My blog report on the Shop.org event would not be complete without a post on the session I moderated. Marketing for Pure-Plays: How to Drive Cost Effective Traffic. I was joined by two fabulous panelists: Gary Lindsey from eToys and Scott Savitz from Shoebuy.com.
By now, everyone knows the basics to driving cost effective traffic, so we wanted to mix in some not so commonly thought of ideas. We also challenged the attendees to add some of their own. Please feel free to submit your comments as well.
I kicked off the session by describing the Customer Experience Journey: Attract, Convert, Service, and Extend. In other words, to be successful the focus can't only be spent on driving traffic to the website. All companies, pure-play or multi-channel, B2B or B2C, must address the needs of their prospects and customers as they make the journey to an actual purchase.
In one of the other sessions, Travelocity spoke about how they follow their customers from the beginning to the end of their journey (this time literally). They attract someone to the Travelocity site through an ad about a great deal to Las Vegas. The conversion is not only a purchase of airline tickets, the customer rents a car, and reserves a hotel room as well. When she arrives to her destination she receives fabulous service. When she returns, Snapfish (a marketing partner) brings her back to the Travelocity site with an offer to post all of her photos and receive the first 10 prints free. At that time, she opts-in to the travel alert email and extends her relationship with Travelocity.
So what did we recommend?
Attract
You know about...
- Search Engine Optimization
- Pay Per Click
- Shopping Channels
- Affiliate Marketing
Have you thought about?
Convert
You know about...
Have you thought about?
Service
You know about...
FAQs
Contact Us Forms
800#s
Have you thought about?
Extend
You know about...
Email
Direct Mail
Cross Sell
Have you thought about?
Personalization / Segmentation - Birthday specials, private sales, product alerts. Make customers feel special – surprise and delight them. Results: Increased open rate, increased conversion rate.
Product Alerts - Out of stock items, seasonal items, collectibles. Encourage the visitor to opt-in to receive an email when the product comes available. Results: Target audience ready to buy when the product launches or is back in stock.
The audience mentioned several other ideas, one of which was sweepstakes. The panelists felt it was a good method to drive traffic, but unless it was an extremely relevant giveaway, the traffic did not stick.
What would you add to this list?