Image by: bluefountainmedia’s photostream
By Michael Sterling
E-Commerce has exploded since the invention of the internet. Customer service doesn’t mean being one-on-one anymore, and because of that we often get intimidated at the idea of client-internet relationships. It’s hard to understand the new technique of being a salesman through the cyber we; no one really taught this to us in school.
Each company has their own strategy of how to be a force in the market. Once one business discovers a new way of doing things, another company is right behind them trying to reinvent their idea. However despite the constant attempts of beating the competition, we all have one goal in common: to make the sale!
When the 21st century began, the new direction was online shopping. Everyone knew it, everyone felt it, and everyone equally took a tremendous sigh – unsure about how to go about it exactly. In some cases, there are companies who still are scratching their heads. According to a new projection from Forrester Research Inc., online spending in the United States will reach $370 billion a year by 2017… looks like everyone was right all along.
How Can I Be Unique?
The beauty about E-commerce is that there are no rules. It is completely unique to the company, the owner, and the personal relationship that they have with their client. If they make the sale, they’re “strategy” worked. However, one of the secrets is to discover what makes you, as a company, different. Here’s a clue: pay attention to your existing clients. What gets their attention? What have they boasted about the most? Translate these things over when you build up the site.
I bet you didn’t know that certain color schemes can make you feel certain feelings. Ever wonder why most fast food restaurants use the color schemes red, orange, or yellow? It’s because these colors register certain parts in our brain that can make us hungry. Soft greens and soft blues make us feel peaceful and healthy. This is called Color Psychology and can be very beneficial when starting up your brand.
Oversee Your Results
One of the best tools you can have in E-commerce is a tracking tool. With these tools, you can literally track all the things your customers are doing on your pages. Every touch of the mouse, every stop of the page, every purchase, every place they hit the back button and with all this information, you can then move forward with improving your strategy. No one does it perfect the first time.
Technology like Crazy Egg and Google Analytics (which is free) will do split testing. Split testing is when you use two samples of marketing promotions and compare them to see which one had a better result. For example if you are sending out an email blast to 1,500 customers, create two kinds of newsletters – one with a green background and more upbeat language versus another with a red background and more to the point type of language. By split testing, you will be able to see which one delivered the best results and response rates from people. This is just a small example of how you can use these online tools to better your strategy.
Icons & Mottos
Customers want to feel like you know them, even though they might be half way across the globe. If you use certain online tools, you can be able to track frequent customers who purchase multiple orders of the same product or service. Here’s an idea: make their life a bit more easier. Create an icon specifically made for the frequent buyer. All they would need to do is hit the button which would automatically link to their favorite order. Just like that, you will let them know that you pay attention to their needs and consider their time important.