realized moreso over a longer period of time? I agree that we should all be doing this but don’t quite know how feasible it is for certain businesses/niches. Here’s to Brad again for giving us this small tip a year and a half ago in the stomper, and now we’re hearing that JC Penny does the same thing!
Outdoor Furniture
Great article! Tactic #1 “Expand your metrics” is not the first time I have heard that using the wrong metric to measure performance can hurt your bottom line. This is the first time I have heard “Sales per Unique Visitor” could be one of those metrics.
Many of the other tactics have sparked ideas like a Baby Gifts Solution Center or a Wedding Accessories sale.
Thanks for the info, Brad.
The idea of marketing for Christmas as early as September to catch the “pre-shopping” is something that can apply to website rankings as well. A couple years ago I put up a web site in June that I wanted to use to generate some holiday sales. Unfortunately, my site was not well enough indexed and back-linked by the holiday season, so I had to use PPC to get most of my traffic. But for the next year, I was in great shape and didn’t have to spend much on PPC at all.
I have other sites that revolve around seasonal events and I now make sure that I am getting them ranked well ahead of the “season.”
Read Classic Literature Online
Great information Brad,
I went to JCPenny’s Online Store, just to see for myself… I did notice that JCPenny’s makes the shopping experience as visual and colorful as possible… Something you’ve done with the quality of some of your pictures at MyWeddingFavors.com… The webcopy also has a me to you approach… To bad there wasn’t info. on demographics… I can almost bet they’re biggest market are women…
Congrads on breaking your first million dollar month…
-Francisco a.k.a. Paco
Hello everyone -
I know Google’s conversion data tracks ip numbers for a full month – so any visitors that buy one month after initially getting to you by its pay-per-click will be registered in your conversion data. So Google is a little ahead of the game (and other shopping portals) in terms of looking past the traditional day’s sales/day’s visitor’s formula.
Essentially, the Marketing Sherpa case study on JC Penney seemed to another spin on viral marketing – nothing really new.
Be well everyone -
Fitness Equipment
Thank you for the information, Brad.
The whole concept of “buy the ensemble” is brillant. It is amazing how a simple idea can add SO many sales. I also idea of presenting “the lamp” that goes with the bedding is brilliant, too. Thank you so pointing me to this article and I did sign up for the Marketing Sherpa.
Dr. Robert Fields
Thanks for the info Brad
Being a new site, I have been concentrating on getting recognized by the search engines, not on the conversions. As a result I have a lot of unique visitors but am lousy at conversions. This article woke me up and gave me some good insight on ways to convert. Thanks a bunch.
Paul
Indoor Outdoor Products .com
Hey congradulations!
The 1mill mark is an incredible feat! It really goes to show that you know what your talking about.
I think the lesson is that you must make it easy for your visitors to make the decision to buy. Give them everything they need to make the decision.
Order your favorite magazine online and save, go to Popular Magazines for a wide selection of magazines.
Great article. However, I found myself asking the question, “Great, works for a bricks & clicks store, with a multi line venue, but what about the little guy likle me, who doesn’t carry inventory by using a dropshipper? What can I take away from it?”
I like that fact that Last thinks outside the box, even if his thinking doesn’t fit for me.
I like the part about ramping up in September for a December sale. I think that is something many of us forget. I’ve heard it takes 7 contacts to make a sale. Even if 7 isn’t the magical number, the principle holds true.
I really like that the helped solve peoples objections (or problems) to buying online with the solution centers. I still need to think how I could implement that for my stores.
Buy low and sell high!
Disco Balls
interesting find, i thought jcpenneys was out of favor, and target was taking the market share.
mazda rx-7 rx-8
Any time a visitor comes to a site looking you run the risk of making a sale. Repeat visitors are even better because they have found something on my site that they either wanted to buy or wanted to know more about.
Even though these tactics have been built for their product lines and their targeted audience they can be applied to any market segment. We will work to develop those 6 tactics at our site.
See a Power Supply Tester at http://www.frozencpu.com
Brad:
The case study made some really good points, but I’d like to see the Sherpa study some small businesses that have achieved success in a reasonable time after start-up.
I’ve devoured the “Stomping the Search Engines” course sure would like to be a success story myself. I’m not impatient, but I need sales soon, so if anyone has any ideas on how to trigger some sales quick (so that I have some capital to reinvest), I’m all ears.
Thanks for your great guidance.
Don
Everything You Need to Launch a Profit-Pulling Web Site!
Hi Brad,
My wife told me not to buy it, but I went ahead and did it anyways. I had learned so much and it work..
thx,
jr.
funkypair.com
It was a good reminder that many customers shop before they buy. I sell birth announcements and I am sure that there are only a few of my customers who buy the first time they visit my site. It made me rethink how I have some parts of the site set up and I will try to make it more customer friendly.
It is funny how reading an article like that reinforced some of my ideas; I guess I was taking the ready, aim shoot approach rather than shooting first!
Thanks for the info, Brad!
photo birth announcements
Brad -
That’s a great article. We can all learn a lot from that information.
Thanks,
Ann
baby gifts
Marketing sherpa has some great information… if you have not already had an opportunity to subscribe to their newsletter I would suggest that you do so. They have some very good case studies that could be helpful to your online business.
long time subscriber of marketing sherpa. case studies are a great read.
hgh guide
Marketing sherpa really does have some great case studies… I am a picture person and some times don’t like reading through all the information… but it is good information.
Teething Sitemap
Thanks for your contribution Brad! I am applying your lessons to one of my
new sites about
investment property loans.