Email Survey Results

Recently we conducted a survey on the topic of email marketing and how to make Magento do more for our users.  We had over thousands of responses and the results showed that MailChimp was the most popular choice.  Users told us that MailChimp works well for Magento because it allows Magento Merchants to really measure the ROI of email campaigns.  Through a plug-in to Magento they track when people click from merchant email campaigns, visit the website, and hopefully purchase. All of this information is then gathered and displayed on a merchant’s MailChimp campaign report.  The Magento:Mailchimp email extension is available free of charge here.

How Does It Work?

Once the extension is installed, MailChimp will automatically add some tags to links the merchant includes in the campaigns sent. Those tags will be picked up by a plugin installed in the merchant’s Magento store.  The extension will track users who have followed the links in merchant email campaigns. When a user completes a purchase, the plugin will quietly send the basic details of the order – products ordered, product categories, and shipping, tax, and order totals – back to MailChimp via an API call. That data will then be available on the merchant Campaign Reports page and eventually during segmentation when creating new campaigns, too.  We here at Magento think this is a pretty effective way to improve the results of merchant email campaigns.

MailChimp are now giving Magento merchants $75 to try MailChimp and see if they can help you make more money.  You can find out more here.

Watch it in Action

Watch the video for information on how MailChimp integrates with Magento and some pretty cool features that MailChimp offers.

Magento Enterprise Partners Optaros have recently released a Magento Connect extension called Facebook Connect Social Shopping which allows you to integrate social shopping via Facebook with your Magento storefront.  Ever seen a cool item and wished you could ask your friends what they thought before you went ahead an decided to buy? Then this extension is definitely for you!  Check out this video for a quick run through.

There is another Facebook Connect Magento module which allows you to use registration data from Facebook for users coming to your site, notify them of order updates via Facebook notifications and much more.

Also, check out the Facebook Link module from aheadWorks, which enables some pretty cool functionality such as wall posts to customers’ walls when they complete an order and allows them to offer their friends personal recommendations on items they have purchased.

What do you think about integration social networks and Magento?  What features would you like to see next?

The Magento Enterprise Edition is a powerful eCommerce platform with features designed to increase sales.

Keep your customers coming back by offering store credits and gift cards. Offer physical gift cards sent in the mail and virtual gift cards sent to an inbox. Set price tiers for customers to choose, or let them enter an amount within a preset minimum and a maximum value. The Enterprise Edition gives you control to define the card lifetime and enable gift messages so customers can add a personal touch.

Recipient’s can check their card balance before checkout, and use the available funds for purchase. Use an unlimited number of gift cards, or redeem and receive store credit. The Enterprise Edition keeps a gift card history so that you can see how gift cards are being used.

Reward loyal customers and handle returns by issuing store credits so customers can use the balance for future orders.  During the refund process, simply select the full refund amount, or enter a partial amount to create an automatic store credit. Your customers can choose to use their store credit during checkout along with other available payment methods. The Enterprise Edition makes it easy.

The Magento Enterprise Edition, giving you the tools to grow your business.

Today Varien announced a theme for Magento tailored specifically for the iPhone. See just how easy customers will find shopping directly from their iPhone:

How exactly does this work? With the release of Magento 1.1 due out very soon, comes a new feature where Magento will auto-detect the iPhone user-agent and apply the iPhone specific theme for that visitor. This allows you to have a standard Magento theme for your normal browser visitors as well as the new iPhone optimized website theme for your mobile visitors.

Use of mobile devices for web browsing is exploding. E-tailers are quickly discovering the increased conversions that a mobile-targeted online experience can yield. Take a look at these recently posted findings by Nielsen Mobile (part of The Nielsen Company) as reported by Internet Retailer:

“Nielsen Mobile reports 9.16 million U.S. mobile phone users, 3.6% of the total 254.5 million, have used their phones to pay for goods and services, through avenues including wireless carrier portals, m-commerce sites and text messages. What’s more, 49% of the 94 million mobile phone users with data service—the ability to access the Internet from a mobile device—expect to participate in mobile commerce in the future … Already millions of mobile users are logging on to their favorite retailers over the phone and purchasing items. With the success of m-commerce sites like Amazon.com, which more than 2 million people have visited, and eBay, which more than 3 million have visited, this shows a critical mass that represents a real opportunity for retailers.”

As e-commerce sales continue to rise, contact Precision Creations to learn how you can grow your market share by making your e-commerce store available to the growing mobile web crowd.

We all know that search engines are increasingly focused on content – not just any content, but good content, relavent content. Depending on the specifics of what you’re trying to sell, in many cases it can be much more beneficial to launch and operate several highly focused e-commerce sites – each narrowly focused on a specific category of products. This approach allows search engines such as Google to really hone in and closely associate your site with the products offered for better listings when people search for terms related to those categories, instead of only loosely identifying your site with several relatively unrelated categories.

See the following video interview from Internet Retailer 2008, where Roy Rubin, CEO of Varien explains the benefits of multi-store retailing, and how Magento fits into the picture:

While setting up and operating just one e-commerce store seems daunting enough, fear not! The Magento e-commerce application greatly eases the burden of operating multiple stores – all from one single setup.

If you are interested in expanding your business and effectively leveraging multiple e-commerce storefronts to increase sales, contact Precision Creations. We’re skilled and experienced in walking you through the whole process – from correctly analyzing your current markets, to planning and executing a highly-effective advertising campaign, and setting up and operating an effective, customized Magento e-commerce platform.