Premium memberships have been a hot topic in eCommerce lately. So, what are they, and how can you use them to increase brand loyalty and drive new revenue channels?
In their most basic form, memberships are a type of loyalty program that rewards customers upfront with valuable incentives and experiences that keep them coming back to a brand.
Loyalty programs are nothing new in eCommerce. But the majority of programs available today are free points-based reward systems. It is a customer retention strategy that costs the customer nothing, but the results are also not always very solid.
While free rewards programs are convenient, customers mostly use them when they remember to use them. They often reward routine-based behaviors, but don’t necessarily unlock additional margin, behaviors, or future purchases the brand wouldn’t otherwise get from that customer.
Subscriptions are also a type of loyalty reward - this is most often a small discount for opting in to receive a specific product on a recurring basis. Subscription programs are effective for certain categories, but are usually limited to a specific item, which can limit broad adoption of products across a brand’s catalog. And what usually happens with products on subscription? Customers end up with too much of the same item, which leads to churn as they cancel.
Premium loyalty programs, or memberships, offer immediate access to exclusive benefits and privileges in exchange for a fee.
Unlike the traditional points program, premium paid loyalty programs give a higher level of rewards and services in exchange for that membership fee. They frequently have options and benefits like exclusive products, ongoing discounts, store credit, free shipping, or other perks.
The customer is paying to unlock options they wouldn’t otherwise have. This is different from the free programs, where they don't get anything other customers don't also get, and just earn the rewards over time.
Many types of brands can benefit from a membership. Today, they’re most common with health and wellness, nutrition, fitness, beauty, apparel, and fashion brands, especially those with an engaged community.
Typically, memberships aren’t a good fit for items that aren't replaced often, such as a mattress or a couch.
As mentioned above, membership isn’t the same thing as a subscription program. A subscription usually means paying a lower price for a single SKU on a specific schedule.
Membership subscribes a customer to the brand itself, in the sense they experience exclusive benefits on every product and they select which items to purchase on a timeline they define.
Merchants tend to believe you need to have subscriptions OR memberships, but actually, they often work better together. Customers can churn from subscriptions because they are receiving too much product or want to try something new, but memberships provide a valuable option with additional perks and access to more products.
Creating an enticing membership offer involves understanding your target audience, offering unique benefits, and effectively communicating the value of the membership. Here are some steps to help you create an appealing membership offer:
Remember, the success of your membership offer depends on understanding your audience, providing real value, and effectively communicating the benefits they will gain from being a member.
Designing your program is half the battle, but what you choose to power it with is a big decision. So, how do you get the most out of a membership app?
By following these steps, you can make the most out of a membership app and fully enjoy the benefits it offers. Remember that active participation and engagement play a crucial role in maximizing the value of any membership-based platform.
Inveterate was built by a team with years of expertise in the field and is designed with marketers in mind but is flexible for developers. Offering intuitive marketing tools and integrations with services like Klaviyo, Postscript, and Gorgias, while providing developers with API access for custom experiences. With Inveterate, Inc., clients can create their vision with ease and adaptability.
Membership fees help generate a new source of recurring revenue, but members are proven to have higher lifetime value with increased AOV and increased purchase frequency compared to non-members. And this is observed when comparing the activity across cohorts. Additionally, across Inveterate merchants, 20-30% of new members are actually first time customers, helping to reduce acquisition costs.
It might be time to trade in old reward systems for customized membership solutions. Offer benefits like exclusive discounts, member pricing, store credit back, and special access, all automated. It's a powerful way to foster loyalty and keep your best customers shopping on your website.
]]>We talk about upsells and cross-sells quite a bit, but that's because we constantly see merchants not taking advantage of the sweet opportunity to raise AOV and Conversion Rate.
Here are 5 places you could and should be upselling:
There are a few ways to get these upsells implemented on your Shopify store. Trusted apps like Aftersell or Rebuy are one route, with custom development right on your pdp, cart, or checkout pages being another. Apps are quick to setup, but come with a monthly and/or revenue-based fee. Custom development can take a little longer to carry out and be more expensive up front, but you avoid extra recurring fees.
]]>Accessibility for Shopify websites is still a hot topic, with a lot of confusion, lawsuits, and different solutions. Let's go over some basics and solutions that will help prevent frivolous accessibility lawsuits from hitting your Shopify store.
What's going on?
In short, we've heard that attorneys have been threatening companies with lawsuits if their website is not "accessible", with settlements ranging from $5,000 to $75,000 per instance if the company doesn't "fix" their site.
What is Accessible?
Technically speaking, accessibility is defined by the requirements laid out by Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and it's often conflated with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Non-technically, it's giving someone with a disability, like limited or no sight or hearing, the ability to experience all elements of your website. For example, someone without sight is not able to see images or form fields on your website, so they need alternative text to inform as to the content of each image. Someone without hearing cannot listen to a narrated video, so they need captions.
How We Evaluate Accessibility
To determine whether a site is accessible, we use a checklist called the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1, or WCAG, created by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). They have three levels: A, AA, and AAA. As of this writing, to be considered accessible, a website has to meet WCAG 2.1 AA.
How Bad is it?
Most non-governmental websites are *not* completely accessible. In a sense, any website that does not meet the criteria for a compliant website could be a target. In fact, in most cases, unless "Section 508 compliance" was listed as a project requirement, most websites out there are not compliant, and therefore a potential target.
Solving Accessibility Issues
There are various ways to try and get your site closer to compliance. You can hire a Developer that specializes in Accessibility to improve your website. There are also quite a few apps and services that will help you avoid costly legal actions.
We have found a really great website plug-in that practically instantly brings a site into compliance with Section 508. Where we used to have to manually monitor a site, then manually fix all issues, then manually recheck a site periodically, we can now use this service to handle it all.
Most sites cost only $490/year for the drop-in, and we can have it installed in minutes. If you want to check it out for yourself, learn more here.
Contact us if you are interested in implementing this plugin. Ensuring your site is in compliance, and not a target, is extremely important.
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At Electric Eye, clients sometimes ask us to help write their product descriptions. We probably aren't the best people to actually write the copy, considering that we don't have as much knowledge of the products as our clients do. We typically provide a template to start with and strongly encourage clients to complete it for every single product they sell.
Product descriptions can be a daunting task for busy merchants, but I've been playing around with Shopify's new AI generated product description tool and think it's pretty neat overall. As always with new technology, there is some room for improvement. I walk through my experience in the video below.
Using ChatGPT, I was able to get a much longer, detailed description, and also get it to write in the format I wanted. Watch me do that in this video.
These features are groundbreaking, time-saving, and a must for merchants that struggle to produce product descriptions. However, there are some limitations and will likely be a starting point rather than a total solution. I'm pretty confident that the tool will improve greatly over time.
Our template from the ChatGPT video:
Product Title
Include a short paragraph here that includes descriptive information about who made the product, what inspired creating it, obstacles overcome to create it, how it was tested. Appeal to imagination, use technical details and entice with benefits.
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When we launched our new website for Electric Eye, and someone on our team noticed that we hadn’t finished entering some of the basic SEO info on the Shopify backend. We’ll be completely candid here and tell you that we didn’t really have it in our website build process. Why would we admit to you, as a potential client, that we didn’t really have our shit together? Because, we can all learn from our mistakes, improve the process and push forward.
The topic of SEO within the Shopify ecosystem is bit contentious. There are great SEO consultants, apps, and youtube guides to name just a few resources on the subject. Some of the advice is great, some of it borderline misinformation. We’ll keep things super simple for you. There is no need to seek out how to make your Shopify site more ‘seo-friendly’ if you don’t have the absolute BASICS already in place.
Out of the box, Shopify has the following fields available to enter Keywords:
Now, go to your Shopify backend and find each of these fields. Have you thoughtfully entered keywords for EVERY single page, product listing, product image, collection, and blog post? If you do, congrats, you are in a small majority. If not, just keep it simple, start here and go to town. Get into the good habit now, so that when you start blogging and producing more content it’s just second nature. Google will love you. You will sell more.
You should also consider optimizing your site structure and submitting your sitemap to google.
Now, the truth is we DO recommend these best practices to our clients, but we don’t necessarily do all the work for them when we build a site. While they could potentially hire us to help, it’s usually better to come from their own thoughts and understanding of the brand and product. We will, however, make it more clear moving forward that SEO best practices should always be followed.
]]>Yippee, we launched our new website for Electric Eye… this time on Shopify. Now, you might ask why we decided to build on Shopify, since we are technically an agency providing services and not a traditional ecommerce brand. The short answer is that Shopify is the platform we are most familiar with, and we were able to bring the website to market much faster and more affordably than hiring a developer and learning a brand new CMS. We were dangerously close to choosing Webflow, but it’s increasingly more difficult for these old dogs to learn new tricks.
Additionally, we think that Shopify is getting closer to being a solution for more than just ecommerce, whether they are trying or not. Recent upgrades make handling content and blogging way more flexible, think Wordpress. 'Sections everywhere' is a huge improvement for drag and drop style website building, think Squarespace. The app store solves almost any shortcomings you might run into with the platform. We’re able to have our agency site on Shopify, reap the benefits of its competitors, and we don’t even sell anything on it.
It used to be that any time someone asked where they should host their informational websites, we’d suggest other platforms and refer them to a trusted partner. We’re not necessarily saying that Shopify is for everyone, but it works great for us at this moment. It would be interesting to see if Shopify opens its software up to a larger audience as a method to continue its growth as a company.
Our previous site was built custom by our developer, but ultimately we wanted something that we could easily update quickly ourselves so we can be more efficient. We utilized a Shopify 2.0 theme called Baseline, built by our partner Switch Themes. They make super design-focused themes and have managed to do some really creative things with simple Shopify sections. Our font, Founders Grotesk by Klim foundry is elegant and simple, but with enough character to stand out. We opted to keep the design minimal with little customization. There was a slight update to our case studies, as we are trying to highlight some of our more recent successes.
We also tried to make sure that the copy reflects what we do in a very clear, simple way. Hopefully, it conveys that we do just a few things really well; Design, Development, and Optimization. We love building websites first and foremost. If you already have a website and want to make constant improvements, or just have a team of super-knowledgable Shopify experts to maintain it, we might also be a good fit. We’ve also done some complicated migrations and can move you over to Shopify carefully and confidently.
]]>A customer winback series is exactly what it sounds like, a series of emails designed to get your lapsed customers back to your site and buying things. In order to get them to return, remind them about what they liked about your brand in the first place.
This could be done with a lot of manual work, but the most effective way is to automate the whole process. Email marketing platforms like Klaviyo were designed with this in mind, allowing you to set automated triggers for firing emails to inactive customers after a number of days you choose. This way you can craft the series of emails once and let it go on autopilot. But before you do that, you have to think about just how you want to go about getting your inactive customers' attention.
Who Are These Customers?
The first thing you should do is determine what a lapsed customer looks like for your business. Is it someone who hasn’t bought anything in over three months? Is it someone who bought a product one time because it was on sale and never came back? Did this customer buy something as a gift during the holidays? It can really be anyone, but figure out who they are and segment them into different audiences. By doing that, you can develop a strategy that is geared toward each group instead of one generic series that might not work for every audience.
For the sake of this email, the customer is a girl named Sara. Sara is in her mid twenties with a college degree and has a job that affords her some disposable income every month. A couple months back she visited your site and bought two pairs of jeans and a sweater. A few weeks later she got an email and really liked a shirt you had and bought that too. But now it has been a few months and she hasn’t bought anything.
How to Start it Off
A typical winback email starts with a personalized message, something like: “Hey Sara, we miss you!” From there you proceed to show her similar products that she has purchased from you in the past. Remind her about the things you offer that you know she will like. Include images that link directly to your website and hopefully she will click on it and buy something. However, it is not always that easy.
Make it Worth Their While
So, the first email didn’t work. Maybe she deleted the email without opening it, or maybe she clicked on the product and bounced around your website for a little bit but didn’t buy anything. Either way, it’s time for a follow up. The second email should include some similar products but also add an incentive to buy. Give her a discount code for 20% off or free shipping on her next purchase. A little incentive goes a long way.
Send a Friendly Reminder
Ok, so that didn’t work either. You’ve already made it this far, one more email reminding her about the generous offer you gave her last time. A simple “Hey Sara, don’t forget about that 20% off, it expires in a week!” It’s worth a shot.
Make Sure You Aren’t Annoying Them
If all of that doesn’t work, it’s time to get self deprecating. Follow up with an email that says something like “Hey Sara… are we annoying you? We noticed that you haven’t been reading our emails and are wondering if you still want to hear from us.. And then include calls to action along the lines of “no, i still love you” or “yeah, you can stop sending me these emails” Hopefully she clicks the first one and gets a good laugh and heads over to your site. On the other hand, the latter may hurt, but at least you know not to waste any more time trying to get her back!
Is It Worth It?
Another thing to consider is how valuable this customer is to you. Do they have a high lifetime customer value? If the answer is yes, it might be worth it to keep trying to reach them. If their lifetime value is low, maybe you just keep sending them a newsletter and hope they decide to revisit your site.
Conclusion
As said before, just because they haven’t visited your site in a while, it doesn’t mean they don’t still like you. Some customers just need to be reminded that you are there and still have the things they love at a price that they can afford. Determine who your lapsed customers are and develop a strategy to win them back. Send them reminders and incentives, and if that doesn’t work, make sure they are still interested in hearing from you before you keep annoying them.
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1. Determine your strategy
The first thing you need to do when developing a welcome series is figure out what you want people to know about your business. Most welcome series emails include general information about the company such as how you got started, why you do what you do, and how your company culture impacts the way you do business. Keep it general, but also be informative and compelling.
The next thing to think about is what you want your audience to do. Do you want them to follow you on social media? Reply to your email? Come to an event? There are many reasons to grab people's contact info, make sure you know what the goal is before you start sending emails.
Now that you have that info all figured out, it is time to figure out how many emails it will take to accomplish that. Don’t overload your audience with too much info right off the bat. If the first email you send is wordy and super long, it is unlikely that anyone will read the whole thing and even more unlikely that they will open your next one. Break up your content in a way that makes sense and will hopefully get your reader to do what you want them to do.
2. Write your copy
The subject line in your first email is probably the most important part of the entire campaign. This line needs to be so engaging and interesting that your viewer will have no choice but to open it up and see whats in there.
Be sure to include all of the information you figured out in the strategy portion, but make it interesting. Be informative, charming, and fun. Make your audience glad that they signed up for this list.
3. Fulfill your promise
Most people sign up for a newsletter for a reason. If you offered a free “How To PDF,” a discount code, or a download of some sort, make sure you give it to them. If you don’t deliver on your promise, your audience won’t be able to trust you. By fulfilling your offer in your welcome series, you are giving your viewer instant gratification and reaffirming their decision to sign up for your newsletter.
4. Let them know what to expect in the future
Take a paragraph in your welcome series to let your new readers know what to expect in the future. Let them know the sort of content and/or offers that they'll have access to as subscribers to the email list.
Conclusion
Your welcome series is a very important step in your email marketing efforts. Competition can be cutthroat and many brands might provide the same sort of product or service. Using a welcome series in your email marketing can be a crucial step to instill a memorable brand identity that resonates with new customers and sets you apart from the pack. If you take care in crafting your welcome series emails with these four steps, hopefully you will be able to convert your readers into customers!
]]>There are many reasons that people leave your site without puchasing. Their computer dies, they get a phone call and close their computer, their wallet is in the other room and they are too lazy to go get it. Whatever the reason may be, it happens. However, just because they didn’t check out doesn’t mean they aren’t still interested. Send them a little reminder and get back on their radar. This is called and Abandoned Cart email, and here are a few tips to get started.
Subject Line
With any email, the subject line is extremely important. Your potential customer isn’t going to open your email if the subject line doesn’t grab their attention. If your customer thinks the email is just another newsletter they might dismiss it. Be clear as to why they are receiving this email. Say something like “Hey Kevin, looks like you forgot something!.”
What to Include in your Email
The Product: Be sure to include a picture and an in depth description of the item. Make the product the emphasis of the email. Doing this will remind your potential customer exactly what they forgot about. Be sure to make the image link directly to your website's checkout page.
Copy: The copy in your abandoned cart email should be quick and to the point. Try not to come off too salesy and try to stay kind of playful. If you are too aggressive, it might turn your customer away for good. Instead, use humor (if it fits your brand) and have a little fun with it. Say something like “Kevin! We know you really like this shirt, so we just wanted to let you know we’re holding one just for you!”
Call to Action: Sometimes your customer needs to be pushed in the right direction. Include a little call to action in your email and let them know that right now is the perfect time to buy the product.
Timing
You should send your first abandoned cart email within 24 while the product and your brand is still fresh in their mind. If the first one doesn’t get them to finish their transaction follow up again within 48 hours and consider giving a little incentive. Free shipping or a small percentage off can go a long way. Figure out an incentive that works for you and offer it up!
Conclusion
The abandoned cart email is a simple way to turn missed opportunities into sales. If a potential customer is placing an item in the shopping cart, there's a pretty good chance they're interested in shopping with you. They just might need a little convincing to tip the scale.
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Think the sale is over when your customer completes their checkout? Think again. Strategic marketers sell past checkout for a low-risk and low-cost way to boost AOV and increase ROI.
If you’re investing in customer acquisition, make sure you get the highest return possible for your marketing dollars by increasing AOV with a one-click upsell.
Let’s look at average order value like this: The higher your AOV, the more you earn per transaction. When you raise your AOV, you offset the cost of acquiring customers.
On average, 15% of customers accept a post-purchase offer. An informed post-purchase offer strategy will help your store to realize that conversion rate—or higher!
The sweet spot? Right after your customer completes their purchase.
As your customer is feeling a post-purchase high, present them with a targeted, relevant upsell before they see the thank you page. Using an app like CartHook Post Purchase Offers for Shopify stores, the customer can then accept the offer (or decline) with one-click.
Offers before the checkout can distract customers, so you risk losing the purchase or an abandoned cart. Post-purchase offers give merchants the opportunity to make targeted offers, without risking the initial checkout conversion.
Post-purchase offers are designed around one simple data point: What your customer just purchased. When you upsell wisely, you’ll not only increase your AOV, you’ll improve your customer’s experience.
Thanks to retailers like Amazon, customers expect personalized experiences. “Customers take it for granted,” McKinsey says of personalization, "But if a retailer gets it wrong, customers may depart for a competitor.”
Some merchants look at post-purchase upsells as a way to solve a problem (or to present customers with a solution they didn’t know they needed!). If you just sold your customer a dog collar, offer the matching leash as an upsell. Sold an electronic? Don’t forget the batteries!
Customers feel more like they’ve been served, instead of “sold to.” Specialized offers result in a higher likelihood the customer will accept the offer and a higher chance they will return to your store, boosting brand equity and LTV.
A few years ago, post-purchase selling was full of friction. Customers would check out, then receive a thank you email. If the email included an offer, the customer would have to click-thru (or enter a promo code, yikes!) to accept. Then, they’d re-enter payment and shipping info. As I said—full of friction!
Post-purchase offers are presented on an interstitial page, directly after checkout and before the thank you page. Customers can truly accept or decline the offer with 1-click and without re-entering payment or shipping info. Plus, offers can easily be accepted via mobile (good thing, considering 45% of ecommerce sales will soon be via mobile).
Single-click acceptance keeps conversion rates high! On average, merchants see a 15% acceptance rate on offers.
Did you know that 65% of a company’s business comes from existing customers? Plus, it costs 5% more to acquire a new customer over keeping a current one.
Ecommerce experts at The Good note that “with post-purchase offers, you’re targeting the prospects most likely to convert.”
Adding a little urgency is a proven tactic that drives action. Post-purchase upsells are fleeting offers, only available to customers right after their initial purchase. When you add a countdown timer to your offer page, the urgency leads to a sense of consequence and fear of missing out. One recent study found the presence of a timer created an 8.6% lift in conversions.
Modern apps like CartHook Post Purchase Offers, make it incredibly simple to implement a post-purchase strategy quickly and without a developer.
Here’s how to launch post-purchase upsells in 5 steps:
You’re in control of when a customer sees a post-purchase upsell. Decide if you want to display offers based on what was just purchased, cart value, and product count.
Let’s say your company’s hero product is eye brightening cream. You can decide to only show the cream if your customer has—or has not—already purchased it.
*A big caveat! One of the most successful upsell strategies is offering an additional item of what was just purchased.
An app like CartHook Post Purchase Offers allows merchants to add an unlimited number of funnels, or actions that trigger the offer. You can also add up to two post-purchase offer pages.
Many merchants find success offering an initial upsell, followed by a downsell. If your customer just purchased a french press, offer a milk frother as an upsell. If they decline the frother, you could display a lower-cost item, like a bag of coffee.
Choose products or variants to display, create unique post-purchase discounts, and set quantities for customers.
Discounts are a reliable way to ensure you hit a 15% acceptance rate (or higher!) on offers.
Are you a store that doesn’t typically offer discounts? Position the upsell as a super limited, one-time offer that’s only available to your loyal customers. A slim 2% increase in customer retention can lower costs by as much as 10%. If you have the margins, discounts may be worth the long-term investment!
Design your offer page so that it gives your customers a seamless experience. Consider adding timers, product descriptions and testimonials. You could even add seasonal headlines and images.
Keep an eye on your Shopify analytics to see how your funnels are performing. Small adjustments can have a huge impact. Test discounts displayed as a dollar amount vs a percentage off. You can also test funnel priority and try selling higher-priced products.
Once you hit your post-purchase stride, the ongoing marketing effort is minimal!
How do you know which products to offer? Or what type of offers perform well? Here are a few strategies used by top Shopify brands:
On average, merchants using CartHook Post Purchase Offers see a 10% increase in total revenue.
So a customer just landed on your product page. They hand in their credit card information and are now purchasing your item.
For many stores, that’s a good sign of success. But the question is, how do you turn those first-time customers into repeat buyers that always come back for more?
The answer: Optimizing the post-purchase experience of your customers.
If you’re not finding ways to engage customers during the post-purchase experience, you’re leaving money on the table. You’re missing out on countless opportunities to boost loyalty, drive repeat sales, and make your eCommerce store stand out.
The post-purchase experience refers to the final point of the buyer’s journey when the customer completes their order. It’s what you do to engage the customer after their purchase and keep them happy.
Most stores go wrong because they think that the customer relationship ends once the shopper makes a purchase. However, optimizing the post-purchase experience is what improves the customer relationship and will drive you the most sales. And it’s easier than you think when you’re leveraging automation to do all the hard work for you.
You may wonder what engaging customers during the post-purchase experience looks like. The best post-purchase workflows you can set up to keep customers hooked with your brand include:
Engaging customers after their purchase doesn’t have to happen just online. For a personal human touch that develops a long-term relationship, you can set up a workflow that automatically sends them a handwritten postcard after their purchase.
There are many reasons why you should consider including this workflow in your post-purchase experience strategy. First, it’s an excellent way to stand out from competitors by optimizing online and offline experiences. Secondly, it’s a great way to make customers feel valued and boost brand loyalty.
First impressions matter a lot in eCommerce. If you want your customer to come back to your store for more, giving a warm welcome when they purchase for the first time goes a long way.
A simple tactic to welcome first-time customers is sending them a welcome text once their order shows up at their door. On top of letting the customer know that their order arrived, it also boosts their satisfaction by making them feel valued.
SMS works so well in engaging customers because it feels more personal than other marketing channels such as email. After all, you’re reaching out to customers on the same platform they use to keep in touch with friends and family.
Also, SMS typically has a higher open rate than email. Texts have an average open rate of 98%, compared to only 20% for email messages.
Sometimes, unwanted things can happen during your product’s shipping. Traffic could get in the way, your delivery truck could break down, or maybe you lost the package.
These things aren’t necessarily your fault and might be outside your control. However, the worst thing you can do during these situations is not updating customers on the state of their order.
When things go wrong during delivery, you must follow up with the customer and update them immediately. Otherwise, you’ll have customers feeling frustrated and returning to you with the dreaded “Where’s my order?” question. They could even decide to leave a negative review and deter other potential shoppers.
The most common workflow you can set up to follow with the customer is to automate an email. With a tool like Mesa, you can create a workflow that identifies whenever an order is unfulfilled and sends the customer an email without any manual work from your end.
If the package still hasn’t arrived at the customer’s doorstep after quite a while, it’s once again vital to let them know. The more the customer waits for their order with no update from your end, the more they’ll feel frustrated with your brand.
Within Mesa’s platform, you can set up a workflow that sends an email to the customer after 20 days when they don’t receive their order within just a couple of clicks. You can offer the customer a sincere apology for the inconvenience and customize the email however you want (such as including a product discount to make up for the bad experience).
Negative reviews take a significant hit to not only your brand reputation but your sales. Over 93% of online shoppers believe that online reviews influence whether they purchase from a store or not.
Even if a customer posts negative feedback online, don’t worry: it’s not the end of the world. One of the best things you can do is set up a workflow with Mesa that creates a Gorgias support ticket whenever a customer drops a negative review via Yotpo.
That way, you can understand the reasoning behind the negative review and find ways that your brand can do better. Perhaps if you manage to solve the issue, the customer will delete their negative review altogether.
Need some real-time examples of the power of optimizing the post-purchase experience? Here’s how some top brands are engaging their customers after their order to boost customer retention and satisfaction:
Gladskin is a skincare brand that targets unwanted skin bacteria that result in eczema and rosacea conditions. They experienced heavy delays during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and desperately needed a better way to update customers on shipping issues.
Typically, each time they missed a shipment, Gladskin would email the customer to let them know. However, this took a lot of manual work on Gladksin’s end, and if they were ever to miss the expedited shipping window, they had no option but to refund the customer.
That’s when they decided to integrate Mesa as part of their eCommerce store. Thanks to automation capabilities, they could take their customer service to the next level and satisfy more customers post-purchase.
Instead of tracking down each missed shipment, Mesa did all the hard work for Glaskin by identifying unfulfilled orders and sending an email to the customer automatically for updates. It helped drastically reduce the skincare company’s “Where’s my order?” tickets and satisfy more customers, even in unpredictable times.
StyleMeGHD is an interior design company that offers affordable home decor products for its audience. They were looking for ways to step up their email marketing strategy to engage more customers and boost retention.
Their challenge was that they manually sent customers their order tracking link, which was a time-consuming process. They were also losing repeat customers due to not updating shoppers on the status of their orders.
Instead of hiring more employees to their support team, they decided to integrate their store to Mesa, which came with connections to some of the best email marketing platforms. Automating all of their post-purchase order emails saw an increase in customer lifetime value and fewer complaints.
“Mesa is a game-changer. [You can] free up your time spent manually reaching out to your customers and start automating processes where you can,” says Meghan Owen, Marketing Director at StyleMeGHD. “The team at Mesa is incredibly helpful and goes the extra mile to make sure everything is running smoothly.”
It’s not enough to focus solely on acquiring new customers to generate the best results, delivering an exceptional post-purchase experience matters just as much to grow your eCommerce business.
It all comes down to optimizing the customer journey. By keeping customers engaged at every touchpoint, from the second they land on your website to even after they purchase, you’ll be able to create a complete eCommerce strategy.
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Simply put, a good ecommerce lead magnet converts the right people -- those who are likely to become long-term customers and brand evangelists.
The right people aren’t just joining your list for a short-term incentive; they are joining because they are genuinely interested and invested in your brand for the long haul. It’s these quality subscribers who will buy from you again and again, effectively turning your email list into a money-making machine.
So when you’re thinking about a lead magnet for your product-based business, it’s important to think about it in terms of attracting quality subscribers over mere quantity.
In this article, I’m sharing why a discount should not be your go-to lead magnet and providing nine unique examples of ecommerce lead magnets to use instead.
First, let’s acknowledge that discounts are effective at getting people to join your email list. Promotional email capture strategies like discounts have been shown to have relatively high conversion rates, up to around 30% for some industries.
However, offering a first-time customer discount has become so common in ecommerce that it’s almost expected by consumers. In fact, 75% of people report searching their inboxes for discount codes before making a purchase online.
But this presents a problem for online stores seeking sustainable revenue.
When everyone who’s joining your email list is doing so to get money off their purchase, they expect discounts all year long. You end up creating a list of people who won’t buy from you at full price. After all, they didn’t join your list because they wanted your emails, they joined to get a discount. So, anything you send other than a discount may be a disappointment, leading to unsubscribes or poor engagement.
Not to mention, a discounting strategy runs the risk of cannibalizing your sales, as your profit margin decreases.
Fortunately, there are better ways to build a money-making email list.
The unique lead magnets I’m sharing here capture the attention of consumers who are used to being flooded with the same-old, same-old discount pop-ups.
Additionally, these examples offer brands the opportunity to intentionally build an email list of people who are invested in their company and products.
Let’s take a look at these real-life lead magnet examples from small and large ecommerce brands.
Offering a free consultation is a common lead-magnet strategy in the B2B world, but it’s not often considered by ecommerce brands. Yet, for the right type of product, a consultation can be a delightfully unexpected and high-value way to introduce new consumers to your brand.
If you have a large enough team to handle consultations, you’ll reap the benefits of getting direct face time with potential customers: Insights into their behavior, the opportunity to have a sales call, and a deeper connection.
Annmarie Gianni Skincare is one brand using a free consultation to build a highly engaged email list. The brand offers virtual skin consultations with their experts to diagnose the customer’s skin concerns and recommend a personalized skincare routine using their products.
They use a simple banner on their website that leads to a Calendly scheduler to book a call:
A quiz lead magnet has the highest average conversion rate (even higher than a discount). According to some experts, the average conversion rate for a quiz is 50%!
Quizzes make for excellent ecommerce lead magnets not only because they convert so well, but also because they tend to attract higher quality, more engaged subscribers. Quizzes require some time investment on the part of the customer, so they’re unlikely to appeal to people who are just looking for a quick, one-time purchase. Instead, people who take your quiz are interested in interacting with your brand.
Quizzes also offer you the opportunity to segment your email list and send targeted (highly relevant) emails to each subscriber, leading to a happier, more engaged list.
Quizzes can help customers choose which products to buy, which cuts down on decision paralysis or confusion about what to buy. Plus, when customers choose the right product for them, returns and exchanges will decrease, lowering your costs.
Kettle and Fire is one brand using a quiz to build their email list and provide instant value for their customers. Their quiz features prominently on their home page, suggesting to website visitors that taking this quiz is the first step to shopping.
Customers are asked a series of questions and then delivered personalized product recommendations, streamlining the shopping process.
And in a genius move, Kettle and Fire always recommends a personalized bundle of products at the end of the quiz, increasing the likelihood that consumers will purchase more than one product (thereby improving their average order value):
Positioning your email list as a community is a way to entice website visitors to join your list without offering an explicit incentive.
This strategy helps people feel like they’re becoming a part of something bigger than themselves and finding a sense of kinship among other fans of your brand. The community strategy works so well because it fulfills one of humankind’s greatest needs, according to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: Belonging.
Lodestone Candles of Kent & Co. uses the community strategy well. They refer to their email list as a “free membership” and explain that “members” of their email list receive promotions and even exclusive products that non-subscribers do not:
An email course is delivered one module at a time via the subscriber’s inbox.
An email course appeals to consumers who want to become masters of a craft or deepen their knowledge in an area. For this reason, an email course can work really well for a product brand centered around a craft (e.g. yarn for knitting), an activity (e.g. yoga gear), or a ritual (e.g. high-end tea sets).
An email course is not only an appealing offer for a certain type of consumer, but it also ensures that consumers get better results with your products, making them more likely to leave positive reviews, recommend your brand, and shop again.
For example, coffee appliance company Barista Lab has zeroed in on a target market of people who want to brew coffee-shop-quality coffee at home. For their lead magnet, they offer a free email video course to learn how to make coffee like a barista (using Barista Lab equipment, of course):
A product giveaway functions like a discount in that it’s easy to say yes to, it offers instant gratification, and it’s valuable to consumers. (Who doesn’t love free stuff?)
However, a product giveaway doesn’t prime consumers to expect discounts the way a discount would. Additionally, since you can control which product you give away, you know exactly how much financial value you are giving away to every subscriber (versus a percentage based on total cart value).
Finally, a product giveaway offers you the opportunity to introduce customers to a fan favorite that they may love so much that they buy it again, building future revenue into your lead magnet.
Kalon Clothing has a good example of a product giveaway as a lead magnet. They offer a free panty with subscribers’ first purchase. A product of this price point is not going to cannibalize the brand’s sales, but it still feels like an awesome welcome gift for new customers:
One of the simplest ways to build a money-making email list of engaged subscribers is to ensure that people are signing up purely for the value of your emails.
This way, everyone who subscribes is genuinely interested in reading your emails, which means they’re more likely to open them. And on the occasion that you promote a product to your list, more of your subscribers will be accustomed to opening and reading your emails -- thus more people will view your promotion.
Many ecommerce brands give a half-hearted attempt at this strategy, with opt-ins that say something like, “Join our email list to receive future promotions and product updates!”
However, company news and a vague promise of future promotions aren’t enticing enough, not when customers are constantly being asked to join email lists.
Instead, focus on creating specific, valuable content that stands out from other brands.
For example, you can get creative with your valuable content, like candle and stationery company Liberate and Lather. The company invites website visitors to join their email list to receive monthly journal prompts from the founder. This offer is truly unique and something that subscribers can look forward to every month!
A checklist provides free, educational content to subscribers, usually in the form of a PDF download. A checklist feels like a quick win for website visitors, making it easier to say yes to than something more in-depth like an ebook.
A checklist is ideal for brands in industries where some education is desired or required to get the full benefits of your products. For instance, a CBD brand might create a checklist of daily wellness activities to do every day, including taking CBD. Consumers can use the checklist to keep their self-care on track and learn how to incorporate CBD into their routines.
For another example, check out Black Girl MATHgic’s free checklist lead magnet. The company sells products designed to help parents foster a love of math in their kids, and they offer a free list of ways to build math confidence in their girls:
For brands that are struggling to develop a content-rich lead magnet (such as a quiz or checklist) but also don’t want to rely on a discount, offering free shipping for new subscribers is a good option.
Free shipping is easy to provide, and as a one-time offer, it often doesn’t cost your company much money. But for consumers, free shipping feels like major value. 90% of consumers have reported that they’d shop online more if they had a free shipping option.
Like a discount or free product giveaway, free shipping feels like a no-brainer to say yes to.
Jewelry company Project Moment Designs uses this strategy effectively with a pop-up offer:
A workbook is a highly engaging lead magnet for ecommerce. Not passive content to just be consumed, a workbook invites subscribers to interact with your content right away.
A workbook is an ideal lead magnet for many industries, but it’s a particularly good fit for brands in the self-help, wellness, or fitness industries. These industries tend to attract consumers who are motivated to improve their lives and so would be interested in investing time in a workbook that promises to help them reach their goals.
Supplement brand Gauge Life promotes a workbook for tracking macros (a nutrition habit) across a banner at the top of their website. Though the content of their workbook is not directly related to their supplement products, it is aligned with their audience’s ultimate desire to improve their health via nutrition.
Smart ecommerce brands know that in the chaotic world of online shopping, it’s important to stand out and be intentional with your marketing. This certainly applies to your email marketing and list-building.
So, it’s time to think beyond the discount as a lead-magnet. Instead, focus on offering something that will attract and convert high-quality, long-term subscribers. Hopefully, this article has given you more than a few ideas.
And once you’ve got a unique lead magnet up and running, you can’t just leave all your new subscribers hanging. This is where an email welcome sequence comes in.
Click here to watch our free video training on creating a money-making email welcome sequence.
]]>Think differently.
Apple’s famous tagline. And, coincidently, my advice for approaching your own company tagline.
Everyone loves Apple’s branding and messaging. It’s inspiring! It’s so minimal, yet so profound. It makes us think, “This isn’t just a smartphone. It’s part of my identity. It’s me who’s sophisticated and sleek and innovative. I think differently.”
So, how do you write a tagline that does all of that for your e-commerce brand?
Well, for starters: You don’t.
Brands with global recognition shouldn’t be your inspiration for writing your own tagline. “Think differently” works for Apple because most people already know what product Apple makes.
Because they don’t need to explain themselves, Apple’s tagline can be abstract and aspirational ...and it can make exactly zero mention of technology, smartphones, tablets, etc.
But most e-commerce companies don’t have that level of brand recognition. So, we have to think differently about writing a tagline.
The first tagline approach? Give it to me straight.
What makes your product the best on the market? What’s distinctive about it?
Build your tagline around your answer.
Example: Allbirds’ tagline, “Better shoes in a better way.” This tagline immediately tells consumers the two things their company is known for: better quality shoes and a production process that’s less harmful.
The second approach is to go a tiny bit aspirational. Build your tagline around the “transformation” customers get when they buy your products.
It can be helpful to think about this using the formula, “When they buy our product, customers can now [insert transformation] better than ever.” Whatever you put in the brackets becomes the basis for your tagline.
(Just be sure to keep it specific and unique—don’t use “Save more time & money!” as your tagline.)
Example: The Ridge Wallet’s tagline, “Carry Less. Live more.” The big differentiator for their flagship product is that it’s minimal and rugged, so you’re not burdened with a bulky wallet.
Some e-commerce brands were founded on a purpose bigger than selling a useful or beautiful product. If that’s the case for your company, you can convey your purpose through your tagline—because it might indeed be your differentiating factor.
(Just be sure your mission is something your customers care about almost as much as you do.)
Example: LunchSkins’ tagline, “A lifeless plastic.” Rather than talk about their product features or the transformation customers get this tagline zeroes in on the company's mission to offer an alternative to single-use plastic bags.
Now that you’ve settled on your approach, it’s time to play with the language and make your tagline perfect. Here are some tips for making your tagline as memorable as possible:
Your tagline is the wordy version of your company logo. Both 1) give people an immediate idea of what to expect from you and 2) help people recognize your company more quickly.
And the more customers can remember what your company stands for and sells, the more likely they are to think of it next time they need a product like yours—and the more likely they are to even recommend you to a friend, buy their holiday gifts from your shop, and talk about your brand to their community.
Finally, having a tagline you’re proud of makes your life as the company founder easier. Every time you’re out promoting your company, your tagline can do much of the heavy lifting for you. Instead of having to explain from scratch what you make or what your company does… you can whip out that tagline for an always-memorable starting place.
]]>Viral marketing is just content marketing using viral content. ...But what is “viral”? Here’s how you know that content is viral:
Something is viral if it is seen or shared a thousand times or more over a short period of time. It’s extremely viral if it exceeds the boundaries of the platform it originated from or if it makes the headlines.
The rule of thumb is, when the content spreads fast, it’s considered viral.
One good example of this is Oreo’s tweet during the Superbowl of 2013. The power went out during the Superbowl and Oreo’s marketing team tweeted something relevant and funny immediately. The tweet was retweeted 10,000 in just an hour. Part of why Oreo’s tweet went extremely viral was because it was featured on several news outlets, such as the Huffington Post.
Second, viral content get a lot of engagement and reactions, whether it’s retweeting, sharing, commenting, liking, etc. Engagement is a good KPI (Key Performance Indicator) for social media marketing campaigns.
Engagement is measured through action. This is the reason why most viral content is released on a social media platform--because those platforms have built-in ways for people to engage with the content. Shares, comments, and likes are all forms of engagement.
When people react to or engage with a piece of content, the visitor becomes a prospective lead. These people have the potential to be leads because now they know your company exists. And the more they engage with or react to other pieces of content that you post, the more probable it is that they will become customers.
Lastly, viral content triggers user generated content. The best example of this would be memes.
Memes, as defined by Lexico, are images, videos, pieces of text, etc., typically humorous in nature, that are copied and spread rapidly by Internet users, often with slight variations.
Memes are instantly recognizable. Just like the different kinds of language, each meme has distinct characteristics and a format. The format defines the context and use of a meme. Let’s have the Drake Meme or Drakeposting as an example:
We even have meme generators where people can simply insert their spin on any image. Just like the one I did above. I made a meme that’s relatable to people. Relatability leads to a cycle of comments, shares, and people’s own spins on memes.
Some might say, “Virality can’t be forced.” This statement is true but misleading. Yes, virality has to happen organically, and it can often happen randomly and unexpectedly. But this doesn’t mean that there is nothing you can do to “artificially” incite virality.
The two strategies are to use existing memes or engineer new content with viral potential.
Sometimes this can mean something as simple as taking a funny photo and captioning it as a meme. Or it can be something more funded like a video.
Here is one perfect example of an “engineered” viral video. A YouTube channel called Yes Theory fooled the internet last year by posting a picture of a Justin Bieber look-alike eating a burrito sideways. The internet ran wild and after a few days, the headlines were all about the Justin Bieber’s strange way of eating burritos.
Let’s take a closer look on Yes Theory’s strategy for engineering a viral piece of content. The Bieber burrito video was a product of...
Justin Bieber was the focus of their content. The fact that he is a celebrity and a somewhat controversial figure makes a strong foundation for viral content. The subject of their video was immediately recognizable by people around the world, making it more likely to spark conversations.
They chose to have Justin Bieber eating a burrito sideways. Not only is this topic a great conversation starter, it invokes emotions of awe, annoyance, humor and even offense. People are more likely to engage with and share a piece of content if it made them feel something strongly--whether it’s the “aww how cute” feeling we get from a dog video or something so funny we fell out of our chair.
They posted it first on a subreddit r/pics, which is a huge forum with 2.3 million people. But it’s too general. People are looking for all kinds of images--like cute dogs, beautiful landscapes, wedding photos…. So many who saw this Bieber burrito video on this subreddit probably skipped right over it. It wasn’t what they were there for.
But when the creators posted the picture on /rMildlyInfuriating, the video went viral. That’s because the platform was full of people looking for videos exactly like the Bieber burrito, mildly infuriating things.
Another quick takeaway from the Bieber burrito video is readiness after the content goes viral. The creators had moments of panic when news and media were contacting them about the content. Good thing that they happened to be good at thinking on their feet. When you create your viral content, you can be better prepared to capitalize on the attention (and turn all that attention into dollars).
Notice that the Yes Theory guys did not do “research. That is, they didn’t send out a bunch of polls to test the market or extensively catalog the characteristics of previous viral videos. Instead, they used their intuition and what they knew about people. They just brainstormed and thought of things that would incite conversation. Though research is always a good thing, what they did is crowd thinking.
Crowd thinking is exactly what it sounds like. Individual people will always have different points of view and different reactions to stimuli. However, a crowd thinks differently than an individual. The Yes Theory guys basically made a crowd persona and tried to anticipate how the crowd will react.
Think of viral content as playing Family Feud. It doesn’t matter how smart you are, just as long as you think like the crowd. Even if you give creative or funny answers, if the crowd doesn’t think like that, you’re going to strike out.
Don’t attempt viral marketing for the sake of going viral. Your goal should be to inform and entertain. Once people get informed or entertained, the people themselves will decide to share it, thus potentially making it viral.
Bringing genuine laughter and entertainment to audiences is the best foundation for viral content.
So, the question remains, should you invest in viral marketing? Yes! Here are some reasons why:
Businesses view it as a challenge, going viral. But it usually doesn’t take much money. All it takes is creativity and knowing your audience.
Before you start the process ask yourself, What are your customers talking about or asking about? Then, create content that will be hyper-relevant
That’s how you’ll create something they’ll love and share.
We mentioned above that viral marketing can be as simple as using memes. You just have to know the format of the meme, use a meme generator, and post memes now and then on your socials.
If your audience is asking a question, or you know they have a question in mind, answer it. If they’re talking about something, join in with wit and humor. That’s exactly what Wendy’s does on their Twitter account.
Wendy’s Twitter responds sarcastically to people who tweet at her. She also posts mean tweets about her competitors and even comments at her competitor’s Twitter accounts.
And that’s just it. No paid campaigns and you can even do these yourself or with a small team.
Marketing campaigns can only grow in two ways, paid and organic. Organic growth is the best kind of growth because it has the strongest of foundations. Once you produced a viral piece of content, people will be tuned in to get another content from you.
Viral marketing is a good investment, however there are guidelines you should keep in mind.
Just like any other marketing campaigns, viral content should be researched, measured, and improved. Remember, viral content is not a silver bullet or a band aid. It is not and it should never be a solution to any of your store’s problems. It is an option, an investment, and a gamble.
]]>We recommend that you start preparing six months before the holiday season. This will give you enough time. Some of the preparations that we will talk about take several months to prepare, test, execute, optimize and see results from.
This is a simple yet ignored part of the preparation. It’s not just your site that needs to be working well, it’s you and your staff as well. Handling the bulk and surge of holiday customers will be stressful and challenging. If you and your team have been working overtime for the whole preparation period, they might not be at the optimal condition to handle the holiday load.
You want yourself and your team to be hyper-focused, hyper-aware and fast to react should anything unpredicted happen. This won’t be possible if you and staff are sleepy, tired and stressed out. Create a calm before the storm to provide space to develop the physical, mental and emotional fortitude required to face the horde of shoppers.
Speaking of your team, have a meeting before you dig into holiday preparation. It is imperative for your team to be aligned on all the details you need for the preparation. Here are some of the suggested talking points in your meeting:
Some of your staff may already be planning to take leaves during the preparation or holiday crunch. Make sure that all of that information will be disclosed ahead of time as one unexpected absence in a critical time is going to affect the whole store.
In case members of your team will be gone in an emergency or unforeseen circumstances, assign someone who will cover their spot.
As a precaution, you can hire a project-based freelancer to be on standby in case the scenario above happens. Also, if you end up understaffed, you can easily hire a capable freelancer for specialized jobs without spending that much. All in all, outsourcing jobs is the best way to have manpower readily available, should the need arises.
There are some tasks that are repetitive and time consuming that can be handled by automating them. You can use Shopify’s own automation app, Flow, or you can explore other apps for Shopify automation. Here are other Shopify apps for automation:
Workflow Automation - Shop Workflow Automation
Customer Support Automation - Gorgias
Marketing Automation - Kit
One of the major factors that can make the holiday season not as much of a boom as expected is a lack of awareness about your holiday promos. Make sure you let your audience know ahead of time that you are going to do SOMETHING during the holiday season, whether that’s discounts, freebies, promos or similar.
As we mentioned earlier, there are some preparations that take months to see results. SEO is one of them. Think of SEO as a seed. For it to grow into a plant that yields harvests, you have to plant it months before you expect to see any fruit. And the fertilizer and water for your SEO seed is content.
We highly suggest making content based on the holidays such as the upcoming holiday product releases, gift ideas, product features, etc.
Looks matter for customers, but they value speed more than design. Your site speed is especially important during the busy holiday season. With more people buying for gift-giving, your site must be optimized for viewing in all devices and capable of handling higher traffic and more activity than usual.
The best tip we can give is to make your store simpler. That way, whatever internet speed your visitor might have, they will still be able to load your page quickly.
Here are other speed tips from Shopify:
If possible, do user testing frequently with a variety of testers. It’s even highly recommended to have user testers after every optimization. Let’s say that you first optimized the navigation. Have testers navigate through your site before moving on with the next optimization.
You and your team can use incognito mode to test your site on various devices.
If your discount codes don’t work, it leaves a VERY bad impression on your customers. Test them out before sending them out to customers.
To increase traffic, don’t have just one code. Have multiple codes for every day, if possible. That way, people will actively access your newsletters or social media posts to get more codes.
Selling out all your products is a good thing on paper (we’re popular!), but is a bad thing on the books. Running out of stock means you lose the opportunity to capitalize on the holiday season. Demand for products doesn’t just stop immediately, it trails off and can be long-lasting.
Also, the running of stock ruins the experience of prospective customers who were counting on buying one of your products for a gift.
Speaking of customer experience, don’t forget about quality. You may have the quantity on lock but also double-check for quality in your products. One bad experience could spread through social media and halt your rising sales.
You should always have multiple contingency plans in case the holiday season interrupts your usual business. We already shared one backup plan to have--outsourced staff. But here are some other things you need to be truly prepared:
During holiday preparation, you are going to make huge changes to your store. Sometimes those changes might have unintended effects on your store. To be safe, have a backup of your store that works perfectly. That way, if there are catastrophic changes, you’ll still have a copy of your working store.
Rewind offers a free, one time backup for your Shopify store that’s perfect for the holiday rush. Here’s the link: https://rewind.io/free/
The great experience shouldn’t just be for customers, but for visitors who don’t end up buying as well--the “window shoppers” of e-commerce. Make your brand memorable for them. You may not get them this season, but if you left a big impression, you will get them next season or even the next month.
We’ve said time and time again that impulse buying is a large percentage of online store sales. The holidays turn almost all shoppers into impulse buyers. Since they are already in the mood to buy, nudge them a bit and offer other products to buy in addition to the one in their cart.
We highly recommend making holiday bundles and suggested products. Holiday bundles make sure that you have more sales and more products out the door. Suggested products can be as simple as a line that says, “People who bought this product also purchased this,” at checkout.
Seasonal customers only buy at your store during these holidays. Take this opportunity to turn them into repeat customers.
Having your store fully prepared is a great foundation for making a good impression on your customers. But the next thing you have to do is to maintain communication with your customer. That means you must have some form of contact details for your customers.
Email is the preferred contact to have. According to WBR Digital’s whitepaper, “Adapting to the pace of omnichannel commerce,” 80% of business professionals believe that email marketing largely influences customer retention.
If you can’t get customer email addresses, another way to keep in contact is by having a strong customer following on social media. Not only will you be able to market to your customers through social media, but you may also be able to send customers direct messages, much like email...
First, thank each customer for their purchase. Then, get their feedback about the experience. Have two categories for the feedback: One for the store and one for the product. Here are some suggested questions:
Store questions:
Product questions:
As much as possible, give something in exchange for their feedback, such as freebies, discounts or exclusive content.
Getting feedback gives you three big advantages:
First, their comments and suggestions help you improve and prepare better for the next holiday season.
Second, asking for feedback gives customers the impression that you want to improve their service.
Third, you reminded customers of your brand after their purchase was complete.
Don’t forget that getting feedback IS part of the overall experience with your store.
Now that you’ve got your customers’ contacts, you should take advantage of the communication channel by offering helpful content throughout the year. You might do this through h a weekly/monthly email newsletter, status updates for social media, or both.
Set your expectations based on your data. Check your analytics. If you did not reach your goals and did not achieve what you forecasted, don’t be too hard on yourself. Analyze what went wrong and improve it next year. As we always say here in Electric Eye, “Fail fast, learn from it, keep on going.”
]]>Does the about page really matter? Many e-commerce store owners think that the about page belongs buried in their website footer, alongside cookie-cutter information like the privacy policy and shipping details.
But the about page is one of the most visited--and therefore most important--pages on your website. And it’s even more valuable for smaller e-commerce businesses that don’t have widespread brand recognition. New customers clicking on to your home page may not have a solid idea of what your company “is about.” It’s up to you to have an about page that tells them.
That’s why your about page is a huge opportunity to turn new leads into customers and even long-term advocates for your brand. It’s where you can go beyond talking about your products and share what makes your company special--why customers should choose your company over any other.
Many store owners view the about page as outside the sales funnel. They treat their about page like a boilerplate, where they share necessary information but don’t sell. By thinking this way, they’re missing an opportunity to convert new leads into big-time, loyal customers.
Think about it. If someone cares enough to read your about page, they’re going to be a pretty invested customer. If they connect with what your about page says.
So if you don’t get anything else from this article, know this: Your about page is very much a part of the sales journey a customer goes through on your website. Make it count.
Keep reading to find out how to write an about page that actually sells.
There are a few key reasons most people visit an e-commerce store about page. Knowing these can help you write an about page that gives people what they were looking for (and calms the doubts they have).
By clicking on your about page, customers are likely trying to answer one or more of the following questions:
Is your store legitimate? Buying from a new company online is an inherent risk. There’s the chance that the website is a scam, that the product quality isn’t what it claims to be, that the company is unethical. Leads head to your about page to get a sense of the company’s legitimacy.
More and more consumers are voting with their dollars. A 2018 study found that 68% of people would switch from a well-known brand to an unknown brand if the unknown brand was purpose-driven. And a whopping 78% of Americans believe that companies have a duty to positively impact society.
Many leads click on your about page because they need a reason beyond your products’ features to buy. They want to know what your company stands for or if your company has a do-good mission.
Because there are so many options for most types of products out there, many consumers want a feeling of connection with a brand to make their choice easier. That’s why some leads might be looking to your about page to get a clearer sense of your company’s brand and how well it lines up with their identity.
This is especially true if you sell a personal or subjective product, like intimates, skincare, home decor, or art.
Do you have a large catalog of products? If so, visitors to your website may be looking for clarity. What is the one-sentence explanation of what you sell? Sometimes, people feel paralyzed without context.
There’s no one-size-fits-all formula for an e-commerce store about page (how boring would that be?). However, there are some elements that all e-commerce stores should include on their page in order to optimize it to sell:
Readers should be able to get the gist of your about page from the headline. I like to think about this by asking this question: “If your company were a Netflix show, what would the one-sentence description be?” Netflix television descriptions are notoriously to-the-point. Because when people have a lot of choices, clarity always wins out over cleverness.
For example, Fresh Roasted Coffee has this headline: “Fresh Roasted Coffee is completely committed to providing our customers with the highest quality coffee on earth.”
For another example, look at Rothy’s: “We’re inspired by the remarkable women of today, and we’re proud to craft sustainable styles that help them effortlessly move through their day.”
This a place for you to reiterate your USP (unique selling proposition), which is marketing speak for what makes your company different and better than your competition.
For inspiration, here’s how Superfit Hero wrote its about page USP: “Our signature products have been tested and approved by athletes size XS-5XL, making Superfit Hero the most inclusive premium activewear brand on the planet.”
This paragraph is the meat of your about page. It’s where you pull back the curtain and share your company’s story with your customers. It’s important for this section to be written like a story so that customers can digest it quickly and remember it later.
Let’s break down an example from SKYLAR:
Don’t ask your readers to just take your word for it. Use your about page to load up on social proof to win over even the most skeptical of consumers. Here are some common elements to add to increase your credibility:
Your about page is part of the customer’s journey from the first impression to buying from you--but it should definitely not be the last stop. So, include a call to action at the end of your page to tell them where they should go next.
Your call to action can be simply “Shop,” but it could also be a different ask. Once you have your about page written, include a call to action that feels most natural. Here are some examples:
The overarching goal is to keep your customers moving through your website, rather than clicking away. Where should your customers go after reading your about page?
Making these mistakes could cost you the opportunity to turn a reader into a buyer.
Your headline is your only chance to make a compelling case for people to keep reading. Don’t throw it away on a headline that doesn’t say anything new. Common culprits are, “About Us,” “Our Story,” and “Welcome!”
Just call your about page “About” in the navigation, rather than something like “Our Truth,” or “The Backstory.” Not only does this confuse Google, it confuses readers who are looking for your about page but can’t find it.
One or two lines is too short for your about page because that’s not enough to inspire confidence in your company, let alone clinch a sale. Aim for at least 250 words.
It’s okay to have a longer than usual about page. Just make sure you’re not presenting it as one long block of text, even if you have paragraph breaks. Incorporate subheads, images, and maybe even videos to make it easier to read.
Don’t sit back and just hope that readers will scroll back up and click on another page. Give them a gentle nudge to go where you want them to go next, with a call to action button.
The biggest mistake you can make with your about page is simple: treating it like a non-sales page. While it is different from a product page or home page in that there’s nothing to buy directly on the about page, an optimized about page can actually be more powerful for your sales in the long run.
A good about page can foster a deeper connection between your brand and your customers. And deep connections don’t just make a one-time sale, they create long-term brand advocates.
]]>Marketing is always an integral part of any business. You can’t sell anything without marketing. But with the constant flow of media and ads that customers experience, people can get tired of constantly being sold to.
Instead, create content that isn’t explicitly selling anyone anything. You should have the mindset of giving value to get value. It’s the inbound methodology of marketing, better known as content-driven commerce.
Here’s an illustration. Let’s say that your store sells candles. You could write a blog post titled “5 Benefits of Lavender Candles.” That’s not a bad choice, and it leads easily into selling your candles at the end of the article, with a line that says, “Explore our range of lavender candles!”
But it’s still a little too sales-focused. For an article that gives more value than it sells, you could write a blog post titled, “Natural Ways to Fight Insomnia.” It would be an educational article that focuses on solutions for people to sleep, one of which is lighting a soothing candle while you prep for bed.
This article is more genuine and authentic because it has a more noble cause. Customers feel like they’re learning something real, not just being sold to. And even if they don’t end up buying from you, they’re more likely to think fondly of your brand the next time they need a candle.
Here’s how you should look at it: Customers want to buy but don’t want to be sold at.
One of the respected names when it comes to marketing is wine connoisseur and marketing behemoth, Gary Vaynerchuk. He has a TON of content. On his YouTube channel alone, he has thousands of videos, with more than two million subscribers. Being the smart entrepreneur he is, he knows that producing valuable content is great for your brand.
He is a very insightful man, so if you watch his daily vlogs, you’ll notice that he is just being followed around by a cameraman, waiting for a marketing idea to be dropped. And even that simple of a video concept is highly effective. Brands big and small are lining up to get Gary Vee for talks, advice and personal consultation.
But Vaynerchuk’s success isn’t just thanks to the amount of content he produces. It’s also about quality. When thinking about the quality you just have to answer these questions:
Create content for that. Be consistent. Regularly post content. This makes you visible to your target audiences. Decide on days of the week you would post content or a specific content type.
You only have 15 seconds to convince a visitor to stay at your store. You have to make those 15 seconds count.
Within 15 seconds, your homepage should answer all these questions in the customers’ mind:
A very good example of this is a Shopify store called Death Wish Coffee Company. Let’s break the homepage down. You can see how they answer all the above questions and include CTAs: “Select grind,” “Buy now,” and “Shop” and “Subscribe.”
Always immediately answer these questions so people can instantly identify who you are and what you do.
Promos are a great marketing tool to stimulate more sales. It’s also the best way to introduce new products and services. But there are cases in which they might not be the best solution to boost your sales.
If you have low sales, check your data first. It could be that you need more marketing campaigns or you need to change your target audience altogether, or something else.
Constantly having promos can lead customers to expect a discount every time they buy from you. Which means they’ll never buy at full price, and your sales will be consistently low.
People don’t want faceless, emotionless corporate machines. They want interactive brands. Customers unconsciously look for brands that value the human side of things. Here’s how you can make your marketing seem more human:
If you look at other articles that talk about e-commerce mistakes, you’re going to see email marketing almost always included on that list, and rightly so. You should definitely make it a point to get their email and send them newsletters. However, your communication with your customers shouldn’t end there.
Enable chatbots or simply let your customers know your Messenger is open to them. Encourage them to give you feedback, reviews or suggestions in any channel they feel comfortable with, and value what they say.
Customers enjoy time with your company as a part of a brand relationship. You can facilitate a relationship between your brand and your customers by putting out helpful or entertaining content and encouraging interaction on social media. Always leave your customers the option to react and comment on your content.
Speaking of community, what’s EVEN more valuable than having a conversation/relationship with your customers is sparking a natural conversation through a community. In one of our recent podcasts, Dale Bertrand, President, and Founder of Fire&Spark, said that the homerun SEO strategy is to start a movement/statement or a mission.
If you have something you are passionate about, make it your brands’ message. The first brand that comes to mind is Tom’s and their One for One® campaign. This makes your brand more than just a name behind a product, or a channel which customers can get valuable content from, it’s their own space with like-minded individuals sharing the same passion.
No. Go over h… We’ve got 25… Here’s a video… Did you understand anything that happened? Of course not. That’s what the visitor sees and thinks if your marketing strategy is unorganized. Here’s what you can do to make sure your marketing strategy is helpful, not confusing or distracting:
Your website can include multiple types of media that function as design or get visitors’ attention. But don’t include a type of media or a design element just for the sake of it. Instead, use them as guides to help visitors navigate through your site. Imagine a pathway that your visitor’s eyes will take on their way to purchase.
There is nothing wrong with pop-ups and media that plays automatically. But if these interrupt the flow of navigation or startle the visitor, you might want to time them properly. Check your data. Use heatmaps such as Hotjar to see where customers stay and gauge if the media you’ll push will interrupt their flow.
Your customer’s journey should not end after the visitor becomes a buyer. It’s like leaving the customer without seeing their final form. You can convert customers into advocates. These are customers who will buy from your store repeatedly, get more customers for your store and even help other customers with your products all in one.
A community only requires three things: people, commonality and interaction. Make your brand the center of commonality and interaction between people.
You can start by having a place where your community can gather. It can be a social media page, a forum or even a group chat channel. Then you can simply talk to your customers there, make announcements, have sales events, ask for their feedback, send out polls, etc. Make sure that interactions are encouraged and negativity will be regulated.
Kevin Kelly, the founder of WIRED magazine’s started the theory of 1000 true fans. He says that in order for you to do what you love for a living, especially in the field of art, you need 1000 true fans. But this could also be applied to online stores.
You don’t need that many customers for your store to be profitable, but you have to have the right customers. True fans are the right customers for your store. These people are usually the leaders of your community. They will be the ones to help you in promotions, take care of the community, defend you from bad press and much more.
So, throughout all your e-commerce marketing efforts, remember that you’re never trying to appeal to everyone in the world. You’re just trying to appeal to your 1000 true fans.
]]>First, let’s talk about how search engines work. Our claim that search engines are just like “town folk” may sound weird, but check this out. Imagine going to a city you’ve never been to before for vacation. Your first day in town, you ask a stranger, “Where’s the best place to get hot dogs in this area?” You’re gonna get four possible answers:
Hopefully, you don’t encounter the fourth stranger. We can assume that the first two answers are from locals. Both arrived at the same conclusion: go to Hot Dog Haus on 7th street.
Let’s look closely at those answers. Notice that our “locals” have the same answer but with different sources. The first one based their answer on word-of-mouth, and the second one based their answer on their own experiences. If you combine them both, it’s very similar to how search engines work. Search engines try to listen to what people say all over the internet and they look at their own archives.
Another point that we can take away from this analogy is how much effort it will take for a new store to be known. If you ask the locals about hot dog places, they will only tell you the ones they’ve already been to or heard about. Just like brand new brick and mortar locations need advertising or strong word of mouth, new stores won’t show up in search engines unless they have proper marketing and have had the time to grow their reputation.
Securing a top rank in the search engines is almost the same as finding a good store location. Every consumer would rather go to a store that’s easier to find than wander the streets for a long time looking for a lesser-known place. If it’s well-known, it must be good. Plus, most people don’t want to spend a lot of time searching.
This is especially true for online shoppers. Prospective customers online are way less patient than normal consumers going to a physical store. Most online customers only click on the websites on the first five pages of search engine results. It’s about convenience and being where the other buyers are. Both contribute to traffic. More traffic, more chances for conversions, sales, and advocates.
Convenience for an online customer is measured by how soon they can get the shopping done with the least amount of work (or clicks). The fewer clicks it takes to reach your store, the more accessible it is.
It’s a really wise investment to secure a spot where your customers frequently visit, such as social media or Google. Impulse buying has a very high percentage of contributing to e-commerce sales, 40% to be exact.
The best way to take advantage of this phenomenon is to be highly visible. Being at the first page of search results means that when a customer tries to search for “cute pet collars,” you’ll be there to satisfy their impulse.
Optimizing for search engines ultimately translates to efficiency and specialization.
For example, a bread knife is a really dull knife. It can’t cut certain things, but it works perfectly well on bread. It’s optimized for bread cutting. An optimized Shopify store is designed to be easy for customers to shop--which means loading quickly without problems and being intuitive to use.
An optimized store is a big plus for customers. Your store WILL NOT rank high if it’s not optimized for speed and good navigation.
If a user is unable to find what they need quickly or has to wait several seconds for your site to load, they will exit your website. If enough people exit quickly, that tells the search engines that it’s not a relevant or credible website to suggest.
Think of Google as a wine seller. You say to Google, “Show me your best wine!” Then Google opens up his top shelf, displaying all his best wine. You picked the topmost wine as it is supposed to be the best.
But once you taste it, the wine is not even fully fermented yet. It’s disappointing. And you won’t blame the company who produced the wine, you’ll blame the wine seller because they placed an unfermented wine on the top shelf, giving you the impression that it’s the best wine.
The wine seller doesn’t want to damage his reputation, so if enough of that top-shelf wine is returned by customers, he’ll take it down a few shelves. Similarly, Google does not want to be blamed for bad top search results, so they will demote pages that see a lot of quick exits.
If we go back to our wine scenario earlier, “top-shelf” items have an expectation that they are the best of the best. These are the items a store owner is proud of and wants to highlight to be seen immediately by customers.
But the wine store is also organized by type of wine. There’s a top shelf for Italian wines, for Californian wines and for French wines. There’s a top shelf for white wines, for red wines, for dessert wines. When a customer comes in and asks for a “sweet after-dinner wine,” the wine seller directs them right away to his top-shelf dessert wines, because he knows those are the wines they’ll like the best based on their needs.
In the same way, customers perceive the first search results on a search query page to be the most relevant, quality results for their specific needs. They type in what they want into a search engine, and it directs them to a specific “top shelf” of results.
This is why SEO specialists recommend producing content that includes relevant keywords and synonyms for those keywords. Search engines connect the keywords on your web page to the query someone has typed in to know that your web page is relevant to their needs.
Relevance is achieved through context. The more information you have about a product, the more relevant it will be to a customer. Think of your about page as an example. For the sake of simplicity, let’s say that Google only considers the page for SEO. On your about page, you only have this as your content: “We are a textile company, trusted for 40 years.”
If a customer searches for “uniform manufacturer US,” you might not show up on the results page because you used “textile.” But if your about page says: “We are a textile company in the US that specializes in manufacturing uniforms,” your Shopify store has a better shot at being one of the top results.
The customer CAN give more context to their search, but you can’t depend on them for that. I suggest you watch the skits by College Humor, “If Google Was A Guy.” It’s a funny take on how people use Google, and it shows that people don’t use many contexts when trying to search for something.
The burden of providing context, then, falls on you. This is why content marketing works hand in hand with SEO. The more information your store gives about your product or things related to your product, the more relevant you will be to Google and to prospective customers.
The inevitable, yet the unintended consequence of producing more and more quality content to give your customers more context is Topic Authority or Thought Leadership. Producing content about and around your product tells the search engines and potential shoppers that you are one of the experts on that specific topic. This not only makes customers trust you more, but it also incentivizes search engines to show you on top.
Your competitors are already close, in fact, you are already in the same space. However, we don’t mean its literal sense. Learning from your competitors is the best way to be competitive. See what types of content they are producing and base your upcoming content on it. A rising tide raises all boats, meaning the trends that you and your competitors ride will push you to the top.
SEO is a very challenging feat. The process of optimization is time-consuming and could take months of preparation and implementation. Sometimes, benefits can be felt immediately, but more often, the real benefits happen over time.
Also, unlike securing a physical location which is basically set-and-forget deal, SEO requires maintenance; it’s a constant struggle to be on top. There are other e-commerce sites that are also vying to be on top who are maybe doing similar things as you are. Lastly, there may be updated to the algorithm that can change the progress you’ve worked hard to gain.
However, focusing on SEO is worth it. Think of it as working out. It takes a lot of effort just to get in shape. But once you are in shape, you will feel stronger and more confident, and your lifestyle will be healthier. Once your efforts in SEO take effect, the maintenance will be easier, and you’ll reap the benefits of being a well-known, accessible, efficient and trusted store.
If you want to learn more about SEO, here’s our guide on how to kick ass at SEO, and here’s our latest podcast with Dale Bertrand talking about the homerun strategy of SEO.
]]>E-commerce chat might seem straightforward. It’s just having a chat feature for your online store, right? On the surface, yes, e-commerce chat is simple. However, before you implement e-commerce chat, you have to make decisions about who your customer chats with and where they will be able to access chat.
Is live chat really necessary for small online stores? This question has become a topic of discussion between marketing experts and e-commerce gurus.
First, let’s be clear that chat SHOULD be a feature of your store. However, deciding whether a live agent or a chatbot makes the most sense for your store isn’t always easy.
70% of consumers still prefer talking to a human over chatbots according to Sitel Group’s 2018 Index Report. Based on this alone, it might seem safe to say that we should follow what the majority of customers are saying and opt for a live agent behind our chat. But it’s more complicated than that.
If your store is still small and doesn’t receive a large number of questions every day, a team member can probably take on the work of chat customer support. But once your store grows and you start getting more questions to field, you’ll need a dedicated chat support staff, and the cost of employing/outsourcing a professional can sometimes be unaffordable for a small business. For this scenario, a chatbot is the best solution.
Chatbots are easy to install and the program can handle multiple customers at a time and are much cheaper than a live agent. However, chatbots can only do basic functions and cannot produce proper responses to complex problems.
That said, here are our recommendations:
Chatbots usually are sufficient for small Shopify stores. They can handle multiple customers efficiently, do basic troubleshooting, and answer frequently asked questions.
But if you have the resources, we highly recommend you have both chatbots and live agents. Chatbots will handle the basic functions and questions during off-hours. Then live agents will handle the complex situations. This way, you'll have a bot or a human to cater to your customers whenever they reach out.
We have the same recommendation here. If you can, have chat available to customers on both your website and other platforms.
Having a chat feature on your Shopify store is a great way to be there when your customers want more information. Most customers just need a little nudge to push them into a purchase. Sometimes, that nudge can be as small as answering their questions via a chat.
Here are some of the best-rated Shopify chat apps to integrate directly with your online store:
Gorgias ‑ Support & Live chat by Gorgias
Re: amaze Live Chat & Helpdesk by Reamaze
The most common chat support third-party platform is social media. All social media platforms and apps already have chat features built-in. And because it’s easy to use and free, it’s the simplest way to get started with chat.
7 out of 10 (70%) of Americans are on some form of social media according to Pew Research Center. That means that the majority of consumers are on social media.
According to the 2017 Connected Shopper’s Report, 31% of millennials are twice as likely to buy right from social media. And according to Invesp’s infographic about impulse buying, 40% of e-commerce purchases are impulse buys. So, if you have a social media chatbot, you can be there when many customers have the impulse to buy.
While social media chatbots are the easiest and possibly most effective third-party chat platforms, they aren’t the only option. Aside from social media, there are other platforms that can support chat features. Specialty chat apps such as WhatsApp, Viber, Line, Telegram, etc. can also be supported by Shopify’s apps. Here are some of the chat support apps from Shopify:
Facebook Chat Box ‑ Live Chat by Autoketing
WhatsApp Chat + Cart Recovery by SuperLemon Apps
WhatsHelp Chat Button by WhatsHelp.io
Many customers either love or loathe a business based on its customer service. Customer service begins with chat. This is where you build relationships with your customers.
When a customer needs information and you give it to them, they have a successful interaction. As we have discussed in our previous blog post, successful customers bring success to your store. Happy customers pull in more customers and keep buying your products for years.
What makes chat invaluable to customers is the fact that it is casual. Interactions with businesses in the past are either too formal (emails, letters, submitting “reports,” approaching concierges) or too transactional (only after sales). It doesn’t show genuine care for or interest in the customer, and it could alienate the unsophisticated average consumer.
Chat is like saying to your customer, “Hey, just message me if you need me, alright? Cool.” It’s like a welcoming invite from a friend whom you can ask for help.
Chat means your customers have a way to be more honest about what they think of your products or customer service. Sometimes, they will be brutally honest about your products, and that’s painful to hear... but sometimes that’s exactly what you need to improve your store.
Formal ways of communication are usually not in real-time. Maybe you have seen this reply before: “Thank you for your feedback. Please wait two business days for our response.” In our fast-paced lifestyle, that won’t cut it. Chat is almost real-time. Customers will get the information they need within seconds or minutes.
Also, customers don’t wait for business hours to ask for information or tell you something about your store. If you have a good chat implementation, they can message you anytime they want.
This is especially applicable if your store’s voice is also playful and humorous. Formal/traditional communications usually follow a format that is exclusively serious. Chat opens you up to sending emojis, gifs, pictures or memes to your customer, making the conversation livelier. It also helps customers feel more comfortable reaching out to you.
Chat support shouldn’t just be the responsibility of just one department or one person. All your processes should revolve around your chat, as chat will eventually affect your whole store. Here are some of the roles/departments that will be affected:
Since chat is so accessible for most people, you will sometimes receive chats that are not necessarily worthy of attention. Be careful as some people can send offensive messages, intentionally waste your time or be a nuisance just because they can. Never give them attention, as that is exactly what they want. Don’t waste time and effort. Just block or ignore them.
Trolls are generally harmless and will just waste your time or annoy you at the worst. Chat Shopify apps and other platforms are secure so far, but that doesn’t mean that we can let our guard down. Cybersecurity is a serious problem. People can send links or files that are malicious. Be very careful when opening these through chat.
So far, there have been no instances of Shopify stores being hacked through chat. But you should still be very careful, as it is a big possibility.
Like everything, chat comes with a few concerns. But overwhelmingly, it’s the easiest way to ensure that customers will buy something from your store. By answering customer questions, providing casual communication, and paving the way for honest customer feedback, the chat is an asset for e-commerce.
We definitely recommend your store to start implementing chat support as soon as possible.
Once again, here are the links for the apps you can use:
Tidio Live Chat by Tidio Ltd
Gorgias ‑ Support & Live chat by Gorgias
Re: amaze Live Chat & Helpdesk by Reamaze
Facebook Chat Box ‑ Live Chat by Autoketing
]]>As a customer interacts with your store, they can either have a successful result or a failure result. A successful result is one where they get everything they want from your store and leave feeling good about it. A failure result is one where a customer leaves without getting what they wanted or leaves feeling bad about their experience.
So, when we talk about making customers successful, we’re talking about delivering that successful result for them--where they leave completely satisfied.
If we’re going plainly with the definition, customer service is anything you do to help your customers. But, in the context of business, it takes on a whole new meaning.
When it comes to running an ecommerce store, customer service becomes more than just “something you do.” It’s actually one of the most crucial parts of a customer’s interaction with your store. Why? Because of its timing.
Customer service is responsible for two important things for online stores: Education and Support. Usually, these occur before and after the purchase, respectively. That means your customer service is the foundation of your sales and repeat sales. It’s what makes people feel confident about buying from you in the first place and then helps them maintain that trust afterward (so that they hopefully become repeat customers!).
In physical stores, the customer service desk either has “customer service” or “information” displayed. If you can’t find what you’re looking for or need help with something, the customer service or information desk is the first place you go to.
For online businesses, customer service reps give customers the information they need about a product before or during purchase. This can involve answering questions or providing instructions. Seems easy and inconsequential, but it’s a very big thing for a customer.
Remember this: an interested customer asks questions. The more questions they ask, the more likely they will make a purchase. Properly educating a customer creates a good impression and pushes them closer to purchase.
A completed sale shouldn’t be assumed to be the last time a customer will interact with your store. There are many things that could happen between you sending the product and the customer receiving the product. Customers can receive damaged products, they might not know how to use it, they might receive the wrong product, or the product might not be what they were expecting. This is where customer service needs to be handled even more carefully.
It may sound like a cliché, but every interaction is an opportunity. Remember that customer support is not just about fixing the problem, it’s also about handling the problem properly.
You can give a refund bigger than what the customer paid for, but if you did not communicate well with your customer, they will still feel negatively towards your store.
Make your customers feel that you are listening, that you understand what the real problem is and that you are willing to fix the problem.
If you need more customer service tips, you can listen to our podcast with Vincent Phamvan, the Head of Growth at Simplr. Click here to listen.
There is one secret to customer satisfaction: paying attention. Ask for feedback, do diligent social listening and take the steps to solve the issues your customers tell you about.
When it comes to feedback, most dissatisfied customers will let you know what the problem is. But you should still ask them to be more specific about their problem. Let them know that you are listening, you understand where they are coming from and you value the feedback they gave. That signals right away that you are paying close attention.
Then, do some social listening for feedback that you didn’t directly ask for. Check customer comments and reviews on social media. This is where you’ll truly understand where they are coming from, as most social media comments are unfiltered and much more to the point.
Finally, use the information you just gathered to fix their problem. When carrying out the fix--such as issuing a replacement item for one that arrived damaged--aim to go above and beyond the simple fix. Many customers, even when they are presented with a solution, will not be completely satisfied because there are underlying concerns they want addressed. For example, the customer who received the broken product is likely hoping for reassurance that this won’t happen again. If you pay attention to these concerns while giving the solution, then the customer will be truly satisfied.
It’s easy to form relationships online. Just message “Hi!” to a stranger on Facebook or comment on someone’s Instagram post. Boom, you’ve made an acquaintance. But maintaining a close relationship, especially with your customers, requires consistency and communication.
Think of a really close friend. How often do you talk to them? You may both be busy and have less frequent communication than you’d like, but it’s still pretty regular, right? If you went months without any type of communication, it would be safe to say that you are no longer “close friends.”
But, just like with a close friend, you don’t have to be interacting with your customers 24/7. You just have to be regular--and you have to be there when they need you. Regularly publishing content such as newsletters, blog posts, video clips, podcasts or even just social media posts is already consistency. Round it out by being available to answer questions or address concerns, and you’re well on your way to feeling close with your customers.
Close relationships require open communication. Multichannel and omnichannel support is definitely preferable, but in reality, both require massive resources to pull off. You’ll need software, training and manpower.
If you have the resources, we highly recommend you invest in multichannel or omnichannel support, because it ensures that you’ll be there whenever and wherever a customer wants to reach you. But if you don’t have the ability right now, just having a social media account that is responsive or automatic chatbots are a big step toward having open communication with your customers.
Here are some Shopify apps to help you with your social media and chatbots:
Messenger Chatbot Marketing by Akohub
Gobot ‑ Sales Boosting Chatbot by Gobot
Octane AI for Messenger & SMS by Octane AI
Customer advocacy is easier said than done. There are no metrics or data to quantify how much of an advocate you are. That could mean that you can just claim how much you love your customers without actually doing anything for them, right? Maybe, but most consumers can smell fakeness from a mile away.
So how can you get started with real advocacy? It starts with your store’s branding and culture. Before advocating for your customers, advocate for something that you are passionate about. Don’t just make your brand about your products and services, but also highlight your story and what you stand for.
Most customers feed off of a brand’s passion, and it’s easier for customers to stand with you when they can see you championing advocacy through a strong mission.
People resonate with a sense of community, fueled by passion. They will eventually think, “I relate to this brand. We both believe in sustainability [or whatever cause/principle you champion]. They are so passionate about their beliefs that I trust they’ll do the right thing for their customers, too. ”
We talked about how to develop the best mindset for pulling off this type of advocacy in our recent podcast with Dale Bertrand, Founder and Managing Director of Fire&Spark. When asked what the best strategy for SEO is, he said, “Not all companies can do this--but the ‘Homerun Strategy’ for SEO is to lead a movement.”
If you want to listen to the full podcast and learn more about movement-driven SEO with Dale, click here.
Great experiences aren’t always positive all along the way. In fact, sometimes, turning a bad experience around can be more powerful than a good experience from start to finish.
It’s easy to provide the best experiences to already happy and positive customers. But remember, the harshest critics tend to be the loudest. These are the ones that you need to provide great experiences to.
To transform bad experiences, remember two things: Collaborate first, then Accommodate.
Collaboration is about working with the customer to fix the problem. Involving the customer makes the problem-solving more interactive and gives a sense of control and goodwill to the customer. Get them involved by taking note of their feedback on your proposed solutions.
If collaboration doesn’t work, accommodate what they want. It might mean a loss for your store in the short-term, but it will definitely create a better experience for a customer than a compromise would. Go above and beyond for the customer (but within reason).
If you do these things, even if the customer had a terrible experience in the beginning, they will leave your store with a great experience, knowing that you went the extra mile to do what you could to help them.
Let’s say that a customer, Chase, purchased a product from your store but was unsatisfied. It seems that the product details did not set proper expectations for him, and the product he received was not what he thought he’d be getting. Chase then contacted your store via email, and you arranged a refund. You also replaced the product description in question and asked Chase for feedback on the new description.
He liked the changes on the product description, so you implemented it. Chase then received the refund and gave a lengthy positive review on your website detailing his experience with your store.
Though initially it was a bad experience for him, he still ended up with a successful interaction.
Now, let’s look more closely at all of the elements of great customer service that show up in this scenario:
Now, how does this scenario lead to your store’s success? Let’s look at what happened after the customer wrote the review...
When you help one customer be successful, you earn more customers. First, site visitors will read the review of your successful customer and be inspired to buy your product. And on the other side, your successful customer might just be so impressed with your customer service that he will then share his experience with his friends and family.
In short, making your customers successful makes your store more successful in the long run:
Don’t fall for the flawed idea that you can have a product “so good, it basically markets itself.” Instead, bank on helping a customer become so successful, they market your products for you.
Remember the marketing flywheel concept? Successful customers are at the edge of your flywheel. The more your successful customers are, the more gravity they push on your flywheel and the more force your flywheel spins. It’s a good cycle that benefits both you and your customers. More successful customers will only bring more success to your store.
]]>Sure, you can market your products via ads...and more ads. But the strongest e-commerce brands connect on a deeper level with their customers, ultimately creating a community around their company.
That’s why, pretty much as soon as you’ve built your online store, it’s time to start thinking about marketing strategies that aren’t always sell sell sell.
Yup, I’m talking about content marketing. Specifically, blogging. Blogging is the simplest way to ease into content marketing, and it’s a great foundation to have when you make the leap into more complicated approaches–like social media, email newsletters, and podcasting.
Check out what some e-commerce stores are doing to make blogging worthwhile for them!
Fleur & Bee is a natural skincare e-commerce company that shares short and sweet articles about skincare tips and natural skincare FAQs. What I want to highlight here is that they aren’t just delivering information and then hoping their readers will draw a line from their expertise to their products.
No, for every blog post, they end with a converting conclusion. Their conclusion looks like part of the blog post–and it is, sort-of. But instead of just summarizing their blog post in their conclusion, they alert their readers to a common issue with skincare and position their company as the solution.
Check it out:
The problem they point out? Most skincare companies are far from transparent and include complex chemical ingredients. The solution? Fleur & Bee’s natural-ingredients-only skincare lines.
Oh, and did you catch the calls to action snuck in at the bottom? Genius.
Ending your blog posts with a converting conclusion (call to action included!) is how you capitalize on the fact that someone read to the very end of your article. If they’ve made it that far, they’re into what you have to say–so they’ll be receptive to an offer.
Driven Coffee is an online store for specialty-grade coffee beans. Interestingly, they sell both to businesses (coffee shops) and consumers (regular people who brew coffee at home). And their product is specialty. That means that their customers probably know a good deal about coffee already, and they really care about it, too.
Driven Coffee speaks to that by building out a blog on niche specialty-coffee industry topics. Not only does this give their customers what they want, but it also helps establish Driven Coffee as an authority in the industry. The more authority you have in your space, the more potential customers will trust that your company is legit–and your products are amazing.
Check it out:
If you have a product that’s specialty, niche, B2B, or technical, use your blog to start building your credibility in the space.
Pura Vida sells artisan-made bracelets in their online store, but their blog goes far beyond the bracelet. They use their lively and colorful blog to plug into the lifestyle of their customers. Articles like “Tips for an Eco-Friendly Travel Experience,” “Eucalyptus Lime Scrub,” and their “Artisan Spotlight” series focus on the other aspects of their customers’ lifestyles and buying habits.
Pura Vida has managed to create a huge, engaged community around their company, and their blog is a reflection of that. It’s not just a company for bracelet-lovers. It’s a company for anyone who ascribes to the all-natural, outdoors-loving, eco-conscious lifestyle.
Check it out:
Don’t think your blog has to be closely related to the products you sell. You can get creative with topics, choosing to write about concepts that your customers would love to read about.
But be careful: This type of strategy only works if you have a very defined target customer. Otherwise, you’ll wind up with a blog that feels “all over the place.”
Oliver Sweeney is an online cobbler-made shoe company. The company’s biggest selling point is that all its shoes are thoughtfully designed and made in small, family-run factories using traditional techniques. The company blog is mostly dedicated to letting readers behind the scenes of the creation process.
This content strategy works because it contributes to the company’s reputation as deeply concerned with the making process.
Check it out:
If you’re proud of the way your products are made or there’s something special about how your company operates, a behind-the-scenes approach to your blog can help you double down on this unique thing about your company.
Wax & Wick is an online candle company based in Chicago. What I found most compelling about their blog was that it wasn’t just talking about candles. It shared honest, first-person articles by the company’s founders about their experience running their business and creating candles their customers would love.
Check it out:
This content strategy works because it humanizes the brand, helps them stand out, and gives readers something inspiring to hold on to. People love buying from companies they feel like they know personally because it’s human nature to feel good about supporting one another.
If your company was built on a dream of yours or you’ve really enjoyed the entrepreneurship side of running your business, then this is a content strategy that might come easy to you.
One of the best things about investing a blog for your e-commerce store is that your articles are readily transferable to other types of content marketing, which means you get double or triple the mileage out of each article.
You can repurpose articles in…
As Copyblogger put it, the build-it-and-they-will-come strategy doesn’t work for e-commerce. As soon as you can, you should start building out a content strategy that will boost your authority, improve your search engine ranking, and help you stay top-of-mind with your customers.
]]>The internet is actually just a glorified communication tool. If you think about it, using the internet is just a smart way of sending and receiving data. But due to its speed and scalability, people found ways to use it beyond communication. The last decade’s innovation almost exclusively revolved around the internet and its by-products.
Enter IoT, the Internet of Things. It’s a way for “things” to communicate with each other. It may sound simple, but it opens up a whole lot of potential for innovation, just like the “normal” internet (internet for people) opened the digital future for us.
See, communication is always a two-way thing. Let’s say that you posted something on Twitter. “What a great day to have instant ramen.” You wouldn’t say that it’s communication if it’s just your post, right? But if someone liked your Tweet, commented, “Hey, what brand is that? I’d love to try other brands.”And that makes it communication.
But we tend to forget that communication isn’t just sending and receiving information. It’s also about processing. If the message simply reached its intended receiver, it’s just an attempt to communicate. It has to be understood by the receiver to be considered true communication.
Context is an integral part of communication. Imagine asking a Frenchman in Japanese, “Toire wa doko desu ka?” (Where’s the toilet?) That’s failed communication, isn’t it? So, just building a road connecting two entities can’t be considered communication--yet. It’s just the first step.
Today’s innovation isn’t about solving problems anymore, it’s about making things easier. Thousands of patents are granted each year for inventions created just to make the average consumer’s life a bit more convenient.
Convenience, according to Lexico.com is, “the state of being able to proceed with something without difficulty.” However, often, convenience isn’t necessarily eliminating the work that goes into an activity; it's just displacing one’s efforts. Instead of doing something yourself, something else will do it for you. There are multiple unseen things that are working in the background to provide “convenience.”
Take for example vacuuming your floor. It has to be done regularly, and it requires physical work to do. However, you can either rent a cleaning service to do it for you or buy a robotic vacuum to do it automatically. It’s convenient for you since you don’t have to do the vacuuming physically, but still, it has to be done by someone or something.
But where is communication in that scenario? For the cleaning service, you have to reach out to them, agree on a schedule and lastly, pay for the service. For the robot-vacuum, it’s almost the same thing but you don’t have to pay every time it cleans.
You need to communicate and coordinate what you need to accomplish before they proceed. Information is being exchanged, and in the end, there is an agreement between the two parties.
E-commerce wasn’t born out of necessity, it was created to take advantage of the internet for convenience. That’s the very same reason that the IoT has been developing. This convenience spans all walks of life, from smart homes for consumers to smart offices and warehouses for store owners. Here’s how e-commerce and the IoT might work together in the near future:
You’ve heard of smart assistants, like Amazon Echo, Google Home, Apple HomePod and Samsung Galaxy Home. If you say smart home, these are things that immediately come to mind.
Smart speakers are often the hubs to control other IoT devices, and smart appliances are multiplying exponentially. From thermostat control to smart blenders, you can control them all using just your voice through the smart speakers. Imagine saying, “Alexa, good morning.” Than Alexa, turns on your smart coffee maker, switches on certain lights, controls your thermostat, reads your schedule, then turns on the news. Now, that’s a really smart home.
You can take advantage of this niche for your next e-commerce store. Customized smart appliances, attachments that make “dumb” devices smart, and more. Let your brain go wild. Currently, smart appliances are being dominated by mainstream brands so there’s a massive opportunity for more streamlined e-commerce stores to explore some niches in this industry.
Smart home appliances without smart speakers are connected to the internet so consumers can control them via smartphone apps. This is pretty good, but most people would prefer voice activation.
Voice recognition/activation technology isn’t going away anytime soon. It’s going to be a future feature on all things tech, and e-commerce store owners need to be ready for it. We strongly recommend that if you are just starting an online store or planning to do futureproofing, you think about incorporating voice technology in your online store experience.
Think of consumers ordering something on your store by talking into their computer or tablet, and your store responding in a unique way. If you go this route, make your branding voice activation friendly and like a real person.
What makes IoT devices amazing is the collaborative functions they have, plus the data they can gather.
The three basic principles of what a computer does are based on communication: input, process, output. But smart devices, ironically, are “brainless.” Meaning that the processing part of the communication/computing principle is not done by the device itself; it’s processed through the cloud.
But because of this “brainless” approach, smart devices can be customized depending on their use case. Now, only your imagination is the limit on how many smart devices you can have for your store.
Here’s an example:
Let’s say that you gave a Shopify store that makes custom t-shirts. A customer ordered a batch of seven shirts. Each shirt has a different size, different color (for each color of the rainbow) and different print (star, square, heart, diamond, spade, clubs and circle).
The customer places the order. Once your store receives the order, your Smart Shirt Size Sorter™ (wink), sorts the colors and sizes for the order. Then, it sends a signal to a Robo-transporter to get the shirts and transfer them to your Smart Printing Device.
After printing, the Smart Printing Device calls the Robo-transporter again to send the shirts to you for packaging.
While this is happening, you track every aspect on your tablet and know exactly where the shirts are and what’s happening to them. You can see the shirts because the devices have cameras on them. You can also see which device needs maintenance as their statuses appear on your dashboard.
You finally receive the shirts, with your custom touches for packaging. Ain’t that amazing? But wait, there’s more.
Now imagine, that a consumer can view all the progress of the product on their tablet as well. They could see the products being made for them on a live stream.
Another scenario where your store sells coffee. Then the customer’s smart coffee pot automatically orders new coffee from your store whenever the pot’s content is running low.
The possibilities are endless with store and customer integration.
Think of IoT as having a new supercar. It’s new and amazing, but you gotta be very cautious because it’s very powerful. You can’t put your pedal to the metal as soon as you have the car. You have to feel it out first, before taking it to the highway.
Going back to our scenario above with the smart pot. It’s really convenient to have the pot send a signal to your store and order a batch of coffee. However, to order a batch of coffee, the integration would involve sending their location, their name, and financial information. That is a lot of sensitive information being transmitted over the internet.
IoT devices aren’t the most secure devices at the moment, and there have been multiple reported breaches exploiting IoT devices. It’s definitely one of the biggest things you need to consider when thinking about IoT implementation for your store this time.
However, IoT technology is a fairly young innovation. It’s still in development and more improvements are being done everyday. It will reach maturity sooner than later. Security concerns can definitely be in check through careful planning.
We are still overwhelmingly supportive of this technology and looking forward to the day that all of our scenarios above will be the reality. You should be, too. Any step towards innovation is progress for e-commerce.
]]>It is now easier and cheaper than ever to execute marketing campaigns and place ads digitally, but that also means that customers get bombarded with more ads than ever, leaving them less likely to notice yours. So, take a page from the brick and mortar playbook and tie your ad up with an event to make it more inviting. For example, you could have fabricate your own event by promoting a multi-day sale as a celebratory occasion. Or, you could promote your sale as related to a real holiday like the Fourth of July.
Sales events can be leveraged even further by cross-promoting the event via a special guest, such as another store or an influencer. Your special guest could write a guest blog or guest social media post all about your sales event and why they’ll be “in attendance” (online!). Imagine this: Your store, Sapify, has a one week sale: 50% off on all juice flavors because you are celebrating your second anniversary. During that week, you have a guest podcast with Meatify, another online store that sells vegan meat.
You now have both Sapify and Meatify’s audiences to promote to. It’s also helpful for Meatify since your audience might also become followers of their podcast.
(The businesses are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual businesses is purely coincidental)
Having visitors is one thing, keeping them in your store is another. People on average stay on a site for just 15 seconds… which is definitely not enough for them to make a purchase.
It’s always more probable for a visitor to spend money if they spend more time in your store. Longer visits give them time to think and encourage their impulse to buy something. Although they might just be browsing at first, they might think eventually, “Since I’m already here, I might as well buy something.”
Brick and mortar stores are able to keep people in their store longer because people are there in person–and it takes longer than a click to exit an on-the-ground store. However, there are some tricks you can borrow that still apply in the online world.
A visitor needs to feel welcome and comfortable for them to linger. Just a simple greeting from the site itself or a welcome email can go a long way toward creating a welcoming atmosphere.
Even though accessibility and convenience are optimal online, hospitality still matters. A brief, virtual, “Hello, welcome!” keeps the consumer at ease and immediately creates a positive impression.
Aside from aesthetics, smart tactics can also be applied to design.
Retail stores have specific layouts that are really designed to keep customers in. Most commonly, the way brick and mortar stores do this is by controlling the customer’s pace around the store, such as by placing impulse-buy items in a long, winding checkout line. Here’s how you can control your customer’s pace online:
One of the most beautiful aspects about online shopping is the convenience. You don’t have to wade through crowds and you don’t have to wait in line. Because of this, everything is expected to go fast.
It could depend on the audience, but most of the people who visit your store will be browsing on their phone or computer. Not all people can afford the latest mobile device or laptop so keep in mind that cool but complex and slow-loading designs will take even longer to load on older software. Make assets (themes, pictures, video clips) as small in size as possible with minimal quality loss to enable fast loading times no matter what device people are browsing on.
Don’t worry, this is not a direct contradiction to the first point. Pages should still load fast, but you should implement design choices that make visitors want to slow down. It’s all about the teasing of information.
For example: On your product display page, highlight some of the important details on the immediate product display. This way, if customers are interested, they will click the product they want and this is where all the details should be.
Make sure that you also leave some selling points on the product details page so that you can still have another hook for the customer.
Another method for slowing down visitors are product highlights. Show best selling products immediately on the home page, and customers will stop and take a look at them. Remember, don’t go all in so fast. You need a bit of teasing to get the visitor’s interest.
Shoppers might need information, assistance and someone to talk to. In retail stores, this is intuitive–salespeople monitor the store and jump in to answer questions when a customer looks confused. But online, you have no way of knowing when a customer needs help, so it’s important to have virtual support standing by for a customer to ask questions.
The best way to offer this is to have chat support integrated with your website. Chat support, whether by bot or by a human is a very big plus for winning over a shopper. Chat support programs are easy to implement. However, it can be a challenge to determine how to approach the customer. Customers want finding help to be easy, but they don’t want to feel annoyed by a big chat box flashing in their face if they don’t need help yet. Chat support needs to be easy to see when a customer needs assistance but not intrusive and disruptive.
It’s going to take some time to get this right. The more data your chatbots/chat support team has, the more accurate your response time will be. We strongly advise that you get started implementing some form of chat support to gather enough data and finetune chat support to your audience’s preferences.
Another way to offer support is through FAQs. Make sure that this link is easily accessible for customers.
Lastly, you could provide instructional guides or video tutorials for your products or services.
Just as in traditional retail, in the online shopping world, a visitor who leaves without a product hurts conversions, but it’s easy to make them come back when they still have a positive impression of your store. However, if a visitor left with a bad experience, you might end up losing them. What’s worse is that bad experiences spread like wildfire and could discourage potential customers in the long run.
So, try to take negative experiences such as products out of stock, returns and replacements and make them positive. The simplest way to do this is to address and acknowledge bad experiences that are broadcasted on social media, and then, of course, do your best to solve the issues. It gives a very good impression when you address these problems publicly. However, be very careful as people can be hostile on social media.
This ties in closely to the previous point. Bad situations with good experiences often still make people want to come back to your store. Consider the experience of a retail shopper who finds that the store is completely out of their size but is satisfied by the staff’s helpful attitude. Likely, that customer would come back the following month because they believed the store had their best interest at heart.
Even though you won’t typically be able to interact person-to-person with your online customer, there are more things you can do to reinforce their desire to return to your store.
One common way is to have loyalty/membership/rewards programs to incentivize people to visit again and again. But there are other ways to keep people coming back.
Which brings us perfectly to our next point...
Stores are not just vehicles for transactions. They are also vehicles for information, entertainment and social events. Retail stores often host community events in their spaces, such as a yoga attire store hosting free yoga classes for loyal customers.
Creating a community online can be done through extending your brand into the other aspects of your customers’ lives, using blogs, podcasts, videos and social media.
Not only should you have open communication between your store and your customers, but you also need to have your customers interact with other customers. Host polls, discussions, AMAs (ask me anything) and other activities to have your customers bond over your brand and form a community around it.
Make your store not just a store, make it a digital “hang-out spot” for visitors.
Competitive collaboration might sound like an oxymoron, but it’s a normal practice between competing brick and mortar stores, especially in the food industry.
Imagine food contests in which local restaurants try to compete with presentation, skill or just plain taste. Some of those contests are actually organized by the restaurants themselves. It opens them up to new audiences while highlighting their specialties. It also stirs up the community, validating their loyalty amongst their chosen brands. It’s a win-win for everyone.
A great way to do this online is to have a subscriber/follower race. The winner will take over of the social media account of the other, or something along those lines. You can be creative with the mechanics and specifics.
Just make sure that you already have an agreement with the competitor first and make sure that both your audiences agree to be civil. It could divulge into a screamfest if proper expectations aren’t established.
Physical stores do have a lot to learn from e-commerce but that doesn’t mean that e-commerce can’t get something out of the strategies brick-and-mortar stores have been employing for decades.
Digital stores have a reputation for constantly trying to come up with new, innovative strategies for customer service, marketing and sales. However, standards remain for a reason they work and have been working for years. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Even though brick-and-mortar stores’ strategies might seem out of date, there’s no denying that they work. And with a few simple tweaks, those tried-and-true strategies can be applied with great success online.
So, while innovation is usually good, don’t forget that the foundational principles that built traditional retail are worth being inspired by.
]]>Growth can be devastating if you aren’t prepared. Preparation and planning include making sure that your systems, processes and manpower are able to accommodate the strain of having more customers.
Some experienced business owners might scoff at this mindset. Many people believe that if you expect the worst, you’ll be more prepared when something inevitably goes wrong. While you should indeed prepare as much as you can, continually expecting the worst is going to make it harder to achieve growth. Optimism, on the other hand, gives you the confidence to grow your store.
It’s never too late or too early to adjust and plan for your growth. So even if you’ve been running your store from a place of fear so far, you can turn your mindset around today--and start running it from a place of optimism.
The biggest advantage of being an online store is the wealth of data at your fingertips. Yet, too many online store owners don’t take full advantage of their customer data. The future might be uncertain, but so much of it can be predicted using data. Base your plans and preparation on data (provided by Shopify analytics or Google analytics).
According to Forbes, one of the secret facts that make online businesses successful is outsourcing. There are multiple benefits in outsourcing work for your store:
The backbone of your store is your existing customers. Don’t focus too much on acquiring new customers. Instead, focus on the existing ones. They are the ones who will fund your growth.
Market to your loyal customers. It may sound counterintuitive, but it works effectively. This makes sure that they keep buying, which sustains your revenue. They will also be more likely to buy more and invite more people because they are delighted with your store. A core of loyal customers leads to growth and success.
Use positive reinforcement for your customers, like loyalty programs, referral rewards and promos. Incentivize loyalty. Give a reason for customers to come back.
Here are some Shopify apps that can help you with that:
Smile: Rewards & Loyalty by Smile.io
Referral Candy by ReferralCandy
Loyalty & rewards program by LoyaltyLion
Feature customers by reposting their user generated content. This hits three birds with one stone. It makes the highlighted customer happy, it shows other people that you recognize your customers and it encourages other customers to post content for you so they can be featured, too.
Stories and growth are synergistic. Growth always has a story behind it, and a story will not be worth telling if there is no growth. A story also shows you and your audience how much you’ve grown. It’s a beautiful entanglement.
Just starting your online store is already a story of growth. You built a business out of nothing!
You might feel pressured to make your brand’s story stand out. While you should consider highlighting what makes your store unique, it shouldn’t affect your true story.
That’s to say that your story doesn’t have to be over-the-top. It should, above all, be real. Authenticity is more valuable to your audience than novelty.
Speaking of authenticity, you have to be very careful of the relationship between your story and your brand. If what your brand stands for is not in line with the story you’re telling about it, it will diminish your perceived authenticity to your audience.
Have a story for the wares you sell. Take this advice literally: “People don’t buy products you sell, they buy stories you tell.”
Instead of making generic product descriptions, use stories that help people understand why to buy, how to use it and when to use it--and even, what buying that product says about them. . This is especially important if you have a very unique selling proposition or a motivation for why you want to sell your products.
The greatest key in any healthy and productive relationship is to communicate with and help everyone involved in the relationship. Your store and your customers are in a business relationship, and the same principle applies: you must communicate and help one another.
The best way to interact with customers is to use social media. Not only are most of your customers using social media, the platforms also pave the way for interaction between humans and businesses.
Posting useful content is the easiest way for you to ”talk” to your customers. Post tutorials, tips or even memes that your customers would appreciate.
You can highlight user generated content, instead of always creating your own, new content. The easiest way to find user-generated content is by asking for it through social media.
One of the best ways to interact with your customers is to do it in real-time. Use the live feature of social media platforms to hang out, show your everyday life, give a behind-the-scenes tour or gather questions from your community and answer them.
Even partnering with just one brand influencer for your store will help support and encourage your growth.
First, the influencer already has a community. Depending on their fame and how long they’ve been an influencer, they could have followers ranging from one thousand to millions. These are the potential customers you can reach through the influencer. We recommend you go first with nano or micro influencers with a range of 500 to 10,000 followers, because the cost is going to be lower.
Second, that means that your store’s content and communication isn’t solely relying on you on your marketing team. Influencers can take on some of the load of your marketing content, depending on what you’ve agreed upon.
You can’t see how much you are growing if you are too focused on reaching your goals. Have a set amount of time for you and your team to reach your target growth. After reaching your designated time, have a meeting to look at your progress with fresh eyes, detached feelings and a new perspective.
If you measure and quantify your growth immediately after reaching your designated time, you might be too attached to the work, and you might make decisions based on emotions rather than data. Step back, let it out of your mind for at least a few days and then go back. That way, you can realistically and objectively see if you’ve really made progress or not.
This is a very effective mindset to have, especially for online stores. Being flexible enough to improvise and adapt, and resilient enough to overcome challenges are some of the biggest advantages of having an online store.
The online environment is very fast-paced. Trends pass by so fast, and sometimes, a decision needs to be made while the tide is high. Don’t hesitate to think on your feet. The greatest ideas might sound the craziest. Humor yourself and just try. Shopify’s platform gives you the freedom and flexibility to do that.
However, if you want to make a less risky decision, consult your data.
Shopify’s built-in analytics or Google analytics analyze the data of your customer behaviors and your store traffic, and then they present it in an objective and understandable manner. It’s smart to use this data to adapt a strategy that isn’t working into one that might do better.
Fortunately, Having Shopify’s flexible platform, makes it easy to implement changes on-the-fly in real-time, even without interrupting business operations.
Sometimes, the only thing that’s stopping you from growing is yourself.
Doubt is one of the most handy behaviors that we have for self-preservation. However, if you don’t keep it in check, it could be a very big hindrance to growth. Get perspectives from outsiders such as a consultant, a loved one or your friendly neighborhood Shopify expert. Someone who’s not emotionally attached to the success of your store will be able to tell you if your doubts are reasonable or unreasonable.
It can be helpful to think of your store like a tree. Remember that for a tree to grow in a healthy way, you need to prune unhealthy branches. Similarly, don’t be afraid to change course if a campaign, plan, decision or marketing tactic doesn’t work. Shopify has plenty of tools and opportunities for you to tweak, test and experiment.
Finally, don’t be too hard on yourself. Growth is growth, no matter how little your progression. It’s definitely way better to have little growth, than to have losses, stagnation or growth that’s too fast for you to handle.
Growth is a constant. Having an online store is a never-ending journey of learning, adjusting and growth.
]]>This blog was provided by Krista Walsh. Krista is a freelance copywriter for e-commerce small businesses. Her writing and messaging strategies help her clients speak to their customers’ values and emotions, for meaningful sales. Connect with her at kristawalshcopywriter.com.
You’ve probably heard of “features and benefits” before–maybe in some eyes-glazing article about the importance of “consumer-centric” marketing, or maybe wedged into a chapter in your hefty college marketing textbook.
“Features and benefits” just sounds boring, I know. But understanding the difference between them (and knowing how to craft a message around them) are valuable cornerstones of your marketing.
So, let’s breakdown the what’s and why’s of features and benefits for e-commerce marketing.
Here’s the quick and dirty answer:
Features are aspects of your product, which could be technical or descriptive.
Benefits are why that feature matters for your customers. In other words, how that feature makes their life better.
Features tell customers what, and benefits tell customers why.
Let’s take a look at an example of features and benefits in action: S’well product descriptions for their Geode Rose S’well Bottle.
In the following handy chart, I’ve separated out the features of the products from the benefits included in the product description:
Features | Benefits |
---|---|
Triple-walled, vacuum-insulated construction | ...which keeps beverages cold for up to 24 hours or hot for up to 12 |
Food-grade stainless steel | ...which allows for refilling and reusing easily |
Copper wall layer | ...which creates a condensation-free exterior |
9 oz size | ...which makes it perfect for on-the-go |
The features tell the customer something noteworthy about the product, and the benefits explain how the customer’s life gets better because of it.
Notice that I’ve added the phrase “which,” in the benefits section. When you’re writing your own product messaging, it can be helpful to think through the benefits of each feature using this phrase. For instance, your internal dialogue might go…
“Our water bottles are made with a copper wall layer... which creates a condensation-free exterior.”
Having that “which” there prompts you to add the why behind the feature. (You don’t have to include the “which” in the final copy, though. It’s mainly a tool for remembering to include benefits for every feature.)
When we talk to one another, we instinctively understand the power of benefits. Imagine you’re discussing where to go to dinner with a friend. The conversation might go something like…
“Let’s go to that new Indian restaurant.”
“Nah, I think we should go to the Thai place because they have a happy hour special right now, so we’d actually be able to afford drinks.”
You’re selling the Thai place based on a feature (happy hour), but you make sure to outline why that matters (so we’d actually be able to afford drinks). That’s a pretty compelling point for why you should go to Thai instead of Indian.
Somehow, when we sit down to write our marketing message, all our instincts go out the window. So, as a reminder, here’s why you should include benefits, not just features, in your product messaging:
Features are often technical, like “triple-walled construction.” Consumers likely have no idea why having triple-walled construction in their water bottle matters for them. A benefit explains why they should care about the technical features.
In a well-known 1978 study, researchers had participants ask to cut in line to make copies (back when places like Kinko’s were common). Some participants were instructed to give a reason for why they needed to cut in line, and others were instructed to ask to cut without giving a reason. Those participants who instructed to give a reason were over 30% more likely to get a yes. And the kicker? The reason didn’t even have to be good. In fact, sometimes, the reason was, laughably, “because I need to make copies.”
Something in our psychology is begging for a because or a why. So give customers a reason–a benefit–for every feature.
Many customers are looking for a product that solves something for them. For instance, they’re looking for a water bottle that can keep their beverages hot or cold for long periods of time. If S’well hadn’t spelled out that benefit behind their triple-walled construction, many customers probably wouldn’t have made the connection from feature to the solution they needed… and wouldn’t have made the purchase.
To land at truly compelling product messaging, you should aim to go deeper with benefits than the first “why” you come up with.
If you start by answering, “Why did we include this feature?” you’ll easily come up with a simple reason. That’s when you go deeper. Keep asking “Why?” for every answer. Why would customers want that benefit?
S’well’s product description did a pretty good job of including deeper, more compelling benefits. Let’s take another look at our S’well benefits and features chart, this time adding in the deeper benefits:
Features | Why did we include this feature? (Benefit) | Why do customers want that? (+Deeper Benefit) |
---|---|---|
Triple-walled, vacuum-insulated construction | ...to keep beverages cold for up to 24 hours or hot for up to 12 | ... [on this feature, they didn’t go further but you could imagine something like this:] so that you’ll never find your drink’s gone lukewarm |
Food-grade stainless steel | ...to allow for refilling and reusing easily | ...so that you can reduce your need for single-use plastic bottles |
Copper wall layer | ...to create a condensation-free exterior | ...so that you don’t get sweat on your hands or in your bag |
9 oz size | ..to make it perfect for on-the-go | ...so that you can pack it in your handbag or lunch bag |
By going just slightly deeper with the benefits of each feature, S’well’s overall case for why customers should buy this water bottle is far more persuasive.
As a business owner, you might feel a little silly at first laying out all the why’s behind your product features. Won’t customers “just get” why a feature matters? If my water bottle is 9 ounces, won’t customers know that the size is small enough to carry with you? They’re not dumb!
You’re right. Most consumers aren’t dumb. But most consumers are busy and distracted. So why leave it to chance that they’ll connect the dots? Don’t assume your customers will understand right away why your product features are great. Clearly tell them why in compelling benefits.
]]>Let’s take a look at how Shopify is shaping up against its biggest competitors.
Shopify has two types of competitors because of its unique position in the e-commerce space: Its fellow e-commerce platforms and “The Aggregators.”
Shopify’s direct competitors are dedicated e-commerce platforms that you can build and customize from scratch. Here are the biggest e-commerce platforms out there:
BigCommerce is the most similar to Shopify and is a direct competitor to Shopify Plus. As its name suggests, BigCommerce is mainly aimed toward medium to large e-commerce stores, especially B2B (business-to-business) e-commerce.
Pros:
Cons:
Magento is one of the most established e-commerce platforms. Before Shopify and the other e-commerce platforms, Magento was hands-down the top pick for online businesses.
Even in today’s more crowded landscape, when it comes to open-source platforms for e-commerce, Magento is still the best out there.
Pros:
Cons:
One of the oldest platforms out there, Volusion has been around since 1999. Volusion even developed the very first online shopping cart, paving the way for modern e-commerce to flourish.
Pros:
Cons:
Though Big Tech and social media earn large sums of money from ads alone, they still want to find more ways to increase their revenue. So, major Big Tech and social media companies are dipping their toes into different pools of income--and e-commerce is one of them.
Amazon became the largest company in the world at the beginning of this year.
While part of Amazon’s success is brought about by CEO Jeff Bezos’ vision of prioritizing growth over financial gain, having a big focus on e-commerce definitely helped big time.
This is also the reason why Shopify immediately was compared to Amazon. When underdogs are rising up the ranks, people always reference the top dog.
However, in the beginning, Shopify was not directly competing against Amazon. Both are e-commerce companies, but they have different purposes and business models. Shopify focuses more on being a platform while Amazon focuses on being the distributor. But recently, that has changed.
One of Amazon’s greatest achievements is its Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) service. Due to the company’s immense size and power, they can make overnight shipping possible.
Logistics and shipping are inherently very costly, and adding expediency to that equation raises the cost exponentially. It is a gargantuan financial strain for a small company, and only mammoth companies such as Amazon are able to absorb that cost.
But then Shopify managed to do it. Shopify is a company 24 times smaller than Amazon that promises 2-day shipping! And that’s how Shopify became more of a direct competitor to Amazon.
It’s like Shopify intentionally picked a similar dress worn by Amazon on prom night. Shopify didn’t show intentions to be prom queen, but everyone knows--even Amazon--that Shopify wants that crown. (This analogy is perfect because Shopify and Amazon are basically frenemies at this point.)
Amazon is now the largest company in the world... and who did it surpass? You guessed that right! Microsoft was the largest company in the world before it was surpassed by Amazon.
Now, Microsoft is “seriously considering” competing with Shopify in the e-commerce market. According to Microsoft’s corporate vice president of global retail and consumer goods, Shelley Bransten, they are talking about the possibility of branching into e-commerce and challenging Shopify, because, apparently, large companies have requested it.
On a side note, it must be very flattering for Shopify to be explicitly called out by Microsoft as a competitor. One of the biggest companies in the world mentioning them as a potential threat? Talk about how far Shopify has come!
But aside from being flattered, Shopify should also be careful. Microsoft is a formidable competitor.
Google also wants a piece of the e-commerce pie. Google seems to have set their focus away from gaming and is now eyeing the e-commerce space, which is serious news for competitors like Shopify.
However, so far, Google is not building fulfillment services. Instead, they are just building a platform to point consumers to where to buy products/services based on their data. It’s kind-of like the Shopping tab from Google search.
Though this will not directly compete with e-commerce platforms, it can certainly change some of the processes of those platforms, as most of them rely on Google’s search algorithm for their stores to be found. We’ll just have to wait and see how this plays out.
What effects does Shopify’s serious new competition have on your Shopify store? In short, you’ll have to get better. Competition makes everyone better.
That’s the beauty of a free market. You have to be either unique and appeal to a specific niche or simply just better than the competition to succeed. Competition pushes every industry and every business to be the best they can be to be attractive to consumers.
If you want to start an online store and you are searching for the right platform, kudos for doing the research. Explore every platform and take advantage of every free trial. Your online store should live on the most comfortable platform for you.
But if you want our recommendation, pick Shopify. It’s the easiest to set up and operate out-of-the-box, and you’d have plenty of room and tools to help you grow your business.
And if you are already on a different e-commerce platform looking for a different platform to migrate to, we still recommend you pick Shopify – but your decision may be more complex.
Your current platform may have functions or features that you don’t want to lose, but consider that Shopify offers the most well-balanced features for the best value. That makes it ideal for growing stores looking to get the most bang for their buck.
If you’re already a Shopify store owner and looking at other platforms, we recommend you stick with Shopify. As the saying goes, the rising tide raises all ships. This means that the popularity of Shopify and its run on the big leagues will produce improvements to its functions in order to compete well. It will only get better for store owners from this point on since Shopify is gearing up to face huge competition.
Also, because of Shopify’s position on the market, all of its fame and accomplishments will inevitably result in more benefits for its community. Shopify’s net worth is on the up and up, which might just draw in more investors. More investment means more development. More development leads to more features. More features will give more options to store owners to have a better store. A better store will attract more customers. More customers will incur more investment. And the cycle goes on.
All eyes are on Shopify right now, and that’s only going to make Shopify even better for e-commerce store owners.
]]>Profit is often seen as the main indicator of a successful Shopify store, and rightly so. A Shopify store is a business after all. Its primary goal is to earn money. However, having profit is just one aspect of success. Your store should also have stability and growth.
A successful Shopify store earns money (Profitability), will earn money next month (Stability) and has earned more money than last month (Growth).
But don’t remember that profitability and growth don’t have to be massive. Some of us don’t consider our store successful because it doesn’t grow as fast as we expect it to. Yet, any growth is growth, no matter how small.
Once your store has achieved all three of the above, you can definitely say that you have a successful online store.
Content, commerce and community bolster each stage of your online store’s success.
In engineering, the strongest shape is a triangle. If you look around, large and small structures, from bridges to foot stools, all have triangular supports.
It’s the same with the three C’s. If we place them on your foundations and prioritize them during each stage of your success (Profitability, Stability and Growth), your online store will be stronger than ever.
Take note, we won’t be giving much attention to commerce as it’s already part of your store. Shopify gives you a solid platform for commerce, and if you’re reading this, everything’s probably already in place.
So, we’re going to focus more on content and community.
To have profits, you gotta have sales. One way for you to have guaranteed sales is to have a niche.
As we’ve said in our previous article, There Is No Excuse To Not Start Your Store Right Now, “The more specific your product or service is, the better. You will find a group of people that will love your niche product because it solves their unique pain points—and they won’t be able to find it anywhere else.”
The most common and most effective marketing tactic for online stores is the Inbound Methodology, commonly known as Content Marketing (which we discussed in depth in a previous article).
Think of putting together a content marketing strategy as investing in your customers. But instead of giving them monetary benefits, you give them valuable content.
Here’s an example of how your content interacts with your potential customers:
Your target customer, a teenage girl, needs to know: “What makeup is best for meeting my boyfriend’s parents?”
Of course, she Googled her query. And then she found your Youtube video on the topic! Since she really liked the look from the video, she decided that she would like the same makeup from the video. You’ve included all the products in the video descriptions, including links to your store for easy purchase.
She bought them all and followed the video tutorial. Cha-ching.
This is just one of the multiple possibilities for how content can draw customers into your store. That video could have easily been a blog post, or a podcast or a free guide.
Content works really well as the main jumpoff point for your store. That’s because, as the first contact with a potential customer, you’ve already established a helpful interaction, so they’re more likely to buy from you.
They might not buy immediately, like in our example, but at the very least, your content has introduced your store to them in a favorable light.
To have true profit, you need more than one customer. While content focuses on individuals, community focuses on groups of individuals.
A community is a group of people united by a commonality. When it comes to online stores, a community usually bonds over a common interest. Having a common interest makes it easier for you to guide multiple people to your store.
The most important thing when handling communities is to keep feeding their common interest through valuable content. Different types of people will want different types of content. Get to know your community so you give them what they like. We’re going to explore the different types of valuable content in the next section on stability.
Whether you are just starting out or have been running your Shopify store for a while, always think of your community. If you don’t have a community yet, now is the time for you to start building one. Your community will likely be the lifeblood of your store.
The next thing in the process for success is to turn your paying customers into regular customers. That is, the ones who will keep coming back to your store. You can do this through smart navigation and great design that appeals to your target customers, as well as offering loyalty rewards.
We already established that giving people relevant content will make it easier for you to convert them into paying customers. Once they become your customers, you can then continue to use content to encourage them to keep buying from you. Here are some examples of common types of content:
In our previous example about makeup, the value that the potential customer got was information.The primary reason that a person would click on a Google link is to get information. Whether it’s articles, tutorials, tips or news, a modern consumer wants to be informed.
If you keep your customers informed, they will show their appreciation by buying from your store regularly.
This content feeds the awareness and decision stages of the buyer’s journey, when they’re looking for information about what they need, and later when they’re deciding what to buy.
This is the content your customers end up sharing with their friends and family. Funny memes and videos. Tearjerker moments of reunion or success. Content that tugs emotions, whether it’s happiness, amusement or sadness.
This type of content can go viral. Or at least get a lot of shares. When that happens, the amazing result for your store is that more and more people become aware of your store.
Consistently providing valuable content to your customers will upgrade your relationship with your customer from affinity and preference to true loyalty.
Building a community for your returning customers is easier when you have a robust content strategy in place. That’s because the first reason that many communities unite is that they share common interests--which are related to the topics in your content. Now that your customers receive content consistently, it’s likely they’ll start to feel a sense of brand loyalty.
And customers who are loyal to your brand will regularly buy from your store. Modern consumers don’t want transactions, they want relationships. These relationships are created through being in a community.
And it isn’t one-sided either.
You give your consumers valuable content, and they reciprocate by purchasing your products and services.
Now that we have a regular amount of returning consumers, our next aim is to have more customers.
Good stores expect growth; great stores anticipate growth. What’s the difference between expectation and anticipation? Action.
You should always be prepared for growth. It starts with changing your mindset from “I’ll prepare for growth IF it happens,” to “I’ll prepare for growth NOW.”
There is a sense of urgency to prepare for growth when you know it is inevitable. And preparation is very important.
Unprepared growth is painful and destructive to your Shopify store. One way to be prepared is to have the manpower or robopower to handle a large demand.
Have contacts for staff ready. Better yet, bookmark or save contacts from outsourcing platforms like Upwork or Fiverr. It’s the fastest and easiest way to get manpower.
Or you could go robopower. Get some of your process automated. You can automate store-related tasks from marketing to loyalty programs.
Automating tasks will help you retain the number of your current staff, while accomplishing more goals for your store. Check out our article, Automation and Your Shopify Store, to see more of the possibilities and benefits of automation.
During the Growth stage of your success, your content should be focused on two aspects: your loyal customers and your new customers. Appealing to both with the same piece of content is doable but challenging. Content strategy at this stage will be more effective if you have different topics for each type of customer.
For example, imagine you sell carpentry tools online. Let’s say that your loyal customers subscribe to your content because of the advanced carpentry tutorials you make. After getting their scheduled content, they also buy from you.
One day, you have a bunch of people that visited your store. They are potential customers. They just finished their carpentry course. If you give them the regular content that you are known for, it might be too advanced for them and you might lose these potential customers.
Conversely, if you’re going to change your content into basic carpentry tutorials to get new customers, it might then disappoint your loyal customer base who are advanced carpenters.
It’s better for you to have separate content for each different customer than to try to find the sweet spot in the middle. You could lose them both by pursuing them both with the same types of content. Here are some tips for how to create different content for loyal customers and new customers:
Content for loyal customers is the most important focus your content strategy should have. Your loyal customers are those that buy from you (and often don’t buy from your competitors) month after month. You have to focus on them first as they are the pillars that support your store. Aside from content that they expect, your regularly scheduled content, you should also aim to delight them with extra-special content.
First, acknowledge their ongoing support. Start with a simple thank you email. It feels good to be appreciated from time to time.
Then, you can reward them by giving freebies through a loyalty program. The more that they buy or the longer they stay, the more benefits they get. Make it a worthwhile experience for them to be a loyal customer.
Now here’s the best part. If your current customers have a great experience, they will provide the strongest of all marketing strategies: Word-of-mouth.
These delighted customers will then share their experiences with their friends and family. New customers that are brought in by existing customers have a higher chance of being a repeat customer.
You could also encourage sharing good experiences by flipping the script. Instead of having content for loyal patrons, you can use the content OF your loyal patrons. In other words, ask your loyal customers for user-generated content, like social media posts or reviews.
Highlighting their content, may it be videos, pictures or just plain words, will make them feel proud that your brand recognizes them. If it’s on social media, their friends and followers will immediately see that, and it can be shared again and again.
Lastly, have a referral program. This will incentivize your loyal customers to invite more customers instead of only sharing their good experiences from your store.
The content strategy for new customers is a little different.
But, it doesn’t have to be drastically different.
Think of content marketing to new customers like dating. Your content style for new customers should be loosely based on dating stages. For example...
The first meetup. You’ve got to make a good impression, but you don’t want to overwhelm customers who don’t know the brand very well. The best content for the first time you meet a new customer is just a greeting and gratitude. Hey Cindy, nice to meet you. Thank you for visiting our store!
Getting to know each other. Once you’ve been introduced, you can then open up to them, make them feel comfortable and let them share their thoughts. For instance, you could email them a video of the behind the scenes of your store. Or, you could ask for their review about your product and customer service.
Defining the relationship. Once they have bought from you more than once, regularly view your content and perhaps left you a review, you can then establish where your relationship is heading. Invite them to be a community member where they can meet other customers and share interests with like-minded people.
Commitment. This is where your new customer is now a loyal customer. Change the tactic and use content for loyal customers instead.
Even though you might already have evangelists (customers who sing praises to your brand) because of your content for loyal patrons, you must still proactively provide useful content for new customers.
Delighted loyal customers will become evangelists for your brand, using word-of-mouth to promote your store. If your community is sizeable, people will take notice.
A crowd attracts other crowds. Have you ever seen a long line to get into a store or restaurant and thought to yourself, “Wow. This is a long line. Must be something good in there?” The existence of your community and their delight is naturally contagious. It’s going to draw more and more people to your store.
Give your community exclusive stuff: exclusive discounts, freebies, and first looks or sneak peeks at your products and promos. Make them feel good at being part of your community, and they’ll invite their friends to join them. More customers for you!
Content, Commerce and Community each work together to strengthen your store at every stage of success.
We’ll leave you with these pointers:
Push out content, sell your stuff and take care of your community. Rinse and repeat. It can take some time, but once you do it regularly and consistently, your Shopify store will speed through the stages of success!
]]>This blog was provided by Krista Walsh. Krista is a freelance copywriter for e-commerce small businesses. Her writing and messaging strategies help her clients speak to their customers’ values and emotions, for meaningful sales. Connect with her at kristawalshcopywriter.com.
A few weeks ago, I clicked on an ad for The Sill, a (primarily) online store that sells houseplants.
Now, I don’t need any more house plants. I have no more shelves to put plants on—and the multitude of houseplants I do have came from my local garden store, which is walking distance from me.
But the website’s brand voice…well, delighted me. I loved how clear and educational the descriptions, site navigation and headlines were, while they still felt cheerful and young. The company’s brand voice made me feel good, like I wanted to be a part of their community. Suddenly, I wanted house plants from them, not just from my garden shop.
That’s the power a really well-defined and differentiated brand voice has for your e-commerce store. Because, frankly, it’s highly unlikely that your product is unique. A house plant is a house plant, even if one store sells them in yellow pots and the other sells them in green planters.
As consumers, we have so many options online for pretty much every category of product. All that choice can be paralyzing. That’s why we’re (maybe unconsciously) searching for something beyond the product itself to motivate us to buy. Something intangible that sparks a moment of delight or a feeling of yes, this is what I’ve been looking for.
Brand colors, a whimsical logo and a rad site design are part of the equation. But if your brand voice doesn’t draw in your customers… you’ve missed the boat. This article breaks down how to find the right brand voice for your online store.
Put simply, your brand voice is the words you use to communicate with customers—on your website, your product descriptions and marketing. Another way of thinking of brand voice is the tone of voice, which is a literary term for how someone’s writing “sounds.”
To really understand the concept of brand voice, it’s best to look at some examples of it in action.
Let’s look at this product description from Harry Winston:
This product description could be described as eloquent, sophisticated, gallant, decadent. The tone of voice is created through longer sentences, plenty of adjectives and formal vocabulary like “homage.” Added clauses (set off by commas) create a smooth, lilting rhythm throughout. It includes a lot of information about the product and product history.
Now, compare the Harry Winston description to this description for a costume jewelry ring from BaubleBar:
This product description could be described as youthful, chatty, confident. The sentences are much shorter, there are far fewer adjectives and the information provided is much more at-a-glance. In addition, this description uses slang terms like “deck your digits.”
The best place to start when it comes to defining your store’s brand voice is to create a list of 3-4 words to describe how all your marketing will “sound.” You’ll end up with a short list like the one I created for the above examples (e.g. BaubleBar sounds youthful, chatty and confident). That list is the jumping-off point you need to get into the details of your brand voice.
But how do you decide what goes on it?
You want your brand voice to appeal to the type of customers you want to attract. So, before doing anything, make sure you have that customer clearly defined. You should know most of the following information:
Demographics – age, income level, education level, whether they have children, where they live, gender identity.
Psychographics – where they shop most often, their personal style, what they value as a consumer, what they spend their free time doing, their interests, their personality, their lifestyle.
Often, your brand’s tone of voice will be close to how your target customers speak in real life.
This is an easy one to answer, but it’s important. High-dollar, luxury products should typically have a tone of voice that’s a bit more formal. That’s because casual tones of voice can undermine the quality of your products—bad news if you need people to shell out thousands.
It’s kind of like going to a fine restaurant where your meal costs hundreds of dollars. You’d be a little put-off if your server clapped his hand on your back in greeting and said, “What’s up, guys! Who wants to get their drink on tonight?” People expect high-dollar products to come with a certain level of formality.
If your product isn’t considered luxury, then you have a lot more freedom to choose what tone of voice to go with.
You know what you want them to do—buy your product. But how do you want them to feel? In my story at the beginning of this article, The Sill’s brand voice made me feel light and optimistic.
Perhaps you want your customers to feel inspired. Or energized. Or giddy with laughter. Or relieved. Or at peace…
The key here is to dig deeper than easy answers like “happy” or “good.”
Think of all the different roles we have with one another. Sometimes, we’re teachers. Sometimes, we’re the life of the party, getting people excited to have a good time.
Here are some common roles that I like to think about for brands: tour guide, teacher, motivational speaker, friend, customer service representative, older sister/brother.
This answer gets you closer to how your brand should speak to your customers.
Many companies do their visual branding first. So, if you have visual branding that you love (and your customers love), you should make sure your tone of voice works with it.
For example, if your branding is full of bold color blocks, don’t choose a tone of voice that is dreamy and soft. Go for a tone of voice that is energetic and punchy.
Now, use your answers to the above questions to come up with a tight list of tone of voice words. There are a couple of ways to do this. You could either use a prepared list of tone of voice words and choose the ones that match your brand, like this one.
Or, you could come up with your own words and then Google synonyms for them until you find the most precise versions of those words. For example, you may initially think of “serious” as one of your words, but after looking at the synonyms, you realize that what you really meant was “earnest.”
It’s important to be precise when choosing your tone of voice words because, otherwise, the people writing your content (such as your team, a freelancer or even yourself in the future) could interpret the tone differently.
These common tone of voice mistakes can make your voice feel vague, watered down, or incongruous with the rest of your branding:
Double-check the definitions and synonyms for the words you end up with. It’s possible that you’ve chosen words that are pretty similar in meaning.
For example, “inspirational” and “empowering” are slightly different but they’re too close to both be useful. Choose the one that most fits your brand.
The problem with buzzwords is that they quickly become distorted, meaningless, or disingenuous because of how often they’re used. Which makes them pointless as definers of your tone of voice.
The biggest example I see of a buzzword-as-tone-of-voice is “authentic.” If you find yourself with a buzzword on your tone of voice list, replace it with a less often used synonym. For example, authentic could become “truthful” or “honest.”
Make sure that your tone of voice words don’t contradict each other. For example, if you have both “light-hearted” and “scholarly” on your list you have a problem.
Words like “professional” and “knowledgeable” won’t really help you define a tone of voice that makes you stand out. That’s because it’s a given that any business should be professional and knowledgeable.
With your list of tone of voice words, you are really close to nailing your brand’s voice. However, it will take some time to get it just right. You should experiment with different text lengths, play around with the amount of information about the products you provide and swap a word in your headline for another.
After each new piece of copy you write, remember to ask yourself: “Does this sound [insert your tone of voice words here]?” If you aren’t sure, ask a team member or friend to read your copy and tell you how closely they think you got to your tone of voice words.
Eventually, you can go even further with your brand voice definition. You can outline exactly what words you will never say in your marketing, list common phrases you want to use and define the subtle difference in tone of voice depending on the medium (your website vs. your brand’s Instagram, for example).
Ultimately, investing the time and thought into your store’s brand voice will enable your store to stand apart from your competition—so take this part of building your brand seriously.
]]>This week's blog post is provided by our good friend Nick Disabato of Draft.
In the past 6 years that we at Draft have worked with store owners to grow their conversion rate, AOV, and customer lifetime value, we’ve noticed a lot of things that hold store owners back from growth.
Competition, ripoffs, shipping issues, and sudden downtime can always hurt stores. But those are usually easy problems in the grand scheme of things, because you can look at them, identify the problem, rally the team, and take steps to fix it.
Instead, the biggest thing we see holding store owners back is something much fuzzier: their mindset. In short, your own biases about your store can hold it back from the kind of success that you want. Lots of decision-making is counterintuitive, and your lizard brain can hold your business back.
There are a lot of studies on growth versus fixed mindsets, and although most of them apply to personal achievement, you can absolutely start thinking about your business’s growth in terms of how you think about it.
In short, thinking like a business owner is scary. But a good mindset makes for good business. In this post, we’ll talk about the 5 biggest mindset traps that people fall into when growing their stores, and how you can beat every single one of them.
Confirmation bias is the tendency for humans to fit new events into their own prior mental models, and for us to interpret new information in a way that confirms something we already previously believed.
Confirmation bias is the source of many new business owners’ poor decisions, because as new business owners we often fit business decisions into the framework of our personal lives. We don’t yet know how to think as business owners, and we don’t even know what it means to think as business owners – or that there’s even a difference in the first place.
Above all, a business owner’s mindset favors growth and investment. Understanding where to invest your resources over the long term, and understanding your own appetite for risk, can allow you to get past your old perspectives and start treating your business’s finances more like they belong to an actual business.
Josh Kaufman’s The Personal MBA goes into great detail on how a business’s resources should ideally be managed, and it provides a great start for any new store owners to think like business owners.
Short-term thinking is what happens when you quickly respond to small changes to the detriment of the big picture. For example, if you’ve ever rolled something out on your store, waited a day, seen a small drop in conversion rate, and rolled it back, you’ve probably dealt with short-term thinking.
Unless the change is catastrophically large, several standard deviations beyond the mean, single-day changes are never enough to make confident decisions. Your store could have just had a bad day at the same time that you rolled out a new change. That’s not good or bad, it’s just the vagaries of business.
The way past short-term thinking is twofold.
First, look closely at the global short-term trends in your store, and not exclusively at the specific interval of time since you made our change.
Then, look at whether the numbers you’re seeing reflect a high likelihood of continued future performance. If statistics don’t bear out the change you’re seeing, you need to wait longer – probably an uncomfortably long period of time – to know for sure.
It may also be that your change is dramatic enough that subtler changes are necessary. If you overhaul your add-to-cart mechanism on mobile, for example, there may be edge cases for specific operating systems or platforms that can easily be identified in Google Analytics and fixed accordingly.
For millions of years, we evolved to avoid predators, seek food, find safety, and live long enough to create another generation of humans. Today, you’re probably reading this in a reasonably safe environment, somewhere in civilization. It gives me great pleasure to report that a wolf is unlikely to attack and eat you today, tomorrow, or literally ever.
But you still hold within yourself the memory of past generations that had very real reason to worry about things like wolves. And that worry manifests in the form of catastrophic thinking, or the tendency for people to dramatically magnify anything remotely bad that could potentially happen to us.
Applied to your own business, for example, take a negative support incident with a customer. If we’re new to owning a store, we’re more likely to take the incident personally, or inflate its consequences for the long-term health of the store. As a result, we’re more likely to focus on that incident, and build it into the culture of our store as we grow. This could result in a reliance on vanity metrics, or metrics that don’t actually reflect the health of the business.
When you notice yourself panicking about the consequences of an isolated incident in your business, the best thing you can do is to notice it, examine why, and figure out what to do – and whether to act in the first place. It’s hard to keep a cool head in situations like these, but successful, growing businesses find a way to act rationally and clearly, even in the face of significant adversity.
It’s one thing to keep abreast of new developments in technology, and it’s another thing entirely to blindly follow what internet-famous people are doing. The bandwagon effect happens when specific trends are adopted at an ever-faster rate after increasingly many people do them. But the more people hop on the bandwagon for any specific tactic, the less likely it is to work for any one of them.
Remember when it seemed like every single online store put a roulette wheel on their home pages, because one startup did it and proved that it provided a huge win for their customers?
Instead, try coming up with your own creative solutions to the real problems that your customers are facing on your store. Through researching your store’s pain points, acting on specific issues, and incrementally improving your customer experience, you’ll forge your own path – and capture more revenue in the process.
The overconfidence effect is a phenomenon where we tend to overestimate the results of what’s happening in order to fit our prior expectations of what happens.
This especially happens in A/B testing. Let’s say you run an experiment that happens to increase average revenue per user by 33% at 81% confidence. This looks like a huge win on the face of things, but 81% confidence is actually extremely low. In reality, if you roll the variant out to your customers, you might not move the needle much at all – and you might even hurt yourself in the long run.
For a lot of fancy statistical reasons, A/B tests should only be rolled out if they win at 95% confidence or higher. Still, we want the test to win, because we want every test to win. So we fit our mental model to the numbers that are being reported, think hope springs eternal, and roll out the variant.
If any of these sound like things you’ve done before, know that you can manage each and every one of them going forward. There’s no time like the present to take responsibility for your own personal growth. Every time you notice your lizard brain taking over, notice it and move on. You can still do the right thing for your business, even though it’s scary – possibly because it’s scary.
Running an independent business isn’t easy. The goal is to grow and help others, of course – but the path is never direct, and it’s often counterintuitive. With knowledge of each one of these mindset traps, you should be able to recognize them when they happen, and slowly change your habits to grow your store.
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