The key trends emerging from this year's Black Friday marketing campaigns
Total consumer spending on Black Friday has consistently increased over the past few years, to reach heights so dizzying that many retail businesses have realized they can't afford not to get involved. Over 80% of retailers plan to participate in Black Friday, and it has become an E-commerce phenomenon. This year for the first time ever Black Friday E-commerces sales are set to outpace in-store sales for the first time ever. Many retailers, such as AO.com in the UK are now running campaigns over a full week, or in Amazon's case, several weeks. Yet, despite the hype, some retailers who have reviewed the profitability of their Black Friday campaigns, or rather lack of it, have decided to stop their campaigns in favour of other tactics where they can get more impact at higher margins.
The infographic below provides some interesting background to the Black…
Don't mess with Google
The competition for a top spot in the Google search results is as competitive as ever. Companies spend millions of dollars annually to try and rank at the top spot for competitive keywords. There is good reason for that type of spending. Ranking first in Google results in 33% of all traffic from that keyword. Many high profile companies have taken a rank-at-all-cost mentality to clawing their way up to the top of the Google search rankings. These companies have tried, and failed, to gain an unfair advantage and have paid the price with a Google Penalty on their website.
Major companies like The Washington Post, WordPress, BBC, BMW, Mozilla, Genius, eBay, The Home Depot and even Google itself have been penalized by Google for violations of their guidelines. Digital Third Coast, a digital marketing agency located in Chicago, has compiled a list of high profile companies have…
You could more than double your conversion rate of abandoned carts by following these email best practices.
A recent study by Barilliance of 200 ecommerce websites has discovered some rather interesting trends in the world of cart abandonment best practices. It shows that sending cart abandonment emails very soon after the cart is abandoned is actually more effective than sending it a day later.
It also revealed a big gap between the industry average of an 18% conversion rate for cart abandonment emails, and the best in the industry who achieve 40% conversion. If you could close that gap and join the ranks of the best in the industry you could be converting over double the amount of people who abandon their carts! Just think of the ROI possibilities of investing sufficiently to achieve that conversion rate.
For more insights on cart abandonment emails see the full infographic below:
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New research highlights different approaches to engaging retail customers
The DMA has identified four different types of consumers when it comes to brand loyalty. Some customers are always loyal, others only loyal for certain purchases. But whatever their natural propensity for brand loyalty, you need to engage them and build trust. The DMA's 2016 research presented below shows that over half of consumers will stick to a brand that provides good service when they know they could get a cheaper deal elsewhere. In addition in found customers don't particularly like being asked to provide reviews, yet brands are keen to do this. One the flip side, almost half of customers would like to receive free gifts from brands, but only one in ten companies do this. There is clearly currently a big mismatch between consumer desires and brand actions, and this needs to close. Find out more by checking out the infographic below.
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How to engage your audience by optimising every feature of your email
Every email that you send to your clients has distinct elements. There’s the subject line, of course, as well as headline and body, to name just a few. And every single one of those elements has a distinct role to play in emails that are either engaging and often read versus those that quickly land in the “trash” folder.
Take the body of an email: If your customers feel like they’re reading a generic piece of information that’s crafted for everyone, and not specifically for them, they’ll be turned off. That points to the importance of data gathering as a part of the email-crafting process. The more you know about customers beyond that email address—who they are, how old they are, what they like and don’t like—the more likely you can create sub-groups of emails that offer benefits and reasoning…
Simple messaging, clean design and the use of white space to steer the eye are key to effective email designs.
While many companies do email marketing effectively, the ones that don’t often are slow to learn from their mistakes. Companies will spend big marketing budgets only to be disappointed with their results, and are often left unaware of what went wrong with the campaign. One key to getting your email marketing campaign right, is to have a full understanding of what exactly people find or do not find engaging with your emails.
Easy SMTP and EyeQuant teamed up together to evaluate a number of different email marketing campaigns using their heat map software. They used the results of their evaluations and created an infographic which you can see below.
The heat map analysis allowed them to understand how customers are engaging or not engaging with their emails. As you can see in the…
Trust on social media is very low, you'll need to be honest if you want to win it back
In the fast-moving world of social media, brands are constantly competing for attention. Organic page reach has been nerfed by Facebook, whilst Twitter is full of people shouting ever more regularly in an attempt to be heard, making it easy to be crowded out.
Sometimes it can be tempting to try any tactic to generate engagement, but your customers aren't stupid, and won't be fooled by marketing gimmicks. What is more, you should be presenting yourself as open and honest, and only by being transparent will you achieve this.
The CIM have put together this infographic on brand transparency on social media, which shows how little trust many users have in brands. The only way to reverse this and win trust is to be honest with your customers and be consistently up front about any…
A review of page load times and mobile effectiveness for different Ecommerce platforms
More than $12 trillion in B2B transactions are expected for the year 2020. That's up from $5.5 trillion in 2012, according to projections from Frost & Sullivan. B2B online sales are nearly double those of B2C sales. No matter what sphere of digital marketing you work in, it's time to hone in on e-commerce. Clients are hungry for a piece of the ecommerce pie. By staying informed on the existing software solutions, you will have the information you need to lead them towards smart platform choices.
61% of consumers report improved sentiments toward a brand as a result of a positive mobile experience and by 2017, m-commerce is expected to account for 25% of US sales. Mobile shoppers also spend more than users on other devices.Features like…
The rise and rise of co-marketing partnerships as the new form of sponsorship
Last year Nike spent $6.2 billion on sponsorships. That's certainly one way to keep your brand awareness high. But for those of us who don't have a few billion burning a hole in our pockets, co-marketing partnerships can be a great way to open new markets, attract new customers or simply boost sales.
For example, the music streaming service Pandora partnered with Honda, Ford and Subaru to offer free music streaming to drivers. They gained 14 million new listeners and generated over 900 million in advertising revenue. Take a look at the infographic below to learn more about digital partnerships.
Thanks to CIM for publishing this infographic…
How to Increase Your Website’s Speed And Ultimately Your Conversions
The time that it takes your website to load is one of the most important factors your online business will face. Literally every second counts as even the smallest of delays can cause customers to go somewhere else.
Today we’ll look at just how much your site’s speed affects your bottom line and how you can lower loading times with quick and easy fixes.
Logic may dictate that another second of loading time is worth it for a great web design, users today are more interested in how fast your website loads. A slow website will kill your conversions faster than anything else. Not even an amazing digital marketing strategy can save a slow website.
You may know how to create a blog, but if you want it to be successful, it has to be fast. Consider these compelling reasons why you…
