Personalized marketing, as we know from our experiences as brand-lovers and as marketers, is the make or break of any e-commerce marketing strategy in a competitive environment

Personalized marketing is all about offering improved user experience (UX) by serving relevant content, or targeting key messages in the funnel, based on your customer’s e-commerce activities and behaviour. Personalized marketing unlocks tactics for retailers to form personal relationships with their customers during their online experience (CX), to nurture leads and drive more sales from digital marketing. During a global 2022 survey of consumers who purchased something online in the past six months, 62% stated that a brand would lose their loyalty if it delivered a non-personalized experience. This is no secret to marketers who have watched a growing trend of personalization customer expectations and e-commerce investment to match. In fact, the chart below shows current customer experience personalization and…

How do direct-to-consumer businesses establish themselves in a competitive market? We look at how D2C businesses leverage owned data to reach and engage directly with consumers

In recent years, brands have realized the merits of owned and self-operated direct-to-consumer (D2C or DTC) sales channels. In line with ongoing global digitalization, D2C models saw even further acceleration and greater emphasis. Direct-to-consumer e-commerce (D2C) sales in the US massed US $128.33 bn in 2021 and have been predicted to increase by 42% to $182.62 bn by the end of 2023. Clearly, now's the time to invest in your e-commerce marketing strategy. Whether your model is B2B, B2C, D2C, or a mixture - your channels and media will only be as effective as the marketing strategy that ties them all together. We've got resources to streamline your e-commerce marketing strategy and planning,…

Social commerce trends to create seamless e-commerce experiences directly in social channels your customers love

One of the things that has always fascinated me about social media is the way it continues to adapt and evolve to changing consumer trends. Over the last 20 years we’ve seen a progressive shift from simple, text-based updates, to increasingly visual and ephemeral content, championed by app-based platforms like Instagram and Snapchat, and at the same time, social commerce has flourished. Whilst newer entrants such as TikTok have taken this trend even further, there have also been innovations in one-to-one communication seen in the development of messenger apps such as WeChat, WhatsApp and Messenger (the latter both owned by Facebook):  It’s been interesting to see how some of these trends have converged to drive innovation in social media…

Paid vs organic social media strategy: Your planning essentials

Both organic and paid social media landscapes are constantly evolving. New networks rise to prominence (e.g. TikTok), new technology increases user participation and real-time content (e.g. Periscope) and existing networks enhance their platform and product (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram launching ‘buy’ buttons). In 2022, organic reach is also continuing to shrink as the leading networks ramp up their paid social media channels to monetize platform investment. Now more than ever, marketers need to research and optimize the right organic and paid media options to achieve their goals. [si_guide_block id="49146" title="Digital media options cheatsheet" description="Our Digital media cheatsheet is aimed at helping Smart Insights members to keep track of the free and paid media options so that they're not missing out on any of the latest developments."] If the first era of social was engagement, the new era is acquisition and conversion. Social commerce…

What do the latest retail marketing trends mean for your e-commerce marketing strategy?

The biggest takeaway from our 2021 retail e-commerce marketing trends is that, with increasingly complex customer journeys in 2021, retailers need an e-commerce marketing strategy that integrates customer experiences. Customer lifecycle marketing is more necessary than ever, as consumers increasingly use multiple channels along their path to purchase. Therefore, to ensure you build a strong e-commerce marketing strategy to both reach and convert your customers, you need to consider the whole customer journey. We have marketing training and tools to refresh your omnichannel approach to e-commerce marketing strategy. Our popular RACE Framework structures your strategy across the customer journey process of plan, reach, act, convert, and engage. You can find out more about these resources and how to apply them to your e-commerce marketing strategy throughout this article. The…

We are now in the e-commerce marketing optimization era. To maintain growth, businesses need to innovate their approach to e-commerce marketing. Stay up to date with the latest sector trends

It's not a surprise that this year's trending e-commerce strategies and tactics all center around making online shopping experiences and comms more persuasive. In 2021, e-commerce retailers need the tools and techniques to stay competitive and defend their market share. That's why we've put together our free retail e-commerce marketing 2021 trends guide for e-commerce marketers to optimize their marketing across the customer lifecycle. As always, we've integrated these trends across our popular RACE Framework of Reach, Act, Convert and Engage. While online sales continue to grow in importance, the days of easy double-digit, year-on-year growth (as online shopping grew in popularity) are ending. In the era of e-commerce marketing optimization, retailers are rapidly scanning the marketplace to outpace their competitors.…

Practical copywriting tips and examples for e-commerce websites

As Coronavirus spreads around the world, e-commerce websites need messages telling customers what service they can expect from the new normal. A few are doing these really well, but many are falling into the trap of writing in a stiff, legalistic language that does nothing to reassure or persuade customers to carry on buying. It’s understandable.  Plummeting sales figures (unless you’re selling Vitamin C) means that Business owners are panicked about keeping the company afloat, senior managers are petrified about their jobs and everyone is scrambling to get their work done. As human beings, they are worried about their friends, family and possibly their own health too. Those huge levels of anxiety permeate through to stiff, formal wording that does nothing to reassure with statements like “Our existing business continuity plans have been designed to support the continued…

To sell products online, your e-commerce website content needs to be persuasive. Here are three metrics to measure whether it is.

We all want to be persuasive, don’t we? To influence others, to get stuff done. Most of us readily use all the tactics in our toolkit: smiling, quickly building rapport, and, over time, earning all-important trust. Then we leverage this ‘relationship equity’ to get what we want (or not). In the e-commerce selling realm, persuasiveness — not just content — is king. To crown our site a UX king we need to a) first track how persuasive our site is, and then b) employ new tactics that we hope will increase, or lift, this persuasiveness. [si_guide_block id="20212" title="Download our Individual Member Resource – E-commerce success mapping" description="This template introduces an analytical approach which we think is particularly useful for improving results from e-commerce site marketing but can be applied to other types…

Content marketing should explicitly be about promoting the right content to the right audience at the right time in order to achieve your marketing goals

Whether you're creating content from scratch or refurbishing existing content, your goal should be to engage and entice your target audience effectively on different platforms and, ultimately, prompt action. Your blog posts, videos, infographics, contests and ads all need to be perfectly aligned with the buyer’s journey. This means you need to understand the awareness, consideration and decision stages. [si_guide_block id="70710" title="Download our Premium Resource – Content marketing strategy e-learning course" description="Use our course to step through the analysis, planning and implementation activities which will take your content marketing to the next level."/] However, it’s quite difficult - if not entirely impossible - to do this without having a documented plan that covers effective distribution of your content. At the same time, your content marketing campaigns may end up…

Is your fashion store missing out on the potential of fashion apps?

Recent data released by Google confirms what we already know - mobile is the future of retail.  Over 64% of smartphone shoppers turn to mobile for ideas before heading out to shop and 1 in 4 mobile video viewers in the US have visited YouTube for help with a purchase decision.  While consumers may not always have access to a tablet or laptop, mobile is the one device that is always on, connected and in reach.  Mobile is the ideal platform to bridge retailer’s in-store and online experiences and is the perfect avenue for brand’s to communicate directly with the customer. Recent data released by Google confirm what we already know- mobile is the future of retail. Over 64% of smartphone shoppers turn to mobile for ideas before heading out to shop and 1 in 4 mobile video viewers…