Keeping holiday shoppers engaged: the “honeymoon” email series

January 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment

In our last post, we explored ways to engage social media users to shop, especially those new brand followers who joined the fray during the surge in activity surrounding the holidays. Today we explore another crucial means for continuing to pique shoppers’ interest: email.

More than one third of online consumers report reading an email newsletter or promotional message from a brand, according to industry researcher Forrester. And during the holidays, email activity surges. In 2012, retailers sent an average of more than 24 emails in the month of December alone, according to email provider Responsys. Meantime, holiday shoppers sign up for alerts in droves in the hopes of accessing exclusive discounts: 78% of participants in MarketLive’s 2012 Consumer Shopping Survey said they respond to sales and markdowns in holiday email content, while 76% look for free shipping offers. Now that the holiday season is over, merchants must find ways to continue engaging those shoppers — or risk falling victim to the “unsubscribe” button.

Merchants have long sent out a “welcome email” containing a discount as an initial bid for new subscribers’ attention — but to encourage lasting engagement, merchants should do more to introduce new email list members to the brand and the benefits of their subscription. To fully engage new subscribers, merchants should send a series of emails that:

Make a compelling offer – and follow up. Merchants needn’t necessarily offer a discount, but they should find some way to incentivize the sale, whether it’s a free gift with purchase, entry in a prize drawing with purchase, or access to exclusive products. Merchants should set a time limit and use the deadline to encourage new subscribers to act soon, as recreational apparel manufacturer Terry does in this email.

Welcome email example from Terry

Reinforce brand identity. Orienting recipients to product selection, demonstrating a brand’s expertise with how-to articles, or calling out customer service features all help new subscribers recall why they signed up in the first place. Zappos.com immediately sets an informal, approachable tone with its welcome email, calling its weekly newsletter the “Shameless Plug”. The welcome email also reiterates Zappos.com’s core identity as a customer service company, stating that “We believe our customers should be treated like family,” and spotlights its popular “free shipping both ways” policy.

Welcome email example from Zappos.com

Invite social participation. Let new subscribers know that they can stay in touch with the brand in between email dispatches via social outposts – and incentivize becoming a follower with an invitation to participate, an opportunity to win prizes or the prospect of additional discounts. Technology merchant Newegg encourages participation on its social networks with the lure of prize drawings for a gaming system, and spells out the benefits of following the brand, including “instant alerts on super-hot deals & promos” and “exclusive prize giveaways.”

Welcome email example from NewEgg

Spotlight customer favorites. Engage subscribers by showcasing top-rated items and popular categories, as Williams-Sonoma does in this initialwelcome message. The email includes text from an individual customer reviews, and invites subscribes as “member[s] of our online community” to browse top-rated items by category — as well as to participate themselves by contributing comments. Links to products that qualify for free shipping and to a “special values” sale category give subscribers further ways to browse.

Welcome email example from Williams-Sonoma

What tactics do you employ to retain email subscribers — and motivate them to purchase?

Filed under Acquire, Convert & Retain, Email Marketing

Keeping holiday shoppers engaged: social selling beyond the “buy” button

January 22, 2013 by 1 Comment

As we reported last week, MarketLive Index merchants saw holiday sales soar, thanks partly to a growth in visits of more than 25%. Now that the peak season is over, one challenge for merchants will be to keep engaging those shoppers who first acquainted themselves with their brands during the holiday frenzy.

One critical touchpoint for engaging new brand followers is social media. As of August 2011, – more than half of the total U.S. population, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, making social networking third only to search and email as the top online activity. And during the holidays, social media networks were abuzz with shopping-related posts: “holiday shopping” received more than 14.8 million mentions on social networks, and Black Friday social media ad campaigns were up 40% over last year, according to SAP.

Maddeningly, though, while brands attract followers by the thousands, in most cases sales and revenue have yet to follow: less than 1% of online purchases from either new or returning customers can be directly credited to social networks, according to industry researcher Forrester. Efforts to replicate eCommerce functionality using Facebook store applications have produced mixed results, causing some merchants to write off social media as a tool for motivating shoppers to buy.

But there are ways to engage brand followers and stimulate sales beyond adding a “buy now” button. For merchants to capture the attention of social media users, they should adapt tried-and-true techniques from their eCommerce sites to the social environment. Of course, that doesn’t mean simply copying eCommerce products and content into a Facebook app; they should take advantage of the unique properties of the social medium to create new experiences that appeal to new brand followers and long-time advocates alike. Just three examples:

Top rated products. Merchants have long used customer reviews as a means of categorizing and promoting products, from offering shoppers the ability to sort on-site search results by product rating to featuring the text of product reviews in email and banner campaigns. Now, on social media, merchants can showcase products that receive the most endorsements — “likes”, tweets or pins — and encourage brand followers to add their own picks. Merchants should go beyond simply displaying items to incorporate users’ comments, giving social media users a means to learn about products from others who share their needs and interests, in their own words. In its collection of “Pinners’ Top Picks” from Diapers.com on Pinterest, the descriptions include personal feedback, such as a note on a toy saying, “I can’t even count how many times this has flown off the high chair and smashed off our tile floor. Love this toy – it is INDESTRUCTIBLE!”

Social media example from Diapers.com

Collection selling. By presenting product ensembles for purchase on their eCommerce sites with a single “add to cart” click, merchants have the opportunity to not only encourage buying multiple items, but to express the personality of the brand and appeal to several target audience types. On social networks, the concept can make even more of an impact if merchants give shoppers the means to share and post ensembles users themselves create. Babies R Us created an interactive shopping environment for debuting its Heidi Klum Truly Scrumptious collection. Brand followers could not only view, click to buy or share individual items, but they could save  and share outfits with friends.

Social media example from Babies R Us

Personalization. Increasingly, merchants’ eCommerce sites are able to deliver individualized recommendations based on visitors’ past purchases and preferences. In the social environment, merchants have a built-in opportunity to personalize by incorporating information from brand followers’ social profiles. Building social shopping experiences that factor in gender, age and location, at a minimum, can help connect users with the most relevant possible projects — and keep them engaged with the brand. Party City’s “Brew Your Costume” Halloween game asked shoppers to allow access to their Facebook profile information and then suggested costume ideas based on gender, age and interests; alternatively, picks could be generated based on responses to a brief quiz with playful questions such as “you find a friend’s diary. What do you do?” The results page includes several costume options, as well as buttons for sharing the picks and links to top categories on the eCommerce site.

Social media example from Party City

Social media example from Party City

Did your brand’s social media outposts see an uptick in followers over the holiday season? How are you keeping them engaged?

Filed under Acquire, Convert & Retain, Client Innovations, Social Commerce

Holiday wrapup: Sales grew 28% despite lull in final week

January 18, 2013 by 1 Comment

Two weeks into 2013, the final reports from the 2012 holiday season are rolling in — and the results should make merchants optimistic for sales in the year to come. Industry-wide, spending was up 14% over 2011 for November and December, according to measurement firm comScore, despite leveling growth in the final weeks of the season as consumer confidence was shaken by the “fiscal cliff” negotiations in Washington.

Data from the MarketLive Performance Index shows a similar lull in year-end activity, with engagement and conversion dipping slightly for the week ending December 30. Revenue still grew 2.2%, however, thanks to increased visits of more than 13% and a nearly 5% jump in average order value.

Despite the year-end slowdown, the Index shows significant year-over-year gains, with revenue increasing more than 28% and conversion rates up 7.4% — suggesting that small- and mid-sized merchants held their own against mass merchants and discount sites.

Holiday data from the MarketLive Performance Index

Although the holiday season is officially over, merchants haven’t let up the pace. Post-Christmas sales have given way to Valentine’s Day promotions and previews of new spring merchandise. They’re also taking advantage of the more than 25% increase in visits over the holiday period to acquaint new brand followers with relevant offerings in the hopes of maintaining engagement. To that end, our next two blog posts will explore how to make the most of new audiences by selling socially beyond the “buy” button and keeping new email subscribers engaged — stay tuned!

Overall, the holiday challenge merchants faced to differentiate their offerings in a crowded marketplace will become a year-round preoccupation in 2013, as big brands get bigger and smaller merchants battle fiercely for ownership of their niches. We’ll explore this concept in-depth — as well as look at the top trends and strategies merchants can adapt to fit their brands’ unique needs — in a webinar slated for February 6. Register today — and meantime, let us know: what are your top priorities for the year to come?

 

Filed under Connected Commerce, Seasonal Selling Tagged with 2012 Holidays, MarketLive Performance Index

Using on-site search to support shopping across touchpoints — without inventory integration

January 14, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Merchants by now are well aware that consumers expect a seamless shopping experience across touchpoints. Actually delivering that experience can be a daunting prospect, conjuring as it does the expensive specter of integrating disparate technology systems and silos of information, restructuring personnel and revolutionizing fulfillment. While such mega-projects are indeed important to consider, merchants needn’t be immobilized meantime. They can implement relatively quick fixes that boost cross-touchpoint convenience, without breaking the bank.

Take on-site search. It doesn’t grab headlines or generate hype, but a third of site visits include use of on-site search, resulting in contribution of 34.48% of total online revenue, according to the MarketLive Performance Index  – making site search the top single feature to generate eCommerce sales. And with the Web due to influence 44% of all retail purchases, not just online sales, by 2016, according to industry researcher Forrester, there’s still more revenue to be derived from a robust on-site search tool that not only connects shoppers with product information, but supports migration to physical stores to complete transactions.

While integration of in-store inventory is the ultimate way on-site search can support cross-touchpoint shopping, simpler changes can significantly boost convenience and access to information for shoppers. Merchants with physical outlets should consider adding these capabilities:

In-store availability as a product attribute. Even if merchants can’t drill down into inventory to show the availability of an individual item in an individual store, it’s helpful to let shoppers know whether items in a results set can be purchased in stores at all, versus being offered online exclusively. Many merchants already flag online exclusives as a way to encourage purchasing through the Web — but they can use the same product data attribute to let shoppers filter results sets to view only items also or only available in physical locations.

Portable searches – online and offline. Merchants should encourage shoppers to save for later reference particular keyword terms or individual products from a search results set; that way, shoppers can not only easily return to a shopping session on their computers, but they can use mobile devices in-store to pull up their prior finds. As suggested in earlier posts, adding the capability to save such information doesn’t necessarily mean requiring shoppers to register: for example, shoppers could add items to a wish list they could then email to themselves for future reference, or instantly email themselves a link to a results set using “forward to a friend” type functionality. Similarly, shoppers heading to stores should be able to print search results for quick reference — an option Home Depot offers within its eCommerce site on-site search tool.

On-site search example from Home Depot

Connection to relevant in-store events. Making in-store event listings keyword-searchable can alert shoppers to happenings they may not have known were offered. Merchants should display relevant in-store events alongside product results and link the event information to store details such as hours and location. Cookware merchants Sur La Table uses a tabbed layout to present “cooking classes” alongside product results and recipes related to searchers’ keyword terms. Searches can use a faceted-search-style menu in the left-hand column to narrow the class listings to those available at a particular store.

On-site search example from Sur La Table

What search tools do you use to support cross-touchpoint behavior?

Filed under Acquire, Convert & Retain, Connected Commerce Tagged with On-site search

Getting fresh to boost SEO relevance

January 9, 2013 by Leave a Comment

While most merchants are now well-schooled in the mantra “content is king” when it comes to search engine optimization, another catchphrase is becoming equally as important: “it’s all about timing.”

In particular, “freshness” or recency is a key consideration for relevance. Google released a “freshness update” in 2011, rewarding content likely to be more recent, based on factors such as when a page was first indexed, how old it is relative to the other potential search results, and how much of a document has been updated.

A stream of frequently-updated content on a merchant site can not only contribute outright to higher rankings, but more content means more fodder for social media, which is growing in importance as a ranking factor. In 2011, page-level social media mentions were thought to make up 7.22% of the search algorithm, compared with 5.30% in 2009, according to SEOMoz’s survey of ranking factors. And the majority of SEO experts polled for the survey said social media signals would grow to be a top ranking factor in the future.

While not many merchants can modify the selection of actual products on offer on a weekly or even monthly basis, there’s a range of related content that can be continually modified to not only boost freshness for SEO, but keep shoppers engaged. Consider:

Spotlighting the latest user-generated content. Recent product reviews or posts to a question-and-answer support forum demonstrate that the site is an active hub for existing and potential customers.Beauty merchant Sephora features its “Beauty Talk” section prominently, linking to its thousands of bulletin board posts from the global navigation via the “advice” link. Posts are displayed with the most recent at the top, and are simultaneously displayed on the eCommerce site and the merchant’s Facebook page.

Content example from Sephora

Showcasing expert content. Blog posts, seasonal buying guides, FAQs and educational articles all give merchants the opportunity to provide fresh content that’s not only keyword-rich for search engines, but a potent reason for shoppers to engage repeatedly with the site. Beauty manufacturer Perricone MD’s blog, “The Daily Perricone,” features brief beauty, fitness and nutrition tips along with guests posts by other beauty bloggers – a steady stream of engaging content that gives searchers another entry point into the Perricone MD product line.

Content example from Perricone MD

Be the first to post what content is available. Just as it rewards freshness, Google penalizes duplicate content that has already appeared elsewhere. Merchants can win the race by posting what original content they produce first, before sharing it with affiliates or other retailers. And it behooves merchants who rely on manufacturer content to tailor the information to their audience – not only creating original material for search engines, but a better experience for shoppers.  Bedding manufacturer Cuddledown’s product descriptions are partially replicated on Amazon.com — but the original listing is more extensive and includes a certification logo and the ability to select firmness levels not offered by the mass merchant. Further product details are available on a second tab, in addition to videos and a “how to choose” guide.

Content example from Cuddledown

Content example from Amazon

How are you freshening up content for the New Year?

Filed under Client Innovations, Search Engine Marketing Tagged with Content

Top 2013 priority: proactive customer service

January 3, 2013 by Leave a Comment

With our optimization series winding down at the peak of the holiday season, you may have missed the final installment on customer service — but it’s well worth checking out, as it may be the most important topic we covered.

After all, while social media, SEO and mobile strategies may or may not fit a given merchant’s target audience and business goals, every seller strives to deliver stellar service to potential and returning customers. And the stakes couldn’t be higher: with consumers more empowered than ever to voice their opinions, failure to meet expectations carries a heavy price. Nearly a third of consumers have complained about poor service using social feedback methods such as social networking sites or third-party review sites such as Yelp, according to Forrester,  and 45% of consumers say they’ll quickly abandon an online purchase altogether if they can’t find a quick answer to their questions.

The good news is that empowerment is a two-way street. Merchants now have the ability to move beyond reactive customer care and into the realm of proactive relationship building. The ability to deliver targeted service messaging appropriate to the touchpoint customers prefer means that merchants needn’t wait for the phone to ring to demonstrate excellent service.  And just as poor service risks damaging the brand, merchants who meet consumers’ high expectations stand to reap substantial rewards. Satisfactory service interactions can lead to additional purchases from existing customers and a cost savings due to reduced customer churn. In addition, a positive customer service experience can lead to a boost in word-of-mouth recommendations: for example, shoppers who use social networks for customer service are three times as likely to recommend a brand after a successful interaction, according to a survey by NM Incite. In addition, merchants who can differentiate their brands through superior service are better positioned to compete against online behemoths such as Amazon: stellar service can help contribute value to the brand that goes beyond discount pricing.

To achieve such gains, merchants should not only invest in optimizing service across touchpoints, but they should take a proactive stance in shaping customer communication and building relationships. Delivering fluid, user-driven customer service helps merchants provide information that’s relevant to the audience and the touchpoint – enabling sales and boosting loyalty. Download the whitepaper to read how merchants can
•    lay the groundwork with organizational changes that boost consistency and open communication
•    build substantial self-service content – with help from customers
•    adopt a proactive approach, touchpoint by touchpoint

Will customer service be a focus for you in 2013? Why or why not?

Filed under Acquire, Convert & Retain, Connected Commerce Tagged with Business Optimization

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