In my quest to open up my options for earning from Zazzle, stages 1, 2 and 3 are sort of complete now. Complete in the way internet things are never complete ;)
So what were those stages? Ones I'm sure you're working your way through ;)
Before I get into that, I'm going to make some comparisons with a bricks-and-mortar retail store. The key features of such a store that I'm going to focus on are:
- the products themselves
- the venue itself (what you've got to work with)
- the decor, dressing and window display
- the human interaction with customers who come in - aka the social aspects
and then I'll compare those with the stages I'm applying to my Zazzle venture.
Stage 1 - products
These are 99.99% the products I've designed on Zazzle. Took me a couple or three years - so far. They appear in my various venues.
Stage 2 - venue(s)
This kind of equates to my online Zazzle store but in a sense, both in the real world and on line, can be any of your outlets / social media / blogs.
The point is, it's the place you get to dress, in which you have your products, where you place your stunning come-in-and-have-a-look window dressing.
Stage 3 - decor, dressing, display
Color scheme, product images, lifestyle images, product arrangements, new products, all having to fit with any restrictions imposed by the venue (Twitter, Facebook, Blog template etc).
Once set up, it's a case of rotating your best selling and also your new products around the display areas, so there's always something fresh for visitors to see in your product lines.
And that last part is very time consuming.
So I built Zaps to do it for me automatically. Sweet.
I've sold Zaps to 25 or so others so far and they're all doing the same. They love it :D
Stage 4 - Socialise Me - automate the icebreakers
Think about it for a moment. Not everyone who goes into a retail store buys something, do they? But one thing they do get is some form of social interaction - the human connection.
In any, for example, craft or art outlet, the staff do their utmost to make customers feel welcome. They weigh up the customer, strike up conversations and do their best to attend to their needs. The customers treated that way are much more likely to revisit and to become paying customers.
That's what your social media / blogs need. It's the spirit that breathes life into them
And this is the one I've been working on over the last few weeks.
In the online world, the equivalent to the storekeeper's icebreaker to a potential customer is an interesting piece of information. Of course, it's got to appeal to the average visitor to the store. The more niche the store, the more within that niche the information needs to be.
And the occasional funny, random or topical item.
So I built a new feature for Zaps to do this part. It's called Ausome, because it is and because of the acronym
Auto
Socialise
Me
Stage 5 - human-on-human
Having automated the sharing of
products with Zaps and automated the sharing of
icebreakers with Ausome, I now have stimulated plenty of social interaction.
Once someone 'bites' on an icebreaker, the real social interaction gets going.
Because I don't have to spend time sharing, I've got lots to spend on the real social interaction - replying to comments, thanking folks for reshares, taking part in discussions the icebreakers have started and so on.
After the initial venue setup, this is actually the only part that needs a direct human hand, all the rest can be automated. And that's what I've done.
Say What?
All my product sharing and the vast majority of my 'interesting finds' sharing is all done automatically with the
Zaps toolkit, with its brand new feature, Ausome. (So new, I'm still writing the info / tutorial page for it!)
comments, likes, +1s, tweets are always welcome! :)
