Many companies are developing and implementing a multichannel marketing approach to successfully reach their annual sales goals. Understanding the value of their online presence, marketers have become steadfastly committed to strategies that advance their growing ecommerce objectives. And as companies’ consumers, whether that is B2B or B2C, continue utilizing all kinds of devices to interact with them, converting their digital activity into revenue becomes a number-one priority.
To meet the challenge, marketing technology tools are critical to help create website interaction and conversion opportunities. So the stakes are high when investments need to be made on which tools or providers to use. The good news is that there are an abundant of marketing technology solutions available today and digital marketing budgets are expected to increase again in 2019. The bad news is this adds to the complexity of an already very tough decision-making process.
Regardless, you definitely need digital help and the technology landscape offers assistance with everything from display and PPC advertising, social media, SEO, content distribution, data gathering, analytics and much more.
These marketing efforts can enable your company to create an exciting customer experience, differentiate yourself in the marketplace, and convert prospects into sales. When it’s time to make an investment you need your marketing technology tools to align with your sales goals. To ensure this happens, digital marketer, Chemi Katz, offers three tactics that should guide your decision-making process.
Eliminate Distractions for Better Conversions. Looking at some statistics demonstrates the importance of converting a browser into a buyer. In 2017 Cyber Monday was the largest online shopping day in U.S. history and saw an 11.9 percent increase in online traffic year-over-year. Black Friday’s 2017 numbers are impressive too, producing $5.03 billion in online sales, which was a 16. 9 percent increase from the previous year.
But what marketers must contend with and prepare for is the increase of digital malware injections on consumer browsers that is happening alongside this ecommerce growth. This can happen during a bad connection, free software bundles or an unsecured WiFi network. Research indicates that during peak online shopping periods, 30 percent of all online shopping experiences are interrupted by malware-driven pop-ups and unauthorized ads.
Marketing budgets dedicated solely to search spending, need to be rethought to include spending on technology that eliminates potential distractions. To really maximize conversions, you need to deliver a seamless, personalized customer-shopping journey without interruption.
Delve into Useful Data. Most companies are finding that they have an abundance of data or access to data. However, it’s time to move beyond just data for data’s sake and to figure out what you really need. Collecting true data will provide you with an accurate description of your customer activity. This involves some time really looking at your analytics, especially before making budget considerations for things like PPC and SEO spending. Many organizations are seeing bot traffic skew their numbers about customer behavior. For example, machine-generated bots can make false clicks on your PPC ads, giving you a false read on the effectiveness of your PPC campaign. Analytics need to filter out your site’s bot traffic, otherwise if left uncorrected will result in inaccurate conversion statistics.
Optimize for Mobile. Those Cyber Monday numbers also indicate that 47.7 percent of total traffic was attributed to mobile devices generating $2 billion of the $5 billion earned that day. So while everyone has their smartphone with them everywhere, companies can do a better job increasing mobile conversion rates so they are closer to half the day’s revenue rather than a third.
Part of the equation will require personalizing the mobile experience to effectively make product recommendations and provide additional incentives for those who don’t complete a process. So rather than budgeting just for mobile app development, you need to utilize your marketing technology dollars to optimize the mobile experience, as clearly customers’ preference for mobile continues growing every year.
