Digital and E-commerce on the rise

 

With the world reeling from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, digitization has created a symbiotic digital relationship between consumers and businesses to help each other stay afloat. Consumers are turning to brands for informative or entertaining content while brands have embraced the platformification of their consumers – seeing them connecting to technologies that businesses offer in order to interact with each other and exchange value (e-banking, telemedicine, etc.). Now, more than ever, it is essential for businesses to embrace digital marketing.

In fact, within the SEA region, 40M new Internet users arose in 2020, with 94% of new digital service consumers intending to remain on digital platforms post-pandemic.

This paves the way for an even bigger rise in e-commerce, potentially growing up to $170B by 2025. And with users intent on still using digital channels for purchases, the E-Commerce market is primed for success.

Top 7 Principles For Effective E-commerce Assets

1. Give your Website a Personality

Because your website is an extension of your brand, you need to maintain consistency in your communications and tone. Be consistent in all of the actions and words that you use across your digital touchpoints. Brand Consistency is the ability to deliver a cohesive messaging and design match across all platforms over time.

Remaining consistent across your digital channels can also help customers to make repeat purchases. With consistency you are looking to create an identity among your customers that makes them more likely to purchase with you again.

2. Shortest Path vs. Longest Path to Purchase

It is best practice to keep the purchase journey as short as possible, limited only to the absolute necessities.

This is the usual user journey for an online purchase for a customer and they are already used to this and adding additional steps in this process might result in a loss of a sale.

Unnecessary steps leading up to a checkout are more likely to increase cart abandonment rates.

3. Perpetual A/B Testing (Landing Pages, Storefronts, Optimizations)

Having a digital platform entails a perpetual A/B testing mode in order to optimize your assets. This ensures a seamless purchase journey for consumers.

A/B Testing is a method of determining which design, content or functionality is more successful with your site visitors.

• Calls to action
• Images, Video Clips, Testimonials, Hero Images
• Body Content
• Navigation Structure
• Check-out process

4. Make a Time-bound Offer to Entice Customers

Creating an enticing, time-bound offer gives a sense of urgency for consumers to avail of a particular product or service as soon as possible. Having a time-bound offer creates a sense of urgency and plays on customers emotions. The “Fear of Missing Out” is a very powerful emotion to leverage in encouraging customers to make a purchase.

Convert Abandoning Shoppers with a Timely Popup

Drive Urgency with an Countdown Timer for offers

5. Have a Blend of Automation and Conversation

Provide a blended shopping experience that combines the Human Touch with Automation. Conversational Commerce (C-Commerce) allows brands to combine the ease of e-commerce and the power of conversing in a physical store through automation with a human element.

6. Establish an Omni-Channel Presence

An omni-channel approach is crucial in order to maximize all of your efforts online. Having an Omni-Channel strategy allows you to synergize all of your store efforts across all digital touchpoints.

Benefits of having an Omni-Channel approach:

• Cohesive Message: One of the main benefits of having omnichannel e-commerce is that you provide your customers with cohesive messaging about your brand. No matter where a customer encounters your brand, the messaging is always the same.
• Understanding the Customer Journey: Omnichannel e-commerce allows your company to collect and merge customer data from multiple channels. Combined, this data gives you a full picture of what types of customers are interested in your brand and their behavior, which gives you the power to personalize your customer journey.
• Personalizing the customer experience: Only by understanding the customer journey can you personalize your customers’ experience. Having a personalized experience for customers will drive the lifetime customer value to 30% higher as compared to customers who only purchase using one channel.

7. Finding the Right Target Market/Audience

Knowing who to target and how to reach them is the crucial step to success. Understand your target market and what their needs/wants are. Identifying and reaching the right target audience is a crucial step in making sure your online store is relevant and effective.

5 Tips in Defining your Target Market:

• Consider your Current Customers First
• Evaluate Who your Competitors are Marketing to, then do the Opposite
• Consider Both Demographics and Psychographics (interests, values, emotions, etc.)
• Evaluate How you Made your Decision
• Do Surveys and Study Metrics to Understand your Customer (i.e. Validate your findings!)

Let us help you decide!

If you need help in setting up online assets that will help you sell your products and services, feel free to fill out the form at the bottom of the page.

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