Unbranded traffic is visitors who come to your site via Google with a specific need in mind. They have no preference for a brand and are looking for a product or service.  I am not talking about a brand of a particular product, its the brand of the retailer.  Unbranded visitors are retailer neutral. If you are Harvey Norman, you would be interested in visitors who came to the site typing “iPod”, or “LCD TV’s”, or “Laptops” into Google:  terms without the Harvery Norman name as part of the keyword.  To be clear, “Harvey Normon iPod” is classified as branded traffic. It is always very interesting to review those visitors who type “Harvey Norman” into Google (Branded Traffic), but this traffic will never provide you accurate insights into how well your site performs at selling. Why? Branded traffic already know you! If your site is poor, or has a clunky shopping cart, or the product images are poor, Branded traffic will endure these buying barriers because of their loyalty to the brand. However, because unbranded traffic is focussed on having a need fulfilled, they will be far more affected by the shortcomings of your website.

Branded traffic will always convert higher than unbranded traffic for this reason. We have clients who have a branded traffic conversion rate of 20%, however, their unbranded traffic converts at under 4%.

Why is it so important to have a website cater to unbranded traffic? Converting unbranded traffic equals growth to your online business. You can have the largest database of existing clients, which will come to your site as branded traffic, but this revenue stream is only one piece of the puzzle. The ability for your site to convert unbranded traffic is the acquisition strategy required in order to build your database.

The one thing I didn’t tell you is where to find these reports. Best to contact the Google Analytics experts in your neighbourhood to help you out on this one.

One point to note, this article is geared for eCommerce, however, those businesses looking to develop a Lead Generation Strategy for their services would adopt the same philosophy.

Here are some examples of what can be done with this data:

Category Naming:

Many businesses get caught up into how they should be naming their product categories. It is normally an internalised decision which does not take the customer into account. The demand data will state exactly what customers are calling your products. So give them what they are looking for!

The demand data is defining the customer’s buying process for you!! Businesses pay serious money to gain an understanding of how their customers buy products. This information is free!! If the website’s method of selling can match the customer’s method of buying, sales grow.

A great example is a BBQ client of ours. They were adamant the navigation should represent the material of the BBQ i.e. stainless steel, wooden. When we conducted research using the demand tool, we found there was very little demand for BBQ Material terms; however there was huge demand for the size of the BBQ’s: i.e. “2 burner”, “3 burner”. The customer reluctantly agreed to change the category names and sales increased immediately.

Navigation Structure:

It is very common for businesses to miss out on a variation of their products which the market is looking for. A great example can be taken from the data of last week’s article.

• “Jewellery watches” – 450,000 times
• “Ladies watches” – 18,000 times
• “Bracelet watches” – 2,900 times
• “Ladies gold watch” – 2,400 times
• “Dkny ladies watch” – 500 times
• “Ladies sports watches” – 250 times

An online watch retailer, who shall remain nameless, has a very large selection of watches, with a navigation structure which represents product types and brands, with no mention of a category for “Gold watches”. In fact they have a good selection of Gold Watches, but this product type is dispersed throughout the site in different categories. With 2,400 requests for “Ladies Gold Watch” it would be worthwhile to create another category specifically around this type of demand. The market is defining their needs.

SEO strategy:

With the advancement of eCommerce technology, an SEO strategy for eCommerce is becoming increasingly reliant on aligning navigation structure to demand (this is assuming your shopping cart is built to a reputable standard). This is compared to the old requirement of filling your site full of copy. Don’t get me wrong, it is still necessary to comply with a best practice approach to the layout of category and product pages along with sales copy written in a way where it makes sense to both visitors and Google. But the demand data now plays a significant part.

The purpose of an SEO strategy is to send highly qualified traffic to your site for free. Many people get caught up in an SEO approach which attempts to acquire as much traffic as possible for free with no regard for the calibre of the traffic.

The demand data provides the necessary focus and defines keywords which should be targeted. For those who have this notion they need to be organically prominent for hundreds (more likely thousands) of keywords, the question is where does one start? What is the plan?

An effective SEO Strategy is an incremental plan which is built into business processes consisting of building new pages starting with those terms with the highest demand which directly align to your product offering. Nail the low hanging fruit!

Remember the BBQ client example above?? Once the category structure changed to “2 burner”, “3 burner” category titles, the organic traffic grew exponentially. Not only did this traffic source grow, but it was qualified traffic which linked directly to sales, and we all know how hard it is to convert unbranded traffic. Here is a great example of a website becoming more aligned to the customer’s buying process. Sure there are other factors to convert a sale, but this site is now speaking the customer’s language.

It is important to remember the “Demand” data is a representation of what your market is asking for. There are no assumptions here. This data allows websites to align as close as possible to what customers are asking for. The closer the alignment to your customer needs/wants, the greater the growth in sales.

Google has a tool which can provide you clarity on how often people type in keywords or keyword phrases (this is a fancy way of saying the words people type into the Google search box) into the Google Search box each month. Why is this valuable?

Firstly, through Neilson’s only division, and the research they have compiled, we know that over 90% of Australian’s use a search engine to research a product or service before purchasing either online or off. We also know that Google as a search engine has 98% market share in Australia, meaning, everyone uses Google when they are looking for something online. These two statistics verify the demand data which comes from Google is an accurate representation of the opportunity for businesses.

The days of understanding your demographics are over. If you have a small business which specialises in Female Watches, for example, which market intelligence would you prefer to have in order to determine the opportunity for your offering?

Option #1. Females in Australia between the age of 22 and 35 are prone to spend $200 to $350 on a watch. They like dinner parties and social status is extremely important to them. They have a large discretionary income and focus at least 20% of their income on their appearance which includes jewellery. Watches fall within the jewellery category. This demographic is also likely to own 2 to 4 watches which denote different applications i.e. formal, casual, and sporty.

Option #2. In July 2010 the following terms were typed into Google:

• “Jewellery watches” – 450,000 times
• “Ladies watches” – 18,000 times
• “Bracelet watches” – 2,900 times
• “Ladies gold watch” – 2,400 times
• “Dkny ladies watch” – 500 times
• “Ladies sports watches” – 250 times

Which set of information gives you the power to make business decisions?? Which set of information can give you a plan to act on?? How would you know in the information available in Option 1 there is demand for “Gold watches”? How could you determine the popularity of the Dkny brand with the information set out in option 1??  You can’t.

My next article will dive deeper into how the information in Option 2 can become a strategic guideline in building your new website, and how it can drive your customer acquisition strategy.

BTW – the figures shown in Option #2 are real, so if you have a website which sells Ladies watches, enjoy the free consulting advice this article and the next one will deliver!!

So, let’s add this all up:

• The client pays more money for unique/custom functionality.
• The project is delayed due to the extra time required to build the custom functionality.
• The functionality never delivers ROI.
• The delay in the website going live is also time lost to earn money, acquire customers, and build a database for repeat purchasing.

The next time you have a great idea on what could work online for your customers, don’t even think about investing in it until you have nailed the basics.

The phrase “content is king” has been around for quite some time now and it still holds largely true to this day. While social media has taken a lot of the hype in recent years we have to remember what powers a lot of this media. User generated ‘content’.
By having real content, not just your product listings, as part of your eCommerce offering, it helps remove the ‘pure selling’ appearance which so many stores have. This allows you engage with potential customers on another level.

Having been the strategist behind a handful of websites over the last 10 years, I have implemented a number of techniques to increase the stickiness. One site in particular was ranked 3rd in New Zealand behind Trademe and NZDating in user session time. Great content was one of the key reasons the visitor session times were so high.

Stickiness can be an important factor when dealing with ecommerce websites. The longer you can keep potential customers on your site, the more opportunities you have to sell products or gather leads. You can increase your stickiness by having a selection of great content that pulls them in.

Before you start – Content to Attract Your Potential Customers

Before you start loading your site with hundreds of articles it is important to consider exactly who you are targeting and what articles they would be interested in, or what search terms they may be using.  You can pack your site with articles but if it is not attracting the right type of people you may be wasting your time.

Buyers or Information Seekers

Your content acts as a magnet for those already on your site and those using search engines looking for information you have written about.

When it comes to online stores and pulling people in with content there are two key groups. The first is those that are actively seeking products to purchase as well as those researching products before they buy. The second group are the general information seekers or browsers which may be interested in information which is related to the products you sell.  While they are not looking to buy right now they may in the future, so building interest or retrieving their email address where possible may result in a future sale.

Your approach to content for each of these groups could be different. For example, you may have some content on the pros and cons of a certain model of phone or some comparisons which a ‘buyer’ may find useful. Buyers also pay more attention to brand names in comparison to information seekers so take note of that when creating content.

The latest news on mobile phones or a special event happening could be ideal for an information seeker who likes to stay up with the play in that area and follow the latest treads.

If you publish comparison articles make sure you keep the content updated regularly so that you are talking about the latest products. Reviews of products with a balanced look at the pros and cons are often very useful for those researching products or looking to purchase and these can be either written under your control or by your visitors.

By providing useful and up to date or unique content you also begin to make your site an authority and known resource for the subject matter.  Other content you may offer besides news, reviews and comparisons could include extended or unique product descriptions, white papers, customer testimonials or extended galleries for visual products.

Put time into customizing your copy and landing pages for key products, making it more informative or engaging. This is better than having copy which ten other sites also have because it came from the same source.

Many people will find surveys and various research you conduct useful and interesting. The survey could explore which products or product attributes people prefer and value in various categories, why they prefer them, drilling right down to brand specific questions. If you are not sure how to get people contributing try offering a prize or two for participants or some other form of discount on store items. You can then publish the results giving you something many other online stores will simply not have.

Some online stores provide an annual review of their niche area for customers which is often in the form of a pdf or within a dedicated section of the site. Such a comprehensive comparison of products is often highly valued by customers.

Become a Content Provider

You don’t have to write hundreds of articles but by sharing the odd article here and there with related sites or online article sources can help advertise your site and also build inbound links at the same time as part of your SEO strategy.

There are a vast number of websites dedicated to providing content to others. Ezinearticles for example lists articles in various categories which others are free to use.  You are able to provide a paragraph at the base of the article which can promote your online store.

Schedule and Plan Your Content

For your content strategy to work well you will need to plan ahead as best you can.  Create a schedule ahead of time with areas you would like to cover, who will be writing them and the deadlines.

Google and other search engines rank new content above that of similar but older content. For this reason among others content isn’t something you just load up once before the launch of your site. It is an ongoing process.
If you don’t consider yourself a writer then delegate out the creation of content. The more professional and quirky the articles are the better. Avoid publishing articles that are badly written as you may not notice it but others often pay a fair amount of attention to details.

In future articles we will look at SEO in line with content and how to optimize it to obtain better results.

The one interesting task DIYer’s take on (both in New Zealand and Australia) is Google Analytics.  Very few truly understand the value which can be extracted from this tool.  Many think it’s purely a reporting tool and comment “why would I invest in a team of Google Analytics (GA) Specialists to stare at a bunch of reports?”  People don’t understand the learning’s which can be gained and insights/conclusions which result in changes to improve site performance.

So, the next time you spend a couple of hours staring at your Google Analytics reports with little to show for it, think about utilising GA Specialists. One thing to remember, if a GA Specialist makes one recommendation to improve the performance of your website, that one change will continually add value to your website.  It’s not like a Billboard advertisement where once the ad comes down, so does the value to your business.

The improvement to your website is forever.  Call now.

To cut to the chase, Tony’s book Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose should be on the bookshelf (or Kindle/iPad/e-book reader) of every CEO, Director and Manager of not only online businesses, but any business looking to build a team culture working towards the same purpose.

A Customer Service Company That Sell Shoes

Tony places a lot of emphasis on the fact that Zappos’ goal is to delight the customer through amazing customer service. Their philosophy is “We’re a customer service company that sells shoes”.

Customer service is their competitive advantage. But doesn’t every business say that they offer “the best customer service” or something along those lines? Zappos take customer service to another level.

How Zappos Delight Their Customers

Zappos go out of their way to ensure their customers receive only the best customer service. An example from the book:

…most of our efforts on the customer service and customer experience side actually happen after we’ve already made the sale and taken a customer’s credit card number. For example, for most of our loyal and repeat customers, we do surprise upgrades to overnight shipping, even though we only promise them standard ground shipping when they choose the free delivery option.

On empowering their employees to deliver outstanding customer service:

…we don’t measure call times (our longest phone call was almost six hours!), and we don’t upsell. We just care about whether the rep goes above and beyond for every customer. We don’t have scripts because we trust our employees to use their best judgment when dealing with each and every customer. We want our reps to let their true personalities shine during each phone call so that they can develop a personal emotional connection with the customer.

Culture

The second biggest point I took out of Tony’s book was culture.

Tony explains how the culture went downhill at LinkExchange (his first successful company which he sold for $265 million) as the success of the company grew, leading to mornings where getting out of bed to go to work felt like a chore.

With this experience in mind, Tony made sure to put the Zappos team culture at the top of the priority list.

An example of how Tony and the Zappos team treat company culture is demonstrated by the following excerpt from an email sent to all Zappos employees when the company had to lay off 8% of their staff when the financial crisis hit at the end of 2008:

Remember, this is not my company, and this is not our investor’s company. This company is all of ours, and it’s up to all of us where we go from here. The power lies in each and every one of us to move forward and come out as a team stronger than we’ve ever been in the history of the company. Let’s show the world what Zappos is capable of.

Why Zappos Is One Of The Best

I think Zappos’ success is summed up nicely by the following excerpt from the book:

Others can copy our images, our shipping, and the overall look of our website, but they cannot copy our people, our culture or our service.

Buy The Book

You can grab a copy of Delivering Happiness from Fishpond or Amazon. Delivering Happiness is also available on the Kindle Store (if you’ve just picked up an iPad in New Zealand, you can download the free Kindle iPad App and read the book on your iPad for around $20 – cool huh?).

The problem started a month earlier, when on a busy workday, we discovered we had no water.  The aerator (a tank that processes and softens well water before pumping it into our house) was nearly empty.  Now, I am not completely ignorant of how the system works, and my first guess was to check the switch that signals the pump to do its job.  We found two of the contacts were corroded, and after cleaning and filing them, voila!  Water flowed again.

Three weeks later, the problem repeated itself.  This time we determined that the switch needed replacing.  Fortunately, the switch was only $15, and replacing it was quite simple.  When the switch did not solve the problem we called in pros.

After two days without water, we learned the new switch was working.  In fact, the old one was “somewhat” doing the job, but it had just been stuck in the “on” position.  Therefore, 120 feet down, the pump was continuously pumping water right back into the ground.  It ended up being a costly situation.

So…what does all that have to do with an online store?

Actually, it has everything to do with it.  Many emergency customer calls, refer to a problem during the checkout process.  When asked when the last test order was placed, many owners or Web Champions respond, “never” or “when we first set it up.”  Overlooking this extremely important step causes wasted time and money.  Waiting to perform standard maintenance for your website increases the costs of repairs.  Lack of regular testing and maintenance will hinder your website’s performance, just as the lack of regular oil changes will affect your vehicles’ performance.

Preventing unnecessary problems is simple, take the time to complete a test order.  When customers call with issues, you will need to know if the problem they are calling about is the cause of user error, lack of guidance, or if the site itself is functioning improperly.  Make sure you are aware of the procedures involved, and be diligent about carrying out regular maintenance for the software you use.

My ignorance may not have been the cause of the burst pipe, but how do I know for sure if I did not take all the precautionary steps?  Creating a monthly routine, by choosing a day each month that you run regular maintenance checks, will ensure your website is running as smoothly as water from a well.

We get asked often how to encourage customers to make repeat purchases. Using an online loyalty program can certainly help, but it must be done carefully and with the right tools.

There are a huge amount of factors involved in creating a successful loyalty program. However, before you consider initiating a loyalty program of your own, start by focusing on delivering the best experience you can to your customers. Great experiences, like loyalty programs, will spur repeat business from customers.

Determining your Customers Lifetime Value

When budgeting how much to invest in a loyalty program, a business owner should first weigh up what the life time value of that customer is worth to the business.

Focusing too much on getting a customer to purchase once shouldn’t be the goal of your website. However, we see this daily, business owners failing to calculate the potential lifetime value of a customer when determining how much to invest in a loyalty campaign. So first question you need to ask yourself is what is it worth to the bottom line to attract and keep a quality customer?

There are many ways to estimate the lifetime value of a customer. Probably the simplest method is to multiply the average order value by the number of times an average customer repurchases. An example might look like this:

If the average basket size at my florist store is $85 and the average customer places an order three times per year, the value of the customer is $255 per annum and $1,275 over five years. If you run a 50 percent margin of profit with your business, would you invest a year’s profit of $127.50 to capture and retain one customer that would stay for a lifetime?

A loyalty program is only one way of increasing repeat purchasing, however its right up there with one of the best strategies. Repeat purchasing is based on the old direct marketing premise that it is cheaper to keep an existing customer than it is to attract a new one. Once you have a customer, building a closer relationship with them is critical. It’s through that relationship that a bond is created between consumer and retailer. It’s always great to generate new customers, but it’s usually much less expensive to hold onto existing customers.

Five factors you can implement right away to prompt your customers to return for further purchases:

• Fast delivery
• Fantastic Customer Service
• Customer centric website (Easy to use and navigate)
• Targeted Email Newsletters offering promotions or deals
• Free shipping

When your site’s navigation and usability make it easy to find products and relevant information, they will want to return again and again. Put simply, the shopping experience must be enjoyable.

Price is not the primary driver of loyalty. To generate loyalty, you have to go beyond price and offer customers an experience, and consider ways to improve the experience your customers receive when they purchase your products. Sometimes the nature of a product or experience can be confusing, and the experience issue is not something that is obvious or what customers are complaining about. Thus, you should use your database to analyze the data to find specific areas that can be addressed.

Implementing a Loyalty Program

For a loyalty program to achieve a high return on investment, a business owner must analyse the existing data and behaviour of their customer base. If business owners don’t feel comfortable analysing their own data, there are eCommerce specialists that specialise in helping build, customise and deploy loyalty programs specific to their business model, products and customers.

For those business owners who want to build and implement a loyalty program on their own,  Magento’s Reward Points functionality allows online merchants to implement unique programs designed to enhance user experience and increase customer loyalty. Points are awarded based on a wide range of transactions and customer actions and can be easily managed through the back end.

Since building loyalty is a long-term initiative, finding a digital agency specific to a loyalty program is critical. We believe there is tremendous value in working with a single agency with specific eCommerce expertise in building and managing loyalty programs, rather than multiple agencies performing independent services. This way, your emphasis can be placed on the customer and the customer experience, and not on coordinating various details with various suppliers, all of which can potentially lead to losing focus on the primary objective.

The rest of this article blends Econsultancy’s top Manufacturer hurdles with Exceed Online’s knowledge gathered from our Manufacturer clients who reside in both New Zealand and Australia. The one thing I can confirm is, the troubles faced by the large global Manufacturers are identical to those in Australasia:

1. Creating an online strategic plan.  Manufacturers are concerned the in-house resources do not have the ability to develop a strategic approach and and build a sound online plan.

2. Threats of damaging long term existing retail relationships.  This issue seems to be at the forefront, as Manufacturers strive to build a delicate balance between building their brand via direct to consumer sales, and not offend retail partners.

3. Product collateral.  Manufacturers’ have never really been forced to develop sales collateral which appeal to the end consumer.  It’s always been geared toward the retail buyer.  Sure Manufacturer’s typically have good product images, but where is the benefit driven copy?  Does a Manufacturer truly understand the buying process of their target market, or the buying hurdles when they shop online?  Do they know their customer at all?

4. Pricing strategy.  How does a Manufacturer determine an RRP?  There is an opportunity to dramatically grow margin, but do you intentionally remain higher priced than  retail partners?  If so, where does the cost of freight fit into this equation?  Do you ignore the need to offer the consumer competitive value?  Or is their respect for retail partner margins?

5. Logistics infrastructure not set up for single SKU orders.  To maintain proper management of purchasing, inventory, consumer shipments, overstock, and returns, separate processes and systems are required.  Manufacturers need to achieve the 3 R’s of order fulfillment:  getting the Right product to the Right place at the Right time.

6. eCommerce Customer Service.  eCommerce Customer Service consists of all the activities which occur after a purchase.  This function requires systems and a team who are in tune with your target market.  There are benefits to outsourcing however; a Manufacture needs to appreciate how eCommerce Customer Service can negatively impact the brand if done wrong.  Having third parties responsible for your customers happiness is a very high risk.  Does Amazon or Zappos rely on others?  I think not.

7. Online consumer marketing.  A Manufacturer’s DNA may not include digital direct response marketing, so understanding search marketing, email, affiliate relationships, online retail promotions, social media, and the creative balance between traffic and conversion, becomes a challenge which brings the need for new a skill set which internal staff will never possess.  This function is something which can effectively be outsourced to a third party supplier.

8. The components of an eCommerce ecosystem.  The search for an eCommerce technology is equally as important as the suite of supporting systems (many of them potentially in legacy condition) and will need to be prepared or upgraded for integration. The challenge becomes far greater in the selection process when they realise that not all technology is created equal.

9. People + Time = cost and taking the eye of the ball of core business! The risks to re focus your existing team to online, an area where they are not comfortable, are high.

With so little time to afford, who can deal with this right now?

It is easy to lose focus and become overwhelmed by the many decisions that must be made.  Many use cost as a convenient excuse to dodge the issues above.  However, there will quickly come a time where Senior Management will truly understand they can no longer afford not to go online direct to consumer.

The question will then be…will it be too late?