What does customer service mean when it comes to an online business? The answer varies depending on whether you have an offline presence as well or whether it is purely an online entity.
If your business has an offline and online presence then things like consistency between them is crucial. From maintaining the look and feel of the site in line with the retail outlet to things like being able to access membership information online if customers use a loyalty card in-store to register purchases.
Regardless of whether your business operates exclusively online or not, some customer service best practices include the following: Read more...
Sometimes customers and what goes on in their collective minds can seem like this mysterious puzzle that marketers and business owners are constantly contending with. There is no easy answer and sometimes, it seems, no easy way to get it.
Surveys, and particularly online surveys, are a good way to find out what your customers are thinking. But there are drawbacks. Participation rate is one that leaps out. If you get about 5-10% of your list to complete the survey then generally that’s considered a win but what about the other 90% – what are they thinking? Are they too annoyed to even respond? Read more...
What is an acceptable return on investment (ROI) in online marketing? That depends on your business, your industry and the degree of risk involved. 100% ROI or higher is definitely possible but it’s unlikely that you’ll achieve it straight up. First you’ll need to spend money testing to find out what works and what doesn’t.
Some companies struggle with spending money and not being able to see the return and as ROI is the accepted barometer of success it’s easy to understand why. However, there has to be an allowance for testing, both in terms of time and budget. Gathering data on what works and what doesn’t isn’t free, it costs but it can be invaluable in helping a business to understand the opportunities that exist and how consumers react to their offering. Read more...
One of the advantages of online marketing is the speed of being able to test different strategies and web copy. There is no need to worry about print runs and distribution logistics. With digital marketing you can get your message out to the market quickly and you can adapt instantly based on the feedback you receive.
The main advantage of this is that you don’t need to know everything about how your target audience will react to your offer. You run two versions of your best guess and let the market decide because the numbers never lie. I’ll say that again just to make sure you got it – the numbers NEVER lie. Read more...
A popular online marketing tactic is SEO (search engine optimisation) because it’s a way of gaining free search engine traffic. There seems to be a large fan base of SEO companies spruiking the benefits of it because you can get ‘free’ traffic if your site ranks on the first page of the search results in Google. While it is true that it doesn’t cost anything for Google to display your listing, there is nothing free about the time and money spent making your site findable via particular keywords entered into a Google search. Read more...
How many products do you hear of which sound like a no-brainer but don’t work? And vice versa, products which you think will never fly only to become a runaway success?
The reason is that no one person or organisation or focus group knows exactly what will happen when a new product or service is launched into the marketplace. Read more...
You’ve got your website set up because you know that you need to have one. And your phone number is on your website in case potential customers want to call you. You’d rather that they did because that’s what you’re used to and that’s what your business is setup to handle.
You’ve put up a ‘contact us’ form and maybe even a ‘request a quote’ form because you’ve been told that you need to have it. And other websites, maybe even your competitors have it, so you figure it’s easy enough to get your web guy to add to your site too. However, you’re not getting many leads that way so you’re not sure why everyone insists you need one. Read more...
Asos has now launched an Australian version of their online retail website. It’s not massively different to their UK version with the main differences being that prices are now all in Australian dollars and returns are to a Sydney address not the UK.
Any clothing retailers that knew Asos would be launching should have been studying their site to see why they were popular and what changes they needed to make to their own site in order to remain competitive. It seems that hasn’t happened. Not yet anyway. Read more...
You’re an online retailer. What do you do when you have run out of stock of an item that you stock in your online store? Do you keep the details on your site to show what you are capable of doing? Or to show how popular your products are to encourage cutomers to get in and order quicky?
Or do you remove it straight away and not risk your customer’s frustration at being unable to purchase it?
Or perhaps you don’t update your site that often and taking it down is a chore that happens rarely? Read more...
For many companies a website is an online brochure. They have it because everyone has one these days and it’s expected of them. While this maybe true, viewing a website in this way is a simplistic way to go and doesn’t really make the most of having online real estate.
Your website is an asset, one that can work for you or can be left idling and not maximised to it’s potential. Just like the name of your business is part of your branding, your website, and in particular your website design, can be a key part of your customer experience. Read more...