Many online retailers have felt the 2020/2021 boom as their bricks and mortar competitors were dealt the toughest of blows and their audiences grew more and more accustomed to hitting the paypal button. But conditions were so good that even many in-store retailers with little or no previous experience of selling online did a quick pivot and were able to pick up their share of customers, changing the shape of their business forever.

So, the future is online, right? Well, it’s logical to conclude that businesses and customers are in some way changed forever, and habits will never go back as far as 2019, however, after any boom there’s a bump which shakes off those not designed to survive.

With our hands-on experience of e-comm accounts in recent months it’s becoming increasingly obvious that competition in some sectors is suffocating, and now is the moment that businesses need to raise their game to establish their position. How do you do that? 

Fulfill the expectations of the 2021 buyer. 

What’s so different about the 2021 buyer?

Simply put, they expect more (even if they don’t realise it). From the first touch point with a brand a buyer is expecting a holistic experience that goes beyond advertising. We are finding that the advice we give our clients on customer journey, email nurture, offers etc is more and more important in order for them to get optimal value from their ad campaigns. 

Here are five really important boxes we think you need to be ticking.

Customer Journey

This comes up time and time again. Once you have brought a customer to your landing page their route to check out needs to be as frictionless as possible. Today’s buyer has no time for poorly designed sites; as well as being tedious they encourage distrust in the brand. Focus on minimal distractions, minimal input from the buyer and minimal obstacles. The biggest no-nos continue to be asking for customers to sign up for an account and high shipping costs. 

We’d encourage boosting your average order value with add ons, but keep them highly relevant to the purchase. Depending on the product, test different add ons, find which work best and ditch the rest.

Is your check out optimised for both desktop and mobile?

Keywords Incorporated in your Copy

Particularly if you’re running PPC campaigns, you’ll have done some thorough keyword research. These need to be on your website, in your ads, your emails and social posts. Not only will they support your SEO and consistency of the brand, but they’ll be instant points of recognition for your customers, reassuring and reminding them that this is the product for them. For example, you sell garden parasols which are designed to be particularly robust in windy conditions. As a customer, I’m fed up with buying parasols which get destroyed by ‘lively’ British summers. If most of my touchpoints with your brand only talk about parasols generically they’re going to wash over me much quicker than the message which solves my problem.

Voice search is also on the increase meaning having those keywords on your website, in particular, will become more and more important.

Brand Consistency

In a busy marketplace a strong and recognisable brand is key. Language, tone, imagery and design need to be consistent to secure brand trust and build recognition. Getting this right is the first step to your customers ‘knowing, liking and trusting’ you.

Don’t let your brand guidelines get dusty, and make sure you share them with all colleagues and agencies.

Email List and Nurture

Your strongest competitors are doing it, and if you’re not your visibility isn’t as broad as it could be. We’ve come to expect the brands we buy from to appear in our inboxes, and the trick with email nurture isn’t volume (although you should probably be doing more than you think) but getting the hook right. When you’re mapping out your nurture sequence, revisit your customer’s pain points and address them loud and clear. Give value, help them out (see point 2 in ‘know, like and trust’).

Your email list should also be warm enough to direct your best offers at; what will get them over the line? 

Top tip - get into your highest performing competitor’s email lists and see what content they’re sending out. If they have bigger budgets than you the chances are they’ve already done the testing on what’s resonating with customers, so learn from them.

(NB - building good email lists is even more important to advertisers in a post iOS 14 world, whoever runs your ads will get excited by relevant, growing lists).

Offers

We know, you’ve got margins to protect and your business model doesn’t allow for endless discounting. Fair enough. However, consider what the average lifetime value is of your customers. Do you know, for example, that 50% of customers who make one purchase with you will go on to make three more purchases over the following 12 months? Are you confident that once they have purchased their trust (NB point 3 in ‘know, like and trust’) is high and they’ll take much less effort (££) to convert next time?

Review the competition and do the sums, but be wary of poor offers. We believe it’s better to offer real value or not at all. No one gets excited by a 5% discount.

It is busy out there in the digital space in 2021, but it is also full of opportunity. Embrace the holistic approach to catch your audience’s attention and interest and remember that people who know, like and trust you will buy from you.

Coming soon - understanding the growing importance of linking up and optimising your digital marketing, we’re in the process of developing a mini online course to help e-comm businesses create a joined up digital marketing plan for just £47.

If you’d like to be the first to hear when this launches, drop us a line using the button below.