Ingredients to increase your Ecommerce conversions

Let’s take a moment and think about your favourite shoe brand – Is it really a brand or is it an Ecommerce store just like any other? How did it became your favourite? Well, the answer is straightforward. Of the online brands that initially spring up as an Ecommerce store, their evolution into an effective brand depends on what kinds of products and services they provide, and more importantly what they do to make their customers feel happy and satisfied. Then, a brand becomes more of a feeling that drives customers to your store.

Fundamentals of E-Commerce branding

Before you decide on a successful brand strategy, you must have a sound understanding of your own business. Start by brainstorming on following issues to discover what makes your brand stand out. Does your online business have a goal? Does your product solve any problems? What…

The growing deluge of content means you'll need a plan to cut through the noise in 2017

In digital marketing, you've probably come across the statement "content is king" several times. Make no mistake that content is the lifeblood of every essential online marketing activity. Be it social media marketing, email marketing, SEO, or paid advertising - none of these departments will succeed without the development of quality content. A study by Demand Metric reveals that 78% of CMOs believe that custom content is the future of digital marketing. However, successful content marketing is an intricate process that requires a lot of research and planning. Below are the crucial steps you need to prepare your content marketing strategy for 2017:

1. Specify Your Business Objectives

In every business endeavor, you need to set specific goals and objectives that will guide your day-to-day activities and ensure you're right on track. First off, make sure you…

Learn How to Boost Your Marketing Return on Investment Performance by Tracking Competitor Prices and Assortments

Ecommerce businesses face very strong competition due to the fact that SMEs have entered into the online world almost as quickly as the biggest companies, such as Amazon or Alibaba, resulting in the existence of millions of e-commerce companies. This great competition is not just focused on who sells something, but also on the earliest stages of the buying process, like getting customer attention when they are just looking for information prior to buying. Ecommerce competition is one of the best examples of Porter’s framework, since online buying decisions depend on many factors that are hard to control.  In this article, we will explain how pricing affects ecommerce competition and show how to become more competitive by getting smarter about it, in order to boost the ROI your marketing efforts, so you can attract and keep…

Reddit users don't take too kindly to self-promotion, but they love quality content when they see it.

Are you tired of the same old marketing channels and want to try something new? Reddit might be just the thing you were looking for. It's a place where users share interesting news, cool links and insightful comments. Sounds perfect, right? Sure, but there's a catch. Reddit users are a community that hates advertising. If you fail to follow the “reddiquette”, your content will get downvoted and you might easily get banned. But if you do it right, you'll be on your way to tapping into the potential of the platform and generating a stream of targeted traffic to your website. Here are 10 actionable tips to help you make the most out of Reddit for your marketing strategy.

1. How it works

Reddit is a platform where people…

Confessions of an email marketer

Here an email marketer for a major retailer, who shall remain anonymous, confesses his or her biggest worry...

Anonymous: Working at an fast paced online/offline retailer for 3 years now, I’ve been through my fair share of email highs and lows. Preparing for an incredibly busy peak season in November and December I feel as though I’m as ready as I can be in my battle station and have the support of the rest of the business with the calendar.

The last two Christmas periods, I’ve been somewhat forced into committing what feels to me like a major email faux pas. Regardless of whether sales have been good or bad, on two or three occasions throughout the month our managing director (who has no background in email marketing) will ask me to re-send a successful campaign to an audience who did not open after just 24…

How to win at Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Black Friday is traditionally the busiest shopping day of the year. It kicks off the critical holiday season. The holiday shopping season is crucial for the economy because around 30% of annual retail sales occur between Black Friday and Christmas. For some retailers, such as jewellers, it's even higher -- nearly 40%. Having roots in the retail sector, there is still a part of me that gets that toe-curling feeling when hearing those two words together – Black Friday. It is infamous with chaos, carnage and that primal, possessive part of our brains. There are those who have opted out of the chance of being trampled, losing teeth and other appendages and getting into car park fisticuffs, but have instead opted for waging this warfare online. The premise of Black Friday was to be a purely retail experience with rock-bottom deals on majority stocks in…

Chart of the Day: we question whether flash sales and daily deal marketing services are still giving customers what they want?

Daily deal sites have taken a few blows over the years, Groupon cut staff and fired it's CEO, Living Social was eventually bought by Wowcher which was sold by the Daily Mail. Amazon have also closed their daily deals service. But one great insight into daily deal sites is search history, which has slowly declined for 5 years. trends.embed.renderExploreWidget("TIMESERIES", {"comparisonItem":[{"keyword":"daily deals","geo":"","time":"today 5-y"}],"category":0,"property":""}, {"exploreQuery":"q=daily%20deals","guestPath":"https://www.google.co.uk:443/trends/embed/"}); The UK is one of the most prominent countries searching for daily deals, Australia, Ireland, Canada and the US also have a pretty strong taste for daily deals too. trends.embed.renderExploreWidget("GEO_MAP", {"comparisonItem":[{"keyword":"daily deals","geo":"","time":"today 5-y"}],"category":0,"property":""}, {"exploreQuery":"q=daily%20deals","guestPath":"https://www.google.co.uk:443/trends/embed/"}); Google Trends also reveal that one of the most searched for keyphrase was www.ebay.co.uk daily deals. Searches for daily deals might be declining, and…

Email strategies must recognise users are now constantly moving between devices

Consumers now expect a consistent experience across every device – whether they happen to be using a PC, mobile or tablet. So what can businesses do to improve the customer journey that is gradually blurring between devices? Since Apple launched the iPhone in 2007, smartphones have saturated our society with as much as two thirds of UK’s population owning one according to Ofcom[1]. Even before we have stumbled out of bed in the morning, we are likely to have checked our mobile to catch up on the news, read emails, get the weather forecast and browse social media channels. In fact, the average smartphone user carries out over 200 tasks a day on their mobile, compared to just 140 on a desktop or laptop.[2] Even web browsing, traditionally a desktop or laptop task, is now a smartphone-centric pastime…

 Sales metrics should not be alien to digital marketing teams

As digital marketers, it is our job to drive sales for our business, correct? Wait, but isn’t that the job of the sales department..? As it turns out, with Smarketing we have many of the same goals and objectives so it makes sense that we would work together to form a more united team and focus on the same measurements to close our deals. Source: HubSpot

I realize this is easier said than done, but if you look at the statistics: according to an Aberdeen report, companies that were successful in aligning their sales and marketing teams were able to increase revenue by 20%. This is in stark comparison to those who weren’t able to align the two departments and saw a 4% decline.

Yes, it…

What are Ecommerce brands like yours spending on search engine marketing?

It is a question which all marketers have probably wondered at some point; How much marketing budget should be spent on SEO and PPC? It’s quite the balancing act, either risk spending too little and see no results, or spend too much and watch ROI tumble? We take a look at some industry benchmark data specifically for ecommerce brands and see how marketing practitioners are spending their budgets.

What are your goals?

Marketing budgeting should be designed specifically to meet your ecommerce goals. Different types of goal are more suited to different channels, for example if you want to get a better ROI on marketing spend you might want to shift some budget from PPC to SEO. Conversely, if you’re looking to increase sales in the next quarter, you might want to turn on some paid media advertising in order to…