Running an eCommerce business involves wearing so many hats. Even when it comes to just marketing (I know, “just” marketing 😂), there are so many aspects from ads to UX, customer service to SEO that it can be a bit overwhelming to know where to start.
We know you’re busy, so we’ve done the heavy lifting for you and snipped out the 5 key takeaways each of our Optily Radio guests highlighted. These are their top tips that you can start working on today to accelerate your eCommerce business in the second half of 2022!
1. Don’t be afraid to negotiate
While our guest, Rosie Bailey, CEO of Nibble, pointed out that this is a tip for life in general, it’s a great tactic for online retail especially. Customers love a good deal and sometimes coupons just don’t cut it for either the business or the customer.
Implementing a negotiation strategy, whether it be through a live support agent or an automated solution like Nibble’s AI chatbot negotiator, can really help boost sales and satisfaction. It’s been proven that people feel more satisfied when they work for a purchase. So a simple back and forth where you end up making a sale with 7% off and the customer got a deal is a win-win.
Rosie explains how a negotiation can work quickly and efficiently:
2. Build a robust content framework
Brands are expected to be content creators and to showcase their products in various tutorials, photoshoots, or FAQ articles. It can often become very cumbersome for a smaller company to put tons of multi-media content across several channels.
This is why Rishabh Jain, CEO of Fermat Commerce, is looking to redefine the relationship between content creators and brands. Creator commerce is an avenue for companies to grow their reach, offset content production, and increase sales.
Creators, of course, receive compensation and support from brands they love and want to share with their followers.
3. Commit to a long-term SEO strategy
Kevin Miller, CEO of GR0, highlights that SEO is a great investment for eCommerce businesses, but only if they’re willing to commit for the long haul. What’s a long time? Plan for at least a year.
If you invest the resources into building up your organic traffic, it will pay off. It’s far from a quick win, so you do need to be prepared to put in the time and patience.
4. Audit your blog for cannibalization
After a while of posting it’s common for there to be an overlap with keywords. When you’re competing against your own posts it’s called cannibalization. Bridget Reed, Head of Content at GR0, suggested doing an audit to see where you’re doubling up.
Once you have a list of repeated posts ranking for the same terms, you can optimize. Instead of three articles, you can consolidate them into one longer one and just redirect to that page. This will ideally make this one page rank much higher than the three on their own.
5. Thank your customers
You might think the ‘thank you’ built into your shipping notifications is enough, but Keith Matthews, Founder of Milk Bottle Labs, says otherwise. He suggests sending a more personalized and less formatted email after the product has been fulfilled. This gives the customer a sense of feeling special and will help increase your customer retention and lifetime value.
Check out the clip below where Keith goes into his post-purchase email strategy:
6. Change your outlook on customer support
Mia Bobak, Technology Partner Manager at Gorgias, suggests reframing customer support as a revenue stream, rather than a cost of doing business. While customer service agents are critical for problem resolution, they can be so much more than that.
By freeing up your agents with automation, they will have more time to focus on pre-sale interactions that can scale your eCommerce business and improve your brand overall.
