E-asy does it
Monday, 21 March 2011 00:00
Although economic life remains tough and looks like it may get tougher, ecommerce still has the benefit of growing around 15% year on year. But ecommerce retailers need to stay on their toes as competition appears to be growing at the same rate, and this is just as true in the sports sector as in any other. Chris Barling, CEO of ecommerce & EPOS systems specialist, Actinic (www.actinic.co.uk) highlights five areas to look at for growing online sales in a tough climate.
1 Go mobile
With access via iPhones, iPad and Android-based devices rising rapidly, it’s time for some hard thinking. The first action is to look at the logs for your website – how many people are accessing your site using these mobile devices and how much is this growing? Then try looking at the site yourself with a smartphone. If you don’t have access to such devices, ask some friends for help. If your site looks terrible then statistics may be misleading as you won’t see many sales from mobiles as visitors are put off. Consider tweaking the store or having a separate mobile site.
2 Be sociable
Have you looked at social media? Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are all growing like crazy. In terms of getting business from them, it’s like the Wild West with the rules still to be established. This means that if you have the time and inclination, there’s still a chance to make some serious money. You must tread carefully though, as blatant self-promotion is entirely counter-cultural on these social networks. But it’s a great medium for fostering direct customer relationships by answering queries and offering special deals to followers.
3 Get the most from email
Email is a more traditional means of marketing and can be used in three main ways. The first is buying a cold list and attempting to drum up new business (but this is fraught with problems). The second is where prospects have registered their email address with you, typically to receive a newsletter. The final, and easiest to exploit opportunity, is where the prospects have previously bought from you – so you already have some form of relationship.
Use the opportunities for email wisely and make sure that you mug up on the rules first. You can easily damage the potential with thoughtlessness. Build your list over time, or consider buying in a reputable list. Consider the mechanics, you need to get your email past anti-spam and local spam filters, so using an email marketing service to deliver can help.
You need to think carefully about the “from” and “subject” fields of your email as these will determine whether it gets opened. Learn from the big guys (sign up with a few) by looking at what they are doing and then experiment. This is the way to optimise results.
4 Streamline sales
If your site is successful then have you got different channels working together? For instance, it’s possible to integrate the systems for ecommerce, telephone orders and EPOS. Improving your business efficiency should help achieve better service, increase repeat orders and drive down costs. All of this can help significantly in an online world that’s becoming ever more competitive.
5 Clickety click
Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing usually presents a huge opportunity if you have not done it before and often there is potential for major improvement even if you’re already involved.
The first thing is to understand the keyword process. Keywords (which can also be phrases) are critical to succeeding with search engine marketing because it’s what people type into Google. The following resource can help: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Keep a master list of your keywords (and phrases) and track results against them, adjusting your spend as necessary
Nobody would expect to win in a high stakes poker game if they had never played before. With PPC it’s similar. At least learn the basics before you waste a lot of money. Make sure that you understand the structure of ad groups, ads, pages and keywords, and fully comprehend the differences in matching rules between exact match, broad match and phrase match.
Final word
Ecommerce remains one of the few fast-growing parts of the economy. While that’s great for participants, it also means that there is a constant stream of new entrants. There are also continuous changes and new ideas emerging. At my company, Actinic, we try to anticipate many of the changes, which is why we have already integrated mail order and ecommerce with shop channels. It’s when it comes to deploying the next stage of an ecommerce store that using a package proves its worth, as the cost is typically an order of magnitude less than would be the case with a bespoke development. However, whatever the technology you use, it’s important to remain on the curve. Good luck with the next stage of your evolution.
Written by Chris Barling, CEO of ecommerce and EPOS systems specialist Actinic. Originally published on Sports Insight Magazine.