Online retailers: how to beat the snow

Posted on December 3, 2010 by Rosie Freshwater

The atrocious weather conditions this week will no doubt have affected retail sales in the build up to Christmas, particularly on the high street as shoppers find themselves restricted to their homes (it will be interesting to see the impact on high street sales when figures are released in the coming weeks).

But the adverse conditions do present opportunities for online retailers, as it is likely customers will have time on their hands with their normal routines interrupted. With conditions expected to continue into next week (and beyond – it’s still only December!), we’ve been thinking about the ways in which online retailers can minimise the impact of the weather with a few quick-tips. Here goes…

Your website

Update your delivery information to reflect any changes due to the snow. It is better to be open and honest with your customers rather than maintain delivery promises that you may not be able to fulfill. If you are confident you are still able to deliver on time then shout about it on your home page

If relevant, upload some interesting content to your blog around how your products can be used in the snow, or alleviate the boredom of being snowed in. Fun or interesting content around such a hot topic has the potential to go viral

Your paid search activity

As the snow is such a hot topic of conversation, and if you can make it relevant, get creative with your ad copy by referencing the snow to encourage click through rates (CTR’s). Again, if you are able to offer a normal delivery service mention it in your ad copy as that is a real plus point for people affected by the snow

Some regions may be more adversely affected by the weather than others. If working to a limited budget, consider utilising geo-targeting options to focus budget on areas least affected where you can guarantee timely delivery

Social media

If you are utilising social media then this is the perfect tool to engage with your customers. Keep them up to date with delivery times and answer any queries where the answers may not be available on your standard information pages or where customers cannot get into a store to ask

Engage online with those complaining that things have arrived late or damaged due to the snow. It may not be your fault but if you can show you are responding publicly to concerns, customer loyalty will be positively affected

Take advantage of the current obsession with the weather by utilising relevant and popular hastags in your Twitter updates i.e. #uksnow. But only do so if there if the weather conditions are relevant to the tweet i.e. if you are talking about how the snow has impacted your ability to deliver on time. By doing so, you may capture additional traffic from social media users not previously aware of your brand

This weather is snow joke (sorry!) so consider these quick and low cost solutions to help minimise the negative impact during the busiest time of the year for online retailers.

What to include in a brief to a search marketing agency

Posted on November 24, 2010 by Ben Potter

In my seven years as Sales and Marketing Director here at Leapfrogg, I have spoken to many hundreds, possibly thousands of companies wishing to invest their marketing budgets online. What has surprised me, particularly during the recent downturn, is how few companies approach us with a brief. The reasons for this vary but, more often than not, it is due to the prospect’s inexperience in acquiring search marketing services meaning they do not know what to include in the brief. That’s where I hope I can help.

Why is a brief important?

For me, a brief demonstrates that a prospect is serious about their intention to work with an agency. In creating a brief, it is not always the case that the prospect will get it 100% right in terms of their actual requirements. Acting in a consultative manner from the start means the agency should use their experience and expertise to guide the prospect on what they ACTUALLY need. But regardless of this, a brief at least demonstrates a certain level of commitment from the prospect.

It is also worth bearing in mind that any agency worth their salt will use the pitch process to assess the prospect, just as much as a prospect will be assessing the agency. At Leapfrogg, for example, we are very focused on the type of client we want to be working with; not only are there particular market sectors we target, but also the companies within those sectors need to demonstrate a number of traits and meet certain criteria. A brief is extremely useful in helping the agency judge whether the opportunity is ‘on-profile’, thereby reducing the time and resource potentially wasted on both sides.

What to include in the brief

With the above in mind, here is what I recommend including in a search marketing brief. Note, you may want to put in place an non-disclosure agreement (NDA) before providing the level of detail below but remember, the more detail you provide the better the agency can guide you on what it is you need.

Background

Provide an overview of the business and its history

Outline what you feel makes you different to your competitors / what is your proposition?

Include who you consider to be your main competition; bear in mind that your offline and online competitors are likely to differ

Give an overview of the investment you have you made in search marketing to date, if any / have you used an agency in the past, what results have you experienced?

Provide some background on your website – how long has it been live, who built it, where is it hosted, is there a content management system, do you have any plans to redevelop it in the next six months or so?

Objectives

Demonstrate that you have a clear idea of where the business is heading; what are the company’s financial objectives for the next 1 – 3 years, for example?

Detail what else you are doing to meet those objectives i.e. investment in other marketing channels, recruitment and so on

Outline the budget and resource you have in place to meet these objectives

For the purposes of forecasting, it might be useful to include the following:

Current web traffic
Conversion rate (online and offline)
Average order values
Average margins
Website turnover (what % is this of total turnover)

The pitch process

What will the procurement process involve; how many agencies are you inviting to pitch, how many stages are involved, what type of proposal / presentation do you require, who will ultimately be making the decision?

Outline how agencies will be evaluated; what it is that you are primarily looking for from the winning agency i.e. particular skills or support to an in-house team, for example

Include details on when you are looking to start

Depending on the situation, you may choose to exclude some of the above, or add additional information. However, for me, three things are essential to form a brief; demonstrating you have a unique proposition, having clear business objectives in place and outlining what you are looking for from an agency.

And finally, a word of advice…

If you are approaching search agencies without a brief already in place and find that they are offering you a solution before seeking to understand your business, I’d recommend walking away. In the pursuit of a quick buck, and often preying on the naivety of inexperienced business owners and marketing managers, a huge number of agencies and freelancers will happily take your money with no real idea (or moral conscience) as to whether it will deliver any kind of tangible return. An agency failing to ask at least some of the questions above probably falls into this category.

On the other hand, intense questioning from an agency should demonstrate they want to understand all they can about your business and objectives so, in turn, they can align a strategy, and set of services, which are of most benefit to you.

Google Place Search – the potential impact on retailers without physical stores

Posted on November 17, 2010 by Andy Miller

Last week, Christos explained a number of changes to how Google displays local search results. Following on from his general observations, I take a look at what it might mean for retailers, particularly online-only retailers, who by their very nature do not have a physical store, or ‘local footprint’ if you like…

No ‘local footprint’? No problem!
Bluntly, not having a physical store might not matter that much. As Amazon’s success proves, there are millions of people who are perfectly happy to buy certain types of products without the need to touch, taste or smell the product, and will continue to do so. We assert that Amazon’s brand loyalty will not be threatened by Google’s developments, simply because we anticipate customers and prospects go to Amazon directly (either because they are already saved in favourites, or their brand is so familiar people type in the URL directly so are more likely to bypass search engines in the first place).

No ‘local footprint’? Might (might!) be a problem…!
Take a different sector though – let’s consider clothes retailing. How do brands such as ASOS or Boden respond to these developments from Google? As with Amazon, one can imagine ASOS enjoy good levels of direct traffic. Their eCRM programme is an established and increasingly sophisticated tool that keeps their customers and prospects informed, with direct routes back to the core brand and transactional site. However, we believe search engines play a more important role for ASOS or Boden within the clothing sector than for Amazon with books and DVDs, and therefore generate a relatively greater proportion of traffic for these online-only retailers.

With Google placing more and more emphasis on local listings, online shoppers will enter phrases such as “designer dresses” and increasingly be served results that includes listings for nearby retail stores (regardless of whether they use a location term within their search query). This is good news for retailers with physical stores such as TopShop, New Look, Next and the like. Not so good for their hitherto almost untouchable online-only competitor.

So, what’s to be done?
Much will depend on the relative weight of local searches within search engine’s algorithms. But as recent coverage suggests this weight will be heavy, it seems to us that digital brands such as ASOS or Boden have a number of options, which aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive;

1. The first option is to continue to innovate all elements of their digital content, both on their core site and ‘off the page’, in the hope that these innovations can offset the power of local search results. For example, it was announced only last week that ASOS would be trialling a new service called Me_tail, a virtual online fitting room service where visitors can create their own customised 3D model to match their own body shape and size before trying on different clothes and accessories. This kind of pioneering innovation is likely to appeal to online shoppers and keep pouring thousands of direct visitors back to the site on a regular basis.

2. The second option would be to evolve and expand their business model. If local search results become the dominant factor within searches, Boden could begin to suffer if they DON’T have a physical footprint. If they start to lose prominence in search rankings, it places greater importance onto their eCRM programme for sure, but whether this can offset their lack of visibility within Google remains to be seen.

While an even more refined eCRM programme should guarantee keeping the customers they already have, it doesn’t itself feel like a strategy for growth. Herein lies a wonder of this evolving business and communications world in which we live – a digital brand could start to suffer because it DOESN’T have physical shops. Lastminute.com have had their ticket booths for a while now – will we see Boden on the high street in the next year or two…?

3. Thirdly, if digital retailers choose to remain digital-only, it will be interesting to see how these retailers evolve aligning their increasingly rich content with YouTube (a hugely influential search engine in itself), something French Connection have already started to explore with ‘Youtique’. The ongoing evolution of how these retailers leverage dialogue through core social media properties such as Facebook and Twitter will also be fascinating.

Watch this space!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas – early retail trends revealed

Posted on November 16, 2010 by Amelia Pratt

Hands up who has already heard Christmas music playing on the radio? How about the Christmas Coca Cola ad? I personally love Christmas, and would happily wear a Santa hat all year round if I could!

As I have so many family members to buy for I tend to start my Christmas shopping early to stagger the gift purchases over multiple pay packets! Research carried out by Google and Ipsos shows that I am not alone. The study surveyed shoppers every two weeks, to track the progress of their holiday shopping. The key findings were that by October 19th, 73% of consumers had started their research, and 51% had already purchased Christmas gifts!

For those retailers that began their Christmas promotional activity in November, you have most likely lost out on sales to competitors who had started much earlier. So, your key-learning from this post is that you need to strategise your Christmas activity by July (at the latest), and begin implementation in September.

But, do not fear, there is still some ways you can reap back some of those lost sales. Recently, on the Google Retail Blog, data was cited from the Index of U.S online retail sales in December from 2005-2009. The key finding was that Tuesday’s are the peak shopping days online in December. This information allows you to be highly tactical in the build up to Christmas to maximise sales. My top tips would be:

Increase paid search budgets and bids on Tuesdays during December

The peak buying day is Tuesday, but the highest traffic volumes are generated on Saturday. Budgets should also (ideally) be up-weighted on Saturdays to account for visitors in research mode

Try offering specific deals on Tuesdays to maximise conversion rates. These offers can be promoted via paid search adverts and oher activity such as your social media channels

For more tips on how to maximise Christmas sales, see our 5 part series from last month.

Good luck with your sales & Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas!!

Google Place Search and how it affects your SEO efforts

Posted on November 5, 2010 by admin

On the 27th October Google updated how it displays local search results. In summary, no longer are local results restricted to a specific section at the top of the page. Instead, they are integrated into the main ‘natural’ listings.

It is clear that this is a major shift for Google and users alike. It is one that some are celebrating as a triumph whilst others condemn as a step too far. So what does it mean for website owners and what will be the impact?

Normal search results are pushed out of the top 10
Firstly, and most importantly, because the local (now known as Google Place results) are integrated into the natural listings, they inevitably push natural search results down the page. Take the screenshot below as an example, searching for “driving instructor Brighton”:

You will notice that the closely packed local search results (known as the ’10 pack’ and then subsequently the ’7 pack’) traditionally found at the top of the page are gone. Instead, the local (or Google Place) results are now integrated with the normal, natural search results. In essence, there is no immediately obvious distinction between local and the normal search results.

In the example below, the Place results not only dominate the top of the search engine results page (SERP) but they are actually taking the place of “natural” search results that would have traditionally appeared. The result is that just four natural search results actually make it onto page one of the SERP. This is really good news if you have your local search listings in order. However, it is bad bad news if you don’t have a local presence and have instead worked hard to get your site ranking naturally in the main SERP’s.

Adwords ads pushed down and obscured by the new map
You will also notice the map on the right hand side. Not only does this map push ads in the 4th spot further down the page it also obscures them as it moves down the page as you scroll. This makes it much harder for users to notice and access your ads if you are not bidding for a top 3 spot. This will inevitably make it more competitive and expensive for paid search ads to appear in the top 3 in what some consider to be an already over inflated market.

However, its not all doom and gloom for paid search as the new format keeps users on the main SERPS page (previously when clicking on a local result you would be taken to the map page that contained limited real estate for paid ads). This may mean a higher number of ad impressions but only time will tell if this negates the impact of the map.

Customers reviews are more prominent
You will notice that customer reviews are now a more prominent feature with the new listings. These reviews may be pulled from a variety of sites including Yelp, Thomson local and Tripadvisor to name a few.

It is acknowledged by most experts that click through rate is one of the many factors Google adopts in its ranking algorithm. A strong local listing with plenty of positive reviews is therefore likely to attract clicks, highlighting the need to encourage customer reviews on relevant websites (ensuring they are likely to be positive of course!). In theory, positive reviews = more clicks = better click through rate = better rankings.

Local results showing for non local search terms
Google also appears to have a greater understanding of intent. From what we have seen over the last few days Place results are featuring more regularly for searches that do not necessarily contain a location term (even though Google claim this not to be the case).

This will mean that general search results may be cannibalised or improved based on which side of the fence you sit on.

What does this all mean?
Google have confirmed that local and general search algorithms have been merged, which essentially means there is no going back. Google Places, and the change to SERP layout will be here to stay. It is therefore essential that you have your local listings in order as soon as possible. We recommend the following action points:

1. Make sure you have a Google Places listing set up for your business. If you already have a Google Maps / Local listing set up within a Google account you should now notice it is called Google Places – you may need to reclaim it and certainly you’ll be able to add more information about your business, including relevant keywords.

2. Review the placement of your paid ads and adjust your bidding strategy accordingly if you find you are receiving fewer clicks.

3. Ensure you are monitoring your online reputation. With customer reviews being more prominent, you need to both encourage reviews but also monitor what is being said about your products, services or brand.

Have you noticed any changes to your search engine rankings, paid search performance or traffic as a result of this change? Get in touch and let us know.

Retail: gearing up for Cyber Monday (part 5 – social media)

Posted on October 22, 2010 by Johanna Hakala

Well here we are, the final of our five part series looking at the online tactics you can execute to make Christmas 2010 your most successful yet.

Having already focused on planning, optimising your website, refining your paid search campaign and editorial link building, we finish the week with some social media tips.

Day 5 – Social media

We advised on Monday to focus your Christmas marketing efforts on channels that are already established. Therefore, we’d argue that now is not the best time to embark upon a social media strategy unless planned well in advance, understanding the time and resource that is required to make social media a success. On this basis, the advice given in this post assumes that you are already active in the use of social media tools and networks, such as Twitter and Facebook, and that you have a reasonable following.

With that in mind, here are a few tips to make your social media efforts on Cyber Monday and over the Christmas period a success:

Identify your brand advocates

These are the customers most active in shouting about your products or brand. If you don’t already, make sure you know who they are. If they are happy to talk positively about your brand, can you encourage them to do so during the build up to Christmas, by sending them your ‘hero’ products to review, for example?

Utilise your content

Using Twitter for the purposes of offering your ‘followers’ discounts can be highly effective. But don’t limit your Twitter activity to shouting about your great products, special offers and discounts. Look to offer your target audience more value. Therefore, make sure you use your social media platforms to shout about the great content you have created to support sales, such as buyers guides, articles and so on.

If you have user-generated-content on your websites, such as customer product reviews, use them as collateral. Can you tweet review snippets for your ‘hero’ products, for example?

Set up alerts

Set up alerts using a tool, such as Radian 6, or use Twitter Search to find those prospects talking about the products or services you sell, or asking more general questions you may be able to answer.

For example, if you come across a tweet where someone asks, ‘help, I can’t decide what to buy my girlfriend for Christmas’, respond with one of the helpful buyers guides you have already created when optimising your website.

A word of warning though – don’t go steaming in with products or special offers. People on social networks generally don’t want to be ‘sold to’. Instead, answer their question in a helpful manner, seeking to adding value. Directly interacting with prospects in this way can help enhance your reputation as a useful brand, and if managed in the right way, can aid sales over the Christmas period by bringing prospects into your ‘sphere of influence’ who may not have otherwise come to you.

Use social media for customer service

Customers will use their social media profiles to provide feedback on your products and quality of service over the Christmas period; good and bad. Have an agreed policy in place with your sales and service teams who engage in social media. When feedback is negative, which will inevitably happen from time to time, ensure staff know when to deal with this in public and when to take the query offline.

Continue the dialogue after Christmas

Consider how you can generate repeat business from newly customers acquired in the New Year. Have you connected with them through social media channels? Are they on your mailing lists? Can you ask their opinions on what they bought? What products their friends and family loved? Can you add them to mailing list?

Conclusion

This brings to an end to a week of posts covering key tactics to help make this Christmas your most successful yet. We hope you’ve found them useful in developing and executing your online strategy.

All that is left for me to do is wish you a very Merry Christmas (well, they do say Christmas gets earlier every year!).

Retail: gearing up for Cyber Monday (part 4 – editorial link building)

Posted on October 21, 2010 by Lucy Freeborn

In the last few days, we’ve looked at how diligent planning, optimising your website and refining your paid search campaign will stand you in good stead to take maximum advantage of, what most analysts expect to be, the busiest Christmas yet for online sales.

In part 4, we look at how creating content and marketing this content to relevant blogs, forums and media can hep you gain links, but more importantly at this time of year, coverage, traffic and ultimately sales.

Day 4 – Editorial link building

In-bound links to your website, from other websites of relevance and quality, is a crucial factor in determining where your web pages rank on search engines – that’s a given. Arguably, it is too late in the day to garner links that will have any meaningful impact on search engine rankings before Christmas, as it normally takes a number of weeks, sometimes months, for newly acquired links to affect rankings in this way.

However, link building should not be approached with the sole intention of improving search engine rankings. Our view is that link building is about developing great content and marketing it in the places where your target audience frequent i.e. blogs and social networks. The links that are gained by taking this approach are of course valuable, but in the build up to Christmas in particular, awareness and online PR are equally as important.

So with this in mind, let’s look at how you can maximise online coverage for your brand in the build up to Christmas:

Focus on the right products

On the basis of the ‘hero’ products you have established during your planning, be sure to focus your editorial link building efforts around those. Consider if the products have an angle, for example, are they unusual or unique to you? What might prospective customers, bloggers and journalists find interesting about your brand and these products in particular?

Realistically, unless you have a phenomenally exclusive, exciting or innovative product you may not have a story to begin with. So consider this stage carefully before moving onto the next.

Focus on the right websites

Offline, the long lead print publications have ‘Christmas in July’ with big brands and high street retailers all vying for attention. For online publications however it’s not too late to gain coverage and therefore some juicy editorial from highly relevant websites.

First and foremost, establish a list of websites, blogs, forums and media sites relevant to your market and products. Run some searches on Google, taking advantage of the new filtering options on the left hand side. For example, using the blog search, you can quickly find those bloggers that appear to be most active in talking about and reviewing products like your own.

Really focus your efforts on the bloggers and online media that are particularly relevant to your business. Look at what they are writing about and featuring. Do you have a different angle, something that you believe the readership might find of interest?

Reaching out

Once you have a list of sites to target, you need to consider how you can reach out to them with something that they will find of interest, which in turn they will want to share with their readership (your potential customers!).

You might need to get creative at this stage, unless you have a phenomenal story or exclusive product. For example, can you host a festive evening in person with your products on display and invite key players along? Or, can you send bloggers a ‘Christmas box’ with previews of your seasonal products or services?

Think carefully about how to target bloggers and journalists directly to build those all important relationships in one of the busiest and most cut-throat editorial seasons of the year. Simply calling and asking to be featured is unlikely to be enough – popular bloggers and journalists are being contacted numerous times a day. Be sure that you have a strong enough angle before picking up the phone or sending that email.

Keep search rankings at the back of your mind

Although the principle objective of editorial link building, particularly at this time of year, is to gain coverage, do think strategically about what you are doing. If you are lucky enough to be given some exposure on a website and therefore a link, the longer term SEO benefits will be realised if you can influence the ‘anchor text’ and if the link will remain on site after Christmas is over.

To conclude

I appreciate this post is somewhat broad in its nature; there are many nuances that need to be considered at each of the stages above. But hopefully, at the very least, it has encouraged you to think about link building in a different way; it being a way of gaining coverage for your brand on highly relevant websites, which in turn delivers targeted traffic. This is quite the opposite of the more traditional perception of link building; that it is purely for the purposes of improving search engine rankings.

Christmas retail: gearing up for Cyber Monday (part 3 – paid search)

Posted on October 19, 2010 by Amelia Pratt

This is the third of our five part series helping you to maximise sales over the Christmas period, with a particular focus on the 6th December, Cyber Monday, when online sales peak before Christmas.

After focusing on research and planning on day 1 and website optimisation advice yesterday, I turn attention to paid search, the perfect tool for maximising sales over the Christmas period due to its immediacy and flexibility.

Day 3: Paid search

By this point, you should have established the products that will be the focus of your Christmas marketing efforts, who you are trying to sell these products to, and your key messages to attract this audience.

With this in mind, I look at how to apply this planning to the various component parts of your paid search campaign:

Keywords

I recommend you begin by reviewing the keywords you are currently targeting. If you have an established paid search campaign already focused on your ‘hero’ products, begin by looking at the historical keyword performance. Identify the keywords that have worked most effectively in terms of click through and conversion rates. Consider culling low performing keywords and divert budget into those that have proven to perform most effectively.

If you haven’t added to the keyword list in a while, now would be a good time to analyse if searchers are looking for products in ways you had not previously anticipated. Consider that come Cyber Monday, many prospects may have already decided on the gifts they are going to purchase. Search queries will become more specific as prospects get closer to the point of making their purchase (having already worked through the research and consideration stages of the buying cycle). Reflect this in the keywords you target on, and around Cyber Monday.

For example, if you sell a line of popular, branded T-Shirts, in a wide range of sizes and colours, add search term variations to your campaign that reflect longer tail search queries, for example:

Brand X blue t-shirt
Brand X red t-shirt medium
Yellow Brand X t-shirt

Targeting very specific, long tail terms will ensure you capture visitors when purchase intent is at its greatest.

Also, be sure to update your negative search term list to include those terms that you DON’T want your ads to appear against. The easiest way to do this is run a Search Query Performance report. To run this, go to the Keywords tab in AdWords and click “See Search Terms”.

Advert copy

Now that you’ve selected your terms and put them into tight-knit groups, it’s time to get creative with your ad copy. The key to maximising click through rates from your adverts is to ensure that the ad copy is relevant to the search terms being targeted, whilst also being reflective of the key messages you have established during your planning i.e. lowest prices, fast delivery and so on.

I recommend creating a number of different variations of advert copy that take account of where prospects are likely to be in the buying cycle, triggering these ads at the appropriate time in the build up to Christmas.

Let’s use our T-Shirt’s to demonstrate an example:

Mid October – mid November
A section of your target audience will already be in research mode. Reflect this in your ad copy by ‘warming up’ prospects with messaging that reflects their ‘mooching’ behaviour i.e.

“Looking for the perfect Xmas present?
Brand X T-Shirts in stock now”

Searchers will be quite willing to purchase even at this early stage if there is a compelling enough reason to do so. Therefore, you may want to offer incentives for ‘early bird’ shopper i.e.

“Starting your Xmas shopping early?
10% off Brand X T-Shirts today”

Mid-November – early December
It’s around a month until the big day, still plenty of time for shoppers but it’s definitely time to start creating a sense of urgency, especially for popular products that may run out of stock i.e.

“Brand X T-Shirts back in stock.
Buy now for guaranteed Xmas delivery”

With Cyber Monday on the 6th December, any special offers or promotions you are running to coincide must be reflected in your advert copy i.e.

“10% off Brand X T-Shirts today.
Order for delivery before Xmas”

Mid December – until the last day you can guarantee delivery
Shoppers looking for gifts from mid December onwards will be looking for guaranteed delivery before Christmas. This is where advert copy needs to create the greatest sense of urgency, especially if you have an advantage over competitors by being able to offer the latest guaranteed delivery date i.e.

“Brand X T-Shirts in stock
Order to arrive before Xmas, guaranteed”

In summary, the build up to Christmas is a great opportunity to create urgency by creating and triggering adverts that focus on the motivating factors of your target audience in the build up to Christmas, namely availability, immediacy, speed of delivery, for example.

Budget

Don’t miss out on sales due to a limited budget, especially on Cyber Monday. By this point you should have selected the products you know can deliver a return over the Christmas period. This will give you the confidence to increase budget, thereby guaranteeing all day visibility for your adverts, and maximum sales for your ‘hero’ products.

It is wise to check that click costs are not escalating as competition increases. Regularly monitor your campaign over the Christmas period. This is not the time to ‘set it and forget it’ (in fact there is never a time to ‘set it and forget it’!).

Automation

If you are not already using third party software to help automate aspects of your paid search campaign it is probably too late in the day. Often the integration can take a number of weeks, sometimes months; time you do not have.

However, if you are utilising a tool, such as DC Storm for example, ensure you are taking full advantage of the functionality on offer. This might include:

Rule based and automated bidding
This is where rules are created and applied to your campaign based on financial data, such as the price of your products and profit margins. By applying rules based on this data, you can ensure click costs stay within agreed parameters, for example calculated against your profit margins for those ‘hero’ products.

Product feed integration
Third party programs can be aligned with your stock systems to automatically take down adverts as your stock is diminished. This reduces waste by ensuring adverts are live only for products that are actually available, vitally important during the Christmas period.

Task scheduling
Tasks can be scheduled at specific times. For example, if you have a sales promotion that begins at 9am on Boxing Day and ends 5pm on the 27th December, you can schedule specific sale ad copy to run at those times.

Well, that should be enough to keep you going. Tomorrow, Lucy talks editorial link building…

Christmas retail: gearing up for Cyber Monday (part 2 – website optimisation)

Posted on October 19, 2010 by Suzanne Taylor

Yesterday, Ben looked at how careful research and planning is essential to maximising sales on Cyber Monday, and over the course of the Christmas period. Now that you have established your ‘hero’ products, target audience and key messages, I turn attention to your website. After all, dedicating time to research and planning, and increasing investment to acquire traffic over the Christmas period, will be wasted if your website fails to convert that traffic into sales.

With this in mind, and time against you, we recommend you spend day two of five preparing your website for the uplift in traffic you can expect by executing tactics in paid search, link building and social media, all of which we will be looking at as the week unfolds.

Day 2 – Website optimisation

According to Logan Tod‘s Annual Online Shopping Index, the factors most important to consumers online shopping experience last Christmas were listed as delivery options, site search and product availability, and well-written copy.

On this basis, here are some relatively quick-win considerations in each of these areas:

Delivery information and options

There is nothing worse than getting to the very end of the checkout to be hit with a larger than expected delivery charge. Ensure your delivery costs are made clear from outset, ideally on product pages

If you can, offer a range of delivery options and prices. For some customers next day delivery will be essential. For others, as long as it received prior to Christmas, next day will not be so much of a priority

Consider using delivery options as an extra incentive to encourage sales, for example by offering free delivery on orders made between certain dates, or for orders over a certain value

Do not make promises you cannot keep when it comes to delivery. Let down a customer by failing to deliver to them what was promised and on time, and they are unlikely to be as forgiving at Christmas as they may be at other times of the year

Site search

As we get closer to Christmas, search queries will become more specific as prospects get closer to the point of making their purchase (having already worked through the research and consideration stages of the buying cycle). Does your site search function stand up to this by displaying relevant results for longer tail searches?

Ensure that your site search functionality is set up to account for different methods by which customers may search. For example, do you send out a catalogue? Do products therefore have codes attached to them? If so, customers may search using these codes so ensure the site search function will deliver results on this basis

If there are no search results to return, be sure to offer alternatives. Nothing is more likely to drive a prospect away than the message ‘sorry this product is not available’ accompanied by little or no accompanying help or advice

Product availability

Do not allow customers to add a product to their basket only to get to the checkout and be informed it is actually not available. Or worse still, pay for the product, receive the confirmation email only to then be informed later on that stock is not available (I’m amazed so many retail sites still allow this to happen!). Therefore, ensure your stocking information on the website is as up to date as it can possibly be. If you are utilising an automated back end system that maintains live stocking information on the front-end website this should be straightforward. If not, you need to establish a manual process to update stock levels at least every couple of hours

If products are not available, be sure to display information detailing when they will be back in stock. Better still, allow customers the functionality to reserve the product when it becomes available again. If it’s too late to build this automated functionality into your website, add a call to action that encourages the visitor to ‘call and reserve’

Copy (and other types of content)

Ensure your product descriptions are accurate, well written and optimised with relevant search terms. Are you REALLY selling the features and benefits of not only the product itself but also why the prospect should buy from you?

Ensure your product images are of good quality and tagged with appropriate descriptions

Create content that will help support your product descriptions, and therefore sales, especially if your research and planning has indicated that you are targeting a different audience at Christmas to the one you would normally attract. What content can you create that will help a male audience, for example, to make a more considered purchase of ladies underwear? Your aim is to make the buying process as straightforward and pain free as possible. Make sure this complementary content, buyers guides for example, is highly visible alongside product descriptions, downloadable and shareable

If you have promotional areas on your homepage, for example a banner, ensure they are pushing the ‘hero products’ and key messages you have established during the research and planning stage

When attempting to cross sell, ensure the products you deem as complementary are indeed so in the eyes of your customer. The disappointment of finding a product is out of stock is hard enough to bear, offering alternative products that are almost entirely different just adds insult to injury and will not be seen as at all helpful

Make sure your contact details are obvious and if offering support, particularly by phone, have a clearly visible number on every page

Checkout process

Importantly, test your checkout process now to make sure it is running normally

Assuming you have conversion funnels set up in your Analytics software, you should be able to identify where visitors typically drop out of the checkout process and to what extent. Based on this data are there any quick and easy tests you can run to increase conversion rates, such as:

Removing the need to register an account before making a purchase. This is a sure fire way to have potential customers drop out of the checkout process in their droves yet so many retail sites still insist on it
Where you do have forms, can you remove any of the fields, which if you really thought about it are unnecessary?
Can you add progression indicators so users know how long the process will be i.e. this is step 1 of 2?
Are you providing too many distractions at the point of purchase? Attempting to sell other products at this late stage, although admirable, may actually lead to abandonment, the exact opposite of what you were looking for
Are the payment methods clear?
Do you need to reinforce the security of your checkout. Shoppers may be more wary of fraud around Christmas
Are you communicating the next steps clearly, for example will the customer receive a confirmation email? Will they receive an email when their product is dispatched?

And finally…

Increasing sales over the Christmas period is somewhat wasted if you do not seek to build relationships with newly acquired customers. Any promotional efforts over the Christmas period should be aimed at developing ongoing dialogue with new customers.

Therefore, ensure you offer newly acquired customers an incentive to come back. Consider how to collect data so you can engage with these customers again in the future. Request that they join your social networks for further offers and add them to your mailing list, for example (the latter with their permission of course).

Now that you your website is ready to go, you can focus on efforts to increase targeted traffic. Tomorrow, Amelia looks at paid search.

Until then…

The digital marketing agency for premium brands and retailers

Category Archives: Tips and tit-bits