5 Ways Your E-Commerce Business Can Recover From A Growth Setback

Facing growth setbacks is part of the risk of doing business.

While most companies may only highlight their successes to the public, it’s important to understand that every business has its own group of challenges. The key is to recognize the issues and take the necessary actions to move forward.

“You may be facing your share of woes from financial problems to employee shortages to increased competition. Just because those setbacks are occurring and you are struggling to survive, doesn’t mean you can’t turn your circumstance around,” says Inc. contributor Carolyn Brown.

Let’s explore how your team can bounce back from a growth setback.

1. Reassess Your Business Strategy

When major issues arise, reevaluating your strategy is essential to realizing what happened. Moreover, your team can pinpoint the mistakes that stunted your ecommerce business growth.

So, where do you start? Begin with the problem.

Learn why the setback occurred, when it began, where it originated, and how it flourished into a setback. Dive deep into your analytics to assess your sales and reveal any gaps in your system.

Senior management recognizes that failure isn’t caused by a singular event. Instead, it’s usually a series of activities that slowly lead up to a business disaster. So, examine your current procedures to set up safeguards.

“The way we win business has changed radically, largely thanks to the internet and social media. Companies that are not up to speed digitally won’t exist for much longer, so make sure the business is using all the technological tools it can to build momentum,” states Andrew Morris, CEO of the Academy for Chief Executives.

Nike reworked its international expansion strategy. Rather than spending an exorbitant amount of money on sponsorships to gain a global audience, the athletic apparel company initiated the NikeID co-creation platform. Allowing customers to design their own products helped the business deliver unique products that align with different cultural preferences and styles.

Upgrade your business strategy. Keep what works well and toss the rest to the side.

2. Deliver Customer Value

Research shows that “for every customer complaint there are 26 other unhappy customers who have remained silent.” In a market full of competitors, it’s easy for consumers to try another brand.

To deliver remarkable customer value, start by analyzing your consumers’ purchasing habits. Learn what they like and how specific brand interactions make them feel.

For example, if you know consumers prefer assistance via live chat rather than by phone, your team should take steps to be available online.

Collect this data by instructing your sales representatives to jot down notes during customer conversations. Or simply ask consumers to complete a short suggestion form.

Think of customer value as a cycle. You must discover the opportunities, create the offering, deliver the value, and communicate it to your audience. Then, the process starts over again after receiving the customer feedback.

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Peepers, an innovative eyewear company, offers its shoppers more value by customizing the checkout experience. With personalized messages, customers trusted the brand and believed their credit card information were safe. As a result, Peepers received a 25-30% increase in its organic traffic conversion rate and 15%-20% increase in its average order value.

Offer unprecedented value that your consumers can’t receive anywhere else. They’ll be happy and your ecommerce company will reap the revenues.

3. Differentiate Your Product

Sometimes, your team must do things differently. And it might just include changing the product.

In today’s economy, consumers possess a wide variety of choices. They don’t have to settle for products that fail to solve their problems or fall short of satisfying their needs.

Product differentiation is a marketing technique to make your product more attractive than the alternatives in the marketplace. This difference could include customer value, design, price, or even quality.

“Don’t focus on features alone, then. Instead, emphasize the benefits of those features. Your advantage lies in how your product or service ties into the emotional needs of your target audience. People make decisions on the basis of either logical reasoning or emotional impulses,” writes Entrepreneur contributor Ray Beharry.

Conduct market research to learn if you should modify your product or change the way you sell your product. To find pertinent data, host a focus group or invest in heatmap tools to monitor website interactions.

Oscar Health Insurance offers customers transparency and only focuses on a small, niche network in four U.S. states. The brand separates itself from the competition by presenting health plans in common language without the jargon.

It may be time for a product change. Find out how to fulfill your customers’ desires through differentiation.

4. Hire Employees With Diverse Skill Sets

During tough times, employees are the best assets for your business. And as your company begins to change directions, you will need people invested in your brand values.

In a recovery transition, recruit talented workers with skills that complement your current workforce. Experts claim that future work environments will need people who know how to work with data, understand virtual reality, and can apply the Internet of Things to industries.

Beyond technical skills, interpersonal character traits matter, too. Focus on hiring individuals who know how to develop connections, work on multiple cultural teams, and make creative decisions. Personal finance writer Erika Rawes agrees:

“Your ability to engage in conversation, get to know someone personally, and develop meaningful relationships will provide a competitive edge over the future.”

In addition, retrain your current employees by informing them about new business strategies and expectations. It’s a chance re-engage employees and to develop people professionally.

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Revitalize your workforce during growth challenges. Let your business experience new talent with different possibilities.

5. Continue to Seek Growth Opportunities

Whether your company is undergoing a setback or not, your team should always continue to seek ways to expand. A proactive plan prepares your brand to handle challenges better.

Opportunity is a subjective term. What’s great for one business may be a disaster for another.

Therefore, before making any hasty decisions, work with your team to know what your business needs to recover. Do you need more qualified traffic to your website? Or more skilled sales reps to close deals?

And refrain from relying only on your own experience. Your company may benefit from building ongoing partnerships with other brands.

“Don’t limit yourself by your own knowledge base and expertise when your back is against a wall. Find partners who can help you implement the new strategy that makes the most sense, not the one that’s easiest to execute,” writes Fast Company contributor Carson Tate.

Below is a brand partnership example from Adidas and Spotify. The companies teamed up to offer their consumers a new product called Adidas Go. The app lets customers who exercise with their iPhones listen to music through Spotify that is automatically linked to the pace of the workout.

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Growth is a continuous process for companies. Uncover new opportunities to respond to infrequent difficulties.

Aim to Recover

Challenges are inevitable in business. It’s vital to understand how to handle setbacks when they occur.

Reevaluate your strategy to ensure it fits your desired outcomes. Deliver unmatched customer value that competitors can’t duplicate. And continue to seek partnership opportunities that will benefit your brand.

Push through setbacks. Grow your business.

About the Author: Shayla Price lives at the intersection of digital marketing, technology and social responsibility. Connect with her on Twitter @shaylaprice.

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With Email Deliverability Comes A Huge Responsibility

I am privileged to manage global deliverability, across all Oracle Marketing Cloud properties. As you might imagine, I have the chance to speak to all kinds of customers, across all different customer life cycle stages.

One of the things that I find most interesting about customers in these different stages, is the way they understand how deliverability actually works, and what they can and can’t do to change it.

The End Comes First

Let’s start with the end-game first.

The reality is that you, as the sender, control and are responsible for your own deliverability. Deliverability in its simplest form boils down to some simple truths. Senders who deliver messages that are relevant to their customers, will see much higher engagement, inbox rates, and fewer complaints. It all seems pretty simple, and that’s because it is in theory.

One of the misnomers that I hear with new clients on occasion, is something like this; “I have better deliverability now than at my old ESP”, or “I had better deliverability on my last ESP”. Both of these statements are, for the most part false. There are things that an ESP needs to have in place from an infrastructure perspective, that are 100% necessary.

You could be moving to or from a setup that may or may not have all of those table stakes elements. There’s a natural reaction to want to look at deliverability numbers and forget the context of those numbers. Understanding that context, will take you much closer to that Utopian Deliverability state we’re all looking to achieve.

When is it okay to compare numbers between two different sending origins? You can do it when the numbers are coming from the same base source. We all know that the warm-up period is critical in establishing your reputation with specific email receivers. During that time, it is important to make sure and put your best foot forward from an engagement standpoint.

Even as you do that, you will still see a significant portion of messages go to the bulk folder as ISPs evaluate your mailings. Comparing these warm-up numbers to another mailer with an established history, just doesn’t add-up. The later-on comparison can also be problematic. Unless you are sending the exact same content to the exact same audience, (and why would you do that from 2 different systems?), it is not an apples-to-apples comparison.

The Deliverability Reality

Here’s the reality of our space today. Unless you made a really bad choice of ESPs, you are probably covered from an infrastructure perspective. That means you are responsible for your own deliverability success.

The expertise and knowledge provided by ESPs is a differentiating factor between us, and can make a big difference in helping you reach your goals. Oracle Marketing Cloud puts a lot of emphasis on the warm-up period, and we offer incredible analytic tools such as our Deliverability Plus solution.

If you are in a place where you see better numbers from one source, think about the root cause instead of the blame game. What about audience and message? Are they the same, or are you doing better/different segmentation or messaging? Can you actually account for the difference in segmentation?

Even people who are in the same segment or demographic behave differently. It’s important to stay focused on the end-game, and not get too caught up in comparisons that don’t prove anything good or bad without a ton of extra analysis.

ESPs don’t have “better” deliverability. They have experts and procedures that you may like and take advantage of, but at the end of the day, you are in charge of your deliverability.

Do you need help taking charge? Download the Email Deliverability Modern Marketing Guide today to gain best practices, ISP landscape, international regulations, and much more.

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My Favorite Business Model for a Breakthrough Digital Business

It was the end of 2008. Something you might remember about that year — in October, the markets took a nasty fall and the global economy melted down.

I was the sole breadwinner for my family. The company I worked for was going through round after round of layoffs. The well-paying, secure job I’d had for five years looked likely to evaporate underneath me.

I had some savings, but not a ton. I had a mortgage and preschool for my three-year-old to pay for, as well as silly habits like buying groceries and having health insurance for my family.

I had been noodling around with business ideas, but I hadn’t gotten serious.

In the final few months of 2008, I had to get serious. Early in 2009, I took the leap. Here’s how I did it.

My year of living dangerously

In 2009, I felt a lot like a chicken trying to cross an eight-lane highway. It was theoretically possible, but there was a non-optimal level of stress involved.

The first thing I did was hang out my shingle as a freelance copywriter.

In a lot of ways, it was wonderful. I worked on fascinating projects that I cared about. I had lovely clients who actually listened to me. I was able to implement content strategy (which I learned, incidentally, mainly from Copyblogger), instead of sitting in endless meetings talking about it.

The main downside for me was the “you don’t kill, you don’t eat” freelance model, in which I was endlessly having to close new clients in order to keep my revenue going.

I know people who are masters of this. I was not one of them.

But it worked, more or less. I was supporting my family.

Growing the audience

One thing I’m so grateful for about that time: I had started growing my audience well before I needed clients. My original intent had been to find another job — I figured a blog would help me stand out with prospective employers.

As it turned out, I was functionally unemployable, but the blog was an amazing resource. It didn’t have zillions of readers or email subscribers — but it had enough.

(By the way, I launched an email list with a simple autoresponder before I even had that site up, which I recommend if you’re starting from scratch today. You want to capture every drop of attention you can.)

By the time I went out on my own, that blog had already started to pull a small audience together. It also connected me with like-minded people for projects, support, expertise, and eventually business partnerships.

The email list allowed me to put offers in front of potential customers — and discover what worked and what didn’t.

Finding stability

2009 was a year of hustle, and trying out all kinds of business models.

I tried freelancing, which sort of worked. I tried some content strategy consulting (we called it something else then), which also sort of worked. I put together a few simple information products with friends. I had some affiliate offers going.

My friend Gary, a business coach who talked me down from Mount Freakout about a thousand times that year, had been on my case to launch an online course with a membership component. I told him I’d get it done that year.

It was not pretty. Building the site was complicated, and I needed to hire someone to put together a variety of puzzle pieces that came from entirely different puzzles. It was fairly expensive to build. But I got it launched — in mid-December, since I’d promised Gary I’d do it that year. (Accountability is a useful thing.)

I called that site The Remarkable Marketing Blueprint, and it changed everything.

(There are still lovely and successful folks out there who identify themselves as “The Remarkables.” That makes me deeply happy.)

I launched the Blueprint at a pretty modest monthly fee. The checkout system was a PayPal nightmare, and I’m lucky it worked at all. The membership management tools were primitive, with lousy security. (Remind me to tell you about the week that Russian hackers kept putting porn into my member library. Fun times.)

That’s why I’m a bit emphatic about how much easier the Rainmaker Platform makes things. Trust me, the early tools were not so user-friendly.

But they got the job done. People bought the course. They benefited from the course.

After a short time, I relaunched the Blueprint (Gary was bugging me again) at a higher price. And that launch went even better.

I didn’t become a millionaire. But I had momentum and steady revenue. I was helping people with their problems, and in turn, I was making a reasonable living. I had a business that worked.

If you think that would be an amazing feeling … you’re absolutely right.

Come to the free webinar

Building an online course or membership community is a great business model — but it’s not a guaranteed home run. You can set yourself up for failure, or set yourself up for success.

Brian Clark’s original Teaching Sells was the course that taught me how to set the Blueprint up for success. How to structure it, how to make it marketable, how to position it, how to get the content created, how to launch it, and how to run it.

Teaching Sells isn’t on the market anymore, but Brian Clark still teaches folks how to build online courses — only these days, it’s a much more streamlined process.

Brian’s holding a free webinar on Wednesday, December 7, 2016 at 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time that will get you started.

Click the button below for easy (and free!) registration.

Free Webinar:
How to Develop an Irresistible Online Course People Will Line Up to Buy (and Then Actually Use)

I love this model for so many reasons.

• I won’t say it was easy, but it was doable.
• It supported me and my family when we really needed it.
• It provided steady, predictable revenue so I could catch my breath and actually plan something.
• It was conducive to my commitment to be a good parent and spouse as well as a capable businessperson.
• It connected me with wonderful customers, who became friends, and who went into the world and did amazing things.
• And it opened doors to other possibilities — the business stage that Brian Clark calls “Acceleration.”

It’s a model that works if you know how to do something really well. It’s also a model that works if you don’t have your own particular area of expertise, but you partner with someone who does. (You set the course up and run it; they provide the content and expert authority. These can be remarkably productive businesses.)

Even though we’ve been business partners for years now, I always make a point of listening to what Brian has to say about online courses. He always has new insights and points of clarity that I learn from.

So I’ll be there … and if you have any interest at all in this model, I recommend you check it out as well. You can just click the button to get registered.

Free Webinar:
How to Develop an Irresistible Online Course People Will Line Up to Buy (and Then Actually Use)

The post My Favorite Business Model for a Breakthrough Digital Business appeared first on Copyblogger.

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Tim Ferriss on Finding and Focusing On What Truly Matters

Tim Ferris broke into popular consciousness nine years ago with the release of The 4-Hour Workweek. He’s gone on to create a series of books based on the “4-Hour” concept.

That’s in addition to a wildly popular blog, podcast, and even a TV show. But in economic terms, all of that pales in comparison to Tim’s success as an angel investor; he’s scored early positions in Uber, Twitter, Evernote, Shopify, and Facebook.

So, it was somewhat of a shock to hear that Tim is stepping away from new investments. And you’ll be more than a bit surprised to hear what he’s focusing on next, and more importantly … why.

Listen to this Episode Now

The post Tim Ferriss on Finding and Focusing On What Truly Matters appeared first on Copyblogger.

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How #1 Hit Podcast ‘Welcome to Night Vale’ Co-Creator Jeffrey Cranor Writes: Part Two

The co-creator and co-writer of the #1 international hit podcast Welcome to Night Vale and New York Times bestselling co-author of the novel of same name, Jeffrey Cranor, dropped by the show to talk about the importance of collaboration, deadlines, and bad writing.

In addition to producing and touring with the theater ensemble The New York Neo-Futurists, the playwright and author tours with live shows for the Night Vale Presents production banner, co-created with Joseph Fink.

Night Vale Presents now produces four podcasts that regularly sit at the top of the charts — including Within the Wires, also created by the author — and recently published two volumes of episode transcripts that include extras for fans of their original show.

Welcome to Night Vale has been described as “NPR meets The Twilight Zone,” a sci-fi broadcast about a small desert community where strange mythologies abound, and all conspiracy theory is potentially real.

If you’re a fan of The Writer Files, please click subscribe to automatically see new interviews.

If you missed the first half, you can find it right here.

In Part Two of this file Jeffrey Cranor and I discuss:

• The power of productive procrastination
• How “making the familiar strange” produces great writing
• Why it’s really hard to be good all the time
• How the battle against expectation can surprise readers
• The art of great audiobooks as performance

Listen to this Episode Now

The post How #1 Hit Podcast ‘Welcome to Night Vale’ Co-Creator Jeffrey Cranor Writes: Part Two appeared first on Copyblogger.

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Orbit Media’s Latest Survey of 1000 Bloggers

It’s time again for Andy Crestodina’s annual survey of 1000(+) bloggers. Take a listen and see how your site measures against the trends …

For the third year running, Andy Crestodina over at Orbit Media has run his Survey of 1000 Bloggers. We had a chance to chat about the most interesting findings … and talk about what a big project like this can mean for an organization like his (or maybe yours).

In this 30-minute episode, Andy and I talk about:

• The content practice that twice as many bloggers are doing this year: How does your process stack up?
• The emerging role of editors for professional content
• The most effective content formats (as seen by content creators)
• The two types of content that get the most links and shares, and how you can add both types to your mix
• What organizing a big project like Orbit’s survey could do for your business and your authority
• Figuring out how often to publish fresh content
• The power of a mighty LBOW

Listen to this Episode Now

The post Orbit Media’s Latest Survey of 1000 Bloggers appeared first on Copyblogger.

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How Fixing Client Analytics Can Help Agencies Sell More

A completely accurate client analytics account is few and far between.

That forces you, brave agency veteran, to roll up your sleeves and try to make sense of the chaos you’re looking at for each unique scenario.

You didn’t plan for it. You didn’t charge for it. And now, if you don’t fix it, you’ll face an uphill battle in trying to prove the resulted you delivered.

Like it or not, addressing this issue head-on and fixing client analytics can help you sell more, and sell more profitable work.

Here’s why.

The Problem with Pricing Digital Services

Most clients have no idea what we do.

They pay us – very well in some cases – despite not truly grasping how we’re going to deliver the goods for them.

Sure, they might grock the buzzwords a little bit. They understand the jargon and the high level perspective. But it’s mostly a superficial understanding.

When you get down in the weeds, and start describing how exactly to get from A -> B, you start to lose them a little as glazed over eyes stare back at you.

That’s not a knock; it’s just reality.

In the same way you probably could care less about what’s wrong with your car engine and how a mechanic is going to fix it. You just want to know if you’re going to be able to make it to Happy Hour in time this afternoon.

More often than not, clients are paying us based on trust. Or a leap of faith. Or our smiles and fashionable clothes.

And when they don’t fully grasp the full context of their problem, or the work involved in each painstaking individual step you have to take to fix it, they gravitate towards the one thing that’s easy to separate you from everyone else that says they do exactly what you do: price.

Cue competitive bids and escalating downward pricing pressure.

So what do you do the next time around?

You piece together a meager cost plus estimate that rarely includes Profit (and you’ve undoubtedly underestimated Project Management), double check the marketplace, and rush it out the door.

In contrast, the best, most profitable agencies use value-based pricing. Instead of starting with what their internal costs might be, they start with forecasting:

1. The new revenue a client can generate, or
2. The cost savings a client might see as a result of working with them.

For example, you can take a look at their historical averages of traffic and leads. If you’re able to come in and bump that conversion rate by 10%, 15%, or even 30% over the course of a few months, what does that look like in new revenue based on their average customer value?

Boom. If simple conversion tweaks and changes can lead to $40K-$160K+ in new revenue, there’s MORE than enough room to pay you 20-30% of that.

That covers your software, payroll, meetings, and then some. You can actually scale a business on that.

Even better, is if you can show how increases in results – less your agency costs – results in NET gains too.

But there’s a problem.

You can’t even begin to forecast potential revenue for clients like this when they’re missing a critical piece of the puzzle.

Why Fixing Your Client’s Analytics Should be Priority #1

Value-based pricing includes showing a client the outcome and end results of your work in clear-cut business objectives that they can understand (like leads gained or costs saved).

But…

If they don’t have a complete view of their marketing and sales funnel – which, like 97.75% of companies are guilty of – you’ve got a problem.

To make matters worse, these issues can be tough to spot ahead of time, before you dive into their account (which means you probably didn’t plan for it in your timeline and you sure as hell didn’t charge for it as a line item).

Maybe the conversion-tracking pixel is on the wrong page (or even worse, sitewide). Or perhaps they’re using legacy CRM software that doesn’t allow you to figure out what happens after someone becomes a lead (like, where’s da revenue coming from?!).

Either way, before you even touch a single line of code, fix a broken link, or put together a wireframe, you need to get an accurate benchmark of where a company is at right now.

Here are three reasons why.

Reason #1. Determine Where Results are Currently Coming From

A quick view of a company’s Acquisition Channel performance in Google Analytics can give you a snapshot of where they’re at, and how they’re doing.

Sure, the visits or sessions piece is moderately helpful, cluing you into which campaigns are delivering (or not).

But the real value comes in analyzing which channels specifically are driving leads and customers (and how much each is worth).

Now you start crossing over from raw data to insight. You’re able to draw lines between where budget is being spent and where results are coming from.

This helps you figure out what’s already working for clients so you can pour on more, and spot what’s already been tried that hasn’t worked (so you don’t make the same mistakes).

Arguably more important though, is that it will provide you with a baseline to compare against after you deliver your services.

Reason #2. Isolate Campaign/Promotion Attribution

You hear that?

The screeching tires. The scent of burning rubber. A loud crash.

That catastrophic train wreck of epic proportions you’re about to witness is your new client’s analytics.

Their complex, multi-faceted business has taken its toll, with independent systems for each department that don’t work well together (and would require a quant-jock, Business Intelligence analyst to figure out).

Instead of relying or messing with existing systems, setting up a third-party analytics solution to isolate how your campaign and promotion is performing might be an easy way to sidestep the nightmare.

This Funnel Report will not only show you which promotional efforts are driving awareness, but also give you insight into the funnel performance for each channel, helping you identify patterns and discrepancies between how visitors from each channel (like cold vs. warm traffic) add items to your cart or complete a purchase.

You can dive even deeper into the individual customer profile, taking a look at the specific steps they took prior to purchase. This can help you identify which pages are assisting conversions, and also spot any bottlenecks or gaps that others keep hitting that causes them to bounce.

Reason #3. Make Better Marketing Decisions

Leading indicators are helpful. To a point.

They give you a preview or snapshot of what might potentially happen on down the line.

For example, SEO is a lagging indicator. Sure, you can measure new pages built and new links generated, but it’s still gonna take some time for Google to reindex, new rankings to fluctuate, traffic to start dribbling, new leads converted from said traffic, and only then do you get some verifiable sales opportunities to start tracking.

That means you’ve got a waiting game, and in the meantime you’re making a bunch of changes and assumptions based on incomplete information.

Things get especially challenging when some of these indicators can lead you astray, like when that high conversion rate might backfire.

Here’s how it works: you run some headline A/B tests with generate more initial leads. Numbers go up and you pat yourself on the back. Only problem? Sales – the number that actually matters – go down as a result.

Fortunately, the Kissmetrics A/B Test Report can help you run split tests that will only declare a winner when an event is met further down the funnel, which helps you avoid getting too excited over an increase in clicks (which aren’t super helpful) and waiting for the big payoff instead (conversions).

How to Sell Extra Work with Analytics Insight

Design is subjective. It shouldn’t be, but it is.

My favorite thing to witness is a fiftysomething executive who has literally zero knowledge of art and design, or the owner of an old-school insurance brokerage, make specific design critiques and changes (like, “I think that shaded border should be gold instead of gray”).

Which, if I were a designer, would surely cause me to become a statistic you hear about on the Nightly News.

So how can design, something so subjective that every client thinks they can do better than your Creative Director, deliver quantifiable results that will allow you to charge more?

Look for leverage points.

For example, why does someone need that new landing page?

“I need a landing page design for an AdWords campaign,” says the client.

Ok cool – then in reality they don’t just want or need one landing page, but they’re gonna want (and need) multiple ones. Here’s why (and how to sell it).

Landing page design will help dictate Quality Score, which has been proven multiple times to influence your Costs Per Click (and thus, Cost Per Conversions).

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“If your quality score increases by 1 point, your cost-per-conversion decreases by 13%,” according to Jacob from Disruptive Advertising.

Awesome. So in order to increase that quality score as much as possible, you’re going to need specific and relevant landing pages for each campaign you’re running. Which means you’re going to need multiple versions of the same page so that you can align message match to drop your Cost Per Conversion and increase the total conversions you’re getting.

Now, that’s going to require some extra work.

You, dear client, will also want to make sure that copy and content changes for each page and that you set-up at least basic analytics to make sure we can track all of this and make iterations on-the-fly. That’s going to require these new additional line items to our scope.

We recently went through this exact process on a new website redesign and performed a quick analysis after 30 days with the new AdWords landing pages.

The results?

We compared results to the same period, prior year to rule out seasonality. So in 2015, their Cost Per Converted Click was $482.41 and their Conversion Rate was only 4.08%.

During the new 30-day window in 2016, their Cost Per Converted Click dropped to $147.65 and their Conversion Rate jumped to 12.76%.

Total score?

• Cost/Converted Click: 69.39% cost reduction
• Conversion Rate: 212.74% conversion rate lift

Now multiply those ‘efficiency’ metrics against the results (like total leads, or the amount spent for those leads), and you can quickly highlight your financial value.

Think there was enough room in that budget for a few extra landing pages? And now some more work?

Our only job as a consultant is to improve the client’s position. (I think that comes from Alan Weiss.)

You’re the expert, not them. And as such, you need to fight for the scope (and thus the required resources and budget) it’s going to take in order to deliver the results a prospect or client is looking for (whether they understand what it’s going to take or not).

Because my hairline is becoming increasingly more like Jason Statham’s, and jawline has never resembled Brad Pitt’s, the only way I can figure out how to do this is through cold, hard, analytical data.

Conclusion

Clients commonly don’t fully understand the scope of what you’re being asked to do.

That’s OK. It’s manageable.

But only if you can translate your value into something they do understand – like marketing KPI’s or business objectives like revenue and costs.

The problem is that becomes impossible without a strong foundation for analytics.

There’s no way to benchmark past performance, to isolate your individual campaigns, or spot customer bottlenecks along the way.

Fixing or addressing a client’s analytics problems then should become priority #1.

Because it will not only help you justify the current work you’re doing for them, but also sell the results in the future to them and new ones just like them.

About the Author: Brad Smith is a founding partner at Codeless Interactive, a digital agency specializing in creating personalized customer experiences. Brad’s blog also features more marketing thoughts, opinions and the occasional insight.

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4 Things That Should Be On Every CMO's Wish List

With Thanksgiving now in our rear view mirror, it's time to focus squarely on those items we all crave, pine and dare I say, yearn for as marketers. Ok perhaps a little melodramatic but you get the idea. 

As kids of course we would make our wish list, and if we were lucky get a few of the items on it, like that way cool 10-speed bike I got when I was 14. Man I was the king of the neighborhood cruising on that beauty. I can remember that time that I...

Oh, sorry... where was I?

Right, CMOs wish list. 

1. Bask in the Glory of Mobile Marketing - Finally

Let's cut right to the chase: Mobile has finally delivered on the promise of keeping customers connected to the brand - anytime, anyplace. If that's news to you, stop reading. If you are keenly aware of this, however, you may continue. Mobile innovations have elevated consumer expectations faster than mobile marketers could rise to meet them; technology, budget, and expertise limitations prevented marketers from engaging with mobile customers
well.

Now, it’s possible for marketers to fully incorporate mobile into their cross-channel marketing strategy and interact with customers whenever and wherever they are. But, in order for marketers to build a personalized experience around the customers, they need to employ data-driven marketing strategies by gaining customer insights across the other digital channels.

2. Use Data To Drive Your Marketing - Literally

Let's repeat part of the last line above shall we? "...need to employ data-driven marketing strategies by gaining customer insights across the other digital channels." How? First off marketing leaders must create a data-driven marketing culture and organize the required people, processes and systems. Marketing leaders also need to eliminate data silos and create a single source of truth.

Marketers need third-party data to fully know customers’ context, and orchestrate the most meaningful experiences for them for using only first party website data limits the analytics, targeting, and addressability of DMPs. Moreover marketers must have the ability to link online digital marketing efforts to offline purchases to give marketers the true ROI on dollars spent. All of this need to deliver the optimal...

3. Achieve Customer Experience Nirvana

Back to that whole "cutting right to the chase" mantra: Today’s customers have high expectations for a consistent, meaningful, personalized experience. Truly knowing your customers - their preferences, buying patterns, purchase history, key demographics, etc. - is at the core of providing a meaningful customer experience. The problem, however, is in most companies, the technologies, data systems, and people who are responsible for delivering that experience are not integrated, resulting in a disjointed, lackluster customer experience. 

Marketers need technology solutions that will unify data and integrate across other CX applications, allowing them to finally deliver on the promise of a consistent and personalized customer experience. 

4. Be Where Your Customers Are - On Every Channel

It’s no secret that the best customers are the ones who engage with brands across multiple channels. It’s not surprising, therefore, that the brands who deliver value to customers across channels see strong growth. How much growth? According to the Aberdeen Group, companies with strong cross channel customer engagement see a 9.5% year-over-year increase in annual revenue. And as per the IDC, cross channel customers who shop on more than one channel have a 30% higher lifetime value score than those who shop on only one. 

Marketers must keep pace with the modern customer – who is fast, digital and unstructured – to outpace the competition. In order to keep pace with customers in real time and effectively personalize each customer’s experience, it’s up to marketers to bring all of a customer’s interactions, preferences, and behaviors across channels together in a way that allows them to get a complete profile of each customer that’s up-to-date.

5. (Bonus) - A Copy of Should the Chief Marketing Officer Oversee the Whole Customer Experience?

As customer expectations continue to rise, businesses need to appoint a senior executive like the Chief Marketing Officer to deliver exceptional, end-to-end customer experiences. It’s a tall order, but if done right, enhanced customer experiences translate into loyalty, repeat business, and revenue.

Download Should the Chief Marketing Officer Oversee the Whole Customer Experience? to learn more. 

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Over the Irish Moon: Meet the Winner of the Everything Holiday Sweepstakes

Congratulations to the winner of the 2016 Everything Holiday Sweepstakes! Marie Rochele Devenny, the owner of Irish Moon, LLC, in West Chester, Pennsylvania, was randomly selected from nearly 300 entries. Marie will receive a free year of Pro email marketing. 

Irish Moon is an online shop specializing in gifts, apparel, and other specialties imported from Ireland and Scotland, or created by artisans of Irish or Scottish descent. Marie had discovered how fulfilling it was to spend her weekends working at a local Irish import store, in contrast to her banking career. “People would leave with such a smile on their faces. I loved working there,” Marie said.

The sudden deaths of two close friends spurred her to take action. “I had the corner office, the title, everything you want at age 35,” Marie continued. “But if I died the next week, what would I have to show for it?” She was ready for her part-time labor of love to bloom into her full-time passion, and in 2013 she launched Irish Moon. 

“I started very small, taking products to Irish fairs and festivals and selling online. This part of Pennsylvania is like Little Ireland, with so many people of Irish and Scottish descent. People joke about the Irish drinking, but it’s really about people laughing and having a good time, enjoying one another. That’s what drew me to this connection to my heritage,” Marie said.

Irish Moon still operates primarily online and at heritage festivals in the area. Marie gets help from part-time workers, friends, and family. “My mom is my artistic director!” she said. The hard work has paid off. “My customers’ response has been great. They like the unique, one-of-a-kind items I have, which are different from what they can find at other Irish and Scottish shops. I have a lot of repeat customers.”

Marie Rochele Devenny sells Irish Moon’s merchandise online and at Irish festivals in her area

One area where Marie is excited to expand is her marketing. “When you’re working with a small budget, marketing is a huge challenge. You ask yourself, ‘I have only this much money to spend — What should I spend it on?'” she said, describing a quandary familiar to countless small business owners.

To stay connected with customers, Irish Moon posts regularly on Facebook, and Marie includes a handwritten thank you note in every order she fulfills — a personal touch that only a small business can do, and one that has gone far in prompting customers to make referrals. But launching email campaigns has always seemed a little out of reach, until now. 

“It’s just me doing everything, and sometimes I’m not sure what I should be doing,” she said. “That’s why I like VerticalResponse. All the help is right there for me to access. I love free advice — free good advice.” Marie, who was familiar with Deluxe from the checks and banking products she had used in her finance career, entered the sweepstakes when a VR Buzz newsletter prompted her to visit Everything Holiday. She found the 24 days of tips, tools, and festive freebies that make up Everything Holiday to be excellent resources. “Even things I might not need to use right now, it’s nice to know they’re available to me when I do need them. And the things you don’t even think about, like what subject lines to use, are so helpful. You can create a whole campaign from one little trigger.”

Marie’s first email campaign will most likely be a welcome message to her customers, a subscriber list that stands at 30 now but is growing every day. “I’ll probably include a discount code as an incentive for my readers to open the email and make a purchase. Then I’ll start promoting things for the holidays.” And she’ll be able to do much more than that — the Pro plan includes a professionally designed email template, delivery rate review, and Advanced Reporting.

Marie’s long-term goals for Irish Moon will also sound familiar to many small business owners. “I want to grow my business, introduce more products to people who may not know about them, and build a solid base so when I ultimately open a storefront, I have customers already coming in.” Email marketing is a concrete step in that direction, and one she’s excited to jump into. 

“I like to try everything and see what works for Irish Moon. It’s just me, so I don’t want to set a ridiculous, strict path — ‘I need to be at a certain place in five or 10 years.’ That’s not how life works. The path will open itself up.”

We’ll be checking in with Marie over the next few months to see how she’s putting her free year of Pro email marketing to work for Irish Moon, LLC. Congratulations again, Marie! 

Don’t Have a VerticalResponse Account Yet? It’s easy to use and free to get started. Sign up and send up to 4,000 emails per month for free. Start for Free

© 2016, John Habib. All rights reserved.

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