Online Marketing - I Hate You!

Starting a new online store is really, really hard.  There is just so much to think about and check out.  PCI compliance and SEO marketing are my two chores this week. It would not be such a chore if the store was actually making money.  We are making sales but not making a profit yet.   My research tells me that to change that I need to do two things.

One, throw a lot of money into advertising.  Admittedly, we have been stingy with the advertising mostly relying on free and I did a few campaigns on Google and Facebook. It helped, but only with CD sales, in which we have very little profit margin. Everything I've been reading indicates that I need to throw about $1000 toward the campaigns.  Wow, it would take a lot of CD sales to recoup that cost.

Research also tells me that I need to link a video to my website.  I'm willing to do this but a video about what?  We have a small, home based store.  We are in the process of opening up a storefront here in Alaska, but at the moment, nothing video worthy.  

When we started AK Music Storm, we committed ourselves for a year.  That year will be up in February. I'm hoping that the holidays will give it a boost but with the bulk of our sales still with eBay and Amazon, the future is depressingly uncertain.

If there are any ideas out there, I'd sure like to hear them! Right now I'm going to comfort myself with a game of Castleville.  They promise a happy ending.

PS- Next week I am looking forward to continuing my post about our 5 year plan!