Folks have made a habit of emphasizing the home page of your Web site as the Sacred Portal through which your visitors enter the cyber-structure of your business. As if all other avenues of entry were blocked, and the process could only start at Square One.
Yeah, right. Everyone knows the process can start at any square that is readable by the search engines. And you can directly influence the starting square through pay-per-click advertisements and email campaigns. It is possible your visitors can arrive and start digging deeper into your conversion process without ever bothering over your homepage.
One of the major things that the internet brought with itself is online shopping. Today as the internet is the biggest game, the retail market is making huge progress to attract customer online. No more going out and finding a mall or a shop for the kind of product you want. Also no need to be all mucked up by weekend crowd or take the hassle fo traveling from one place to another.
When people are confident of their next paycheck, they have a predisposition to buy most of their “because I want it” items that are within financial reach (and maybe even just out of reach as well – hence the credit card). That’s because their psychic pain threshold for buying is just above their actual expendable income level.
Here’s how to visualize it: there are usually, say, 5-7 “extra-budgetary” purchases a person might have in mind for the next two months or so: nicer sunglasses, or an expensive wireless mouse, or shoes or some type of clothing, etc. And most of those things will actually get purchased within a rolling 2-3 month time frame, without the buyer feeling that any of them represent a considered purchase – even if the sunglasses or shoes might be in or above the $150 range.
There I was at Babies”R”Us, way back in 2003, manhandling different strollers and finding myself more eager to read the amazon.com reviews than to kick the tires myself – and it had nothing to do with wanting to avoid the in-store shopping experience and everything to do with wanting to make the best purchase decision possible.
So why would I want to read reviews when I could examine the stroller first hand?
It’s not rocket science. If you want your website to sell more, you have to construct your website so it employs the sales process. That’s what everybody at Future Now and I keep going on (and on) about. Selling is worlds away from allowing customers to buy, and if you aren’t selling, you’re not going to be in business for long.
Yeah, I know the Internet is new, but do you still think thousands of years of consumer psychology got an overnight makeover just because somebody found a different way to communicate? I don’t think so! And you don’t have to take my word. Look at all the consumers who are not buying from all the dot-coms that are failing. So let’s look at what goes into the sales process and how it works in the bricks and mortar world. Translate this to your website, and you will see your sales go up – WAY up.
That hard work on your websites SEO has it finally ranking on the first page-great! What do you do now? Unfortunately you can’t just forget about your website and take a vacation in the Bahamas; there is still effort to be made so you can maintain your search engine rankings. Ways to maintain your ranking in Google and the other search engines are offered in the following article.
Last week, I participated in a panel discussion at the SXSW Interactive conference held annually here in Austin. The title of the panel was “Convergence in Advertising”, and I was joined by executives from companies in the educational media, advergaming, and social media fields.
The growing importance of consumer-created content
In turn, each panelist discussed the growing importance of
consumer-created content and the impact of this content on traditional
advertising practices, client relationships, and consumers’ brand
perceptions.
My presentation focused specifically on customer reviews (surprise!) and on the opportunities available to leading brands as a result of the proliferation of consumer-created content and the many platforms that now exist to support content creation and distribution.
Convergence Meaning
Before going down that path, however, I talked briefly about what convergence actually means to me, given my perspective at samedayessays. Convergence is a frequently used term, and it seems to mean just about anything you need it to mean to support your business strategy or model! For me, however, convergence means or describes three things:
Convergent technologies are those that make the key “end uses” of consumer technology, such as media consumption and content creation, accessible in a near-ubiquitous fashion, through always-on connectivity, portability, integration, and good old device and network performance and capacity. As I presented at SXSW, audience members posted in real-time to their blogs from laptops and high-speed wireless connections.
Convergence describes the multi-directional conversations that are now occurring between and among brands and consumers. While traditional advertising “communicated” in a one-way fashion, convergent advertising is just the opposite. Brands now increasingly rely on feedback from key consumers and conversations with influentials to refine their business strategies, and convergent technologies enable this process. Soon after deploying customer reviews, Golfsmith found an opportunity to reach out to a very vocal customer (and reviewer) located right in Austin, where they are headquartered.
Last, convergence means that advertiser- and consumer-created content are beginning to merge. From the early beginnings of contextual advertising to emerging social media platforms like FilmLoop, “content convergence” is a powerful new force in marketing and advertising. samedayessays clients are inviting this convergence by offering their customers the ability to write and publish product reviews, which may ultimately be used in both on-site and off-site advertising programs. For example, PETCO now uses excerpts from actual customer reviews as copy on its web site and in its email newsletters.
In summary, convergence is a complex and disruptive force but one that advertisers must embrace and learn to leverage. At samedayessays , we are trying to facilitate this for our clients by providing an ROI-focused application of technology and content convergence.
By continually enhancing our functionality for enabling content
creation and distribution, we hope to increase the overall quality,
relevance, and authenticity of this content, while also increasing its
reach. Looking further out, we see enormous potential in supporting
mobile devices to enable consumers to access a product review, reviewer
profile, or other community content on demand while he or she is on the
go. Stay tuned . . .
If you have an e-commerce business, the following advice will be very good for the development of your business. Not only makes your company survive, but will greatly expand!
Glen Urban is an MIT professor focused on understanding, building, and maintaining trust on the Web. In his latest book, Don’t Just Relate – Advocate!, Urban makes a valuable claim about being a responsible advisor to your customers:
It is undeniable, at this time that the tendency of the world community is greater for shopping online than shopping directly. Shopping face to face may still be done in traditional markets but maybe soon it will change too. One of the influential figures in online shopping is Jeff Bezos.
I was fortunate enough to attend of a keynote presentation by Jeff Bezos last year. Jeff keynoted Shop.org’s first Multichannel Executive Symposium, co-hosted with McKinsey & Company. As a Shop.org Board member, I was proud that Jeff accepted our invitation to present.
Jeff Bezos : “The Future of Always=Connected Camera Phone Affected Physical Shopping”
As a brief one-minute comment while answering an attendee’s question, Jeff talked about the future of always-connected camera phones. When camera phones offer 3.5-megapixel resolution, he said, the world of physical shopping becomes very interesting. This is because 3.5-megapixel resolution enables you to accurately read a product barcode right off the box.
With an always-on mobile device, you would be able to price compare,
read product ratings and reviews, and even get product accessory
information from local stores in your nearby area while you are
physically shopping in that store. Well, this was like a lightning rod
to me, while Jeff casually moved on to the next subject.
Talk about turning the physical shopping environment on its head. I
was surprised to read that many camera phones in South Korea already
offer 8-megapixel resolution (they also receive live satellite TV and
cost $700).
How About Physical Retail World In The U.S?
So, in just a few years, probably 3-4 conservatively, the physical retail world in the U.S. will clash with the online retail world in a fundamentally disruptive way. Some would say that is happening already.
In either case, I believe that customer ratings and reviews become
even more important in an environment like this. I also believe that
differentiated service, great product, really listening to your
customers, collaborating more closely with your suppliers, and word of
mouth marketing become even more important in this environment. It is
right around the corner.
Today’s topic will be very interesting for those of you who are thinking of doing business online or you who like to shop without face to face alias online shopping. How come? Yes, e-commerce is very growing nowadays that is supported by internet speed and unlimited reach. And these benefits are enjoyed by the seller or the buyer.
According to mashable’s Founder and CEO, there are over 70,000 blogs created a day with over 50,000 blog posts per hour. What are the chances that one of your customers is talking about you? High, and becoming higher every day as more jump into the global discussion. What are the chances that one of your customers or prospects will read that post?
Search Engine Influence
With Google, Yahoo, Mashable , and others already providing robust blog search engines, the answer is, again, high and becoming higher. There are several companies that offer blog mining services, such as BuzzMetrics, Cymfony, and Kaava. And these are valuable services for companies, no doubt. If you are skeptical, read the Fortune story of Kryptonite, the bike lock company. This may be one of the most important articles you read all year.
There is no doubt a lot of junk in most blogs. Most are nothing more than online diaries. But the search engines are making it easier to find information about products in blogs. The 40-year old parent may write about their kids 90% of the time, but 10% of the time they may choose to write about products and services they have recently experienced. The search engine takes the right person to that content at the right time (i.e. when they are researching whether or not to buy the product or service).
The Power of Internet Marketing
Research by BizRate shows that 56% of shoppers begin shopping at a branded website. This is intuitively obvious to me – the Internet has gone mass market and the late majority starts shopping at the brands they trust. The trick is to capture those individuals in that moment instead of sending them off with an easy click or two to go searching for reviews. That is where Samedayessays comes in.
For all of the glory of the Web, it is a non-tactile shopping environment. Companies like Scene7, RichFX, MyVirtualModel, and others make online shopping more tactile. They are helpful as the eCommerce industry struggles with 2.6% conversion, meaning that 97.4% of those that visit a store online don’t buy within that browsing session. Compare that to the 90% or so that buy when they enter a physical store. Of course, people can browse online stores more easily than driving to physical stores, and their purchase intent is often lower online than offline. This isn’t a bad thing, it just means more product browsing. Nevertheless, at 2.6% conversion, there is a lot of room for conversion improvement.
Customer Rating and Review
The beautiful thing about customer ratings and reviews on your site is that it is on your site. Let me explain:
On your site, customer ratings and reviews are measurable. When a customer writes a review, you know who that customer is and what actions they have taken within that shopping session as well as previous sessions.
On your site, customer ratings and reviews are actionable. Since you know who the customer is, you can decide whether to reach out to them or not. Build your own focus group of high lifetime value and vocal customers for your next relevant product launch. Address negative word of mouth by reaching out to those customers and offering to correct their experience. The voice of the customer is closer to your brand, helping push cultural change inside your company to bring all employees closer to an understanding of your customers’ experience (i.e. to become more customer centric).
On your site, customer ratings and reviews serve a purpose. They give your customers a reason to trust you and come back to your site often as a valuable source of information. They help make online shopping more tactile, which results in higher online conversion. There is nothing more tactile than word of mouth (positive and negative) from other customers that have experienced that poduct or service that you are considering buying.
Outside of your site, customer ratings and reviews have virtually
none of these attributes, with the notable exception that companies like
Intelliseek, Cymfony, and Kaava have the goal of making them
actionable.
I would also argue that customer ratings and reviews on your site are
far more actionable in the sense that the online shopper is in a
different frame of mind than when they are writing for their blog or on a
site where they may or may not have a connection (like Epinions). They
will be more thorough with their review in an environment focused on
shopping within the brand they know as opposed to
stream-of-consciousness within their blog.
As a result of our techniques, the average review we collect has a
350 character count, or 72 words. Compare that to the many reviews you
read out there on the Web that say “this product is great” or “this
product is terrible” and provide you with no actionable information at
all. Those reviews move the needle for no one.
The more descriptive the review and the more it mimics offline word
of mouth (which usually occurs face-to-face), the more tactile the
online shopping experience becomes. As a result, shoppers and companies
benefit.
