“Conversion optimization is the same as it’s been for a while,” says Justuno CEO Erik Christiansen. “People still don’t want to focus on the last mile. We’ve kept to the same message that retailers should be investing in their current website visitors. There’s always low-hanging fruit to improve your business. How do you take one marketing dollar and stretch it as far as you possibly can? It’s all about creativity. That’s what marketing is and that’s what retail is.”
Conversion optimization is the same as it’s been for a while. People still don’t want to focus on the last mile. Finally, in 2020, we saw that shift when advertising got so expensive. Everyone is like, okay, we have minimal budgets, how do we stretch them? Finally, with all the competition from COVID where everyone’s shifting online everyone, they are saying that we can’t keep just throwing money at this. We’ve got to come up with the real problem.
When we first launched we had to pivot immediately because when we mentioned the word coupon or the word pop-up people just ran the other way. It’s been ten years of education and we’ve kept to the same message of investing in your current website visitors. Our main job still is to educate the online retailer about the basics. We ask most businesses, as you know with email, are you doing a 30, 60, 90 day, the basics? Are you doing a cart abandonment email? You cover the basics and you get so much further ahead.
There’s always low-hanging fruit
Everyone thinks businesses are run perfectly but most businesses are just a mess. What I’ve been trying to do is challenge my team to look at the basics. There’s always low-hanging fruit to improve your business. When it comes to retail, where’s the low-hanging fruit? Let’s break out your business to the basics like new visitors versus repeat. With the new ones, how many are there? What percentage of emails are we capturing? Are we sending those emails to your ESP? Are we putting in the basic workflows? There’s so much low-hanging fruit.
Then, you’re sending these emails, are you reinforcing those campaigns on-site? You spend so much time designing the email, sending it. Then it comes to that shopping cart abandonment. Do you even know how many people come to your cart each day? Do you know how many carts get abandoned and the dollar value? What can we do? The basics are still very much there in terms of opportunity to help people increase their sales lead capture and sales. How do you take one marketing dollar and stretch it as far as you possibly can? How do you also get creative? It’s all about creativity. That’s what marketing is and that’s what retail is. Retail is retailing and getting your hands dirty.
Retailers Should Focus On The Last Mile, Says Justuno CEO Erik Christiansen
Self-made marketing expert Neil Patel released a video titled, How Digital Marketing Will Change in 2019. Patel outlines 7 Trends that all businesses and content producers should embrace for successful digital marketing in 2019:
“Digital marketing is going to change in 2019,” says NeilPatel. “What’s been working for the last few years is not anymore. Here’s how digital marketing is changing in 2019 and what you need to do to thrive and succeed.”
Tip 1: Embrace Omnichannel Approach to Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is moving to an omnichannel approach. You used to be able to build a business with just one channel. For example, Facebook grew by just telling everyone, hey invite your friends. They would take your address book and invite all your friends automatically even without your permission. That’s changed and those tactics don’t work as well as they used to. I’m not saying they don’t work at all, they just don’t work as well as they used to.
Marketing has moved to an omnichannel approach where you now have to use tactics like growth hacking, pay-per-click, SEO, content marketing, social media marketing, and banner ads. The list is never-ending and the more channels you use the better off you’re going to be. Most of these channels are crowded because there are so many online businesses. If you don’t use all of them you just won’t do as well in 2019.
Tip 2: Leverage Voice Search
Most of you will not like this but search is moving to voice search. By 2020 Comscore estimates that half the searches on Google will be through voice search. Right now, two out of every five adults are using voice search. Yes, that means kids aren’t using it as much but still by 2020 they’re saying half of all searches, not just from adults, but half of all searches are going to be via voice search. So if you want to do well in 2019 you need to be leveraging voice search.
The way you do this is one, make sure your site is HTTPS because most of the sites that are at the top are HTTPS these days. And two, your site needs to load fast. If it doesn’t load fast you’re not going to do as well with voice search. Three, when people are typing in questions, they’re typically typing in longer-term phrases. So your questions, and especially your answers need to be short and to the point. If your answers are a paragraph long you’re not going to do as well compared to if your answer was one sentence long.
Tip 3: The Only Way to Compete is Through Conversion Optimization
The third tip I have for you is conversion optimization. Advertising is getting more and more expensive over time and that’s not going to change. The only way you’re going to be able to compete and stay ahead is through conversion optimization. The more you optimize your landing page for conversions the better off you’re going to be. Make sure you’re using tools like Crazy Egg which allows you to do A/B testing so you can squeeze more conversions from the traffic you’re getting.
Also, make sure you’re using tools like Hellow Bar which encourages email collection. Again, this will help you get more revenue from the users and visitors that you do have. If you don’t do this as the years go on you’re going to get drowned out by the competitors because they’re going to spend more money than you and they’re going to crush you. So focus on conversion optimization even though it’s not sexy and most people don’t like talking about it in marketing.
Tip 4: Leverage Marketing Funnels
The fourth tactic I have for you is leverage funnels. Marketing funnels are going to be more popular than ever in 2019. Before, people used to just optimize their campaigns to, hey I’m buying ads, how many sales am I getting? Now you need a look at up-sells, down-sells, cross-sells, lifetime value of a customer, and churn.
Whether you have a physical product, digital product, or you’re doing lead generation, you need to track everything from a visitor all the way to a conversion point. That’s revenue for them to keep buying and that’s why funnels are really important. If you don’t know how to create a funnel go check out tools like ClickFunnels.
Tip 5: Content Marketing Only Works if You Create Amazing Unique Content
Content marketing just won’t work as well. Think about it, anytime you do a search most of the articles that are at the top are content marketing. Blogging is so popular and so played out that everyone is regurgitating the same information over and over again. Unless you’re creating amazing new information that people haven’t heard before, you’re not going to do well. Content marking just won’t work to get links or social shares unless you’re creating amazing content that’s new and that people haven’t seen before.
Tip 6: You Need to be Leveraging Video
My number six tip is creating video content. Video content is the future. You see me here in this video and you’re engaging with me. If you’re not, leave a comment and I’ll show you. I’ll respond back. Video content is the future. People want to engage through video. Facebook gives you more views if it’s video. YouTube gives you a ton of views and Linkedin does as well. You need to be leveraging video. You can’t take it for granted.
Tip 7: You Need to Create a Podcast
Podcasting is taking over. Did you know that 45 percent of the people who listen to podcasts have a household income above $75,000? That’s a ton, that’s a lot of money, and that means that the people that are listening to your podcast are going to be better buyers than most other marketing channels out there. You need to create a podcast.
Everyone is using their phones these days and everyone is driving to work. Podcasting makes it easy where people can listen to your content on-the-go. It’s such a hectic world out there and you need to have a podcast so people can listen to you while they’re dealing with their hectic life.
