To increase conversions with content marketing, you must get both quality and distribution right
No marketing strategy is effective anymore without good content. It’s the cornerstone of engaging with customers on social media channels, ranking in search and your vehicle to demonstrate your brand and values as a business.
Image credit: Startbloggingonline
With 50% of B2C marketers expecting to increase their budget spend on content marketing in 2015 according to this research infographic from Smart Insights, it’s abundantly clear that good content has become a major e-commerce marketing priority.
Approaching a content strategy in digital commerce has some significant challenges, however. Naturally, your digital commerce site is built to sell, and your content will likely take a softer approach, as it won’t be of value to your potential customers if it just contains promotional messages. Your content needs to entertain, educate,…
CONVERT: Achieving the final conversion on the landing page
This post is the final in a 3 part series (read Part 1 and Part 2 here) of articles addressing how to effectively increase your email marketing conversions – looking at the third and final step in this process.
When planning their email campaign, too many email marketers only plan for the first 2 conversions steps, however, the landing page/website/product page is the point where the final conversion happens.
No matter how successful we are at conversion steps #1 and #2 if we fail at the point of conversion then we have failed. I regularly quiz email marketers as to their KPI’s and the majority inform me that they’re rewarded on conversions (Step #3) – not on opens (Step #1) nor on clicks (Step #2). This article looks at the conversion part of the process and how to make sure you don’t throw…
Examples and best practices for converting your subscribers to click and take action
Continuing my 3-part series on increasing email marketing conversions - Open > Click > Convert, in this post we’re looking at the second step in this process.
This step is the most obvious one you'll want to acheive and often most resource and attention is given to it and if we fail at this step, then we will also fail at achieving our final conversion. The conversion we hope to gain at this step is to drive them to the landing page, where the final conversion takes place.
Leverage the strengths of email and minimise its weaknesses
The aim is not to keep the readers engaged with your email and reading it at length in the inbox, but to convert them to the next stage – the landing…
Converting your subscribers to open and read the email
There are 3 key steps to increasing email marketing conversions and it’s necessary to get each of them right as they can all impact (either positively or negatively) the success of your email marketing campaign. All too often when we talk about email marketing we simply consider the email, however, email marketing is much more than that. There is a 3 step process to achieving conversions within email marketing and all 3 steps are as impactful as each other – so be sure not to neglect any of them! This article is part 1 in a series of 3 covering each step 1 - you can read part 2 and part 3 here.
Step 1: Email Opens
Yes, this first step is an obvious…
The latest research suggests many marketers are missing out on the benefits of automated Email marketing
The Email Marketing Industry Census 2015 from Econsultancy and Adestra shows a slight improvement in Email marketing automation and overall it seems that there are many enthusiastic adopters of Email Marketing Automation.
43% of email marketers agreed they have advanced marketing automated/email messaging functions and 2/3 of the respondents are using' subscription or sign-up to website' emails.
But when you look at the type of automated emails used we see a different story. Although there are steady year-on-year improvements across most types, the rates of adoption are still surprisingly low. For example, one third aren't using 'onboarding' emails when someone signs up. Two thirds aren't using follow-ups based on content viewed on site suggesting their email systems and web content tracking aren't joined up or no rules are in place to trigger these emails.
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CPQ and CRM are key to B2B sales success
Many companies try to make do with a single enterprise application such as an ERP system to run the entire business. However, configure, price, quote (CPQ) applications and customer relationship management (CRM) solutions can help make your business more effective because of the additional dimensions of insight and functionality that they bring. According to a recent Forbes article, CPQ and lead management will be the two hottest technology areas for sales in 2015. The results of these increased capabilities are lower costs, higher customer satisfaction and more sales. Here’s how these two powerhouse applications can turbo charge your marketing and sales efforts:
More efficient proposals
Customers increasingly want products that meet their exact needs, so companies must create custom configurations to match their standard offerings to customer requirements. Without configuration capabilities, the process is time-consuming, expensive and error prone. Each order requires review by…
Wearable technology trends and the future of digital selling
Until what seems like very recently, wearable technology has remained on the fringes of consumer consciousness, with most people unsure what to make of it. 'What’s the point in moving the user interface two inches from my pocket to my wrist?' people rightly ask. 'But I’m terrible at multitasking, those glasses will just be another distraction…' Although wearables still have yet to gain widespread popularity, interest is stirring and 2015 may just be the year it turns a corner.
According to a recent report from Juniper Research, wearable advertising spend is estimated to reach just $1.5 million this year, but by 2019 is expected to hit a slightly more impressive $68.7 million. That’s a huge new market, and one that online marketers would do well to embrace.
Source: …
Optimising your triggered messages - 7 common Mistakes to avoid
Sending triggered email messages or behavioural email marketing is a proven method for improving customer engagement and increasing sales for retailers. However, there is a lot of confusion as to what types of ‘on-site’ behaviours should trigger a message, how it should look and feel, as well as how best to measure the results. There is a big difference between doing the right things and doing things right, so here is a simple yet comprehensive overview that will help you to optimise your triggered messages.
Using the right triggers for your messages
Ask people what constitutes a trigger and the first and often only response will be a shopping cart abandonment. However, these people are missing a trick and limiting their reach by not embracing browse abandonment.
This doesn’t…
How does email compare to other channels in driving customer acquisition and sales?
We can see the importance of email marketing by using the excellent Custora Ecommerce Pulse - which is updated monthly to show the impact of different channels on sales across $40 billion of US retail transactions from retailers who are clients of Custora. Here are three data points showing the importance of email marketing:
1. How many orders does email drive compared to other media?
In 2015 Email remains one of the top three channels driving sales, not far behind organic and PPC. This position is mainly because of sales to existing customers. The latest data from May 2015 shows that email marketing now accounts for 15% of all sales.
All of the top 3 have fallen a little compared to 2014 as Affiliate prompted sales have grown.
For all of our interest and attention on social media this…
Web users are becoming paralysed by the psychology of indecision as a result of being faced with too many options to choose from
I believe digital marketers are offering too many choices to their website visitors. Visit almost any web page these days and you will be faced with a myriad of choices. You can choose to read something, or sign up for follow-ups, or perhaps watch a video. Alternatively, you could choose something else to click on, look at an advert or go to the menu and choose something else. What are you expected to do? There are just too many things to think about.
The situation is worse in e-commerce stores. You are faced with row upon row of products to choose from, probably from a selection of a dozen or more different categories.
Website owners and digital marketers appear to…
