Very often we get asked: “Do you do ecommerce?â€
The answer is “yes, but it’s not as simple as that.â€
What we ask back is:
- Who buys from you?
- Why do they buy from you?
- How can you find more of these people?
- How can you make their life easier?
For us a good ecommerce site goes beyond the design, accessibility, usability and programming of the website. What we are about is getting under people’s skin, creating a tribe to sell through, a community to which we talk about the products, the usage, the lifestyle.
Positioning, Promotion, Sale
Positioning is key: Let us help you look at the key audiences, the segmentation, where they are, where they communicate, gather etc. There may be more than one identifiable audience.
- What is the language we need to use to talk to them?
- What are the benefits they can get from a product?
- What are the differentiators? |What is your niche?
A little detail may create a niche. We recently looked at improving one of our client’s ecommerce and rather than spending money on the programming we suggested to look at positioning and promotion. We undertook a workshop with them to identify the key visitor types (personas/profiles) to the site. We found that by introducing just a few new products, some new key audiences could be introduced, whilst still catering for the old audience groups.
How to talk to niche groups/ interest groups? – promotion – direct and indirect
After identifying the personas, it is then essential to identify how you engage with them. Are they just looking for a “quick fix� Do they want to find a branded product and then leave the site? DO they want advice? Do they want to advice from you? Do they want to discuss with other members of their tribe?
We create online marketing campaigns which set out to reach your defined persona groups. We do this by creating a narrative, an interest and then meeting their needs. This typically starts by:
1. Researching what they are looking for and how they search for it
2. Ensuring your site is structured around these real world needs
3. Making the finding of information through professional and peer reviews easy
4. Making the buying process a seamless process from there
By studying these profile groups we understand how they purchase. What products are related to each other, what calls to action drive sales. Ecommerce is not just about selling from an online catalogue. You have an unparalleled opportunity to really get under the skin of your audience. To find out how they get to your site, what makes them tick, what encourages them to buy.
We can help you do this through deep analysis of your user statistics and then testing small aspects of your site to improve conversion. Once people get to your site we can help keep them there and make more visitors into customers.
The next stage is to build on this and make your customers repeat customers and loyal customers (following the brand – creating a tribe) When they want to know about their tribe, they come to you, when they want to tell their friends, they tell them about you. There are various tools and techniques to make this happen and all are centred around engagement, interaction and giving control back to the end user. This can include effective blogging, effective use of social media, effective newsletters and the efficient use of promotions to drive traffic and sales.
Analyse
Analysis is king, without it you know nothing. The web gives you what you need to improve in an unparalleled way. You can identify weaknesses in your site, and improve them incrementally. Analyse your newsletter and see how many people actually clicked into the website from specific link phrases. Make new newsletters with promotions just targeting these people.
They will start to establish the trust to return to your site to look for new products and information. They will also start talking about their experience to others and a community will start to blossom.
Don’t underestimate the old ’word by mouth’. Started off with a simple promotion this can be a powerful way of getting into communities and assure that your client base grows. Which in turns may give you more sales. Analysing your clients journeys is critical. And these may change through the seasons, so be assured to adapt and change the strategies as you go along.
Selling products
Once you actually have the user at your site and she/he is looking at your product make sure you capture them and turn them from browsers into customers. The key is engagement. We can help drive this by decreasing “bounce rates†(the numbers of people who immediately leave your site) and increasing click-throughs in to your site.
Effective information at the right places encourages more engagement with the user. Effective use of rollovers to reveal more information and more media rich information without the need to click through on to another page does exactly this. It allows the user to browse without navigating away from the page and assures she / he will browse through more products than in competitor websites. These little boxes allow you to add a ‘buy button’, which assures the user that this is an ecommerce site ready to sell.
Test it
Every product you sell is ready to review, ready to recommend, ready to put on wish list. Make sure you give the user this functionality every time.
We can help you to test your site with A-B testing which offers alternative elements on the page to different visitors and records which is most effective. By continuous testing you improve your conversion process and increase sales by giving people the seamless and intuitive buying process that they want.
We gave you some advice – now to practicalities
How can we help you?
We love talking about online marketing and sales because we know it works and know how we can help people like you be more successful online. We can help you with your marketing plans, internally and externally. With the right communication strategy we can help you develop and grow your business over the next 6 – 12 months.
The main thing is to stay on top of your online marketing. Although this may seem like a daunting task, with our help we can help you plan, implement and achieve the objectives that will drive and grow your business.
Start today by calling us on 01273 384287, asking for Sandra or Clinton. Or email us
