Needs and wants

Earlier last year I redesigned and relaunched my e-commerce store, www.greenersidedigital.com. Not only did the move really pay off, but it also taught me a couple real important lessons.

Lesson 1. Design does matter. “Build it and they will come,” is true to some extent, and I have been collecting notes on future improvements since the day the new website launched.

Lesson 2. The difference in effort between selling something people think they need, and something they don’t think they need, is epic.

Case in point: On Nov. 30, 2014, I started a Fiverr account as a seller, with the intent of seeing if I could emulate what I do as a PR guy for Whitworth University. Mostly this is just writing “press releases.” Just a few days after launching my profile, I’ve barely been able to keep up, and have had to shut the service off for a few days at a time for fear of falling too far behind.

I believe this is the case because there is a monstrous perception that press releases are essential for successful online marketing, therefore, everyone thinks they need one. Whereas download cards, such as the ones I produce, have too much of an “unknown factor” and have not existed for very long. Only a few years, really.

Another obvious reason Fiverr is such a success for me is because Fiverr commands a gigantic audience and I have been building Greenerside’s audience by myself from nothing, and I am starting to think I’m not very good at it.

The big takeaway from all this I think is that I clearly need to increase the perceived value of the download cards. Although I understand how helpful (and lucarative they can be), I’m not doing enough to present that to potential customers. For the past couple weeks I’ve really tried to take it easy and not wrack my brain over this, so I’ve just been jotting a list down that I think I’ll start moving on over the next couple weeks (after my daughter is born). Would love to share that list at some point, but maybe after I start rolling on it so I can talk more about what works and what doesn’t.