You may have products that are needed to fulfil consumers needs, however, with competition increasing on a daily basis- not offering information that is required to influence their purchase decisions can hamper growth.
Content marketing is here since quite a while now, however, the resources accepted by online shoppers have gone far beyond templates and email marketing campaigns. But the question, are you adapting content marketing methods that are being accepted by consumers over time. Editorial content an effective buzzword for seller in this year 2016 Price can surely be one of the most important influencing factors to online shoppers; however, content is helping sellers to differentiate their brand and products from competitors across the web. What is editorial content? When I say content it does not limit to product descriptions but with the popularity of digital channels, content is now being offered in a way to educate consumers and not just offer them a bunch of selling ads. This can be known as an editorial content marketing effort. To make it easy for you, I have chosen few eCommerce brands that are performing excellent editorial content marketing strategies. Let’s take a look at them: 1. Product tutorial- To demonstrate the use of your product Beauty Bay, a beauty care brand started off with luxury fragrances and today includes skin care, makeup and hair care products too. What makes the brand innovative? This brand allows online consumers an ability to gain access to products tutorials that help them understand the correct choice of product by offering a demonstration of its usage. Benefit to consumers: Online shoppers have multiple choices to make purchases; however, knowing about the usage of products in the most effective ways can help them enhance their purchases each time they shop online. What you can do? In 2015, the number of digital video users in The United States surpassed 200 million. Considering this, adopting product tutorial strategy can help you present multiple usages of your products and increase awareness among potential consumers. Tip: You can individually showcase usage for each, or even offer a mixture of product video tutorials. 2. Digital magazine- To increase trust Net-A-Porter, the world’s premium luxury fashion destination offers product categories that include bags, jewelry, and lingerie. What makes the brand innovative? This brand makes it easy for online consumers to stay updated with the latest products in the fashion world, as well as, gain access to innovative inspirations for enhancing their style-quotient and purchase decision with time.
Benefit to consumers: Allowing digital edition of knowledge-resource (magazine) via a mobile app can eliminate consumers to switch over multiple sites across the web.
What you can do? Potential consumers won’t mind sticking with a brand if it allows them to do so. Having consumers an ability to be updated with the latest styles and trends via their smartphones can help them ensure they are able to access information on-the-go. Tip: Offering a magazine app can be effective; however, ensuring your blog page is mobile optimized can help you frequently convert potential audience to regular visitors and shoppers too. 3. Customer clicks- To engage consumers Free People, a part of Urban Outfitters offers apparel and lifestyle accessories that include intimates and swimwear too. What makes the brand innovative? This brand allows online consumers to get creative and showcase their own style using Free People clothing and products. It’s FP Me profile is allowing fashionistas multiple opportunities to become famous for their classy styles and trends.
Benefit to consumers: Helping consumers to be a part of a brand mixed with some fun will automatically encourage more and more people to participate and gain popularity in their online networks.
What you can do? Be it your social media business account, or, your online selling website, encouraging consumers to be associated with your brand, for example allowing them to share a photo of themselves posing with your products, will help you create a buzz among other fashionistas in the online world. Tip: Announcing a free gift for every image shared by your consumers, can result to better participants. 4. User-generated reviews- To enhance purchase decisions Stitch Fix, a personal styling service allows consumers to style and receive their clothing and accessories as per their requirements. What makes the brand innovative? This brand itself is an innovative eCommerce business idea, additionally; by displaying user-generated customer review surely is an add-on for consumer’s purchase decision.
Benefit to consumers: Shopping online, especially fashion and lifestyle products can be tricky if consumers are not offered with some trust marks. And, direct voice of consumers who have already used the product can give you an opportunity to refrain a consumer from taking a second thought.
What you can do? Extracting reviews from your repeat customers can be effective rather than targeting all blindly. Therefore, by using contact management software and analyzing your customer’s shopping behaviour, keep posting direct-voice of customers on your selling site and social media platforms too. Tip: Adding visuals to your customer’s reviews can create an excellent impact in consumer’s mind while taking Wrapping up With the above, whichever way you go, the kind of content you offer will determine the bonding with online consumers by offering them materials they would like and reflect their ever-changing lifestyles and interests.
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Allowing consumers to shop for their favourite products and brands at their own convenience is surely increasing the demand for eCommerce business. Below is a list of global markets with highest online penetration rate as of fourth quarter of 2015. Source: Statista With the increasing demand of shopping online, more and more sellers are seen to be expanding their presence online; hence, many may still finding it difficult to withstand the ever-growing competition. In this article, we discuss on those important factors that can help sellers build a reliable eCommerce brand When consumers think of purchasing a product online there are many areas that influence their decisions, however, with multiple options available across the web, it is important on how you win their trust and retain them for your eCommerce brand. Spending hundreds and thousands of dollars behind those promotional tactics may help you divert traffic to your store; however, to bring them back to your brand will depend on the customer experience you offer. Considering Usability: 1- Convenience to reach brand With competition increasing in the online world on a daily basis, sellers need to realize the importance of getting their brand visible to online consumers. Why? With hundreds and thousands of sellers selling identical products online, may not make your brand visible in the crowd. What you can do? Focusing on improved SEO tactics and experimenting with valuable keywords in your content strategy for your eCommerce store can help you enhance your brand ranking in Google and other search engines too. For instance: If you are running a fashion business online, looking up for keywords close to your brand name in search engines can help you utilize the ones that are already trending. 2- Access to information on-the-go Once consumers land at your eCommerce store, they would look up for information and products they wish to purchase. Why? Unable to access information for making strong purchase decisions, consumers will immediately jump to one of your competitors who allow them. What you can do? Allowing consumers to easily spot information they are looking for, can increase engagement level and encourage many to take action on-the-go. For instance: Whether your consumers visit your online store via mobile, the web, or even through social media channels, ensuring accurate information is upfront available for consumers, can eliminate them from giving a second thought on purchasing their favourite products online. 3- Flexible delivery Gone are the days when cash on delivery was a compulsion to withstand competition! Today, with sellers having their brand presence across the globe, consumers prefer to transact with the ones that allow them with flexible payment options. Why? Instead of having to depend on a certain day or date to receive products, many consumers may find it time-saving and effortless if they are allowed to receive delivery of their products as per their requirements. What you can do? With Amazon lately announcing its first cargo service, sellers can expect to offer consumers with the same day delivery. Therefore, considering your target audience and offering innovative delivery options may make them depend on your brand for their future purchase and receive their favourite products in the most convenient ways. For instance: Considering you have more of local customer’s, or, you are using Amazon’s fulfilment centers to stock your products across their multiple warehouses, offering in-store, as well as, a fixed-hour delivery slot will automatically not make your consumers wait longer over a cheap or free delivery service. 4- Access to reviews Direct voice from people is a physiological trigger that helps consumers save time and enhance their purchase making decisions when shopping online. Why? With hundreds of sellers selling the same products online, it becomes difficult to create trust in consumer’s mind. However, having an access to opinions by consumers who have already used your products can eliminate them to jump to one of your competitors even if they are popular. What you can do? Encouraging customer’s reviews are surely helping online sellers enhance awareness for their brand, however, focusing on the relevant keywords and tags in your reviews will automatically make other consumer’s inquisitive to know more about your brand. For instance: You receive an online review and it offers the exact purpose and information that is required to capture consumer’s attention, however, requesting the online reviewers to tag your brand and share them in their social networking can help create trust among potential consumers in their networks too. 5- Fulfilment and returns policy Consumers may not come back if offered a bad shopping experience. Therefore, the time duration you deal with your consumer’s purchase and return orders, will determine the retention rate for your eCommerce business. Why? Offering on-the-spot delivery service like that of a brick-and-mortar store is not possible for any online seller, however, consumers would surely not like to wait longer than what was promised. What you can do? Adopting multi-channel fulfilment software, which allows you to connect your Amazon fulfilment stores as well as other selling channel’s order details at one place, can help process multiple sales order in one go. Return orders can also be tracked in real-time to ensure consumers can get their purchase orders as soon as possible. For instance: Selling across multiple channels you may receive hundreds of orders for your stores, however, being able to auto-sync details at one place can enhance fulfilment processes. Considering Safety: 6- Payment method Having consumer’s pay for their purchases online depends on the transaction safety offered. Unable to offer the most preferred payment method will automatically make consumers hesitant to pay upfront and increase the number of COD orders for your eCommerce business. Why? Consumers who transact online easily trust popular payment options, and not being able to make payment via their regular payment methods can encourage them to discontinue their purchases. What you can do? Authorize.Net, Stripe, PayPal are some of the popular payment options offered by many eCommerce brands to consumers. Therefore, allowing methods that are already being used by online shoppers help you eliminate shopping cart abandonment rates for your online brand. For instance: You brand may allow access to some of the popular payment options, however, unable to spot them on-the-go, will automatically encourage consumers to opt for cash on delivery. 7- Updates to the latest trends You may deal with some of the best-selling categories; however, educating consumers with additional information about using your products can automatically increase engagement and sale opportunities, both. Why? Being able to shop for the latest fashion is one factor that is surely influencing online shoppers, however, an ability to gain innovative ideas about using the products can help them make informed purchases, always. What you can do? Apart from keeping consumers updated with the latest products, increasing their knowledge about your product offering can make them feel you care for their purchases. For instance: Infusing a blog page, or, even video tutorials relevant to your product offerings, can make potential consumers visit your online brand on a regular basis. 8- Multi-language tool Increasing your online brand presence across the globe can be a profit-making idea, however, if consumers are not familiar with the language you offer may exit your site even if your brand had the products and information they were looking for. Why? English considered to be a universal language spoken across the globe, is offered by many online sellers to consumers for promoting their brand and products. However, with many expats settled across the globe can hamper potential opportunities, just because they were unable to understand content that you brand offers. What you can do? Integrating translator tool in your online selling website will help consumers an ability to gain access to machine-translation service to know about your products and brand in the language they are comfortable. For instance: You may be selling your products across the globe, however, not all consumers may be familiar with the same language, therefore, having an access to a translating tool can eliminate Non-English speaking consumers access your brand in the language they want. 9- Shipping charges/Benefits Shipping details is another crucial factor that online shoppers will look-up when making purchase decisions. Why? Consumers who shop online would not like to spend more, especially additional shipping charges, as many online consumers still think it’s a liability to sellers. What you can do? Charging consumers for shipping is an obvious thing as per the delivery location and its requirements; however, not offering clear shipping details can make consumers feel they are being charged extra, who in turn, may discontinue their purchases. For instance: If you are offering free shipping on certain products and mentioning about it on the product detail or checkout page can make consumers feel the benefit and ensure they won’t be charged extra on delivery. 10- Instant communication ability Many consumers who land on your site may not get what they are looking for. And, unable to gain access to information on-the-go will automatically encourage many to leave your site, who in turn, may not return in future. Why? Consumers who shop online try and seek as much as information they can, for the products they wish to purchase. What you can do? Allowing an immediate chat/call support or, even a self-assisted knowledge base can help those lost consumers gain access to information that can allow them to complete their online purchases. For instance: A consumer who has added one of your product to their shopping cart, may be further interested in additional purchases. Unable to find a right match or relevant products, such consumers may drop out the plan of purchasing from your site. This is where instant communication software can be of great help for them and you, both!! Wrapping up Since you are into an online selling business that does not allow consumers to feel or touch the product while making purchases from your brand, offering a unique trust and an excellent shopping experience will not make them feel insecure shopping from your brand in years to come. Godspeed! |
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