How to Succeed at Ecommerce

Ecommerce× Its Easy

× Its Cheap

× Everyone is doing it

× It’ll make me a fortune

× It’ll save me a fortune in

marketing costs

× It allows me to compete with high street retailers

Myths

Ecommerce

× I can cut out the middle man

× I’ll discount more & get better sales

× I can use manufacturers photos

× I can use manufacturers product descriptions

× It’ll run itself

× I got better value by getting a cheaper website

× An ecom site is the same as any other site

Myths

Change the Way You Think!

Think ShopThe Retail Manual

• Shop windows encourage users into the store

• (shop windows are regularly refreshed)

• Walkways help shoppers intuitively find their way around the store

• Pause Points for

example tables placed strategically on walkways encourage shopper consideration

• Shop Assistants answer shopper enquiries, enhance the experience & encourage sales

• Shop Assistants also often overcome ‘Buyers Remorse’

Think Online ShopThe Ecommerce

Manual

• Shop windows = Home page

• (Home page images need regularly updated)

• Walkways = Navigation

• Pause Points = ‘You

might also like’, banners

• Shop Assistants = Search box, faceted search, options, zoomable images, clear delivery and security information at checkout, failed checkout autoresponders

When Technology Loses Sight of Customers

Its a Bit Like...Excuse me, where are your spanners?

‘Dunno love.

REAL Customer Service Online

Now That Hopefully You’re Beginning to see Ecommerce

Differently...

Have a Strategy Before You

Start!

Website Strategy• Choosing a web

developer/ agency

How Many of you made the decision based on?

• Word of Mouth Recommendation

• You already knew them

• Cheapest

• Design or look

• Location/ Convenience to you

Website Strategy

• How many of you considered?

– CMS / Management tools available

– Ability to create new pages

– SEO technical structure & administration

– Merchandising

tools

– Support of product feeds

– Blog

– Offer management

– Search facility

– User Experience

First Steps / Already Got An Ecom Site?

• Optimise Conversion

• Test, Measure, Change

• User experience

• Usability and accessibility

• SEO

• Review technical structure

• Content

• Location

• Links

WARNING: Both are Ongoing Tasks

Website Conversion

• Dependant on sector, ecommerce conversion rate averages tend to be between 2-5%

• Analytics!!

• Testing tools

• Analytics!!

• http://www.google.com/intl/en/anal

ytics/iq.html

So Now the Scary Bit...

What Are These?

And These?

Your

Site

SEO

PPC

E-mail

Display

Affiliate

Re-Targetin

g

Social Media

Shopping Feeds

CRM

Mobile

Channels• They are All

Marketing channels

• All have different audiences & qualities

• Where are your audiences?

• Which channels already convert better for you?

• Which channels send you your most valuable customers?

• How do your channels interact?

• Analytics!!!

TIP: Search ‘Google segmentation’ & ‘Google Multi Channel Funnels’

SEO... ‘Nuff Said

SEO Basics• Content!!!

• Relevancy

• Quality

• Consistency

• Accessibility

• Freshness

• LinksA

• Persistanc

e

• KnowledgeQ: Does it work?

A:Yes!

If you take time to understand it and follow Google’s Guidelines

http://support.google.com/webmasters/

SEO Benefits• Can be managed in

house

• Can drive more engaged visitors

• Can reduce PPC costs

• Needs a balance (long/short tail keywords)

• Needs knowledge

BUT

• Knowledge take a long time to build

• Its a long term approach

• Its constantly changing

• There is a resource cost

• It can take a while to see benefits

http://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/http://searchenginewatch.com

PPC Basics• Relevance

• Quality Score

• Landing Page

• Ad Text

• Knowledge

Q: Does it work?

A:Yes! You see immediate

results and there is a LOT of support if you want to start off in-house

http://support.google.com/adwords

PPC Benefits• Can support SEO

• Its immediate

• Sends traffic quickly

• Conversion can be measured

• Fully under your control

• Geographic locations can be targeted specifically

BUT

• You can waste a lot of money very quickly if you don’t start with knowledge

• Sending traffic is NOT the same as sending qualified leads

• Always pursue ROI first, traffic second

Cumulative Bonus

PPC AD

Natural Listing

PPC AD

PPC AD

Natural Listing

PPC Ad Here

Or Here

=20% More Clicks Here

Display Basics• Banner ad positions

• Banner ad formats

• Creatives (Ads) and Ad text immensely important

• Its primarily for branding, then ROI purposes

• Very strong offering

Q: Does it work?

A:Yes! But be realistic about what

you are measuring/ expectations. Mass marketing results in sales- though sometimes not immediately

Display Benefits• Can support PPC

• Its immediate

• Sends traffic quickly

• Provides strong branding opportunities

• Offers mass marketability

• Suggests affiliation with hosting sites

BUT

• With the main benefit being branding- this is the online version of billboards

• CTRs usually around 0.14%

• Brand recognition can’t be measured but is still valuable

Cumulative Bonus Combine Search & Display Efforts

The combination of search and display advertising was

7x more effective than the display

...and three times as effective as search

alone in driving traffic to the advertiser’s website

Net uplift in people visiting advertiser website (percentage point change)

Source: MSA

Behavioural Re-Targeting

• Similar to display

• Re-targets visitors to your site who left without making a purchase

• Persistently shows them a range of ads to attempt to encourage a sale

• Only suitable when you are driving

enough traffic to your site to begin with

E-Mail Basics• Consider newsletter

signups on your site as a goal

• Keep e-mails short and not too text heavy

• Use core calls to action

• Test success of e-mail subject lines

• Get more than just name if possible to allow segmentation

• Push good offers

• Lots of free tools

Q: Does it work?

A:Yes! Especially for

customer re-engagement, upselling & targeted sales.

http://www.mailchimp.com

E-Mail Benefits• Can support Social Media

growth

• Encourages re-engagement

• Direct channel for marketing

• Correlation between e-mail and sales uplift

• Cheap until you start talking thousands of subscribers

• Low barriers to entry

BUT

• Better conversion achieved when greater targeting is used

• Targeting can only be used if you are collecting customer data (CRM)

• E-mail isn’t dead- its just matured – your strategy MUST do the same

Social Media• Achieving massive

success from social media is the exception rather than the rule

• Its not free- success is time heavy

• You need to have a strategy

• The first step in

any strategy should always be to listen

• Be genuine, be real, be representative of your company but BE YOU

• Personality is a MUST – as is PROFESSIONALISM

Social Media• Can be a customer

acquisition tool

• But this does require hard work, and can be very difficult if your product/ service is niche

• Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN, You Tube – All maturing

• Location based services supported by apps, Pinterest & gamification – All

driving forward

• Social can help SEO, customer retention, customer acquisition somewhat

• BUT requires proactive not reactive management, focus, resource & must be interlinked with all other marketing channels

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com

Shopping Feeds/ Aggregators

• Just another channel

• Can provide you with a trusted & proven platform on which to sell your products

• Does take away some of the marketing requirements/

costs

• BUT does add on commissions/ selling costs

TIP: Maximise on existing feeds... Re-Use in Google shopping, for affiliate marketing etc

You Snooze, You Lose

MOBILE

• British Retail Consortium: Total retail search volumes in the UK increased 24 percent year-on-year in Q4 2011

• PayPal: the [mobile] market will grow an average of 42%

each year and be worth £2.5bn by 2016

• WorldPay: UK consumers are predicted to be the biggest mobile shoppers in Europe in 2012

• Think Mobile Enabled Website (Not app)

You Snooze, You Lose

OMNI CHANNEL

• Utilise mobile apps / in-store kiosks to increase offline sales

• iBeacon technology provides invaluable in-store data as well as providing great in-store customer

experiences

• Customer services MUST also be seamlessly multi-channel to ensure that you provide your customers with the service that they should be receiving

Your Ideal Strategy?

• Its not the same as everyone elses

• Its unique to your business & your audience

• Consider the channels & which channels suit your current audience

• Test, Improve, Test, Improve

• Try and conquer the channels of least resistance first

• Learn first, set up second, test third & start again

For the next Installment on the Future of Omni

Channel…Twitter

@JillLRobb

@OriginDigital

LinkedIn

http://linkd.in/jillLRobb

Web

www.origin-digital.com