A new survey has confirmed what many marketing experts have been predicting - that email marketing will play an even bigger role for many businesses in 2010. The research by Silverpop revealed that 40% of firms will increase their email marketing budgets this coming year, while 47% said their budgets would stay the same.

And one of the key components of email marketing for those asked will be “customer loyalty”.
It’s already known that when consumers tightening their belts financially they look for on-line companies and ecommerce sites that they can trust and build up a relationship with.

In this way, it’s predicted that email marketing will not only grow but it will also aim to engage with consumers in a meaningful way.

So now is the time for all ecommerce sites to take a closer look at their email marketing strategy.

The general gloom of Britain’s recession continues but over the last year we have blogged about the continued strengths of trading on-line. Growth has not always been huge, but in many cases it has been consistent or rising.

With this in mind, the chances are that in 2010 more small businesses and would-be entrepreneurs will be looking to e-commerce as a way to make an improved living.

Here we bring you a few tips on how to start an on-line business:

Keep it simple: You do not need an original idea, just a good idea expertly executed. Look around at what other companies are doing – and then try to do it better or cheaper.

You get what you pay for: Make sure you hire an experienced and reputable web design company, and copywriter. It might seem that cheap is the way forward when launching your business but without great design, good copy and effective SEO you will not be a business success.

Become an SEO expert: SEO is a cheap form of marketing. It’s often a question of spending time ensuring that you optimise your website to maximise traffic from Google, or other search engines. You’ll need to address incoming links (you need lots of them and good quality) and the content of your website. It’s not enough to get traffic to your website, you need to ensure that people want to stay on your site.  Hiring a website copywriter is the best way to ensure good quality content.

Get networking: Social media networks and forums, as well as blogging, offer great channels for further marketing of your business and products. It will take time and creativity to be a success on the likes of twitter but you will get pay back in time.

Be old-fashioned: We may be in an era of electronic mail and messaging but sometimes the old-fashioned snail mail offer a good outlet for getting across a point. These days it’s more surprising to be sent a piece of marketing on paper – and this type of marketing will sit around for a while, for example on kitchen tops or sideboards, in people’s line of sight

Become a great time manager: It goes without saying that running your own business will be time consuming but if you are good at setting deadlines and drawing up specific goals lists then you will get more done in a shorter time. Disorganisation is a major time waster.

Believe in yourself: Launching a business will not be easy but if you have the confidence to give it your best shot you are more likely to be successful. Plenty of people run profit-making on-line business and e-commerce sites, so there’s no reason why you can’t, too.

The latest e-Retail Sales Index reveals that UK shoppers spent £5.3 billion on-line in November.

According to the IMRG Capgemini e-research this figure represents a 25% increase in e-commerce sales compared to the previous month and an 11% rise compared to November 2008.

E-retailers said they were witnessing a typical seasonal growth in sales in November as shoppers cranked up their Christmas shopping efforts from the first week of the month.

But despite sales increasing ahead of the festive season, year-on-year growth has been the lowest for the month of November in the 10-year history of the Index. It’s thought that this is because shoppers were holding out for bargains, rather than reducing their total e-retail spend.

The latest big on-line news is that Asda has partnered up with Hallmark to offer an on-line personalised greetings card service.

The online service was launched in time for Christmas and offers consumers the chance to create and send personalised greeting cards from the comfort of their own homes.

Asda, which is owned by Walmart, clearly sees the benefits reaped by other players in the fast-growing market.

Indeed, the most famous on-line greeting cards retailer Moonpig is reported as selling more than six million personalised cards each year.

Asda hope to compete in this profitable marketplace with personalised cards ranging in price from £1.90 to £5.75 plus postage.

Other retailers that offer online personalised greeting cards include M&S, Zazzle and Whamoosh. Next up for launching a similar service is Clinton Cards

Now is the time to plan your New Year resolutions for your on-line business. Here we bring you a few tips to help you on your way to greater success in 2010.

Product perfect: Whether it’s a service or a product you should spend some time considering whether you are selling the best you can. Perhaps you could improve on your product range or your services. If you can’t make changes then how about looking at the way your products/services reach and excite potential buyers?

Who is the competition:Make a point over the holidays of checking out your competitors. When you’re busy trading it can be hard to find the time to assess exactly what other retailers are doing. But it is worth finding out if you are offering the same products and services but at better prices and in a better way. If not, it’s time to make a few changes to improve your on-line business.

It’s good to be different:  Stand out from the crowd in your marketplace and you’ll definitely reap the benefits. Perhaps you should revamp your website to improve the design or written copy? And make sure your plan in some new marketing to promote your new and improved business or website.

Skills management: It is very difficult for one person to have all the skills required to run a successful business. For example, you will want to pay for a good web designer and copywriter. You might also want to hire in help for marketing strategies. Perhaps you could also go on a training course to learn about more effective SEO or social media networking. And don’t be afraid to delegate some of your work to other more competent people. In the long-term it will pay dividends to spend some money on assistance.

If you are planning to launch a new on-line business then it’s vital that you choose the right domain name as it will improve your on-line identity and grow your brand awareness.

1. Choose a name that best represents your business. If the domain name immediately and specifically says to potential consumers what you do then you’ll know your domain name works. For example, think about holidays.co.uk compared to skiingholidays.co.uk compared to adventureholidays.co.uk. With the latter two you know exactly what type of holidays the business specialises in, rather than just a generic holidays banner.

2. Memorable words are ideal for domain names because potential customers will remember your web address – and will also be more likely to pass on the web address to other people. Keep it simple too and try not to use more than three or four words in a domain name. For example, petfooddirect.co.uk is simple to recall and does what is says on the label.

3. There is still a lot of debate about whether keywords in domain names will increase SEO but it might still be worth bearing in mind what customers would search for if looking for your business products/services. You should try to choose keywords that are the names of the products or services you will be offering on your website.

4. Decide on the Top Level Domain (TLD) that you will use, for example most UK businesses end in .co.uk. A study this year showed that 77% of British on-line users are more likely to choose a .uk rather than a .com address when looking for information through a search engine. Or you could choose .org.uk for non-commercial organisations; .me.uk for individuals, .ltd.uk and .plc.uk for Ltd and Plc companies.

5. It’s a good idea to register several variations of your domain name with other suffixes such as .com so that other people cannot come along at a later date and capitalise on your brand name using another major domain name type. Also, the more variations that you register, the more chance you have of capturing traffic to your website.

6. If your top choice of domain name is not available then why not slip in a hyphen? Many people are familiar with using hyphens in domain names so this should not put off too much traffic to your website. Although a domain name without a hyphen is always the best choice.

7. Choose your domain name quickly. UK domain names are being registered at a rate of three every minute. They are allocated on a first-registered, first-served basis so any delay in choosing your domain name could mean someone else gets there first.

There are lots of sites that allow you to check the availability of domain names or ask your web designer.