Hey everybody! It’s summertime, my favorite time of year. It is time for barbecues in the backyard or swimming in the pool. Basically, I am feeling free to do just what I want to do. Many of your customers feel the same way and that may partly explain why your sales numbers start to dip during the summer months. Don’t worry – this is all perfectly natural.
Don’t sit there passively hoping your numbers will bounce back as they have previously. Use the summer season to prepare for the next quarter when customers return from vacation and head back to work and school. Use the following seven suggestions for stirring up your ecommerce summer doldrums.
Attend Trade Shows
It is important to attend ecommerce related conferences for many reasons. Aside from developing relationships with new customers and partners, there are also opportunities to learn best practices and business strategies.
Most professional conferences feature learning sessions from your peers and mentors. Make sure you come away from these sessions with actionable tactics.
Some excellent ecommerce themed events include Conversion Conference, IRCE, The Live Event – Which Test Won and Affiliate Summit.
Plan Email Campaigns
66% of consumers have made a purchase online as a result of an email marketing message. The summer is the optimal time to plan a multi-touch email marketing campaign. You’ll need to segment your database and create copy and landing pages targeting your audience.
Focus the message of the email campaign around solving problems that trouble your customer base. Your KPIs should include unique click-throughs and click-to-open rates.
Become More Active on Social Media
Although social media has not yet proven effective at driving direct sales, it is still an important branding tool and crucial to overall ecommerce success. The purpose of social media presence is about participating in conversation with your industry peers and customers. It is also about driving traffic to other channels, like email, mobile and website.
Experiment with A/B and Multivariate Tests
Now is a good time to reevaluate your checkout process and shopping cart. We suggest testing new layouts and configurations to see what drives more conversions and higher average order values. Some easy tests to conduct involve swapping button colors, sizes and shapes. Consider every element of your checkout process to be worthy of a split test.
Revisit your PPC Campaigns
You probably already know that managing a successful paid search campaign relies on constant testing, monitoring and updating of ads. If you have time on your hands this summer, why not spend it researching new keywords to target, and developing relevant ads and landing pages?
If you are new to PPC, it is time to get AdWords certified. Google offers comprehensive study materials to help you prepare and give you the necessary tools for implementing successful campaigns.
Prepare for End of Year Holiday Campaigns
It is never too early to get ready for the ecommerce bonanza that invariably begins on Black Friday and continues through the new year. What does that mean for you? It means that you have to align your marketing, sales and IT teams to ensure that your campaign targets the right segment and that your platform can withstand a potential increase in sales. Begin planning how to encourage buyers who have many offers to choose from during that time of year. This plan should include coupling effective copy with engaging imagery.
Target New Regions for Conversion Rate Optimization
The United States and Europe are the two largest ecommerce markets on the planet and you’ve probably been focusing your efforts on converting visitors from those regions. But have you considered targeting other parts of the world? You likely have potential customers in Brazil, India, China and South Korea and it’s time to support their buying needs.
At the very least, this support means localizing your shopping cart’s language, currencies, payment methods, prices and form fields. Though that seems like an overwhelming task, we have a resource to help guide you through the challenges of localizing your shopping cart. You can download the white paper through this link.
Keystone
Don’t get caught in the ecommerce summer doldrums. There is a lot you can do to reinvigorate your marketing and sales to prepare for busier times.
