E-commerce sales for his year has hit a historic high because of the pandemic.
Forbes reports a total of $39 billion for digital ecommerce sales across the major shopping days of Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Sunday, and Cyber Monday.
$23 billion of those sales were attributed to Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Thanksgiving alone saw an incredible 49.5% increase in digital sales compared to last year.
Success in e-commerce requires some very specific tools …
The #1 complaint I hear from marketers is that they don’t have the knowledge base, adequate staff, or capacity to increase sales — even if they have a strong concept to execute. They feel totally under-equipped.
How do you increase your E-Commerce sales? Here are 7 steps:
- A distinct marketing and advertising philosophy – You must understand that this is not a branding exercise. This is not an exercise in traditional advertising or sales copy. E-Commerce requires that you use direct response copy and direct response branding. It requires that you use a direct response offer and that you use direct response strategy in your targeting. Direct response is a complete, holistic strategy that only meets its full potential when executed across all marketing formatting and contexts.
- See your audience differently – E-Commerce requires a different look at your online audience. Traditional marketers and traditional branding agencies love impressions, love likes, love seeing images – but that is not e-commerce. Images and likes don’t necessarily translate into purchases; targeting your audience precisely is what does. You need to figure out how all your channels target specific audiences, precisely and efficiently.
- The key to success: Transactional Data Modeling (TDM) – TDM is the most important criteria in identifying your prospects. With E-Commerce, you break the campaign down into two elements:
- A custom list of prospects or customers (maybe even segmented).
- A look-alike audience. Every platform allows a look-alike platform, and TDM allows you to go to people who you know who have bought your similar product or service. It’s the most advanced way to create a look-alike audience that actually will buy the product or service. It has the ability to give you an online buyer selection; it has the ability to give you a direct mail-only buyer selection; it has the ability to identify age and demographics and other criteria.
- Testing creatives is critical to success. Anyone can test an ad, but you want to be able to test properly using the direct response testing principles, using content that is relevant, significant, and provides value to your audience.
- Every media creates opportunity. You want to test various media options. You want to see what is working best. E-commerce is great because it’s perfectly accountable; it can be tested, tracked, and analyzed across so many mediums.
- Only use accountable advertising. Because you can track your buyers and create repeat sales, you must advertise with the intention of creating lifetime customers. Why not?
- Databases are fundamental. E-commerce allows you to build up a database. The larger your database grows, the more you are able to refine your prospects and enhance the look-alike audiences that will supercharge your response.
- Use an integrated, multichannel approach to e-commerce. Diversity of formatting, location, context can often be your greatest strength in a marketing — make sure you are maximizing all possible advertising outlets to reach your audience and reinforce your brand.
If you need help with your e-commerce, no one does it better than Creative Direct Marketing Group (CDMG). My team of e-commerce experts know how to help you step-by-step and ensure maximum growth and revenue for your campaigns. Feel free contact me at 310.212.5727 or email me at [email protected].
