Segmentify, Author at Segmentify

A spin wheel pop-up can be a great conversion tool for your website. It’s a gamified marketing strategy that works by giving the user an opportunity to win something in return for their time and attention. The idea is to create a custom spin wheel with various prizes and then trigger the spin the wheel pop-up on your website with a predefined activity.

Key Takeaways

8 Reasons You Should Create a Spin the Wheel

Spin the Wheel marketing campaigns are designed to engage with customers and get them to take action in some way. They are usually used as a promotion or giveaway, but they can be used for any occasion or reason. The best spin the wheel campaigns have the following qualities:

How to Create the Best Spin the Wheel Marketing Campaigns in 5 Steps

When it comes to actually create a Spin the Wheel campaign, there are a few things you need to consider before you can start spinning:

1. Identify the audience and the goals of your campaign

Audience: Who is your target market? Who will you be targeting with this campaign?

Goals: What do you want to achieve with this campaign? How will it benefit your business?

2. Create a custom spin wheel with prizes that are relevant to your business

Create a custom spin wheel with prizes that are relevant to your business. For example, if you own a restaurant, offer gift cards as rewards for landing on certain spots on the wheel. If you’re selling yoga mats, give away free yoga lessons or other fitness products as prizes.

3. Change the design of the spin wheel to match your brand’s personality

A spin wheel is an excellent way to increase conversion and email subscription, but it doesn’t have to look like any other spin wheel you see out there in the market today. Instead, consider changing up the design so that it fits within your brand identity and personality.

If your company is known for being fun, quirky and creative, then consider adding graphics like a rainbow or a unicorn to make it stand out from other wheels. If your company is serious and professional, try incorporating solid colours instead of neon ones into your design.

4. Use clear CTAs on the spin wheel design

A clear call-to-action (CTA) means it’s easy to spot what action you should take after landing on a specific result. For example, “Click here to claim your prize!” or “Enter your email address now!”. These CTAs tell people precisely what they need to do next to win a prize or receive more information about your product or service.

Don’t use generic CTAs like “Click here!” or “Submit!”. These CTAs don’t tell people exactly what they need to do next. Instead, use clear CTAs that give them a sense of what will happen when they click on them.

5. Promote and share your custom spin wheel

Promote your Spin the Wheel campaign through social media, email marketing and blog posts. Try using different types of content for each platform to reach different audiences and get them excited about playing. For example, if you’re using Facebook ads, use videos or photos instead of text-based ads when possible because they’re more engaging for users.

Wrapping Up

Spin the Wheel is an interactive gamified marketing tool that gives visitors a prize in exchange for their email addresses. They enter their email addresses for a chance to get a discount, free shipping or anything you’d like to give by spinning the wheel.

Spin the Wheels are excellent tools to increase conversion and email subscriptions. If you wish to know more about how to use Spin the Wheel, you can always contact us 😉

The eCommerce industry has grown extraordinarily in the past decade. Since it has advantages like saving time, providing access to better product alternatives, and simplifying the buying process without even leaving your home, millions of people have started to choose online shopping over in-store shopping. The merchants are very well aware of this great potential for sales and want to make the most of it. Therefore, the number of online stores is increasing rapidly. But how can you differentiate from thousands of eCommerce businesses and come forward as the forerunner? The best way to do so is to give the best shopping experience to your website visitors. The user experience must be smooth and straightforward.

Check-out is an essential step of your sales funnels since the conversion, your business’ whole aim, happens at this stage. It is where you get paid, and the visitors finally become your customers. To enhance sales opportunities at this step, making your customers’ buying experience as effortless as possible is crucial. That is why you should offer simple, safe and diverse payment methods on your eCommerce store.

Why Should You Offer Different Payment Methods?

For eCommerce businesses, cart abandonments and lost revenues can be avoided by offering customers a list of payment methods they want to use or are accustomed to. There were few options in the past; most online payments were made through money orders, cheques, or bank deposits. But today, with our advanced technologies, there are various modes of online payments that shoppers can use.

To cater to a wide range of customer bases and earn more conversions, allowing all to choose their preferred mode of payment online is critical. Since the different payment systems have distinctive charge rates and unique mechanisms to make payments, they can influence different groups of customers.

Delivering alternative payment services will let you merchandise to mixed demographic groups in various geographic regions and have the largest target audience possible. Working with different companies and offering their products as your eCommerce store’s payment methods will also help increase the awareness and trust in your brand.

How to Choose the Best Payment Method for Your eCommerce Store?

The eCommerce industry is flooded with many eCommerce payment services; it may be frustrating to choose how you accept online payments. Before you decide which electronic payment methods to offer, you should define your target audience.

With the variety of your customers, the local, geographical, or cultural shopping habits may differ, and how they respond to different payment technologies can change. Providing payment systems that your audience doesn’t trust or is not interested in may cause you to lose sales. But again, if your eCommerce store lacks the proper range of online payment systems, it can lead your potential customers to abandon their carts and leave your website mid-checkout.

It would help your business remarkably if you offered different uncomplicated options that best suit your target audience, allowing them to shop at peace and complete their purchases. You must first analyse what your audience expects and define your business niche. Then you should evaluate different methods of electronic payments to find the ones that best suit your business’s requirements.

What are the Most Popular Payment Methods in eCommerce?

If you have an internationally operating eCommerce store, the most frequently used types of payments will be credit and debit card payments. However, there are plenty of other payment methods which may be used at different rates in different parts of the world.

For example, while cash is the most popular payment method in India, it is not widely preferred in Europe. Here are the most commonly used payment systems in eCommerce worldwide:

1. Credit Card Payment

Credit cards are the most commonly used payment method in eCommerce. Since credit cards are easy and mostly safe to use, the high popularity of using them in online purchases is no surprise. Shoppers only need to enter their card details to finish buying the products at the checkout.

CVV, short for Card Verification Value, is what makes credit cards more secure. Businesses can detect fraud by comparing cardholders’ information and CVV numbers.

Besides being simple to use, shoppers use a credit card also to make use of its extra features, such as discounts and reward programs. Additionally, they can benefit from credit card usage in credit scoring.

All these advantages ensure credit card payments still take the lead, despite having countless more innovative competitors. As you probably heard their names, some of the most popular, internationally used credit cards are American Express, Visa, and MasterCard.

2. Debit Card Payment

Debit Cards are also widely used worldwide, and using them for online purchases is a close second to credit cards as the most commonly used online payment method. While the process of purchasing is the same, debit card payments permit users only to use their savings in the connected bank account. On the other hand, credit card payments are made at the end of the billing period, way after the purchase is made.

As a result, shoppers who use credit cards tend to spend more than they can pay. Hence, debit cards can be a better choice for people who have lower financial limits and don’t want to exceed them.

3. Bank Transfer

One of the most secure payment methods is Bank Transfers when it comes to online shopping. Since it may cause online shoppers to fall into swindlers’ hands, people tend to be hesitant while making payments on eCommerce stores; some even don’t want to enter their credit/debit card credentials.

Most people prefer to use credit/debit cards, so bank transfers are slowly going out of fashion despite being considered safer. Bank transfers are considered safer because the transactions need to be approved by the customers, meaning they have to authenticate and verify each purchase from their online bank accounts. Correspondingly, bank transfers make the shopping experience much longer and slower.

4. Direct Deposit

Using Direct Deposit, as its name indicates, allows buyers to transfer the charges to the sellers’ accounts directly. With direct debit mandates, users can send requests to their banks to authorise regular payments.

By eliminating the risk of theft or loss, they can be a safer payment method, especially for non-eCommerce purchases. Moreover, no intermediary is needed; thus, it is a fast way to transfer money.

Direct Deposit payments are most commonly used to schedule recurring expenses such as salary payments for businesses or subscription-based fees for individuals. Even though it may lose its popularity to innovative solutions, it will always remain an acceptable payment method.

5. Cash on Delivery (COD)

Cards have an advantage in terms of online payments. Cash, a physical item in a virtual world, is becoming an undesirable payment method as many innovative competitors arise. Yet, it remains important in some areas, especially in developing countries like Brazil, Mexico, and India.

eCommerce shoppers use this method for cash-on-delivery transactions. However, it should be noted that it can be risky to pay with cash because some cash-on-delivery providers may send you invoices later than you pay them, and you cannot always be sure if the billing is made rightfully. But then, paying with cash is convenient for those not using any cards.

6. App Payments

As the eCommerce industry grew, big tech companies wanted to get the most share of the cake. Facebook, initially being only a social media platform, lacked online store features. Considering its impact and its branches, Instagram and WhatsApp, it was a huge opportunity loss not being able to sell to their users.

In the past few years, we saw that this loss was successfully cleared up with the rise of social commerce. By adding marketplaces and allowing users to buy products on the apps without having to leave, Facebook ventured into the world of social commerce.

Then in the following years, we’ve all had first-hand experience in the development of social commerce. Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, Twitter, and many other social media platforms are no longer mere socialising tools.

Tiktok is especially the hottest thing in the eCommerce world right now. Check out TikTok Marketing Strategy Tips for a more in-depth discussion about TikTok and eCommerce.

7. Electronic Checks

Electronic Checks, or E-Checks, in short, have practically the same process in use as standard paper checks, but since they can be processed online, the challenges time and place may cause are eliminated, making e-checks much faster.

Using e-checks allows shoppers to authorise payments directly from their online bank accounts. E-checks were the first payment method for online shopping in North America and still is a popular option while also widely used in Europe. Aside from their ease of use, extra-low charges make e-checks a better and more affordable payment method for larger sale volumes.

8. Cryptocurrency

Increasing their popularity day by day, cryptocurrencies are no longer the money for the future; they are now commonly known and create new areas to be used worldwide. Not only Bitcoin but also tens of new altcoins are exchanged every day.

In the past decade, they got popular among digital merchants as there were no chargebacks or taxes. With the expansion in cryptocurrency transactions, governments and large businesses started to interfere and establish some regulations; however, this payment method still has the lowest fees in the market. Despite the risks of ever-changing monetary value and uncertainty of future governments’ approaches to coins, they are still promising for online payments.

9. Electronic Wallets

Electronic Wallets, also named E-Wallets or Digital Wallets, allow online shoppers to purchase products faster and smoother. Because only one or two clicks are enough to complete a payment, the shopping experience can be done within seconds.

E-Wallets work as storage for both the shoppers’ information and the funds. After linking their bank account to an e-wallet, if the users choose to pay online with their e-wallets, they will be directed to the e-wallet page, and entering their password will be enough to finalise the purchase.

By eliminating the need to enter your credentials and credit/debit card information each time you want to buy something online, e-wallets are becoming highly favourable for people. The most popular e-wallets like Amazon Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, and AliPay are already thriving among the different modes of payment online.

10. Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL)

Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) systems are initially short-term loans offered to customers at the point of purchase. Such systems, as their name suggests, allow customers to make the purchase and pay at a later time, often interest-free.

BNPL services work just like credit cards, as in not having to pay at the time of purchase. But, of course, the customer does not have to have a credit card to use these services.

Also referred to as “point of sale instalment loans”, BNPL systems are becoming increasingly popular. Younger generations like Millennials and Gen Z are especially fans of this mode of payment online. According to Klarna, BNPL is also gaining the merchants’ favour: They experience an increase of around 45% in their Average Order Value (AOV).

Other than Klarna, the most popular BNPL services are Shop Pay Installments by Shopify, Affirm, Afterpay and Sezzle. PayPal has introduced its own BNPL service as well.

11. eCommerce Payment Gateways

Payment gateways are eCommerce businesses’ services for shoppers, which process credit/debit card payments. The first examples of payment gateways were the native systems that individual eCommerce services designed. When the number of eCommerce stores and online shoppers ascended, these native systems had to convert into more standardised platforms for more merchants to use them simultaneously.

Today, the eCommerce industry is filled with a vast range of payment gateway providers that generate fast and secure links between shoppers, merchants, and banks. Since the competition is hot, it may be costly initially. Still, even if the cost of implementing and holding them on your website is high, the return on investment will most likely be satisfactory. There are tens of great payment gateways like PayPal, Square, and Stripe, and more businesses are coming up with new ones day after day.

12. Infographic: Comparing the Most Popular Payment Methods in eCommerce

What is a Payment Gateway?

Payment Gateways have become a regular part of the eCommerce industry, and various companies provide these services and integrate their solutions into your eCommerce store. Payment gateway providers, also known as payment service/solution providers or payment processors, offer these virtual gateways for merchants and shoppers. They connect them with the necessary third parties – usually the banks – while handling the transactions.

Digital payment gateways, more commonly called eCommerce payment gateways, are the services that process the users’ payment information and generate links to allow them to complete their purchases. After you sign up and integrate a payment gateway tool, you, as a business owner, will only need to wait for the payment processors to deposit the purchases in your merchant account.

How Does a Payment Gateway Work?

The workflow of a payment gateway actually involves a lot of steps, but thanks to the advancements in technology, it takes mere seconds:

1. The customer inputs payment information and initiates the purchase, e.g. presses the “Order Now” button.

2. The payment gateway performs fraud checks and ensures that the transaction doesn’t exceed the customer’s credit limit or that they have enough funds.

3. The encrypted card information is sent to the card schemes (Visa, MasterCard) to process the transaction, which perform another fraud check.

4. The payment gateway approves the transaction and sends the information back to the website to complete the transaction.

5. The payment gateway sends information to the acquiring bank to move the money from the issuing bank (customer) to the retailer’s bank account.

What are the Best Payment Gateway Tools?

You can select one or more payment gateways to serve you and your customers. Before choosing suitable gateways for your business, you should do your research well. Here is some crucial information about some of the best eCommerce payment gateways:

1. Stripe

Regarding versatility, Stripe is a good option in your online store as it provides a feature-rich payment gate. It enables various payment options while accepting payments from a wide range of sources. Also, its simplicity while integration is another reason that makes it popular. If you and your team have limited skills in coding, you can benefit from using Stripe with only a single line of JavaScript on your site.

Pricing: Stripe has two options available, integrated and customised. While you have to get in touch with their Sales Team to get information about pricing for the latter, the integrated version uses a pay-as-you-go pricing model, which charges 2.9% + 30¢ per successful card charge.

2. Due

Being among the lowest-priced gateway operators in the market with its flat-rate fee structure, Due is an advantageous option for both the eCommerce store owners and their shoppers. Smaller-sized businesses and even freelancers who offer their products and services online can benefit from it.

Pricing: Due has two pricing models, free and $10/month. The premium model offers additional services such as 24/7 support, monthly account statement and advanced tax planning access.

3. Square

Square is also widely popular for offline in-person payment as well as its eCommerce options. It may be a little pricey compared to other payment gateways; however, it can be a great option if you have both physical stores and an eCommerce business with reliable POS systems and online alternatives. They also have an easy checkout solution that allows shoppers to set up profiles while providing payment information.

Pricing: Square offers three different pricing models: free, plus and premium. The free model does not have a subscription fee; instead only involves processing fees. In comparison, the premium model involves advanced features for restaurants, retailers, or appointment-based businesses and costs $29/month, plus processing fees. The pricing for the premium model is based on the customer’s organisational and more complex needs.

4. Adyen

Offering a full range of online payment options, Adyen is an excellent option to have as a payment gateway on your website to give your customers better shopping experiences. It has a fraud protection feature working with AI and a rule-based risk ecosystem, making it a secure gateway you can easily trust. Additionally, with its payment-linked data process, it is easy to apply discounts, rewards, and one-click payments.

Pricing: For each transaction, Adyen charges a fixed processing fee (€0.10) plus a fee determined by the payment method.

5. PayPal

PayPal is the most known payment gateway of all payment options and has over 250 million users worldwide. Your customers will probably expect this familiar option while purchasing products online and feel safer using it. Having a high cost per purchase can be challenging for small businesses to integrate it. But using PayPal converts at significantly higher rates than with any other options, so it should be considered.

Pricing: PayPal charges different fixed processing fees plus transactional fees based on the selected payment method.

6. Authorize.net

Authorize.net is a good option because of its versatile choice of plans for both small and bigger businesses. It supports a wide range of currencies, all major cards and digital wallets. It accepts all transactions made by shoppers worldwide; however, to integrate it on your website, your business must be registered in Canada, Europe, Australia, the US, or the UK. Authorize.net also offers a merchant account and fast transfers.

Pricing: Authorize.net offers two different pricing plans with the same fixed monthly fee. The pricing per transaction differs depending on the plan.

7. 2checkout (Verifone)

US-based 2checkout, or Verifone as it is now called, is a payment gateway getting popular with its variety of services. It supports 87 currencies and 15 languages, making it very useful for globally operating eCommerce businesses. Also, it is a reliable option to have on your website, allowing integration with more than 100 online payment systems.

Pricing: Verifone offers three different pricing plans for three different business models: businesses wanting to sell globally, subscription-based businesses and businesses selling digital goods globally.

8. Skrill

Being a globally known payment gateway, Skrill is one of the best options to offer on your website. It is also an awarded solution with its innovative features. Skrill supports over 30 currencies and enables eCommerce customers to purchase comfortably worldwide. Also, offering a free account to its users sure is a handy option.

Pricing: Skrill offers different pricing that best fits the retailer’s business model.

9. Amazon Pay

As one of the, if not the most, well-known online retail platforms, Amazon has been offering its customers its online payment processing service, Amazon Pay, since 2007. Amazon Pay lets retailers offer their customers easy, secure and fast payment using the shipping and payment information linked to their Amazon accounts, therefore, saving customers from the inconvenience of entering new information on the retailer’s website.

Pricing: Amazon Pay offers different pricing models for operations of various sizes.

10. checkout.com

Checkout.com is an international fintech company that processes different online payment modes across various currencies. Easy to integrate with your website, checkout.com is a convenient tool if you wish to grow your business into new markets and regions, as they help you tailor your solution for each market with their local insights and knowledge.

Pricing: The pricing structure of checkout.com depends on multiple factors, such as card type, retailer’s location, and the consumer’s issuing bank, with fees passed directly to the retailer.

Why Should You Use Payment Gateways for Your eCommerce Store?

As you can see, there are many payment gateways that you can use for your eCommerce business with a variety of distinct features.

There is no doubt the payment gateways will ease the purchase process and have high success rates, returning you with increased sales and conversion rates.

Wrapping Up

To have a large customer base, you must ensure your eCommerce store is convenient for all of them. People don’t have the same preferences when it comes to purchasing online. Your responsibilities include being aware of your target audience’s needs and desires in payment methods and offering them suitable options.

Today, online shopping is easier for both the retailer and the shoppers, thanks to technological advancements and the significant number of payment methods. It will be better for your business to offer as many alternative payment options as possible to have more sales and increase your conversion rates. That is why you should consider adding the payment methods we have mentioned to your eCommerce store and improving your customers’ online shopping experience.

Father’s Day is one of the many special days and significant events throughout the year to include in your eCommerce calendar. It can be an excellent opportunity for eCommerce business owners to skyrocket their conversion rates thanks to special days when people buy each other gifts or even treat themselves.

Every year, Father’s Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June. This year, Father’s Day will be celebrated on 19 June 2022. Father’s Day is one of the most important days of the year, especially in terms of retail and consumer spending. The average amount that is spent during Father’s Day is scaling up each year, and the sales of gifts are getting more competitive. Most consumers celebrate this day with joy and want to give the best gifts to their beloved fathers. However, buying the best gift is not always easy. And that’s why eCommerce businesses have to provide their customers with the best Father’s Day marketing campaigns and inspire them to purchase meaningful gifts for their fathers.

eCommerce stores need to provide their customers with outstanding merchandising to draw them into the funnel of gift-buying. With the love for our fathers and some creativity, you can come up with great advertising ideas, and you can touch the lives of your audience on their special days. A good onsite marketing strategy and convenient user experience will definitely make you profit from the online Father’s Day sales while also helping your customers find the right presents.

The growing online retail audience on a global scale and shifting consumer trends and expectations can make coming up with Father’s Day campaigns challenging. But don’t worry, we have gathered some good examples that will sharpen your ideas and enlighten you on how to do a marketing campaign for this special day.

How to Create a Good Father’s Day Marketing Campaign?

Creating unique Father’s Day campaigns may not be easy, but for sure, it is an excellent opportunity for your business to engage with your customers across almost all channels. Therefore, you should amplify your ads and offer the best shopping experience for your customers possible. Whatever campaign type you use, be it a discount email or a push notification, there are some core elements that you should always keep in mind. Here are some promotion ideas for eCommerce businesses:

Showcase Gift Ideas

Buying a gift is never easy. Especially when it comes to choosing a gift for their fathers, many customers have difficulty thinking outside the box. Yes, it can be hard to shop for fathers, but you can always ease your customers’ stress and make their shopping experience a bit simpler by giving gift ideas and including shopping guides into your Father’s Day marketing campaigns. Approximately 30% of consumers look for gift advice on eCommerce websites. Therefore, with inspiration galleries and product recommendations, you can show your commitment to provide personalised value for your customers and create an opportunity to engage your audience more sensitively.

Make It Unique

All fathers are unique, so should be your Father’s Day marketing strategies. It is important to keep in mind that all fathers have different experiences with their children while thinking of creating a campaign. Your customers will look for presents that can make a special memory. Create a special themed campaign that resembles your company the best while inspiring your customers to choose an exclusive Father’s Day gift, and this way, you will be part of the unique experience they will have.

Offer Several Gift Options

There is a great range of different personality types, hobbies, and lifestyles that fathers have. So to discover the right gift, Fathers have a great range of different personality types, hobbies, and lifestyles. So to discover the right gift, your customers would want to have various options. While creating your Father’s Day marketing promotions, you should allow your customers to choose between various products and let them explore items based on themes or personas.

With the proper segmentation and data analysis, you can create up to date ads that relate to all kinds of dads. You can avoid stereotypical gifts such as sanders and drills considered functional and create campaigns for more meaningful gifts. The times are changing. Family dynamics and the traditional father roles are shifting, which means your marketing campaigns must go beyond stereotypes as well.

Additionally, offering unique gift bundles including several gifts can also be helpful for the buyer to select gifts. This can be made by Segmentify’s Personalised Product Recommendations. This tool will offer similar or frequently bought items together, increasing customer satisfaction and sales rates.

Build Urgency

Build excitement and urgency while your customers prepare for Father’s Day. You can start by reminding them that the date of Father’s Day is near. Afterwards, you can encourage them to buy a present with dynamic contents like countdown timers. As they are near the holiday, some of your customers will be even grateful for the consistent reminders and reminding them that it is time to buy a present for their fathers. Platforms that your audience uses daily may differ. You should use all of the marketing channels to remind key dates and give them deadlines like “Last day to buy a gift with free shipping for Father’s Day!” in order to reach the most amount of customers. You can also add special offers to these deadlines and trigger them to purchase sooner with scarcity marketing.

Discounts and Promotions

Most people will look for a Father’s Day present from multiple channels and different brands. To make sure they will decide to buy from you, you should make the right offers. Father’s Day gift shoppers may not have the same budget for their fathers’ presents. Since most of these shoppers are looking to purchase a single product as a present, even the higher-paying segments from your audience will look for special prices. You can induce your audience with discounts and promotions. Also, free shipping and low delivery costs may encourage them, and with coupons, gift cards and award campaigns, you can attract people within all the segments.

Be Innovative

The increasing number of Father’s Day gift shoppers and more businesses popping up every day in the industry makes it more difficult to stand out in the competition. To attract the most attention, you must be more creative in your campaigns. For brick-and-mortar stores, the strategy can be a creatively designed aisle dedicated to Father’s Day. However, in eCommerce stores, the whole website can be optimised for maximum conversion. You can use technologies like customer service chatbots and artificial intelligence-based personalisation tools to enhance the user experience. With more platforms and advanced mobile technologies, customers are no longer forced to purchase on their computers or company websites; they may prefer social media or applications on their phones. Hence, the user experience must be adjusted for all channels and a variety of devices.

Set Reminders for the Procrastinators

A high percentage of the customers leave Father’s Day shopping until the last minute. But maybe you can get some advantage from the panic and leverage high-time purchases. In the last days of your Father’s Day marketing campaigns, you can send recalling emails and push notifications to remind the time left to purchase presents. For the urgency-triggered customers, you can create fast-delivery campaigns and give last-minute discounts. Along with the marketing campaigns for the procrastinators, you must also prepare your website for sudden substantial increases in traffic and be ready for delivering last-minute orders.

Deliver Flawless Customer Journeys

Demand for eCommerce shopping was already high, and after the peak of the pandemic, it increased drastically. Many consumers are now buying essentials and gifts and paying their bills online in addition to supplementary and retail products. Plus, smartphones and tablets have become a part of our lives, and omnichannel consumption is growing day by day. For eCommerce business owners, it has become crucial to give the best shopping experience so that the customers choose their website instead of the competitors’. When it comes to creating a Father’s Day marketing strategy, you should imagine the entire customer journey as one big campaign and prepare all-inclusive advertisements. From retargeting last years’ customers to suggesting joining a loyalty program for upcoming special days, there are plenty of ways to win over your Father’s Day customers in the long term.

Reassure your Audience with Social Proof

Social Proof is an effective addition to any marketing campaigns. You can build your shoppers’ trust and boost conversions by using it. Since buying a gift for Father’s Day is not that easy, your customers may need some inspiration to find the perfect one. You can give a helping hand by adding star ratings and comments sections to your product pages. This way, your customers can resonate with other Father’s Day gift-buyers, raise their consumer confidence, and get motivated on purchasing while having a community sense during their customer journey.

Personalisation is the Key

If you want to create a connection between your customers and win them as loyal buyers, you have to create personalised campaigns that will be seen as special and more related for each customer. The best way to start is collecting lots of data on your customer database and using an eCommerce personalisation platform to analyse and segment your customers. Later with the data and analysis you have, you can target and retarget your customers based on previous shopping behaviours like the purchases they have made for Father’s Day in the past years. This way, you can offer the best products for each segment according to their activity and interests and achieve higher conversion rates.

Personalised Best Practices for Father’s Day

As you can see, you have to take a good deal of objectives into account while preparing for Father’s Day sales. The wide range of products and having to develop attractive marketing ideas can make it challenging to decide on a strategy. But whatever strategy you choose to have, the real struggle is getting ahead of the competition. There are countless offline and online stores that you have to compete with to make the customers purchase from your store. The best way to distinguish your eCommerce business from others is by offering the best shopping experience for your customers. Especially for special days like Father’s Day, where people look for special and memorable gifts, you must be extra sensitive to your campaigns. If they believe that you are doing something more remarkable, your business will be preferable for Father’s Day purchases.

You can use smart personalised tools to make the shopping experiences more unique. By offering personalised solutions, you can ensure recommending the ideal gifts for each customers’ context. You can create journey builders and distinctive notifications that will grab your audience’s attention and drive them to engage with you and purchase your products. With Segmentify’s AI-based personalised solutions, you can create spot-on Father’s Day campaigns and help your customers decide what to buy while enlarging your community and optimising your profit.

Check out the examples for personalised Father’s Day best practices we have gathered for you. Apply them today and boost your Father’s Day sales:

1. Landing Pages

The first page that your customers will start their Father’s Day shopping journey is the personalised landing pages that you have created. After clicking any of your omnichannel ads, they should be directed to the specific landing pages you have created for their own segments. These landing pages’ aim is to make your visitors click through the call-to-actions you have created and drive them towards purchasing their Father’s Day present from your website. While creating segment-specific landing pages, you should mind their differences. For example, the landing page for VIP customers can include a Father’s Day gift guide including high-end products and give the message of buying a unique gift. In contrast, the discount-seeker customers see a Father’s Day gift guide on a budget and promotion themed call-to-actions.

2. Search Boxes

The focus of your Father’s Day campaign should be helping your customers find the ideal gift for their fathers. You can use search boxes to inspire them on gift ideas and influence them to look for more. As soon as visitors click on your search box, you can present them personalised recommendations with categories like “Popular Items for Father’s Day” or “Top Selling Father’s Day Products”. You can also give them a direct option for gift shopping with the “Father’s Day Gifts” button. This way, your search boxes can encourage the customers to start looking for gifts even before completing a search query.

3. Banners

You can optimise your website pages by creating banner ads for your customers. With Father’s Day-related banners on your landing and category pages, you can repeatedly attract your visitors’ attention into purchasing a gift. The banners you create should be inspiring and imaginative. You can show modern-day father images and give urgency and promotion messages. The banners should also be unique for each segment of your audiences. With the right data and insights, you can create personalised ads that will increase your ROI’s and get the most of your banner campaigns.

4. Pop-Up Recommendation

You can use pop-ups to remind your customers of Father’s Day and recommend buying the perfect gifts for their fathers. For eCommerce business owners, it may be doubtful to incorporate pop-ups into their websites. However, when used reasonably, particularly for special days, it may be a great solution to increase customer engagement and gain more conversions. After you create a gift guide, you can use the product groups you have prepared to precisely build your pop-up recommendations for each segment of your audience. Also, it can be a great way to use social proof and reassure your customers on your merchandise with phrases like “23 other people are currently viewing this item”, “Only 9 Products Left”, or “18 people bought this”.

5. Product Page Recommendations

With the right recommendation strategy, you can step up your Father’s Day campaigns. Personalised recommendations on category and product detail pages can be a more moderate way when compared to the pop-up recommendations to display your Father’s Day gift ideas and segment-divided product groups. You can benefit from a larger space and the opportunity to recommend more items at once. According to your visitors’ customer journey and with AI-based personalised recommendations, you can suggest the ideal products to each customer whether they landed on your website through a Father’s Day ad or came directly to the site with a different purpose.

6. Journey Builders

Journey Builders are one of the best ways to engage with your customers and make their shopping experiences more fun and personal. With simple few questions, you can get reliable first-hand data from your customers and use it to offer them top-notch shopping experiences. Your customers can look for presents that may not parallel what they are normally buying. Their fathers’ preferences may differ from theirs, and the budget they have allocated for a gift may be higher or lower than their usual. The customers who are shopping for gifts will definitely know their fathers better than you. That is why you should consider using Journey Builders on your Father’s Day campaigns to understand what products to offer them.

7. Discount Push Notifications

Like we have mentioned before, most of your customers will look for a discount for Father’s Day. With push notifications, you can draw your customers’ attention to your campaigns by giving discount information and price-drop news. These push notifications can be really effective since your visitors are already interested in buying a gift. Knowing that there is a discount on Father’s Day items or the price is reduced on a product they have previously laid eyes on will encourage them to complete their purchases and may even make them buy sooner than they’ve planned.

8. Basket Page Reminders

Suppose your customers are already showing buyer intent with adding products to their basket. In that case, you can benefit by showing Father’s Day reminders like “Did you buy a gift for your father yet?” and product recommendations to drive them to look for gift items on your website. If customers add a product to their basket, you can suggest buying a similar one for their fathers or with basket page product recommendations; you can show best-sellers or discounted products for Father’s Day. These reminders will create cross-sell and upsell opportunities and increase your average order size.

9. Count-Down Pop-Ups

Count-down timer pop-ups are proven solutions for boosting sales and conversions. Especially on special days like Father’s Day, scarcity marketing can do wonders because the gift-shoppers will want to make sure that they have purchased a gift and will be able to give them to their fathers on time. Using strategic phrases like “Hurry up, Father’s Day is Almost Here!” will create a sense of urgency. You can enhance your pop-up conversions by making the earlier purchases more attractive and increase last-minute sales by creating an impression that they may be too late to purchase and damage their Father’s Day experience.

10. Exit Intent Pop-Ups

Before your customers leave your page, you can remind them that Father’s Day is near, and they still haven’t made a gift purchase. With the exit intent pop-ups, you can create last-chance and urgency messages with catchphrases like “Limited-Time Discounts for Father’s Day”, “2 Days Left to Purchase Father’s Day” or “If You Want to Receive Your Gift Before Father’s Day Order Today!”. You can benefit from exit-intent pop-ups even if the user has already made a purchase. By offering them to join your newsletter campaign or loyalty programs, you can collect their data and retarget them for next year’s Father’s Day.

Wrapping Up

Father’s Day is the day to celebrate fatherhood and honour paternal bounds. This day can be a great chance to connect with your customers more tenderly. There are several strategies and tools that eCommerce companies can use and many checkpoints you should dwell upon. By looking into the previous examples, you can advance your strategy, and after applying all these to your Father’s Day promotion campaign, eCommerce stores will have a successful Father’s Day.

eCommerce stores can use these examples to offer customers the perfect gift-shopping experience and increase conversion rates. As Segmentify, with our AI-based smart personalisation solutions, we guarantee a 20% revenue increase and high customer satisfaction.

If you are interested in using our personalisation tools, book a demo now and let’s see how we can work together on optimising your user experience.

It goes without saying that giving a traffic boost to your Shopify site is likely to generate more sales. However, leveraging just a few smart Shopify conversion optimisation tips can lead to even more sales on Shopify. In other words, since driving more traffic doesn’t necessarily translate into higher Shopify conversions, digital marketers choose to focus on how to optimise Shopify conversion rates.

This article will discuss how to improve Shopify Conversion Rate Optimisation, otherwise known as Shopify CRO, and how to get more sales on Shopify. One of the first things on your agenda while working to increase your Shopify conversion rates should be identifying how consumers interact with your store. This will help you greatly while making adjustments to your business strategy and page design.

How is Success Measured in the eCommerce Industry?

What good is advertising if you are not converting window shoppers into buyers? After all, improving and increasing conversion rates is the main goal in any paid advertising strategy. Optimising your conversion rate allows you to maximise every cent of your Pay Per Click (PPC) spent by capitalising on the point that convinces the maximum number of your prospects to make a purchase.

What is Average Conversion Rate (ACR)?

For eCommerce, the average conversion rate is the average percentage of website visitors who’ve made a purchase compared to the total number of visitors. However, keep in mind that a conversion can refer to any desired action the users take, such as signing up for the website’s services or clicking on a particular button. As a result, websites usually tend to have different conversion rate goals.

Now the question is this: What’s a good conversion rate? Is that high enough if you’re achieving conversion rates ranging from 3 – 10%? What is the average conversion rate? Across several industries in recent research, the average conversion rate for landing pages was about 2.36%, and the top at 26%, which converted at 5.32% or higher. Therefore, you ideally want to break into the top 10% — with conversion rates exceeding 11.50%.

What is Average Order Value (AOV)?

Average Order Value is a web-based business metric that estimates the average aggregate of each request put with a trader over a specified timeframe. AOV is one of the most critical measurements for online stores, driving essential business choices such as advertising budget, store design, and item valuing. AOV is resolved utilising deals per request, not deals per client. If by any chance one client returns on different occasions to make a purchase, each request is considered independent of one another while calculating AOV.

Average Order Value doesn’t portray net benefit or overall revenues, yet offers some knowledge of how those figures become. Let’s say an online fashion retailer is selling three different dresses at $29, $21, and $15, with an AOV of $19. This shows us two patterns in the consumer behaviour:

What is Revenue per Visitor (RPV)?

Revenue per Visitor (RPV) is the estimated measurement of cash created each time a client visits your website. It is determined by isolating the total income by the number of online visitors and is a strategy for assessing the estimation of each extra guest. The income per guest is determined by dividing the total revenue earned during a given timeframe by the number of visitors during a similar period.

As a theoretical model, if your revenue for January is $10,000 and your site gets 2,000 visitors, your RPV would be 10,000 divided by 2,000 to give $5 per guest.

What is the Shopify Conversion Rate?

Shopify Conversion Rate is the number of purchases or the overall number of sessions. Of course, most visitors will take more than one session to purchase something. However, this is the standard proportion when calculating the conversion rate.

If your Shopify site has a transformation pace of somewhere in the range of 0.6% to 3.1%, you are average compared to this benchmark. However, under 0.3%, you are unquestionably failing to meet the benchmark’s conversion rate expectations.

How is Shopify Conversion Rate Calculated?

Calculating the Shopify Conversion Rate is relatively easy. You need to divide the number of conversions received in a given period by the total number of visitors and multiply by 100%. Learning how to calculate the Shopify Conversion Rate is the first step in improving Shopify conversions and Shopify success rate.

How to Track the Shopify Conversion Rate

Shopify’s summary of conversion outlines a client’s past visits and provides a first glimpse into how to get the visitor to make a purchase. The summary of conversion shows up on the order page details and incorporates an overview of:

8 Steps to Improve the Conversion Rates

1. Improving the User Experience

Everything that goes into making your online storefront is all about the shopping experience. So in a way, your landing pages are the online equivalent of a store window display, and the general website design is the online equivalent of a store design. This means you need to pay extra attention to the details of your website design.

For example, things like surprise costs or horrendous checkout procedures can stop a deal on its tracks. To improve the shopping experience exponentially, ensure you invest time in making a checkout procedure with your customers.

Use of colour

Colours are important visual cues in our everyday lives, and marketers are well aware of this. Specific colours make us at ease while others unnerve us. Using appropriate colour schemes for holidays is one of the oldest tricks in the marketing handbook. You cannot not think of Christmas when you see red, white and green together, can you?

However, it’s best not to overdo it with the colour usage and not take the risk of irritating your visitors. The most important thing here is to have an overall harmony.

Page speed

Site speed alludes to how quickly your site loads when somebody physically types in the URL or taps on a connection that guides them to your site. The standard load speed overall in countries and enterprises is about 8.6%, but it’s recommended to reduce the speed further to 3 seconds or less.

Site speed enhancement can put you in front of your rivals, which will improve your Google rankings. For example, if your site loads within 3 seconds and your competitor’s in 9 seconds, Google will show your content first. If you realise you have a moderately slow website, you have to consider potential offenders and resolve them efficiently to offer a seamless shopping experience.

Navigation optimisation

When website navigation is done right, it’s great for your SEO performance as well as it is for your user experience. Perfect navigation eases the ways for crawling search engines and allows visitors to find whatever they’re looking for without getting overwhelmed or frustrated.

2. Mobile Optimisation

The usage of mobile devices has been rapidly increasing since 2015. Younger generations such as Millennials and Gen Z are especially fond of shopping through mobile channels. You might think, “Cool, but we already have a mobile version of our store/website.”. However, that’s not the point.

One major downside of mobile devices is that there are so many things a person could be doing! On average, people usually leave a website after 1.5 scrolls. Instead, they check other apps on their phones, such as Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc. So you have to grab someone’s attention within that 1.5 scrolls.

AI Personalisation is the key to mobile optimisation. With the help of this technology, you can learn about the tastes and preferences of your visitors in real-time and use this information to improve those tastes further. Combining dynamic banners with personalised categories and products with static offers will undoubtedly hook the visitors in and help you b o ost sales.

Segmentify Personalised Recommendations increases your AOV by creating a highly curated shopping experience that will impress potential customers. Schedule a free demo to learn more about offering the right product or campaign to the right person at the right time through the right channel.

3. Trust Boosters

Online customers find it more challenging to choose a store to support because they simply have too many options and don’t know who to trust or who can provide a better experience. However, there are a few ways of communicating this with potential customers:

Social proof

We care about what others think of something; it’s perfectly natural. And we especially want to hear others’ opinions when we find it difficult to make a decision. Therefore, through customer reviews and images and videos, businesses can show potential customers that buyers are happy with their products and are willing to recommend them to others. This can also be translated onto social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

Affiliations with industry leaders

By showing off collaborations with industry titans, stores are more likely to cement themselves as the go-to for that industry. This helps develop a niche within which conversion rates can grow, streamlining marketing efforts and reaching the target audience.

4. Personalisation

The key to a successful personalisation strategy is not just about having the right customer information but also knowing how and where to use this information. Regardless of how large your customer base is, personalisation can increase customer retention and loyalty and boost your conversion rates. Here are a couple of ways you can drive more sales with personalised content.

Personalised product recommendations

Personalised product recommendations include optimising customers who’ve already visited your website with the intent of purchasing. Segmentify analyses visitor behaviour based on their clicks, scrolls, purchases, etc. and uses this information to build on consumer tastes and interests in real-time. We make sure your customers feel special and unique with our personalised product recommendations by making them offers they cannot refuse.

Personalised emails

Emails are still extremely useful tools in marketing since they help build two-way communication with customers and increase brand loyalty. Benefits of personalised emails include increasing your conversion rates faster and more effectively. Any customer loves to be offered a personalised approach to the information they are looking for. Building personalised email campaigns based on visitor data is a sure way to stand out from the crowd.

Personalised push notifications

Segmented push notifications directed at the right customer can exponentially increase your conversion rates. However, while opting for push notification campaigns, you need to consider factors like the number of delivered messages, frequency of notifications, time at which it has been sent, whether it has been opened or not, etc. Long story short, have a push notification strategy ready at hand to avoid potential problems. The idea is to deliver the message without being pushy.

5. Scarcity and Urgency

When there’s less of something, people usually want it more. Therefore, sticking badges like “Last 3 Products”, “Only one left!” or “Time-limited Offer” on product displays is a great way to get people to purchase and increase your conversion rates. Alternatively, you can create push notifications with timers to let people know when the campaign ends to induce their Fear of Missing Out (FOMO).

6. Product Page Optimisation

Increasing the traffic into your eCommerce store is not enough to boost sales and conversion rates. You have to stop, put yourself in the consumers’ shoes and ask yourself this question: What would make me make a purchase?

This is where product page design and product page optimisation come into play. People still use search engines to find what they are looking for. This means your product pages should be SEO-optimised.

Plus, well-designed product pages are handy for in-site search inquiries since solutions like Segmentify’s Personalised Search use every information available on the product to bring the best and the most logical results.

Craft product descriptions carefully

First and foremost, make sure customers understand what you’re selling with proper product descriptions. Keep the descriptions short with bullet points highlighting the primary information regarding your products. Give out the measurements in detail when necessary since it’s crucial for certain products.

Use professional photography and include video demonstrations

Online customers rely primarily on photographs before making their final decisions. Therefore, ensure that you take professional pictures to capture consumers’ attention. Although your smartphone may take great photos, this is not enough as it might leave out some essential details.

It’s best to keep in mind that sometimes you might need to present the products in their context to help the customers envision those products in their lives. For example, showing climbing gear being used will probably make more sense for the customer.

Alternatively, you can also add videos to showcase your products to enhance what pictures cannot show, such as demonstrations of how to use them. This will take your conversions to another higher level since many consumers buy products after watching a video.

Include social proof

Always include social proof on your product pages regardless of your singularity or independence. Consumers put great emphasis on what others have thought of your products and their shopping experience with you. Don’t be scared of negative comments or experiences while doing so. Instead, use such cases to show that you care about your customers’ problems and that you’ll do your best to help them.

7. Upsell/Cross-sell

Upselling is about making the customers purchase similar but higher-end products than the one they’re considering. You can do this by using personalised product recommendation widgets on the product page or the basket page. Alternatively, you can send them personalised emails or push notifications with “Similar Items”.

Cross-selling is the process of making the customer purchase related or complementary products. One of the most elegant and straightforward ways to do this is by using personalised product recommendation widgets on the basket page to offer related products to the ones already added to the basket. You can also create bundle offers and pin this category to your search box to boost your sales.

8. Simplify Your Checkout Process

The checkout process is one of the most critical steps in online shopping. One minor inconvenience at this step can cost you a customer. Therefore, the checkout process must be clean, easily navigated and fast.

Firstly, pay extra attention to page loading speed here. Secondly, ensure that you’re giving out all the necessary information, such as price, discounts applied, taxes, shipping, etc. It’s also an excellent practice to give the checkout buttons both at the top and bottom of the page.

7 Apps to Improve Your Conversion Rates

Looking to optimise your conversions and make the most of your Shopify stores? These apps are here to help:

Wrapping Up

Your services and product pages are the life and light of your online shop. And it’s up to you to take advantage of them to their fullest potential. Contact Segmentify for more detailed information on how our solutions can help elevate your eCommerce business to the next level. Let’s join our forces to change the eCommerce game!

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One of the most exciting periods for eCommerce is finally here: Black Friday Cyber Monday. The eCommerce community is buzzing with excitement. Since things have taken an unexpected turn last year, everyone is naturally curious to see how Black Friday Cyber Monday 2021 will fare.

Therefore, we’ve asked some of the greatest minds in the eCommerce industry to share their wisdom about how to get ready for Black Friday Cyber Monday 2021 and what to expect. Check out these amazing pieces of wisdom from Chloë Thomas, Deri Jones, Natasha Jones, Stephen Carl, Philippa Mathews, Alastair Brodie, Simon Homent, Begüm Utku, Julia Borrebaeck, and Rafael Berti to make sure you are thoroughly prepared for Black Friday Cyber Monday 2021!

You can follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn to get the latest updates from our BFCM 2021 Tips from eCommerce Experts series. This page will also be updated as new tips are unlocked.

Transcripts

1. Chloë Thomas from eCommerce MasterPlan: Hiya, I’m Chloë Thomas from eCommerce MasterPlan. My tip for Black Friday 2021, unlike any other Black Friday we have yet seen, I suspect is the… You can’t think of your plan as being set in stone. So yes, create that plan because you’ve got to start from somewhere. You’ve got some of what your objectives are. What channels are you going to use? Which consumers do you want to go after? What offers work for you? You’ve got to work out what messaging you’re going to use. You’ve got to get all that in place, work out when you’re planning on running it. And then, as things change, as they inevitably are going to this year, adapt that plan.

I would suggest looking at that plan at least once a week and really asking yourself, based on everything that’s happened in the business in the last X days, how fit is this still for purpose? You know, if you’ve got stock stuck at Felixstowe, is going all out for Black Friday still the right thing to do? If you had huge charges on containers, being stuck in seaports, is giving away that margin still the right thing to do? If sales have been higher than you were anticipating them being, and you’re running low on stock, is going big on Black Friday still the right thing to do? If you’re getting a lot of new customers in at the moment, should you be going for new customer acquisition, or should you twist Black Friday to be getting the second purchase from those new customers?

There’s a lot that’s going to change over the coming weeks and months. A lot’s going to change between now and Black Friday. So, keep going back to that plan and sense checking all we still prepped right? Is this still the right approach for our business to make the most of this opportunity? And then I think you’ll have a great Black Friday.

2. Deri Jones from thinkTribe: I’m Deri Jones of thinkTribe. We work with 50 blue-chip retailers and we help minimise loss baskets by proactively managing ongoing customer experience in the customer journey.

So black friday tips, three tips for black friday this year, it’s going to be unlike all previous black Fridays. The traffic seems different. The user journeys that your customers are gonna be following are different, we know the reasons why it’s COVID. Obviously it’s the fact that the supply chains are different and longer and that’s affected clients expectations for deliveries. It’s gonna be different from previous years.

So what are my three tips? Firstly because it’s going to be different traffic, you can have different peaks, the shape of your peaks will be different. They might be peaky peaks than previous years. Right, are you ready for that? It’s not too late right now to call a meeting with your relevant teams, tech teams inside and outside and just make sure that you’ve got everything in the place that you need cuing wise, performance wise, just make sure your customer experience is going to be fast throughout black friday.

My second tip really is for discussions with your marketing guys or the team’s doing your A/B multivariate testing. A/B testing sits on top of your website is another layer of javascript complexity and not a lot of people know this as Michael Caine would say. But you can impact your customer experience, you can slow down user journeys, you can impact the performance, the capacity of your website through those layers on top. So maybe make sure you’re planning to put those through a code freeze. Maybe before black friday, settle it down. Don’t have any last minute changes to your A B multivariate layers on top. Last thing I do is inadvertently in the last moment make something worse.

And then the last tip really is we’re expecting a lot of out of stock items this year because of the simple I train problems. That’s not news. Just make sure your website can handle that. Some people’s business logic can be more complex than others. Sometimes you have business logic that says if it’s not a stock, you should still find the product, but it should give you an option to email, email me when it’s back in stock? Or maybe your business logic says: “You don’t really want people to find those products because it’s distracting from products that we are selling.” And what happens when quite a high percentage of your products are starting to be able to stock and not buyable. That can be a really frustrating experience for shoppers if you go to a second product and that also is not buyable.

So just sit down, review your business logic. How are you handling that again? Get some feedback from your 24 7 monitoring. You know what percentage of products right now? One buyable, but findable and what do you expect to happen through the peak and maybe you need to make sure you’re coding can handle your business logic and tweak it for black friday.

So those are my tips and tricks. We’re seeing a lot of activity. A lot of people can be ready for black friday. It’s not too late to sit down and look at your customer experience 24 by seven and maximise it.

3. Natasha Jones from SmartFreight: My top tip for this upcoming peak season is to make sure when it comes to delivery; you have special instructions available as a section on your web page. This is often overlooked, but a super important part of the customer experience as many people live and hard to access buildings and difficult to locate addresses, being able to provide special instructions. It gives customers the confidence to know that they’re going to actually receive that item before they even press the buy button.

4. Stephen Carl from Needle Movement: Hi, this is Stephen Carl, the founder of Needle Movement and [I’ve] got a holiday eCommerce tip to share with you all! That is, don’t forget about the second half of December because there are a lot of sales opportunities that you can take advantage of. Because we all know Black Friday Cyber Monday. Everyone’s been preparing for it for months. They’re bringing their best game, their best promotion and there’s a lot of competition in that time period. The rest of December, 2nd half of December, definitely not as much.

Here’s a couple of strategies that you can bring into it: One traditionally after Christmas would usher in a huge additional sales season that would last from December 26 through January. What you can do is…you can push your after Christmas sale to before Christmas. Around say December 21, release those additional promotions. In that way, that close time period right before Christmas where there’s usually not much sales at all, you’re pushing additional sales items. And the reality is people buy gifts, but they also shop for themselves. So there’s ample opportunity to get sales in that week time period and planned for December 26 to January 1. December 26 is a huge shopping day for anyone that is late millennial, gen X, boomers like. We all grew up on that day being a sale. So it can be a huge sales time. And on the brand side, it gives you an opportunity to if you have excess inventory or just inventory that you want to push out, it’s a very good and convenient time period to do that in the run up to the end of the year.

5. Philippa Mathews from Adyen: Hi, I’m Phillipa from Adyen. With some of the biggest events in retail right around the corner. Today I’m going to be giving five tips to retailers on how they can ensure success during the Singles Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday peak shopping period.

Tip one: Optimise for mobile. While shops are back open this year, it’s likely consumers will have retained some of their online lockdown shopping habits. Last year, over half of transactions made on Black Friday were done on mobile and in the UK, 85% of baskets made on mobile are abandoned. You can tackle this by ensuring your eCommerce site is device responsive and implementing auto fill technology on the checkout forms.

Tip two: Digital Wallets. Apple Pay and Google Pay are a must when it comes to creating seamless online checkout experiences. If I come to your site and I can’t use Apple Pay, I’m unlikely to search around the house for my card and I may well just abandon the purchase. The easy checkout with digital wallets means shoppers are likely to come back. Don’t forget 1/3 customers won’t shop with a brand again after a bad experience.

Tip three: It’s not just digital wallets, but everyone has their preferred method of payment. 70% of customers will more likely spend more if that option is available to them at the checkout. If you’re selling internationally, it’s even more crucial. For instance, in the Netherlands, most shoppers want to pay with Ideal and if you want to attract Chinese shoppers, then Wechat Pay and Alipay are a must.

Tip four: Keeping fraud and check. Half of UK retailers anticipate a spike in fraud during the peak shopping season. That’s why it’s really important to have a sophisticated risk system in place like Adyen RevenueProtect tool to help block fraudsters whilst maximising conversions from genuine shoppers. Most shoppers are becoming more welcoming of secure customer authentication. So implementing 3DS2 at the checkout will help protect against fraud whilst keeping conversions high.

Finally tip number five: If you have a physical store it’s really important to have a strong unified commerce strategy: allowing customers to buy online and return in store and having an endless aisle solution so that if something isn’t in stock in store, you don’t lose the sale. Also in store, it’s really important to offer the right payment methods and eliminate those lengthy queues by having mobile point of sale or self service kiosks.

I hope those tips are useful and I wish you all the best for the peak retail season.

6. Alastair Brodie from Monsoon Consulting: Hi I’m Alastair Brody from Monsoon Consulting. And with Black Friday 2021 just around the corner; my main tip at this stage would be to now devote all your key attention and efforts mainly from an infrastructure perspective to your sites hosting, whether that be on cloud or on premise. Really now the focus needs to be on the stability of your platform to stress test the system in light of the upcoming demand that Black Friday will hopefully generate for you. Make sure the site is fully stable and of course secure to all patches, all upgrades, make sure they’re all done at this stage and minimise any new development in any new releases on the site. Everything needs to be in moratorium for the trading period.

Also as well, I would get and, make sure you have, a full dedicated support team in place to manage the trading period possibly 24/7 if you can just to give you that extra peace of mind as you navigate this trading period. Also as well, I will be looking at the check out just some final stress testing on the UX and the payment integration. Make sure all those orders and the influx of orders are all going through neatly and securely as well.

Hopefully this gives you increased confidence to really go for it from a marketing perspective, drive the personalisation and ultimately enrich your customer shopping experience. Thank you!

7. Simon Homent from Samsung Electronics: My tips for Black Friday this year: make sure that you have a promotion that doesn’t look like one that you’ve already done so far this year, so your customers really believe this one is special.

Secondly, think about something you could give to your customers that your competitors can’t. Doesn’t always have to be based on value, some kind of extra service or loyalty.

And, thirdly, look beyond just the transaction that you might get on Black Friday. What you’re doing for new customers that have shopped with you the first time or existing customers that have been there before.

8. Begüm Utku from Segmentify: Hi everyone. This is Begüm from the Segmentify Berlin office. I would like to share with you a quick tip for your Black Friday preparation, we know that Black Friday is just around the corner. Maybe you even started your black friday campaigns. So what about using coupons for your campaigns? So you would like to compete against the marketplaces or even with your direct competitors. However, do you know that your visitors do scavenger hunting around your website? Around that they would like to capture anything that takes their attention.

So what about using very personalised coupons throughout push notifications and email recommendations. It doesn’t need much preparation. You can just remind yourself throughout the whole Black Friday week, month or intended day. You can just show yourself that you are not one of the eCommerce companies that they were chasing for the visitors. You would like to welcome them with a coupon code. It doesn’t have to be a big one. You can just share with them a free delivery one or just 5% of a discount.

But it would remind yourself to your visitors, they will take the attention, come back and visit. And you’re not going to be one of the eCommerce websites, just call a Black Friday campaign and not do something special for your visitors.

So we highly recommend you to consider using your coupons, sharing personalised coupons to your visitors by push notifications and email recommendations. Good luck!

9. Julia Borrebaeck from Akeneo: Hiya! My name is Julia Borrebaeck and I’m a marketing specialist at Akeneo.

My top tip for companies for Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2021 is to make sure you have high quality product experiences that resonate with your customers, emotionally which you can do by including certain things in your product information.

So we recently commissioned a survey looking at purchasing behaviour across seven different continents, where we found that 52% of respondents said that they were willing to pay more for a product, when brand values were part of that information.

So during a time like Black Friday, when the note prices will be slashed across the board already. So this type of information can really set you apart from the competition plus that consumers are also willing to pay more for it. So it really becomes a lot more important and impactful.

So while Black Friday still revolves a lot around sales and getting more bang for your buck. In an age of conscious buying, this type of emotional information can make consumers more comfortable in spending their money with you. And I’m referring to information such as you know, where are the products coming from? What are they made of? Is this shirt machine washable or will it cost you £10 every time you take it to the dry cleaners? That type of emotional information.

10. Rafel Berti from AMZ Paragon: Hi guys, my name is Rafael Berti. I’m from AMZ Paragon. And in my experience, the best way to use Black Friday is not to leverage sales, but to acquire new customers to capitalise on loyalty. Because people already know that Black Friday is the promotion day and so the low price counts a lot on that day. I know that you are a salesperson and should already be preparing your campaigns on Google and social networks then. My first tip for you is…

Tip number one: Analyse the offers on the marketplaces and make campaigns that reflect the offers. Many sellers are preparing Mirando, right on Google and social media as a starting point for a purchase, but it is true that the vast majority of people, the great Público starts a search for a product by accessing the Marketplace and the question that’s on their minds is “What’s on offer on Amazon? What’s on offer on MercadoLibre or Magazine Luiza?”. On Black Friday, your first task with the seller… It’s researching the marketplaces. If you don’t know Amazon Brazil, for example, there is already a dedicated page called Heats Black Friday. This page helps us learn what kind of products will be affected during Black Friday and at what price you can search, for example, if your product already appears there. Products similar to yours at what price are being offered, so it is your next task to offer your product at a price a little lower than those offered on and off the marketplace. And create those ads that spell out your offer.

My tip number two is to call your customers. I know that technology has revolutionised communication and today, almost every company uses chatbots to communicate with their customers, but its greatest virtue is also its greatest evil. Mainly now in times of pandemic, right? Because of a lot of people staying at home, human contact became very scarce, so the opportunity to talk to a real person. It can be a lot more customer at this time, you can call the customer, for example, who abandoned the shopping cart and offer help. It could be that in this conversation they end up discovering an error in yours. It does not, for example, allow certain customers to make a purchase, or it may have the chance to cover the price of a competitor if the customer found another site. So you are a true market intelligence, right? And even after making a purchase, you can call the customer to find out if the product arrived well and met the customer’s expectations. These are quick conversations, conversations of somewhere around 10-20 minutes. Perhaps, but if they can be the differential and the key element that will bring trust and bring the customer back to your store. Tips for Black Friday 2021 and wish you success and great sales.

On this episode of the eCommerce Growth Show, Segmentify’s guest is Brian Solis, who has been called “one of the greatest digital analysts of our time.” He is a Global Innovation Evangelist at Salesforce, the world leader in Customer Relationship Management (CRM). His research involves digital transformation, innovation and disruption, and change in leadership and management. Today, he talks about how the world of eCommerce is changing and what companies can do to keep up and what organisational culture and innovation mean. He also discusses his latest book, Life scale: How to live a more creative, productive, and happy life and his research on the disruptive power of technology and digital distractions. Go ahead and read our article to learn more about Brian Solis and his research on the digital world! The full transcript of the podcast is available here as well.

Valuable Learnings from the Podcast

This episode of the eCommerce Growth Show focused on Brian Solis’ experience and research on the evolution of technology and its effects on society. Here are some of the key points from his speech on the evolution of eCommerce:

Generation C

The concept of Generation C, where C is for connected, is about having a digital-first lifestyle, not your age group. Meaning that the more you use Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Uber, any food ordering app etc., the more convenient everything becomes. As a result, you create a universe of your own of which you are the centre. Now, because of the COVID-19 Pandemic, everyone had to become digital-first since the whole world had shut down overnight. Noone exactly had a choice in this.

Gen C is made up of people who know what they want and can get it. As Solis has stated, this is the standard. If businesses are not meeting this standard, meaning that they are not able to provide what is asked of them, they are bound to go extinct.

Experience Divide

Solis explains what he calls the experience divide as the difference between what the consumers expect and what the businesses think that the consumers expect. What the consumers’ value and how they are making their decisions have been rapidly changing. The businesses have tried to keep up with these changes in the market. However, their efforts were only at the surface level, such as adopting eCommerce but not fully grasping what was expected of their specific online store. The market and the consumers continued to change even more rapidly as new experiences, services, and apps were introduced. Thus, the divide continued to grow.

Nevertheless, this experience divide is not something to be scared of. If anything, it is an opportunity – an opportunity to find out what is valued but not offered. The solution lies in thinking not like the executives but rather like the consumers you wish to reach and attract.

This is where Segmentify comes in! Segmentify’s business model is built on creating a personalised and unique eCommerce experience for your customers. You get to track and observe the data in real-time through the dashboard. The algorithm allows you to handle every visitor individually in real-time.

You can go here to learn more about how Segmentify works or book a demo to see the effects yourself! The demo includes a 14-day free trial, and you’re guaranteed to see the results within that period!

“Culture is the strategy.”

When the word “culture” is used in an organisational setting, what most people will think of our mission and vision statements and the like, Solis reminds the listeners that those are merely acts of culture. He argues that profiting should not be the centre of business activities. It should be the by-product of doing good for society and the world. That is culture. Culture is also how these ideas are communicated and visualised throughout the organisation.

Most of the innovation centres fail due to this lack of culture. People don’t feel that they are working in an environment with a culture of innovation. They are not encouraged to take risks and learn from decisions gone wrong. Instead, they are scrutinised for their mistakes. Innovation involves bending and breaking the rules, and even making new ones, and obviously making mistakes along the way. However, this is against everything we’ve been taught growing up. In every aspect of our lives, whether it is work, school or home, we are given rules to follow. That is why innovation is so difficult to attain and why it is crucial to create a culture that will make people see that rules do not matter. There is a new path that involves taking chances and trying and learning new things. That is the strategy. That is culture.

For a long time, technology was seen as the answer to every problem, including the problem of innovation as well. But the truth is there’s always new technology. What matters, as mentioned above, is how it is used – the purpose.

Rewiring the Brain

In the last 15 years, with the help of the internet and then apps, our brains have been rewired to jump from one thing to another to follow a high that we get from sharing more, being online more, engaging more, and responding more. During this period, we never explicitly altered our behaviours and values. Instead, the change in our core values was almost in sync with the technology change. As a result, a new kind of social economy was created based on how much our online presence matters. Solis reminds us that those apps are specifically designed to be addictive. In fact, due to the increase in online presence because of the COVID-19 Pandemic, it’s only downhill from here.

That’s where his book “Life scale” comes in for anyone who wants to break this addiction and build a healthier relationship with technology to be more creative, happier, and more productive.

Accountability

Another downside of technology, of social media specifically, is the lack of accountability. These are platforms with no checks and balances, therefore deteriorated or false information is easily uploaded and distributed. The responsibility lies not just with these platforms but also with their advertisers. The latter should explicitly say that they do not want their brands to be seen in association with behaviour that is harming the consumer and society. Sadly, it is all about profits. Brian Solis quotes the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma and explains how false information is 6x more engaging than the truth and more profitable. He finishes by saying that we have to see we are harming ourselves and break the cycle.

If you have not yet, sign up to receive a notification when there’s a new episode on the eCommerce Growth Show!

The Podcast Transcript

Carlos Monteiro: Hey, everyone. This is Carlos again with EVOLVE for another episode for the eCommerce Growth Show. We’re joined by Scott Emmons, and we have the honour today to be joined by Brian Solis. So Scott, please, you can introduce Brian, and we get to it.

Scott Emmons: All right. Thank you so much, Carlos. Yeah, we’re very lucky to have Brian join us today and spend a little time with us. And Brian’s a guest whose bio alone could consume the entire episode. His latest gig is Global Innovation Evangelist at Salesforce, which we probably have to talk a little bit about today, about what that means and what’s going on in that role. It looks amazing to me. And Brian has been called, here are some quotes, one of the most creative and brilliant minds of our time, one of the greatest digital analysts of our time. A top futurist speaker, one of the 21st century’s business world’s leading thinkers. And it goes on and on. So basically a rockstar. And I know how much you love folks going through your bio Brian but wait, there’s more because Brian is also an eight-time book author. His latest book, Lightscale, which I’ve read, and How to Live a More Creative and Productive and Happy Life. So we want to talk about some of the concepts Brian talks about in that book today as well. We, of course, invited Brian today to speak about how all dark matter in the universe could be Primordial Black Holes actually. So thank you very much, Brian, for coming and talking on this really deep science topic with us today.

Brian Solis: Yeah, I stayed up all night doing my homework, getting ready for it. Scott, it is always a pleasure to see you.

Scott Emmons: All right. So I’m kidding about the topic. So an impressive resume for sure. Brian, what we actually would like to talk with you today is about innovation, about digital, about humanity, and empathy and all sorts of things that I’ve been evangelising for some time now, and in a very interesting way. So I’ll start off just on a personal note that hopefully, you had a nice holiday. I’ll get on your end.

Brian Solis: Yeah, it was nice. We’re out here in Lake Tahoe, where we’ve been sheltering in place since the beginning of the Pandemic. We had a white Christmas. It was a nice, tight family only. Staying safe. But when it comes to Christmas time, it’s really about your family, your loved ones and spending time together. Anyway, I just kind of wish that I could see my parents. I haven’t seen them since last Thanksgiving, actually. But I’m thankful for the blessings we have. How about you, Scott? It’s been a while, man. You’re looking good.

Scott Emmons: Thank you, Mike. Yeah, sheltered in place in Dallas, where we almost never have a white Christmas, including this year, but I compensated by covering my home in Christmas lights inside and out to give it that Christmas-y feels. Same, it was my household of three, and my daughter and her fiance came, and we hung out on the back porch, socially distanced and, had a nice visit and a safe visit. So it was nice to at least get to see them for a little bit for Christmas.

So I think you know when you and I first crossed paths, Brian was like at a brand innovators event in Las Vegas as the first time we probably crossed paths in person, which by the way, that was that event I was a little bit of a fish out of water because essentially here I was this technologist that was in a big room full of marketers. It was very interesting for me. And then the last time you and I saw each other in person was at the Innovation Mansion at South by Southwest, where you gave a little talk, and you were promoting the Life scale book and the concept at that time.

Let’s start with this role at Salesforce. What are you doing there? What’s it been like? That’s a pretty impressive organisation. So I’d love to hear what leading innovation at a company that Salesforce involves.

Brian Solis: I have a really unique role at a very special company. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing a lot of folks at Salesforce for basically my whole career. And I’ve joined a real special group within the special company. That is part of the analyst relations team, competitive intelligence. And then my role, along with some of my colleagues, is to champion the stories of innovation, especially in these times, but also to explore opportunities for innovation. So I’ll give you an example. We’re all here in a global pandemic, and you suddenly have seen companies thrust into a digital imperative that has been an overnight necessity, 20 years in the making.

But when you literally shut down the world overnight, and you have to build, for example, working from home infrastructure. You have to build digital commerce. You have to build curbside or BOPUS infrastructure. That starts to seem like an innovation. And in many ways, it is for some of these companies, but now you have a sort of digital parody. We have a vaccine that’s on the horizon. We’re going to come out of what I call the novel economy here in a stage where you can kind of go on this new path of this digital imperative, where you are reacting to how the world is bestowed upon you, this gift of a pandemic or you can start to think about, well, if everybody’s doing this, what can I do now?

I’ve demonstrated that I can react this way to start to change the trajectory and break the mould moving out of, hopefully, this shutdown into an economy that’s going to help us be more innovative, more progressive and more experimental. And so in that role, I help companies explore what those opportunities are, and then look to help companies both internally and externally, still as an Evangelist, sharing all these ideas with everybody to help executives think differently about what those business models can be inside and out moving forward. So that’s the role, then. I get to do a lot of fun research, a lot of fun experimentation, and then a lot of thinking, Scott, and it is something that you and I have talked about over the years.

You, too, have helped sort of build a lot of cool technology infrastructure. You know how hard it is to get people to change. And that’s really at the heart of this. So when we get innovation and evangelism, it’s not just about what you can do. It’s how you get people to do it.

Scott Emmons: So it’s even without the disruption that the Pandemic’s brought… If you think about back in 2017, when I was at Brand Innovators as an example, there was a lot of talk about innovation labs, right? You had companies doing these big profile innovation programs that had a very public-facing part to them as an example. I think you said some kind words about the time about the work I had done at Neiman’s, including being a model for innovation and experimentation as an example. Well, even before we got to 2020, right? That stuff, it all disappeared. And not just at Neiman Marcus, right? It felt like across the board. You saw a lot of programs that were going strong in 2013, 2014, 2015. Those kinds of timeframes sort of morph into something else. So especially when you’re thinking about smaller enterprises, enterprises that might not have a Salesforce kind of set of resources. What’s the right approach for today? What are they doing that’s the right way to go about it when we think about innovation?

Brian Solis: Well, I’ll say this is one of the things I really appreciate about the role I have today. I work for one of the most innovative technology companies in the world, and my job is not to sell or even most of the time talking about technology. It really is to take an outside-in approach, which is to look at… I mean, if it’s one thing that I could appreciate about this Pandemic is that it’s allowed us to really see how the world is changing in real-time. And it’s through that lens that we can see, for example, where a lot of the problems were with yesterday’s normal, which is why I refuse to adopt a new normal or a next normal. I mean, this really is a control-alt-delete moment. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to see all of the things that we couldn’t see before in order to move differently and create the future that we really want to see. And with retail, with hospitality, with travel, we’ve seen just the front lines of complete disruption over the last several months. We also saw where, for example, those innovation labs or those innovation investments or digital transformation in general kinda missed out on opportunities, right?

You and I were brand innovators, but you and I have also been on the front lines of innovation for many years. There’s no shortage of amazing technology to go do great things. It’s the why it’s the purpose. And then it’s the ROI of how we turn those things into business models that are going to help us grow. And what we’ve seen too many times is that technology was used as the solution—but not really understanding, for example, when you have a pandemic, and people can’t shop the way that they used to shop. Or how amazing our magic mirror is going to transform your business now, right? Now, we have to look at what I call generation after generation novel, where you have all of this digital-first behaviour, right? That now has to be truly digital-first beyond all of the kids with smartphones, right? Or anybody who uses Uber or DoorDash or Postmates, or what have you. Everybody had to become digital-first because of the shelter in place or because of fear or because of anxiety or whatever it is, you know? And so you have not only people shopping or experimenting with curbside or BOPUS now. You have sort of this mindset of “Well, that’s convenient. That’s fast.” You essentially give the gift to any retailer or any business: Data. Which is saying these are the things that I prefer. These are the things that I don’t like. These are the traits, or these are the characteristics that you can learn from in order to build a better service and not just create digital touchpoints but to create a better service because you’re getting to know me, create a better experience.

And so really what I see or what I hope for is that right now, this generation and this novel economy where people are not only becoming digital-first, but they’re also re-examining everything in their lives, right? Things that they’re telling companies that are more important to them, like play a better & a more important role in society, make me trust you or help me trust you more. Let me see how you’re treating employees and customers during these times. You start to get real humans really fast in this digital-first economy. And so those insights, I think, are helping us understand what we’ve been trying to make sense of for the last decade—personalisation, real-time, mobile-first, app academy. Now we can actually humanise all this stuff to build a better customer journey, a better experience, a better relationship, a platform with customers that are changing right before our eyes. And that, I think, gives us that purpose that we’ve maybe overlooked for a long time.

Scott Emmons: Well, so yeah, there’s a really a ton of good points there. I know Carlos; you wanted to jump in on the novel economy.

Carlos Monteiro: Yeah, sure. Thank you. I listened to some of your podcasts, Brian, where I think in one of them, I don’t remember if it was the one for Salesforce, but you said that you started your career speaking a lot for the C-suite, right? For the C- level. And when it comes to the digital economy and digital natives… I am a millennial from 85 myself, and I see that I’ve had one experience… I’m an entrepreneur, but I’ve had one experience working for a large company. And sometimes, I’m sorry about the word, but there’s a lot of dinosaurs there, right? The question I have is more like, whom are you talking to today? Because there are a lot of millennials taking the C-level today becoming the directors or whatever. These are maybe the digital natives, right? Then you have gen X-ers or gen Ys, whatever you call, younger people than myself. So are you talking more to this generation to have them implement technologies in their company? Because maybe they get things faster. And I’m not saying we’re better than anyone. I don’t know if my question makes sense.

Brian Solis: It does Carlos. Well, Scott and I are just a little bit older than you, barely. One thing that I want to point out is that age has nothing to do with innovation, right? It’s a mindset. I certainly have worked with, let’s just say, multi-generations where people are stuck in whatever environment has raised them. The challenge that we have, whether you’re a digital native or you’re digital… what would you call it? I guess, immigrant. It’s really about what your intent is and also your experience of who you are, where you came from, but also where you’re trying to go. I still do try to talk to the C-suite because whatever age they are, they’re the ones making the decisions. I’m also going after the boards of directors and also shareholders, people who are responsible for the decisions that are often meant, and I know Scott can appreciate this, that are often meant for the short-term, quarter to quarter performance, shareholder value, stakeholder value, whatever that is.

But here’s one of the reasons why I really doubled down on exclusive research in the last year on what I called the novel economy. So I shelved all my research in March to just focus… Because as a digital anthropologist, I should probably say that, Hey everybody, I’m also a digital anthropologist. And what that means is I study how people are changed by technology and how that plays out over time in behaviours, decisions, but also at core values, beliefs, and norms. And those cultural rituals that helped me make sense then of where trends are going so that when we make big investments in not just technology, but also change and change management, in leadership, it is because we have a trajectory that’s going to make sense that we are trying to align with something bigger than ourselves. And so, to answer your question in that regard, was that in this Pandemic specifically, I watched a cross-generational group of people form. Which was based on if you, if anybody’s followed my work over the years of what I’ve talked about, digital Darwinism, which was based on this generation C concept where C stood for connected, it was whether you’re a millennial, Centennial, whether you’re a mature boomer, gen X, if you led a digital-first lifestyle, meaning you took Uber’s, you use Facebook, Instagram, you had your food delivered every now and then, like me, I had gasoline delivered to my house through an app called “Filled”, you really start to see the conveniences of life, where you become the centre of your own universe. And you communicate through that little screen basically for everything and what I had shown over the last 20 years with the dawn of the 90s, right? With the internet and then Amazon in 1996 and then the iPhone in 2006 and Facebook, Instagram, and the app economy, and all of those things started to push people forward in new directions. It was essentially the reason why eCommerce had been on an upswing over the years. But I think that Scott could appreciate it. Nobody really took it as urgently as they needed. It wasn’t just because a 45-year-old and a 25-year-old were using smartphones. It was because they were physically, emotionally and intellectually changing. Their standards for excellence were different. Their standards for great experiences were different. How they wanted to do business was different. How they researched, how they went through the discovery process was different. And then ultimately, what they valued in terms of relationships was different.

And then you bring this global Pandemic, and you have now everybody having to become digital-first. So again, cross-generational, so not just 20 five-year-olds who are shopping for food or using an app. Everybody has to do that right now. And when you do that, you become this; I lovingly refer to as “accidental narcissists”, basically somebody who knows what they want and can get it. And that is that standard. And if businesses are not rising to that standard, then they become a dinosaur, obsolete. Not because of age, but because of the experience that they provide or don’t provide to people. And now you add to that the somatic marker that is COVID-19, which is a deep, visceral, emotional, psychological bookmark within us that is going to forever change how we value things, life. In fact, if you look at some of the biggest changes in the last several months, how people spend money, how they don’t, what they value in life, how they define success, so much of this is different. Nobody’s gonna really… I don’t know how it is for you, Carlos, but over here, we’re not going to look at a roll of toilet paper the same way ever again, especially an empty one. In fact, so many of my friends are buying bidets, because they realised that the supply chain for toilet paper…

Brian Solis: It’s a good plan B, but for a diet. Nice one, Scott. I see what you did there. But the truth of the matter is this is a long-winded way of just saying that society as a whole is really changing. And now you’re starting to see this society split, especially in the United States, where we have politics playing into that somatic marker and enriching that visceral emotional response to all of this stuff. You have people who are angry and confused and anxious and fearful. So what you have thought, is this now… Here’s the silver lining and all, you have this real opportunity to understand how people are different from all of the assumptions that you’ve had over the last couple of decades of business models that you’ve been trying to pursue. We saw, according to McKinsey, ten years of eCommerce acceleration in 90 days. 75% of customers of every age have experimented with a new brand retailer service in this novel economy. And 60% have said they’re going to stick with these new brands and services and retailers. So now you have loyalty up for grabs. You have another wave of disruption beyond a pandemic about the hit businesses all around the world. And this is that opportunity to not just respond, but to grow in a new trajectory to be relevant for a consumer, gen N that’s being born right before us right now.

Scott Emmons: So first of all, you pretty much in that one response covered just about every question I was going to ask you, Brian, so amazing. I was like, stop him, stop him before there’s nothing left to talk about. I’m teasing, of course. So I completely agree with all of that. I’m definitely one of those consumers that have tried something new, and I’m not going back. I’m not going to retreat from the curbside pickup of my groceries. It’s just not going to happen. It’s just too good. It even caused me to change brands in terms of what grocery I use, based on how good the experience was. I won’t name names, but the one I’ve used for years was not nearly as good as the one I use now. So I’ll stick with the new guys that are better at it.

You talked about it at the beginning of that answer. I heard the ROI piece pop up. You and I did an interview together on another podcast called CXO talk. I was talking about how ROI was often used as a club to kill innovation. And you coined the phrase ROI meant “return on ignorance” at that point, which I loved and have repeated often with proper attribution since. How’s the, in light of all these new circumstances, ROI is a club mentality, do you think that’s dissipated? Are enterprises more willing to go out and take a chance?

Brian Solis: I think they have to be. This is why culture, organisational culture, has to become more important in this conversation regarding innovation, right? The whole premise of ROI and, of course, the play on it for “return on ignorance” was really about opportunity costs. If we do not do something, what does that do to our shorter and mostly longer-term impact? Because we’re so caught up in this sort of short-term mentality. Whereas people are changing now faster than ever. And what they want and what they value is not in alignment with what we think they value, which is why…

Scott Emmons: Brands were barely keeping up before they started changing faster than ever.

Brian Solis: Yeah. It’s the same challenge they’ve always had because they couldn’t see the change. They projected themselves onto the markets. So they put their… I’ll just kind of quickly explain, this is what I call “experience divide”. We have decision-makers, right? So the club of the things that we have to make decisions about, right? Everything from profitability to employee welfare to… You name it. Just like the construct of a traditional business are all the things of which then the hierarchy of that business is designed to make decisions around for the best interests of stakeholders, and then the best interest of whatever the halo is at the top of the organisation, whether that’s shareholders and the board or what have you. All that’s fine and good. And over here, you have, especially now in this novel economy, you have the markets and how it’s changing. And people within that market and what they value and why and how they make decisions and why they’re making those decisions. And so over time, over the last 20 years, if you’ve seen Scott, experience divide was like building cracks. People were changing. Businesses weren’t. And they try to do these little things like “Oh, okay. Let’s have some eCommerce. Let’s have some cool things within the store. Let’s do whatever “…to try to keep at least whatever fibres they could stay connected to the market. But over time, as they got to experience new things, new services, new apps, they started to move more and more and more. And we started to see that disruption caused in-between is that experience divide, but it’s also an Achilles heel, right? It is your vulnerability. So a lot of startups, a lot of competitors would look right there and say, okay, well what do they value and what are they not getting? And this is why entrepreneurs and investors would zoom right there because it was an opportunity. Hence the ROI. It was also an opportunity cost if you weren’t doing the same things.

Now, what we saw was that in the last year, this just started to go [PUFF]. And now, the same decision-makers over here cannot in any way continue to make the same types of decisions or employ the same types of ignorance that they were before. Because now this is moving further and further away. And what happens is when you’re on this site, and you’re looking that way, which is where we miss everything. When you’re looking back this way, you start to see obsolescence. You start to say that experience is old. That experience sucks. Oh, I have choices now, which is why we’re starting to see so many new experimentations, and they’re building bridges in their own way for their best interests. So if you’re not intentionally trying to do that, then you’re going to miss out.

And unfortunately, that is where digital Darwinism has come into play. We’ve ignored the sense of urgency for a really long time. There is no more runway to ignore it. And we have to now start thinking like the customers that we want to reach and not like the executives we have. Look, really been proud of, for the last several years or decades, where we’ve earned our positions of where we are. Now we have to almost re-earn everything to be relevant because the world is changing. And that’s the hard part. And look, we see that… It’s not just in business. It’s in life. You have people holding onto what they know, and you have people changing. And rather than understand why that change is happening, we project ourselves onto them, saying “You’re doing things differently than I’m doing them. And therefore, I’m going to dig in deeper here.” And that’s why innovation is totally a personal decision. It’s a personal transformation. That’s what makes it so hard is because you’re essentially telling yourself, “I have to change. I have to be different.” Your source of inspiration is right there.

Carlos Monteiro: What’s the… I mean, it’s obvious… But the role of culture in all of this? Because you spoke about short-term thinking versus long-term thinking. I think you’re speaking a lot about culture. I’m very closely connected with the folks from the conscious capitalism movement in Brazil. And we see that there are more companies trying to become like conscious companies, not just in the weak sense of the word, but really. There’s like a framework. I think Mr Raj Sisodia and there in the US did an amazing study about the whole food market and how they’ve done it. I don’t know if it’s changed after Amazon acquired them. But they didn’t have to invest so much in marketing because they are investing in the community and that kind of stuff. I heard you speaking in one of your podcasts about that culture is the strategy, right? It’s not like culture eats you for breakfast, but… And so that is fantastic. But in your role, can you teach culture? Because I think it’s a big part of your role, at least discussed, right? With the folks that you’re talking to.

Brian Solis: I think culture is something that… Look, if you look at… I wanna take a step back. Cause I want to back people into the answer to this question. So there’s a saying that you brought up for everybody. You’ve probably heard it. I think it’s attributed to Peter Drucker, which is “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” And the problem with that statement is that culture is the strategy. Culture is why you do things. What we tend to think about when it comes to culture is the mission statement, vision statement, our team offsite. But those are the acts of culture. At Salesforce, one of the reasons why I joined the company is because Mark Benioff promotes stakeholder capitalism, which is really about the why of business to make a better impact in society in the world, so not just existing for profit. The idea is that profit becomes a by-product of doing the right things for people for places, and things. We have this one philosophy where we give 1% of technology, 1% of profit and 1% of our own time to make an impact on the world.

That’s culture, right? We call our family at Salesforce our Ohana, which means in Hawaiian. And what we do every single day, especially during this Pandemic, when we have these internal sessions that Mark actually leads with other executives at the company for employees where we’re talking about what’s happening outside and what we can do to make an impact outside of Salesforce and understanding what… If you’ve seen what he’s done with PPE all around the world and sourcing that and helping the front lines… That’s culture. That’s leadership in helping people understand. Look, there’s this north star. This is why we exist and why we work together and where we’re trying to go together. And every day we communicate, how are we doing together? What’s the role you’re playing in how we’re doing this together?

So people feel empowered to move towards this north star that has to be done intentionally. So, for example, you might’ve heard me talk about Gapingvoid and Jason Korman, who’s the CEO of Gapingvoid. They’re a culture design company out of Miami, Florida. I’ve had the opportunity to work with them and do research over the years on how do you design a culture? And it can be done. It’s actually a thing called culture science that they’ve created, where you go through this work of designing what that culture’s supposed to be, and then doing the things every single day that bring that culture to life, but not just doing. It’s how you communicate. It’s the visuals that you have around. So all of this stuff, this is why culture is a strategy. It has to start there. You can’t just… Scott, I know you’ve seen this. This is why so many innovation centres fail. It’s because there is no culture of innovation where people feel like, Hey, 1) You’re empowered to take risks. 2) If you make a mistake, what’d you learn from it and let’s move on. Instead, we look at mistakes as being a source of failure. Nobody wants to do that. And then lastly, the biggest thing of why innovation is so hard is because every aspect of our life in business, at home, at school, in church, you follow the rules. You are given these rules. These are our comfort zones. When we talk about that proverbial comfort zone or the proverbial box, these are, this is our box. And when we’re asked to step outside of that box and think differently, we haven’t changed anything. We haven’t changed the rules. In fact, the rules still persist over here. If you make a mistake, if you don’t follow the rules, that prevents true creativity, true innovation. And when you get to honest to goodness innovation, innovation’s asking you to do one of two things: Bend the rules; break the rules; or maybe the three things, create new rules. That goes against everything else that you’ve been taught in life. And what makes it so hard, which is why culture is so important to help people feel like we can leave that behind. We’re going to go in this direction. In fact, you’re going to feel motivated, incentivised to go in this new direction. You’re going to feel like you’re being paid to take chances or to try new things or to have new ideas or to learn or unlearn things that are going to help you grow in a new direction. That is culture. Every organisation right now has to prioritise culture, in addition to technology, in order to be true, not just innovative, but just relevant.

Scott Emmons: In my previous role, it wasn’t just technology. It was creativity, and it was culture, and it was this sort of you had to mix those things together right to come up with something that was really a game-changer.

Let’s talk about some of the things that led up to the Life scale book and that some of the concepts you talked about there. I’d go back to say 2007 or so when the iPhone was introduced. That was a game-changing thing for me. I was doing kind of business intelligence and doing enterprise architecture and stuff like that back when that launched. Now all of a sudden all our customers were connected all the time. As for the smartphone phenomenon… Here we were trying to know the customer and deliver the right thing at the right time for the customer, and they knew way more than us. We didn’t have any infrastructure that could… We were out at the time. So from an enterprise point of view, we had that problem. But then you also have this being always connected to the whole social media explosion. My “always-connected” consumers, also all talking to each other across these social media platforms. Do you want to jump in on that, Brian?

Brian Solis: Yeah, well, look for better for worse, we were connected. We were always on, and that didn’t come with an instruction manual. And if anybody…

Brian Solis: In many ways. I’ll try to be as condensed as possible because this could be its own show. If you’ve watched The Social Dilemma on Netflix, you essentially see what what has happened. Let’s just say the data social is probably along the same time as the iPhone. Facebook, I think it opened to the public in 2006? Yeah. Twitter around that time.

Scott Emmons: Not that long ago, if you think about it, but it feels like it’s been around our whole lives.

Brian Solis: Exactly. And a lot of that is by design. So you have essentially a lot of practices that went into play, that went into, for example, gambling technology in casinos, gaming. It’s called persuasive design. Social engineering, it’s designed to change you. For example, if you think about before-Facebook, the idea of putting your pictures and of your family on the internet was probably something you would never do. And now you feel like you’re not living if you’re not sharing all of that stuff. So those techniques that went into these apps were designed to change our behaviours to essentially do more, share more, be online more, communicate more, engage more, respond more. And the more that they changed us with every new app. Snapchat, now you have to communicate through affirmation and conversations, and then you have TikTok, and now you have to learn every single new challenge that’s out there. You continue to change from your centre. Let’s say before all this stuff. You’re a set of references. Now you do this. Now you do this. Now you do this. But you never really had time to acknowledge to yourself that these were the decisions you were intentionally making. So your core values had to try to keep up with you as you’re making these decisions. This is why I said it didn’t come with an instruction manual.

The same is true for the designers of these applications. They knew what they were doing in terms of incentivising us or encouraging us to embrace and adopt these new technologies. And once they had this, they had to keep our attention and keep us using these apps and services. So they keep changing the game and finding new ways. For example, one of the first examples of that was the light button. And what they didn’t necessarily study beyond that was, well, what is the effect of that on you? If you feel like you have to continue to keep up with this stuff, but also to get that type of reaction back from people, so you feel incentivised to share more. The early didn’t study, and if they did, it would be pure evil not to release this information before. What happens to you? It turns out that what happens to you is pretty intense. You essentially become addicted to a lot of stuff in micro dosages. There are six different chemicals that you get when, for example, you see a like or follow, or some type of reaction to a post and your body becomes dependent on it. So you share more, you do more, and the same is truly cross-platform: You like the attention, you seek the attention. All of this is happening without a doctor or without a mentor saying, “Hey, this is what’s happening to you. Be mindful of how this plays out so that we could sort of taking control of it in our own way.” And personally, it hit me several years ago when I realised that I just could not dive deep the way I used to. In terms of creativity, in terms of research and analytics, critical thinking. Because I was just so used to moving in a million ways. Every notification… I’d respond to every email, I’d have a bunch of tabs open and basically convincing myself that I was multitasking and keeping up with everything, which I was doing, but when it came time to write my next book, I struggled to get to the depth of how I was going to be 1) creative, but also 2) like unlocking this whole topic that I want to talk about in terms of this transition between personal innovation to corporate innovation or to global innovation or governmental innovation. I couldn’t get my arms around it. So I really started to study what were my behaviours and my routines were every single day. And I got to this point, like zeroing in on my relationship with social media and smartphones and apps and all of that stuff and started to then reverse engineer. Luckily I had, coming from Silicon Valley, a lot of access to, for example, a lot of people that were in The Social Dilemma to kind of get into doing my own research as to how did this happen? And then what were the effects? And so I did a lot of research with neuroscientists, with psychologists, with… My goodness! It took two years of research to kind of figure out all of this stuff that was happening. And then I presented on it in South by Southwest in… Oh gosh, I can’t remember… the year before this last year, so 2017, I think it was.

Scott Emmons: I listened to you talked about it in 2019? I think it was 2019. Maybe it was 2018. Let’s go back and look now.

Brian Solis: Yeah, it seems like forever ago now with this Pandemic, but I also did research… Because the same things are true for… I was also doing research and stuff… Oh yeah, it was 2017 because a lot of the impetus was also the 2016 election, where I was doing research as to why people were so convinced that conspiracy theories or what was clearly false information were true in their minds. It’s a lot of the same types of things that go into that… that trigger internal responses. So I presented all this research like “Look what I found. Look, what’s happening. And this is why we’re here. Why we multitask, why we’re becoming more and more superficial, why we feel like we don’t matter unless we’re doing these things.” And somebody at the end of the presentation came up and said, “Wow, I had no idea. You blew my mind. This is really… Now my mind, my eyes were open to all this. I can’t unsee it. How do we fix it?” Well, I haven’t gotten that far yet. But I have a personal reason that I need to fix it, too. Because I couldn’t get that book, and that’s what became Life scale, which was… it turns out that the solution to a lot of this is taking control.

And look, there’s been a lot of conversations about this since The Social Dilemma. The answer isn’t… I mean, it can be, if you want to just turn off your phone or to get rid of it to distance yourself from technology. But that wasn’t what I wanted to do. I wanted to understand how do I be better with technology but be in control moving forward? So I’m not going backwards. I want to go forward. But how do I do that, and how do I take control? And it turns out that the whole book was research and how to do it because there wasn’t actually a real solution and how to move that in that direction.

Scott Emmons: It’s very prescriptive… The book, right? It’s almost a 12 step program.

Brian Solis: Actually, it is. I found a lot of inspiration, but also a lot of science behind why a 12 step program works, but also how to move it right. And in a traditional 12 step program, you’re breaking from addiction and trying to get yourself to a desirable state. Not unlike that here. I’m trying to get to a desirable state of a relationship with technology so that I can be better, more creative, happier, more productive, whatever that is. And the book, as you said, it’s prescriptive because you have to define for you which way you want to go. Hence the life is scaling. Where do you want to be, and how are you going to scale your life in that direction? And the same is actually true for innovation. The same is true for creativity. It’s actually a book of breaking distractions and actually making them work for you. But you’re also rewiring your brain and your body away from the destructive side of social media and technology in a way that’s actually more productive and positive for you. I think that maybe what I overlooked in the previous part of the answer to this question is that what had happened to us over the last 15 years is that we did get rewired. We got rewired for distractions. We got rewarded for jumping from thing to thing to thing. We got wired into thinking that we only matter when we’re doing X, Y, and Z, that when we get these types of responses, it’s why and how we matter to what extent. We sort of created this social economy that isn’t good for us.

As you can see it too, going back to the conversation with conspiracy theories and fake news and how we’re creating tribes around a lot of this stuff just as human nature, we’re actually not getting any better or getting worse.

Scott Emmons: It feels that way. So let me bring all that into the context of the current situation. When you were talking about the book back, when I listened to it at the Innovation Mansion, you said the real problem is we’re placing greater emphasis on what happens on the screen and not at the moment. Now, for a lot of us, the screen is the moment. That’s all we have. I’ve been in this office with the exception of Santa kind of joining me briefly for the holidays unchanged since February, as an example. So my whole contact with the world is this screen at this point. How does that affect the whole life scale approach now?

Brian Solis: Yeah, guys, I gotta jump right after this answer, so I apologise.

Scott Emmons: Yeah. Sorry. I lost track of time. You’ve had so much fun. Sorry about that.

Brian Solis: We’ll have to do this again because you’re asking some really deep questions, and actually, I have been thinking more and more about this. Post-Lifescales, I kind of wish that the book came out now because we’re only accelerating, for example, eCommerce and working from home and all of these new behaviours and opening up these new worlds to us. The same is true for the dangerous side of this is that we’re accelerating a lot of these challenges, for example, if you look at the cross-generational adoption of TikTok and you look up in terms of gen X, matures, and boomers who are adopting the platform, you could actually watch in real-time how they’re becoming addicted [and] retired. Though they think that the great illusion is that you’re more connected, you’re more informed. You’re more involved. But it has the back-end things like rewiring both your brain, but also the body because of the chemicals that are happening as you’re doing more and more of this. So I think the problem is actually getting worse, and you could see it. I mean, just look at the adoption of QAnon conspiracies. It becomes…

Brian Solis: It becomes really easy. Once you start to do this, then this makes sense. That’s why it becomes a truth and why people are so passionate about their beliefs. It’s all the same series of dominoes that gets you there. The difference is though what I learned is how you rewire that or how you rewire yourself away from distractions are different steps, different programs. But nothing’s going to get you to a better place without some type of intervention and some type of help and some type of belief that you could actually be in a better place. This is what makes it so difficult, and I’m watching this happen every single day. Every time I discover new behaviours because of now being digital-first. Like you said, being in this office or here, this is my world. I know that there are other things that are also accelerating, and yeah, I just wish I could go on this big promotional tour with Life scale sometimes to just kind of get the word out.

But I think, if anything, I can be thankful for the fact that Netflix produced The Social Dilemma because I think that did open up a lot of eyes to the problem. I think they need a Part II to kind of get into the information wars. And, and also lastly, I think there has to be some accountability. Honestly, Scott, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, all of these places where people are intentionally misleading others, like the Pandemic, for example, that was created. I hope people don’t believe that, the creators. And if they do, that is created and given a platform with zero checks and balances where someone else can watch it. And it is believable. Especially…

Brian Solis: It’s believable. So I think the accountability has to go to the platforms, and the platforms have to be pressured by the advertisers to say, “Look, I don’t want to support this type of content with my brand. And I want user safety. I want consumer safety, and I want leadership to say I want the truth.” Right? Stop monetising. Unfortunately, it comes down to profits. It was set in the Netflix documentary is that this information is six times more viral than the truth. And so, when it becomes more viral, it’s also more profitable. And so until there’s…

Scott Emmons: That’s why you have all that clickbait at the bottom of very nationally recognised news agencies, right? When you go to their websites, you get down to the bottom. It’s like, what is all this?

Brian Solis: Yeah. If you look at them, I forgot his name. Sorry, but the head of Newsmax said in an interview that there is essentially no motivation to stop promoting what they’re promoting. I’ll just kind of leave it there because people love it. It’s engaging. People share it. The advertisers love it. So we have to sort of break that model to say, “Ah, we’re actually destroying ourselves by that way.” And it’s not scalable in any way, in any positive way. Let’s just say it this way: We’re going to need more than Life scale to do something.

Carlos Monteiro: Brian, if we can help you promote and go on that world tour and have people find your book, how can we do that?

Brian Solis: Well, I think what I did as I was moving into because now I’m 100% focused on innovation, and I did. I have to actually see how it’s going. I put it in the hands of some friends. If you go to life scaling me, we created an education program for coaches so that they could take the Life scale methodology and then become the teachers of the program. So essentially, instead of me becoming the Tony Robbins of Life scale, I’m giving it to people, giving them the infrastructure to then go and help others life scale.

Scott Emmons: Perfect. We want to be mindful of your time. There is so much more that we didn’t get to on my list of questions. So hopefully, we’ll get a chance to re-book you down the road and continue the very interesting conversation with you, Brian. We really appreciate you coming and taking some time out of your busy day to spend with us.

Brian Solis: Oh, Scott, it is my pleasure. It’s always good to see you. It is always good to talk to you. And Carlos, it is a pleasure to meet you.

The fourteenth episode in the fourth series of the eCommerce Growth Show will bring you the most fundamental tricks about “holistic growth” and the key starting points for getting into a business on the eCommerce site. In this episode of the eCommerce Growth Show, Segmentify is honoured to host Chris Nawrocki, leading the “Heuer” agency for the last three years with his partner. Chris is a true eCommerce enthusiast, a growth consultant, and a marketing professional. So, if you feel interested in seeing what our episode can offer to you, please have a seat, and make yourself comfortable!

Valuable Learnings from the Podcast

In this episode, Chris shared his experience about the shifts that we are experiencing regarding the industry dynamics, consumer habits, and the needs of the enterprises these days. If you want to understand the concept of holistic growth and the tips behind these current conditions, you are exactly where you need to be. Here are some of Chris Nawrocki’s highlights that you can digest over this episode of eCommerce Growth Show:

Creating Business-Centric Strategies by Using Personalisation Technologies

Today, many eCommerce businesses are suffering from the low conversion rates and stagnated growth they have experienced in the current conditions of the market. The reason behind this is: consumers are highly unexpected, unpredictable, and everchanging. Their habits are difficult to interpret and are also highly volatile depending on the conditions of the market. Since the industry is highly dynamic, for your business to be successful, you need to come outside of the traditional boxes and try to understand your market share with tailor-made strategies for your business.

Every consumer involved in a market share is a unique individual, and each of them may have unique ways to capture their attention. To develop that business-centric understanding and interpret the big picture, you need to go deeper into every customer. At this point, personalisation in eCommerce plays a major role. Using the most intelligent personalisation engine, Segmentify serves you solutions that will make you understand your customers in the best way possible.

With Segmentify’s personalisation-focused solutions, you can reach your unique customer segment by finding the most accurate to capture them and understand what they need in various scenarios. For example, you can use Segmentify’s Personalised Push Notifications service to incentivize an individual’s online purchasing process by sending instant notifications created in line with his previous activity. With the help of the most intelligent machine learning strategy, Segmentify offers the right notifications at the right time for a specific customer. A notification that is accurately relating one’s specific interests can play a huge role in growth for the eCommerce business and increasing the overall conversion rates.

Let’s take a different angle here; another solution Segmentify offers is the Personalised Product Recommendation, which gives each of your consumers what they need to widen their shopping carts. No one gets interested in random products offered along with their purchase journey on an eCommerce website. To be able to increase the average revenue coming from each basket, your business should be able to find additional products that your customers will be interested in, which are the ones that are personalised for their specific needs and want. Segmentify does this job by using the most intelligent machine-learning technology. It comprehensively analyses the visitor’s activity and helps you recommend products that your customers will certainly be interested in.

After fracturing your whole market share into individual personas and creating personalised approaches for their specific needs and wants, there will be no obstacle to achieving “holistic growth”. At Segmentify, we are aware of each individual’s contribution to growth, and we know that personalisation will be the next big thing in eCommerce for reaching success. If you still have not benefited from Segmentify’s various personalisation tools to create your business-centric growth strategy on your business, please contact our team and join us during this journey. Let’s achieve “holistic growth” together!

Podcast Transcript

Phill Kay: Well, hello everybody. And welcome to another episode of the eCommerce Growth Show in the UK. My name’s Phill Kay, you’ll know me from Segmentify. I talked to a great guy today called Chris Nawrocki. Now, Chris is a bit of a veteran bit of an eCommerce veteran, being in pure play for a long, long time over 12 years, actually on the client’s side. And then he went on to found his own agency called “Heur” as in short for heuristics and he’s been running that for the last three years. So, he specialises in something that he calls “Holistic” eCommerce, which we’ll dig into that a bit more. But let me welcome Chris first, Chris, how are you doing?

Phill Kay: Yeah, I’m great. Thank you. It’s been lovely to get to know you over the last few weeks. How’s life, how’s the weather right where you are at the moment in London?

Chris Nawrocki: I mean, I’ll start with life. Life’s good. You know, I think, everyone’s gone through the cycles of life.

Chris Nawrocki: You know, there’s several ups and downs throughout it. And then now it’s very much looking at what the rest of this year holds and the, you know, even more. So, what Q1, Q2 next year looks like, but I cannot complain. The weather is phenomenal looking outside and then when it’s not raining, which is good.

Phill Kay: And so why don’t we start with an ice breaker. So, you are investing in starting your own D2C business, is that right?

Chris Nawrocki: It is. Yeah. So, it’s something that we might myself and my business partner, who’s also called Chris. So, you know, it’s not nice and confusing, but equally, if you follow Chris in our direction, one of us will answer. So, we have sort of three or four D2C businesses, but working on which I own. Which we’re looking to deploy soft Q4 this year to a variety of predominantly heavy retail businesses, which are all D2C leveraging a lot of the knowledge and the strategies that we deploy for other sort of SMEs.

Chris Nawrocki: And you know, it’s a lot of its proof of concepts, proving that what we say will happen and does happen and do it for ourselves. And also, you know, it’s good to constantly learn. I’m always working super hands-on in the paid social programmatic.

Chris Nawrocki: You know, SEO trading on and so forth, but to do it for myself to see that firsthand.

Phill Kay: Absolutely. Can you give us a snippet of what some of the things you’re doing or testing are, or is it a bit under the wraps at the moment?

Chris Nawrocki: It’s a little bit under the wraps at the moment, but as soon as soon, I mean, you’ll, you’ll know once it’s there, hopefully. But again, you know, it’s, we’re, we’re launching businesses that aren’t trying to take over their categories, you know, just try to be sort of 1% of that category to share small, be Sharon, get, get some good learnings from it.

Chris Nawrocki: I mean, invested in some D2Cs as well, who are, you know, entry level, who need that next, the next sort of boost. So, we give sweat equity as well as actual cash equity, which allows them to do marketing. Then we activate the marketing as well as be part of the centralised director’s team.

Phill Kay: Yeah. That sounds really exciting. Yeah, that’s fantastic. I mean, how do you go about strategizing around this kind of thing? I mean, it makes sense to me that if you’re, if you see an established market, and then you work away to take a small part of a big market. Is that, is that basically what the thinking is?

Chris Nawrocki: Yeah. So, we work on the premise that is very similar to a lot of the strategy that Amazon sellers have. So, they look at the market, they look at the size of the market. The actual ability to get cut through into that market, then what percentage of the market would make it worthwhile for them? So, it’s a lot of, looking at Savio, Pareto, principle of understanding, you know, what effort you’re putting into what you’re getting out. So, it’s similar for us. So, we look at categories like that. And it’s not necessarily about, you know, the way to own that category, but trying to play a part in it. You know, it’s also about looking at the digital, like you of the market. And where we can actually deploy super hided like you and get cut-through.

Phill Kay: Yeah. Really interesting, really interesting. So, let’s talk about the main topic today. We mentioned at the beginning, this, this idea of holistic eCommerce growth. So, tell us more about what that actually means and how your consultancies are positioned around that.

Chris Nawrocki: Yeah. So, I think traditional consultancies and agencies tend to sell in direct product sets that they have. So, you know, you’re either a PPC agency or as a paid social agency or an SEO agency, and the bits of overlap in between them and, you know, some, some cross borders. And I think, you know, what, where positioning ourselves is actually being able to say, okay, well, it’s not just going to be PPC that drives you forward. It’s not just going to be paid social. There isn’t necessarily a silver bullet that will serve all brands at all times. So, the standpoint we work from is essentially a super business centric eCommerce strategy where we actually define what you want to achieve and how you’re going to achieve it.

So, for example, you know, this business approach and said, okay, we want to hit this gross revenue. Okay, great. And then drilling down as you drill into it. It’s actually, well, we need this subscriber base. Because they’re their subscription case subscription business that needs to grow its subscription base and their actual target is subscribers. So that’s working backwards from that subscriber base or equally, you know, joining the business when we get asked to do paid social. And what we actually ended up doing in three, three or four months is actually building out a P and L a cash flow. And a buying strategy, which enables them to get the bottom-line growth that they’re looking for.

So, you know, there isn’t a linear solution of turning on each channel to get this maximized growth. It’s about being able to advise business strength, centric strategies that involve eCommerce marketing and operations.

Phill Kay: Yeah. That makes sense. So, I mean, obviously you’re talking about growth there, how does it look these days in this kind of world that you’re operating in? Is it growth no matter what, you know, is it growth with profit? Is it none of the above? How do you see at the moment in terms of increasing difficulty of kind of breaking into markets, the increased competition, CPAs and so on. How do you do that? Can you do both, can you grow profit and growth at the same time?

Chris Nawrocki: I mean, first of all, it’s a great question. I think, you know, CPAs have been coming more and more constrained as we go forward. The way that, the way that I looked at and tried to explain it, say, you know, if you look back 10 years ago, PPC was the aspirational channel to get into that. If you look back seven years ago, paid social was an aspiration chance again. So now all those channels, that is 1 0 1 is part of your playbook. It’s just what we do. You know, small brands, happy BC, small brands, happy socially. It’s no longer this thing that they’re reaching for. It’s something that everyone does. So, the silver bullets, no, no. Along with that, there were many brands that turned into multi-million pound brands off the back of paid social when it first came to market. But now the market is such raters and it’s very hard to get the same sort of CPA that you used to.

Chris Nawrocki: And I think, you know, that’s all great, possibly a hundred percent. I think it’s just category specific product specific, really doing your homework behind what you’re selling before you start selling it. So. Yeah, the way they look at it, you can do, you can do a top, top down or bottom-up view on it. So, bottom up is we have this product. We want to try and sell it to the market. We’ll find out what the market is or find out what the market is and build a product to fit into that market. And I think that’s where a lot of businesses can go wrong because it’s so easy to get a product to market. They don’t think about what the rest of that narrative looks like. And you know, this is where holistic eCommerce really kind of comes into play because it’s the way that I look at it is, you know, there’s a, there’s a table full of cups. Each cup is a channel. As you pour water into each channel, each one will overflow at different points. And it’s knowing when the overflow happens and moving to the next move to the next.

You know, you’re not just going to build a business on paid social, not just going to build a business from people who say, you know, you need to be able to understand and validate what other channels do and how you actually move up that funnel to, you know, when, when things start overflowing.

It is more challenging that the digital IQ of the market in general has increased dramatically. I mean, particularly in the UK where we are, you know, four or five years ahead of the rest of the world arguably. So, a lot of what we’re doing is setting benchmarks for the rest of the world.

Phill Kay: Yeah. You said it’s got harder. How do you know, obviously not your world? How do you know when things are overflowing, moving from one channel to the next? How do you do that?

Chris Nawrocki: So, a lot of that comes down to setting your targets. You’re quick, you’re qualified as a success, which is arguably the first thing that you do before any project is looking at us. In six months, time in three months, time in a month’s time. What one thing are we going to look at and say we were successful because this thing happens. And I’ll give it, you know, if you’re talking about profitability, perhaps that is one of the flags that you have, you know, maybe it’s an impression shared. Maybe if you set your qualifications as CPA, then it’s looking at your shallow mix and how that CPA blended across all channels hits your goal to the most profitable kind of level. So, you know, obviously if you had say you had 10,000 pounds and then a month put that on social media, you can spend with Ben as Ben, then you hit that bell curve of performance where you fall off the other side.

Chris Nawrocki: Want everybody to know that there’s an understanding of market competition, seasonality, offer, products and all these things make it sort of a rich tapestry per channel. So arguably, you know, if you’re operating PPC, and there’s no one else in your space doing it, then you run away with it, but if there’s no one else in that space, there’s probably going to be less search. If there’s less search, there’s less head room for you to grow into. If there was more search volume, then there’s more headroom, but there’s going to be more competition. So, it’s understanding the bottlenecks and preempting them. And that’s essentially, you know, building up a multi-channel marketing forecast allows you to do is going in with these assumptions saying, well, actually, you know, paid social is only going to be 4% of our online business and that’s okay. Because we’ve planned other areas to grow into, so, okay. Well, organic, that’s going to grow with our outreach, fantastic and organic that doesn’t cost us anything, pay social costs us, you know, you might break even, but that’s okay because blended is a very healthy channel mix. And I think that’s where this sort of top holistic methodology comes into play is understanding the push and pull and the positive tension between each channel.

Phill Kay: Yeah, no, totally. Is it when you say holistic and in your sense, you know, with Heur is it all about acquisition or are there any other areas that you concentrate on as well?

Chris Nawrocki: So, no, in short, it’s not, I think acquisition has been very much the science times, every, you know, everything everyone’s pushing up the post pandemic, everyone’s pushing to programmatic because during the pandemic, the online presence of consumers doubled tripled quadrupled in some cases. And with that open up the market and with that you know, enabled more programmatic, you know, there is going to be a legacy of that where the market’s still a, still a bit swollen, but it has slowly declined to a run rate. So, acquisition is a sign of the times. Without retention, there is no acquisition. Acquisitions, your short-term play, your long-term plays, your retention strategy. And again, there’s this, this goes back to setting those targets and KPIs. I don’t know if you’re familiar with sort of a Silicon Valley methodology, which is the Silicon Valley of death, which is effectively spending into a massive deficit of acquisition, knowing that you’ll soon have that uptick of retained clients. So, you can always say we can get into a massive hole because we know that they’re going to return in two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, then our points of inflection on your break, even point. It’s going to be in three months. And at that point you’ve got to start swelling. And that’s essentially what this sort of the methodology is, is cash to market to grow, to then retain to kickstarter.

Phill Kay: Yeah, sure. I mean, it’s probably a silly question, but I mean, obviously there’s a risk associated with that, right. As well. I mean, does it always go like that or, you know, does it backfire, and it doesn’t happen in humans?

Chris Nawrocki: I mean, first of all, they’re not silly questions. You know, it’s about assessing risk in my mind. It’s not a risk if you’ve assessed it, because if it is still too much of a rescue, you won’t do it. So, you know, it’s understanding that there are variables and you’ve got to give your best guess on what that is. You’ve got, you’ve got to model these things out and really understand what it could look like.

Chris Nawrocki: And then you’ve got to put your best guess at it and run with it. You know, there are market conditions, which you can’t account for, COVID. Massive, massive, massive, massive change in market, massive downturn, massive uptake, massive downturn. Then going back to work, you know, really even going back to work, you know, in a traditional sense.

Phill Kay: Yeah, no, no, totally. It’s all very interesting to see where this is all going. I mean, if you were to boil growth down to like one important, most important thing, if you like, what would you, what would you say that was?

Chris Nawrocki: Yeah. I think it’s essentially what we’ve just covered there. It’s understanding what the full customer life cycle looks like. You know, if you are, if you are acquiring what happens then? Whereas the handoff points and then what goes on from there. So effectively, if you know, you’re going to acquire. If you’re not first purchasing positive in terms of revenue, then you have to know what kind of sequentially happens. I know there are some categories where you won’t be first-purchase positive, and you’ve got to understand that there’s going to be sequentials. So, I think understanding customer and market is, you know, is paramount with that, with any new business, going to market understanding where they as well, what their spending habits are, what their bottlenecks are, what, you know, what, you know, if you build the best product in the world and take it to market. But if it’s twice the price of your nearest competitor, they’re not going to look at how great it is. They’re going to look at your competitor and say, well, actually that’s just cheaper. You know, there’s less friction there for them. So they’ll go there. You’ll get some Cashman, but it won’t be, you won’t be able to scale at the same rate.

Phill Kay: No, totally. No. It makes sense. You know, I’m going back to the, kind of the routes to market elements that you’re talking about Is it possible to kind of, you know, grow like this where your effectively distributing as opposed to kind of manufacturing, like, so from onsite, I’m thinking about margins and profit and stuff and talking about growth and profit. Is there a mark difference and is it, is it almost foolish these days to just be distributing? And do you have to go down the manufacturer route to try and protect your profits and growth and stuff? What does that all look like these days?

Chris Nawrocki: Yeah, that almost feels like a perfect segue into, you know, what, what, what primer the primer conundrum of should they sell online? Should they not sell online? And I think, you know, it’s, again, you’ll hear me say a lot, but it’s positive tension and it has to be a positive tension between the two. So, at the start of the pandemic, we helped a lot of enterprise B2Bs move to D2C. And half of that was because, you know, there’s an opportunity here that we can sell into that market, great. So opportunistically there is that move from B2B to D2C. There’s also a large transitional shift where larger high street manufacturers, such as, you know perhaps Halfords or B&Q. They used to, they used to buy a lot of stock. But during the pandemic, because they were closed, they actually pulled manufacturing in house.

So, a lot of those B2Bs weren’t getting the same sales to them. So, then they have to move to D2C and start growing that. And I think a lot of this comes back to his, his, his future proofing. How do you future proof yourself, future proof your cash flow and understand consumer habits? Consumers are looking for a lot more.

They are, you know, it’s not just Google purchases. It’s look on the mobile, look on the iPad, look on the desktop, come back in a way to look again. And within that, where do you sit in that mix? They won’t necessarily have brand loyalty to health, or whatever. And the opportunities within your broad channel mix is to get those touch points in and pull them into D2C. So, you know that there’s much more value in owning your customer, and I think that’s possible the real, the real, the real thing here is being able to own that customer and create that long journey and build those brand narratives with them, directly. As opposed to through a third PI.

Phill Kay: Yeah. Sure, sure. Question on that then. I mean, I’ll asked this a few times before, what’s your opinion on it? So, when a brand goes D2C that’s historically been you know, B2B effectively where. The idea of having a massive distribution network, but also going direct. And, you know, I went, I mean, it was like a long time ago, right? When they, when they started doing it, and you could tell there was this massive kind of uprising of all the resellers and stuff going, like what’s going on, they’re going direct. How does that look these days in terms of anything around you know, dilution of market available to the distributors versus the D2C and stuff? Is there any, like, have you got any views or any info on that?

Chris Nawrocki: So again, you know, this takes me back to being soft client sites and businesses that were sort of 90, 95% wholesale. The argument would always be eCommerce can’t grow because you’re going to take wholesales market share and you’re going to; you’re going to stop. However, customers buy from our retailers that we sell to. And that’s just gonna make more tension between us that Delta is dropping and so on and so forth. And when in reality that doesn’t necessarily happen, consumers shop differently. The person that buys in a small, independent menswear shop isn’t going to be the same guy. That’s going to be Googling, trying to find their best offer online. And you know, this is a very similar question. So, you know, when do you use affiliates and again, if affiliates for you is a discounted channel, that’s fine. It’s a different segmented audience. There’ll be a small overlap, but not great. So, I think that the real challenge is, you know, it’s not a one size fits all. It doesn’t have to be that it isn’t true for every, every sort of vertical, every single sort of business. Arguably as a broad brush, I’d say the market is big enough to have those overlaps and not to write it off. You know, it’s the same reason for wanting to grow your B2B as well as your D2C. It’s understanding they’re all going to overlap, but it’s positive and it’s there, there are the verticals there. So, for example, you know, if you’re selling bedding, the person is going to look for you through Google with super high intent. They’re just gonna, they want bedding because they need it. But equally B2B, you could stop bedding to hotels. And then never going to be the same customer and there’s never going to be that overlap. So, it’s a hundred percent about understanding your market share. And I think the only times you really come, and stock is if you’re super wholesale, heavy, or super eCommerce heavy, and you’re not willing to take that positive tension and push those sales around the business. There are opportunities across the board. It’s just understanding that there are limits to reach. You go full wholesale, that will swell the market and more, you know, more likely than that, it will negatively impact your wholesale accounts. If you have multiple wholesalers who are all into, you know, if you’re wholesale to multiple enterprise businesses, they’re going to be fighting against each other as well as fighting against you.

Phill Kay: Yes. Yeah, but it sounds to me like, I mean, it’s been happening for a long time now and it’s kind of increasing, so it clearly can sit together and work.

Chris Nawrocki: Yeah. I think that there’s going to be a large resurgence of B2B. I think wholesale’s going up, it’s going to boom, over Q3, Q4 this year. It’ll be interesting to see what the events look like next year. But then, you know, everyone’s planning for that boom.

Phill Kay: Yeah, totally. I was surprised actually, you know, that was quite a big rebound, in April. But actually, maze print has come down already. I was really surprised. It would only take almost a month. I wonder if it will, you know, resurge again at some point or what?

Chris Nawrocki: I think, you know, that there’s, there’s a lot of associates, socioeconomics at play here where, you know, I think it’s just the uncertainty in the market, uncertainty in cash flow, uncertainty in work and uncertainty in COVID. All these things play a part in a consumer psyche. And actually, you know, it’s not as, not simply as I can, when we get back to the shops when I go out. But equally, you know, it’s too early to comment on that. Walking on shopping habits is like I am speaking personally through all of the lockdowns, I’ve not bought any clothing. I’ve just, just, just kept what I had. And even now I don’t feel the need to buy anything.

Phill Kay: No, I haven’t either actually just, you know, because I haven’t been out as much at all. I’ve been buying things like chlorine tablets and dumb furniture. Like everybody else probably.

Chris Nawrocki: Well, well this is it. You know that there’s going to be a small transitional shift in sort of mental wellbeing being at home and your home space. And you know, I mean, even when I’m going out again, no, I don’t feel the need to buy more of anything that I need to go out. You know, it’s very much about what, what things do I need to actually exist then? But, you know, that’s, that’s where my head is and that’s probably where it’s going to be. And that’s a massive change for me. Post pandemic.

Phill Kay: Yeah. No, totally. So, I expect you’d be wearing the same clothes you’re wearing. One thing I did want to ask you, because you mentioned silver bullets earlier? In the sense that, there aren’t any like, you know, from the old, the old cohort of things that you know were very, very successful when they first began. Have you detected any new silver bullets or any forecasted silver bullets on the horizon at all, or is that strictly under the radar of the Heur consultancy?

Chris Nawrocki: So, I think you know, that there are, there are some plays that we do deploy, which are short-term wins, long-term wins. But in terms of the channels, you know, I think everyone has been watching TikTok. The difficulty is understanding what the audience says. As with most things, the early adopters are going to be the brands that have a lot of cash kicking around, allowing them to put time and effort into it, to grow an audience for tomorrow. Yeah. And that, you know, that’s always the challenge. I think the real thing here is understanding the slow decline of Facebook within, you know, within the UK, Facebook’s declining, Instagram’s still increasing. But then, the way that media is digested in the US is completely different and it’s still very much a call channel. So, you know, there are no silver bullets, it’s all geographically kind of has to be appropriate in that sense. But I think, you know, as I’m sure many people did, I downloaded TikTok. I fall into the trap of just digesting media through TikTok, all nonsensical show media, which doesn’t, you know, doesn’t give me a lasting …

Chris Nawrocki: It is, you know, I suppose it’s very , I feel that Americana is just constantly blasting you with lots and lots of media, lots of different things, and lots of subversive things, which, you know, it’s, it’s such an unknown quantity. I think the big thing is, if you are successful, you can hit a lot of people and become viral. You know, there’s been some musicians who have been very successful off the back of it, where they’ve had dare. I say, TikTok dancers that have made them go viral, which were global. That made them, you know, a lot of money very quickly. And that was the only strategy we should deploy. And I think, again, that’s the thing about having, you know, centers? No, silver bullets are very much about understanding the market and what you can do as a brand.

Phill Kay: No, no, no. Can you I, cause I don’t know TikTok, really. I mean, obviously I’ve heard what you’re talking about. Other people said, but can a brand use TikTok? Like they can use Facebook or Instagram at the moment already.

Chris Nawrocki: I think they can, they can probably use it too. It is different. So, if you, if you’re looking for a high impression share, high awareness. It talks to a fantastic audience. It’s all to you. The customer base, you know, it’s super, superlow in tense, is people just scrolling through it. You know, you’re playing for that impression, share and eyes on. It’s not going to be a direct conversion tool. That’s why a lot of people won’t use it because they’re lacking at direct conversions, and I think that’s where the Facebook and Instagram ecosystem is changing where it’s less, less about direct conversions and more about a broader play. Again, I think it’s just understanding where it fits and if it does fit and what economy of scale for you as a business?

Phill Kay: Yeah. I mean, I don’t know how much things have changed, you know, in terms of how many people in the UK offset or globally, even certain demographics, you know Spending a lot of time still scrolling through feeds of Facebook or Instagram or whatever. And then obviously, you know, the younger generations are, you know, scrolling through TikTok. You know, I don’t know what those trends look like when they, how that, yeah.

Chris Nawrocki: Yeah. So, I mean, on that point I was a teacher, and I always try to get a low down from her on what, what will the kids at our school are using. Facebook? Facebook’s the thing that you’re, that your grandad uses.

Chris Nawrocki: Yeah. And you know that that’s addictive, you know, that the parts of Facebook that are growing are closed channels, which can be a closed group. And, you know, like me, I’ve not posted on my wall on Facebook for years. And I, I don’t plan to, but what I do use on there is, there’s like good community groups. I think that’s what we can leverage them, what they can grow. And when you you’ll probably see that big shift that I think, you know, that’s, if you can build the community within Facebook, you know, you’ve got a community that you can send media product to for free without having to actually market to them, so that you know, that that’s a big opportunity there. But yeah, I think it’s just, it’s attention spans to the media. It’s not it’s, you know, it’s shorter and shorter and it will keep growing that way.

Chris Nawrocki: Oh yeah, he’s at the party outside or they have to get here.

Chris Nawrocki: Yeah. Yeah, no, he’s 15 weeks old, it’s still a bit of a troublemaker.

Phill Kay: We won’t, we won’t let him get too upset. Listen, I mean, it’s been great to talk about all this stuff, holistic growth and so on. If anybody is interested to have a chat with you about what you’re doing, you know, I’m talking to Heur and so on. What’s the best way for the guys to get hold of you?

Chris Nawrocki: I mean through our website, so heur.co.uk or even LinkedIn, you know, if you are, I’ll be on LinkedIn send me a message. Very happy to chat.

Phill Kay: Just so, your surname, just spell your surname so that guys can pick you up easy on LinkedIn.

Phill Kay: So, and then final, final thing is I will have to ask my guests this, put them on spot a bit just pull something out of the, you know, the experience of, of Chris McCroskey for the guys to take away a bit of a golden nugget from your wisdom.

Chris Nawrocki: So again, unfortunately probably I’d covered this topic in here, but I think it’s setting goals and understanding what it is that you’re trying to do, but really understanding what it is and drill, drill back. So, it’s not just about, we want to make more money. That’s not a goal that, that that’s, you know, that’s a byproduct of your goal. What is your goal? Is it to acquire more people to acquire more subscribers, to grow your bottom line, to make you more profitable, to hire more staff, or really understand what it is you’re trying to do and why you’re doing it once you have that you’ll know which direction to run in?

Phill Kay: Absolutely. And I mean, the message for me, it’s very complex. You can tell that there’s a lot to it. And some of the stuff we’re talking about shows that there is so much to think about not only about before, but whilst. And during the future of what we’re trying to do as well. But as I say, thanks so much for the chat. It’s been great to chat. And guys just remain for me to say that if you’re interested in getting involved in the show or you haven’t signed up yet for any of the existing or future episodes of the show, just head over to segmentify.com/egs, if you want to get in touch. You know, as to research any particular topics, we’ll get involved on that, phil@segmentify.com. But yeah, thank you so much again, Chris, for your time.

Phill Kay: No worries. I’ll let you go and get your dog and thank you so much. We’ll speak to you again very soon.

Mobile telephones and the Internet modified our lives in greater ways than one. As telephones and pagers advanced into glossy smartphones and laptops, manufacturers found out that the high-quality manner of interacting with clients is in the gadgets they use each day. Enter internet push notifications.

What are web push notifications?

If you’ve subscribed to internet push notifications, then you’re no stranger to the messages that periodically pop up on the top of your computer display screen. Web push notifications (additionally referred to as browser push notifications) are actionable messages dispatched to a visitor’s tool from an internet site through a browser. These messages are contextual, timely, personalised, and high-quality used to interact, re-interact, and keep internet site visitors.

Unlike internet site overlays or forms, browser push notifications don’t ask you for non-public data like your call or electronic mail address. Browser push notifications can assist entrepreneurs and eCommerce managers in maintaining their internet push opt-in subscribers engaged and expand the attainment and effectiveness in their different advertising efforts.

Web push notifications at the moment are a part of a cutting-edge advertising strategy and supplement conventional verbal exchange channels, including electronic mail and SMS, regularly outperforming them.

What Are The Advantages of Using Web Push Notifications?

Let’s study a number of the benefits of internet push notifications in your advertising mix.

Let’s say a consumer is on your internet site and navigates to their favoured social media website online. They don’t have to be on your internet site to obtain an internet push notification out of your brand. All they want is an Internet connection.

Unlike different advertising channels, internet push notifications provide customers with a continuing opt-in―they select `Allow’. Users don’t have to fear sharing their non-public data, like their call, electronic mail, or smartphone range, and entrepreneurs can relax and be confident that the internet push is GDPR compliant.

Web push notifications attain a consumer instantly, with no transmission delays. All messages are dispatched and obtained in actual time.

Since push notifications are dispatched in actual time, they get better engagement charges in comparison to different advertising channels. By supplying discounts, focused internet push notifications assist organizations in growing the range of customers returning to their websites.

Personalising messages and focusing on a segmented target market gives customers remarkable enjoyment and might raise conversion charges. Web push notifications appear on a consumer’s computer or cell display screen any time they have got their browser open, although the consumer isn’t on your internet site.

With internet site push notifications, you get entry to a brand new channel that syncs flawlessly together along with your conventional electronic mail advertising strategies. They additionally offer a further channel for instant and direct verbal exchange that doesn’t get buried in busy inboxes or non-forestall texting streams.

People who opted in in your browser push notifications may be capable of seeing all notifications (even those they missed) when they release their browser. For example, in case you send an internet push notification whilst a consumer isn’t on your internet site and that they open their browser at 5:30 PM, that’s whilst they’ll see your internet push notifications on their display screen. Subscribers also can get notifications on their Android cell gadgets, together with desktops, tablets, and smartphones.

From new content material signals to limited-time promotions to approaching events, push messages to comprise quick, crisp messages that force engagement, conversion, and retention without the restrictions of forms.

How To Start Using Web Push Notification On Your Website

What are the influences of Web Push Notifications?

Web push notifications are a cost-powerful opportunity to grow a mobile app. They’re additionally an excellent way to unify your cross-channel efforts and nudge customers to take motion.

The Anatomy of a Web Push Notification

Web push notifications encompass six key factors that decide their effectiveness.

1. Title: Up to 50 characters, the identity ought to entice the consumer’s attention. You can test with statements vs questions, phrase counts, and lots greater to look at what converts high-quality.

2. Description: The description is the real message dispatched to customers. It ought to be quick and describe the on-the-spot motion the opt-in subscriber wishes to take. The endorsed individual restriction is a hundred and twenty characters. However, browsers no longer serve certain restrictions.

3. Icon: Brand icons upload logo bearing in mind the authenticity of notifications. If a marketer no longer uploads an icon, the consumer will see a default bell icon. Users obtain a couple of internet push notifications, so it’s an excellent concept to feature an icon to differentiate your employer from the rest. The endorsed dimensions for icons are 192×192 px.

4. Website URL: This is the URL of the internet site that was dispatched. The URL seen at the internet push notification is the area the consumer opted-in.

5. Image: This is the graphical and visible issue of a push notification. Using a photo in push notifications has verified the growth of consumer conversion charges. However, it’s as much as a marketer to determine on the usage of a photo or sticking to textual content most effectively.

6.Action Button: Actions Button, or in other words, call to action (CTA), performs an important position in an internet push notification. It allows entrepreneurs to decide a consumer’s intent—whether or not they need to interact together with your employer or not. However, CTAs are the most effective choice with Google Chrome.

What Kinds of Push Notifications do eCommerce Sites Use?

Bulk messages are easy to address and don’t require a whole lot of technical expertise. Bulk internet push notifications have broader attainment as they’re despatched to a bigger user base.

One length doesn’t suit all internet push notifications. If entrepreneurs and eCommerce managers paint the belief that each one of their customers has an equal set of possibilities, they’ll see an excessive quantity of customers opting out. Segmented internet push notifications are dispatched to customers who’re cut up into businesses primarily based on more than one element, consisting of gender, age, geography, buying conduct, or lifecycle level. Segmented internet push notifications can bring about better click-thru quotes for entrepreneurs as they’re focused on unique person businesses and customized to satisfy their requirements.

How Does Segmentify Capitalize on Personalised Web Push Notifications?

Segmentify serves personalised push notifications to allow your company to retarget your customers when they’re not on your website, always keep your customers updated, provide one-click subscriptions, allow easy & fast communication. Our team of experts analyse your online eCommerce store to combine data from customer interests, best selling products and buyer behaviour to create Personalised Push Notifications.

When Personalised Push Notifications are used in conjunction with our full suite of solutions, Segmentify captures and analyses all your omnichannel data to provide real-time and accurate insights into your customers. Discover how Segmentify can help you better deliver personalised push notifications now!

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Key Takeaways

8 Reasons You Should Create a Spin the Wheel

How to Create the Best Spin the Wheel Marketing Campaigns in 5 Steps

1. Identify the audience and the goals of your campaign

2. Create a custom spin wheel with prizes that are relevant to your business

3. Change the design of the spin wheel to match your brand’s personality

4. Use clear CTAs on the spin wheel design

5. Promote and share your custom spin wheel

Wrapping Up

Key Takeaways

Why Should You Offer Different Payment Methods?

How to Choose the Best Payment Method for Your eCommerce Store?

What are the Most Popular Payment Methods in eCommerce?

1. Credit Card Payment

2. Debit Card Payment

3. Bank Transfer

4. Direct Deposit

5. Cash on Delivery (COD)

6. App Payments

7. Electronic Checks

8. Cryptocurrency

9. Electronic Wallets

10. Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL)

11. eCommerce Payment Gateways

12. Infographic: Comparing the Most Popular Payment Methods in eCommerce

What is a Payment Gateway?

How Does a Payment Gateway Work?

What are the Best Payment Gateway Tools?

1. Stripe

2. Due

3. Square

4. Adyen

5. PayPal

6. Authorize.net

7. 2checkout (Verifone)

8. Skrill

9. Amazon Pay

10. checkout.com

Why Should You Use Payment Gateways for Your eCommerce Store?

Wrapping Up

How to Create a Good Father’s Day Marketing Campaign?

Showcase Gift Ideas

Make It Unique

Offer Several Gift Options

Build Urgency

Discounts and Promotions

Be Innovative

Set Reminders for the Procrastinators

Deliver Flawless Customer Journeys

Reassure your Audience with Social Proof

Personalisation is the Key

Personalised Best Practices for Father’s Day

1. Landing Pages

2. Search Boxes

3. Banners

4. Pop-Up Recommendation

5. Product Page Recommendations

6. Journey Builders

7. Discount Push Notifications

8. Basket Page Reminders

9. Count-Down Pop-Ups

10. Exit Intent Pop-Ups

Wrapping Up

How is Success Measured in the eCommerce Industry?

What is Average Conversion Rate (ACR)?

What is Average Order Value (AOV)?

What is Revenue per Visitor (RPV)?

What is the Shopify Conversion Rate?

How is Shopify Conversion Rate Calculated?

How to Track the Shopify Conversion Rate

8 Steps to Improve the Conversion Rates

1. Improving the User Experience

Use of colour

Page speed

Navigation optimisation

2. Mobile Optimisation

3. Trust Boosters

Social proof

Affiliations with industry leaders