Hi Reader,

Well, it's definitely fall, at least here in Seattle. Are you feeling that "back to business" energy like I am? While a lot of the planning for Black Friday / Cyber Monday is well underway, there are still things you can do to make the most of the season, and I'd love to help.

Firstly! We have been teaching people how to improve their email strategy and websites in person all year, and now we're bringing two of those trainings to you, in time for holiday shopping.

Register:

October 17, 9am Pacific, noon Eastern:
Email Marketing: Strategies for the Holidays & Beyond
This one will help you capture as many email addresses and mobile numbers as you can, and discuss how to nurture these new subscribers through the holidays and beyond.

REGISTER FOR WEBINAR

Save the date:

October 30, 9am Pacific, noon Eastern:
Take Your Online Shop to the Next Level
This one will give you specific changes you can make in your shop admin that will make the path through checkout easier for your customer.

Both of these things are very important during this high-traffic season. Both trainings are free, and will be recorded. Join us!

Secondly! Here is some advice I sent to the people who attended our last webinar. In case you missed that, here are some tips for making sure your ecommerce strategy is in good working order:

Common problems:

I've put together a list of the most common problems I see on ecommerce sites, which you can read here: 8 Common Website Mistakes Small Businesses Make

Checking accessibility on your site

You can test color contrast for accessibility. This is important for things such as your "add to cart" button, main text on the site, and if you have text in colored boxes. Here's a tool you can use.

We have been hearing from more and more people who are getting threatened with ADA lawsuits, and color contrast is just one of dozens of things that need to be considered. Get in touch if you could use our help with this.

Testing site speed

Your Shopify admin will show you a speed score. You can also use GTmetrix. If your score isn't great, there's a lot we can do to improve it and get more people through checkout. Please ask me about this.

Mailing list offers

We talked about what to offer newsletter subscribers. Here are some options: Email Pop-Up Copy: What Works Best for Online Retailers?

Selling wholesale on Shopify

Here are six ways you can do it.

Holiday gifting tips

Is your site ready for the holidays? 12 Black Friday Tips For Online Shops

Product review tips

Why Getting Product Reviews on Shopify Is Important

Customizable products

We talked about the project we were working on where we decreased product options to increase sales. You can read about that here.

Shopify themes

Here's a guide to choosing a Shopify theme that will work for your store.

Doing too much as a business owner

I strongly recommend The ONE Thing - read about my experience with this book here.

Hire Aeolidia's help:

Our most affordable website service, Simple Shopify Design ($12,000), would be a great way to get your website issues cleared up. You'll end up with a well-designed website using Aeolidia’s UX best practices, developed over years of experience. You’ll bypass the common mistakes we see on websites over and over. If you'd like our full team to make a plan to improve your site, we would love to help out! You can take a look at our services and rates here.

Q&A

Here's a reader question about email marketing, as answered by Helen Hulskamp, Ecommerce Strategist on our team:

Q: How can we use email automation to build stronger, long-term relationships with our customers?

A: Think about all the different touchpoints in someone’s relationship with your brand. Set up automated email flows to send targeted messages at the right time for each of these touchpoints. A few essentials to get started:

A welcome flow that is triggered when someone first subscribes to your list. This can be a series of 5-7 emails that start by welcoming the new subscriber and continue to onboard them to your brand.
An abandoned cart reminder
And a browse abandonment email

Keep adding additional flows such as a thank-you flow right after someone places an order. And a post-purchase flow with product information such as care instructions plus recommended related products. If a customer has placed an order but hasn’t been back in a while, send them an automated win back email. Show appreciation to your best customers with a VIP flow. There are many, many more occasions when you can use automations to nurture personalized relationships with your audience at a larger scale than you could if you were manually sending one-on-one emails. Our upcoming webinar will go into more depth about what kind of content to include in flows like these.

Question: Answered

Our team includes experts in branding, design, development, email & SMS/text marketing, search engine optimization, copywriting, conversion optimization, ecommerce strategy, business growth and more. Email me back with your question! I'll consult one of our experts and share one response per week over email.

Interesting Clickables

⚓️ Read past issues of Aeolidia's newsletter here

When a visitor lands on your website you have less than 10 seconds to capture their attention. Here's how to make the most of that opportunity!
Is improving SEO on your to do list? If so, check out Shopify SEO: 5 Step Ecommerce SEO Strategy for Beginners, with Kai Davis, Aeolidia's SEO consultant.
Shopfiy has a helpful article about Customer Experience Design and how it can help cultivate an emotional connection between your ecommerce brand and your target audience.

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