Abandonment Issues

It certainly feels like a huge mistake has been made when you know that a shopping cart was created by your (potential) customer, and then abandoned.  So, where did the site or product go wrong?

Shopping cart abandonment is a large concern for tiny and massive online retailers alike.  Research has shown

• 60-70% of online shopping carts are abandoned, and
• 99% of people will not finish a purchase on the first visit (SeeWhy reports), but
• 60-75% of those people do intend to complete the purchase
• most within the following 24 hours.

So, it seems that shopping cart abandonment is a normal part of the online shopping process.  Why?

Once a shopping cart has been abandoned, you have two main strategies at your disposal.


Re-targeting

The concept is fairly simple, when a visitor leaves your site to continue browsing, your ads will display on the other sites that they ultimately visit.  You would need to go with a service provider, and is priced similarly to other pay-per-click endeavors.  Your ads can be very dynamic, and include logos, top selling products, or the exact products the customer was browsing within your site. 

The payout?
According to comScore research (2010) retargeting brought an increase in visitor traffic of over 1,000% to a site above advertising without retargeting. 

The drawback?
This method is not suitable for sites visited fewer than 1,000 times per month.


Email Remarketing
This strategy delivers specific and relevant emails to engage customers and address customer needs, specifically their reasons for abandonment.  Many retailers employ this strategy, and it works for businesses large and small.

How do you make email remarketing work?
Fist, make it timely, 12-24 hours for initial contact is recommended.  In the email, include:

• appreciation and personalization ~thank the customer (by name) for visiting the site and for looking at your products.  Ask if there was a problem that you can help with.
• images ~not only of the abandoned items, but also recommended and/or additional products. 
• contact information ~logo, phone number, web links to the main site and their cart, FAQ page link.  Use unique contact sources (phone number and email address) to track email related inbound communications.  This will not only help measure conversions, but also identify those most likely to complete the transaction.
• customer loyalty ~information on guarantees and/or warranties, shipping policies, return information, and other perks available.
• call to action ~make it easy for them to complete the transaction

Some retailers offer discounts in these remarketing emails, but there is a drawback to doing so.  It can condition the customer to purposely abandon the cart, in order to receive a discount.  If you decide to offer a discount, do it sparingly, with a specific reason, and most experts agree that waiting is best.  Offering a discount in the second or third email, rather than the initial one, can have the most conversion impact.  The holiday season does give you a good excuse to try a discount for a limited time, without some of the conditioning risks.  Running and A/B test would be a good idea, to ensure that you are not giving revenue away unnecessarily.

Other email remarketing ideas that avoid discounting include:

• free shipping (with order thresholds that slightly exceed your average order total)
• live support, phone or chat (people still crave human interaction)
• free return shipping (combat the purchase-fear inaction)
• loyalty programs

The payout?
Your products are brought back into the minds of the consumer, when they are actually at the point of completing the purchase (which is at a far different time from their initial visit.)  Actual conversion rates vary, but research indicates up to 80% conversion for well timed and executed remarketing emails.

The drawback?
There are costs involved, varying quite a bit in the details.  Research different providers to ensure you get the right service, at the right price.


Mitigation
It would be a far simpler thing to just eliminate shopping cart abandonment in the first place.  The graph above shows that is unlikely, but there are a few things that you can optimize that may mitigate your efforts.

1. Simplify checkout ~Prevent abandonment by streamlining the process for user-friendliness.  Eliminate unnecessary or complex steps (like account creation.)  Ensure 100% error free shopping cart service, as one glitch can drive your customers straight onto the site of your competitors.
2. Embrace the cart game ~Add a "save for later" or "add to wishlist" type function.  This gives the researching customer time to complete the sale at their pace, without skewing your metrics.  Also, give your cart sufficient time before clearing to allow the customer to return and complete the sale without having to go through the shopping process again.
3. Shipping rate competition ~Adding shipping calculations before the cart can also avoid skewing metrics, and avoid spending on retargeting those customers who will probably not complete the sale, due to shipping prices.  That said, this is the time to negotiate for lower shipping costs, and to seriously consider your handling costs as well.  Noone likes hidden expenses, and the holiday season is over-run with shipping and handling discounts.  Don't lose sales by ignoring these most basic of customer concerns.
4. Security and trust ~People are more worried than ever about payment and information security.  Prominently display your security provisions at every point in the shopping cart experience.  Include confidentiality information, guarantees / warranties, return policies, reputation enhancers like reviews, professional affiliations and testimonials also help.

Have a happy, safe and profitable holiday season, one and all, finally free of abandonment issues.
Thank you,
Laura

Physics and Marketing

Physics and marketing are unlikely companions, however this TED talk from Dan Cobley brings the two topics together in a delightful and educational way.

Enjoy!

Laura

Negative Word of Mouth, Adapt and Overcome

Word of mouth advertising is what occurs when a consumer talks abut your business and this pattern continues through various avenues. Positive comments about your brand can lead to increased sales and successes. While negative word of mouth can  damage and sometimes even destroy a business. Negative word of mouth initially starts with two or more people  discussing a bad consumer experience. Is your business experiencing negative word of mouth? Second Chance Solutions is here to assist you in adapting and overcoming this. The bright side of this negative experience is that it demonstrates where your brand is failing and where there is room for improvement.


1. Confront the source
Its important to know what the complaints are, and where they're coming from. What happened with in your company to cause these feelings, or what happened with your product? these are questions you will have to ask about your company.

 2. Acknowledge Wrongs
Whether you feel you were wrong or not acknowledge the wrong or the feelings of others. When people are upset they want to be heard and they want to know you care, so show them that you do. Often times companies fail to acknowledge their consumers feelings.

3. Make Amends
Most initial reactions are to fight the fire with fire, meaning you see negative comments and you respond with negativity. Negative comments only fuels the fire, so how about  fighting the fire with water, this extinguishes it. If replacing the product makes them feel better replace the product, if their service experience wasn't good offer a second try at a  discounted rate. MAKE IT RIGHT!

4. Promote Positivity
Find consumers who view your brand positively and ask for their help in promoting that positivity. In addition once you have made it right with those who had the negative response, ask them to acknowledge your efforts in fixing the situation via positive word of mouth.

 

ADAPT AND OVERCOME!

Its important for your company to adapt to changes. You may have to change company practices or product structure or whatever the issue is its important for you to be open to changing to eliminating the issues. If you take the proper steps overcoming negative word of mouth is simple.


Brieanna Roper

Resources:
http://youtu.be/SunElY0sHs0

Optimize Your Website With Google Analytics

Sure, you have heard about web analytic tools and how great they are. You may even have heard a lot about Google Analytics. But did you really know how you can leverage this free web analytic tool to build your online audience, gain some valuable insights on your business and customers, and ultimately, measure how well you are achieving your website's goals?

Fret no more! Second Chance Solutions is here to provide you a few know-hows to maximize the use of Google Analytics.

But first, what is Google Analytics exactly?

"Google Analytics is a free web analytic tool that can provide you with comprehensive statistics and detailed reports regarding visitors to your website."

You can easily set up a Google Analytics account by following instructions on its website (http://www.google.com/analytics/).

Now you have the account set up and ready to go, what is next?

The Basics

First, you need to get familiar with what is on your dashboard.

You can specify the dates you want to see data for by changing the dates at the top right hand corner. You can also view data by hourly, day, week, or month.

You can see the percentages of new and returning visitors in a pie chart.

You can also access the demographics of visitors as you can see in the example below.

Here are a few Google Analytics terms on the dashboard to get familiar with:

Sessions: The total number of the period time each and every user is actively engaged with your website within the date range.

Users: New and returning visitors.

Pageviews: The total number of pages viewed.

Pages/Session: The average number of pages viewed during a session.

Avg. Session Duration: The average length of a session.

Bounce Rate: The percentage of single-page visit (i.e., visits in which the person left your website from the entrance page without interacting with the page).

% New Sessions: An estimate of the percentage of first time visits.


You can also see more in detail regarding active users. The following graph shows the percentage of 1 day active user within the date range. You can choose to see the percentages of 7 day, 14 day, 30 day, or all together active users.

You can also view the detail regarding demographics of visitors by age or gender.

Another useful data you may want to look at is what type of device visitors use to access your website (Desktop, Mobile, or Tablet). This data will come in handy when you want to optimize your mobile strategy.

Digging Deeper

The Acquisition reports let you see how you acquire users, their behaviors on your site after acquisition, and their conversion patterns. 

All Traffic data tells you more about where your traffic comes from: social media pages, organic searches, or blogs.

Real Time reports allow you to see active users and their geographical locations in real time.

Advanced

Be sure to set up goals to better evaluate your conversion rates and gain some valuable insights regarding your visitors' behaviors. Your business goals can be varied depending on the type of your business. For example, if you are an e-commerce site, you may want to enable e-commerce tracking and start monitoring conversion rates for your products.

The Moz Blog

Utilize Behavior Flow feature to identity your website's strong areas with the most successful conversion rates and weak areas that need to be further optimized. Converters and Non-Converters segments can tell you the difference between visitors' behaviors that have made a conversion and those that have not.

Amazee Metrics

This is just a small portion of what Google Analytics can do. The tool is capable of so much more analytical wonders that could help gain better understanding of your business and customers.

Visit Google Analytics YouTube Channel for more in-depth tutorials.



May Mandy Han

Social Media 2015

Social Media 2015

 

It’s that time again, with just a month left in this year we all begin to think of what the New Year will bring.  Social media continues to shift and be influenced by users and shaped by marketers and brands. Some platforms have outperformed and outlasted others, while new platforms continue to emerge. Social media marketing will no doubt require more diversity.  So what will the year of 2015 hold for social media?

 

1. Google Plus fades with 2014

Google plus launched in 2011 as an invite only platform and initially had a lot of activity surrounding their presence.  However within the past few months Google plus has gone public as well as many of the features of Google Plus have now become an independent application such as hangout. The prediction is that Google Plus will fade away in 2015 because their offerings do not offer any unique feature that is not already offered on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter.

2. Advertising Increase

Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have all developed sophisticated advertising tools allowing targeting and performance measurements. For 2015 advertising is coming to Instagram and Pinterest, even Snapchat. Most brands have learned that social media is a way to market and the so called “free ride” is ending. This doesn’t mean “pay to play” it simple means  each platform will position themselves to offer a variety of features in which organizations must invest in some form in order for their social media efforts to perform and complement their overall digital efforts.

 

 

3.  Mobile Savvy

Consumers are turning more to mobile use using phones rather than computers. For 2015 you will see social media creating more digital experiences to fit the preferences and needs of their audience.  Mobile applications will begin to diversify and become much more user friendly in addition to increasing the amount of social media applications. You will then begin to power up your social media channels with micro-content create thumbnails or build a slide deck to view draw viewers with bite-sized  chunks instead of long, overwhelming images.

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pahLo5TTy4

 Brieanna

Who Are You?

Who Are You?

The Power of Personal Branding

Stop and think!

Who are you?  

What image are you presenting to the outside world?  

Are you working to be the best that you can be, personally?  

Or are you instead resting on your laurels, your past experiences, your past achievements?

We oftentimes define ourselves as what we have achieved or experienced in the past.  Is this a true definition of how you want people to perceive you?  Is your past good enough or are there things in your life that you are still trying to achieve, a brass ring that is still just out of your grasp?

You are constantly branding yourself through your values, your flaws and even your idols, those people that you look up to. 

In real life, branding is a powerful and effective approach to how people perceive you and can be an effectual way to beat out your competition in your professional or business world.  The things you do and say influence others, creating a “brand” that identifies you in their eyes.

Branding is physical as well as emotional.  Choices in appearance and music, reading materials, even the people you choose to associate with, all contribute to your personal brand, and the types of people that are drawn to you, whether in person or on social media sites.

Successful personal branding can be just as important to you personally as well as professionally.  Showing a strong personal brand is an important asset in the on-line atmosphere of today’s marketplace.  This can be seen with some of the most recognized personalities like Michael Jordan, Bill Gates, Tiger Woods, and Opra Winfry, to name just a few that currently come to mind.

You are developing concepts to build your image, sell, package and promote yourself, for whatever path life is taking you down, whatever journey you have embarked on, what the eventual destination will be.

Having stated that, you also need to be authentic in your personal branding.  Many times people try to make themselves out to be something it is impossible to keep up, because it just isn't them.  By being yourself, liking who you are, it is easier to make your dreams, goals and achievements happen to make you happy and at ease. Do it for yourself first.  Know who you are.

TED Talks addresses this idea of "Take Control of Your Personal Brand" through a speech by Jay Clouse, a student of Columbus University in 2013.

Second Chance Solutions is here to help you bring about a second chance to make a first impression, to overcome some past impressions you may have established, recreating yourself in a positive way that brings fulfillment into your life, whatever that means to you, both personally and professionally.

Join in the conversation.  Let us know how you are working on your own personal brand.

by Karen Boggs

Up Your Conversion Rates For Cyber Monday And Beyond

Credit cards at the ready! This year Cyber Monday is coming back round again tomorrow (December 1st, 2014).

Last year, Cyber Monday sales reached a record high at $2.29 billion, 16% increase from the year before. (Source: USA Today) Online marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon have been regularly experiencing impressive sales numbers on Cyber Monday for the past number of years. Big retailers such as Wal-Mart tend to have the biggest online sales on Cyber Monday. There really is no surprise with these high online sales figures. Given the choice, most shoppers would rather avoid the chaos and hustle of holiday shopping in stores and opt to get the same deals in the comfort of their own homes.

If you are an E-commerce business owner, a few tips below could help you increase your conversion rates for Cyber Monday and the rest of this holiday season.

Simplify your check-out process

Do not put off customers with unnecessary lengthy check-out process. At this stage, these customers are ones with serious intent to purchase and the check-out process should be as smooth, quick, and easy as possible. Take a tip from Amazon with 1-Click Ordering. 1-Click allows you to skip the shopping cart and place orders automatically.

Eliminate signup to checkout

The highest shopping cart abandonment occurs when customers are asked to signup in order to checkout. Signing up lengthens the check-out process. Follow the lead of eBay and give customers an option to just type in an email address to check out as a guest without having to signup. There will be plenty of opportunities for you to follow up via email address after the check-out process.

Countdown the deals

Create a sense of urgency with your deals to give a little nudge to customers to make a swift purchase. You can count down the remaining stocks of your deals or the number of days left on the deals. Take a look at Priceline example below and use the countdown tactic for a chance to increase your conversion rates.

Use testimonials to your advantage

Customers value fellow customers' views and opinions. Testimonials from fellow customers help support the purchase of a product. As Zappos brilliantly demonstrates below, add an easy navigation access to testimonial page from the item details.

Speed is the key

Last and definitely not least, do not get hindered by slow page loading time and spoil customers' shopping experiences. Loading time is a major factor in page abandonment. According to a study by KISSmetrics, one second delay in page response time can lead to a  7% decrease in conversions. More drastically, if an e-commerce is making $100,000 per day, then one second page delay could potentially cost you $2.5 million in lost sales each year. Keep your website's speed in check and be sure it is fast enough to handle the traffic spikes during this holiday season.

Happy Cyber Monday!


May Mandy Han

Black Friday is over.... now what???

It is now noon (at my local time) which means Black Friday shopping is completed.  People have begun to return home, usually weary, but far from done with their holiday shopping.  Was your business' Black Friday less successful than you had hoped?  Do not fear, there are still ways to fix sluggish sales before the end of the holiday shopping season.

As surprising as it may be to most people, Black Friday is not the biggest shopping day of the year, nor is Cyber Monday.  In fact, the peak does not occur for several weeks, occurring on the weekend prior to Christmas.  This means there are still ample opportunities to capture attention, and sales.

The only fix that is really off of the table for this year is search engine optimization.  You should begin optimizing campaigns (according to Search Engine Journal) three to six months ahead of time, to secure the most coveted page rankings.  You should definitely consider a SEO strategy for next year, but there is one particular option that can produce similar results, with a quicker turnaround.

As gift-list-crazed consumers scour the internet bargains, well placed and intruiging pay-per-click ads can compel sales.  Consumers need to know your greatest deals, when and where to obtain your goods.  Pay-per-click ads do require some finesse, patience and experience to prevent disaster.  This is most definitely the time to consider seeking the direct help of an experienced internet marketer, with current experience in long-tail keyword research.  Be diligent about costs, to ensure that they are completely offset by the additional sales.

Email (or texting based) marketing is perhaps the most successful venue available to you for the remainder of the holiday season.  Overuse of email is largely forgiven during the buying frenzy, but do be judicious, as the unsubscribe button gets frequent use around the first of the year. 

Combat subscriber fatigue by segmenting your customer database (by preferences) and send target-specific emails.  This will amp up the relevance level, and give your customers a more satisfying experience, which can translate into higher sales and more loyal customers.  Using mop-up ("last chance to save") and VIP promotions garner good click through rates, and higher conversion rates as well.

We at Second Chance solutions wish your business a very happy holiday shopping season!

Thankful Marketing

 

Thanksgiving is a time to take a minute out of our busy lives and reflect on what were thankful for in our lives. We should each take time out of each day to stop and appreciate what we are thankful for however we get caught up with our day to day tasks and often fail to do so. So in the spirit of giving thanks Second Chance Solutions wanted to share some ideas on how your brand can give thanks. We realize different companies are at different levels in what they can provide so we have offered ideas for each.

1. Your Consumers

You would likely not be in existence if it weren't for consumers using your products and services. In most cases people have a choice on what they choose to purchase. It is important that consumers feel appreciated by companies, this seems to be a fading fad, so not only will this lead to customer loyalty, but it will also set your brand apart.

During this holiday season here are a few ideas how you can thank your consumers.

• Tell them- the most inexpensive and personal way to show your appreciation. Saying thank you face to face, in a newsletter, or in a personalized hand written card which shows you care.

• Loyalty Reward- this may cost you more than a stack of cards, but will likely pay for itself. This can often be mixed in as a promotional sales offer. Offer a free service or product, a discounted service or product, or to be part of a customer loyalty club.

Recognize that they have a choice and they're choosing your company.

2.  Your Team

Many people will first think of family, friends, and health as what they're thankful for, but what about the people that spend 40 plus hours a week working for you. What would your duties, business, brand look like without them?  Successful companies that succeed often have an amazing team working behind them. Employees who feel happy and appreciated are said to work much harder than those who feel unhappy and unappreciated. 

During this holiday season here are a few ideas how you can thank your  team.

• Tell them- the most inexpensive and personal way to show your appreciation. Saying thank you face to face or in a personalized hand written card shows your care

• Award Recognition- this singles people out  for their achievements, it allows the entire staff to give recognition for their duties, and the love is spread across the staff. It also provides for motivation tool to help push them to keep achieving.

• Gifting- this may cost you more than printing an award or buying a stack of cards but if you're company has had enormous success this year due to your team, reward them! This can be a variety of things an early day out of work, a paid day off, work from home day, group lunch on you, small gifts, or if your company offers a product provide that to  them for free or at a discount.

There are countless ways to show your staff how thankful you are for their work,  and their dedication to your company. Take the time to show your appreciation...you will get it back in more ways than you can imagine.

3. Partners/Mentors

Your company likely works with others this may be suppliers, store fronts, restaurants, or it could be a business mentor you have had. Its important to remember not only your employees but the other companies or individuals you are working with.

• Tell them- the most inexpensive and personal way to show your appreciation. Saying thank you face to face or in a personalized hand written card it shows that you realize this relationship is important to the success of your  company.

• Gifting- Similar to those of consumers and your team send your partners or mentors gift baskets, discounted or free products,  or sponsored lunch in. Remember that these partners and their employees can also become consumers by generous acts such as these.

4. Community

Its important for companies to have community involvement, this provides brand awareness in a positive manner. The idea is to have the community support your brand and company so it is important for you to support your community. This can be done in a variety of events.

• Give back- for this your company may not even have to come out of pocket for. You can sponsor food drives, toy drives, or you can volunteer your time or services to give back to an organization.  
  

Your company can spread this out throughout the year it doesn't have to be holiday time, in fact it may mean that much more if it was done once a year it can break it up however it would like, but its important to give thanks because  "GIVE AND YOU SHALL RECEIVE".

Happy THANKSgiving!

Brieanna Roper

Pinterest for Success

If you do not know what "Pins" mean, you could be missing out on one of the hottest social media platforms of late.    

Pinterest's popularity is skyrocketing and it has now firmly taken its place as the fourth most popular social media site ahead of Tumblr and Instagram.

So what is Pinterest? And how can it help to complete your social media strategy?

"Pinterest is a visual bookmarking tool that helps you discover and save creative ideas."

Pinterest allows you to pin or link to photos of interest. It uses image boards called pin boards to share photos in collection. The whole concept is based on the idea that many people used to have clippings of their dream vacations, life goals, recipes, etc. on boards. Pinterest is very much like a virtual pin board where you can discover ideas and  inspirations and share them with others. Each photo has a click-through link that leads you back to the website where it was discovered. Users can check out other people's pin boards, like, comment or repin as they wish.

60% of Pinterest users are women. Thus, quite tellingly, the most popular subjects on Pinterest are Recipes, Fashion, Fitness, Beauty, and Decor. 

Here are a few influential Pinterest accounts:

Martha Stewart Living

Refinery29

Birchbox

                        

The Knot

But why should you add Pinterest to your social media strategy for your business?

Here is why..

(Source: Entrepreneur.com)

Pinterest is an excellent media channel for you to better market your content. It inspires users and it has a striking visual impact. It is a great tool for you to build your brand image.

Each pin serves a purpose and it must be visually interesting and appealing. There are a few things to bear in mind when managing a successful Pinterest account:

• Keep pin boards fresh, relevant, and fun.
• Focus on a handful of topics or themes.
• Know your brand and what you want to market.
• Ensure your images are top notch quality and pin-worthy.
• Strategically time your subjects to current happenings and news.

So now you have a Pinterest account. But how do you measure its success?

Clicks back to your website, conversions, and the number of followers are good indicators to measure your Pinterest activities and engagement. Click-throughs from pins could seriously drive traffic to your website. Having an exceptional landing page to greet users  and providing positive experience once they land on your website from a pin will increase your chance of converting click-through to qualified leads.

Now that you know everything there is to know about Pinterest, start today and pin your way to success!

May Mandy Han