Many have used this time to strengthen their eCommerce operations as more and more people resort to online shopping. And with the holiday season upon us, this trend is gaining more traction.
According to a 2020 holiday predictions survey, 85% of the retailers interviewed estimated that online sales will increase in this holiday season as compared to 2019 and 55% said they are investing more in upgrading their eCommerce platforms.
It’s evident that this holiday season will take the competition to the next level while also posing new challenges for businesses to keep up with the increase in demand, handle shortages created by reduced scale of operations and, most importantly, build trust with new and existing customers.
This, in fact, is the perfect opportunity for businesses to gain the loyalty of wary online shoppers through a fulfilling and secure shopping experience.
Build Trust with Your eCommerce Customers.
Whether you’re a seasoned eCommerce company or have recently started your online store, these five trust-building tips will help you make the most of this pandemic-fraught holiday season.
1. Reassure customers about safety
The pandemic has everyone on the edge about the transmission of COVID-19 through physical contact. Physical distancing rules are either firmly in place or strongly recommended. Several companies have come up with a strict contact-less delivery policy to allow people to reap the benefits of home delivery without hesitation.
If your business has such a policy in place, along with other rules of how products are handled from packing to delivery and safety measures followed in your workplace, such as wearing of gloves, masks, and other protective equipment, make sure you communicate them clearly to your customers.
A great idea is to send an email about it to all of your subscribers to show them that their safety is your primary concern.
Moreover, communicate these policies to each and every member of your team and make sure that everyone is on board to make this virtual holiday shopping season safe for customers as well as staff.
2. Be transparent about delays
The competition in eCommerce makes it mandatory for businesses to be well-stocked at all times and offer the quickest, most hassle-free delivery possible.
However, most eCommerce companies rely on third parties such as suppliers, warehousing facilities, delivery management agencies, and customer support. Often, delays are caused by situations that are not in your hands.
Several companies had to press pause on their operations during the pandemic and while business is bouncing back now, companies are still at different stages of resuming their operations. This means that not everyone is operating at full capacity, which can lead to longer wait times than usual.
People, too, have become more patient with such inevitable delays but as a brand that cares about its customers, it is your duty to be transparent about any issues that impact their shopping experience.
Make sure you communicate realistic wait times so that people don’t have unrealistic expectations that set them up for disappointment. If a product is out of stock and it will take time for you to obtain it, let the customer know, offer alternatives, and reward their patience with a discount or a freebie.
3. Improve your website experience
If you’ve been considering a website revamp, this is the perfect time to do so. Here are three things to keep in mind when you’re looking to improve your website’s user experience.
Unique Landing Page
To highlight the merriment of the holiday season, you could create a unique landing page where you highlight all your start products that are perfect for holiday shopping.
To give it an additional flavor of branding, you could give this landing page a unique domain name such as www.holidaybonanza.store or www.merrytimes.fun. New domain extensions such as .store, .online, .fun, and .space, can add that extra spark in your branding.
Speed of site and service
People have little patience when it comes to browsing the Internet. Keep bounce rates low by ensuring that your website loads in less than 5 seconds. Optimize image sizes so that they load quickly. Remove all unnecessary plugins and make sure that the built-in apps for payments and other features are not slowing you down.
Optimize for mobile
While there’s nothing like your own mobile application, you can still create memorable mobile shopping experiences by optimizing your website for mobile devices. Before you start your holiday season campaign, see how your website loads and looks on different devices such as computers, phones, and tablets. Take steps to ensure it loads quickly, the alignments are proper, and that scrolling and browsing are easy.
4. Offer quick checkout
Customers have a lot to accomplish when they’re shopping during the holiday season and you can help them save time by offering a short and sweet checkout.
Simple process
The fewer steps in your checkout process, the less likely people are to abandon their shopping carts. Limit your checkout process to no more than three steps: name and address, purchase review, and payment.
Guest checkout
Every brand likes to gather contact information of their customers to get to know them better and continue to attract them with personalized offers and deals.
However, not every customer feels comfortable sharing their email address especially if they’re doing business with you for the first time.
Some customers just want to make the purchase and be done with it and they shouldn’t feel like they’re being compelled to create an account with you. Provide a guest checkout option to make shopping easy and stress-free for everyone.
Multiple payment options
People have different preferences when it comes to online payments. Some are apprehensive about divulging their card details to different companies. Some prefer online bank transfers. Others use third-party apps such as PayPal or Google Pay. Make sure you cater to all preferences by providing as many payment options as possible.
5. Secure your site
Several people are skeptical of online shopping for security reasons. They are unsure about what might happen when they need to input sensitive information such as personal details and credit card or bank account numbers when making online purchases.
As more people may resort to online shopping due to the closure of physical stores and for health safety concerns, eCommerce companies must reassure buyers that their information is safe at every step of the way.
If you haven’t obtained an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate for your website, this is the time to do so. This certificate ensures safe transmission of encrypted data from browsers to websites.
Websites that don’t have SSL of HTTPS in their URL are flagged as “insecure” by Google when a user tries to access them. This message can raise suspicion among visitors and discourage them from shopping on your website.
Apart from the SSL certificate, you should also display security seals across your payment pages, such as badges by trusted companies like Visa, Mastercard, Google, and PayPal so that people feel safe about sharing their sensitive bank account information.
Ready to make the most of the holiday eCommerce season?
The holiday season is always an exciting time for people and businesses, but this one is slated to be unlike any other. For people, it is an opportunity to connect with their loved ones after a difficult year, even if just through gifts or virtual meetings.
For businesses, it is an opportunity to make up for the losses suffered so far. By building trust among customers through safety measures and enhanced online shopping experience, businesses not only stand to increase their revenue but also evolve as players to watch out for in the eCommerce playing field.
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So, are you taking advantage of that fact to get in front of your audience?
We hate to break it to you, but if you’re not, you’re at a disadvantage.
In this post, we’ll explain how your eCommerce efforts can benefit from email marketing. We’ll provide some tips on growing and segmenting your email lists, give a few pointers on email design, and briefly discuss your email cadence.
Using Email Marketing to Support eCommerce
Are you finding that despite your best efforts you aren’t making the profits that you’d like from your website?
It’s a tough reality that many business and website owners face. And it’s understandable considering you probably don’t have a six or seven-figure marketing budget. How are you supposed to compete with the big guys?
We recommend using email marketing and adding a sign-up form on your website. According to MarketingSherpa, “More than seven in 10 (72 percent) U.S. adults indicate a preference for companies to communicate with them via email.” There’s a lot of opportunity in that number, so don’t miss out.
Why use email marketing?
Let’s consider why people are visiting your website in the first place.
To start, they have to be interested in you, which is great. They’re visiting your site because they want to learn more about you or they want to purchase from you. By providing an email sign-up form on site you’re giving them an opportunity to stay connected with you after they leave.
You’re also giving them an easy way to keep you top-of-mind so they can come back to your site in the future.
Oh, and did we mention that email marketing has a return of $38 for every dollar that you spend on it?
How to Use Email Marketing on Your Site
Here are two things you must do if you want to make the most of email marketing on your site.
- Make your sign up form easily accessible.
- Having a sign-up form for your email list on your homepage is great. But having it available across all the pages of your website is even better. Many people arrive at websites after finding them in an online search. Oftentimes, these people aren’t taken to your home page, but land deeper within your site, like on a blog post. Don’t miss out on capturing their email addresses by only providing a sign-up form on one page of your website.
- Communicate value.
- Big, blocky letters that scream, “Sign up for my list!” aren’t cutting it anymore. By providing more context and value in your call-to-action (CTA) for people to join your list, you better the chances that they’ll be interested and driven to sign up. Wouldn’t you be more inclined to sign up for a list that promised, “Discounts, deals, and insider info — for subscribers only!”?
Designing Your Emails
Take a second to think of some well-known businesses and brands, like McDonald’s or Coca-Cola. Mickey D’s golden arches and Coke’s red colors are instantly recognizable.
If you were to get an email from one of those businesses in a blue and gold color and written in Comic Sans, would you open it? Probably not, because that doesn’t match the idea we have of those brands and you might think they’re spam emails.
Spam emails are a huge issue that people deal with every day, and you don’t want them to think your emails are spam, too.
To avoid that, try doing the following:
- Use a template.
- Consistency is key. You want your subscribers to immediately recognize your emails and know who they’ve come from. Don’t change your colors, logo, and branding on each and every email as your customers won’t know what to expect and may unsubscribe from your emails thinking they’re spam.
- Pro-tip: Make sure your website name and domain name match, too! When they see your domain name in their inbox, they’ll recognize your trusted business.
Your key takeaway should be that the more consistency you can provide for your customers the better they’ll remember you.
What should I include in my emails?
If you’re wondering what to put in your emails to drive sales, we can help with that.
Here are some ideas that you can use to help strengthen your relationship with your email subscribers so that they’ll be more invested in you and your site.
- Coupons and offers
- Everyone loves to feel special. Let your subscribers know that they made the right decision to let you into their inbox by giving them a special discount or coupon to use on your site.
- Expertise and know-how
- Are you the expert in your field or about what you sell? Show off those smarts! Use your email to convey interesting, valuable information about your products or services to capture your audience’s attention and inspire trust in you.
- Images
- Use images in your emails to help convey what words can’t. If you’re selling products and talking about them in your emails then showcase a few.
- Clear CTA
- Use buttons in your emails to provide clear, distinct call-to-actions. Want someone to purchase a product through a link in your email? Label it “Buy Now” so there’s no confusion on their part about what you’d like for them to do.
How Frequently and When Should I Email?
Some days and times are better for sending email marketing campaigns than others. However, finding the times that are best for you involves some trial and error.
Your audience may prefer to open emails after work hours or before they start their day. If you’re using an email marketing service, you’ll have an opportunity to review your email performance and stats, and can determine when most people are opening your emails. Use this data to inform your future email campaigns.
When it comes to email cadence, or the frequency at which you send email newsletters, there’s one rule you need to follow: Don’t inundate your subscribers. Start slow, emailing them weekly or bi-weekly and you can increase your cadence from there.
As you change your email cadence, keep an eye on your stats and reporting. Look for patterns in the data — do people stop opening your emails when you send more often or do they mark them as spam? Those are big indicators that you need to send less frequently.
Email Marketing and Websites Work Together to Boost eCommerce
When it comes to business, you need to be where your customers are. Meet them in their inbox and provide them with information and links back to your site.
Email marketing helps you build a rapport with your customers (and potential customers) and can bring them back to your site to transact.
Do you use email marketing as part of your eCommerce strategy? What does or doesn’t work for you? We’d love to know, so comment below!
Despite whatever careful planning you may have done, we’re betting COVID-19 has thrown a bit of a wrench in things.
Since early this year, many businesses have had to close their physical locations in accordance with local regulations. However, many places are now starting to open up and relax restrictions — hooray!
In this post, we’re going to discuss ways you can communicate and instill faith in your customer base. Many people are still hesitant about venturing outside and resuming their normal activities, so we’ll discuss what you can do to assuage their fears and increase foot traffic to your business.
Reopening your business after COVID-19.
Tips to communicate your business reopening.
Communication is key — that old adage holds true for both relationships and business. (And for building business relationships with customers.)
As you reopen, you’ll face people who are ready to go back out and resume their normal lives, and some who, despite wanting to shop with you, are scared of being in an enclosed area with strangers.
Fear is a big motivator, and it might just keep them at home, unless you…
Provide clear and descriptive safety protocols.
The big concern about gathering in public spaces or stores is COVID-19. No one wants to catch it and get sick or risk communicating a potentially lethal virus to others. However, there are ways to mitigate the risk of catching the virus, and these strategies are what you need to know and communicate to your customers.
- Will you be capping the number of people who can be in your store at any given time?
- Is everyone in the store required to wear a mask and/or gloves?
- Are you taking your employees’ temperature before they enter the building?
- Will you provide contactless payment options?
Announcing your handling of these issues in a clear, concise manner will help address your customers’ fears and build their confidence in your business. Customers are looking for a perception of safety, so do what you can to give it to them.
Be honest about the state of your business.
Supporting small businesses and shopping locally are important to many. It’s a shock to scroll through social media or turn on the news and see the numbers of businesses who’ve closed their doors for good.
Use the story of your business, including the challenges you’ve faced during COVID-19, to power your communication and marketing. You don’t have to be ashamed if you’re struggling — now is the time to ask for help. If you aren’t flexible enough to ask, people might think you’re doing better than you are, which could keep them from venturing out and patronizing your store.
Ways to communicate your reopening.
Reopening won’t help your business if people don’t know about it. With so many folks staying indoors, sticking a sign out front isn’t going to cut it. Here’s what you can do to announce your reopening.
Update your online business profiles.
Where do people turn to get information? The Internet.
So when you reopen your business, make sure that information is reflected online. This includes on your Google My Business Profile, website, Yelp, or any other listings site where your business has a presence. You can also update your business hours on your social media profiles, like on Facebook.
Leverage the power of social media.
Does your business use social media? It’s a great tool to communicate with your customers.
Make sure your new business hours and any changes to how you operate are mentioned on your social profiles. What kind of information should be shared? If you require masks, have created special check-out or pick-up processes, and anything else that may have changed since the last time your customers were in your store. You can pin or stick these posts to the top of your profile on both Twitter and Facebook so they’re easily accessible.
You can use social media to create excitement about your reopening, too. Consider running a countdown to the big day and offering discounts to those who visit. It doesn’t have to be anything huge — perhaps just an offer of 5 to 10% off for the first 20 customers.
Once you have reopened your business, use live video to showcase your store and your efforts to keep it safe. Show off your social distancing prowess, and include your safe, masked employees. Once people (literally) see how you’re mindful of safety, they may feel more comfortable visiting your store.
Use email marketing.
Do you know where your customers are every day?
Their inboxes.
Email is a great tool to communicate with your customers, so don’t ignore it. According to research done by the Direct Marketing Association, “Email has an average ROI of $38 for each $1 spent.”
Before you reopen, create an email campaign to drum up excitement with your customers. Your email should include the same type of information you’re conveying via social media — detail any changes to your business and explain your safety protocols.
Email is a great way to share offers, too. If you plan on enticing your customers back to your store with a coupon, include it in your email!
And make sure that your email address matches your domain name. Your customers have had months to familiarize themselves with your website domain name and they know your business, so when they see an email with a matching name, they’ll immediately recognize it. That kind of recognition and trust will save you from landing in their Spam folder.
Are you ready to reopen your business?
We wish you the best of luck and we hope you find the tips we’ve covered above to be useful! With proper planning and communication, we’re confident that you can reopen safely and attract foot traffic to your business.
Ultimately, protecting the safety of your employees and customers during reopening is your main goal, so stay on top of your local rules and regulations to know what’s required in your area.
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Email marketing takes your blog to the next level: They’re a match made in heaven.
Email marketing and blogging: The perfect pair.
Have you ever seen one of those couples so perfectly in love it’s hard not to be jealous?
They’re in tune with one another and everything they do is in pursuit of a common goal. They bring out the best in each other.
That’s the type of relationship email marketing and blogging have.
Why do you need email marketing on your blog?
If you have a blog then email marketing is right for you — no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
Do the following questions sound familiar?
- How do I build online relationships with my audience?
- How do I encourage loyalty in my readers and blogging community?
Email marketing, my friends. The answers lie in email marketing.
Email marketing is all about relationships.
Once upon a time, you could build a relationship with your audience entirely on social media. That’s not the case anymore. Every time a social media site updates their algorithm it seems to go against small businesses’ or bloggers’ best interests. What are your options? You can pay to play with the big boys and advertise your blog or have your posts buried in favor of people’s friends and family.
In this, your hour of need, email marketing can step in and help out. It isn’t just a perfect partner for your blog — it also encourages and supports other relationships your blog should have, like with your audience.
Think about it: Blogging isn’t a one-way street. You can type, post, and publish all you want, but if you don’t have any readers for your blog then no amount of work on it will do you any good. You need to capture the attention of your readers and any future readers your blog receives and turn them into repeat visitors.
It’s not as tough as it sounds. If your blog posts are informative and satisfy your audience’s needs (and we’re sure they do) you’re more than halfway there. Your next step?
Add an email marketing sign-up sheet to your blog.
It’s probably the easiest thing you can do to create repeat readers. If someone comes to your blog once there’s no guarantee they’ll be back a second time. However, if they sign up for your email list then they’ll see your content again and that keeps you and your blog top of mind.
How do you add an email sign-up sheet to your blog? There are a variety of ways, and it will depend on the email marketing tool you use. Don’t fret though, it’s an easy task no matter how you go about it.
How do you encourage loyalty in your relationship with your audience?
Quality content.
Few things end a relationship faster than dating an absolute bore. Don’t be that person in your relationship with your audience. If your content is a snooze-fest, you’re in trouble. Deep trouble.
Your blog (and therefore email) content must be quality content. An email composed of memes won’t inspire trust and will do more harm than good. We have nothing against a good meme, but remember to prioritize substance over a cheap laugh.
When your content is high-quality and relevant to your audience’s needs they’ll want to open your emails and come back to your blog where they can find even more awesome information (so don’t forget to include links in your emails!).
Need some inspiration? Try one of these 5 types of email ideas, all of them put together specifically for bloggers to send to their subscribers.
You can also try sending:
- Your best performing blog content.
- A guide or other freebie for your most loyal readers.
- A coupon or discount if you sell any products or services.
Whatever email marketing service you use should offer you some kind of click tracking. That means that every time someone clicks on a link in your email it’s recorded and then added to a report for you. By reviewing this report, you can figure out what type of content resonates best with your readers and cater future emails and content accordingly.
Email marketing statistics for bloggers.
Still not sold on adding an email marketing sign-up sheet to your blog? Or not convinced that the (minimal) amount of work is worth the effort?
Perhaps these statistics can convince you otherwise:
- 99% of consumers check their email every day.
- For every $1 you spend on email marketing, you can expect an average return of $38.
- Emails related to hobbies have some of the highest open rates.
- Including a call-to-action in your emails can lead to a 28% increase in your click-through rate.
Market your blog with email.
It’s time to take your blog to the next step, isn’t it?
You know what to do to start a blog and have a plan figured for how to monetize it … now you need to woo your audience.
You can do that with quality content and an email sign up form on your blog. Capture your readers’ attention and email addresses, and never lose touch. Provide valuable, actionable information in your emails, and maybe a sweet deal every now and again, and watch your relationship with your audience bloom.
Our final tip? Make sure the email address you use when sending your emails matches your blog’s domain name. Remember, the goal here is to engender trust with your audience and build your relationship, not have them mark you as spam because they don’t know who [email protected] is.
That wolf shirt you love to wear is pretty cool, isn’t it? Fits like a glove, too.
That said, your wolf shirt has no place in an interview or meetings with your customers and clients. (And no, it’s not because we’re trying to cramp your style.)
In the business world, presentation matters. You wouldn’t want to lose potential high-value customers just because they didn’t take your shirt (and therefore you) seriously, would you?
The same thing holds true for email addresses.
If your customers and clients can’t physically see you to size you up, they’re going to make their assumptions and decisions based on the things they do see — like your email address. Your email address is one of the first impressions people will have of you as it has a prominent spot in their inbox. You want that email address to represent you well and show that you mean business.
A Professional Email Address Matches Your Domain Name
What do we mean by “professional email address?” A professional, business-minded email address is one that matches your domain name (i.e., [email protected] vs. [email protected]). And why is that?
Let’s take a look at the following scenario as it should shed some light on the matter.
Look Professional, Establish Credibility, Support Your Digital Identity
Arya spent the last 2 years getting her fencing teacher’s license so she can open her own studio. She’s got an email sign-up form on her website (take note: that’s a really good idea all around) and has been working on growing her list of potential clients. She’s ready to email them and let them know that her studio, Winterfell Fencing, is finally open! But instead of getting an email address to match her domain name, she sends it from the account she’s had since grade school, [email protected].
Now, I don’t know about you, but if I saw an email address like that in my inbox, I’d steer clear from clicking on it because it looks spammy. I like my personal information staying personal, and am in no rush to click on an email that looks like it might be carrying a virus.
But what if she had emailed from [email protected]? I’d recognize her email address and trust it because I’m familiar with her website, winterfellfencing.com. Her professional email address matches her domain name and helps reinforce her business and professional identity. There’s no sending her email to spam this time around because I know exactly who sent it and I trust her business.
Is it really all about appearances?
There’s more to life and business than appearances, right? We think so, too.
Having a professional email address that matches your domain name isn’t just for looks — it’s also to provide you with the productivity tools you need today to prepare and plan for future growth.
Productivity tools that come with your professional email address
When you purchase a professional email address, you’re also getting access to a host of tools to help you organize, streamline, and get more done efficiently.
What are these tools exactly? They range from cloud storage and file sharing to team calendars and even customer invoicing and estimating tools.
Here at Domain.com we offer two different professional email products. Maybe you’ve heard of them … Google’s G Suite (it’s Gmail for business) and Microsoft’s Office 365 (O365)?
Let’s take a look at the specific tools each of them offers.
G Suite: Where your domain meets the power of Gmail. Enjoy the benefits of having a business email address with 30 GB of storage, shared calendars, multiple communication tools, and more.
Office 365: Adding your domain to Office 365 provides an all-in-one productivity solution for your business. You’ll experience cloud-based access to the suite of Office 365 tools, including Word, Excel, Outlook, and more.
With automatic updates and cloud storage for your files, you can collaborate on projects with your team from across the room or across the globe, without worrying about losing files or needing to update any applications. You’ll even be able to stay on track with the included bookkeeping and appointment tools.
Since you’re likely familiar with Microsoft or Gmail already, there shouldn’t be much of a learning curve when getting started. And connecting your domain name to a professional email address is a breeze. For example, if you have a custom domain name with us and choose Office 365 as your email tool of choice, the first step would be to log in to your account. From your domain dashboard, select the domain name you want your email to match, and on the next page, click the Office 365 tab to the left of the page. Follow the prompts, and you’re good to go! Learn more about connecting professional email to your Domain.com account here.
Reinforce the connection between your website and email with a professional email address
Stranger danger is a real thing, especially online. You don’t want your customers ignoring your emails, and they don’t want potential spam landing in their inbox. Match your email address to your domain name to present yourself as a professional, stand out among the competition, and help customers decide that you’re the right business to work with. Save your personal email address (and your wolf shirt) for the weekend.