Are you an E-commerce business owner? Then, there’s a high chance that you’re feeling overwhelmed by the challenges and workload that you face day in and day out.
Entrepreneurs running eCommerce businesses have to juggle a variety of tasks — from sales, operations, marketing, among countless other things. Do you think it’s wise to handle everything by yourself? The truth is that it’s typically not sustainable, plus you won’t be able to scale your business further. At some point, you must decide to delegate some work to others or perhaps, automate select tasks.
When it comes to marketing, it consists of a mix of smaller tasks itself. It doesn’t make business sense for you to communicate personally with each customer that shops on your website. Instead, you should only focus on the high-priority tasks and automate your digital campaigns. You can leverage marketing automation for eCommerce marketing. In this article, you will learn how you can adopt marketing automation for your eCommerce business.
Ways to Implement Marketing Automation for Your E-commerce Business
The business owners that are just getting to know marketing automation may find it difficult to understand. Indeed, it takes some time to figure out how one can begin working with automated campaigns. Yet, the popularity of automated campaigns has left behind enough evidence to indicate where you should focus your efforts when implementing marketing automation for your business. With these practices, you will notice the results right away.
#1. Welcoming New Leads and Leaving a Great First Impression
With automated marketing, you would be able to send automated welcome emails to new email contacts. The benefit of an automated welcome email is that it contributes quite considerably to increasing engagement with your leads. This, in turn, leads to an increase in sales. Your customer or subscriber will also have a great first impression of your brand.
It is very important to carry out this step properly as it will have an impact on future email open rates. If you fail to leave a good impression in the first email, then you may see a considerable drop in your email open rates. You should think about the customer journey that your new subscribers will be going through before crafting a welcome email series.
#2. Convert Your Lost Sale Into a Win
The most important thing for a marketer to stay in the game is to maintain a lead in terms of revenue rates. Do you know the most prominent roadblock that is stealing revenue from eCommerce store owners? It’s the increasing instance of eCommerce abandoned carts.
As per a Dynamic Yield report, a total of $18 billion is lost because of shopping cart abandonment each year. That’s a staggering amount of money to be lost each year. With automated abandoned cart email, you can overturn this scenario. It can do wonders for your eCommerce business.
#3. Turn Your Inactive Customers Into Active Again
Many eCommerce businesses face a peculiar problem where a customer satisfied with his purchase doesn’t return to buy again from their store. The store owners have no way to guarantee that a satisfied customer will return to purchase again from their online store. Even after signing up for email updates, a few customers may not give any attention to them.
In these instances, automated re-engagement campaigns can make a huge difference. There’s a huge benefit in automated email campaigns for the eCommerce business owners trying to re-engage their inactive happy customers. Even if an inactive customer is not interested in what you offer at the time, you can re-engage them with exclusive offers.
There’s one other benefit that you are likely to be delighted about — you will see an increase in the lifetime value of your previously inactive customer. Think about it, without marketing automation you would have lost on inactive customers as they wouldn’t have bought from you again. But with a marketing automation system in place, you will see an increase in the LTV of your inactive customers.
#4. Collecting Feedback
The importance of feedback cannot be downplayed in any circumstance. If taken into account, this component can help catapult any business to new heights. On the other hand, if a company doesn’t give any heed to customer feedback, it may start a downward trend for the business.
As an eCommerce store owner, you can implement these customer reviews to make changes to your company’s action plan. With a flurry of positive reviews and ratings, your store’s conversion rates will skyrocket. That’s why it’s of paramount importance that you ask for feedback from your customers at each interaction.
Marketing automation makes the process of collecting feedback from your customers easy and smooth as silk. It will help you generate an urge in your customers to leave positive reviews about your products, services, and brand.
This article is meant to empower eCommerce businesses with information about how to start using automation. But for the best results possible, you will also require input from an expert who knows the ins and outs of implementing a successful marketing automation campaign, backed by a personalized marketing strategy.
Lifecycle Marketing Group can help you in putting a marketing automation system in place for your eCommerce business. With our breadth and depth of our expertise, we will ensure that your eCommerce business will see an increase in conversion rates. Contact us for more details today!
Customer journey mapping, or user journey mapping, is increasingly becoming an important tool for manufacturers, marketers, and sellers to understand how a customer is engaging with the brand at different touchpoints in the overall sales cycle. The interaction between a brand and a customer is not limited to the mere act of the purchase. It is preceded by a long chain of interactions where the customer develops an awareness about the product or service, gets to know it, and then researches that product or the brand.
The act of purchase, according to a customer journey map, is not the endpoint of the process. Purchase is followed by customers sharing their experience interacting with the product and/or company for the very first time. Businesses are taking this step with the utmost sincerity, as well. They are trying to create out of the box experiences or OOBEs for clients in every way possible. This may include promoting “unboxing” experiences and sharing it online by customers, guiding them through the process of knowing the product from the very beginning, etc.
Stages of a Customer Journey Map
A customer journey map has four essential stages. The first stage is where prospective customers gain awareness of the product. Once the customers become aware of the product, they move on to the next stage of research. Here, the customer gathers some more specific facts about the brand such as its price, how long it will last, what the after-sales protocols may be, etc. The third stage is the actual purchase, where the customer buys the into the brand. Then comes the final step where the customer will get introduced to the product and experience its features and benefits first hand.
Four drivers shape each of these stages. Factors that, on one hand, determine how the stage will appear to the client and simultaneously help the seller to prepare a framework of correctly addressing the pain points of the customer. These four factors are actions, motivations, questions, and barriers.
Understanding “actions” means understanding what the customer is doing at that stage. “Motivations” help to understand why the customer is doing what he is doing, and what encourages him/her to move on to the next stage. It underscores the emotional areas that drive a customer to associate with a brand.
Understanding “questions” is to understand the uncertainties, jargon, or other issues that stop the customer from moving to the next stage. “Barriers” are all about the structural issues stopping the customer from moving on to the following stage. And these may include cost, implementation, etc.
A customer journey map takes into consideration all these stages and aspects of how a customer interacts with a brand. It examines the challenges that the customer faces during their interactions. It also finds out the inspirations that work in favor of the product. Understandably, it is an intricate network of causes, actions, and reactions. It is important that this mapping is done efficiently to deliver optimal results. An efficient customer journey map can be created by following the best practices. Here, we will discuss what these best practices are.
Best Practice #1: Establishing Clear Goals for the Map to Achieve
Businesses often set up a customer journey map just to follow the norm. A customer journey with unclear objectives becomes counterproductive and ends up confusing follow up actions. The best practice is, therefore, to look at the objectives of the maps in terms of specific questions. Let us look at some examples of what these questions could be. Developers of the map should ask themselves whether it can identify the weak points of the sales funnel. One should ask whether this map can provide insights on why the customer is taking, or not taking, a particular action. The map should be able to answer what challenges customers face most while moving from one stage to another.
If the map can answer these questions for all the stages involved, only then can it be called an efficient customer journey map.
Best Practice #2: Scenario Analysis
A customer may make different decisions under different scenarios. Since the final objective of creating a consumer journey map is to understand why customers behave the way they do, it’s an efficient course of action to test their decisions under different scenarios. The customer journey map often tries to analyze the intentions and motivations of the consumer under the most plausible scenario. But, the factors that constitute these scenarios may change from time to time. What if the price of the product increases or falls? Would that affect the customer’s decision in the same way? If so, how much of a change in price would trigger a change in decision. It’s important to analyze these maps under various scenarios. A scenario can be drawn from an existing customer journey or by exploring a new journey.
Best Practice #3: Customer Feedback Over Internal Assumptions
Analyzing the actions of the customer and the effort to determine his/her motivations and barriers are mostly dependent on how the businesses perceive them. Businesses draw inferences that action A is a result of motivation B and faces challenge C. Such internal assumptions often stem from conventional wisdom and years of experience in dealing with clients and customers.
However, these inferences don’t always end up correct. Consumers may take decisions coming under a wide range of different unpredictable conditions. Therefore, the best way to make a fool-proof customer journey route map is to gather primary information from the customers. This information can be collected through contextual inquiry, customer feedback surveys, etc.
Best Practices #4: Plotting Channels with Touchpoints
The customers interact with the business at different touchpoints of the customer journey. The businesses should remember that these touchpoints are not standalone entities. Each of the stages and the associated touchpoints are represented by the company’s marketing and sales channels. These marketing and sales channels could include the company’s website, their social media profiles, their customer care numbers, etc.
To ensure that the customer journey map is utilized in the most efficient way possible, developers of the map should always see it in conjunction with the appropriate sales and marketing channels active at that stage.
Best Practices #5: Taking Actions
The most effective customer journey map is the one that is the most dynamic. The map should continue to evolve with proactive decisions from the businesses. Businesses should try to improve the experience of the customers by continuously improving the efficiency of those channels. Improvements can be achieved by removing unnecessary nodes from the map that complicates the process, removing unnecessary obstacles and challenges, and reinforcing the areas of success with greater engagement potential.
As a continuously evolving entity, customer journey maps should always be seen in their immediate context and in association with the channels through which they manifest.
For any organization, large or small, growth is imperative to sustain. A company that does not grow over time eventually ceases to exist. Why? Simple really: atrophy — competitors will eventually gobble up the available new business, leaving only the existing client base to become stale. Growth is a paradigm that often seems elusive. But, there are many tested ways to adopt a growth trajectory that fits perfectly with the nature and type of the company. Here, we will discuss some such tips that any company may follow to scale up their business and walk on the road of growth.
Defining the Customer
First and foremost one must figure out who is the ideal customer. Each product or service has a potential set of consumers who stand to benefit the most from that product or service. Some products are extremely specific in terms of their target audience. For example, a welding machine is not for the layperson to use. On the other hand, categories like FMCG products are consumed by a wide swath of the population.
It is very much necessary to create a profile of the ideal customer based on their demographic and psychographic characteristics. Demographic parameters include age, gender, race, income, marital status, geographic location, etc. On the other hand, psychographic parameters may include details on hobbies, attitudes, beliefs, spending patterns, interests, etc.
While preparing the ideal consumer persona, it’s always best to go into as much depth as possible. Marketers often keep their parameters wide-ranging to include the maximum number of potential consumers. But on the contrary, the more effective thing to do is to become as specific as possible, especially during a launch. This helps to spend efficiently and get the best possible return from the marketing investment.
Owning and Nurturing the Customer
Once the correct subset of potential customers has been identified, the intention of the marketing strategy of the company should be to own the customers not simply acquire them.
Paid promotions on social media sites often help to acquire a lot of followers within a short period. Although it proves effective to build traction in the beginning, this strategy falls short in the long run. Moreover, social media platforms often modify their settings and their policies. These sudden shifts often make the marketing strategies of the company go ineffective to a large extent. Therefore, instead of relying too much on the whims of a third-party platform, it’s best to establish a direct connection with consumers through strategies like creating a mailing list. There are several mailing list provider services available in the market that help to build such mailing databases.
However, these mailings should add value to the lives of your customers. They should not be too frequent and yet not too irregular. A weekly newsletter with information that the consumer might find useful is a perfect way to initiate a non-intrusive e-mail communication strategy.
Treating Each Customer As Your First Customer, Every Time
Growth marketers are often focused on the acquisition of new customers. Retention of the existing customer is an area where their strategies lose much traction. However, it is the loyal customer who drive growth in the long run.
An analysis of many company’s marketing strategies would show that their onboarding communication is excellent. However, once the onboarding is complete, the level of communication start to fall off. Resultantly, these customers start feeling disconnected and issues take longer to resolve. To effectively maintain the momentum of growth, companies must treat each of their customers as their first with the same swiftness they exhibited during onboarding.
Exploring Established Distribution Channels
Although establishing a native distribution channel is important, it takes time to organically build one. It is, therefore, an efficient option to leverage already established distribution channels that have readymade communities frequently engaging over the types of products and services that the consumers are interested. Many companies employ such executives whose job it is to interact with relevant communities in social engagement channels like Quora or Reddit.
Press and Partnerships
Nothing works like the power of word of mouth. It’s the most reliable form of marketing your product where you need to spend next to nothing, and in return, get the maximum possible number of genuinely interested customers. Getting the good word out in the press is one of the most popular ways to start a wave of word of mouth rolling publicity.
Partnerships help to grow in areas where it otherwise would have taken much longer to build a reach a reputation. Companies often become too concerned about the accumulation of profit. Creating a network of profit-sharing partnerships with companies that provide complementing services or products is an effective way to grow consumer-base in a short period.
Transparency
Practicing transparency in every-day operations is one of the most trusted ways to hack growth. Companies that grow publicly, grow fast. Today it is essential to keep the community aware of what the company is trying to achieve and how it is trying to achieve it.
Getting to know what the company is thinking for its place in the future, helps consumers to associate with a brand for the long term. It also creates a sense of intimacy and loyalty for the brand. Consumers identify with the brand and accept any drawbacks with an open mind.
Maintaining transparency also helps to make a company appear more human than its competitor. It helps in building goodwill that often helps in attracting investors. Investors feel safer and try to attach a fair share of the company’s goodwill towards their own brand as well.
With all these growth hacks in place, companies should keep in mind that there is no easy way to achieve sustainable growth. However, rigorously and honestly following these strategies, backed by data-driven interventions from time to time, unmistakably helps any company to grow no matter how strong the headwinds are.
Doubtful whether to hire the services of a digital marketing agency? Wonder if they would bring anything to the table other than what you can do by yourself? Then this article is for you.
Read on to find out the top reasons why hiring a digital marketing agency now can be the next best step for your business.
1. You focus on your business and leave marketing for the experts
Trying to improve on your product or carry out your services while managing your workforce is tasking enough. Adding the burden of digital marketing to your shoulders makes things tougher on you, but you know you can’t do without digital marketing if your business is to get into the limelight. And employing an individual as your marketer doesn’t just cut it.
From data analytics and content creation to PPC, website design, and copywriting, you require a team of digital marketing experts working collaboratively with up-to-date strategies. And that’s what you get from a digital marketing agency.
2. Become more competitive even as a small business
When it comes to digital marketing, the icing on the cake is that it could be done by small and large-scale businesses alike. So if you are a small business, the best way to compete with the big fishes is to do what they’re doing, and that’s top-class marketing! A digital marketing expert can help you develop your brand and get the word out there. They can put you in the same light as larger corporations, thus giving you more credibility and charisma in the eyes of your audience. And that’s more business for you.
3. It is cost-effective
The most amazing thing is that when you hire the right digital marketing experts, you get great ROI because you get a lot from the agency. Additionally, you would enjoy premium marketing techniques and tools without having to spend extra. So if you think you are a small business without the funds, think again!
4. Build your foundation for an incredible future
If you’re in the early stages of your business and have future goals, now is the time to start, and it all begins with spreading the word to build your brand identity. Get an expert marketing agency and start now so that the next year can be the year your company attains new heights. By hiring one, you’re setting your business up for future success.
5. Keep track of your marketing and audience
The downside to conventional marketing is you can’t keep track of what works and what doesn’t. It isn’t digital, so it becomes difficult to procure analytical data and metrics to know how effective your strategy has been or how your audience behaves. But digital marketing enables you to know your online visitors and monitor the metrics of how they respond. This, in turn, enables you to understand your target audience better and decide what to do next.
6. You learn
Digital marketing agencies are experts at what they do, always following up with the latest marketing trends and technology. But that’s not all. These experts always grasp a deep understanding of your business model and structure a custom marketing plan according to your business specs.
From there, you can get ideas and learn more about marketing your own business in the future.
Bottom line
For a business to succeed in this digital age, it’s crucial to go digital. But that’s not enough; you have to get your digital marketing strategy right to achieve significant results. And that means hiring an expert digital marketing agency.
Need expert help from a top-class digital marketing company? Contact us.
Pay Per Click (PPC) has been a marketing model for quite some time now. Of course, several businesses have adopted it and are seeing results, which may have compelled you to consider hopping onto the moving train.
However, there are things to consider before embarking on this adventurous journey. So, read on to find out top considerations that will determine whether PPC is right for your business.
1. How targeted is your PPC ad?
How often users click, i.e., click-through rate (CTR), is usually determined by how targeted an ad is. You’re more likely to click a “beauty clinic near me Brooklyn” ad if you require some cosmetic skin treatment from an esthetician in Brooklyn. Such super-targeted ads, therefore, have great potential.
But if you’re on a campaign to build brand recognition among the public, then PPC isn’t yet for your business. You would have much fewer clicks since your ads aren’t offering something to a target customer.
2. What is the value of your target customer?
Now you want to consider the value of your target customer in relation to what you pay for each click. Note that you pay whenever a user clicks, so it wouldn’t be wise if your ad bid costs $2 when what you’re offering costs only $2.50. If you get three clicks and two purchases, you’re still running at a loss. Of course, not every lead will become a customer. But if your target customer is someone looking for a $300 product or service, it wouldn’t matter if you get 10 clicks and only one purchase. It would be a huge win.
3. Is your business ready for the boost in traffic?
If you’re experiencing slow sales and your website doesn’t appear on the first page of Google when users search for your kind of product or service, PPC may be the best way to crank things up immediately. But then, are you ready to handle the visibility PPC brings?
You want to ensure your sales team is ready and competent enough to follow up leads throughout the customer lifecycle. You may get clicks and leads, but they may not convert to buyers when not adequately followed up.
It’s also important to know if your website (or landing page) is responsive and engaging enough to prevent users from bouncing off after clicking. If your website isn’t currently well-optimized with the latest data-driven practices, you may have to postpone your PPC campaign until it’s ready.
Want to get your website running at top-notch capacity? Consider hiring an expert website designer.
4. What's your product's search volume compared to its competition?
It’s always a great idea to bid on keywords having a high number of searches. If users often search using the keyword “soccer game for PC,” then that’s an excellent keyword to bid for if you’re offering such.
But a product or service may have a high search volume but when you look at it, there are so many related but probably less valuable keywords. Take “elder law attorney” and “elder lawyer” for instance. These are competitors. It wouldn’t be wise to follow through with an ad having several competitors as you’d have to bid on lots of keywords.
On the other hand, even when you’re offering something unpopular with a low search volume but without related keywords, you’d be sure every click would be a serious lead.
And if your business offers a product with a high search volume and minimal competition, you’re in for a great win!
Final Words
PPC is a great addition to your marketing strategy, but it should always be done right. And one way to do it correctly is by combining it with good organic marketing like SEO (Search Engine Optimization). In fact, there’s added credibility when users not only see your PPC ad but also see your website appear organically on the first page of search results. It all happens with excellent SEO!
Get your marketing strategy raking in results by working with an expert digital marketing agency today.