How to Increase Conversion Rates with Google Shopping Feeds

If you sell tangible products online, you already know how crucial Google Shopping feeds can be. But did you know that with just a few simple tweaks, you can greatly improve your products' visibility in shopping feeds and thus get your products viewed (and possibly purchased) by more customers – thereby increasing your conversion rate?

And perhaps the best part is that it doesn't require any deep development or programming experience. Ready to learn how? Let's take a closer look.

Improving Your Feed with Attributes

According to a report recently released by ROI Revolution, simply having a shopping feed is no longer enough. Your feed is your product's packaging in a world where customers can't always try it on or feel it. From their point of view, they're putting themselves at a huge risk simply by choosing to potentially do business with you. A quality feed can show them that you're just as invested in their satisfaction as they are.

A properly optimized feed means that you don't just have more data than anyone else, but that your data is better quality.

Your individual product attributes can make a significant impact, so taking the time to do them properly can be the difference between “just browsing” and “I have to have that”. Of course, many merchants settle for filling the basics – title, description and keywords – with whatever's on the label.

But even doing the bare minimum is doing a huge disservice to your product and sabotaging it before it even gets out of the gate.

So let's look at how to properly optimize those points before moving on to the more technical aspects (it will be painless, I promise).

Title – Unless you're the manufacturer of the product itself, don't waste time or space putting in your company name. Customers don't care. Use words that they would use when searching for the product, including the brand. Look at these shopping ads for the Samsung Galaxy S6 smart phone:

Image Source: Whoopapp

Here, the customer is most likely to search the exact brand and model – Samsung Galaxy S6. Since you only have 70 characters, it pays to prioritize since only 25 of those show in the feed. So prioritization goes Brand Name > Exact Type of Product > Features/Characteristics – so the full product listing ad might read “Samsung Galaxy S6 Android Smartphone 4G”

Description – Here it pays to look at your product from the perspective of the customer again. Since they are likely only scanning quickly to find a match, it's a good idea to make your description as visually digestible and helpful as possible.  This is a great place to put features that may not have fit in the title. Here, you want to do your best to answer any questions a customer may have about a product before they click.

Keywords – this is the perfect opportunity to dig deep into those reports and see which words your customers are using to find your product in the first place. Look at the terms that convert best and use those in your description where applicable.

Make Optional Attributes Part of Your Feed

Oftentimes, retailers mistakenly assume that if an attribute is optional, it isn't necessary. But according to the ROI Revolution Google Shopping report, just because it's optional doesn't mean you shouldn't include it anyway.

Google has a quality score for feeds – and while we don't know the “secret sauce” of what makes up the algorithm, we do know that products which have all their information complete will have a better quality score than those who do not.  And according to ROI Revolution, certain optional attributes can help further optimize your feed and improve its performance and quality score.

The Alphabet Soup of UPCs, MPNs and Brands

The Universal Product Code, Manufacturer Product Number and brand of your items won't likely be searched for by customers. They will, however, be used by Google to group and optionally compare products, like the cookware below:

Image Source: ROI Revolution Google Shopping Feeds report

Here you can see that even big-name brands like Macys, Sur La Table and Bloomingdales haven't exactly done their homework on optimizing their product feeds. But as the report notes, take a look at Austin Kayak. Not only is it a Google Trusted store, which is an added bonus, but it also highlights their offer of free shipping and no sales tax.

You'd be forgiven for cringing when the thought of being stacked up there with your competition comes to mind. But Google Shopping calculates sales tax and shipping as part of the total – found in the “Total Cost” column. Businesses which offer free shipping and no tax automatically become the lowest price – even if they hadn't highlighted their offer

Now the question becomes, can Google find your products and accurately compare them with others in the same price/feature range? Not if you haven't taken the time to fill in the alphabet soup of brand, UPC and MPNs.

Size (And Color, and Material) Matter

Merchants are reluctant to input their products' sizes into their Google shopping feed because they feel like they have to painstakingly measure things like width, height and depth. But at this stage in the shopping experience, customers only need to know the basics.  Consider these examples from the report. Size is important on all of them, but only general information is there for filtering purposes.

Image Source: ROI Revolution Google Shopping Feeds report

The same applies to color. Even if one of your products is “charcoal grey” and the other is “ash grey”, customers are likely going to simply look for “grey” and filter their choices accordingly;  not to mention that even Google's filtering options tilt toward the very basic:

Image Source: ROI Revolution Google Shopping Feeds report

Material is another matter. Like size, you don't have to be specific. As the report notes, customers aren't going to care (in the beginning) about your 90% organic cotton blend when they're simply searching for “cotton”.

There are many other attributes you can set that will greatly enhance your product's performance (and therefore its sales and conversions) in your feed, including custom labels. To learn precisely how to set these, you're encouraged to download the official report from ROI Revolution's website (email required).

Are You Using Your Google Shopping Feed to the Fullest?

It can seem overwhelming to dive head-first into the details of your shopping feed, but as this report has shown, it's the little things that matter most. Whether you have 5 products or 5,000, taking the time to submit them right can make all the difference in search, product listing ads and paid ads.

Are you using Google shopping feeds for your own products? How has adding attributes improved your products' performance overall? Share your triumphs with us in the comments below and let us know your thoughts!

About the Author: Sherice Jacob helps business owners improve website design and increase conversion rates through compelling copywriting, user-friendly design and smart analytics analysis. Learn more at iElectrify.com and download your free web copy tune-up and conversion checklist today! Follow @sherice on Twitter, LinkedIn or Google+ for more articles like this!

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How to Retain Your Customer's Attention Throughout the Onboarding Process

Onboarding never ends.

Some SaaS teams may approach onboarding as an activity － a one-time event for each consumer.

However, it's time to change your perspective. Consider onboarding as an ongoing process that continues beyond initial setup.

Whether it's teaching loyal consumers about new integrations or training newbies about your dashboard, it's vital that you have their undivided attention.

John Waldron of markITwrite believes that the onboarding stage is “one of the most perilous phases in the whole conversion process.”

So, don't lose customers just because you failed to capture your audience's attention. Here are four techniques to get your team started:

1. Offer Ongoing Training

Every customer is different.

Some will adapt quickly to your software. They will learn every feature in one day and possibly point out inefficiencies in your system.

On the other hand, other customers will take longer to learn your platform. They may desire a step-by-step guide to understand everything. And they may need additional content resources to be successful.

To serve both types of consumers, segment training programs based on the customers' behaviors. This gives everyone an opportunity to learn according to his or her needs. Moreover, you retain their attention.

“Proactive customer success training is delivered through online courses and on-demand training designed to get your new customers up to speed from acquisition to activation in as short as possible timeframe,” says Miranda Lievers Chief, Customer Officer of Thinkific.

Hubspot offers their customers the option to refresh their learning. The inbound marketing software company has a YouTube playlist dedicated just for product tutorials.

Visage creates training with the help of strategic partnerships. For example, the data visualization company teamed up with Hubspot to help their users tell better stories with visuals.

However, be mindful not to push your customers towards training. It should be at their pace, not yours.

“You should be careful not to take progressive onboarding too far. Let the customer navigate in his or her own time. There shouldn't be a need to provide hints on every screen. If you excessively prompt new customers with obvious hints, you risk annoying or distracting your customers,” writes Hannah Levenson, Community Manager at Appsee.

Keep your customers focused. Engage them with ongoing training.

2. Leverage Multiple Communication Channels

Years ago, it took months to communicate with someone. But today, we live in a highly-connected society. And we can talk to someone in a matter of seconds.

In addition, there are various forms of communication channels available to us. With so many ways to get our brand message across, teams forget that the consumer is the one with the ultimate decision.

“By giving people a choice how to reach you, you make your website more user friendly and can drive more leads and sales. Users get to choose the way to communicate that's most convenient for them, which makes it easier to connect with you and further the relationship,” states Corey Pemberton is a copywriter and marketer.

Experiment with different communication channels, such as text, in-app messaging, and email. If you don't, your team may risk losing the customer's interest.

Shopify offers support services via email, live chat, and phone.

Jim Marous, co-publisher of The Financial Brand, says, “Leveraging multiple channels […] allows you to appeal to a customer's channel preferences while delivering a highly personalized message that will positively impact results.”

Mobile platforms are a popular platform for customer support, with more than 60% of people using smartphones to connect online. Research also shows that “more than 20% of people using Facebook and Twitter seek information about different products and services.” Thus, it may be time for your SaaS to discuss mobile and social solutions.

And here's a pro tip: Don't inundate people with bulletins on a dozen different channels. Choose a few and concentrate on delivering attention-getting messages.

3. Incentivize the Process

People like receiving rewards. From an early age, we're conditioned to expect incentives for positive behavior.

“Everyone loves new and free stuff, and your users aren't any different. One of the best ways to adopt users or keep them interested in your software is to offer an incentive,” says Omri Erel, Lead Author & Editor of SaaSAddict Blog.

Similar to grade school when earning a passing score may get you an extra recess, reward your customers with a small token for completing a step in the onboarding process

Take advantage of people's “need to complete.” It's a powerful psychological driver in customer engagement.

In our brains, completion equates to success. It gives us a sense of relief and accomplishment.

And it can bring back good memories, like when we completed our high school classes or a certificate program.

Offer that same joy to your users. Add a progress bar to the onboarding process.

Each milestone should be simple, yet informative for the customer. You can encourage them to complete their profile or persuade them to learn a new tool.

When setting up an Etsy shop, the brand displays a progress meter showing the next steps in the onboarding process.

It's essential to reward them for their positive behavior.

“Whether it's a discount, promotion, or an enticing statistic to show how the steps you suggest they follow will boost conversions, save them money or any other applicable metric. By providing a relevant incentive, people are much more likely to take action,” states Slava Rudenko, Project Manager and Marketing Executive at myTips.

Go the extra mile. Give your customers incentives for choosing your brand.

4. Build Real Relationships

Your SaaS team is told over and over again to build relationships with your customers. But what does that really mean?

For starters, don't treat your customers like a number. Referring to someone as Ticket #12438 isn't going to retain your customer's attention.

Learn more about their goals and interests to create a better customer experience. That means gathering data from several sources.

“The key is to use the quantitative data that you are collecting through your analytics tools, and the qualitative data that you are collecting through customer interaction and in-context messaging to create a individualized experiences that excite and delight your users,” states Brian Rogers, former Director of Customer Success at Evergage.

Real relationships also translate into unbelievable customer service. No one likes waiting 12 days for their concerns to be addressed.

“New clients are going to have a lot of questions. If you want to earn their trust, you need to be prepared with quick responses. Minimal response time should be something you strive to deliver, and it's even more important when your clients are still getting to know you,” writes, Ron Williams, Business Success Strategist at ConnectWise, Inc.

Customers need a reason to stick around. A good product is a start, but an authentic relationship is better.

Onboard With Purpose

Customer onboarding is an integral part of the conversion process. It's the difference between higher retention or higher churn.

Offer users ongoing training to help them easily navigate your platform. Deliver customer messages on multiple communication channels. And focus on building genuine relationships rooted in value.

Retain customer attention. Onboard with purpose.

About the Author: Shayla Price lives at the intersection of digital marketing, technology and social responsibility. Connect with her on Twitter @shaylaprice.

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How To Use Net Promoter Score to Improve Retention and Drive Reviews for Your SaaS Product

You know that customer retention is important for any company; even more so for SaaS. If you keep customers around, they keep paying you. Churn rate should be one of the most important metrics for any SaaS company.

Though there are many ways to reduce churn, there is one way that we've found to be the most impactful: Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys. Implementing and responding to NPS surveys had a direct 30% decrease in our churn rate.

Through collecting and acting on NPS you will not only retain more customers but also drive new leads and close more deals. It's a true win-win.

I'm going to teach you how we leverage NPS to pinpoint customer issues, pave our product roadmap and get our fans to write 5-star reviews for us around the web.

What is Net Promoter Score?

Net Promoter Score is collected through a survey which asks participants on how likely they'd be to recommend your product to a friend or colleague. The answers are broken down in to three categories:

Image Source

Detractors (0 to 6): Detractors are unhappy customers who may churn shortly. They account for more than 80 percent of negative word of mouth. It's important to react quickly to their feedback to keep them as a customer.

Passives (7 or 8): Passives are somewhat satisfied with your product but do not love it. There may be a couple issues holding them back from being a promoter. If a competitor's product catches their eye they may switch.

Promoters (9 or 10): Promoters are your company's biggest fans. They are far more likely to recommend your products to others, remain customers and spend more money with your company.

To calculate the actual Net Promoter Score all you need to do is subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. It's a number that ranges from -100 to 100.

The goal is to increase your Net Promoter Score over time, but it doesn't matter what your beginning NPS is. The feedback from your customers is what you're really after.

After users are asked for their score they're prompted to answer an open ended question of why they chose that score. This information is gold to your company.

Our NPS Collection Process

You can fully automate the NPS survey process with a number of tools including Promoter.io, AskNice.ly or Wootric. While the most common way to run the surveys are through email, certain apps allow alternatives like web and in app popups.

We keep it simple and send out an email NPS survey 45 days after the customer has become a paid user and then again every 6 months. If the customer doesn't leave a score we have a follow up email that goes out 5 days later.

While the score is nice to have, the comment after they score your company is what you're really after. We've found that only around 70% of people who answer the survey leave a comment as well. You can squeeze out more responses by following this guide by Baremetrics, which automates following up with customers who fail to leave a comment.

As the surveys roll in there are three main ways we utilize the information:

1. Pinpoint and overcome customer issues

These surveys are the perfect way to find any problems or issues nagging your customers. Many times you'll find people complain about something that you've already solved. Or they're looking for a feature that you already provide or plan or providing.

For example, we already provide a way to deactivate accounts. By simply asking we moved this customer from a passive to a promoter.

Here are some tips that we use to respond to customer issues:

• Take a personalized approach with each customer. There is no auto reply function that works well and you can gain value out of talking to your customers.


• Reply to every comment regardless of whether it's positive or negative.


• Pay close attention to detractors; they're ready to leave your company at any moment.

2. Pave our company roadmap

Along with our support section where customers can vote on features, NPS surveys have become essential in deciding the path of our company.

We take note of every suggestion that comes in through the surveys. It doesn't have to be complicated, simply tally suggestions in a Google Sheets document as they come in. It's a bit of manual work but well worth it.

This approach lets you find out exactly what your customers would like to see. Chances are that if your current customers want to see a specific feature, your potential customers and leads would like to see it as well.

We use this information to make a product roadmap with loose deadline dates. On top of our Google Sheets document we also tag each user with the suggestion they'd like to see in our CRM platform. The customer is then notified when their suggestion is added to the roadmap, and then also when it's released. People love knowing they're being listened to and the notifications delight them.

3. Leverage Promoters

Promoters love your product and don't care who knows it. There are many ways that you can leverage them:

• Invite them to refer friends or colleagues


• Upsell them to a new package


• Ask for reviews on G2Crowd, TrustRadius, etc


• Share their encouragement with your company to boost morale

What we realized we need more than anything were positive reviews around the web. When you did a search for our company + reviews not much popped up.

Google results for “Agency Analytics reviews” before leveraging NPS.

We started asking promoters to leave reviews with a very simple request:

We're in a tough place because online reviews help us grow and add more features, but we really hate asking users. We know your time is valuable.

If you have a moment consider letting people know what you think on G2Crowd: (link to G2Crowd). No pressure, just ignore this if you'd prefer not to :)

After asking our promoters, reviews started rolling in. Not every promoter will leave a review but we received seven glowing reviews after a few months.

There are now a few new leads a day who tell us they signed up because of the reviews they saw online. This page is also used as a sales tool to show potential customers why they should go with our software. All because of NPS!

Demo requests that come from G2Crowd.

Conclusion

Sending out NPS surveys is one of the best things a SaaS company can do to improve metrics across the board. It takes less than an hour to set up and allows you to get candid feedback from your users.

We use it to: answer customer concerns, plan our company roadmap and get rave reviews across the web, but there are hundreds of ways you can leverage these surveys. How are you going to use NPS to improve your SaaS company?

About the Author: Christian Sculthorp is the Marketing Director at AgencyAnalytics. @AgencyAnalytics is an all-in-one reporting platform for SEO agencies with rank tracking, backlink monitoring and more.

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How to Make Analytics Work for Your Videos

When the word “analytics” comes up, most content owners immediately gravitate toward viewership counts. However, though views are important, they're only part of the larger picture. Truly comprehensive analytics help content creators ensure the videos they produce are providing real ROI.

Without proper analytics, businesses have no way of knowing whether their videos are just popular or are actually converting viewers into buyers. A video that has lots of views but doesn't lead to sales is little more than a money pit.

With a well-built analytics tracking system, companies can see exactly where their leads come from, how they convert through the funnel, and where their marketing dollars have the greatest impact.

Real Data and Deceptive Views

Most companies recognize how important good data is to their revenue streams. New marketing technologies allow even the smallest companies to get a firm understanding of how their programs are performing across various demographics.

In the recent past, view counts were king. Businesses understood that more viewers equaled more brand recognition and more sales. Views are helpful, true, but they're one of the easiest metrics to acquire and interpret. Anyone can go to YouTube and see how many views a video has, but that number only reveals how many people started the video - nothing more.

Views don't tell you whether users left five seconds in, bailed halfway through, or made it to the bitter end. View count could be double or triple the actual engagement figures, but without other indicators, companies have no way of knowing. Engagement is difficult to measure on the whole, but if one video has 10 percent of viewers watching to the end and another has 90, that's an excellent place to start.

Additionally, view counts don't say who is watching a video. A video geared toward Baby Boomers in Texas with an actual audience made up almost exclusively of Millennials in New York probably isn't accomplishing what the content creator intended. Fewer views within the right audience are worth much more than tons of views in the wrong one.

What You Should Measure

If view count isn't the end-all of video analytics, what is? Predictably, no single statistic is the answer. A comprehensive analytics strategy should include:

Engagement

Measure engagement with both average and time-based metrics. These numbers will show you what percentage of your video viewers are watching and where in your video they're leaving. You can tell whether people rewatch a specific part several times or whether one particular lame joke or long-winded section is leading people to lose interest and close the tab.

Monitor how far into your video viewers are watching to identify where you are losing them. Using heatmaps, you can see which sections of a video a viewer is watching more than once.

Play rate

Play rate refers to the percentage of users who encountered your video on a landing page or website and clicked the play button. In short, it tells you how much appeal your video has before engagement begins. More than a simple view count, this ratio can help you identify ways to optimize your video splash screen and where you locate your player.

Understanding where your viewers are watching from helps identify that you're hitting the markets you want.

Call-to-action response rate

If your video includes a call to action - such as “Click here for more information!” - your analytics should tell you how many viewers answer that call. This number is the most closely tied to ROI because it directly correlates with lead conversions.

Demographics

Look at where in the world your viewers are located. Are you hitting the markets you want? Are there opportunities arising in markets you didn't consider before? The more specific your demographic information is, the better prepared your marketing and sales teams will be to develop targeted programs and campaigns for different groups.

Understanding where your viewers are watching from helps identify that you're hitting the markets you want.

Unique views

Yes, views is still one of the metrics that, when taken as part of a larger whole, can help you form a better strategy regarding the content and placement of your videos. If you have 100 percent of your target demographic fully engaged and completing your call to action but there are only three of them, you might want to figure out a way to get your video in front of more people.

Used properly, analytics will quickly tell you things about your business that would take years to learn without them. A comprehensive analytics strategy will allow you to make better data-based decisions, save time using automatic forecasting models, view and analyze real-time trends, and save money, as all the wasted man-hours you used before can now be spent boosting your ROI.

Start Measuring the Right Way

You know what works, what doesn't, and what to measure. Now what? Follow these five steps to kick-start your analytics strategy and get better results from your videos:

Choose the right platform to host and track your videos

You have several great options available. YouTube and Vimeo provide the most cost-effective solutions and work well for most businesses, but they don't provide some of the more advanced analytics that other platforms do. Vidyard and Wistia cost a bit more, but they're worth the investment thanks to their great analytical tools and integration capabilities with most CRMs and marketing automation platforms, tracking viewers from first click to conversion.

Set monthly and quarterly tasks to analyze your analytics reports

Compare the results with previous numbers to see what changed to determine whether you need to alter your strategy, placement, or content.

Spend time reviewing engagement, total views, and play rate

Many views with little follow-through could indicate that your call to action is weak, while strong results on low numbers could mean your placement isn't optimal. If your play rate is low, the placement of your video on the page could be poor or your chosen splash screen might not be attracting an ideal amount of attention.

ABC: Always be creating

Marketing is about consistency, and video marketing is no different. Produce high-quality video content on a regular basis to keep people engaged and your message fresh. Analytics allow you to fine-tune your approach with each passing month to maximize your impact by seeing what worked well and what fell flat. Every new video - success or failure - is an opportunity to gather data and learn how to do better next time.

Too many companies mistake sparse analytics for good data or neglect the analytical approach entirely, leading to millions of dollars in lost potential revenue every year.

Don't leave money and customers on the table. Use analytics to gather and act upon the information you need to boost your ROI, broaden your brand appeal, and grow your company.

About the Author: Brandon Houston is the CEO of Switch Video, a video animation company that produces simple videos that “explain what you do” in an engaging and compelling format. Switch Video has produced more than 800 videos for clients, including LinkedIn, IBM, HP, Bayer, and American Express. Reach out to Brandon on Twitter.

4 Ways to Launch Just Another Mediocre E-Commerce Store (And How to Avoid Them)

Launching an online store is cheap and simple.

Just think about it. You choose a clever domain name, pick a beautiful theme, get a membership on your favorite e-commerce platform, and voila!…You can launch.

But here's the thing: anyone with half-a-brain can start an e-commerce…but only a few can do it successfully.

A 2013 study by ReferralCandy – a Singapore-based referral program software – revealed there were 23,587 established online retail stores in the United States alone at that time (and that number might be even higher now, considering how fast the ecommerce industry is growing).

And when I say “established,” I mean those companies were making at least $100,000 a year.

Just picture this image in your mind:

The Staples Center in Los Angeles at its full capacity (which is 18,118 people, by the way), but instead of seeing a legion of basketball fans, you see thousands upon thousands of entrepreneurs who own a successful ecommerce (and, some of them, might be your direct competitors).

Anyways, my point here is: you can't just launch, pray, and hope to succeed; you can't take a mediocre approach nor do what everyone else is doing – you need to stand out.

But how? You ask.

Well, you can start by avoiding the common (and sometimes fatal) mistakes most startups make. In this post, you'll find 4 of them. Take a look through them, and see if any describe you:

Mistake #1: Sell a Product That Doesn't Harmonize With The Market

The late Claude Hopkins once said that most marketers fail because they try to sell something people don't want.

God's truth.

Now, this might sound obvious at a first glance but make no mistake, it's really easy to get tricked by your instincts and take a fatal decision. In hopes of “being innovative,” you can spend thousands of dollars on a project that's bound to fail from the beginning.

The entrepreneurial graveyard is full of “original ideas,” hunches, and dreams.

Take Bobby Darin – the singer – as an example. Back in the 1950s – when he was an unknown young singer in New York – Bobby had a dream: He wanted to make an album of old popular standards, even though the “hottest” genre at that time was old rock and roll.

So he went from company to company, trying to “convince” them to record his music.

Every single music company in the city rejected him, of course. Nobody would take the word of a “nobody,” especially if his idea didn't harmonize with the market.

Anyways, Bobby finally threw his idea away and focused on what people really wanted – rock and roll. So, he recorded a song called “Splish Splash” (you might have heard of it), and a few months later he had sold over a million records.

All because he understood the importance of harmony.

What's that? You say Bobby Darin is just a weird case?

Well, you couldn't be more wrong.

Bobby isn't an isolated case. Dozens of products have failed because they didn't harmonize with their markets – The Ben-Gay Aspirin, Intellivision, The Laserdisc, Crystal Pepsi, and The Zune, to name a few.

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No, there's nothing wrong about being original, but instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, find what people already want and then create a product that satisfies that desire.

In other words, start with the prospect, not the product.

You need to become a student of markets. This way, your chances of succeeding will increase exponentially.

Now the question is: How can you study your market?

Three tips:

• Become a social media “listener” – you don't need to survey thousands of people to know what they want. More often than not, the information you're looking for is already out there, you only need to “listen.” Tools like Mention.net and Google Alerts allow you to track keywords and intercept relevant conversations. This way, you can be up to date about your market's desires.


• Study the SRDS (Standard Rate & Data Service) publications – these publications provide you with a database of all the media buyers and sellers in the U.S. This means you can easily figure out the size of your market and its earning potential. You should be able to find an SRDS in your town's public library, but in case you can't, you can get one on this website.


• Trust the numbers, not the words – when you interview or survey people, they tend to give you the answers they think you want to hear. So instead of relying on that data, you should always focus on the numbers – what are people really buying? Here's where an SRDS will come in very handy because you can see what kind of products are performing well in the market. Another option is to create an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and measure performance based on actual sales.

Note: By no means am I saying interviews, questionnaires, and surveys don't work. When used right, they can give you valuable insights. However, numbers never lie. Better rely on them.

Mistake #2: Design Your Website Without Your Buyer Personas in Mind

If you design your store based on what you “think” will work, you're likely to fail. Why? Because you and your prospective customers think very different.

For example, it's proven that colors affect buying decisions, right? So let's say you're going to launch an online electronics store and your target market is Latin America.

Let's also assume that you decided to use a red color scheme because “you like red.” However, you didn't know that Latin Americans correlate the red color with religion and blood, so thanks to that dumb mistake many of your visitors will feel very anxious and will decide to leave your website without completing the purchase.

This example might seem silly for the experienced marketer, but it happens very often.

And there's another problem:

Not only you and your visitors think different, but your visitors' worldviews will always differ from each other, too.

Let's emphasize that point:

If you have children, I'm sure you know you can't educate them all with the same methods. The same way, you can't treat all your prospects equal.

Instead, you need to segment your audience into subgroups and, then, personalize your marketing message to each subgroup. It's the most effective way to strengthen your offer.

For instance, if you're running a vitamins and nutritional supplements store, you might target two different subgroups of people: Fitness enthusiasts and people who don't have time to cook.

So instead of marketing to those people with the same message, you should personalize it to fit each sub group's worldview.

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And you don't need to take my word for this. Recent studies suggest that 56 out of 100 people prefer to buy from stores that offer a personalized experience.

John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing understands this concept very well. When someone visits the site, he or she can self-select their persona choosing from Duct Tape Marketing's main buyer personas: Agencies, Coaches and Consultants, and Small Business Owners and Entrepreneurs.

After people click one of the buttons, they'll see information that's relevant to their specific needs.

This is obviously a smarter approach than displaying the same information to all your prospective customers, don't you think?

On average, marketers see a 20% increase in sales when they start providing personalized web experiences.

Now, there's no one-size-fits-all method for web personalization. However, here are a couple of guides that will get you on the right path:

• Introducing The Definitive Guide to Web Personalization


• How Online Personalization Can Create Compelling Customer Experiences and Build a Better Business


• Personalization Drives E-commerce Revenue

Mistake #3: Neglect Customer Service

Tell me…what's the most valuable asset of any business?

Hint: Without it, your entire business would fall down in less than a New York minute.

Have you guessed?

It's your customer base, of course.

However, many companies don't seem to understand that. They focus on acquisition, spend thousands of dollars on conversion rate optimization, and even hire an in-house SEO guy, but they forget what is, without question, one of the pillars of any successful e-commerce:

Customer service.

And I'm not exaggerating. No. I brought with me a couple of stats to back that up:

• Some studies have revealed that 84 out of 100 customers have bailed on a transaction or not made an intended purchase because of a poor service experience.


• In 2011, 7 in 10 Americans said they were willing to spend more with businesses they believe provide excellent customer service, according to research by Help Scout.


• Some companies – like The PIG – have even seen a 250% increase in their annual revenue after improving their customer service.

I'm going to be straight with you:

If this doesn't help you understand the importance of an outstanding CS, you're…beyond all help!

So here are four effective ways to improve it:

• Reduce customer effort – it's all about making your customers' life easier, not the opposite. Make sure they can get support fast and avoid unnecessary steps. For example, instead of just having a dedicated page for customer service, you could add a widget that follows users all over your site, so at the moment they have any problem, they would be able to reach out to you very quickly.


• Offer Multichannel support – 9 in 10 people expect to receive a consistent experience across multiple customer contact channels.


• Provide online chat – as human beings, we tend to be desperate; we hate waiting. Well, online chat is one of the fastest mediums your customers can use to get help. Also, it's very simple to use. It's not surprising why 77% of customers prefer to buy at retailers that provide online chat.


• Take care of social media complaints – people tend to complain about products and services through social media. Make sure to intercept those conversations and try to fix the problem as quickly as you can – social media conversations spread like butter on hot bread.

Mistake #4: Rely On The “Popular” Marketing Channels

I know you think this is obvious and simple, and that you aren't that “stupid” to make this mistake, but I'd say…don't be too sure.

Listen. The majority of retail stores are built upon three main traffic channels:

• SEO


• Social Media


• PPC

It's not rare that a startup focuses 100% of its resources on one or more of the above channels in hopes of acquiring new customers, and it's ok. But, to be honest, there are plenty of other channels to focus on.

No, I'm not saying that SEO or PPC aren't good nor that you shouldn't focus on them. What I'm saying is that, maybe, you need to start thinking outside the box and look for ways that allow you to grow faster, and I mean, really faster.

To help you put your creative juices to work, here are two proven ways to start:

a) Start an affiliate program

Companies like Kiyonna and AbesMarket.com are crushing it with affiliate marketing, not to mention Amazon, Ebay, and Walmart.

Just think about it for a second. When you run an affiliate program, you only pay your affiliates for every new customer they bring to your company. It's like advertising but your affiliates take all the risk.

You literally have little to lose and much to win (especially in this day and age). With companies like OMNISTAR – The Voted #1 Affiliate Software for Ecommerce – and LeadDyno in the market, now it's really straightforward to start your own affiliate program.

b) Embrace word of mouth

Did you know that 65% of new business comes from referrals?

Not only that, according to a study made by Ogilvy, Google, and TNS, 74 out of 100 consumers identify word-of-mouth as a key influencer in their purchasing decision.

If that doesn't sound interesting to you, I'm sure that nothing will.

Now you might be thinking:

Awesome, but, how can I leverage word of mouth to grow my business? I'm glad you asked. Here are three tips:

• Start a referring program – people are 4 times more likely to buy when referred by a friend, says Nielsen. And the best way to encourage those referrals is by giving away incentives. Dropbox is a famous example. They offered 500MB additional free storage space for every friend you referred. Evernote, on the other hand, offered premium accounts. Amuze's – a women's clothing store – gives you and your friends $25 off your next flash sale purchase. The point here is to give users a reason to share your company. This guide from Shopify will guide you step-by-step through the process of creating your own referring program.


• Provide an awesome experience – Texas Tech says that 83% of consumers are willing to refer after an outstanding experience. That's why you need to spend some time improving your customer journey maps, perfecting your customer service, and a/b testing your platform's key elements.


• Stand for something – HBR says people aren't loyal to companies at all. No, they are loyal to what the company stands for. TOMS' famous “One for One” campaign is a great example of this concept in action. TOMS said: “For every pair you purchase, TOMS will give a pair of new shoes to a child in need.” This campaign created a natural referring environment by triggering one of the most powerful needs in human nature: Altruism.

The Bottom Line

The e-commerce industry is insanely competitive. To get good performance, you need to start off on the right foot and keep the momentum without squandering the opportunity.

The best way to do it is avoiding all the mistakes you can.

And now you know 4 ways NOT to start.

Just remember the words of the late Sam Levenson:

“You must learn from the mistakes of others. You can't possibly live long enough to make them all yourself.”

What are some good stories you can share about launching an online store?

About the Author: Josue Valles is a content marketing evangelist, strategist and die-hard entrepreneur. He constantly blogs about Inbound Marketing, SEO and Social Media Marketing at Engagebit. You can also follow him on Twitter.