There is no doubt that these are unprecedented times, and while my grandmother might have remembered the ‘Spanish Flu’ living through a pandemic like this is a new and scary experience. However, if we look at the impact of SARS on consumer behavior in China and AP, then we can get an inkling of what might happen post-COVID 19 – SARS catapulted China forward to be the leading online economy. eCommerce has been growing quickly and steadily for the last 10 to 15 years as the data from Statistica shows. Still, I believe one of the significant impacts of COVID-19 will be to accelerate that acceptance and growth. We see new groups of people being introduced to doing new things online that they may not have considered everything previously from working from home to online gym sessions to grocery click and collect – and finding that they like the experience. Retail eCommerce Stat So how should a business owner approach the transition online? To me, the questions fall into three areas needed for success: Business Strategy – Why am I doing this? The Technology – What platforms and technology are needed? Driving the Business - How do I get the traffic (customers) I need to be successful? I’ll return to the 2nd and 3rd areas in later posts, but for now, let us look at the strategy question. The Business Strategy – How Will You Compete? As Jack Welch famously said, ‘If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.' Just because you build a website, customers will not just come and buy from it – if only things were that simple and if you are thinking about pivoting towards eCommerce as a short term fix, my best advice is don’t do it. eCommerce is a strategic shift of behavior, so think about it that way. Traditional retail will recover, but your customers will have different expectations, and what gave you a competitive advantage in the past may no longer be accurate. Conventional benefits like geographic location or pricing are much harder to sustain online than in the real world. Pricing is very transparent (and expected to be) online, so if your business model is all about hidden discounts or rebates, you might be in trouble. Being the cheapest is not always desirable or necessary, but you do need to be competitive. You need to think differently about what you bring to the table that will encourage people to buy from you if you are an expert in sourcing niche products that is good. If you can use your expertise to help people make the right choices, that is great because often the problem online is too much choice and knowing who to trust. If you provide a niche or specialized product, then even better-this is the channel for you. Local can still be a good reason to differentiate, but that does limit the audience you are addressing. Your store must talk about who you are as a brand or retailer, what your mission is, what you believe in, and why people should buy from you. If you can’t articulate this, then you will be at a disadvantage. Your thinking needs to change not to where am I located in terms of footfall but who is my audience, what are the problems I can solve for them, and how do I connect to them digitally. To compete, you must also harness the two-way nature of the Web. Online tools such as social media gives you a different (and sometimes deeper) connection to your customers. A means to connect with them digitally and to understand what they are looking for and what solutions you can provide for them. The best online merchants know that this is a two-way street and use their connected customers to guide their direction and decisions in a way that is much more difficult to do in the bricks and mortar world. Your customer list and the consent you have collected to engage that audience is a real measure of the value of your business into the future. This is important to focus on this in your strategy because it is the only way to counter the reduced loyalty people generally feel online and the fact that there is a world of competition only a click away. The world is not going to be completely online - so how does your online presence support your Bricks and Mortar store or your sales team in the field? This can be a real concern for businesses and brands. My experience is making sure everyone is in on a standard set of incentives, and pricing is transparent in all channels goes a long way to solving any concerns. Multi-channel works well today. How Can I Help, Sir? No successful salesperson ever started a conversation in a shop with – What can I sell you? People want help, and they will return to the brands, owners, and retailers that help them the most. The difference in eCommerce is that your digital assets and content are what will help your customers now, not your sales assistants. You have to focus on the problems you solve and the needs you satisfy for your customers and how to do that digitally. So whether you like it or not, you are now in the content marketing business – for many, this is a new skill set that needs to be learned or acquired. If you are selling products, you need great product descriptions, features, but also benefits. If you have content showing the product in use, that’s great. If you don’t, consider creating it for your top 20 products. There are no ifs, buts, or maybes with this. Nothing will sabotage your online eCommerce business quicker than poor product images and descriptions. You, as the business owner, must think about how your team will provide this content and, by the way, increasingly that should be in video format. Some stores report that conversion rate (the ratio of people who purchase a product) can increase by 174% if they watch a product video. I guess maybe those late-night TV shopping channels did sell some stuff! Business Strategy – The Team First and foremost, online is still a business, so all of the fundamental business skills around operations, finance, customer service, etc. remain the same, but there are some new ones you need. It certainly helps to have access to someone who has broad digital experience. Who can help you put all the pieces together? Just like you don’t expect your shopfitter to be an expert in marketing, your web developer may not be the right person to help you drive the business forward. (Don’t get me wrong your web developer is a crucial member of the team – just don’t ask them to do things that are outside their skill range) A highly focused SEO agency will not be able to help with customer proposition or email communications, for example. As you grow, you can undoubtedly bring specific Photo Editing Services skills to your team. In the beginning, you probably should engage some consulting help to build the broader roadmap and plan in how you are going to grow and sustain the business. You do need as a core skill a Marketeer or merchandiser who understands your business but don’t expect them to be able to put together and execute the broad range of tactics needed to make this a success. Analytics and understanding your data will be crucial to success. You can outsource in the beginning to have it set up correctly, but you can not be successful without understanding your data and what it is telling you. So start learning on the job or working with someone that can help you find your feet quickly. Business Strategy – The Economics of Your New Business Analytics brings me neatly to the final leg of your business strategy. You have to understand the new economics of what you are doing. It used to be the case that people believed that you got a lower price on the internet because businesses did not have all the traditional costs of real estate, staff assistants, or multiple partner margins. While that is partly true, there are a whole set of other expenses you need to consider, logistics/delivery, returns, payments and charge-backs, digital infrastructure costs, and, most importantly, demand generation and marketing costs.

We concluded our Ahead of the Curve webinar series with a thought-provoking presentation on Defining Your Post-COVID-19 Digital Marketing Plan. Carlos Guzman, one of our WSI Digital Marketing Consultants from Mexico City, did an amazing job of recapping the strategies and concepts we talked about over the last several weeks. During his session, he shared eleven steps to help guide you through revisiting your current digital marketing activities and making the necessary adjustments for today's marketplace. We know that the company you went into this pandemic with from an operational and marketing perspective will be different AND should be different from the company that is coming out. Hopefully, some of the tips we have shared throughout our Ahead of the Curve webinars have helped you with this process of digital transformation. If you happen to miss our last session, we have included a recap of the 11 steps to redefining your digital marketing plan below, along with a replay of the webinar. #1: Review and Update Your Buyer Personas The buyer personas you have defined for your business have most likely changed. Their problems, concerns, interests, and feelings have all been impacted by the pandemic, stay-at-home protocols, and social distancing. So, don't assume that your ideal target audience of today is the same as the one you had identified pre-COVID. Take the time to review and update your current personas and focus on discovering any new personas that you may not have considered before. Meet up with your Sales and Customer Service Teams to gather their feedback based on the real conversations they are having with your prospects and customers and use it to help fuel updates to your buyer personas. If you want to dig into this further, watch the recording from our webinar on Understanding Your Target Audience in Challenging Times. #2: Enhance Your Digital Marketing Intelligence As the market recovers, new customer behaviors and trends will unfold. You must take some time to monitor the marketing trends in your market and industry and use this intelligence to detect new consumer patterns and business opportunities. If you aren't sure where to start, we recommend checking out Google Trends—it's a helpful (and free) tool for analyzing search trends. #3: Get to Know Your Current/New Competition Online The reality is, due to the pandemic, your competitor landscape has changed. Some of your competitors may have disappeared, some may have reduced their marketing activities, some may have launched new products and services, and some new competitors may have come out of the woodwork. That's why conducting new competitive analysis is an essential part of any post-COVID-19 digital marketing strategy. If you need a refresher on the types of research and digital marketing audits you should be doing as part of your competitive analysis, check out the recording from our webinar on How to Analyze the Marketing Activities of Your Competitors to Get Ahead. #4: Validate Your Differentiation in the Market So much has changed in today's business world that what used to make you stand out from your competitors, may not be a key differentiation anymore. We suggest tracking your website visitors and comparing your current user patterns to a set period before COVID to see if anything has changed. Or, conduct a website audit to help identify any new search habits that you need to consider as part of your broader marketing strategy. #5: Redefine Your Business Goals You will have established very targeted goals ahead of COVID, but these may have changed over the last few months. Make a point to review your original goals and make sure they are still valid and meaningful. In some cases, you may even need to add new goals to help you on the road to recovery. Remember that if you make any changes to your website goals, update your goal conversions in your Google Analytics as well so you can track this accurately. #6: Close Monitoring of Your Customer Journey With all the changes that may have happened to your buyer personas, competition, and the market, you'll want to track your customer journey closely to define specific actions for each stage of the funnel. Using technology like marketing automation can help you score your leads as they move from the top to the bottom of the funnel and help you identify opportunities for improvement. #7: Revise Your Content Mix As customers spend more time online and on social media, engaging content will be an essential aspect of any content strategy. We encourage businesses to leverage more video, more animations, webinars, and interactive tutorials as part of their overall content mix. Check out one of our previous blog posts, 7 Types of Videos to Build Your Brand, Business & Bottom Line, or our Ahead of the Curve webinar on video to get ideas on where you can add more engaging content throughout your business and improve your content marketing strategy. #8: Identify Your Key Paid Advertising Channels If your advertising channels include Google, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube at the beginning of the year, these would most likely continue to be part of your primary digital media mix. But other channels may have surfaced since COVID-19 that you may also want to investigate and test. TikTok, for example, has become the new player in the social media world in terms of downloads and users. And while advertising on TikTok may not be the right fit for many brands right now, at the very least, all businesses should be reserving their TikTok handles, so they have them when they need them. Learn more about social media marketing. #9: Invest in Organic Traffic and SEO Search engine optimization (SEO) enables you to generate a constant stream of organic traffic to your website. Think of it as your insurance policy or your vaccine for the next time you may need to reduce or suspend your paid advertising campaigns. Companies Philippines Photo Editor generating organic traffic before the crisis and who continued to invest in SEO throughout the pandemic were less likely to see a drop off in their website visitors and online leads even if they happened to reduce their paid advertising spend. #10: Leverage Your Customer Database Your database of prospects and customers is your most valuable asset. To leverage it properly, you need a marketing automation solution that includes a robust CRM (client relationship management system) and a clearly defined email marketing strategy. Nurturing your database isn't about sending random emails here and there. It's about mapping out a plan that leverages automation to send your customers timely and relevant communications that encourage them to take action (and hopefully help you generate sales). If you need some further insights on how effective database management works, check out our Ahead of the Curve webinar recording on, Learning the Basics of Managing Your Customer Database to Grow Your Business. #11: Build a Dashboard and View it Daily There are so many metrics across your digital strategy that need to be monitored. The best way to stay on top of them is to create one dashboard that pulls all of your top KPIs (key performance indicators) together in one view. Think of this dashboard as your very friendly window to all of the analytics that you need to make key business decisions. There are many different tools that you can use to create this dashboard, so find the one that works for you and stick with it.