Practical eCommerce recently asked industry insiders to share a great, innovative idea that could help an ecommerce firm. Here’s what ten of them had to say.
Rich Consumer Experiences Dominate
“Focus on immersive branding and marketing techniques that create unexpectedly fast, fun, and easy shopping experiences. Are your budgets caught up on technology or are you investing in creating that visceral connection to the consumer? What amazes us the most is that very few e-stores provide that connection.”
Michael Benadiba
CEO
OrderDynamics Corporation
Segment Audiences, Then Localize Messages
“Online retailers need to better segment online audiences. Once marketers understand an audience’s make-up and behavior, they can determine which online segments are useful, viable and profitable. They can start “localizing” their messages. Segmenting an audience into smaller groups ensures each receives the most relevant, personalized experience, information and offers.”
Rob Friedman
Executive Vice President
Digital Element
Provide Engaging Content
“You invest heavily to get shoppers to your product page, now focus on sales conversions. Product videos and other engaging content are proven to increase sales, and it’s not just for large merchants. They are available from many of your vendors at no charge to you. Ask them about it!”
Rick Martin
President and CEO
SellPoint
Remove Disturbing Elements
“Remove any disturbing elements that could make any potential customer leave your site, like blinking banners and annoying flash-animations. Also make sure there’s not too much information on your site. Keep in mind most people only read the headlines.”
Roy Andre Tollefsen
Managing Director and Lead Designer
Trollweb.no and Silverthemes.com
Engage Visitors With Video
“Video engages the user by providing demonstrations about your products or services. Show how your product works, different views, features and how it will benefit the user. Providing video is fairly easy and can be a major boost to your sales when done correctly. Search engines also like quality video.”
Byron Tabor
Owner
PracticalSports.com
Create Simple and Fun Initiatives
“Great websites employ three main elements: content, community and commerce. Site owners need a meaningful metric for user participation on their sites. So create simple and fun initiatives for users and reward users that participate. It’s a great way to develop an audience for your site.”
Chris Cuellar
Founder
Apples 2 Apples
Try USPS For International Shipping
“The fall of the dollar against foreign currencies is opening up a huge new export market for U.S. ecommerce merchants. United States Postal Service first class mail international and priority mail international delivery are a reliable and inexpensive way to ship export orders. Rates and how-to information are posted online at http://www.usps.com/business/international/welcome.htm.”
John Lindberg
President
eFulfillment Service
Target International Searches
“Increase your website targeted traffic with targeted localized search engine marketing campaigns in both natural and paid search efforts. Promote your product, service and business on domestic search engines, such as Google.fr, Google.de, Google.it, Baidu, Rambler, and others. Localize your product description, FAQs, tutorials, website, public relations and advertising campaigns.”
Adriana Iordan
Web Marketing Manager
Avangate
Use Your Social Smarts
“Make product pages more social. Offer prizes to past customers who post the best reviews. Allow “track backs” to product pages that are linked to from blogs. Make it easy for users to share products on Facebook and Twitter. And have a public (though moderated) comment section for each product.”
Scott Smigler
President
Exclusive Concepts, Inc.
Implement a Life Cycle Email Messaging Strategy
“Email marketing is much more effective when managed with a marketing strategy. An email life cycle plan will improve conversions, increase revenue spent per customer and help discover opportunities that are often missed due to failed communications. There is a little cost in setting this up and the rewards keep paying.”
Jason Prescott
CEO
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