With 2007 coming to a close in just a couple short weeks and the busy holiday season winding down, it is time reflect back on the year this has been for your store, as well as look forward to the exciting possibilities of 2008. Every year brings new challenges and in the fast changing world or ecommerce, there is no substitute for being prepared. Here are 10 strategies to help double your e-commerce income in 2008.

1. Create a Plan and Set Goals – This may seem pretty obvious, but from my experience most people overlook this step. A lot of store owners have goals and a plan but they keep them all in their head. You need to sit down and write down exactly what you want to achieve. What are you goals for the next 3 months? 6 months? 1 year? How are you going to achieve these goals? Having something in writing gives you a definitive plan and allows you to reference and follow it as you grow. Like I said, there is no substitute for being prepared.

2. Create Marketing Budget – In order for your store to succeed you need to put money into it. You need to have to a marketing budget. Go through your stores income and figure out how much you can afford to spend on marketing each month. This becomes your marketing budget. It doesn’t matter if you can’t afford a lot at first. Having this concept of a budget will force you to spend that amount on marketing each month. As you store grows, your marketing budget will grow as well. You must be willing to spend money on your store if you want to succeed.

3. Ask for Help – No one person can do everything on their own when in comes to running an e-commerce store. Some great advice I can give you is to “Hire Your Weaknesses.” This means that take the things you are not good at and hire a consultant to help you. A great example of this would be a web developer. Instead of you trying to make edits to your own website, hire a professional who can do it quickly and efficiently. This saves your valuable time for more important tasks, like building your business.

4. Test New Sales Channels – A lot of e-commerce is about trial and error. You need to test different sales channels and see which ones work and which ones don’t. This means Pay Per Click (Yahoo, MSN, Google) Make sure you test all three. Most people just stick to Adwords because they are the biggest and most well known. However Microsoft and Yahoo usually have better ROI because their clicks cost much less. Also try the different shopping comparisons sites. Test, test and test again. Eventually you will find a method which works for you and your products.

5. Connect with your Customers – One of the best ways to increase sales is to develop relationships with your customers. You need to connect with them. What better way to do this then create a blog. Blogging is a great customer communication tool and it also gives you a medium to offer specials and discounts.  This ties in perfectly with number 6.

6. Offer Promotions – Why do big retail stores offer sales and coupons? Because they work. You should also be doing the same. Test different offers – try a buy 2 get 1 free promotion, and track the results. Then test a 10% off coupon. Find out what promotions and offers work for your products and customers and use them to drive sales. Special offers and promotions are a great way to increase order totals and really take your e-commerce store to the next level.

7. Send Regular Email Campaigns – Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to drive sales to your store. Create a place on your site for customers to sign up for your mailing list. Then use these emails to send monthly or bi-monthly email campaigns. This is a great way to keep in contact with previous customers, as well as offer promotions and discounts.

8. Update / Optimize your Store – Your store will always need work. It is never finished. With Miva 5.5 coming in early 2008, now is a great time to upgrade your store. Implement a new design, or add some of the 9 essential e-commerce elements. Make your site navigation more user friendly, or optimize your category landing pages. Constantly be tweaking and testing. Eventually you will find a combination which works.

9. Focus on Building Quality Traffic Through SEO – Traffic is the life blood of any e-commerce store. Without traffic, you have no sales and no revenue. Spend some time learning SEO, or hire a consultant to optimize your site and generate links. You need good search engine rankings if you want to generate free traffic from the search engines.

10. Constantly be Learning – Even the e-commerce “Experts” read books and ask others for help. You must always be striving to learn more about e-commerce and e-commerce marketing. Attend at least one industry trade show next year. Whether it is about e-commerce, or about your products, the contacts and information you leave with will be well worth the admission price.

Follow these simple tips and you will be well on your way to making 2008 your greatest year yet.

So what do you think? Do you have any other suggestions to help double your sales for 2008?

About the Author: Brennan Heyde is an e-commerce consultant working in San Diego, Ca. He specializes in online marketing and SEO for e-commerce.  Have a struggling e-commerce website? – Contact Brennan today for a site analysis.