Get Set for Success:: Online Retailing Breakfast Seminar
The word is out. Online retailing is proving to be successful for many Australian businesses and as e-retailing gains momentum, many traditional retailers are caught out by not understanding the major differences between online retail and in-store retail.
Recently over 70 retailers from both Sydney and Melbourne, keen to learn more about how to market their businesses online joined us for our first breakfast seminar of the year, Online Retailing: Get Set for Success.
The breakfast session introduced the audience to some of our key digital relationship marketing ideas. These concepts, which I will be expanding on when I speak at the Online Retailer expo in July, included my five key strategies for online retail success. We also invited The Retail Doctor, Brian Walker and CEO of Booktopia, Tony Nash to speak at the event. They offered some really good insight into building a strong online retail business.
The overall consensus was that the morning was really successful with attendees finding the information incredibly relevant. Nancy Georges of Magnolia Solutions came away from the breakfast inspired, she told us, "It's important when I work with so many retailers who don't understand the importance of having an online presence that matches their offline one or integrating the two. It is really good to be hearing that message."
For those of you who were unable to make it on the day, we've decided to let you in on some of our top tips from the seminar. Here are my five key strategies for online retail success:
Understand your customers and tell them what they want to
hear.
Watch how your customers interact with your website. Figure out what they
want and give it to them. Learning what they want will involve tracking how
they respond to communications. Respond to what the customer wants by
providing preferences that suit the customer.
Increase Customer Lifetime Value with valuable lifetime
relationships.
Customers' needs change over time and the way you communicate with them
and the information you provide must change with them. Map out how their
needs change and tailor your messaging strategy to suit them at different
stages of their life.
Engage customers with your brand in a timely, relevant and
motivating manner.
Remember that stronger relevance equals better value in the eye of the
customer and this makes a sale easier to close. If a customer is pleasantly
surprised with your relevant and timely message they will be impressed and
more likely to buy.
Employ behavioural targeting to increase opportunities for
engagement and sales.
The focus is on watching and learning from your customer's shopping and
browsing behaviour then turning that into an engagement opportunity. What
did the customer respond well to? Just as importantly, what didn't they
respond well to? Even a disengaged customer can be targeted with the right
form of communication that may reignite their interest.
Develop a social media and networking program.
Although direct sales are not always evident through building a social
media strategy, social interaction is definitely impacting online retail.
Just as IRL (in real life) social influence has a strong impact on purchase
decisions and brand identity online. Harness the advocates who are already
engaging with your brand and are your loyal customers, especially those who
already choose to be active in social media.
Illustrating the success that can result from using Permission's key strategies, Tony Nash of booktopia.com.au, Australia's fastest growing online book retailer, shared his story of humble beginnings through to a now extremely profitable online retail business.
The Booktopia story
Beginning Booktopia as a side project with a budget of $10 a day, Mr Nash
rapidly grew his business to produce an $11 million a year profit. In his
address, he emphasised the importance of making use of your customer
database, creating targeted email marketing campaigns to increase customer
interaction and ultimately increase sales.
At one point, the Booktopia team realised they were sitting on thousands of past customers' email addresses and not making use of them. It was through this extensive database they began strategic email campaigns targeting customers who had not ordered in a while, offering discounts on products similar to what they had bought in the past.
It was this strategy of tailoring emails to directly suit the customer that led to an increase of sales. Rather than simply relying on attracting new customers, Booktopia developed their relationship online with their existing customers.
Many retailers flounder when they fail to develop ongoing relationships with their already established customers through digital relationship marketing. By targeting customers with promotions relating to similar products as the ones they have previously bought, the chance of a sale is much higher.
Mr Nash explained customers were not only targeted by their taste in books but by segmenting the customer database, Booktopia was able to take key information about customers to be able to target them with other relevant information.
Mr. Nash gave the example of a Queensland specific sport book that would not have interested many readers in other states but by promoting the book directly to Queensland residents via email, the book sold quite successfully.
The success of Booktopia is just one Australian example of the effectiveness of digital relationship marketing for online retail businesses.
If you missed our Breakfast Seminar and are interested in attending our second event in late 2010, please email us on events@permission.com.auand will add you to our events notification list.
To view the video files from our breakfast event, click on the speakers links below for a sneak preview of Online Retailing :: Get Set For Success breakfast event.
Brian Walker, Principal at The Retail Doctor Group