Mark AllisonICT Advisor

Invest NI

Maximising your Conversions

(Doing the Thing)

Where to Sell? Business Strategy.

Own Web Site Marketplaces

Own Web Site

• Full control over

design, branding

• Customers are yours

• Easy to cross sell,

upsell etc.

• No Commission Fees

• Traffic can be a major

issue

• Ongoing costs of site

maintenance

• Responsible for

Security etc

Most People will Need 3rd Party Help

Conversion

What is a Conversion?

View a ‘Thank you’ Page

Sign up for your email list

Download a White Paper

Listen to an ‘MP3 Audio Track’

Make a Purchase

Market Research

•Find your products

•Price? CRUCIAL

•Can you compete?

•Remember the Costs

•50 products x 100 sales=££

Create a Spreadsheet of your top 50 products

Web Site

Social Media

Organic Search

Email Marketing

Offline Marketing Affiliates

Blog

PR Activities

Traffic All the Marketing

Conversion Visitors to Buyers

FulfilmentManage

Orders,upsellCustomers etc

Sales – Costs = Profit

Simple Maths

Cost of Goods

Post and

Packaging

Commission

Advertising

Bank Fees

Staff

Simple Maths Part 2

Visitors Conversion(% Buyers)

Avg Order Sales

1000 2% £20 £400

1000 3% £20 £600

1000 3% £40 £1200

Visitors Conversion Rate(% Buyers)

Avg Order SALES

AdWords Scenario 1

• 1000 visitors @ 50p per click will cost

£500

• 2% Conversion rate = 20 sales

• Each sale costs £500/20 = £25

• Worth while for a boiler repair?

• Worth while for a £600 Dress?

AdWords Scenario 2

• 1000 visitors @ 20p per click will cost

£200

• 3% Conversion rate = 30 sales

• Each sale costs £200/30 = £6.67

• Can be very profitable – if done well

• Cab be very costly – if done badly

• Google ‘Google AdWords’ for more info.

Easy Online Checkout

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Sk7cOqB9Dk

Conversion Rate Optimisation

• CRO takes advantage of your existing traffic by increasing your campaign’s ROI

• It significantly reduces your cost of acquisition (COA)

• Your profit is directly linked to your conversion rates, so increasing your conversions means increasing your profits

• It makes your customer’s journey thru’ your website more efficient and satisfying

• It increases your competitiveness against competitors in your vertical market who do not utilise CRO

• You are able to understand your customers conversion path (journey) on your website, allowing you to blueprint every action (Part 2)

Getting your customer to

Do The Thing.

• What conversion rate should I be happy with?

• Don’t worry about average

• A good conversion rate is – Better than the ONE you have NOW.

• When is the best time to plant an Oak tree?

• Around 1-3% is common… Apples and Oranges… You can’t really compare

CRO Tips – Do all the things…

Eat the Elephant.

Quality Product Images

• If I’d have to pick one

single thing that would

sell a product online, it’s

images.

• Images are King

• Would a web site work

with no descriptions –

Just images?

Great Images, in Context and Zoooooooommmmmable….

• People want to see what

they’re getting. The

starting point in boosting

ecommerce conversion

rates is having high

quality photos of your

product.

• The more the better.

• Show the products from

different angles, and in

context, make them

zoomable………

• 36%To get a 1% improvement is eCommerce is

good!

Great Product Copy

• Product descriptions matter

• The shopper should convince themselves this is the right product for them.

• Clear descriptions beat persuasion.

• Long or short descriptions? You should offer both, the concise version and the long version. The shorter version should capture the key points: who’s the product for, what will it do and why is that good.

Mobile Version?

• If you are not Mobile – You are not there!!! Google says…

• Extremely Simple Navigation

• Information is concise, images are consistent in size and quality

• Product purchase - fit everything on one screen:

• 3-line product descriptions, with the ability to save to a wish list..

• Facebooks last Qtr. Advertising revenue was £2.8bn. Nearly 80% of that came from mobile advertising………..

• Build your Web Site initially on a mobile platform and then PC?

• https://www.google.co.uk/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

Product Videos

• Videos Sell.

• Even if your customers don’t watch them.

• Livens up your pitch, increases interest.

• Clarifies a complex product. How to Video?

• Who owns YouTube?

• Rank better in Google Search.

• Easily Sharable. Will it blend?• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg1ckCkm8YI

Charging for delivery is a

conversion killer –

Ireland’s pet hate!!!• If you are charging for delivery – you are doing it

wrong.

• £6.99 off delivery is better than £10 discount.

• An E-tailing Group study revealed that unconditional free shipping is #1 criteria for making a purchase (73% listed it as ‘critical’). In another study 93% of respondents indicated that free shipping on orders would encourage them to purchase more products.

• The French Connection… Amazon.fr

• If you need to charge – Be upfront about it. (Increase order value?)

• Great Search

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbtf1oyNg-8

Great Search and Filters

• Search is crucial to e-commerce

• People just want to find the product,

quickly

• Over 50% of visitors will use the search

facility

• Amazon etc. much more.

• More products – more important.

• Use Filtering to help

Pricing is Crucial

• Getting the price right

• Very visible offers page / Area

• Discount codes

• 1st order offers

• Communicate your value proposition

• Why are you better or different?

• Say something interesting about you.

Which site/page is better?

• How can we tell?

• A/B testing.

• Trial and error

• Up Sell… Increase average order (buy this

too)

• Sell Confidence in your site

• Analysing the Statistics

• Do it all again

• Eating the Elephant, a bite at a time.

Getting the Balance

Right

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5WurXNec7E

• Pestering your visitor – The American way?

• Landing Page problems

• Online Survey pop up’s

• Distraction…

• Device Specific Landing Page – Just phone

No?

• Check your UX..

• Work the process

Getting the Balance

Right

Security

• Do we really need to ‘Talk Talk’ about this?

• Vodafone recently upgraded their site.

They are ‘securely getting all the things’

• Part of your Value Proposition.

• Your site needs to be trustworthy.

• Becoming a major concern.

Big Call to Action.

• Increase your visitor response.

• Size

• Colour

• Wording

• Contrast with the rest of the page

• Position

• Urgency

Checkout

• Ease of Payment? Try yourself

• Payment Choices – More the better

• Registration – Only of necessary

• Paypal – Easy way out

• Abandoned Cart – Follow-up

email/Phone.

• Stored shopping basket

Some Useful Tools

• http://www.semrush.com/• SEMrush is a powerful and versatile competitive

intelligence suite for online marketing, from SEO and PPC to social media and video advertising research.

• https://moz.com/• Backed by industry-leading data and the largest

community of SEOs on the planet, Mozbuilds tools that make inbound marketing easy

• http://seositecheckup.com/• Find comprehensive search engine optimization (SEO)

tools for your site

Useful Sites

NI Business Info– http://www.nibusinessinfo.co.uk/content/sales-marketing

– http://www.nibusinessinfo.co.uk/content/e-commerce

– http://www.nibusinessinfo.co.uk/content/online-business-networking-and-social-networking

Get Invest NI support?www.investni.com/about-us/what-we-do/how-we-support-

business.html

Invest NI0800 181 4422

Driving Traffic Summary

• Search Engine Optimisation

– Needs ongoing work

• Need to think about Paid Search

– Google Adwords, Bing

• Social Media

– Draw visitors from Social Media to your site

– Facebook Advertising, Twitter Advertising

• Online and Offline PR

AdWords Summary

• Depends on your market/margins

• Can be very profitable

• Needs to be done by someone who

understand it properly

– Very easy to waste money

• Easy to measure ROI

Conversion Summary

• Price

• Ease of Use/Design– Responsive Design

• Great Images, Clear Copy

• Trust– Delivery Cost and Options

– Returns Policy, Security

• Checkout Process/Payment Options

At Last…

• Creating an E-Commerce web site is

within reach of most small businesses

• Marketing and driving traffic needs time,

effort, money

• Ebay and Amazon may be a good testing

ground prior to your own site

• Make sure the sums add up