Latest Promo Campaign Generates 18% Ecommerce Conversion Rate

One of the greatest joys of my ecommerce coaching engagements with store owners is being able to help them grow their online business.

While coaching, I’m constantly testing various methodologies which add incremental increases to their conversion rate.

During a recent promotion with one store owner we were able to achieve sustained conversion rates of a whopping 18.67% over a twelve day period. This conversion rate is well over the industry standard conversion rate of about 2.4%.

The graphic below is a screenshot of the analytics program showing the spike in conversion during that time period.

The average sustained conversion rate for this client over the past 15 months is a solid 10.48%. Again, well above the industry average. Yet, the recent promotion made even that conversion rate look small with the peak conversion rate being an unheard of 26.17%!

How Did it Happen?

By creating a promotion that work in conjunction with events already happening in the media, we were able to feed off of the hype and excitement that was generated through those channels. The best part is we never paid a dime for that exposure. We let the media do it for us and simply created a campaign that took the excitement and moved it to the client’s website in the form of a promotion.

What was the promotion’s foundation? March Madness and the NCAA basketball tournament.

With all the media exposure and hype surrounding that event it made sense to create a promotional campaign which captured the excitement. It’s often said by many that if you want to make money, “follow hollywood” or “follow the media”.

The general idea of the campaign was simple. Take the excitement surrounding the NCAA basketball tournament and turn it into a game which let the customers choose their own “tournament participants” (i.e. products) simply by purchasing their favorite products from the online store.
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It’s Cyber Monday. Are you Ready to Take Advantage?

Quick reminder here. Today is Cyber Monday.

Many people will be doing their holiday shopping online today. Be sure to take advantage of it!

If you followed my previous post titled Cyber Monday Marketing Ideas for 2007, then you had better be following up with an email this morning to your customer base.

If you did not follow that post, there is still time to take advantage of this holiday shopping rush. It doesn’t matter what you do, but you gotta do something!

Cyber Monday Marketing Ideas for 2007

We all know the day after Thanksgiving - dubbed Black Friday, is considered one of the busiest shopping days of the year. It marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season in the United States.

Well, back in 2005, Shop.org coined the phrase Cyber Monday as the first Monday following Thanksgiving.

Since that time online retailers have realized the sales potential of this busy e-commerce shopping day when many users are searching the internet looking for the best deals on merchandise to fill their holiday wish lists.

Cyber Monday marks the first major increase in online holiday spending as people go back to work after the Thanksgiving weekend and begin to think about how to get a jump on their holiday shopping. What a better place to do it than online while at their computer.

Cyber Monday Sales Forcast

During 2006, ComScore Networks reported Cyber Monday sales rose 25% versus the previous year to around $608 million. 2007 hopes to see more of the same.

Although there are other days of the holiday shopping season which see traditionally have seen more sales, this internet shopping day gets most of the attention. It provides increased buying power for consumers along with increased sales opportunity for merchants and is a time of the year that shouldn’t be overlooked.

So, with millions being spent online and the holidays quickly approaching, what can you do to help increase sales from your online store during Cyber Monday?

Here are a few Marketing Tips for Cyber Monday

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Holiday Promotions in Full Swing Right?

Not a long post here, more a reminder than anything.

It’s November 1st, and if you haven’t already started promoting items for the upcoming holidays, you better start now.

Go to almost any store, and you’ll see holiday display starting to poke their heads up (I’ve already seen a number of them for the past few weeks).

Really, holiday promotion should start in October (beginning is a good time). You’ll catch the early birds looking for a deal, and you’ll be ahead when the rest of them come calling.

The point is, if you haven’t thought about promoting for the holidays yet, you need to start. You’re already a few weeks behind, but it’s not too late!

Run some “Early Bird” specials, give some “Don’t Delay” discounts, use some nice banners to really set the mood. As I always say, it doesn’t matter what you do, but do something!

Until next time.

Shipping Promotions That Drive More Sales

As many of you already know, I constantly reinforce testing being the key to much success.

Recently, I tested out several shipping methods between a number of client sites. The objective was to find out which promotion had the best impact on sales.

The benefit of my testing it across multiple sites was that I got a better sampling and thus truer picture of what really had the biggest impact on sales.

Together, these sites combined for a great sampling with a unique monthly visitor count of well over 19,000 during the two month testing period.

So, what type of shipping promotions were tested?

1. Flat rate shipping on anything ordered. “One Price. Unlimited Items.”
2. Flat rate shipping combined with “Rush / Overnight Shipping”
3. Free Shipping on orders amounts over certain amount
4. Free Shipping on everything in stock
5. Free Shipping combined with Rush / Overnight Shipping
6. Real-Time Shipping quotes from various carriers

Each of these were rotated over a weeks time across the sites.

Depending on the amount of traffic your site receives, you may need to run test longer to get a proper sampling. Generally, the more traffic you get to a site, the shorter time it takes to test and gather results. Just make sure your margin of error is large enough to warrant a “winner”.

And the winner is …

After testing, the hands down winner that had the best impact on sales was offering Free Shipping for orders over a certain amount. In fact, offering Free Priority Mail shipping for all orders over a certain amount produced even better results - even when the price of the product was increased to cover that margin.

Yes, it’s true, you heard me right. Offering free shipping while at the same time increasing the price of certain products to cover that shipping cost still resulted in an increase in sales.

What is one thing all shoppers want?

No, it’s not a trick question. Ok, I’ll tell you. They want their product fast, and they want it free.

Wouldn’t you?

So, playing on that psychological thinking, the following terminology was tested when offering Free Priority Mail shipping on orders over a certain amount. When added, it too had an almost instant impact on sales.

“Get it Fast. Get it FREE!”

How can this be?

Free Shipping has a powerful psychological impact on online buyers. This can be especially true if your product can be found at a “local brick and mortar store.”

The testing revealed that in some cases, online buyers will even overlook the price of an item to get free shipping. This of course will vary between buyers and industries (more price conscience buyers in industries with “common” products can be “price sensitive” when making buying decisions) however, the overall consensus remains the same.

Free Shipping works and oftentimes is even expected as an option by online buyers. If you’re not offering it to your buyers, you should start.

The impact on sales summarized

Why Free Shipping with conditions (for orders over a certain amount?)

Well, free shipping alone is nice - and works. Free shipping for orders over a certain amount can achieve two things:

1. Increases the number of overall sales from a store
2. Increases the Average Order Value

Both of the above cause growth in your company while at the same time satisfying your customer wants and needs.

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