Pathways to Successful Ecommerce

October 05, 2009 · by Adobe

Persuasion Paths

When it comes to ecommerce and selling online, there is nothing more important than understanding the mind of an online shopper. Knowing how online shoppers think allows you to craft a web experience that matches the expectations of the shopper. Managing the expectations of a shopper, with a deliberate effort to generate a sale, as they flow through the Purchase Funnel is known as a Persuasion Path. Identifying, creating and managing these pathways are vital to ecommerce success.

Often times companies fail to link the purchase funnel to shopping personas resulting in a one size fits all shopping experience. Not taking into account the user persona and focusing solely on the purchase funnel will create glaring “blind spots” or drop-offs that will result in high abandonment rates and very low conversion rates.

Other times companies will identify shopping personas but fail to apply them to the purchase funnel. This mistake often results in an under reaching effort that ignores the beginning (and largest segments) of the buying process and dramatically reduces the market reach of the website. This ultimately results in poor brand awareness and sales performance.

First I’d like to demonstrate how to properly construct Persuasion Paths by using both a Purchasing Funnel and Site Personas. This following is really a high-level overview of the process and is not meant to be a step by step “how to.” I also point out a few technology suggestions for clients looking to create Persuasion Paths for a more effective shopping experience.

http://www.ecomenterprises.com/documents/EcommercePurchaseFunnelECOM2009.pdf

Purchase Funnel

With all purchases, online or off, the shopper cycles through a process that is called a Purchase Funnel. A purchase funnel identifies the unique stages that the shopper goes through before they purchase. Purchasing funnels can vary by industry, channel or even country. The funnel to the left is a typical Online Purchase Funnel that is commonly used in the industry. The diagram also points out “online metric of success” examples that can be used to identify and measure the various stages of the purchase funnel.

Define Shopper “Persona” Types

The first step is to realize that all shoppers are not alike. Some shoppers many know exactly what they want to buy and just need to go online and make a quick purchase. Others may need help in selecting what product or service to purchase. Some may need educating about your product; others may be trying to solve a problem. Some may even need to be spoken to in a different language. Once you understand the different shopper “personas” that may frequent your site (your target audience), you will better be able to address their unique needs.

Identify the different types of shoppers that the store serves and what tasks they will want to accomplish. Who are they? What do they want? How will they go about finding it? Identify as many as you can then narrow them down to the ones that most closely align with your brand. Try keeping your personas to a minimum of three but no more than five.

Don’t forget the Returning Customer

Returning customers should be treated as a separate “persona” as they have very different needs than the first time customer. Expectations include; remembering who they are, their order information, recommendations based on past buys. Returning customers convert at a higher rate, four times the rate in some cases, if expectations are met. Track your conversion rate AND your Return Conversion Rate.

Identifying and Creating Pathways

Once you have identified the different shopper personas that your website will need to address, you now need to map them to the stages of the Purchase Funnel. Using a spreadsheet like the one illustrated below, create a separate column for each Persona and a separate row for each stage of the Purchase Funnel.

Example Pathway Spreadsheet

Once you have mapped the Personas and Funnel Steps to a spreadsheet, use the spreadsheet to identify each step for each persona. Assign each step a unique identifier. For example; P1-1, P2-1.

You can now begin mapping the unique experience for each Persona by writing a detailed description for each step in the user experience. These experiences will define your Persuasion Paths. As you work though each step, think (and look) through the Persona’s eyes and mind. You may find that some steps from different Personas will be similar or even merge, that’s OK, just don’t assume that they remain the same from that point forward.

Examples:

P1-1 – Awareness Persona1 will be made aware of our brand through various channels. In the online channel, we will use two specific methods to build awareness, they are SEO and SEM.

• SEO
  • We will need to identify what keywords resonate most with Person1 as well as which search engine(s) they use most.
  • We will need to craft specific campaigns that take the user to a special Landing Page or to specific product(s) that they were searching for.
  • We will also need to capture the keyword(s) they typed in the search and use that to aid in onsite searches as product recommendations.
• SEM
  • We will need to identify what websites resonate most with Person1 as well as which search engine(s) they use most. (affiliate/cross linking)
  • We will need to craft specific campaigns that take the user to the specific products that they were searching for.
  • We will also need to capture the keyword(s) they typed in the search and use that to aid in onsite searches as product recommendations.
• Areas of Sites Affected
  • Home Page
  • Custom Landing Pages
  • How to Product Kits
  • Dynamic content (cross sells, discounts, sales)

P1-2 – Consideration Persona1 will consider our brand through various efforts. In the online channel, we will use two specific methods to drive consideration; they are Quality Content and Free “How to Videos”.

• Quality Content
  • Product Details Page
    The products details page is critical, it is the point in the funnel where the user spends the most time (on average 5-6 minutes). The information gathered from the product details page is instrumental in a shopper’s determination to become a buyer (consideration). No information can be lacking.
  • Product Details Page “Must Haves”:
    All items should be above the fold or a link to them that is above the fold.
    
    • A clear product overview description
    • Return & Guarantee information or link
    • High quality imagery with multiple views
    • Stock/Availability status
    • A detailed description/spec
    • Clear and accurate pricing
    • Shipping information
    • Customer service number and/or link
    • Call to action buttons clearly marked and clustered
      • Add to Cart
      • Continue Shopping
      • Checkout
    • Clear indicator of current location within the site
    • Site navigation should remain (don’t hide it on details page)
• Free How To Videos
• Areas of Site Affected
  • Home Page
  • Custom Landing Pages
  • Product Details Page
  • Product Search
  • Dynamic content (cross sells, discounts, sales)

Pathways

Once you have completed this exercise for all Personas, you will have mapped out the Persuasion Paths for your website. Use them to create and validate the various flows through your website. Test your assumptions on real users if possible and make changes were necessary. Use these pathways to help guide the Marketing Requirement of the website. The result will be an excellent user experiences which ultimately leads to maximum conversion rates.

Persuasion Paths vs. Conversion Funnels

Persuasion Paths should not be mistaken for your website’s Conversion Funnels. Persuasion Paths are used to define and shape what your Conversion Funnels should look and act like. Once you have defined your Conversion Funnels, you can use Persuasion Paths to test their validity.

Adding Persuasion Paths to Your Site

Our firm often helps clients build out Persuasion Paths using tools to streamline the Persuasion Path process. For instance, after creating the entire pathway process, you could first start by upgrading an older product categorization tree on your home page, in favor of a more dynamic content selection tool built using Adobe Flex, to steer customers quickly to a section or product category most relevant to their needs.

Using tools such as Adobe Flex to create configurator or product selection tools can add a rich internet shopping experience to site visitors. In terms of getting started on the process of improving Persuasion Paths and Conversion Funnels, adding this enhanced navigation ability can be a relatively inexpensive method to upgrade an existing site.

It can also offer companies challenged by the need to do something without the desire or funds to replace their commerce platform with a path to new functionality without abandoning their existing commerce workflow and infrastructure.

Raymond Petty is Co-Founder and CEO of ecom enterprises, inc. Founded in 1998, ecom enterprises specializes in web application development and commerce platform development. ecom enterprises has been recognized as a Top Design Firm for eight consecutive years by the Silicon Valley Business Journal, with hundreds of clients from high-profile start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. www.ecomenterprises.com

Category: Developers' Corner | Tags: Marketing