E-commerce can help you reach a global audience and open up a whole new world of marketing and sales options. It’s a completely different beast from a brick and mortar model that can take your business to an entirely new level when managed effectively. And during COVID-19, it may be a lifeline that you can throw to yourself. Here are three ways to amp up your e-commerce business when you may need it most:
- Track Analytics
Whatever you thought you knew about your customers may have dramatically changed overnight. Entirely new demographics could now be visiting your site, and different products or services might have become more popular. But you won’t know any of this unless you track your analytics. To find out what’s working and what isn’t, you’ll need to look at metrics like these1:
- Conversion rate – the number of visitors who actually buy a product or service, or perform some other desired action, such as sign up for your newsletter.
- Bounce rate – the number of visitors who leave your website soon after they arrive.
- Visitor types – new visits vs. repeat visits or purchasers, as well as the total number of visitors landing on specific web pages.
- Traffic source – the marketing channel that brought them to your website (i.e. paid media, mailer, email).
- Traffic volume – the products or pages that receive the most traffic and highest conversions.
- Visitor patterns – specific hours and days that bring the most traffic to your website. Do you see an influx of visitors in the morning, afternoon, or at night? Do you get more conversions on Fridays or Wednesdays? Knowing the online habits of your customers will help maximize your messaging and offers and increase your chances of making sales even in a difficult business climate.
- Research Your New Competitors
With all the changes going on in the world and your business with COVID-19, your competition has likely changed in addition to your customers. Find your top competitors in this new reality and peruse their e-commerce websites to learn about their popular products and price points. Every successful business has a pulse on the competition. Understand what they’re doing and adapt your approach to make your e-commerce offerings stand out from the pack.
- Go Multi-Channel
Known as an “omni-channel” or “multi-channel” approach, integrated marketing is a great way to reach a wider range of leads and returning customers. For inbound marketing, think SEO, engaging video content and influencer marketing via blogs or social media. For outbound, consider eye-catching email marketing with attention-grabbing subject lines, direct mail, and print ads in magazines, newspapers or community newsletters. These days, consumers are inundated with emails from virtually every company they’ve ever done business with, making inboxes look more like Twitter feeds. You’ll want to reach customers from multiple directions — especially in this climate.
As you build and enhance your e-commerce business, don’t try to do everything yourself if you’re not experienced. With heightened public sensitivity to any business seeming to capitalize on the pandemic, your tone and timing need to be on point to avoid any reputation-damaging missteps. And as health, business and economics are in a near-constant state of flux both locally and nationally with COVID-19, you’ll need to constantly monitor your results and change course quickly when necessary.
Kymera is here to help you navigate the storm.
Sources
1 Sachin Rajah, “How to Boost E-commerce Business Using Content,” Entrepreneur.com, https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/324576, (Dec. 10, 2018)
2 Arianna O’Dell, “Starting an E-Commerce Business? Avoid these 7 Mistakes,” Inc.com, Https://www.inc.com/arianna-odell/7-e-commerce-mistakes-to-avoid-when-selling-online.html, (Dec. 18, 2017)
