Putting the right measures in place to achieve excellence in 2020
There’s little doubt that 2020 is going to be a big year for marketers (although I appreciate we say this every December!). If you’re intending to start the New Year on the right foot, it's important to be clear on what you’re looking to achieve and to gain buy-in from everyone in the business.
Whilst your marketing strategy will outline the activity you will and will not carry out over the next year, underpinning this plan will be your objectives. There are three main sets of objectives to consider:
Business objectives, e.g.:
Increase profit growth by x%
Increase market share by y%
Marketing objectives, e.g.:
Increase sales by x%
Increase brand recognition by y%
Campaign objectives, e.g.:
Increase frequency of consumption by x%
Increase household penetration by y%
Your overarching business objectives set the tone and cascades through to the marketing and…
Keeping new customers satisfied is compulsory if you are to have any chance of turning them into regular customers
As an e-commerce business owner, you probably understand the important role that "trust" plays in converting first-time visitors into paying customers.
This set of visitors would never complete the checkout process if they find anything that makes them feel uncomfortable or doubt the credibility of your service.
So, keeping them satisfied is compulsory if you are to have any chance of turning them into regular customers.
Here are some other benefits you will gain by satisfying new customers:
New referral opportunities — First-time customers are usually more enthusiastic about sharing your e-commerce website with their friends especially when they love the experience.
New reviews — While your old customers may be tired of…
It’s easier to repurpose past clients than to find new ones
Whether you’re an e-commerce shop, a small "brick and mortar" boutique, or a major retail chain, you should never overlook past customers and clients as a potential source of future revenue. In fact, it’s often easier to remarket to your past clients than it is to generate new business leads.
Your past customers are invaluable, in that they already understand your product or service, they have had personal interaction with your brand, and they have likely developed an opinion about your product and its ability to satisfy their needs.
As we’ll see, sometimes all that is needed is for your company to re-introduce itself, reminding the customer about your product. Other times, you’ll need to do some harder work, changing customers’ opinions and perceptions about your product and its ability to satisfy their needs. Both of these paths achieve the ultimate objective…
When hyper-personalized emails miss the mark, they aren’t just ineffective — they’re downright unsettling.
To assess the effectiveness of personalization, my company conducted a real-world experiment. We paid a couple thousand dollars for a couple hundred hyper-personalized emails and then measured their successes against a similar number of generic and relevant emails. As it turned out, those run-of-the-mill emails performed better than the personalized ones by a substantial margin.
Why is that? Well, the truth is that most marketers believe that they know who their target audience is, so they integrate that knowledge into an approach that uses personalized emails that they feel is most effective.
When these hyper-personalized emails miss the mark, they aren’t just ineffective, they’re downright unsettling. According to a RichRelevance study, despite mostly enjoying personalized experiences from brands, up to 75% of US consumers deemed most forms of personalized business communications…
Did you notice a disconnect between your click-through rate and conversion rate? It’s time to check the issues and optimize your website
Generating customers through digital marketing is now one of the most popular tactics for promoting your brand. Popular, but not easy.
As a site owner, you want your website to drive traffic and engage prospects. But it takes time and experience to hit organic search results and you have lots of other issues to solve at the moment. So, you launch a PPC campaign for your e-commerce website, hoping for fast results… but nothing has happened.
[si_guide_block id="5739" title="Download our Individual Membership Resource – Google Ads strategy guide" description="Use this guide to review your approach to Paid Search and improve the ROI you can achieve from Google Ads Campaigns - All in 7 practical steps."/]
Perhaps, not exactly nothing. Your traffic levels and click-through rate (CTR) were probably both quite promising in the…
Getting website personalization right is hard and I bet you are sick of being told otherwise
I don’t blame marketers for trying to tell you differently of course. It’s immensely frustrating for them too – knowing just how valuable personalization can be and knowing that it will, in time, become a necessity, rather than luxury, for all brands to offer a personal experience to their customers.
Still, industry folk are frequently told we should be getting on board with web personalization and the many different approaches to execution that have been proposed over the last few years. But (and it’s a big but), rarely does anyone address the fact that most businesses have one or more fundamental and significant blockers in place preventing personalization success (more on this later).
[si_blog_banner_cta]
It's akin to asking a member of the public to take part in the World Championship triple jump competition and preparing them by showing…
Product pages do more than just represent the product, they help build a relationship with the customer, giving them every reason to open their wallets and make a purchase
For many webmasters, creating a winning e-commerce product page may not seem as sophisticated as to write an entire article about. After all, all product pages have the same purpose and many other crucial aspects come to play in converting the customer.
However, in today’s e-commerce landscape, simply uploading a product, adding some details and then laying back waiting for sales to happen is overly superficial. The dawn of smarter algorithms, more inquisitive online shoppers, and rising competition between brands has given webmasters a lot to think about. Product pages now do more than just representing the product, they help build a relationship with the customer, giving customers every reason to open their wallets and purchase the product.
Therefore, the task is not simple,…
Live chat is a valuable customer service tool, but you need to use it correctly. There is plenty you should do but also a number of things you need to avoid
Excellent customer service has two critical elements. The first is solving the customer query as soon as possible. The longer the case persists, then the more it becomes a nuance for your customer.
Secondly, you need to make the experience as smooth and enjoyable as possible. Even an acknowledgment of their issue, such as "I'll get back to you with a solution" can help with this. The solution can be provided later. People remember world-class customer service and they detest poor service.
[si_blog_banner_cta]
Live chat can help fulfill both these elements. Kayako, a help desk software for customer service surveyed 100 customers to show the long-lasting impact of live chat on user experience:
More than 50% of customers prefer…
Many businesses, despite spending a huge amount on driving new traffic to their websites are still experiencing poor conversion rates and lack of insight into their visitors requirements
The growth in consumer demand for real-time personalization is at an all-time high. It’s a fact, customers are not only becoming more connected they are also becoming more informed, demanding and unpredictable.
Given the wide range of options consumers have online, retailers are finding that the key to converting their visitors into loyal long-term customers is real-time AI-driven e-commerce personalization.
Through the use of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning, intelligent e-commerce personalization platforms are able to analyze customers’ behavior, learning their habits and enabling retailers to deliver automated, personalized recommenders within search results, promotional and personalized banners and on-page recommendations in real-time.
Why should e-commerce personalization be the main agenda point?
Provides each customer with a relevant…
Are you looking for something that gives you the edge and helps take email campaign performance to the next level?
So you’ve been optimizing your email programme for a while now, you’ve segmented your database, developed customer personas, and you’ve implemented a range of triggered campaigns. However, your competitors have also raised their game, and the ‘business as usual’ option just won’t cut it anymore. You’re looking for something that gives you the edge and helps take email campaign performance to the next level.
AI technology and marketing – a match made in heaven?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already helping marketers by serving personalized content at scale, reducing campaign production times, and enabling them to boost revenues and engagement. Forrester Research has predicted that businesses who use AI to drive marketing will gain $1.2 trillion per annum from those who don’t.
[si_guide_block id="44461" title="Email marketing trends 2019" description="Read our free report delving into the biggest email marketing trends…
