The myth of digital commerce:
"If you get your e-business up and running, the visitors will come automatically."
Today, brand managers understand that e-commerce can be a profitable way to market products or services directly to consumers. Middlemen and complex distribution structures are eliminated and the margins are attractive. We often talk to entrepreneurs who assume that just opening a brand store online will automatically generate online visitors and sales.
Unfortunately, this is often not true. Even successful brands often struggle to leverage their brand awareness in the digital space. In our many years of working with various brands, we have been able to identify 5 alarm signals that point to fundamental problems of an internet company.
It's not about you!
As much as you are convinced of your brand, your product or your service: Visitors to your website are not interested in you! Potential customers are looking for a solution to their problem.
Find an answer yourself: what problem does your product solve for the customer?
If you do not have clear concrete answers to these questions, you should be alarmed!
The problem: When you go through the texts on your website, you often come across (possessive) pronouns such as " we", " our", " my" , " I"?
Always remember that the texts must not be about you, but about your customers.
The solution: change the corresponding pronouns to those that refer directly to the customer, such as "your", "you", "you're", "your", "your".
Put yourself in the customer's shoes and develop your business model from this perspective. Speak from the customer's perspective.
Your customers bounce from your site prematurely.
If your brand has just been launched, you probably only have a few items to offer online. This poses the risk that your customers will quickly feel bored and only stay on your site for a short time.
Solution 1: Check these two factors in your analytics software:
- Your bounce rate: if it is higher than 35%, you should urgently revise your homepage and provide it with a clear "call to action". Think about how you can retain visitors to your site with relevant information.
- Dwell time: If the averagedwell time of a visitor is less than 2 minutes, we advise you to place more attractive content that will be read by your visitors.
Solution 2: Add a blog to your website. Use it to report on the history of your product and interesting background topics in an entertaining way. At Zady you will find a perfect example of great stories that are beautifully integrated into the features section of the website. It's worth taking a look! Zady also works with guest bloggers and also promotes stories on Mediumto drive traffic to the shop. Read through article 1 "It's not about you" again and think about topics that interest your potential customers.
Your brand new shop is not taking off as expected.
Trends in the digital world and in e-commerce change quickly. Maybe you have the feeling that your shop is no longer up to date or does not work as expected. The traditional approach to web design carries a high risk and wastes immense potential. For this reason, many shop owners are opting for a new type of web design and development that focuses on continuous development. It's all about meeting the needs and requirements of your customer.
Problem: You have been working on your shop for months and had problems understanding the technical jargon of your IT specialist. In the meantime, your shop is online, but the expected results are not forthcoming.
Solution: Think about targeting agile growth-driven design concepts like Growth Driven Development. If you have never heard of this agile development concept, you can find a free e-book on Growth Driven Design/Development on our resources page. You can find a short description of it here on our website.
You do not realise the lifetime value of your customers
Imagine spending Euro 100.00 on Adwords & Marketing to attract a buyer who eventually buys a product for Euro 80.00. At first glance, this does not seem like a good decision, because you lose money. But what if the customer comes back 10 times and buys for Euro 80.00 each time? Now the ratio has changed. You have invested Euro 100.00 and achieve a turnover of Euro 800.00! Always be aware that your primary goal is to keep your customers. It is always much more economical to sell to existing customers than to a new buyer to be generated.
Problem: You feel overwhelmed by the countless opportunities to take initiative. Google Adwords, Facebook and all the many social media channels overwhelm you. That's why you've decided to do a little bit of everything and somehow muddle through.
Solution: Discover the true value of your customer. Take a piece of paper and think about how you could inspire your existing customers. Pay attention to the little things.
Write down at least 20 different ideas and sort them by importance together with your team. What actions make your product so unique that it sticks in the minds of your customers? Is it a 3000-word email or a small bag of sweets that you include with the order?
Your page is too slow
Start-ups often spend a disproportionate amount of time on design and forget to invest in speed. Slow websites are among the biggest obstacles that ensure their customers will not stay on their site.
Problem: If your site takes too long to load, you should look for a host that guarantees great speed through an appropriate server. Alternatively, you can work with a hosted solution like Shopify.
Solution: Look at Google Page Speed Insights and follow the results of the web page analysis.
Why Growth Driven Design is better !
If the 5 problems listed above sound familiar to you, you should delve deeper into the topic of Growth Driven e-Commerce. Look at the illustrations and compare the traditional methods regarding design and development of websites and webshops with the "Growth Driven" method.
Remember the 3 rules of the Growth Driven Design method:
Keep the risk small:
Reduce the risk of a relaunch by focusing on the most important factors of the new site and then getting up and running quickly with a Launchpad website.
Learn & Improve:
In the Growth Driven Method, we constantly research and test the behaviour of our customers and let the respective results flow directly into the current improvement measures. Through these continuous adjustments, we achieve peak performance.
Marketing + Sales:
Growth-Driven Design is closely linked to the areas of Marketing & Sales. The research results we gain from observing and analysing customer behaviour are continuously incorporated into the improvement of marketing & sales strategies. If you are interested in learning more details about Growth Driven Design, please contact us!
