Contacting merchants to update their online checkout forms

Easy: answer questions. I love to focus on questions within my defined area of expertise that don't have any answers already posted. I check this almost daily and jump in on questions I feel that I can add value to. You can also review other questions that have answers already, and offer your insights. Your message may be slightly different than other experts -- but there is beauty in that! Not every user will identify with every expert. Most of the consulting calls I have booked as a result of Clarity come from folks who read my answer to a question, not the original user who posted the question. To see success, you have to put yourself out there and commit to investing time to the community. All the best, -Shaun

Great Question! I see you are not looking to spend too much money on this so my recommendation would be to use free tools that will only cost you the time you take to set them up yourselves. 1. Accommodating contacts (engaged vs not engaged, segmenting, custom fields and flexible reporting). For this I would recommend you use Podio. It is free for up to five users and will let you do all that and more. You can set up your templates with all the fields you want (drag & drop) and they are completely dynamic so you are welcome to change them at any point in time. 2. One Place to See All Interactions. I would use Mandrill (from the makers of Mailchimp) to send and track all mail related interactions. They have webhooks that you can use to create all sorts of custom workflows behind the scenes. Of course this also means you can integrate it with Podio's excellent API to keep all your data in the same place. Eventually you could even code in a workflow that would drip customized your content to subscribers using Mandrill. Essentially removing any need for additional software. Best of luck! And let me know if you have any more questions!

Mark O'Brien wrote a great easy read on this exact topic, it's called "A Website that Works" - http://www.newfangled.com/a_website_that_works This is the philosophy that Newfangled is built upon, so let me know if you're ever interested in partnering with us for consulting or development. Good luck!

In my experience, the longer sales cycle requires more attention. The metrics will be unique to your business, but you can't go wrong with these: Marketing & Sales Metrics Look at metrics that will help you scale and project growth, and then accelerate opportunity to close velocity #s and conversion rates of marketing qualified leads (MQLs) #s, time, and conversion rates of MQLs to sales qualified leads (SQLs) #s, time, and conversion rates of SQLs to opportunities #s, time, and conversion rates of opportunities to sales Customer Success Metrics An ARR SaaS business may have a guaranteed 12 month customer lifespan, but that doesn't guarantee the customer actually uses the product and won't churn at renewal time. Measuring product usage will help you discover patterns that cause churn, increase the perceived value of the product, and improve the customer experience. Financial Metrics Each Reporting Period (I'd recommend monthly) look at Values & Rate of Change Customer Acquisition Cost Average Value of a Customer look at Values, % of total, & Rate of Change Revenue from New Subscriptions Revenue from Renewal Subscriptions At the early stage, businesses will see new Subscriptions significantly outpace renewals. As the business matures, the % of total ARR from New Subscriptions will begin to decline, assuming churn rates are good.

The suggestion by James is great. Here is another good option that you can look into: http://www.amazon.com/Guerilla-Marketing-Inexpensive-Strategies-Business/dp/0618785914/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383588504&sr=8-1&keywords=guerilla+marketing Great foundation for the basics of marketing.