An e-commerce strategy for 2015
What does a 2015 e-commerce strategy look like for brands? Well according the Melbourne Online Retailer and ecommerce conference held last week, ecommerce strategies involve smart marketing, should be all encompassing, and including a plethora of solutions and services. All of this combined helps to ensure that brands are competitive in this modern day ecommerce business environment.
What is smart marketing?
Smart marketing is performance marketing, and enables brands to reduce their risks, by paying for only the results achieved. Are you for example looking to drive targeted traffic to your website? The most common answer to this question is a big fat YES. Therefore, should you be investing in SEO, which can take 6 months to see you rank anywhere near the first page of the search engines that you want to appear on, for the key words that are important to your business. By this time, are these keywords even relevant to your business? Search is an evolving process from the point of view of providers, users and website owners. What worked yesterday may not work today and be counter-productive or harmful tomorrow. All it takes is for Google to update their algorithm for things to turn to the worse. Performance marketing takes out this element of risk; meaning that you as an advertiser have the opportunity to only pay for the clicks, or even leads that are achieved.
What else should be incorporated into your e-commerce strategy according to the event?
Your ecommerce strategy should be dictated by your budget, as well as what your brand represents, which in turn sets the expectations in terms of service provided. For example, if you have positioned yourself a premium watch and jewelry provider then you will need to ensure that the appropriate investments have been made in Fraud Prevention, Internet security as well as a Order management system. All of the above is a minimum expectation nowadays for all companies claiming to be a premium supplier of products that can be purchased online.
With so much on offer it is unrealistic for the smaller business owner to be able to afford all of these solutions, however please find below a checklist that you can reference when putting together or updating your ecommerce strategy.
- Affiliate Marketing Programs
- Call/Contact Centre Solutions
- Catalogue Management Systems
- Comparison Shopping Sites/Portals
- Consultants
- Content Delivery Networks
- Content Management
- CRM Systems
- Customer Satisfaction Measurement
- Customer Service/Support
- Data Mining/Warehousing
- Ecommerce Platform
- Ecommerce Software
- E-Learning
- E-Mail Marketing
- Payment Processing & Security
- Personalised Solutions
- Point-of-sale Hardware/Software
- Product Reviews and Ratings
- Site Search and Navigation
- Website Analytics
- Website Design Services
- Website Performance Management ? Fraud Prevention
- Fulfilment and Logistics Services
- Hosting Solutions
- Internet Security
- Internet Service Providers
- Kiosk Systems
- Live Chat/Click to Call
- Loyalty /Incentive Programs
- Mobile Commerce
- Online Catalogues
- Online Marketing
- Online Media Buying/Planning
- Order Management Systems
- Packaging Materials and Systems
- Payment Management
- Site Search and Navigation
- Search Engine Optimization
- Shopping Cart Software
- Staff Recruitment
- Shipping and Delivery Services
- Supply Chain Management
- Website Merchandising
- Website Testing and Monitoring
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