Suggestion for my eCommerce business. [Selling developed software]
I have developed few software products for micro to small businesses and a security product. I want to market these products but I can't spend much on paid online marketing.
I am noticing that social tools like twitter and facebook are proving as great marketing tools. How to effectively market using these tools? I am sometimes puzzled on what to tweet and for how much time a day?
Secondly, I have create a PayPal Merchant account and used PayPal's Button Factory to create Buy Now buttons for the products.
I am low on budget and can't afford SSL for my website. However, when the user clicks the Buy Now button on my website, it directs him to the PayPal SSL Secure Form page where the user can fill the credit card details and shipping address.
Is it still not sufficient as PayPal takes care of the secure Form submission?
2 Answers
I am low on budget and can't affordBULLSHIT. Yes, sorry if that sounds rude, but it is. HOW BROKE ARE YOU? a SL certificate does not even cost 10 USD per year. Yes, you get them a lot more expensive, but 15 minutes of google should give you a lot cheaper options. http://www.namecheap.com/learn/other-services/ssl-certificates.asp.
SSL for my website.
Seriosly. You want to sell, people to trust you, pay for hosting and dont have 1 USD per month? Get a job.
I am noticing that social tools likeI know that a ferrari is a great car, but I dont know what a car is? How can you KNOW that teitter and facebook are great marketing tools if you don t have an idea to use them. Hint: THEY ARE NOT, if you dont have a commmunity to market to.Post on twitter what you want - if noone listens that is as relevant as the name of the headmaster of some backwater schopol of some little township in australia is to me. Which is: totally irrelevant. Still none listens. Open a facebook site for your prouct - same reult: NOONE LISTENS.
twitter and facebook are proving as
great marketing tools. How to
effectively market using these tools?
What you need is advertising. Getting into places people notice. Put up a blog. Make smart comments (on many things related). Get reviews of your product up. Anything like that. Twitter is nice, for example, as a feed of news / Updates etc., but first you must have customers.
Finally, get a job. Seriously. This is really hard to pull of without any budget (and you lack even 10 USD per year for a SSL certificate at the moment). Work half a year, save some money, then think about where you can put it to good use. As capable programmeryou are in demand. Not saying stay there for ages, but "have product, am bankrupt" is mostly not a viable business approach.
Oh, and take some of the money to buy a good book on online advertising if you are a reader type, or spend a weekend or two with google. Not that hard to get some initial ideas.
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that was a bit too hard IMHO. – Vellad 14 years ago
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Harsh, but true. The OP has set himself up to be shot down on the basis of the questions. – Elie 14 years ago
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Looking at the location - India, this can explain a lot. The answer is ok. – Ross 14 years ago
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@NetTecture: Considering India, it is not cheap. It is expensive in Indian currency. – Rpk 14 years ago
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So what? Too broke to start a business - don't do it. It even in india is not more than a days pay for a programmer. I spend more than that just buidinga data archive for internal use in my startu p. Point is: you want to start a business, get the funds to do it properly. – Net Tecture 14 years ago
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@NetTecture, *“I know that a ferrari is a great car, but I dont know what a car is? How can you KNOW that teitter and facebook are great marketing tools if you don t have an idea to use them.”* Wrong analogy. I know a Ferrari is a fast car, but don’t ask me to drive one. I too have heard and read about social-networks being valuable to businesses, but I don’t know how to use them for marketing. Your complaints are specious. I too don’t have enough to spend on hosting or certs. Just because *you* have money to burn, doesn’t mean that *everybody* else does. – Synetech 13 years ago
If your customer is not entering their credit card info on your site, then you are ok with just sending them to paypal without using SSL on your own site.
As you said, paypal has SSL for their login and credit card entering pages. I believe the only thing you are sending to paypal in an unencrypted form is an indication of what the person wants to buy, which isn't really something that must be encrypted.
