Make sure your online site is ready: Black Friday ~ Cyber Monday ~ Amazon

In the space of nine months, we have seen a change in the world that could never have been predicted. And in a world where the unknown has never been so prevalent, we highlight how online stores can ready themselves for Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the upcoming battle.

Last weekend, 31/10/2020, it was announced that the UK was going back into lockdown.

There were winners and losers during the first lockdown and for some, unfortunately, it’s Groundhog Day.

Online stores will be the one true winner

The one true “winner” in the next month or so will be companies who sell online to the public. From butchers, to clothes stores and everything in between, we will see online stores popularity explode.

That is not saying it will all be plain sailing for these companies. There is a big elephant in the room, and it is Amazon, who is the equivalent of that family member that salivates when Monopoly comes out.

How online stores can prepare for the upcoming challenges and battles

As the public turn to online stores, business owners, bar Jeff Bazos, need to make sure their websites are appearing to their target audience, that the site is user friendly, and that the business is set up to keep the audience coming back.

How? We have listed considerations below:

3 elements of optimising the site to appear in front of your target audience

1. It’s key to define your audience. I mean, really define your audience. Who are they? How will they get to your website? Where will they see your products online? What is the lifetime value of someone purchasing? What do they want? All this information will help you discern where you should invest your time, money, and marketing. A great persona template can be found here.
2. Once you have understood where your audience is, it’s important to invest time in these channels, research and establish resource to ensure you are appearing in front of your target audience (making sure you are receiving a return of investment). From there you can begin to consider whether you need to invest in SEO, paid social media or re-ignite your relationship with past audience members through email, etc.
3. Finally, ignore the temptation of relying on Amazon to sell your products. Yes, users may receive sales, but you weaken your brand and relationship with your client base – actively giving them to Amazon.

5 tips for a good user experience on a website

1. Review the message and image you are promoting on your website/social media accounts. Is it correct for you? Are you truly promoting what your company stands for or are you sounding/looking like a cheap imitation of what you believe you are? Don’t believe words and images can do that? Think about what film sounds betters… Faster Faster Angry Angry, or Too Fast Too Furious. Messaging and images can make a huge difference.
2. Include reviews. This is something I bang on about far too much and there is a reason. If you have reviews, people are 270% more likely to purchase a product (Speigel Research Centre (2017)).
3. Make sure it is quick! According to 2018 research by Google, 53% of mobile users leave a site that takes longer than three seconds to load. Don’t give them an excuse to leave!
4. Create the best experience for a user of the website. https://services.google.com/fh/files/events/pdf_retail_ux_playbook.pdf. It is quite a read but oversimplifying it; keep the site simple, don’t use carousels (even if you think it will work), have an effective search bar (80% of people will leave a site if they have a poor search bar), allow a guest checkout and allow people to sign up to a newsletter and your social media accounts.
5. Finally, although this isn’t directly related, make sure your website can handle large sums of traffic. Contact your website hosts to get confirmation on this fact. If you do all the hard work attracting valuable visitors and your website goes down…

3 ways to keep the audience coming back

1. On average, our latest piece of research saw B2B companies posting on social media 7 times per month in comparison to 33 times per month for B2C organisations. Why? It’s not just because B2C companies want to get in front of a new audience it is because they the companies want to continue to remind people they’re still here and open.
2. Email newsletters. Some people think these are old hat, but we can safely say that is a myth. Email newsletters continue to be one of the best ways to get people back to the website buying.
3. Create an online loyalty program. Increasingly, there is software being released to help with loyalty programs. They can even be free if you are a certain size! Companies like LoyaltyLion helps make more money by keeping current customers happy, encouraging referrals and improve eCommerce retention.

A final thought is a cost-effective way to acquire new customers is to explore potential brand partnerships. A recent study by Forrester found that 49% of respondents reported a boost in revenue after undertaking partnership programme initiatives.

Conclusion

The above should help you ready yourselves for the upcoming challenges. If you do need any further advice, please do contact me and I would be happy to help.

Kayo Digital can help with all items discussed and if you would like to learn more please do use our contact form.

Remember to stay positive and test negative (stolen from some LinkedIn influencer).