Unusual Tactics To Help Small Business Win The Holidays
I’m writing this article on the morning of Black Friday, just after I cleaned out my inbox of all the promotional emails I had received from retailers about their special offers.
There were about 10 promo emails in my list. I opened two and clicked through from only one. The others were unceremoniously archived.
This sums up the challenge that small businesses face during the holidays.
Markets have gotten more saturated and enterprise-level marketing technology is readily available to everyone. Instead of competing on a level playing field, it’s harder to reach your customers and bring them back to your store.
This is especially true during the holidays when there are so many retailers (some with massive marketing budgets) vying for the same attention and dollars.
I’ve always liked…
Over half of customers prefer to buy from a site using guest checkout
In our latest Chart of the Day, we find that research by Worldpay suggests there are several key barriers to cart abandonment, including lack of guest checkout and lack of delivery option available.
It's the most important thing anyone in E-commerce or digital marketing can focus on: how to cut abandonment rates and increase conversions. As digital marketers ourselves it's something we're working on everyday.
The research found that:
Over half prefer guest checkout
Over half would abandon their cart if they cannot get the delivery option they want
Almost 7 in 10 customers aged between 18 and 35 are more likely to purchase on their mobile phones
Over half of customers are positive about one click purchasing
Nearly 4 in 10 think paying online is too slow
…
How and Where to Add Chat To Your Website
I’ll start with a simple question: Are you actively interacting with visitors to your store? If you own a physical store, your answer is probably ‘Yes’. But if you operate a virtual storefront - a website - and you’re answering ‘No’ to this question, you’re leaving a lot of visitor questions unanswered. And since people who don’t get their questions answered are less confident and engaged shoppers, they’re more likely to leave your website. And too many bailouts will kill your conversion rate.
Picture yourself in shopping mode: even if you know exactly what you want, and from which stores you’d consider buying it, you usually have at least one lingering question. For example, if you’re shopping for shoes online, you might not be sure if the website you’re visiting offers black suede shoes in your size. Or you might wonder if they…
What to avoid when looking for Ecommerce payment solutions
For most ecommerce retailers, payment gateways are seen as a necessary evil. Yes, they help you accept payments from your customers, but they’re not at the top of your list of organizations you like working with. They’ve developed a reputation of being sleazy, money-grubbing middlemen that take advantage of retailers, both big and small.
Some modern payment gateways, like Stripe, Braintree, and Sezzle, are finding ways to create more value for retailers and they’ve developed good reputations because of that. But problems remain. And if payment gateways want to shake their negative image within the e-commerce community, these are the five things they should focus on improving first.
1. They’re too expensive.
Payment gateways have long been rebuked by retailers for their high processing costs. The average rate today is 2.9% + 30c per transaction for online, or card-not-present, transactions. These costs…
Chart of the Day: Black Friday and Cyber Monday Cart Abandonment Rates Jump to 68%
Cart Abandonment is the scourge of e-commerce retailers everywhere, and this year it seems to be on the increase, particularly where there are promotions. New data emerging from the two busiest ecommerce days of 2016 (Black Friday and Cyber Monday) shows extremely high cart abandonment rates across the board. These are particularly high on mobile devices, where 78% of carts are abandoned.
E-commerce retailers should be asking themselves, are 4 out of 5 people abandoning their carts because they're having second thoughts about purchasing, or is it because the checkout pages aren't properly optimized for mobile? If a customer has to use fiddly forms that are hard to complete on a Smartphone they are far more likely to abandon their cart.
It's not all bad news though. Although the cart abandonment rates are huge, many of these customers can be nudged…
Marketing Automation offers the key to effectively nurturing leads through the customer's journey
According to a research published by Smart Insights in 2016, 47% of businesses don't have a digital marketing strategy. The findings show that businesses have a big challenge structuring their digital marketing strategy and knowing where to start.
So, how about we start by laying down some of the groundwork that you need to lay down in order to create and implement aworld-class digital marketing strategy.
The strategy includes 4 key stages of the Smart Insights RACE framework - plus the initial Plan stage. Just in case you're not familiar with RACE, the stages are as follows:
1. Plan:
This stage involves creating the overall strategy with SMART goals and measurable KPIs to run your digital marketing strategy.
2. Reach:
Most customer’s journey’s begin through doing personal research instead of simply talking to a sales person. This means that providing content to feed this…
Chart of the Day: 74% of Black Friday weekend consumers are planning to shop on the big day.
Black Friday is finally here, whether you love it or hate it, there is one undeniable fact - Consumers spend big during this period.
Consumers in America are buzzing to see the deals online and high street retailers have on offer during the biggest shopping weekend of the year. An estimated 137.4 million people are considering hitting the shops this weekend, that's 59% of the population.
While there is plenty of competition for consumers attention across the whole weekend, the days with the highest potential for your business is on Black Friday and Saturday. With most Black Fridays sales lasting from Thanksgiving (Thursday) to Cyber Monday (and beyond), which day will drive the most sales for you? An annual survey from the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics shows that less than half are planning to shop…
The key trends emerging from this year's Black Friday marketing campaigns
Total consumer spending on Black Friday has consistently increased over the past few years, to reach heights so dizzying that many retail businesses have realized they can't afford not to get involved. Over 80% of retailers plan to participate in Black Friday, and it has become an E-commerce phenomenon. This year for the first time ever Black Friday E-commerces sales are set to outpace in-store sales for the first time ever. Many retailers, such as AO.com in the UK are now running campaigns over a full week, or in Amazon's case, several weeks. Yet, despite the hype, some retailers who have reviewed the profitability of their Black Friday campaigns, or rather lack of it, have decided to stop their campaigns in favour of other tactics where they can get more impact at higher margins.
The infographic below provides some interesting background to the Black…
9 Key Content Types For Your Ecommerce Site
With so many ecommerce websites in each category, how can a retailer cut-through if they're not a 'high street brand'?
And while each of them is unique in their own way, they all have something in common too. They aim to deliver what their visitors expect to find, from products to great user experience AND useful content.
Content is the backbone of today’s marketing strategies.
Be it a short snippet in an AdWords ad or a lengthy blog post, it helps you to attract new visitors and build an audience.
But there is another type of content - the generic information about your store, which should be available right from the home page that convinces users to buy from you.
Here are the 9 content types every ecommerce site must have.
1. Shipping Information
You know that, to many shoppers, the cost of shipping is one of the key factors…
Search Ads are just the beginning of a big year for Apple.
The public-facing changes made to the App Store in Fall 2016 have been nothing short of monumental, but for Apple the shift marks only the beginning of a new methodology for interacting with developers and consumers. As we roll into 2017, Apple’s recent updates will begin to solidify into a new App Store hierarchy, one which will include Search Ads as a core pillar and send a friendlier message to developers.
App Store Optimization experts have been preparing for a major shift in the App Store for some time now. After all, Google introduced Search Ads to the Play Store in February of 2015, themselves following in Facebook’s footsteps. Apple is methodical, though, and the inevitable rollout of ads has come to impact the entire App Store experience.
First, the ads themselves. Over 65% of all app installs originate…
