Continuing our 3-part series of ecommerce resolutions for 2015, here are resolutions 6 through 10:
- Mobilize your mobile strategy
Before declaring the 10th Annual Year of the Mobile (kidding), let’s all agree mobile is no joke. 2/3 of email is opened on mobile and 60% of social networking happens away from desktop platforms. In fact, ComScore reports 60% of all search traffic comes from mobile. Depending on the study, the average ecommerce site receives 30-50% of traffic from mobile.
There’s simply no rationale for deferring investment in a mobile-friendly site.
Assuming you have a mobile-friendly solution, consider 2015 your “year of the contextual mobile experience.” Investigate what role mobile (both smartphone and tablet) plays in customer acquisition, how it supports discovery, research, consideration and purchase contexts. Know thy customer and when, where and why they access your site through these devices. Challenge yourself and your team to rethink navigation, merchandising, design and content for each context, be it device type, referral source/campaign, location (including in-store and near-store) or persona.
- Optimize email delivery
Despite the popularity of social media, email is not dead:
- 91% of consumers use email at least once a day
- Every day, US consumers interact with ~11 brands through email vs. 9 through Facebook and 8 through Twitter
- Email is approximately 40 times better for customer acquisition than Facebook and Twitter and converts 3 times higher
- 90% of consumers prefer email to Facebook for receiving updates from a brand
- 44% of consumers made at least one purchase via a email campaign
Unfortunately, not all email makes it to its destination. Make sure your 2015 email program is optimized for delivery and engagement (+ re-engagement):
- Scrub that list. Make sure hard bounces are removed immediately and soft bounces are flagged, monitored and ultimately removed. Identify any issues that may trip spam filters. Attempt to re-engage subscribers, but when these efforts fail, remove what’s stale.
- Improve unsubscribe. Though nobody wants to see subscribers go, there is a case for making email unsubscribe easyfor customers. This not only cleans your list for you, but taking uninterested subscribers gives you a more accurate picture of open rates, engagement and conversion.
- Get permission.Make sure you’re not duping uninterested subscribers into joining your list by getting permission. Spam reports hurt your sender reputation, which affects deliverability across the board. Make it easy for subscribers to add you to their address books – and include a prominent call to action in every message.
- Use smart segmentation.Improve engagement by sending more relevant messages. One way to target content better is to segment your list upon sign-up. Keep in mind that asking too much up-front can negatively affect opt-ins. Revisit your general email segmentation, understanding that the rules and strategies of last year may not be optimal this year. For example, consider segmenting customers who always open and click on mobile into their own campaign, with content, landing pages or purchase journeys that better fit the mobile context (e.g. send to a single product page rather than a category).
- Vamp your value proposition
It’s not enough to have a value proposition. It must be compelling, match the motivations and desires of your customer, and be communicated clearly throughout the customer experience (including marketing campaigns like PPC). And it must go beyond low prices!
There is perhaps no more prominent proponent of value propositions than Dr. Flint McGlaughlin of Marketing Experiments / Marketing Sherpa. Even if you think you have a good value proposition, you should take notes on his lesson that includes six techniques you can use to differentiate your business in highly competitive markets.
You can also download Marketing Experiments’ Value Proposition Worksheet.
- Audit your customer service
What’s your CSQ (customer service quotient)? Find out with our downloadable Customer Service Scorecard and assess your experience from entry page to checkout.
- Perform a checkout check-up
Make sure you’re not committing any of these checkout sins and revisit your A/B and multivariate testing strategies.
