Introduction

Note: Some links here lead to pages than ask you to buy my stuff. You don’t have too unless you want to. I put this note in for politeness sake.

I need a review of my main site and the advertising I'm sending out. I am selling posters, prints, greeting cards, post cards, note cards, tote bags, aprons, mousepads, calendars and occasion cards made from pictures taken in northeastern New Mexico. The web site is Vistas of Northeastern New Mexico.

The pictures range from baby bunnies to storms and sunsets. All items can be customized via the Zazzle customization interface.

I make a 10% royalty on all sales. Zazzle handles the manufacturing, shipping, billing and customer service.

The basic selling points are:

1. Wide range of products and images. There are 500+ products to buy.
2. All products can be customized
3. All images are high-quality
4. Prices are competitive

My business consists of two parts; The Zazzle site (StormShooter - Zazzle Contributor Gallery) and an HTML E-mail ad sent via a double-opt in E-mailer (OPT-IN TARGETED EMAILING).

First Attempt At Selling

My first attempt at selling was not good. I sent out 600,000 e-mails targeted at buyers of gifts in the USA. I used this HTML E-mail ad (click to view) with the three randomly assigned subject lines "Gifts From Northeastern New Mexico", "Vistas of Northeastern New Mexico" and "Custom Gifts From Northeastern New Mexico".

According the e-mailer, I got a open rate of 4.72% and 1582 click-thrus (2.64% click thru rate) from the E-mail. The Zazzle web site counter gave 2600 hits as a result of the e-mail campaign, for a response rate of 0.43%. This happens because the E-mailer sends the ad to not only to individuals, but web sites that accept advertising.

However, I got no sales. This angered me, so I decided to do something about it.

What I Did About It

On the Zazzle site, I looked and found that:

1. There were several paragraphs of text giving shopping instructions. This text was hiding the images I'd put in the HTML E-mail ad. So I deleted that text and replaced it with links (that open a new page) to both shopping instructions and a quick index to site products. There much less text now.
   
   Now when you go to the Zazzle site, you see on the lower part of the screen the three images (or parts of) in the HTML E-mail (at a 1024 by 768 resolution). And seeing parts of the images, in my opinion, induces the prospect to scroll down.
2. There were no extortations to buy anywhere. I but requests to buy in the proper places.

Looking back, the above changes to the Zazzle site are fairly obvious. If you want to comment on that, please do. I'll listen to any suggestions.

The part that is really stumping me is the HTML E-mail ad. I only got a 2.64% click thru rate and no sales. I want to do better.

Please review this ad (click here) and tell me what I need to do. Comments, rewrites and any suggestions are welcome. Please post everything to the forum so that all can benefit. If you don't think I need to change the HTML ad (or anything else), please say why.

Thank you for your help.