Building Traffic Online
Constructing a website is one thing, but generating traffic to it is a completely separate task
In today’s highly competitive, global marketplace, it is increasingly important for companies to become more efficient and effective in the pursuit of their business goals. With annualised growth consistently measured in double digits, eCommerce has emerged as a strategically important sales channel for virtually all businesses, from retailers and resellers to service companies and manufacturers.
While the benefits of eCommerce are self-evident and well-documented, building a website and not thinking about how to generate traffic can really be likened to building a single store on the central reservation of a motorway: customers will rush past, pay no attention, the odd one might look, but won’t stop. So, what are the options for generating virtual footfall?
Virtual shopping centres
The web is used most by consumers as a research and information tool. This has led to the creation of virtual shopping malls and search engines: areas that consumers use to view a lot of choice. Getting high quality relevant data to these forums is the basics. We recently launched a Feed Commerce Manager™ that allows our clients to get this up-and-running quickly, and this is fundamental to build an online presence. In the same way shopping focus is created on a high street or out-of-town shopping centres, the usage of the search engines, comparison or review sites, and affiliate networks, and more recently widgets have created a virtual market-place at a deep level of granularity, and these now provide many different storefront locations to sell your product. Additional transparency has meant that brand, pricing, and proposition are put under much greater scrutiny online than other channels, so those that think about the ‘entire customer package’ are the retailers that are successful serving up more information rather than hiding it.
With the data available on unique visitors, basket size and conversion rate at product level, the granularity can uncover potential issues in a proposition, and give an early warning signal that brand, price, range or service is falling short. Use this data as an opportunity to decide whether the customer package is right.
The web is no longer all about price. Each of the market-places above has relative merits that can emphasise a product or aspect of your proposition: distributed content should cater for needs of the customers that use these channels, a one-size-fits-all mentality will not yield the best results. Take one of the channels we have integrated with: eBay. 40% of all active internet users visit eBay at least once per month so it cannot be ignored as a potential sales channel for larger retailers. However, many brands worry about the impact of listing product there. But it has been interesting to see how our clients have opted to use this:
- To set-up a full replication of their website proposition
- To clear end-of-line inventory at reduced prices
- To use eBay to set-up a different proposition altogether.
Regardless of their choices, on every occasion the proposition description is changed to suit the way the customer uses and shop on eBay.
And with the data available from each portal, the channels can be fully optimised to maximise return from the marketing spend available.
Creating the buzz
Recently social networks have highlighted the importance of peer-to-peer interaction, both from the delivery of an opinion, and in the decision-making process. Here, interaction must be formed on précis rather than product. Creating buzz in the social networks can be in many forms: apart from the well-known ones, there are many blogs and forums that focus around common verticals. I always say to clients, when you think about offline PR think online PR. Nearly every offline media channel has an online equivalent, and building relationships with those channels can not only drive incremental traffic but also enhance your SEO, as you get linked as an authority from another authority.
Broadly, online networks like this are more about peer selection than business selection, so for any success the focus of campaigns has to be around the common interest, and targeted towards the correct customer segment. Widgets have certainly helped retailers with this, as combined with RSS as a delivery system, it enables a potential partner to pick and choose what they want on display. But brand beware, like with mobile marketing, if you don’t get the target and the message aligned, it can have an adverse effect on your proposition, as there is always a risk of a response.
Look after your existing customers
But by all accounts (that I have heard), the cheapest and most cost effective way of driving traffic is through retention marketing. In this current economic climate and with rising acquisition costs, retailers need to take a step back and re-introduce themselves to customers. The majority of companies spend a fraction of their marketing budget on those customers who have arrived at their store. This is the opportunity to create your own brand advocates who will go back onto their own social networks to spread the word. Once a customer is within your environment, it is vital that as much information about behaviour and preferences are captured, and use this to create an exciting customer experience for them. As technology becomes more sophisticated, websites and your communications can be structured for specific experiences, from the purchase funnel through to segmented targeted emailing and mobile messages. I don’t think eCommerce had grasped this with both hands yet, and the real winners in the online space will be the retailers who master this.
Author: Andy Houstoun, Global Head of Marketing, Venda