Why Shari’s Berries is happy to let affiliates pay the search freight
Although it reports steady growth in visits and sales as more gift shoppers find its chocolate-covered strawberries on the web, Shari’s Berries International doesn’t spend a penny on keywords or other means of improving its results in Internet searches, Chris Schipper, business applications specialist, tells InternetRetailer.com. Instead, he says, Shari’s relies on consumers’ ability to find its easy-to-remember URL, Berries.com, and links from some 50,000 affiliate sites.
Berries.com prefers to let many of its affiliates pay for keywords central to its business, such as “Shari’s Berries” and “chocolate covered strawberries.” Although that type of aggressive marketing by affiliates might annoy other retailers, Shari’s finds it beneficial, Schipper says. After analyzing what it would pay for keywords and comparing that to the sales it gets through affiliates, Shari’s realized it was better off letting the affiliates take care of Internet search. “It wasn’t even close,” Schipper says. “So we don’t complain when affiliates buy our keywords.”
“If you search for ‘chocolate covered strawberries’ on MSN.com, we’re often in 8 out of the top 10 links,” he says. “But most of those links aren’t going directly to us, they’re going through affiliates.”
Indeed, a search for “Shari’s Berries” on Google results in the California-based Shari’s featured in 17 page-one listings, including seven paid listings and 10 natural search listings. But only two -–the first two natural search listings–-are direct links to Berries.com. Among the affiliates serving up Shari’s products are gift sites DelightfulDeliveries.com, OnePassionPlace.com, ChocolatesbyGini.com, and general merchandise sites TheBargainJunction.com and WebSquare.com.
“Affiliates come to us in droves,” he says, noting that Berries.com uses the Be Free affiliate network. But other than checking that new affiliates are not involved in selling pornography or other products or services that would tarnish Berries.com’s image, Shari’s relies mostly on word-of-mouth to get new customers and opt-in e-mail marketing to build relationships with existing customers, he says.
He adds that Shari’s has declined several offers from marketing services providers peddling Internet search and banner ad campaigns. One common type of offer is 100,000 visitors for $1,000, a penny a visitor. But when Shari’s tried an offer like that a few years ago, its sales conversion rate was extremely low, Schipper says.
Now, when an offer like that comes in, Schipper says, he counters with an offer to pay $5 per sale instead of $1,000 per 100,000 visitors as a way of testing the offer’s likely sales conversion rate. So far, no offer has passed the test. “Not a single marketing company would take that deal,” he says.
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