Welcome to the Top Ten Blog Posts of 2013! This time of year is all about reflection and resolutions. It’s also about countdowns and lists. So without further ado, please enjoy this selection of the most potent content that we published in 2013. And Happy New Year!
Email Marketing Infographic
Ecommerce Eye Candy – Best Email Open Times [Infographic] – This infographic from GetResponse says that emails are most likely to be opened within the first hour after they are sent. Also, it is important to distinguish your email by sending it in the morning or early afternoon. And don’t forget to segment your list by time-zones.
The Global Software Market
The State of Software and SaaS [Video] – This panel of ecommerce executives explains that when technology evolves, so does the way consumers shop online. For ecommerce merchants, your ultimate goal is to provide and communicate value to customers. As long as you can make your customers’ lives easier, you will find success in one way or another.
Interview With A Conversion Optimization Expert
Don’t Trust Your Gut – Conversion Optimization Advice From Chris Goward – This interview explains that creating a “test and improve” culture is difficult, but is well worth the resulting conversion rate increases.
Gartner Magic Quadrant For Ecommerce 2013
Gartner Magic Quadrant for Ecommerce 2013 – Earlier this year, Building Keystones and cleverbridge offered readers complimentary access to the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Ecommerce 2013. This report eases the decision making process for merchants looking to use an outsourced ecommerce platform to sell their wares. It provides ecommerce leaders insight into the many available ecommerce platforms by listing each company’s strengths and cautions.
Asian Ecommerce Market
5 Strategies For Going To Market In Asia – This post makes the case for investigating the ecommerce opportunity in the Asia-Pacific region and offers some tips for going to market in the various countries of this region.
Conversion Rate Optimization
3 Ways To Improve Cross-Sell and Up-Sell Conversion Rates – One of the key principles behind cart conversion is simplicity. Reducing distractions and focusing on completing the order process are important steps to optimizing conversion rates. Despite the fact that cross-sells and up-sells may distract customers from completing an order of the primary product, they are important drivers of additional revenue. Therefore, it’s important not to make assumptions without data to back up your hypothesis, as your customers might surprise you.
Customer Service Portals
8 Must Haves For Your Customer Service Toolbox – While ecommerce professionals tend to focus on improving the beginning and middle stages of the shopping process, like SEO, PPC and the checkout process, later stages like customer service are often ignored. This post summarizes some of the key components of a world class customer service offering.
Subscription Commerce Platforms
Subscription Commerce Defined – The past couple years has seen a growing interest about subscription billing models from online merchants. It’s important for these merchants to look at their current ecommerce platform and investigate whether they are better served by a solution that combines subscription capabilities with a full-service offering too. This post clarifies exactly which business models call for a recurring billing solution and the different options that can be implemented to offer that type of billing.
Affiliate Marketing For Dummies
Affiliate Marketing 101: 4 Steps for Beginners – The purpose of this article is to introduce you to affiliate marketing. If you own almost any type of website, you can potentially earn monetary commissions by referring visitors of your site to the site of merchants with whom you are affiliated. So, what do you need to know and do in order to become a successful affiliate marketer?
Email Marketing Subject Lines
Improving Email Subject Lines With Glyphs – This post offers practical advice on an overlooked asset to your email’s subject line: the glyph. It explains how a carefully used symbol can enhance subject lines and persuade readers to open that email.
B2B Ecommerce
Creating Convenient B2B Shopping Experiences – Every buyer of enterprise software is also an individual who buys retail online. Shopping in marketplaces like Amazon and Ebay have taught them to expect convenient sign-ins and hassle free purchasing. As a result, B2B companies must provide their customers with a B2C-like online shopping experience. The first piece of this puzzle is to offer an e-store so that customers can purchase software directly from your site. But there’s more to B2B online shopping than just building an estore.
We wish everyone a Happy New Year and look forward to sharing more of our ecommerce expertise in 2014. We hope that reading these posts gives you insight into your business and helps you make better decisions. Click here to contact a cleverbridge representative and see how we can help you improve your ecommerce offering.
