Small business enabler PowerHomeBiz.com has useful invisible obvious tips for writing better marketing email campaign. Here are some of the highlights:  1. Use a Hook: An e-mail must have a good reason for being sent; otherwise it’s better to not send it. The hook of an e-mail is the single thought or message conveyed by that e-mail and should be stated in the first sentence or two of the e-mail.By containing a hook, the e-mail makes it easy for a customer to understand the point of the e-mail. The customer is more likely to respond if the choice is clear: act or don’t act to get the specified benefit. Customers are less likely to act, understand, or otherwise have a good experience, if they have to spend time figuring out the point of the e-mail. 2. Support the Hook: Just as the hook provides focus for the e-mail, so should the rest of the e-mail refer to the hook for focus. For example, an e-mail telling customers that there is a sale on a particular product line on an e-commerce site should do just that — tell customers about the sale.3. Be Succinct: Keep the e-mail short. From the subject line to the farewell, the e-mail should offer the reader the most relevant information in as few words as possible.Customers are busy, and many feel overwhelmed by too much e-mail. Messages that are short and to the point are more likely to be read. When writing e-mail text, try to state the ideas in as few words as possible.4. State the Most Important Thing First: Customers will start reading an e-mail from the beginning and read the introduction to to see if it’s worth spending more of their time. Readers tend to pay less and less attention to what is written as they scan more quickly through the rest of the e-mail.To make sure customers read the most relevant information, put the most important information (the hook) at the top, followed by the most important supporting information. Each successive paragraph will receive less and less of the reader’s attention and should contain less and less important information. As soon as the hook is well enough supported, end the e-mail.

- everything starts with Google

- Amazon provides the convenience, injury-free packaging, provides very detailed info about ONE product, and FREE shipping

- Blendtech - will it blend? because of a viral video

- Zappos - recently acquired by Amazon - 365 day guarante - covers shipping BOTH ways

- the pattern is: BETTER DEAL + BETTER CONVENIENCE

- aside from, what is the best deal? be known for at least ONE BEST DEAL

- better experience, Cebu Pacific introduced e-commerce to 6M Filipinos

- 1-3% of ad spend goes to the “zero fare” campaign, only once can you get it, very rare

- redefined what is convenience for the Filipinos

- things only available for Philippines: ONLINE SEAT SELECTOR for a BUDGET AIRLINE

- feature: PREPAID EXCESS BAGGAGE, and save a lot on excess baggage

- real-time payment, real-time booking WITHIN 10 minutes, security feature at TICKETWORLD

- EYP - what and where? if you’re not there, you’re not searchable

- Yes Asia -Asian Anime and DVD in the world - free shipping - 39USD and below, 14 days

- Island Rose - family business, rose farm, website of their farms - very detailed instructions on the FAQ for delivery - nationwide and free shipping, 300 cities and towns, very perishable product

- Walmart site to store, 3,000 sites, if product is available, people can pick it up

- airlines, e-ticket, a reserve verification, e-commerce can be used to attract, but verification is online

- did you really do this transaction? fraud detection

- emalling by AsiaPay - free platforms available for developers

- online purchase summary - online donation, online booking - the experience is the same - a shopping cart experience

- after getting all products in a “cart” it goes to check out

- showing a site that was done by a non-developer, in 3 hours

- Andrian showing the shopping cart workflow for emalling

- create shippping zones, customer decides how the shipping will be done

- trend is flat shipping, zonal shopping

- built in into this platforms are confirmations that will be sent by email

- do you need to junk your website? NO! You can have a catalog - that redirects to the store in YOUR existing website

- shopflow: transactions are encrypted to 128-bit SSL, now AsiaPay uses EVSSL - extended validation SSL, 3-4 seconds, the acquiring bank approves/disapproves the payment

- AsiaPay doesn’t disable the other payments

- if you are an AsiaPay merchant - you only need to download the module and put your merchant ID and VOILA! It will work! ZERO INTEGRATION!

- you can merge the payment report with the store report using the reference number

- Andrian showing e-commerce fraud survey

- what is your industry’s fraud rate? fraud rate/sales, from 0.01 to 5-10%

- what kind of fraud do you need to look out for?

- who is your organization’s fraud police? finance? top management? operations?

- do you accept international orders?

- will you ask your customers have to register?

- mobile commerce?

- do you deploy anti-fraud tools?

- do you receive physical identity checks?

- Philippines: No one wants to spend a lot of money for ecommerce, so consider open source tools

- question: multiple settlement currency? answer: 99% is in ONE SINGLE currency

- only the credit card companies can determine the final amount

liveblogged by Paul “The Pageman” Pajo

but here’s a great idea - a minimalist e-commerce site: docapet.com

so, when are you starting your own minimalist ecommerce sit?

Posted by Paul “The Pageman” Pajo - you should Twitter me here

• REDESIGNING THE WAY WE MERCHANDISE ONLINE TO IMPROVE CONVERSION RATES

coming in at a 3-way tie at 38% are:

• PROVIDING MORE CROSS-SELLING INFORMATION TO CUSTOMERS TO INCREASE BASKET SIZE
•  CREATING SPECIALIZED USER EXPERIENCES FOR OUR TARGET CUSTOMER SEGMENTS
• INVESTING IN CROSS-CHANNEL PROCESSES

It’s telling that the report begins with a telling development in online retail:

“…Retailing is at an inflection point, and the tables have turned. While early eCommerce sites were designed to replicate the store experience, today’s retailers are struggling to bring elements of the rich online experience into their stores. In fact, for the first time ever, consumer satisfaction with online retailers in the US has surpassed store-based retailers - with little signs of slowing… “

Here’s the graph just in case you’re interested:

Of course all this information would be moot and academic if you still don’t have an ecommerce site.

posted by Paul “The Pageman” Pajo

Mark September 6th 2008 on your calendar.

WordCamp 2008 Philipppines just happened and it just happened to be the first ever WordCamp organized in Southeast Asia and in the Philippines.

For liveblogging, check it out here.

Here’s some news about it in Inquirer.

What’s significant about WordCamp and ecommerce?

You need 3 things to come up with an ecommerce sit: a website, a payment gateway and a shopping cart.

AsiaPay takes care of your payment gateway and your shopping cart.

WordPress (or any other CMS or blogging platform) can easily take care of your website needs.

Yes. You don’t need to wait 6-8 months for your diva website designer to come up with a site.

Yes. You can be a Fortune 500 company and have your company site on Wordpress.

Example? Check out the Ford Motor Company Global Autocars Show and Concept Cars site.

Yes. It runs on WordPress! This site runs also on Wordpress and so does www.ebiziseasy.com

Something to get excited about: Matt Mullenweg for the first time EVAR, demoed the upcoming version 2.7 of Wordpress to the oohs and aahs of the WordCampers - he showed of the drag-and-drop features which all augurs one thing -  easier website development for would be e-commerce adopters!

posted by Paul “The Pageman” Pajo

The first event by AsiaPay for the Travel and Entertainment

The team of AsiaPay was excited in meeting people from leading hotels, resorts and travel agencies and introducing XpressBooking, the newest eBooking & ePayment platform for the travel establishments.

Andrian Lee, General Manager - Philippines & Emerging markets in AsiaPay Philippines took the lead on giving an insight on the current situation of online booking in the Philippines and worldwide. Guests were enlightened and they appreciated the interesting and informative points especially on XpressBooking which will revolutionize online sales at an affordable cost for for the travel and entertainment companies.

If you would like to know these hotels learned in the event, please visit http://www.slideshare.net/automatemyreg/xpressbooking

Mag:Net cafe was packed and it was definitely a fun social networking night. See you all again in the next eCommerista night!

Some blog love from Regnard Raquedan’s Standard Web Standards– eCommerista Night 3.0: Good Stuff:

“…eCommerista is building up a good rep as a regular event where bloggers, techies and IT industry folks can get together. So, keep tabs on the Facebook and email invites from AsiaPay for the next eCommerista Night…”

Read More…

Aileen Apolo also shares about her experience being a panelist in eCommerista night 3.0: Getting Inspired by Technopreneurs:

“I had the chance to join three Filipino technopreneurs last night at the E-Commerista 3.0 through Andrian Lee’s invitation - Gabby Dizon, Jonas Diego and Gio Bacareza - and it’s really inspiring to see how they’ve managed to turn their interests into successful businesses and here are just some thoughts that I wanted to share…”

Read More…

Here’s some photo slideshows of the event. Will keep everyone posted on the next contact networking night (last week of March!).

Last Tuesday night, we and other eCommeristas celebrated Christmas in advance at eCommerista night 2.0: “Social Networking for Fun & Profit!”, still in Mag:net Cafe BHS. Despite the Makati traffic and coup attempt last weekend, people came to attend and worked the room to network and establish contacts thru the night. Thanks also to JC Medina of Level Up!, Jayvee Fernandez of Abuggedlife.com, and host Andrian Lee of Shoppay.biz who sure made eCommerista 2.0 interesting and informative with their ideas and thoughts in making our 2008 new year fun and profitable thru social networking and viral marketing. Gabe Mercado with his comedy improv group S.P.I.T. made the rest of the night fun and entertaining. See you all again in the next eCommerista night!

Posted by Kristine “Libby” Malibiran

Last night, AsiaPay launched its first successful contact networking night with the top online and eBiz leaders in the Philippines. Despite the rain, the eCommeristas gathered and mingled and established networks in Mag:net Cafe Bonifacio High Street and also talked about their common goals in making eCommerce fly in the country.

The night featured eCommerista Show and Tell where panelists and other participants had the opportunity to talk about their eBusiness and website, with an open forum afterwards.

Panelists include:
Andrian Lee, Marketing Director - Philippines & Emerging market at AsiaPay Philippines

Andrian Lee has been an eCommerce entrepreneur for the past 7 years. Currently he runs AsiaPay Philippines, the first overseas center of the Hong Kong based leader in electronic payment gateway and ebusiness platform solutions. As its Marketing Director for Emerging Markets, he recently launched PesoPay, the country’s first ecommerce service for commercial merchants with the leading bank & acquirer, BDO Equitable. Andrian’s recent exploits in the Web 2.0 mobile world included starting up the New Media business & social networking portal for the Philippines’ #1 online gaming company, Level Up (www.levelupgames.ph) and launching the first online donation service for non-profit organizations. He is spearheading the eBiz is eAsy campaign to accelerate the adoption of everything “e” and advocates using Web 2.0 communities to jumpstart e-commerce and non-profit ventures (www.ebiziseasy.com).

In the eCommerista night, he unveiled the Shoppay web 2.0 applet, which tempts the friendster generation with online shopping by embedding this widget in their favorite web 2.0 profile page.

Joseph Chan, President of AsiaPay Hong Kong
He fllew to the Philippines for the eCommerista night in to give Asian flavor to our panel and mused about “D-Commerce: Are Debit Cards Key to Online Shopping in Asia?” Joseph shares the East Asian experience with PayPal, China Union Pay & PayYo.

Bob Sewell - President/CEO of Ticketworld
Mr. Sewell arrived in the Philippines in 1982 in an executive position with a major international company. In 1995 he incorporated TicketWorld, the first ticketing agency to offer a networked selling ticket sales system for events and attractions. TicketWorld has been selling tickets on-line since 1999 and can be considered one of the pioneers in the are of on-line sale in the Philippines. Despite its offerings of popular shows the growth of internet sales was stagnant at 1% of total sales and it took a redevelopment
of the ticket system to move to the next level. Now sitting at 12% of sales the company sees significant growth potential ahead and has set a target of 25% of sales through this channel. Although this target is well behind other major developed markets it will be a major achievement for the the Philippine market where internet infrastructure lags behind our Asian neighbors and where costs are high.

Jim Sarmiento - Sales and Marketing Manager of Netvision
Mr. Sarmiento worked with Netopia Internet Cafe and netGames both ePLDT subsidiaries as Sales and Marketing Manager. He is now in charge of developing & acquiring new customers and coordinating with content providers/owners of Netvision pay-per-view company.

Check out and join our Facebook eCommerista group for our photos: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=20516086304