Cellwest – Michael Campbell – Store Review

by Bill H.

By Paul Lang, Editor, Sell It!
September 29th, 1999

If there’s one thing that there’s no shortage of on the ‘Net then it’s Internet marketing advice. And I’m sure, like me, you have signed up for many newsletters and purchased books and courses written by several self-proclaimed marketing gurus. But have you ever stopped to question the qualifications and experience of the people dispensing this advice?

Now whilst many authors provide advice based on real ‘Net marketing experience, I get the distinct feeling that a fair proportion are marketing theorists. The old adage “Those that can, do it. Those who can’t, teach it” springs to mind.

Michael Campbell on the other hand, is definitely somebody who has “put his money where his mouth is”. To demonstrate his marketing skills he teamed up with a friend to help promote a cell phone accessory Web store, Cellwest. And using mainly free, online marketing techniques, Michael helped the store to generate over $750,000 in sales during its first year.

How did he do it? Read my interview with him and find out…

Lang: How did you first get involved with Cellwest.com?

Campbell: When I first met the owner of Cellwest, he was working out of his parent’s basement selling cellular accessories through the local Penny Traders, the Buy and Sell type weekly papers.

Now he has a two story downtown warehouse and eight employees. I used the internet and an online store to generate over $750,000 in sales the first year, using the internet as the sole marketing medium.

It was a meeting by chance actually. I got involved with Cellwest through a local area graphic designer that I had used on several web projects. It turns out that a friend of his was putting together a web site for Cellwest. So it was a friend of a friend type of a thing.

I did a little research to see if cellular phone accessories would be a worth promoting. Turns out that something like 1 in 4 Americans owns a cell phone, so there was definitely a market there. I’m smart enough to know that the money you make will be in direct proportion to the problem you solve. I set out to find out how much of a problem “cellular accessories” was.

Turns out that most of the cellular retail stores are small and can only stock the latest or hottest items. People who bought their cell phone six months to a year ago were out of luck. There was no where to get a replacement battery or new leather case. Turns out there was a huge demand for a cellular accessories warehouse that specialized in old, obsolete, rare and hard to find items. I was definitely interested!

Lang: What level of experience/knowledge of the Internet and e-commerce did you have before this?

Campbell: I had a lot of internet marketing and web site design knowledge before Cellwest but little in the way of ecommerce. I was designing web sites and consulting in prepress but it was the internet marketing that I was really interested in. I would guarantee top 10 positioning in 4 out the 8 major search engines or you don’t pay. Pretty scary huh?

Cellwest decided to take me up on the offer and I did a single hook page (doorway page) for them. Two weeks later the phones were ringing like crazy and he couldn’t keep up with the orders. He got me to make a second hook page and experienced the same results. His sales were directly linked to the pages I had created for him. Needless to say Cellwest recognized a real opportunity. Great, now we were both very interested.

Lang: What were your goals when you teamed up with Cellwest? Have you achieved them?

Campbell: I have achieved everything I set out to do with Cellwest. They made $750,000 in internet revenue their first year of operation. I proved to myself that if you followed “my way” of internet marketing, you could sell gobs of “dirt world product” over the internet, without paying for advertising.

I wanted to see how far I could take a virtual store with no conventional advertising of any kind. I made rules for myself, no tv ads, no radio, no printed catalogs, not even a business card would be allowed. By the time my one year contract was over, I wanted Cellwest.com to be profitable, growing and totally self sustaining.

It was like a challenge that would fly in the face of conventional marketing wisdom. I wanted to leave the “so called experts” scratching their heads saying “Hey, how did he do that?” Let’s just say it was a bit of a personal vendetta.

A few years ago, when I helped put together internet marketing courses for a local university, the professors and big business owners kept shoving the internet into a tiny little corner of an overall marketing plan. Usually with the lowest of priorities with budgets less than they would spend on business cards or transit shelters.

Of course I’m thinking… hello? You guys have ad agencies, copy writers, graphic designers, prepress, and print shops all involved in your print advertising, why should the web site (which millions of people will see) receive any less budget, attention or level of professionalism? Alas, sigh, they didn’t listen, and I had something to prove. And prove it I did.

If you FOCUS your business on the internet, its reach is phenomenal. You can compete on a global scale. It completely levels the playing field of retail sales. Two people can come along and completely blind side what would have been “dirt world” competition by being quick to react, establish themselves online and brand themselves as being FIRST in a whole new product category.

In my dealings with everything from the smallest to the largest of companies, I have to conclude that entrepreneurial spirit has the clear advantage when its comes to the internet. Two people with passion about an idea, clear goals and a little determination can achieve their dreams and earns bags of cash, using nothing more than the internet. You don’t even need to exist or have a physical location in the “dirt world”. You don’t even need a business card. Sorry Mr. Marketing Professor, you were wrong.

Lang: What server and shopping cart software are you using and why?

Campbell: We tried a couple of different hosting solutions before we finally settled on a friend of mine who had decent prices and a really good statistics package included in the hosting. I also recommend finding a host that can do additional databases, programming or scripting, rather than farming it out to a third party. That way, there’s more quality control and less communication issues.

We chose not to use a shopping cart. In the beginning, most of the shoppers were men. Actually I shouldn’t even call them shoppers, as most were just looking for information.

The men I surveyed don’t like shopping and they don’t like carts. It brings up images of squeaky wheels and line ups. The men I talked to like go in, get what they want, and get out.

They also want to phone up and talk to a human to place the order. They want to be sure any technical issues are resolved before they actually place an order. So even though Cellwest provided a secure online order form, the toll free number outperformed it by a 20 to 1 ratio.

Plus most of the shopping cart software is database driven and makes a web site square and boxy looking. Most of the packages I looked at severely limited the creativity in site design.

I also know that with most shopping carts, you have to put all your product into a database. By choosing not to use a database, Cellwest’s multiple static web pages are rich in keywords and perform well in the search engines, clobbering the database driven competition.

Thankfully some trends are changing. About 40% of the shoppers are women. They are buying because all the confidence building factors are in plain view on the site, and they like the way Cellwest is laid out just like a printed catalog. Everything is exactly where you would expect to find it.

Lang: How much did the Cellwest store cost to build? How much to maintain and promote?

Campbell: He spent a couple of thousand dollars initially to have a site made by some guy who said he could make web sites. Ouch, big mistake. He then paid a graphic designer to overhaul the site and ended up with some nice looking graphics, logos and pages that actually loaded within a reasonable amount of time.

He then paid me to fix the overhaul. I put my own spin on things, little tricks of the trade I learned in 10 years of typesetting catalogs and designing flyers for the print world. So before he got something that was really marketable, he was into it for $10,000 at least.

The site doesn’t take much to maintain. There are new products to add and price changes. But almost anyone at Cellwest can take care of those. Part of the process was to train the Cellwest staff how to use an html editor and make changes to the site. They also have on staff a junior graphic designer who has been trained in search engine positioning, hook pages, email direct marketing to the opt in list and more.

Initially it was my responsibility to promote the site. To reverse the risk to Cellwest I chose a performance based model. We agreed that I would get 15% of gross sales, not including phone sales (which have next to no markup). I nearly starved for the first couple of months but after that, the cash just started rolling in. So if I told you it cost over $100,000 to promote a web site, that’s the truth, because that is how much I was paid in compensation for promoting Cellwest.

Lang: What were the major problems/challenges you faced?

Campbell: I was lucky in that the owner of Cellwest is a pretty laid back guy. He let go of the reigns and let me “take him there”. There was very little interference with what I was trying to do. By contrast, I’ve worked for one of the largest printers in the world and during a three month contract, they did not heed one single piece of advice I gave. So I just gave up and moved on to the next challenge (which just happened to be Cellwest).

There were little challenges along the way. Writing letter after letter to search engine directory editors trying to get Cellwest listed in their “portals”, was really annoying.

There was also the massive growth, the transition moving beyond just two people into training eight employees. Moving to bigger warehouses twice in the same year was also stressful.

Another thing I faced in every contract I’ve ever done, is when there is “no budget” for a piece of software or hardware, a tool that is so essential that the employer is crazy “not to buy it”. Well I don’t wait for the money to come. Being the type of person that I am, I’ll buy the software, do some miracle with it and show the employer why they can’t live without it. Suddenly they buy that software off of me and are offering more cash to go out and buy the rest of the tools I needed in the first place. It works every time!

Lang: Looking at the Cellwest store now, what aspects are you especially pleased with and what do you feel could have been done better?

Campbell: Looking at Cellwest now I’m pleased that I actually took the risk and did it. Being paid on performance, there were no guarantees on where the next pay check was coming from or for how much it would be. I took great comfort in all the uncertainty around me because I was confident in myself and my own abilities. I just had no idea I was going to be so successful in such a short period of time. It just grew and grew beyond anyone’s imagination or expectations.

What could I have done better? I don’t have any remorse really, other than I wish he would have met someone like me earlier and saved thousands of dollars initially. I would probably sit down with the same set of tools and the same action plan and do it all over again. It’s hard to top 3/4 of a million dollars your first year on the net, especially selling real “dirt world” physical products to over 6500 customers.

Lang: What are your plans to develop the store over the coming 6-12 months?

Campbell: Well I’m out of the loop now. Cellwest is its own entity with its owners, designers, marketers, order takers, shippers and what not. As a good consultant should, I effectively worked myself out of a job. That’s the only way I can be assured that I was successful as a consultant, is if Cellwest continues to grow and prosper once I have done my contract and moved on.

I will share a piece of parting advice I gave them though. Split up the site under several domains. Put batteries under one domain, leather cases under another, phones under another, chargers on their own and so on.

Use the same logos, look and feel, and graphic design to pull all the sites together so they all “look” the same. The casual user will not even be aware that they are surfing to a new domain with each new product category.

The search engine owners will probably find a way to filter this out, but by employing this strategy in the mean time, you can beat the link popularity, link relevancy game that is employed by many of the engines right now. You also get several web sites that are highly targeted to their keywords as each site deals only with one product category.

I also suggested that they start an affiliate program to sign up hundreds, if not thousands of sales reps eagerly trying to sell their stuff. Plus I want them to continue emailing their opt-in customer list on a monthly basis, even if it’s just to say hello.

Lang: Which methods have you used to try and promote your store? Which were most / least effective?

The least effective means of promotions were free banner ad exchanges and newsgroups. I tried various strategies but banners have become like commercials on TV, we humans have become masters at tuning them out. As for newsgroups they can be effective at the very beginning to announce your site, but after that they become flat for generating traffic very quickly.

The search engines are by far the most powerful way to promote an online store. Cellwest would never have got off the ground, never existed if it wasn’t for my ability to get the web site into the top ten – the front page – of the search engines.

When it comes to attaining new customers, it’s a numbers game. If you know how people use the search engines to find a product or service like yours, it’s easy to make pages that get found.

As the number of customers grew, EDM or email direct marketing became the next most important. Good marketers know that people who have purchased from you in the past are 30 to 40 times more likely to purchase from you again than make a purchase from a stranger. We would everyone on the opt-in list specials and coupons and on average generate an 18 – 35% response rate, which is unheard of in conventional direct mail.

It’s all about relationships, simply people talking with each other. The whole vastness of the internet universe vanishes when two people stop to have a conversation. It often means taking the time to care about someone else and listen to their problems. Anyone you take the time to help and answer their email questions will become a customer for life. A customer that really relies on your expertise. But you can also rely on them, to be an ongoing customer for life.

Lang: Finally, what are your top tips for anyone considering opening his or her own Web store?

Campbell: OK, of the billion factors that contribute to opening and promoting a successful online store, here are my top million:

  • Read my book, “Nothing But Net“, apply the techniques and principles it contains. Seriously folks, it’s everything I’ve learned, plus I tell you where to get the exact same software and tools that I use for internet marketing.
  • Buy WordSpot.com reports or use the GoTo.com search engine to determine how people search the web for your type of products or services and to identify new market opportunities.
  • Use more than one web site with slightly different headlines and meta tags to sell the same thing or split your site into several domains each dealing with its own product category.
  • Announce every single page of your web site to the search engines that allow this tactic.
  • Write the editors of every single portal and try to get them to review your site. You’ll get a big boost in positioning once you get listed in their directory.
  • Get your customers email addresses when they place an order. Your customer list will become your most important business asset.
  • Get prospects to opt in to your free draw or mailing list and capture their name and email address in the process. Start a dialog with these people.
  • Replicate dirt world models for sales messages and catalog purchasing conditions.
  • Use an 800 number so if people have questions or returns they can talk to a human.
  • Start your affiliate program now and get a network of other people to do your selling for you.
  • If the phones get quiet, check your web site to be sure its up and running.
  • Test online order forms daily to be sure they’re working.
  • Check your 1 800 order line, your fax line and incoming phone lines daily.
  • Answer your email, answer your email, answer your email!
  • Confirm the order has been shipped via email. Tell the customer to save the email as a receipt and start a relationship, a dialog of two people talking.

And as for Web sites, here are some simple page / site content do’s and don’ts:

  • Make sure your site is well written, free from spelling mistakes, and is typeset like a professional catalog.
  • Do use professional graphic design. Traditional graphic design has programmed us for the way we read and understand. We’ve come to expect certain things from written and visual communications.
  • Unless your site is for entertainment, stick with the traditional rules of graphic design that have worked in print catalogs for hundreds of years.
  • Use real images, not cartoons or clip art. Real images build confidence and replicate the product in a way people have come to expect from printed catalogs.
  • Do use a light or white colored background, it is neutral, does not imply any kind of mood setting and is the easiest to read, therefore it’s the easiest to comprehend.
  • Use descriptive headlines, put features and benefits in the ad copy, every item must have a price, and don’t forget a call to action – ask for the order.
  • Use credit card and manufacturer logos to build a sense of confidence and trust so people will buy from you.
  • Offer a no hassle money back guarantee and a warranty against defects
  • Get an 800 number as it will often outperform the secure order form, especially if there are questions that need to be answered before purchasing. You also get the opportunity to upsell while talking, “Would you like fries with that sir?”
  • Post the 800 number and the order button on every page, make it easy to do business with you.
  • Use manual credit card authorization on expensive or high fraud items, as you, the merchant, is ultimately responsible.
  • Proof your site on both a Mac and PC with several browser software versions.
  • Don’t use frames, they make it difficult for search engines to find you and catalog your entire site properly.
  • Don’t use Java or JavaScript or any other fancy bells and whistles unless you absolutely need to. Unless your site is all about entertainment, stay away from the toys. They do nothing to boost confidence and can often break browsers, crashing your visitor’s computer and severely limiting your potential sales.
  • As Roy H. Williams said in his book “The Wizard of Ads”, “Launching an ad campaign is exactly like pushing a car”. At first it’s very difficult and takes all your strength, but as the car starts to budge and finally gets rolling, it becomes easier and easier to push. Pretty soon you’re running along at top speed, pushing the car with a single finger.

Launching your web site will be a lot like pushing a car, except you’ve got me and all the tools I show you in “Nothing But Net” to help push. So all together now, one, two, three, PUSH!

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