Johan pratade om hur du får en smartare kundkommunikation via 7 enkla steg.

1.        Multichannel communication- integrerad kommunikation

• Utnyttja befintliga kanaler fullt ut
• Använd samma tonalitet i alla kanaler
• Anpassa budskap efter kanal

 2.       Vårda relationen till befintliga kunder

• Vad ger du dina befintliga, trogna kunder?
• Stärker du relationen eller byter du bara ut en trogen, lönsam kund mot en ny illojal kund?

3.       Öka relevansen i din kommunikation

• Segmenterad kommunikation är det första steget
• Personlig kommunikation är nästa steg

4.       Händelsestyrd kommunikation

• Följ upp din kund

5.       Lönsamhet i fokus

• T ex en kundklubb

6.       Välj rätt kanal för din kommunikation

• SMS
• E-mail
• Print

7.       Mervärden

• Visa att du uppskattar dina kunder t ex via bonussystem, riktade utskick mm
• Status som mervärde- differentiera produkterna

Jag var ute efter julkul, och inspirerades av Apples Garageband. Inspirationen skapas dels i fysiska Apple-store och dels genom bra och utförliga beskrivningar på nätet. När Apple nu startade sin julkampanj i helgen, med bra erbjudanden, gick jag i söndags kväll från att vara inspirerad, till ”dags att köpa”.

Bra verktyg för att konfigurera lämplig dator (i detta fall Mac mini) och bra cross sell, så det blev lite extra minne, en magic mouse och ett keyboard för att spela musik. När konfiguration och alla val var gjorda, var det bara att ange inloggningsuppgifter till iTunes-kontot, konfirmera med säkerhetskod och ”off it went”.

Klockan 10 idag (tisdag), ringer budfirman och meddelar att man är i min stadsdel, redo att leverera varorna vid dörren!

Tycker detta är ett skolboksexempel på Optimize och bra e-handel. Allt från multikanal, inspiration, conversion, till cross sell (jo blev lite up sell med mer minne också:-) samt fulfillment, som i alla fall överträffade mina förväntningar.

Med detta har Apple inte bara fått en nöjd kund, utan också drivit processen vidare med ”retain” (jo jag kommer garanterat köpa mer därifrån!) och ”recruit”, jo inte svårt att föra budskapet vidare och rekommendera Apple-store!

För dom som vill inspireras av world-class rekommenderas www.apple.se och www.nike.com. Kanske designa och personalisera Nike-skor som julklapp?

Björn Schröder
Senior eBusiness Advisor Brightstep

1. ProFlowers 24.0%
2. Vitacost 23.3%
3. 1800Flowers 19.5%
4. Roamans19.2%
5. Office Depot 18.5%
6. Blair 17.3%
7. QVC 17.0%
8. Victoria’s Secret 16.8%
9. DrsFosterSmith.com 16.4%
10. Amazon 16.4%

*Source

As always the top flower companies, ProFlowers and 1800Flowers are at the top of the list. And it is fun to see Victoria´s Secret on the 8th place. I have followed Victoria´s Secret e-commerce site for some time now and they are doing a great job with there site. If you have miss it, now is a great time to get som insiration how to work with clear call to action and offers.

If you need help improving your conversion rate, let us know.

Top 10 Online Retailers by Conversion Rate: May 2009

1. ProFlowers 38.6%
2. Office Depot 28.0%
3. Online Retail Total 25.6%
4. Vitacost.com 25.0%
5. Quixtar 23.4%
6. Blair 23.4%
7. Roamans22.6%
8. 1800Flowers 20.5%
9. Woman Within19.6%
10. Spiegel 18.20%

What can we learn from this? Usability is extremely important. What you label your form fields may ultimately affect whether you sell your goods or not. Error messages are incredibly important and they should explain what kind of errors that occurs. If we hadn’t talked to the customers the chances are we never would have discovered the problem and there would still been a serious error in checkout. But by doing user testing and talk to the real users have a chance to anticipate and address the errors that would otherwise affect the sales.

Another lesson learned is that there are faithful and loyal customers. They actually do not give up and go to another site to buy their goods. Too bad that these loyal customers are so few.
How do you avoid user problems on your site? Do you talk to your e-commerce customer? Do you test the user experience through user tests?

Misconception number 1

E-traders measure conversion rate by divided the visitors with orders while the visitor´s goal with his or her visit does not need to be a purchase. It can be anything from obtaining information about a particular product to whether the e-retailer has a physical store nearby.

Tips

Find out which goals your visitors have when they visit your e-commerce site.
Measure conversion rate on your visitors’ goals with their visit.
Make changes so that more visitors meet their goals and find ways so that the visitors’ goals are in line with your goals for your e-commerce site.

Misconception number 2

Although the average conversion rate for e-commerce sites is around 2% does not mean that your e-commerce site is great because you to have a 7% conversion rate. What conversion rate your e-commerce site has is due to thousands of factors, from which industry the company operates, what image the company has, the e-commerce site structure, your value proposition and right down to which color and design the buy button has.

Tips

You cannot draw any conclusions by just looking at the conversion ratio. This number needs to be put in context in order for you to come to some form of insight. It can be done by comparing the conversion rate over time, with a competitor, on a given campaign, for a given product or for different segments.

Misconception number 3

The conversion rate is not an instrument to measure or produce changes in an e-commerce. Of course the conversion rate can be used in a follow-up but then as a superior ratio.

Tips

Break down the site into micro conversions. A micro conversion can be an event or activity that a visitor can make on e-commerce site. It may be to add a product to the cart, enlarge the product picture, rate or write a review on a product and so on. What you then need to do is create the connection between these micro-conversions, which ultimately leads to the final conversion rate. This allows you to identify activities in your e-commerce site and testing different versions of a page and features.

Increasing sales on an e-commerce site can be done in three ways: 

1. Increase traffic 
2. Sell more to costumers that are already buying
3. Increase conversion rate

Drive Traffic

This theory is based on pulling in as much visitors as possible to the e-commerce site. This is can be done through banners, sponsored links, search engine optimization affiliate program. This type of pull marketing costs some money per visitor or costumer, depending on how you measure. To maximize sales by this approach requires the system to efficiently add, modify, remove and test the effect of the campaigns. This approach is short-sighted and the changes you make are direct and have no long-term effects on your profitability.

Merchandising

With merchandising, I mean how to optimize product management and display of various products to the visitor and create a buying spirit. The key is to sell more to those who already have bought, or to sell products that have a higher profit margin. In regular e-commerce terms we usually call this ”cross and up sale”. Cross sale is to show accessories or complementary products to the goods or products the customer already has in his or her basket, usually this is displayed in checkout process and on the product display pages. Up-sales are when you display additional products that are more expensive, or where e-merchants have a better margin. This is now with modern technology automated in a very intelligent way and there are infinite variations that can be tested to achieve the best results. A further step to increase the order value is to apply behavior-based merchandising. This can be done by automatically analyzing how visitors enter the e-commerce site, which products they are looking at and aligned with this behavior you can present relevant products.

Increase conversion rate

Conversion rate has for a long time been the golden ratio for e-retailers. It may be obtained by dividing the total amount of orders with the number of visitors during a specific time. What affects the conversion rate for an e-commerce site is really all an e-retailer is doing or not doing. It may be how the navigation is built into the color or the size of the buy button. Here there are always things to improve. A small detail that usually does not cost as much in investment can still affect the sales result significantly. The impact of increasing the conversion rate is long-lasting compared to buying traffic to a e-commerce site. Having a process for continuously working to optimize the conversion rate will both increase sales directly but efforts will affect sales in the long term.

Conversion pyramid

To become a successful e-retailer you have to work with all these three parts. You cannot just optimize the cost of driving the visitors to the site because if you cannot convert visitors into customers you do not earn any money. The same is if you only focus on optimizing the site so as to convert in the best possible way and you do not have any visitors there will be no high sales.

To succeed with e-commerce sales you will have to build a solid structure. Your first task will be to optimize the conversion rate so that the visitors that are on the site achieve what they want. Hopefully it is in line with the business goals for the e-commerce site and usually this is sales. After you have optimized the e-commerce site so that the visitors will buy, find and accomplish what they want on the site you should take a look at what I call merchandising. That is how you can get those who want to buy on your site to buy more, or buy products that have a higher profit margin. Then you have become a master in merchandising and only then should you drive traffic to your site.

Exponential profitability

By first focusing on converting visitors into customers and creating a solid base which, in turn, optimizes and enhances the efficiency when you want to persuade customers to buy more or buy something else. It goes without saying. If you cannot get X number of customers to buy at all, how can you get them to buy accessories, additional goods or any other product? However if you have optimized the site with a focus on getting visitors to convert to buyers, there are great opportunities to get them to buy something else or better yet, get them to spend more money on every transaction.

When you have these two parts in place it´s time to add gunpowder on your marketing efforts and get traffic to your site. Then any visitor will be much cheaper because you convert more visitors into customers. This creates an exponential curve of the profitability of your e-commerce site when you look at the ROI on all costs spent on increasing sales in an e-commerce site.

Abstract

I do not mean that you should stop optimize your search phrase in your sponsored links, terminate your affiliate network or stop optimize your cross sale and up sale impressions. If you want to create a successful and profitable e-commerce business in these difficult times you will have to focus on the right parts and with the right allocation of resources and investment. Do this gradually and in a structured approach. What is better when we talk structure than to describe this by using one of the military’s most-used rhetoric approach:
Initially get as many visitors as possible to convert to buyers.
Then get them to buy more or buy more profitable products.
Finally, drive more traffic to your e-commerce site.
Prepare to administer more orders than you have ever dealt with.