Marketing

Ok guys i need some ideas on marketing opencart.

i have noticed our traffic dipping a little. i have never actually put any money into marketing before. so far opencarts traffic has grown from people just general writing good reviews on blogs.

could do with some ideas on which companies to use or which methods to use.

I see that Big Commerce have "hi-jacked" the Google search for Opencart.

They have a paid for link above Opencart!

Cheeky!

Here is a list of Shopping Carts that does not include Opencart (I think it would be a free listing) it all helps.

http://www.auctionbytes.com/R/R/Chart?S ... ping_Carts

I suggest to make Writing / Blog Contest about Opencart. That will increase Opencart popularity rapidly and spread "opinion" about how good Opencart as ecommece app.

Google SEO
More books about Opencart 1.5
More technical speech, meetup, events, souvenirs
People Evangelists
Blogs
A battle card opencart vs magento.

I would suggest, creating a directory of Opencart Design Professionals with clearly identified branding that links back to Opencart. You have development partners, but their offering is a little vague, so something more akin to http://www.actinic.co.uk/index.php?part ... &Itemid=24

An OpenCart BarCamp at London or 上海 (Shangai)

You could set up a Google AdWords account and start advertising with relevant keywords. It's fairly cheap (you pay about $0,1 - $2 per click) and you can do it yourself. Just do proper research before so you know which keywords to pick etc.. There are definately "wrong" ways to do AdWords campaigns.

But anyway... You should open the account and start studying the subject. Google usually sends $75 gift cards for new account owners so you can actually test it for free.

And also, if you don't yet have Google Analytics running on this site, you should set it up. It really tells you a lot about the site and it's userbase.

Maybe involving social media, putting Like, Share, Twit, etc. on the forum's topics/posts, extensions, OpenCart's main site, etc.

A Facebook Page. I've worked with other licensed carts and they're terrible, so I wouldn't see why you'd have any problem getting this marketed even further.

My suggestions are from a real marketing background and have nothing to do with acquiring new folks, but retaining existing ones which if you know anything about this is where you should spend your time.

1 - Your forum is a great tool, the responses made by yourself and some of your mods are just atrocious (solution, work on your people skills and stop being so aggresively negative when someone posts something you disagree with, after all this is a community)

2 - Stop chasing folks away that ask stupid questions, if I read another comments saying "used the search tool" I'm going to puke.

3 - When someone makes a donation and compliments you on your great work how about sending them a thank you note, or at least acknowledging it? The only thing I got for my nice words and donation were well nothing except that the moderator in question has gone from being down-right negative in his responses to just no longer replying to any of my threads - nice, don't think I'll be donating to your project anymore.

4 - When someone makes a suggestion to post a guide, response comes back that yes there will be one and then you ask where it is and are told by the same person why don't you write it yourself - you have to wonder if you are dealing with children here and scratch your head.

5 - I've seen many offers from programmers to help improve the cart - all of them fallen upon deaf ears! Daniel owns the cart, he makes no secret of that but this is open source community and you run it like a private business. People aren't stupid and realise that and then move on to other projects.

Why waste your time acquiring new customers when you are just going to alienated them in your forums one way or another. My suggestion is to fix your house first instead of wasting time and effort acquiring customers that will not stick around.

But what do I know, I've just been in tv, radio, newspapers for the last 20 plus years.

I agree MrTech. What I find the absolute most interesting is that there is a current product out there that people download that has known bugs. Instead of fixing the bugs and releasing a stable update, Daniel is adding a new features. In the meanwhile, people who aren't familiar with OC are downloading the latest product with bugs that have been fixed but not applied.

This page: http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route ... blog_id=39

Has no info on the patches or anything. How many downloads per day are for buggy software that people have to start fixing once they download. Not a good first experience.

I love OC, and am saying this not to be a jerk, but to show the admins that it could be a problem. I only want positive comments about OC as I believe it's a good product that can be great.

I would agree... keep your current customers happy and they will be your biggest advocates.

I would also create a directory of opencart shops, so people can have an easier way of seeing opencart installs.

alex1 wrote:I agree MrTech. What I find the absolute most interesting is that there is a current product out there that people download that has known bugs. Instead of fixing the bugs and releasing a stable update, Daniel is adding a new features. In the meanwhile, people who aren't familiar with OC are downloading the latest product with bugs that have been fixed but not applied.

This page: http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route ... blog_id=39

Has no info on the patches or anything. How many downloads per day are for buggy software that people have to start fixing once they download. Not a good first experience.

I love OC, and am saying this not to be a jerk, but to show the admins that it could be a problem. I only want positive comments about OC as I believe it's a good product that can be great.

I would agree... keep your current customers happy and they will be your biggest advocates.

I would also create a directory of opencart shops, so people can have an easier way of seeing opencart installs.

Software is hard to keep bug free. Don't you see Microsoft, Apple, etc releasing patches and updates? I've worked with paid solutions and those are available to everyone if you think you'll get a better deal, but from my experiences, I've had much better luck for support here and I have no problem putting up with a witty response in exchange for the fact that this is a free software program.

Personally, I don't think anyone really has a right to complain. Step back and look at all that Daniel, Q and everyone else involved are giving you. This forum is worth it's weight in gold too.

Just my 2 cents.

Yes, all software has bugs in it and always will.

And some people don't know what a bug really is.

No one said anything about software not having bugs.

The point is that the bugs have been fixed, but the fix hasn't been released. This just doesn't make sense.

+1 on adding a patch download to the main download page here on OC.

That way any new users of OC immediately see that they should patch it, and end up with a better start to what is a really good and "free" product.

Also as I understand it Qphoria is working on a new "auto patching" admin solution which will make life easier for users.

As far as making OC more visible a blog is one of the best ways to drive more traffic to the site.

alex1 wrote:No one said anything about software not having bugs.

The point is that the bugs have been fixed, but the fix hasn't been released. This just doesn't make sense.

Have you applied this update?

http://forum.opencart.com/viewtopic.php ... 23#p258004

cwswebdesign wrote:

alex1 wrote:No one said anything about software not having bugs.

The point is that the bugs have been fixed, but the fix hasn't been released. This just doesn't make sense.

Have you applied this update?

http://forum.opencart.com/viewtopic.php ... 23#p258004

That's up to R990. However, there have been fixes up to R1057. 67 bug fixes since.

I think the most effective way is social media, putting Like, Share, Twitter and others, also you can post in the forums topics, good luck.

alex1 wrote:

cwswebdesign wrote:

alex1 wrote:
That's up to R990. However, there have been fixes up to R1057. 67 bug fixes since.

Huh

So where does one find the latest patch, since the latest on the 1.5.2.1 announcement page is R990!

No wonder people get confused

1). Be nice. Customer is king. Even if they are dicks or wrong. Good customer service goes a long way. If you can't be nice, get someone else to do customer facing communications.

2). Get stable. You need a stable and a feature branch. Bug fixes only on the stable branch, bug fixes and new features in the feature branch. At regular intervals, feature release becomes stable, and branch out a new feature release. Rinse, repeat.

3). Get a roadmap. Seriously. People want to know where they are going.

4). Get onto default install apps like fantastico and softalicious. Make sure the app is functional at first install with not much mucking about. A wizard of some sort might be good. If it doesn't work first time, they are more likely to move onto one of the other fantastico ecommerce apps.

My 2p