A Direct Marketing Agency - Helping Brands Acquire and Retain Customers

US ecommerce sales grew by an estimated 24.6% during 2005. That translates to $143 billion in estimated sales. Sounds impressive, right? But at just 2.4% of overall US retail sales, it's just the tip of the iceberg of possibilities. There's a lot of growing that can still be done.

Ecommerce has grown at the same steady rate for the past eight quarters, so now is the time to find methods to spur traffic and sales. According to the Ecommerce Benchmark Guide 2006, published by Marketing Sherpa, there are some distinct differences between average and high-growth marketers in how they approach their online businesses. Emulating the high-growth methods should help you increase your sales too.

For growing site traffic, high-growth businesses use more:
- Email acquisition lists
- Online advertising, portal deals and paid keyword placement
- Search engine optimization
- Paid search

They rely less on:
- Affiliates
- Email house lists
- Direct to site

High-growth marketers measure traffic sources so carefully that they have only 9% white mail (not knowing where traffic came from). Average-growth merchants are clearly not measuring enough with a 21% white mail rate.

High-growth merchants also tend to invest aggressively in most forms of outbound new traffic marketing. Average-growth marketers rely too heavily on customers typing in their URL directly...assuming that their brand's reputation is enough to bring traffic.

You've been hearing about all of these methods for the past few years, and for good reason. They can really increase your online business and put you in the high-growth mode.