There’s a story that Dean likes to tell. Let’s see if I can get it right …

There’s this entrepreneur who runs a successful store and comes to the conclusion that it’s time to open a second location. So the business owner goes through all of the steps — site selection, building, etc. — and soon he has a bright and shiny new store. The owner flips over the ‘Open’ sign and gleefully takes a seat behind the counter waiting for that first sale. And sure enough that sale eventually comes but it takes longer than expected and the steady stream of traffic that the owner expected would follow never materializes. So the entrepreneur sits in his second shop and rather than watching a steady stream of customers, he watches the tumbleweed.

Seems like a sad tale right? Well, we forgot to tell you a few things. First, the owner built outside of town where he could get a good deal, which is great for the pocketbook but not so great for traffic. Then the owner decided not to put any signs up pointing people to the new store because as he said, “everyone knows about my first store.” The owner also opted not to run any additional advertising campaign to drive traffic to the new store and didn’t include the new store’s address on his current ads. And worse still, the owner never even put up signs in his first store telling existing customers to be sure and check out his new store. When you take these strategic blunders into consideration, it’s no wonder that the sad owner sat watching the tumbleweed blow rather than listening to his cash register ding.

The really sad thing? This parable is acted out all the time as successful offline businesses hungry for a piece of that lucrative internet action, hang out a shingle for their online business. The problem is, often times that’s all they do — hang out the proverbial shingle which in the online world equates to merely building a website. The point of this parable is to illustrate that you would never think of opening a physical store without a plan for how to generate revenue.  The same is true for your online store. Before your ‘opening’ you need to consider the following:

• New Traffic — Hopeful internet entrepreneurs think that traffic will immediately materialize once they go live with their new website. Many seem to think that there is a man who simply pulls an “internet switch” when sites launch that makes them appear on Google, drives a bunch of traffic to the site, and all of a sudden the money starts pouring in. Not so, you need to carefully plan for delivering traffic to your website, both through organic search optimization, and, yes by spending some additional ad dollars on pay-per-click search. These are the signs you put up when your store first opens up that help people find you.
• Current Customers — As mentioned above, one of the easiest things to do (that was missed by the owner in the story thus making it one of the larger strategic blunders) is to simply let your current customers know about your new website. It can be as easy as putting up in-store signage or complex such as offering a bounce-back deal on receipts for a new purchase at the online store. Another great way to drive customers to your online store is to catch them when they are already online via email (you are collecting your customers email right?). Remember that the old adage is true — it’s easier and cheaper to sell more to your current customers than it is to acquire new customers.
• Social Media — Another great way to catch customers when they are online is via social media. Make sure you have a presence for your site on relevant social channels. Not only is this a great way to connect with current customers but it provides them with an easy medium for sharing your business with their network.
• Campaign Integration — You have campaigns going on for your physical business, right? If so, make sure that your website is a meaningful part of that message. Ideally you can find some time to speak to the value that your site adds to the customer experience rather than just limiting it to the ubiquitous URL at the end of the ad. But even that is better than nothing.
• Additional Launch Campaign — In addition to all of these efforts, you may need to look at spending additional dollars outside of your current activities to help launch the site. If you expect the website to be a meaningful part of your business, you need to put the resources behind it to help it do so. Look for high-traffic display ads to help build awareness and clicks for your new site.

These are just a few things you can do to avoid being that lonely shopkeeper. Bottom line: You need as big of a ‘grand opening’ for your new website as you would plan for your a new store location. And it’s more than just a secondary store. As we so often tell clients, your website is a branch of your store that’s open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year … It deserves attention and dedicated resources to meet this potential.

Do you have launch strategies that have worked well for your site or online store? We’d love to hear about them.