eCommerce March Madness
Spring is right around the corner and it is time for the season’s premier sporting event: March Madness. It is the beginning of the battle to determine which college basketball team will become #1 in the country; and just like ecommerce, the will be highs and lows, outstanding performers, and epic failures.
I decided that to prevent the epic failures for your ecommerce site, I would take on the role of the coach and prepare you for the competition. After all, we all want to be on top in our industry; and let’s face it, the last few years have proved that the competition just keeps growing. If you want the game winning slam dunk, pay attention and you will be on you way to success
Study Your Competition
You can’t compete if you are in the dark. Remember, knowledge is power!
1. Check out your competitor’s website. Look at what they are doing well; but also focus on their flaws. Closely examine similar traits in terms of brand recognition, size, reach, or product/service types, etc. These are the companies you need to compete against. For example, there is often no need to follow low prices from a much smaller online competitor who likely doesn’t have much inventory available at the aggressively low price.
2. How are your competitors different? How do their customers your benefit from using their product or service? What benefits are unique to their site? Use this to further differentiate what you have to offer remembering that the benefits must be of great value to potential customers: The benefits must be strong enough to convert a site visitor into an actual customer.
3. Convey the unique benefits to your visitors: It is great that you know what sets you apart from competition; now make sure that every visitor of your site knows what is different about you. I do not mean for you to fill the site copy with words about how great you are. We are talking about unique benefits your business offers to clients which they need or must know about.
4. Review your competitor’s social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter for a more thorough picture of your competition. Monitor tweets, Facebook posts and blogs. Look at their reviews and even if they have dropped the ball on social media, this is valuable information you can take back to your own site. Remember, ecommerce site that have a social presence have 32% more sales on average than stores that don’t
5. Twitter is an extremely popular social network among businesses, but I was surprised to see that only 60% of sites that are using Facebook are also using Twitter. This statistic tells me that there is a huge opportunity for e-commerce sites to create a strong presence on Twitter and use the social network to increase brand awareness and to help establish themselves as an authority in their niche.
Note: If you’re not yet using social media to market your ecommerce site, it’s time to get in the game. There is less competition on Twitter for the e-commerce space in general, so analyze your niche and see how strong it is on Twitter. If there is opportunity there then dive in and start crushing it.
Improve Your Sales Approach
Improving your sales approach is not focused on selling more product; it is focused on meeting the customer’s needs and desires better.
When you fulfill the customer’s needs, you have the possibility of driving more sales through return customers. This is not an aspect to be taken lightly.
Better Customer Service
In the heat of completion, many ecommerce businesses often forget the importance of outstanding customer service. In most instances, you have three opportunities for customer interaction with a business– at the point of sale, at the point of delivery – and if they have any problems and need to contact customer service. If you screw this up; customers will jump and head directly to your competitor. Sadly,this opportunity is still being missed by a majority of ecommerce sites. As important as customer satisfaction is, companies just aren’t delivering. Only 1 percent of customers feel their expectations are always met.
Better customer service means happier, more satisfied customers; and satisfied customers become loyal customers, making multiple purchases.
Better Incentives
Take careful note of your competition’s customer incentives. Keep up-to-date and check them regularly. If you want to be #1, you will have to out-do them every time. Your reputation will spread, and you will gain more customers. Use the great exchange game plan: Provide customers with a reward for their action and make them feel like they have gained some value for that action. Your customers are smart, connected, web savvy, and can be fiercely disloyal. Be smart and use incentives as an opportunity to expand and stand out on the court.
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