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…
You've invested in personalisation for email, so why is your site the same for all users?
Your email marketing is up to par; it’s personalized, automated and monitored. Exactly like it should be. But what about your website, does it adhere to the same standards? Probably not, since 95% of anonymous website visitors, remain just that - anonymous.
The main reason behind this is that your Website Visitor Experience isn’t personalized. Which is strange, since ALL B2B conversion action is happening on-site. The same way your email marketing is personalized, so the on-site experience you offer to visitors should be.
Why 95% of Anonymous Visitors Don’t Convert?
It’s a staggering number, one that marketers need to stare at. There are three main reasons for this:
Irrelevant content, product or services
False promises
Sometimes people are just not in the mood…
Which channels are best for delivering more personalized communications?
Relevance - Relevance - Relevance! should be the mantra of digital marketers since we know that serving more contextual messaging to our prospects and customers will give an improved experience and boost response.
There is certainly no shortage of marketing services to deliver personalization, but it seems from this recent survey from Venturebeat that ability to customise messages to the individual varies a lot by channel.
It's clear that email is 'streets ahead' in its usage for personalisation although, as the report notes this can vary in sophistication from name personalisation to recommendations based on behaviour. It's surprising that web personalisation is relatively rare, although we can expect it's higher in Ecommerce sectors such as financial services, travel and retail.
Venturebeat: Marketing Personalization: Boosting Relevance
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Using Cause-and-effect or Ishikawa fishbone diagrams for marketing analysis and management
If you’re involved with managing Ecommerce, there are many inter-related marketing activities that are important for success. With the increasingly complex range of channels companies use for communications today and alternative customer journeys on site, mastering best practices is helpful to make best use of each channel or digital marketing technique and how it integrates with other channels.
I first started to use Ishikawa diagrams when I was responsbible for managing software development teams where we used them to identify the potential cause of problems and minimise bugs. As I got involved in digital marketing I was reminded them when I heard Sam Decker, then responsible for Dell’s consumer web site, explaining how Dell used this as part of their Six Sigma thinking to improve operations, content, design, analytics, and P&L management. This technique seemed to me to be…
Creating an International Retail Ecommerce Plan : Defining the Pros, Cons and 10 Steps to Start Planning
The UK & the US are very strong markets from an online trading point of view: the US is second in the world, and the UK third in the world in retail sales according to Emarketer. That’s a wonderful position to be in, but also means they are fairly saturated, with a high-level of competition from local and international competitors.
One of the big opportunity areas for small/medium e-commerce businesses is therefore in international sales. While international sales are vital for UK-based pureplays like ASOS, Wiggle and Zalando and many of the big online pureplays take selling overseas hugely seriously, it’s still a relatively untapped market. For example, it’s more common for continental European retailers to focus cross-border than for UK businesses to do so. And yet, the US & UK’s…
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June 21, 2016
5 steps to getting started with merchandising for Online Trading
In the broadest sense, merchandising is defined as 'the activity of promoting the sale of goods'. Whether this is in a store, over the phone or online the principle is the same – 'Sell more stuff (Profitably)'; the differences come in the techniques employed to do this.
A traditional retail store will use gondala end displays, clip-strip cross-sells and sales assistants to maximise revenues, but without the advantage of face-to-face sales influence how can we sell online?
[si_guide_block id="74974" title="Download Expert Member resource – Online Retail Merchandising guide" description="This guide examines all aspects of the buyer journey and gives great tips along the way to improve your customer's experience and make them more likely to buy. Via detailed examples of sites including JohnLewis.com, B&Q, Asos and more, in both desktop and mobile views, the guide lets you learn from market leaders…
What your e-commerce store needs to boost conversions
The average eCommerce conversion rate on desktop is still less than 10 percent on average according to our Smart Insights compilation of larger retailers and it can be lower for smaller retailers - just 1.4% according to a 2015 Ecommerce KPI study carried published on Moz. So, the reality for marketers working for retailers is that it takes far more than a great product offered at the right price to convince consumers to buy. Why? Because online shoppers are getting savvy and they no longer simply want to browse eCommerce stores; they want to have a great experience whilst doing so.
Given this need to improve experiences, we’ve seen a huge rise in interest in improving UX design over the past few years. To help our members, Smart Insights have a regularly updated guide that recommends ideas for testing retail UX design based on different…
How to engage your customers to boost your conversion rate
Poor conversion is a major concern for eCommerce businesses. Have you been struggling to get customers to make a purchase? This new infographic shows some of the factors that could influence consumers’ purchase decisions and how you could capitalize on these factors through testing new approaches.
Build engagement with your customers
A higher engagement rate can have a significant impact on your conversion rate. The more you engage with your customers, the more likely they are to purchase your products. Maybe you could offer loyalty programs or discounts that would compel them to make more purchases. You could also offer demos, free trials, and coupon codes to engage potential customers initially.
Your landing page or website design could also be affecting how users engage with your site. Make improvements by adding high-quality and attractive images that would immediately grab their attention.
Focus on building…
Examples of how customer reviews can be used for both B2C and B2B companies. Are you using them to your full advantage?
The vast majority of people, including you and I, read customer reviews before buying a product. We place a lot of importance on what others are saying about a product or website based on their previous experiences. So it’s a given that product ratings, reviews, comments and feedback given on social media sites can affect your business massively.
Customer Reviews are a Powerful Sales Tool in B2B Marketing
Considering the influence such user-generated content has on your buyers, it is no surprise that customer reviews are considered as the “new frontier in word-of-mouth marketing,” and perhaps suprisingly this also includes customer reviews for B2B companies. According to TechValidate research, 94 percent of marketing and sales professionals from B2B industry consider customer reviews and ratings ‘as very effective or extremely effective’. Still not…
Content Marketing is evolving into an era of hyper-personalisation
One of the more advanced pieces of advice we tend to give to people looking to improve their content marketing is to make better use of personalisation. It's easy to see why. If you can target people will content that is far more likely to appeal to them based on what they're interested it, then they're far more likely to engage with that content, spend longer on the site and once you've hooked them in you can set about trying to convert.
It's a simple narrative based on simple logic. But does it hold up to rigorous analysis? When we're A/B testing various different types of messaging on Smart Insights, it's not always the one that you'd logically think should work best that ends up performing optimally. The best way to find out the answer is to test, test and then test again. To…
