Author Archives: Simon Horton

08.24.16
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8 Marketing Ways to use Instagram for e-Commerce

Businesses, it seems, have squeezed the entire commercial potential of Facebook in the last few years. Reports suggest that there has been a 63% decrease in organic marketing reach since 2012 on Facebook. The world’s largest social network, in all probability, has plateaued. The decline of Facebook has led to a mad rush by brands to find the next big social network. And it is not without a sense of irony that this new social network is owned by Facebook!

We are talking about Instagram. And by all accounts, it is just getting warmed up. This visually-led social network has 500 million users, 300 million of which use Instagram daily, at last count, making it the fastest growing social network in the world. Launched in October, 2010, it was bought by Facebook at a whopping $1 billion within a year and a half. The amount Facebook closed this deal at was scoffed by most experts, but Zuckerberg, it seems, had the last laugh.

Although Instagram does not offer any business-specific features, it hasn’t dissuaded 93% of premier brands that are active on Instagram. Many smaller brands, especially, e-commerce, have made Instagram their own. With a 115% increase in organic marketing reach since 2012, Instagram has become a darling of brands.

A brief comparison of the business potential of Facebook and Instagram

Apart from the massive difference in organic marketing reach of the two social networks, more than twice the number of Instagrammers engages with brands as compared to Facebook users. Instagram has 58x more engagement per follower than Facebook. While brands on Facebook reach 6% of their followers per post, brands on Instagram reach 100% of their followers per post. Also while the average order value on Facebook was $55, it was $65 on Instagram. User statistics on Instagram are just as mind-boggling.

So how does an e-commerce brand that relies so heavily on product pictures use Instagram that does not allow use of copy or links to online stores?

1. No external links? No problem. Use hashtags instead!

The biggest challenge with Instagram is that it does not recognize links that takes a user outside of its cozy environs. For an e-commerce store, this could be the biggest problem as there is no way it can guide users to its online store. You can only have links in your profile.

warbyparker
Without links, hashtags are your best friends. Judicious use of hashtags help you organize your posts and make them noticeable to Instagrammers. If you are a fledgling entity on Instagram, use hashtags to get your pictures noticed. Find out the hottest hashtags on Instagram and use them for your brand.

hashtags
Once you garner a good number of followers, you can shift your strategy to focus more on pictures. A hashtag becomes a link to your brand. All your posts featuring a particular hashtag will be displayed at a single place. Thus, you can now showcase your products in one place. You can also invite users to submit pictures using a particular tag and they all will appear in one place.

2. Try influencer marketing

Influencers can turbo-charge your marketing on Instagram. The most popular industries on Instagram have influencers – those who have a ton of followers. Fashion, cosmetics, personal care, food and alcohol are among the industries that have a high number of influencers.

A bit of research into whom your target market follows and you can approach them to help you. The best way is to get them to post a picture wearing (or using) your product and a hashtag, and voila! You have a campaign on your hands. The bigger influencers will very likely expect to be paid while some smaller ones (having a fan base of a few thousand) will be happy with a free product sample. Choose your influencer depending on what you want to offer in return.

Influencers aren’t necessarily celebrities. It is how they post and what they post that has helped them garner such a huge following. Take for example Adam Gallagher. He is a big influencer in the fashion/lifestyle/travel industry and has a whopping 1.8 million followers. He is the founder of the popular blog “I am Galla,” which “aids the men’s demographic with styling tips, trend forecasts and third-party inspiration.”

iamgala3. Use raw, natural photos

Being a purely visual channel, Instagram poses many challenges for businesses looking to engage with their audience. It’s like selling without a copy, as Jim Squires, Instagram’s director of market operations puts it. He advises brands to be creative and use Instagram’s existing features to build an awesome user experience. “Fit in to stand out,” is what he tells marketers.

The brands that have been successful the most are the ones that use beautiful photos that elicit emotions. Use lifestyle photos of your products. Instead of studio pictures, ask users to submit their own pictures using/wearing your products. Take a look at how Tsuru, a local clothing retailer uses customer-generated content for promotion of its products.

tsuru

Instagram is also not following the Facebook route towards allowing explicit ads. It has set very strict rules for brands to follow.

4. Use Instagram Direct for e-commerce marketing

Instagram Direct is a way to send photo and video messages and can be used creatively by e-commerce brands. Brands can now share photos and 15-second videos and share it with their audience.

Using Direct is simple. Take a photo and/or record a video. Add effects, filters and captions if you like. Tap on the “direct” option on the screen. Select names of followers you wish to send this to and tap on “send.”

You can use Direct to announce the launch of a new product. Since Direct only allows you to send a photo or video to 15 followers at a time, you can use this strategy to give a sneak peek to a select bunch of really engaged users.

You can also use Direct to gift coupons to your best followers. You can select the followers that comment on, like and share your posts frequently and send them the photo with the gift code that they can use for their next shopping.

Direct also allows brands to chat with their followers. Holding a Q&A with followers gives you a great opportunity to get feedback and educate them. You can also target specific demographics using Direct that allows you to send your message to a select audience. This is a great way to do brand research.

5. Leveraging the Videos Channel in Explore

The Search and Explore feature in Instagram is an intuitive way that is used to serve relevant content to users depending upon their preferences. This is a non-invasive way and what content will be served depends upon any factors including the people one follows or the posts one likes.

In April this year, Instagram launched video channels in Explore. They’ve realized the popularity of videos among users and through this feature they’ll make it easier for users to discover relevant videos. This offers a fabulous opportunity for brands to create awesome video content and reach a wider audience – people who do not yet follow them.

According to Instagram, Explore gets better by adjusting to your preferences and shows you more content that you’ll enjoy. So you may consider it as free promotion of your content by Instagram! This is a great way to create awesome videos and let Instagram serve it to the right people.

6. Run contests

Contests are popular ways to engage users and drive attention. Everybody loves the chance of winning a prize in a contest. To make a hashtag trending, tie it with a giveaway or contest. Take a look at this simple content run by Bows-N-Ties.

bowsnties

The most important part of the contest is to choose the right hashtag, one that is, preferably, your brand name and which is not already in use. Set the scope for the contest (what kind of picture, whether it has to be your products, which hashtags to be included, etc.). Finally, set the reward. A recurring reward is better than a one-off contest as it keeps the hashtag alive and you get a continuous steam of user-generated content.

7. Use Instagram Stories

On August 2, 2016, Instagram announced the launch of Instagram Stories. Most experts believe that this is to counter the growing popularity of Snapchat and Instagram is pulling all plugs to retain its leader tag. Instagram CEO, Kevin Systrom even admitted that the credit for introducing the “stories” format goes to Snapchat.

This feature lets you share photos and videos without posting them to your profile. Your entire 24 hours will be packed in a slideshow format – your story. The story remains “alive” for 24 hours.

This is another exciting opportunity for brands to be as creative as they can and create brand stories that will increase user interest and engagement. Brands can upload photos and add effects like neon marker, brush tool, pen. They can increase the visual appeal by selecting various colors from the palette. Brands can also use Boomerangs and Hyperlapses and add them to the story to make it more enticing.

8. Check out these cool tools to make marketing on Instagram easier

  • Iconosquare – With this software, a small, dedicated team can easily manage a company’s Instagram account. A platform is created on your desktop which shows you your feed and what followers are posting. A powerful search functionality and statistics help you manage your account like a breeze.
  • Offerpop – They have a unique photo contest builder that you can use to create exciting contests on Instagram.
  • InstaOrders – With this software, you can create a free e-commerce store on your Instagram account. This allows shoppers to directly place orders on Instagram.
  • 10sec – This is a free flea market app that you can use to sell your products on Instagram. From making a listing to shipping an item to depositing money in your account, 10sec does it all.

Takeaway

Instagram has struck the right balance – helping brands to tell their stories and engage customers, without being too invasive. It still is a very personal social network, unlike Facebook. It has managed to create the right mix of social and commerce. The visual impact of this platform makes it creatively challenging for brands to create brand stories and yet gives them the perfect opportunity to engage better with its audience by allowing user-generated content on their profiles.

Even B2B marketers are using Instagram successfully. So it should hardly come as a surprise that e-commerce brands are using this exciting platform to generate a buzz around their products. We hope that the above-mentioned marketing ideas will inspire you to creatively engage with your audience on Instagram.

Image Source: (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

06.29.16
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Who are Hedonic Shoppers and How to Engage Them and Extend the Relationship?

Who are Hedonic Shoppers and How to Engage Them and Extend the Relationship
A large number of retailers have experienced a shift in the marketplace. The retail marketplace, both online and offline retailers have experienced a massive change and it is no longer sufficient to entice the customers by providing low pricing, discounts, wide assortment of products, etc. More and more retailers as well as ‘Etailers’ are recognizing the need to make the shopping experience entertaining to overcome the immense competition.

According to Baymard Institute, 67.89 percent shopping carts get abandoned. Most people believe that the shopping carts get abandoned due to poorly optimized carts or lengthy checkout processes, but you will be amazed to know there are many other reasons why shopping carts get abandoned. Moreover, the shopping cart abandonment rate increases due to the rise of a group of shoppers known as the ‘Hedonic Shoppers’.

Who are Hedonic Shoppers?

According to research performed to determine the types of shopping motivations, the shoppers can be divided into two categories – Utilitarian and Hedonic.

  • Hedonic shopping is mostly driven by entertainment and emotion. Hedonic values of a shopper are more subjective and personal and they are motivated by fun or playfulness of shopping experiences.
  • Utilitarian shopping is more goal-oriented and rational. Utilitarian shoppers are efficient shoppers who know what exactly they need. They are more concerned about meeting daily needs, seeking more variety, greater value, quality and looking for best prices.

Hedonic shoppers are more impulsive than the utilitarian shoppers. Although it might seem that the hedonic shoppers spend more on shopping, as compared to the utilitarian shopper, the shopping cart abandonment rates are higher as well (in case of hedonic shopping). So it has become increasingly important for the online retailers to adapt to this shift in shopping habits and optimize the shopping experience to incorporate fun, entertainment, excitement elements to satisfy both utilitarian as well as the hedonic shoppers.

For instance, Amazon is a great example of an online retailer that has diversified the shopping experience to satisfy both utilitarian and hedonic shoppers. Amazon is no longer focused on selling books only (utilitarian); it offers anything and everything a customer can look for (hedonic).

A study named, “Hedonic shopping motivations”, by Mark Arnold and Kristy Reynolds, revealed the hedonic reasons people go shopping and they came up with six major categories of hedonic shopping motivations:

  1. Adventure shopping – Driven by stimulation and excitement.
  2. Gratification shopping – To enhance one’s mood.
  3. Social shopping – Offers pleasure of interacting with others.
  4. Idea shopping – To stay updated with the latest trends.
  5. Role shopping – Offers pleasure from buying for others.
  6. Value shopping – Feel the excitement of finding deals (not necessarily make use of the deals found).

The immediate thought would be – how do I know what the motives of my visitors are. Google analytics and other analytics tools provide us with lots of information about your customers and their behavior, but there is no data about their motivations. Why did a visitor come to your website, what exactly made them abandon the shopping cart or how you can influence the customer’s motives to help them complete the purchase cycle.

You will have to get an idea of the motives by looking at the products you deal with. For instance, if you offer luxurious products such as jewelries or designer clothing, chances are a large portion of your audience has hedonic motives. One effective way to identify the motives is to create opinion polls or a short questionnaire. Remember the questions must be simple and to the point, otherwise your audience might abandon it as well.

So do you have to live with the fact that people would come and abandon carts and there is nothing you can do? Not really! It is true that no matter how good your website is in terms of shopping experience and functionality, the hedonic shoppers can abandon the carts anytime, but you can do things to convert them into customers as well.

Have a look at this:

70 – 95 percent of the first-time visitors who abandon a page without performing a desired action (including those who abandon carts), do not give up the idea of returning to the website to perform the intended action.

Again, 75 percent of customers who abandon the carts intend to return to the website to complete the purchase process – according to SeeWhy. As a matter of fact, about 11 – 29 percent of them return within 4 weeks.

visitors who abandon a page

This means, there is a fair percentage of people among the cart abandoners, who can be converted into customers. But how? Keep reading to know more.

Improving Your Relationship with Hedonic Shoppers

The next obvious question is – how to engage hedonic shoppers and convert them into customers. To achieve this goal, you have to:

  • Get a point of contact – e-mail address, social profile, etc.
  • Get back to the hedonic audience to promote your products and services through triggered mails.
  • Optimize the shopping experience to include more fun and entertaining elements.

Now let’s get into the details of each strategy.

E-mail

Have a look at the following statistics:

  • 77 percent of customers prefer to receive marketing messages via e-mail – MarketingLand
  • 80 percent of online retailers fail to get back to the cart abandoner by sending triggered e-mails – BizReport
  • Almost 78 percent of marketers have been able to achieve good to excellent results by triggering cart abandonment e-mails – Exacttarget

So if you are not triggering e-mails to the cart abandoners, you are missing out on a lot of opportunities. By sending e-mails, you engage the hedonic shoppers and create a strong relationship with them. Tell them that you will do everything to make the shopping experience even more exciting, incorporate new ideas and improve the overall value of your website.

Engagement that works wonders for utilitarian shoppers might not be enough to allure the hedonic shoppers. To allure this segment, you need to be more creative. To help marketers understand how to engage the hedonic shoppers better, let’s take a look at the six factors of customer engagement and then at the drivers for the various categories of hedonic motivations.

Six factors of customer engagement

  1. Focused attention
  2. Perceived usability
  3. Endurability
  4. Novelty
  5. Aesthetics and
  6. Felt involvement

Drivers for the hedonic audiences

  • Adventure shoppers are driven by the aesthetics of the website. Offer these people with a fun shopping experience to convert them into customers. By providing them with certain level of thrill, you can entice them to come back to your site.
  • Gratification shoppers are driven by the aesthetics and felt involvement. Make the gratification shoppers feel better while they perform shopping and build a strong relationship with your customers to persuade them to come back to you again and again.
  • Social shoppers are driven by the felt involvement. Creating a perfect set up for the social shoppers might be difficult, since these people love to be in company of their friends and family, but by engaging them in innovative ways, you can retain the social shoppers on your website.
  • Idea shoppers get driven by novelty. In order to allure this segment of hedonic shoppers, you must ensure that the website is up-to-date with the latesttrends and keeps the visitors updated about the latest trends as well. Show your creative side to entice the idea shoppers.
  • Role shoppers are driven by felt involvement.
  • Value shoppers get driven by novelty and the felt involvement. This segment of people is perfect for e-mail campaigns. Take the example of Groupon. They created their websites to keep the value shoppers on their toe by promising to provide them with attractive deals every day. So create a strong e-mail strategy to win the hearts of the value shoppers.

Groupon

So in order to reach out to all classes of the hedonic shoppers, you must do everything to enhance your e-mail lists. Here is how you can build an extensive e-mail list:

  • Create impressive landing pages: Build an impressive and optimized landing page that compels the visitors, both hedonic and utilitarian, to sign up by entering their e-mail addresses.
  • A highly optimized sign-up form: Design a sign-up form that allures the visitors to subscribe by promising to offer value in return.
  • Exit-intent Technology: This is an advanced technology that detects the mouse movement of a particular user to detect abandonment. The moment the user intends to abandon the cart, an exit overlay is activated that offers high-level engagement for the user, in order to hold them back.

By engaging the hedonic shoppers and establishing a relation with them, you can increase the conversion rate and sales for your online store. However, this isn’t as easy as it sounds. You will have to put in a lot of effort to understand what the hedonic shoppers are exactly looking for and optimize the shopping experience accordingly.

Let’s take a quick look at what has been discussed till now:

  • Hedonic shoppers make a large portion of shopping cart abandoners
  • Shopping carts are not abandoned only due to poorly optimized shopping carts or check-out processes.
  • Instead of frowning over the cart abandonment numbers, take each abandonment as a new opportunity.
  • Create a list of cart abandoners, using the latest technologies like exit-intent technologies, landing pages, etc. to reach out to the hedonic audience and convert them into potential customers.
  • Optimize your website to incorporate fun, excitement and entertainment to allure the hedonic shoppers.
  • Try to offer the best possible engagement for your visitors.

Conclusion

The shopping habits have changed drastically over the decade and it is necessary for the online retailers to adapt to this change to survive the immense competition. Remember, website visitors have different motives to visit your website that range from emotional to rational. So in order to entice visitors from all segments (utilitarian and hedonic), you must create a blend of user-friendliness, functionality and features that evoke emotions that persuade the customers to complete the purchase cycle.

Thus, instead of trying to reduce the shopping cart abandonment rates, try to engage users and encourage them to buy products.

Image Source: (1, 2, 3)

06.15.16
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4 Ways to Boost eCommerce Average Order Value

Thoughtful woman holding shopping bags and looking up

Want to improve the amount of traffic and the number of conversions of your eCommerce store? Who doesn’t? These are, after all, imperative to grow your revenue. But for that you need to utilize the most powerful weapon in your marketing arsenal, which, unfortunately, is often overlooked. Yes, we are talking about your Average Order Value (AOV).

Average Order Value or AOV is a criterion used to compare your marketing campaigns’ efficiency. In addition, this key metric helps you understand the type of eCommerce customers you currently have. Using this metric you can understand how each traffic segment of your website is converting and where you need to improve to enhance your revenue. In short, it is your tool to create personalized marketing strategies for a better conversion rate.

Why Increase Your AOV?

The benefits of increasing your Average Order Value are pretty obvious. To begin with, it helps you increase your cash flow really fast, which is obviously one of your basic goals. And that’s not all; there are several other benefits of working your way out to improve your AOV.

For instance, you can simply increase your AOV by installing a plugin for your eCommerce shopping cart. In comparison, acquiring traffic not only has a significant cost attached to it but is also more difficult to achieve, thanks to the frequent search engine algorithm updates we are being subjected to these days.

It may also happen that any of your traffic sources might disappear one fine day, leaving you clueless and dumbfound. If you have worked on your AOV and improved it, chances are you will be in a much better position, while reducing your marketing spend.

But before we sum up the tips to improve your Average Order Value, you need to know how it is calculated. The AOV formula is quite simple to comprehend:

AOV = Revenue / Number of orders

Using this formula and a web analytics software like Google Analytics you can easily start optimizing your conversion rate. All you need to do is get the exact average order value from Google Analytics for each traffic source. Consider the numbers mentioned in Transactions and Revenue sections (under Acquisition -> All Traffic) and use the above mentioned formula to calculate the AOV.

Now that you know how to calculate your AOV, it’s time to look at some of the tactics to increase your Average Order Value.

1. Product Recommendations

More often than not, customers are only focused on what they are looking for. As a result, they overlook to browse your eCommerce store to find more. This, in turn, results in smaller carts, a.k.a. smaller Average Order Values.

While you cannot change how customers will behave, there is a very simple solution to improve your average order values. Simply add product recommendations on your product and check out pages. If you don’t believe us, consider that Amazon has been using this trick for quite some time now. Its recommendations come in forms of “Frequently bought together,” “Customers who viewed/bought this item also viewed/bought,” “Frequently bought with the item you added” and so on.

Product Recommendations
All that this eCommerce giant does is collect data about its visitors’ past shopping and browsing habits and combines that information with its algorithm and voila, it provides personalized product recommendations that buyers are most likely to purchase.

Profiling popular products or products that your customers have previously browsed is perhaps one of the best ways to increase your Average Order Values. In addition, it helps in minimizing friction before checkout. Studies indicate that 2 to 5 percent of an eCommerce revenue is attributed to product recommendations. Better yet, this increased revenue can go up as high as 20 percent, depending on how effectively you pair up products.

Similarly, showing your customers cross-selling options also helps you to improve your AOV. You can use such product recommendation tactics by using phrasing like “Complete the look” or “Get the look” on your eCommerce store and it works particularly well for fashion and apparel stores. It’s convenient for the customer and you can move your products without sounding pushy.

In fact, you can use cross-selling for almost all type of eCommerce sites. All you need to do is recommend additional and/or complementary products. Got a customer purchasing a Windows 10 laptop! Why don’t you recommend a laptop bag to go with it?

2. Cashback Techniques

Another simple way to increase your Average Order Value is by utilizing cashback technique. In fact, cashback technique is quite a traditional tactic used by retailers to attract and retain customers. How many times have you seen eCommerce stores offering free vouchers on your next purchase? Quite some time; the Internet is filled with ads like “Spend $100 and get $20 cash-back on your next purchase.” All you need to do is spend a certain amount and you can redeem the voucher.

Cashback TechniquesThis is a great way to increase your repeat purchases and Average Order Values per customer. But to leverage this tactic you need to first set a spending threshold, ideally slightly above your present average order amount. This will help you identify shoppers who qualify for a cash-back reward on their next purchase.

Once this spending threshold is determined you need to format your offer and market it as aggressively as possible to increase its visibility. Display them front and center on your homepage as well as on other pages. The goal is to make your customers aware of the target number as clearly and vividly as possible while they shop so that they keep on adding products to their carts to make it to the cash-back minimum. Apart from displaying such offers on your webpage, you can even spread the words through SMS marketing.

You can also offer cashback in other ways. For example, you can build partnerships with other companies to allow your customers to redeem the gift vouchers at several purchase points. This will further inspire buyers to reach the cash-back minimum. Another way to increase your site conversion is through “refer a friend and get cashback programs.” All your users need to do is refer a friend and get cashback in form of a gift voucher to be redeemed on their next purchase.

Gift Vouchers

Cashback technique works like a charm and generally outperforms any other promotional techniques when it comes to increasing your Average Order Value. Better yet, it even encourages return visits and helps you turn your one-time visitors into loyal fans.

3. Free Delivery

Along with the cashback technique, free delivery option (when bought item(s) over a particular amount) is a great way to increase your Average Order Value. Free delivery is something almost all customers expect when making an online purchase but providing free delivery is a major financial challenge for most retailers, especially if it is smaller AOV. Setting free delivery threshold is a great solution to this problem.

Free Delivery

Just like the cashback technique, you need to determine a spending threshold. For this, consider the average site spend first and how much the delivery costs you. Once you have the numbers, set an amount slightly above your current average order amount. Also, display the amount required to get free delivery on your product as well as checkout page to use this tactic effectively.

In essence, this technique combines upselling and cross-selling with an incentive to increase your Average Order Value. For example, if a customer is purchasing an item worth $40, display a message like “spend another $10 to get free delivery” to improve your AOV. And if you are still not convinced about free shipping, consider the following findings:

So what are you waiting for? Just dive in.

4. Gamification

A more contemporary technique, gamification can not only help you engage users but also make them buy more. McDonalds, for instance, used this tactic though in form of Monopoly Campaign UK to increase its Average Order Value.

Gamification
This technique works because of its meaningful structure and reward systems. Let’s see how McDonalds used it. McDonalds allows users to peel off a prize (stickers) from their meal, giving them an instant prize in form of a monopoly piece. This way, users can collect monopoly sets to win big prizes.It is quite obvious that the larger meals at McDonalds had more stickers on them, enticing people to spend on them.

McDonalds achieved two things with their persuasive gamification technique. First, it increased their AOV and second, it increased the chances of a returning visit. You too can achieve a similar result with gamification; all you need to do is create an appealing system that exceeds your buyers’ expectations.

That said, you really don’t need to create a game to entice your buyers to purchase more (although you can always do that if you have the resources). Setting an effective rewarding system based on purchasing points too can help you obtain a similar result. Announce a particular point for every order they make and offer a significant discount when they reach a pre-determined threshold. For example, “Get 5 points for each purchase and claim $30 off for 100 points.”

Gamification is a great idea for customer retention as it helps you create a relationship with your buyers, making them come back to you time and again.

Conclusion

While there are several ways to incorporate AOV strategies to improve your conversion rates, their effectiveness largely depends on your eCommerce solution. Most shopping cart systems include these basic AOV features and offer add-ons and plugins for them. However, if your eCommerce software fail to support them, you should better upgrade to a shopping cart solution that does. Using these simple, yet powerful tools is one of the best and most cost-effective ways to increase your AOV.

Image Source: (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

04.15.16
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Sharing Your Business Story: Why and How To Do It

Sharing Your Business Story Why and How To Do It

Who doesn’t like a good the-underdog-wins story where everything works out for the best in the end? However, the old adage ‘it’s easier said than done’ applies everywhere, especially if you’ve experienced this kind of a situation firsthand.

Typically, humans tend to downplay their struggles, failures and inhibitions, and hide their fears to the greatest extent possible. We prefer to project ourselves as successful, inspirational and happy-go-lucky individuals, who have everything going for them. In a scenario where everyone pretends that all is hunky-dory, the true story of your trials and tribulations is sure come as breath of fresh air, especially to those looking for inspiration.

A story with a universal appeal is bound to be valuable. Through your story you get the opportunity to tell your audience that the road to success is rocky and uncertain, rather than straight and levelled.

The Importance of Brand Stories

It’s no secret that the customer is the king. After all, he is the one with purchasing power. Customers are constantly on the lookout for credible content that helps them make buying decisions.

Did you know that 70% of consumers look to blog posts to make such decisions rather than ads?

They read the content provided on your company’s website, refer product reviews on third-party sites, and any other source they can find online before buying from you. This is done to know more about the product, its value proposition and reliability.

Your story can become incredibly powerful when you explain your journey to your customers as it will connect you to them on an emotional level.

Businesses and Stories

Your customers may not care much about your marketing goals, but they will appreciate a great story from you. Any business that can give them this stands to benefit greatly.

Social media can be tremendously helpful in achieving this. Customers are already present on social media and are comfortable engaging with companies, who are equally active in putting up their content on such networks. As the majority of companies publish their content, only those who are able to craft compelling stories, instead of just dishing out a mountain of facts and figures, have a better chance at succeeding.

Mentioned ahead are a few undeniable reasons you should share your business story with the world:

1. Establishing Brand Identity

With the help of stories, you will be able to transform the ostensibly vague core values of your organization (for example, hard work and ethics) into tangible and measurable attributes.

Almost all organizations have a bigger organizational narrative with small stories to sustain, restate, and personalize it. These smaller stories are consistently shared to create, strengthen and explore your brand. It is your organization’s values, mission and activities that form the central theme of its narrative.

2. Establishing Your Authority

Good stories that reinforce that your brand is, in fact, the solution to your customers’ problem can help you influence them positively, thereby establishing your authority in the market.

Craft your content in a manner that positions your brand as the preferred one. Highlight the strengths of your offerings in a way that lets your brand stand out from among the competition. And win!

3. Engaging Audiences

You want your audience to feel an emotional connect with your brand, which is why it is important to tell them stories about the people who make your organization the success that it is. This includes your employees, clients, investors, partners, and so on.

People like to engage with humans and not with undefined entities. When you share your story, you enable your audience to hear, understand and remember your organization better. Further, because stories are more comprehendible than random information and numbers, it becomes easier to share them.

Bear in mind, however, that one story can give rise to new stories i.e. your customers will probably draw out another story from the one you tell them. This is where the importance of having multiple channels of communication (for proper flow) comes into the picture. Once you have them in place, you can ponder over other questions related to the emerging themes and the kind of stories enabling real engagement.

4. Sharing Knowledge

As a brand, you’re bound to have tremendous knowledge and learning, which can be presented in a practical and sustainable structure. Doing so can also help you connect information, which can otherwise seem incoherent. Stories can elucidate numerical data, yield insights, and draw out lessons more easily.

5. Becoming the Guiding Light

Sharing true stories will enable you to build credibility which, in turn, will deepen the trust your internal and external stakeholders have in you. Stories make for fantastic mediums to foster communication through which people get heard. It also helps smart entrepreneurs decipher the meaning of projects and offerings.

Leaders/mentors in organizations that share their story are often adept at relating their projects and challenges to the narrative of the organization.

In fact, stories are more important to leadership than we know. Of course, there needs to be one strong narrative that weaves the various abstract and patchy bits together. This will help you communicate your company’s visions, ease out the complexities, and inspire change.

Leaders keep changing and one leader’s hindsight can be another’s foresight. By sharing the story of your struggles, you can greatly help up-and-coming entrepreneurs realize that their struggles are a normal part of the grind that everyone goes through, and there is a way out of it. More often than not, this is all the inspiration they need to weather the storms.

If your stories can provide them with actionable ideas and solutions through which they can solve their problems, they would be even more helpful.

6. Conquering Your Fears

As already mentioned, not everyone is comfortable with talking about their hardships, struggles, weaknesses, and failures. Some, however, find it to be cathartic and extremely gratifying. Getting over the fear of publicly acknowledging to such experiences requires courage. It can earn your tremendous admiration and respect. You never know, being earnest and forthcoming with your audiences about your strengths and weaknesses may just work in your favor!

Conquering Your Fears

Sold on the idea of telling your story but wondering how to begin and take it forward? We’ll tell you all about it.

  • Start by Talking about Your Purpose

In order to tell your story convincingly, you need to know why you are in business and explain this to your audience eloquently. The two questions to answer here are: what is the purpose of your business and what differentiates it from your competitors?

Answering these questions will help you figure out what makes your business powerful and interesting to others. You will be able to set a path for future successes only if you have a clear idea of where you’re coming from. You may not realize this, but customers want to know who they’re buying from. This includes their history, i.e. questions related to the origins of the company.

Smart entrepreneurs understand the importance of establishing a strong and realistic company mission. Businesses also need to have a clear corporate positioning that is in keeping with who they are. It should emerge from a clear comprehension of why they are in business and who they want to cater to.

The mission and vision of a company are a big part of the brand story as they help formulate a practical business strategy. These factors essentially help set the foundation for success.

  • Introduce the Main Characters

It is impossible to have a relatable story without having exemplary main characters, who shape it going forward. Make sure to create inspirational main characters as they will form the heart of your story and encourage your audience to take the desired action. You can do so by identifying real people or make up fictional characters that make your business flourish and use them as your main cast.

  • What Are You Out to Achieve?

The answer to this question will reveal the real reason for the existence of your business. It will also help your audience figure out what issues you’re looking to resolve through your offerings. Show them the bigger picture and let them know that there is a higher cause to achieve.

Are you in the business to inspire people? Do you want to revolutionalize the way your customers live through your products and services? Do you want to make the world a healthier place to live in? Such questions will help you get the perspective you need to grow your story.

  • Bring Up the Roadblocks

Success stories are incomplete if there is no mention of the failures encountered in the journey. Failures are stepping stones to success. Showing people how you failed before hitting the big time and embracing those trials will humanize you and your business and help your customers strike an emotional chord with your business, thereby making your story more impactful.

  • Give Them a Triumphant Conclusion

Leave them with a feel-good factor at the end of it all, where your product or service solves the customers’ problems. The idea is to position your offering as the medicine that cures all their ailments and gives them exactly what they’ve been looking for.

For your story to have the maximum impact, you need to know about the right techniques of storytelling. Here’s more on that:

  • Blogs

Almost all company websites have blogs and yours should too. They make for effective business storytelling vessels. You can get the maximum advantage by telling the story of either your own industry or other associated industries.

Do not forget to create a professional bio for yourself when you start to blog. In fact, your bio should do more than just announce your accomplishments. It should tell your audience who you are as a person.

The rule of thumb to remember here is that instead of talking on and on about what you do, make your blog posts action-oriented so that you can show your audience what you’re all about.

  • Case Studies

Case studies are the classic marketing vehicles for storytelling in business. After all, they do convey a brand’s story. You can make them more creative by adding humorous elements, building tension, and adding various dimensions and points of view to them, rather than keeping them dull.

  • Product Tutorials

Your customers will probably be looking for instructional material to understand exactly how they can make the most of your offerings. You can provide them with an instructional video that does more than just that. Craft an interesting story by making them the hero and the problem at hand the villain, and then position your product as the solution that can help solve the problem. Focus on providing them with material that answers the customers’ “hows” to make effective videos that arouse curiosity about your offerings.

Conclusion

In order to tell your story to the world, you need to know it well enough. Only then will you be able to do a brilliant job of explaining it to others. Ensure that you have your brand’s core value proposition in place, and that everyone associated with you has the same story to tell to the audience. Consistency is key to be able to share your story in an honest and engaging manner.

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03.16.16
by

Is Your E-Commerce Business Hitting It Right with Its Loyalty Program?

E-Commerce Business Hitting It Right with Its Loyalty Program

How often have you thought of devising a loyalty program for your e-commerce website that fits it just perfectly? After all, there is absolutely no use of having one that isn’t effective.

Several e-commerce retailers create loyalty programs that fail to deliver the desired results, either because they did not appeal to the users or the program itself was difficult to maintain.

On the other hand, there are several e-commerce websites that have benefitted a great deal from the right loyalty programs.

According to Forrester Research Paper, “If you’re set on building brand loyalty, a loyalty program like offering points for purchases in your online store may help in increasing your sales. After all, one loyalty program member spends up to 13% more than two non-members.”

This titbit of information indicates that when crafted properly, an e-commerce loyalty program can serve as a powerful tool that increases conversions. This implies better revenue from existing clients, getting new customers interested in your offerings, reducing customer defection, and lowering shopping cart abandonment.

A strong loyalty program may turn out to be just what your e-commerce website needs.

If you’re planning on starting an e-commerce business or already have one, you need to ensure that you incorporate a kickass loyalty program into your marketing program. Being smart and strategic about it will go a long way in helping you reap its benefits.

Mentioned ahead are a few features to take into consideration to make your loyalty program a roaring success:

1. Keep Things Simple

While it is completely understandable that you want your loyalty program to be a success, you need to think practically. Instead of creating a complex program, you would be better off keeping things simple. That way, the program as well as its goings-on will be more under your control.

Remember, loyalty programs should never be complicated. It is important that the reward system is completely understood by your users. If the points, rewards, levels and achievements leave them perplexed, rest assured that they will lose interest and things will get out of hand for you.

The idea is to create a loyalty program that is easy to get hold of and create an enjoyable shopping experience for the buyer. It does not take more than a few seconds for buyers to decide on whether or not they want to want to join it. It is, therefore, important to provide them with the simplicity they’re looking for and make the program as easy-to-understand as possible.

2. Make It Easy for Users

Make It Easy for Users

As mentioned in the above point, you need to make it as easy as possible for your buyers to join the program. This means removing the barriers between them and the program. Typically, the best way to do so is by allowing users to sign up with their e-mail address.

Apart from their e-mail address, they should also be able to sign up with their social media accounts, especially those customers who are already buying, sharing and interacting on social networks. This is preferred to creating a new login ID just to buy from your website.

3. Simplify the Participation Process

So you’ve got your users to sign up to your loyalty program and wondering about the next step? Let us give you a hint: the rewards should accumulate without the buyers having to fret over it.

More often than not, users get peeved when they have to enter a PIN or a coupon code just to partake in the loyalty program. This needs to be simplified by making it possible for your users to participate by paying with a dedicated card or app, for example.

The convenience you offer will make it easy for users to stay active on your website as a natural response to the great experience they have when shopping with you.

If your users need anything more than a login, card or app to become a part of your loyalty program, then it is probably too complicated to work with. Simplify it and see the difference. It is very likely that your customers will start participating more often.

4. Your Program Should Offer Value

If you want your loyalty program to be enticing to your customers, you have to ensure that it provides them with real value. A lot of loyalty programs tend to be shallow and do not provide rewards that make a difference to customers, which is why they fail. Customers today are smart and they can tell when a program is offered only to get them to sign up.

Keep in mind, a valuable loyalty program is one that pays off. Rewards such as cash-back offers, discounts, couples, rebates, and freebies are always a hit with customers. Tangible rewards will be snapped up quicker than the intangible ones, as the latter are perceived as superficial.

5. Tickle Users’ Curiosity

Your loyalty program will be a lot more effective if it contains an element of surprise (the pleasant kind) and/or mystery (the easy-to-solve kind). If you can tickle their curiosity, you will have them eating from the palm of your hand.

Loyalty programs can work well here as customers will always be waiting with bated breath to find out more about the next level, how to achieve it and what the final outcome is like. And this is exactly what you want!

You can do this effectively by introducing an element of obscurity in your loyalty program. For example, offering undisclosed “special bonuses” to regular customers at the highest level can do the trick. The unspecified bonus could be anything from a special preview of an upcoming sale event to an invitation to a special social event. If they want to find out, they will have to spend at your store and join your program. That’s the crux of the matter: their curiosity drives your sales.

6. Keep Users Engaged

A loyalty program requires continued participation in order to be successful. After all, it is this program that’s going to make your customers want to buy more from you. It is, therefore, critical that participation is encouraged.

How do you foster loyalty among prospective customers? We’ll tell you.

  • Encourage activity. If the customers become dormant, they should know there’s a penalty waiting in the wings. Create the program in a way wherein the points lapse or the redemption amount plummets after a certain period of inactivity.
  • Send reminders and alerts to your customers about their pending reward points and ask them to remain active. Your reminder should also let them know about their potential to earn more. Failure to do so can result in them dropping out from the program over time. There are several ways of doing so. Get their email address and send them email updates; or get them to download your app and provide push notifications. The idea is to egg them on participate as much as they can and improve your conversion rates.
  • Make it better for active users. Your loyalty program should be able to adapt to provide better outcomes to those who are active by enabling them to earn the kind of rewards that matter to them. This approach should help you create tremendous customer buy-in. Your customers will be motivated to stay more active, thanks to the real rewards you provide them with. Further, they will also stay interested and engaged in your loyalty program.

7. Bring a Sense of Growth

Everyone likes to see their hard work and dedication bearing sweet fruits. This logic can be applied to your loyalty program as well. You can do so by enabling your customer to “progress” as he/she buys from you. Create a sense of growth or progress, for instance, by allowing new users to earn new levels of rewards. This will motivate them to shop from you more frequently.

Make your customers feel empowered by enabling them to track their progress and eventually get to the highest level of the program by buying from you.

8. Differentiate and Offer Better Experiences

What is the point of buying from you when your customers can get the same experience from other e-commerce retailers? Why would they give you their money when other brands make them feel more special? The answer to both these questions lies in one word: differentiation.

Set your program apart from that of your competition and give your customers a reason to come back to you by offering better experiences. Your loyalty program should have a feel-good factor attached to it, the kind that is unmatched by any other brand in your league.

9. Give Users the Information They Want

Your customers will love you if you unfailingly answer all their questions. When you devise a loyalty program, rest assured that they will have a zillion questions about it. You need to ensure that you answer each and every one of them and keep ambiguity at bay.

Many a time, it is the most loyal customers who have the most questions. They’re always interested in knowing about the schemes – what they entail, what are the benefits, how they can earn more rewards, and the potential risk factors in the program.

This, however, does not mean that you need to provide them with all the terms and conditions of your loyalty program on the entry page. Rather, make it easy for them to find and access important information when they want it.

10. Let It Become the Talk of Town

If you want your loyalty program to gain maximum traction, make sure you make it easy to share and, therefore, grow. Here are three easy ways to do so:

  • Reward customers who share your loyalty program with others or cajole them to join in. This need not mean that your loyalty program has turned into an affiliate marketing program. You are merely thanking your existing customers for sharing. Most of your customers will share it to avail the rewards. You can bolster this by giving them extra points or rewards for getting their friends and family to sign up, thereby allowing your program to grow.
  • One of the easiest and effective ways of sharing your program is by using social media share buttons. You will do well to add social sharing icons to your rewards page, so that your customers can simply click on them and share to relevant pages. Moreover, this will also make it easy for customers to invite other members of their social network to join in.
  • Make it convenient for your customers to post their reward status online. A lot of reward programs enable customers to inform their online friends about what they’ve just achieved on a reward program. For instance, a built-in widget which generates an automatic message such as “I just won a free trip using my XYZ reward points!” would work well. Typically, users feel a sense of pleasure when they earn a reward, and enjoy telling others about their latest achievement.

Conclusion

While there is no fixed decree that mandates e-commerce businesses to have a loyalty program, having one in place makes perfect sense, especially because loyalty programs are highly instrumental in boosting conversion rates. It may not be easy to start them, and they can also get a tad expensive, but most of the time, the rewards are totally worth it. In fact, they can prove to be a great investment! You too will do well to start a loyalty program for your e-commerce business and avail the improvements, conversions and revenues that await you.

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02.24.16
by

9 Ways to Use Consumer-Generated Content for Your Brand

365

We live in a digitally-mobile and social world, and content seems to be prevalent everywhere. Your customers consume large amounts of content without even realizing it. It, therefore, makes sense to churn out content that organically engages consumers with your brand and, in doing so, creates credible endorsements for your products and services.

Do not underestimate the power of an Instagram photo or a Facebook post that portrays your product/service in a favorable light. Not only does it serve as brand marketing and word-of-mouth advertising, but also strongly indicates brand commitment and customer loyalty. This, in turn, supplements your bottom line, which is ultimately what it’s all about.

As a proactive marketer, you probably already know that customers want to feel engaged, be heard and even entertained. They want to deal with issues quickly and move on. Basically, they have put their trust in you and are looking to positive customer experiences.

In one study, Ipsos MediaCT, Crowdtap and the Social Media Advertising Consortium partnered to survey 839 millennial (18 to 36 years old) men and women. This was done to explore millennials’ media consumption habits, perception of information from various sources and how these sources impact their purchasing decisions. As far as user-generated content (or UGC) is concerned, it was discovered that:

  • Information received through UGC is trusted 50% more than information from other media sources, including TV, newspapers and magazines by millenials.
  • Millennials reported that UGC is 20% more influential on their purchase decisions than other media.
  • A majority of millenials reported tapping UGC before making big purchases like cars, major electronics or major appliances.

What is User-Generated Content?

According to Wikipedia, UGC can be defined as “any form of content such as blogs, wikis, discussion forums, posts, chats, tweets, podcasts, digital images, video, audio files, advertisements and other forms of media that was created by users of an online system or service, often made available via social media websites”.

Simply put, UGC refers to any content available on the Internet that users play a part in creating. This can include photos, videos and general posts that aren’t made by a brand. An increasing number of brands, however, have been leveraging user-generated content for improving their ranking on search engines.

UGC can take several forms. Some of the most popular ones include:

  • User-generated blog posts
  • Blog comments
  • User-generated videos
  • Social media posts and comments
  • Reviews
  • Podcasts
  • Inputs on communities and forums

Let’s face it, UGC is here to stay. If you’re wondering how to implement it for your brand, we have the following tips for you:

1. Figure Out Your Point of Connect

Even before you start putting together your UGC strategy, you will need to start thinking from your audiences’ point of view so that you can figure out how you want to use the content to establish a connection with them.

A few UGC-related questions to consider (for doing so successfully) are as follows:

  • How do you want to use your content? To inform or to entertain? How can you use it to do both?
  • Where will you find your target audience? Which social media platforms can you use to find them?
  • What motivates your customers to create content? What do they hope to get in return by doing so?

If you have the right answers to the above questions, you will be clearer when devising an effective UGC strategy. After all, well begun is half done!

2. Emphasize Quality

Quality will always trump quantity. One cannot deny the authority that high-quality content commands. It has the power to strongly influence your customers and forge the kind of connection that companies strive for. Whether it is text, images or videos you put out, ensure that they carry credibility, which can only come from quality.

Underestimate the power of using attractive (and high-quality) images and videos at your own peril. When it comes to accepting user content, it may seem impractical to remove all low-quality photos/videos. However, you can establish a few guidelines or ground rules to reduce the likelihood of your audience posting bad content. You can always tell them exactly how their submissions should and should not be by providing specification in terms of size, dimension, and so on.

3. What’s Trending?

Trending

When you consider all of your UGC in totality, you should be able to decipher the thought pattern of your core audience. Think about the following aspects when analyzing the type of content your customers are sharing:

  • Who will most likely share content about your brand? Do you have specific demographics to figure this one out?
  • What kind of content is being shared out there? Does it pertain to a particular style, product, service, or all of it?
  • Where are your customers when they share content about your brand? Are they at your store, the mall, the library, with friends?
  • When are your customers more likely to share content about your brand? Is it during a specific season, event or holiday?
  • Why are your customers tagging your products? How do their tags work for your brand?

4. Place Strong Calls-to-Action, Use Hashtags and Signage

Remember, when using user-generated content, there are two parties involved: you and your customers. So the content isn’t just about you, but also about them. Everything boils down to how they use your products and relate to your brand.

So, while your customers may tag a piece of content with a hashtag before your brand’s name, you may want seriously consider leveraging such content to your advantage by creating a personal, actionable hashtag that brings the focus back to your brand.

If you think your hashtag(s) will become popular at once, you couldn’t be more wrong. It requires hard work. Placing strong calls-to-action in places where your customers are most likely to engage with your content will encourage them to use your hashtags when sharing content about your brand.

For instance, you can place calls-to-action on your Instagram account in your bio, within the image caption, or when geo-tagging. Similarly, other places where placing it can prove to be useful include (throughout) your website, social networking channels, blogs, catalogues and other literature.

Further, you can use signage to engage your customers at one of the most effective points of the customer journey: your brick-and-mortar store(s). For example, if you’re a clothing retailer, you could display hashtags and signage at the main desk, outside dressing rooms, or near a photo-friendly installation.

5. Host an Event

Using UGC may be a great way to create awareness around your products, but it does require that your brand places its complete trust in the customers’ hands. You may often wonder as to what customers are saying about your products and services, and might even want to know if your competitor’s products are being mentioned along with your brand. That’s only natural!

The good news is that there is a way around this. Brands tend to be more strategic in their thinking than consumers. A great way to scale your UGC strategy (and be in charge of the environment thus created) is by hosting an event. This way, you have complete say in everything. You can set the scene to your liking and keep the audiences engaged. Be memorable and keep the conversation going by handing out free goodie bags (branded, may be?) to your guests at the exit.

6. Design a Contest

More often than not, consumer behavior with respect to using UGC is organic. This is what makes it so effective. Such behavior is devoid of bias, which is why it feels genuine. You can encourage this behavior by analyzing the content that is already surfacing about your brand, and then launch a targeted contest that aligns with those preferences to build upon it further.

7. Deploy Influencers

We live in times when social and digital influencers dominate the Web world. They are viewed as experts and leaders in their respective fields and among their social circles. They tend to have a multitude of active followers and feeds that instantly resonate with them.

Typically, when an influencer writes about a brand or posts an image of a product, he/she doesn’t just drive awareness, but also inspires an entire community to put their faith in that brand or product. In fact, consumers who see these images are more likely to partake in ongoing conversations by creating and submitting more content as well.

According to adweek.com, “There is already a lot of money in the influencer marketing space. 65 percent of brands participate in the market, 52 percent of companies have stand-alone budgets for sponsored social content and 25 percent have budgets in excess of $500,000”.

They further go on to say that influencers can solve several shortcomings your company may have by teaching consumers about your products, lend search-engine-optimization authority, counter negative feedback with positive feedback, increase sales and help with user-generated content.

You will do well to bear the following three factors in mind when engaging influencers:

  • The demographic they address and the type of content that wows their followers.
  • Whether or not they are available on the same social channels as you.
  • If they really do carry the kind of credibility that you’re looking for, i.e. if they really do have authority among your target market.

8. Display Customers’ Photos

Including user-generated photos in the e-commerce experience can enable brands to draw the attention of the shoppers towards making connections between images and products. As this happens, their most engaged customers also feel valued. This can go a long way in giving customers the social recognition they deserve and desire. Further, an on-site gallery of user images will help attract new UGC.

Remember, the more your audience loves your brand, the more amazing content they will continue to create for it.

9. Avoid Legal Troubles

To steer clear of legal issues that may arise out of the content that your users create or upload to your website, you will do well to include a few specific sections, clauses, and information on your website’s ‘Terms and Conditions’ section. Also, do not forget to ensure that your users clearly agree to your Terms and Conditions before posting any content that you wish to have covered by this legal agreement.

Make sure to include the following major elements in your agreement:

  • Ownership of Content: The Terms and Conditions agreement should spell out how the submitted content will be used. Use this section for limiting and restricting unwanted and undesirable behavior or activity on your website.
  • Copyright Violations: When allowing users to upload content, watch out for anything that violates copyright laws and constitutes as infringement of someone or something else’s rights.
  • Filter Bad Content: Remember, you’re in charge of what ultimately gets posted on your website. Use your authority to eliminate content that you don’t want on it, or any other content that goes against the terms of your website. Let your user know that you have complete discretion and take the final call when it comes to displaying and removing material.

Conclusion

When it comes to user-generated content, it all filters down to how you plan to generate and use the said content. UGC can surely benefit social teams and digital platforms, along with serving as a creative, economical and rewarding way of developing a variety of channels such as your homepage, product pages, emails, microsites, among others. By bearing the above aspects in mind, you should be able to build an effective UGC strategy that not only helps you meet your goals, but also keeps you out of hot water.

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01.13.16
by

6 Resolutions eCommerce Store Owners Should Make for 2016

New Year Resolutions

It’s that time of year again! New Year’s resolutions and promises and working through them. In fact, it is the perfect time to wipe the slate clean and start afresh. And it applies for eCommerce store owners too. Reflect on what you did last year – the good and the bad both and then think where you can improve in 2016 and start creating a strategic plan to implement those changes.

Here is 6 resolutions that eCommerce stores should make in 2016.

1. Commit to Quality Content

When it comes to digital marketing, content is king and marketing your eCommerce store is no exception. In fact, you need to be more careful with your eCommerce store content as it not just help search engines crawlers discover and rank your website but also convince your visitors to make a purchase decision. Besides, it your content that your visitors/customers share with their social followers. You will also need content to email your prospect lists, to develop your brand identity and ultimately build your business. The relationship between an eCommerce store and content is therefore a match made in heaven.

There is real financial value in content marketing that eCommerce store owners have started leveraging since the past few years. According to a study conducted by Econsultancy and EPiServer, almost all online retailers accept that revenue is one of the commercial benefits of eCommerce content marketing. The study further indicated that 60 percent of the participating companies saw content engagement increasing while 30 percent of them plan to create more number of original and unique content to improve SEO and stay ahead of the fierce market competition.

You can take inspirations from some of the leading eCommerce brands when it comes to content marketing. Betabrand, for example, uses their content to establish a character and personality to their brand. They place themselves as “as 99% fiction, 1% fashion” and their content (especially their product descriptions) reflect it perfectly. Intelligent listing and through humorous are their secret weapon to create a likeable personality that drives conversions.

Etsy too has a killer content marketing strategy. They are the kings when it comes to communicating with their audience. Esty has a great blog that features interesting stories and interviews from top sellers and leading artisans to tell the story behind their work. This gives more character and soul to the brand.

So this year, commit to invest on quality content if you really want to improve your online marketing efforts.

2. Get Social while Leveraging Mobile

More and more consumers are using their smartphones and tablets to shop online. Just consider the following mobile eCommerce statistics before we discuss further on this topic:

Get Social while Leveraging Mobile

You therefore need a proper mobile strategy for your eCommerce store. Begin with a responsive eCommerce website; make sure your website provides a seamless user experience across various devices and browsers. But that’s not enough. You need to get social as well.

You probably have some social media accounts by now; start strengthening them using the power of mobile. In short, we are asking you to combine social with mobile to engage your users. If you are wondering how to combine your social mobile offering, Foursquare is a great example. But to implement this in real life you need to first understand the three basic mindsets mobile users: They generally seek local information, they are always microtasking, and they are usually bored.

Now consider the social media integration theory by Isra Garcia.

Social Media Integration Theory

It points out four interactions that you need to manage and each of them can be combined with mobile mindsets. For example, connecting can always be combined with researching for a product/item whereas exposure signifies viewing information within the users’ network. Likewise, sharing occurs when a user reports something great on an ad-hoc basis or in a structured manner in order to reach out to other people and feedback is all about reviews and social recommendations.

Now how to implement this to your eCommerce strategy?

The answer is a mobile app. Today people are always on the go. So what could be a better way to reach out to them and remain connected apart from having a mobile app? Don’t use your eCommerce app to just generate leads and sales’ use it in different new ways. Allow users to write, view and share reviews and rating through the app, to recommend deals and invite others in their network to get a special deal. There are countless possibilities; all you need is to get creative and provide a great user experience by combining social and mobile.

3. Invest in eCommerce SEO

SEO has always been a big thing. You want your eStore to show up in front of millions of potential customers, so you need to work for that as well. You really need to get serious about it. Don’t just stop at finding keywords for your homepage, find highly relevant keywords for your product pages as well. Consider factors like local search volume and keyword ranking difficulty. Google’s AdWords Keyword tool is a good resource for this.

AdWords Keyword tool

Avoid keywords that are too competitive or too broad as they usually result in low conversion rate and higher bounce rate. You will also need to find the right keywords for your blog topics, especially the long-tail keywords which (although relevant) hardly find a place in your main eCommerce website.

In addition, find site errors (if any) and address them at the earliest especially if it is related to your website’s speed. Users often tend to abandon a website that take more than 2 seconds to load. Even delay by 1 second in page response can cause 7 percent reduction in conversions.

This year, focus on both on-page and off-page optimization to better rank in search engine result pages.

4. Access Better Data

To create a killer marketing strategy you need the most accurate data. Google analytics, although a reliable source, is not enough at times. It only provides data but you need actionable insights as well. Besides, you need your competitors’ data as well to gain an edge in the market. In 2016, make it a resolution to meet this need of your eCommerce store.

If you are sweating over the prospect, be assured there are several competitive analysis tools available on the market. The following are some of the tools you can use:

  • Moz, the industry favourite that allows you track your competitors’ activities and how you can match them
  • SEM Rush is another option that helps you track every activity of your competitors in paid search landscape as well as provide detailed and accurate insights about their organic search efforts
  • Bright Edge is a comprehensive web-based tool featuring a complete enterprise SEO marketing platform

5. Get New Customers and Retain Old Ones

Of course you need new customers to sustain your business. But at the same time your existing customers can add more value to your business than you possible think of. For one thing, it is more expensive to get a new customer than keeping an existing one. Besides, if you can increase your customer retention rates by 5 percent can boost your profits by 25 to 95 percent. KISSmetrics finds that the “the average value of a lost customer is $243.”

You should therefore implement an effective customer retention program to show your appreciation for your existing buyers. Small steps can help you gain a competitive edge here. For example, adding a ‘wow factor’ to your packaging will not only surprize your buyers but also delight them and they will always come back to you for more. Similarly faster delivery options, special discounts and offers to repeat buyers etc. are some of the best ways to gain their loyalty.

The secret lies in beating your customer expectations, every time. And convert them to your ardent fans who not only come back to your eStore for more but also recommend your products to their peers. Happy customers always spread the good words and bring you direct referrals even without any monetary rewards.

6. Relax and Recharge

Last but not the least, you need to make a resolution to relax and recharge yourself this year. You need to balance your work and personal life. According to Hiscox’s DNA of an Entrepreneur study, around 20 percent of small business owners in the U.S. take zero vacation days at present. However, research shows that vacations and time off from work help in relieving stress, allowing you to work better in the long run.

In addition, you need to do things you enjoy on a regular basis apart from work on a regular basis. It can be anything, from DYI projects and gardening to cooking, starting a blog to getting fit. Even Mark Zuckerberg is taking up a running challenge this year, planning to run 365 miles in 2016 after celebrating 2015 as “A Year of Books”. So what are you waiting for?

Conclusion

A new year brings in endless opportunities along with it. It is therefore the perfect time to make your eCommerce marketing dreams come true. If you can take your resolutions seriously and work through them, nothing can stop you from attaining what you desire. The only thing you need to do, however, is to commit yourself to constant improvement.

Happy New Year!

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12.16.15
by

3 Ways to Increase eCommerce Sales with Video Strategy

3 Ways to Increase eCommerce Sales with Video Strategy
You love it or hate it, videos are popular these days. Sometimes, insanely so. However, many marketers are yet to utilize this tool, especially in the eCommerce industry. They overlook the fact that videos can actually help them improve their eCommerce sales, necessary to blow past their competition and go to the next level. In case, you have been ignoring the power of video in your marketing mix, you can no longer afford to do it. Video is the future.

Most eCommerce marketers think that having a few quality images of the products with zoom features is enough. But they fail to realize that while photos are important, they have certain limitations. A quality video is the closest thing you can provide to your customers next to actual touching and feeling. It therefore should be an integral part and a secret weapon of your eCommerce marketing strategy.

According to a study conducted early this year by Animoto, “businesses using video have a leg up in 2015.” The study revealed the following statistics regarding incorporating video in your marketing mix:

  • Consumers are 4 times more likely to watch a product video than read about it
  • 1 out of 4 consumers lost interest in companies that failed to have a product video
  • Out of every 5 consumers, 4 people agreed that product/service video is important

It is therefore obvious that having a proper video strategy in place is crucial, especially for an online store. It basically helps you to achieve two objectives – product promotion to attract new customers and increase on-site average order value (AOV) to improve conversions.

But before getting into details about how to increase your eCommerce sales with a video strategy, let’s why is it important for your online store.

How Video Helps eCommerce

As mentioned, product videos can dramatically improve your conversion rates. Online shopping, although popular, fails to provide the advantage of actual touching and feeling that is normally associated with brick-and-mortar stores. So you need to provide something that at least help your customers to better understand your product. Video does that apart from providing a detailed information about the products you offer.

Don’t believe what we say? Consider these statistics. According to ComScore, visitors are 64 percent more likely to make a purchase after watching a video. Another study from MarketingSherpa finds eCommerce stores that have product video attract 300 percent more traffic, i.e. two to three times more monthly unique visitors and 157 percent more organic traffic from search engines. It also generates 100 percent longer on-site time spent per visitor.

These stats are self-indicating that having video on your eCommerce website is one of the most effective ways to generate leads and improve conversions along with killer copywriting, quality images and user reviews.

If you are still doubting whether or not to incorporate a video strategy, here are a few takeaways you need to consider.

It Improves Your Ranking

A Forrester Research study indicates that a video on your website’s landing page can increase your chance of being ranked on page 1 of Google by 53 percent. In addition to the regular search results, Google also displays images, news, maps and videos in their search engine result pages. So when you are adding product videos to your websites and optimizing them for ranking, there are chances you will rank on Google for those videos as well.

For better ranking in search engines, host your product videos on YouTube, the leading video sharing platform owned by Google. Besides, YouTube gets over a billion monthly unique visitors.

Engage Your Visitors

The Marketing Sherpa study we have referred to previously in this post also found that having videos on your website results in 63 percent increase in page views. It also doubles the on-site time spent of your visitors. In fact, users are spending more and more time watching video on the Internet. The average time spent for 2015 as found by eMarketers is 1:55 hours each day for digital video, whereas it is only 1:44 hours for social media.

Engage Your Visitors

This is especially applicable for millennials who spend 48 percent more time watching videos online than the average users.

The reason behind this is quite simple. Users find is rather easy to watch a short, 3-5 minutes product video than reading a detailed product description. Besides, videos are compelling enough to engage your users better, encouraging them to make a desired action.

Get More Shares

Pew Research Center found that the number of people sharing videos online has doubled in the past few years. Cisco too found that Internet video streaming and download “will grow to more than 80 percent of all consumer Internet traffic by 2019”.

One of the advantages of video is its inherent shareability. When was the last time you shared an interesting video on Facebook? Perhaps today? Just five minutes back? Studies indicate that compelling videos not only engage your visitors but are also more likely to get shared on social channels.

Since we live in an age of information overload, something that’s easy to read and digest is always a welcoming sight. This is exactly what videos offer. It is therefore no surprize that people prefer to click on a video thumbnail more than opening a page that’s devoid of such fascinating visual elements.

So if you think a picture is worth 1,000 words, wait till you see what video has to offer. According to Forrester Research, a minute of video is worth 1.8 million words. And nothing can beat that, period.

Using the audio-visual elements you can convey as much information as you want very quickly. A well-made product video allows the customers to understand how the item would look in real-life. And if you can strike an emotional chord with your customers, telling them what to feel about the item, they are more likely to make the purchase.

How to do that, however, is a different story.

Increasing eCommerce Sales with Videos

The following are different ways you can leverage video to improve your eCommerce store’s sales and revenue.

 1. Add Product Video

Product videos are designed to give your viewers detailed insight about the product’s capabilities. The audio-visual technology allows you to bring your products to life, which is never possible with text and images. You can not only provide a 360 degree view of the product but also a fluid look at the item. Since this is the closest an online shopper can get to the item he/she wants to buy, no details will be lost.

There are basically three types of product videos – general product videos, behind-the-scenes and how-to/product demos.

A general product video is the most common type of product videos we see in the online stores these days. These videos display the product from various angles, showing the features and specifications of the item. They often speak about the primary benefits of the products in order to establish an emotional connection with the potential buyers.

These type of videos are ideal for displaying products like jewelry, clothing, accessories, home-furniture and other stationary and visual items. Many brands are also using them to provide a touch-point about upcoming products to enhance curiosity and customer loyalty.

Next comes behind-the-scenes videos. If you want to add storytelling to your marketing mix, these videos are your best possible chance. Behind-the-scenes videos tell users how a product is made and where it comes from, sharing the story and the hard work behind your product. They are more engaging as these videos aim to trigger customers’ emotions to drive sales. Combine behind-the scenes with your how-to video videos and you have a killer strategy to win over your potential buyers.

Finally, we have the product demo videos. As the name suggests, these videos demonstrate how users should use the product. These are basically instructional or tutorial videos that help potential buyers to understand complicated or technical stuff in an easier way. If you have more technical products, especially those requiring installation, having product demo videos on your eCommerce store is one of the best ways to instruct and teach your customers.

Some of the best examples for product demo videos include Volvo’s video with Jean Claude Van Damme, Nooka’s AR Watch Try-On, Go Pro user generated demos and Dawn Dishwashing Liquid ads.

2. Include Several Types of Videos

While product videos are the most crucial part of an eCommerce website, your video strategy should go beyond it. The goal is to include several types of videos. Start with an about us or explainer video. In these videos, you don’t just talk about a particular product. Rather, you talk about your business.

An about us or explainer video aims to build your brand loyalty. It should speak about who you are, what is the story behind your brand, what you offer, how it helps people and why should they care about your brand etc. These videos should establish a sense of trust between the brand and the customers.

Another type of video your eCommerce website should include is customer testimonials. Chances are, you already have customer testimonials but they are probably in text, along with a tiny thumbnail image of the customers. While they are also useful, customer testimonial videos make it more authentic and credible. And a recent study by BrightLocal indicates that 85 percent of buyers read online reviews to determine the reputation of a business.

Interview happy customers and add video testimonials to share the positive experience of your existing customers, which in turn, will help you to build trust and reputability.

3. Leverage Off-Site Video Strategy

Again, your video strategy should not be limited to on-site videos. While on-site videos are designed to encourage your customers to make a purchase, off-site videos help you reach out to new potential customers as well as spark the interest of the old ones to come back for more. YouTube and Facebook are the two best platforms for your off-site video strategy.

But the question now arises: What kind of videos should you create for off-site marketing? Here, we have two options for you.

Create educational videos. One of the best practices of eCommerce video marketing is to provide your target audience with some additional value. Educational and thought-provoking videos are your best bet here. Consider the pain points of your target audience and the problem your product solves. Now, create an educational video content based around these areas. Add some extra value to show your expertise.

One thing to note here is that these educational videos may or may not be related to your product directly. For example, if you are a food store selling organic grocery items online, you can create off-site videos like ‘how to create organic Christmas cake’ or other healthy Christmas recipes and post them on YouTube, Facebook and other social and video networking sites.

The idea is to invoke the interest of your target audience in such a way that it also broaden your brand influence.

The second option is to create promotional videos. You can create short videos to promote special offers, deals, events and upcoming sales and post them on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and other social platforms. This is, in fact, the best time to leverage promotional videos, especially if you have a strong presence on Facebook. This social networking site now auto-plays videos in the Newsfeed. This makes your promotional videos easily shareable. Compared to photos, videos can generate 135 percent growth in Facebook’s organic reach.

But make sure, your off-site videos are short. A study by Social Bakers find that “videos under 2 minutes generate the most YouTube views.” This is quite obvious; even if you overlook the buffer time and slow connectivity at some parts of the world, no one is interested in knowing unnecessary details of your store and/or products. Viewers find short, concise videos more compelling and engaging. Use this information to your advantage.

Conclusion

Now that you know the opportunities and advantages video brings in to your eCommerce store in terms of user engagement and sales, it will be irrational to overlook this component. If you are still reluctant to hire professionals to create your product and company videos, there are several affordable high-definition video cameras available in the market. Grab one and start creating videos that can generate the highest ROI for your time and effort. More than a professional-quality video, you need something that add additional value to your potential customers’ experience.

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11.30.15
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5 e-commerce Site Design Trends for 2016

e-commerce Site Design TrendsOnline shopping has become a regular affair today. Almost everyone shops on the Internet, not only during the holiday seasons when online retailers offer huge discounts but throughout the year. According to Commerce Department estimates, annual e-commerce sales in the U.S. totaled $304.91 billion in 2014, almost 15.4 percent up from the previous year. The fourth quarter i.e. the holiday seasons sales accounted $95.98 billion, which represented 31.4 percent of the total eRetail sales in 2014.

In its recent report, the Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce estimated that the U.S. eRetail sales for Q3 2015 was $87.5 billion, up 4.2 percent from this year’s second quarter e-commerce sales.

But what makes people click the purchase button?

Well, it isn’t easy to answer. From pricing to usability of your e-commerce site, a lot of factors can encourage your visitors to make the purchase. But one thing is extremely important – the overall look and feel of your online store. The design of your e-commerce website affects your business in more than one way. To begin with, it obviously affects how your customers view your brand. In addition, your website’s design also affects the user experience, which again, affects your sales directly.

e-commerce Web Design and Sales

A 2006 study by Lindgaard, Fernandes, Dudek, & Brown indicates that it just takes 50 milliseconds for a user “to develop an impression of a website and decide whether he or she likes it”. If your users feel that our e-commerce store is difficult to navigate, requiring tons of clicking they will abandon your site sooner than you imagine. In fact, users can even abandon your online store if they don’t like the theme or color of your website.

The design of your online store is therefore as important as any traditional brick and mortar store. The layout, the navigation, the look and feel, everything affects your sales. Attractive online store design has always been a key factor in determining the store’s sales and marketing as it increases your products’ perceived value to your customers apart from making your website seem more trustworthy.

One thing with e-commerce website designs (just like any other website design) is that the trends change almost every year. In 2016, for example, online stores are more likely to look alike as designers are now employing similar user interface design patterns and card-like layouts to the e-commerce sites. The popularity of these design trends is most driven by the higher usage of mobile devices. Studies indicate that more than 50 percent of all e-commerce traffic come from mobile devices. In 2013, one-third of all holiday season e-commerce purchases were made using a smartphone.

eCommerce Web Design and Sales

The user interface design patterns that designers are now using work well on both mobile devices and desktop computers, making the online stores truly responsive. As a result more and more designers are incorporating these patterns to provide convenient and similar shopping experiences across devices.

The following are 5 e-commerce design trends that you should keep your eyes open for in 2016.

1. Flat and Material Design

Flat and material designs have similar design style, although they differ in certain aspects. Both the designs are trending right at this moment. The key reasons for their popularity are as follows:

  • You can easily adopt them for responsive sites
  • They are content-focused
  • Provide a young, fresh look to your website

Both the designs have minimalistic style that highly appeals to users in terms of accessibility and simplicity. For one thing, both flat and material designs provide a gimmick-free feel. Combined with vibrant and bright colors, these design patterns reflect the true essence of young brands like Google, Dunked and Needle in Seattle.

Flat and Material Design

Although they look very much alike to the untrained eyes, difference lies in the details. Besides, they both have certain pros and cons that you need to consider when settling for one design over another.

Flat design, for example, is a great option if your users are highly attuned to digital interaction. Material design, on the other hand, allows you to communicate and response to your users’ actions. It basically attempts to combine the real and digital worlds and is essentially multi-dimensional, even though it is aesthetically flat. It is an evolution of flat design and more robust in nature.

But keeping aside the debate regarding flat design vs. material design, we will be seeing a lot of e-commerce websites implementing these design patterns to focus on UX.

2. Responsive Design

Responsive web design is here to stay, thanks to the growing trend of mobile Internet usage. This is definitely a good news for online retailers as responsive design provides a rather affordable and simple way for businesses to create an effective mobile-friendly site that also improves user experience.

In fact, responsive web design is more than a trend now; it is a best practice, especially after Google released its Mobile Friendly update in April 2015. It is therefore quite obvious that more and more websites, including online stores will become responsive in 2016, if they haven’t already. Now, this isn’t happening just because Google says so; responsive design is highly compatible with minimalism, helping designs to keep the page weight down. In addition, it works well with other popular design trends like cards and car-like layouts when it comes to fit the screen size.

While this design is versatile, there are certain things you need to consider to provide optimum user experience. Your responsive e-commerce store should be lightning fast across all devices. Performance remains the biggest issue for many. It is therefore recommended to apply performance testing in order to measure and optimize your e-commerce store effectively for each device and screen size.

3. Card Design

Card Design

Card and card-like layouts are trending for one simple reason. It allows you to add and organize amounts of content with little or no effort. The card-like boxes are used to encapsulate text, images and resources. e-commerce websites are highly leveraging this design pattern not only because it allows them to add huge amount of content, but is also pleasing to the eye. A bonus – card design is extremely easy to use. Users can check out their options with an immediate glance. And as mentioned earlier, card design works really well for responsive themes.

This design pattern has just started heating up and isn’t going anywhere soon. Rather, quite the opposite; it will be much more prevalent in 2016 and beyond especially in the e-commerce landscape.

The popularity of cards and card layouts was largely driven by their inclusion in Google’s Material Design. Microsoft too is jumping onboard in order to stay relevant. In addition, many websites, e-commerce and otherwise, are using card designs. Coca-Cola’s “Ahh” campaign and Pinterest are the two most popular examples. Some e-commerce examples include Adidas, Lord & Taylor, Watb and Belk etc.

4. Parallax Scrolling

Parallax scrolling or long-scroll pages are nothing new. The technology was initially used in 2D games and has been extended to business websites, especially e-commerce sites in the recent years. In fact, this design trend gained much momentum in 2014 and hasn’t lost its charm yet. But why parallax scrolling?

Statistics indicate that users spend 76 percent of their browsing time in scrolling. It is, in fact, great for capturing your visitors’ attention quickly, to ‘wow’ them. It allows designers to:

  • Guide visitors through storytelling model, which has gained a lot of popularity lately
  • Show 3D model using movement, page depth and animation
  • Create timelines to provide a fun and very visual presentation

With the popularity of m-commerce, clicking is fast becoming a thing of past. Hand-held devices are designed in such a way that users find it easier to scroll down pages for a seamless content experience. And the smaller the device’s screen is, the longer the page scroll would be. This is the basic theory behind parallax scrolling sites.

Parallax scrolling also reduces the loading time and information is presented in a storytelling format, further enhancing user engagement. It is easier to navigate the store, which in turn increase your chances of generating sales.

When it comes to designing, sites implementing parallax scrolling usually have one larger home page linking to other similar kind of pages. Some sites are also opting for one single long page, aided by infinite scroll. However, they aren’t recommended for e-commerce sites.

Using parallax scrolling technique along with scroll-triggered animation and Ajax/jQuery techniques, designers can really get innovative with the setup. Being such a dynamic technique, parallax scrolling sometimes challenges designers to look for more creative and innovative methods to leverage this trend.

Further advancements with CSS and JavaScript are opening new opportunities for designers. More and more businesses are embracing this technique, especially after market players like Facebook and Twitter adopted this style, breaking the ‘above the fold’ stereotype. Many leading e-commerce sites are also implementing this style including Porsche, Sony and Fitbit. Other e-commerce sites that did a brilliant job with this technique include Ditto, 47 Brand, Neronote and White House | Black Market.

Parallax Scrolling

You can refer to them in order to emulate their style but remember that just like any other design style, parallax scrolling too has its drawbacks. So choose wisely and consider its advantages and disadvantages instead of following the trend blindly.

5. Interruption Merchandising

Interruption merchandising. A fancy name for something we are already familiar with. Remember the pop-up advertising! Of course you do, who can forget those annoying online promotion? In the 1990s the so-called pop-up advertising were first introduced; when you click at them, albeit mistakenly, the ads and sometimes the entire website opened in new browser windows every time. Worse still, many of them were deceptive and you never know what will open.

I hated them; in fact, most consumers hated those irritating pop-up ads. It was therefore no surprize that pop-up blocking services became commonplace soon enough and shortly after, web browsers too started blocking them.

But why am I talking about pop-up advertising once again? Because, they are making a comeback. And quite interestingly, interruption marketing is now being embedded in website design. This design trend is using the pop-up as a model. Online retailers are using them to offer special discounts and in exchange asking you to subscribe to their email list and/or follow their various social media profiles.

Interruption Merchandising

The reason behind this comeback is obviously email marketing. For online retailers, email marketing is one of the most powerful tool to reach out to their target audience. More number of email subscribers means more visitors and more chances of getting sales. Online retailers understand this very well and therefore use any means to attract more subscribers (read sales).

These pop-ups and interruption merchandising will become a common sight in 2016, especially for online stores. Many of the top retailers will start leveraging them, although selectively. This means, these pop-ups won’t be showing up every time you visit the online retail store. Sometimes, it will be displayed only when you take a specific action such as scrolling or when you attempt to leave the site.

Some of the brands that are already using modals on-site effectively include Ann Taylor, COS, Big Lots, AQ/AQ, Taylor Stitch and Pretty Little Thing. There are several apps to help you set up a pop-up seamlessly to promote your email subscriptions.

Conclusion

There are some e-commerce website design trends that are fading fast, while others are here to stay. Designs that further aid consumers’ mobile shopping experience are specifically hooked for long as the popularity of mobile Internet usage is likely to increase even more in the coming days. As a result, more and more online retailers will be focusing their e-commerce design strategies on those platforms to stay relevant. Minimalism, simplicity and clarity will play key role in the year ahead. But before jumping onboard, make sure they are best for your users. After all you following some trends blindly only because they are ‘in’ at the moment isn’t your goal; you should rather strive to provide the best possible user experiences to your consumers.

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10.14.15
by

How to Use Urgency and Scarcity Principles to Increase E-Commerce Sales

How to Use Urgency and Scarcity Principles to Increase E-Commerce Sales

At the core of every business lies one intent – profits. A lucrative business always manages to make enough sales to rake in the desired revenues. E-commerce businesses are no different. Just like every money-making venture, e-commerce websites aim to improve conversion rates for furthering their business.

To do so successfully, it is critical that entrepreneurs pay attention to consumer psychology. It is only when you begin to understand your customers’ predispositions, and thought and behavioral patterns (when they’re either moving through your sales funnel or are exposed to your products and services), that you will be able to devise a plan that will help you generate more business.

Ever since we’re born, we’re conditioned to preserve and covet objects that display the potential to disappear/deplete. Further, we always strive to acquire that we feel we may lose out on, if we don’t act immediately.

Successful businesses recognize and understand this psychology and use it to boost their sales. They’re well aware that presenting products/services as scarce or under the threat of being taken away in a short while will immediately become more valuable to the customer.

Companies have been exploiting urgency and scarcity principles to increase sales since years now. E-commerce websites can learn a thing or two about them to increase their sales.

Let’s delve into the details of the two.

The Urgency Principle

Urgency comes with importance. Behavioral psychology explains it as a situation that cause us to abandon deliberate thought and act impulsively. It is a form of persuasion, which becomes even more effective when clubbed with promotional offers, thereby creating anxiety within buyers, which makes them feel that they may miss out the benefits if they fail to act immediately.

E-commerce can tap this emotion by creating a strong sense of urgency on their landing page and eventually turn customers into conversions.

Many a time, conversions are affected by cognitive friction. This happens when people take a long time to think about buying a product, or simply wait and don’t respond to the company’s calls-to-action. Companies minimize such delays by increasing the urgency level, which leads to conversions.

How It Works

How many times have you come across a webpage on an e-commerce site with words that go ‘Hurry! Limited Period Offer’ attached to their products. This is the perfect example to demonstrate how websites use the urgency principle to make customers act, thereby ramping up their sale figures. Urgency offers usually focus on a shortage of time (till stock lasts) and availability.

Apart from the above phrases, here are a few other common words and sentences used to express urgency –

  • Only
  • Just for today
  • Buy now
  • Act now
  • Rush
  • Last chance
  • Last day
  • One day only
  • Final close-out
  • Clearance
  • Now or never
  • Never again
  • Don’t miss
  • Don’t delay
  • Introductory offer
  • Offer expires
  • Once in a lifetime
  • Prices going up

Apart from these, non-verbal ways of expressing urgency include displaying images of ticking clocks, hourglasses, and countdowns.

Wondering how you can create urgency on your e-commerce website?

There are specific tactics smart marketers employ to raise the urgency level on a site. These include, but aren’t limited to, the following:

1. Setting a Deadline

Who doesn’t look forward to saving money and still getting the product they want? You can take advantage of this and offer discounts to encourage such sales. Make sure to set a time limit to the discount though, as indefinite ones will lead your customers to expect a frequent or permanent price cut. To evade the effect of depreciating the value of your product, and still leveraging the power of a discount, set a deadline.

2. Advertise the Deadline on Your Home Page

Ensure that your customers know that your special offers and discounts are time bound. Display the product and the discounted deal prominently on your website’s home page to arrest their attention and generate interest and urgency.

3. Restrict Deals to ‘Offer Open till Stock Lasts’

An alternative to having a deadline associated with a specific period of time, consider associating it to the amount of inventory available with you. This comes across as less contrived and more appropriate to create urgency as running out of stock is more natural than not extending your discounts.

4. Offer Daily Deals

Sometimes, being bold and aggressive in your approach can help you make sales. While we have already discussed time-bound deadlines in one of the above points, you can also consider being extreme with them. You could announce value deals or lowered prices for your products for a very limited period of time, say twenty-four hours, with the offer expiring post that.

5. Create Urgency on Cart Page

Many a time, customers go on an online shopping spree and fail to realize the total cost of their purchase until they see the list of items in their shopping cart. This can, sometimes, lead to sticker shock, which may lead the customer to abandon the cart. Help them fight this impulse by reminding them on the cart page that the special prices offered by your website are available only for a short while.

6. Provide Free Shipping for a Limited Period

This makes sense as shipping prices are only disclosed at the time of checkout, which can drive the total cost substantially higher. However, if your customers know that you will be providing free shipping for a limited period of time, they will want to buy within that period to save money on shipping.

7. Let Your Customers Know That Stocks Are Limited

You will do well to indicate to your customers that your products are available in limited quantity. This works at a subconscious level by creating a mental deadline in the customer’s mind.

Further, it also creates a sense of competition to acquire the product before others do and can spell the difference between a customer making a purchase or leaving your website.

The shopping cart is also a crucial point in the buying process. If the customer stops to think over the price or decides to postpone the purchase, you could be looking at the loss of a sale. Creating urgency at this point by indicating the exact quantities remaining coupled with using phrases such as ‘Hurry’ or ‘Limited Period Offer’ can increase the likelihood of a sale.

8. Use Holidays to Create Urgency

Certain orders need to be delivered by a specific date. This applies to holiday-gift orders the most. If your buyers want the product delivered within a specific time frame, remind them of the delivery deadline and enhance the chances of them making an immediate purchase.

The urgency principle becomes more effective when it is clubbed and used with the scarcity principle.

The Scarcity Principle

Scarcity implies any limitation placed on the sale of a product/service, with the intent to grow sales by placing pressure on the consumer. This principle states that when people think that they will fall short of something, they tend to want it more as its subjective value increases.

The fear of losing out on a great offer leads buyers to make an impulsive decision to purchase. This limitation can be time-bound or based on limited quantity.

The scarcity principle works best when combined with a certain perceived benefit, such as a freebie, a lowered price, or a sense of achievement stemming from buying something that others missed out. It also effectively boosts a sense of urgency among customers.

Scarcity can be created by manufacturers. If you’re a manufacturer, you can intentionally restrict your production or delivery of services in order to boost demand. For instance, if you announce to your customers that there are “only two more” of a certain product left in stock, the desire to acquire that product will increase because of the fact that soon it will not be available anymore.

How It Works

What do websites do when they realize that their products are not selling well? One may say that they cut prices in a bid to generate more demand. Doing so, however, can have an adverse effect on the bottom line. There is a better way to handle such situations.

They create scarcity, which works well by making customers believe that the product is in short supply and as human psychology would have it, people will want it more when they’re told they cannot have it. The fear of missing out on the benefits can be a powerful motivator.

And if you thought that e-commerce sites use this tactic only to push their slow-moving items, think again!

The scarcity principle can be included in the normal marketing cycle to boost the sale of products. Most e-commerce websites always display the number of items remaining to the customers. Indicators that convey that only a few of them are left often result in the item getting sold quickly.

So how can you apply the scarcity principle to your website?

1. Present Limited Time Offers

Probably the most widely used approach, this entails advertising sales with a specific time limit, post which customers have to pay full price for the same item. To stir things up further, you can announce an outrageous deal or a flash sale that lasts for a shorter period of time, for example flat 50% off for purchases made within a specific one-hour window. This is bound to create more buzz than a week-long sale.

2. Display Quantities Left

This is one of the most popular approaches used by websites to spur up their sales. All you will need to do is display a signage next to your products, which will alert the buyer that there are only a few items left, and there will be no more for a long time to come. Interested customers will snap up the item in question instantly.

3. Manufacture in Limited Quantity

Most fashion websites use this tactic to generate interest in their offerings. The idea is to present their products as unique and something that not everyone will end up owning. If most people end up possessing/sporting the same mass-produced items, then the novelty of owning the item would be lost.

When it comes to fashion websites, only the uniquely stylish items stand out. Show this to your customers and they will make a beeline for your offerings. Small businesses can employ this tactic to sell their products on their website. It’s as simple as producing a quality and a unique item in a limited quantity and selling it at a high price.

4. Make Your Customers Compete

If you’ve ever been to an auction, you would know about making customers compete for an item. This is one of the best ways to not only sell an item, but also get a premium price for it. You can apply this approach to selling on your website as well. If you’re selling used cars, for instance, show that their availability is scarce and have potential customers bid against each other to get the best possible price.

5. Highlight the Loss

When you highlight the loss, you bring to the awareness of your customers not just what they will gain by buying your product, but also what they will lose out on if they don’t buy it. So, for example, if you’re selling a high-speed laptop, tell them how much they will lose out by buying an inferior product. Juxtapose this with the advantages of owning your product. Ask them if it is worth saving a few extra dollars and they will realize that your superior product could be their best bet.

Conclusion

The concept of e-commerce and online shopping may not be new, but entrepreneurs need to come up with more and more effective ways to get customers to buy from them. The urgency and scarcity principles can help tremendously. This post should help you generate and increase your e-commerce sales. Feel free to apply these principles, either together or individually, to your website pages and watch your sales soar.

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