Scott Smigler's BlogFounder of Exclusive Concepts and Conversions On Demand

Given how much I dreaded what I perceived to be the slow pace of high school, the idea of spending 4 more years in “higher education” to get my Bachelor of Science was downright sickening. But I knew I would do it anyway because it was an important step in my growth.

So I searched, and I searched – in order to find a College that would allow me to thrive as an entrepreneur. Eventually I found Bentley, a small private business university outside of Boston in Massachusetts, and it was a great fit. I majored in Finance, built my business from my dorm room, and by the time I graduated I had a thriving company with an office in Burlington, Mass.

Going back to Bentley

Every year since graduating, i’ve been invited to return to Bentley by Professor Jeff Shuman (www.rhythmofbusiness.com), to talk to his MBA students about my path to entrepreneurship.

In my most recent visit (Monday of last week), I realized just how valuable these visits have been for me because they give me an opportunity each year to stop and reflect on my entrepreneurial journey. During this year’s reflection, I recalled how excited I was when I started the multiple businesses that created the foundation for my company. The sky was the limit, and creativity, hard-work, and honesty were the only mandates I created for myself.

When I polled the students in attendance to see how many of them planned to join the entrepreneurial journey, either by starting a company, or by joining a smaller company early in its lifecycle (like mine!), 75% of those in attendance raised their hands. I’ve done similar polling in the past and only a handful of students raised their hands. This really fired me up. I wish I had the time to sit down with each one of them to start business planning.

Alignment of Values and Reality

As I left Bentley on Monday I thought that I should pinch myself because every time I walk into my office, I have the opportunity to be surrounded by people who are creative, hard-working, honest, and entrepreneurial in spirit… From our internal team… to our clients. Those are things I learned to value very highly in high school, and today, they are my reality. It was good to know that my values and my reality are in alignment.

I would highly recommend that everyone find time each year to do their own values/realities check-in.

Each month I will be working with members of the Exclusive Concepts PPC Management team to construct an article for Practical E Commerce.

This month’s article just went live, check it out here:

Pay-Per-Click Advertising: Six Metrics that Drive Performance

Title: Christmas in July? Pleeaaazzzeee…

Why Read It: 5 “Should Haves” you (online retailers) might tell yourself when UPS and FedEx pick-up your last holiday shipment later this year

View it here

Meet Stella!

Last week was a busy week! Exclusive Concepts exhibited at the Internet Retailer Conference (Tuesday through Thursday), then on Friday we were the Patron sponsor of the Yahoo! Merchant Summit, and on Saturday morning I moved into a new house! At the Yahoo! Merchant Summit I participated on several panels, including SEO and SEM for Managers and a site review session at the end of the day which was a lot of fun.

The highlight of the week, of course, was meeting face-to-face with many clients and partners who we work with throughout the year. As a life-long entrepreneur I have a passion for business, and I find it incredibly energizing to be around other entrepreneurs and business owners who do as well. In addition, I continue to be impressed by the Yahoo! Merchant Solutions Account Management team. These true e-commerce experts, led by Mike Ober, care about the merchants they work with and become a partner in their growth.

In my SEO and SEM for Managers panel, one of my central points was that many merchants should think differently about their marketing goals. Yes, traffic is incredibly important, but I suggested that merchants think more strategically about which traffic they seek rather than making the assumption that all traffic is equal. To illustrate my point I talked about the Consumer Behavior Cycle and how shoppers have different needs along each stage of this cycle.

For example, a shopper in the earliest stage of the cycle, problem recognition, may be very unlikely to convert into a sale, especially if your website does not have content that caters to the needs of shoppers in this stage of the cycle. As a result, it probably would not be a good idea for a merchant to commit to targeting such phrases with their SEO and SEM campaigns at the expense of phrases that are more in line with the experience the site offers. Instead, this merchant may want to commit to generating traffic from shoppers who are in stages of the Consumer Behavior Cycle that their website DOES cater to. If the merchant has good content that makes it easy for shoppers to evaluate a number of options easily, they may want to target shoppers in the “evaluation of alternatives” stage. Or, if the merchant has very low prices or other major benefits, the “purchase” stage may be a good fit.

The whole point is to commit your SEO and SEM efforts to luring shoppers that you can deliver a good experience for. This will enable you to gain a better return on your marketing efforts as conversion rates go through the roof. This mindset is also helpful because it offers a simple yet effective framework for growing a niche store: If you want to dominate your niche, engage in a long-term, systematic strategy to attract, convert, and retain shoppers at all levels of the consumer behavior cycle. This is a holistic approach.

I’m looking forward to sharing more perspectives at future Yahoo! Merchant Summit events. In the mean time, please be sure to check out the Exclusive Concepts Blog. Every day one of our experts posts a 5-minute video on one concept of Internet Marketing. The videos are free and you can sign-up to receive daily notifications by going to:

http://www.ExclusiveConcepts.com/blog

Have a profitable day!

I posted a few test posts a few months ago while working out the kinks of the blog.

Now that the blog is indeed working, I look forward to posting more often.

By more often, I mean more than the once-every-6-months pace i’ve been at.

For more frequent posts, check out the Exclusive Concepts Blog.