The wishlists are as mile-long as the products ready to go in the check out at the speed of a click, everyone is hunting for the bargain, while there are those who are torn between necessary purchases and eagerness of the moment.
Black Friday is almost as eagerly anticipated as Christmas, and is an incredible sounding board for companies to highlight products that are now a workhorse, as well as beneficial bundles or future promotions.
Surfacing in this ocean of discounts, coupons, free shipping and free products is really a feat and it's not all the algorithm's fault.
In this article we have summarized some thoughts and best practices shared during Ninja PRO Week, in which power2Cloud also participated as a speaker. In short, an opportunity to recap some of the cornerstones of online selling, the evergreen ones, which we need to take into account all year round, in order to seize the new challenges in eCommerce, social media marketing, digital marketing and marketing automation.
How ready are we? Let's find out together.
The traditional funnel has fallen apart, in its place the flywheel effectively illustrates that contact with a product and interaction with a company can take place in a store, continue on social, site, TV, Amazon, and then return to the flagship.
This is why we must not forget that through cross channel marketing we can use one channel, to produce incremental effects on another, while continuing to consider all interactions and our touchpoints important.
Knowing the main drivers that drive people to use the Internet is important, even when it seems obvious. According to the digital We are social report, people between the ages of 16 and 64 prefer the net to search for information, information including news and events, tutorials, new inspirations, followed by travel and location searches.
If, on the other hand, we ask how discovery of new brands takes place, the answer is simple, thanks to search engines, TV, ads, online retail sites, word of mouth, or the purchase of products online. Aspect that is reconfirmed by the investments of paid campaigns on the various channels, divided between CRM platforms and social media.
"Black Friday every year repeats itself," analyzes Roberto Albanese, eCommerce Manager Hirooks - , but still many people overlook many aspects or take care of them when it's too late. Here's a to do list to follow to launch promotional events, at Christmas, Valentine's Day or other special occasions."
Let's start with strategy: plan promotions as early as possible! Many consumers are waiting for Black Friday, so they start checking for price swings and deals as early as October. Choose the products with the greatest appeal and the extent of promotions early enough to highlight them properly. The perception of a palatable offer is the strongest buying leverage for customers during Black Friday.
The planning and organization must follow the timeline, because it helps build a long-term strategy, which begins with communications around Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but actually "ends" with the winter sales in January.
Also the discount mechanics is not a detail, you can establish catalog pricing rulesto assign discounts by category, brand, supplier, attribute or feature and cart rules,sending custom discount codes on orders, quantities or promoting free shipping and here, beware of cumulability of discounts.
Next we come to the curation of online content to thehome page banners or to thelanding pages which can index over time and therefore need to be updated throughout the year.
Great appeal also have countdowns, product page optimizations and reviews in highlights, which offer a signal of trust, while out-of-stock items encourage users to be notified if they are back in stock. Also effective arecross-selling and upselling recommendations to incentivize users to add more products to cart.
If next to your workhorses you want to promote products that have a large profit margin and that perhaps you usually struggle to push, use exclusive bundles by product category or discounted bundles.
Also contributing to hype aremarketing communications such as newsletters, with which you can anticipate major discounts or plan your promotional campaign. It is an ongoing interaction, which certainly does not end with a single mailing.
To be liked, before, during, and after, it must be in line with the interests of the receiving user, who will be incentivized to follow updates on the site, saving desired products.
Next we come to paid campaigns to highlight discount codes or products on the Merchant Center. Google Ads or Facebook Ads initiatives will perform better if you start planning them early, a proper learning period in fact creates more return.
For social media better to focus on storytelling, telling promos in the first person with more frequent posts and stories, creates more empathy in your community and is less anonymous.
Sponsoring content certainly is fair, but on Black Friday days ADSs cost more than usual, because there is a lot of competition, so leave on time.
Whether it's a blog article or a product tab in eCommerce, enhancing your content is done by SEO, an approach that rewards content in organic over paid content.
"To help Google index the richest and most useful content, remember not to underestimate duplicate content, a major pitfall of eCommerce," warns Gaetano Romeo CMO Innovation People.
"What is duplicate content? Not only that of two identical product sheets, which we are often aware we have generated, but also those that many CMSs create.
Beware then ofinternal and external duplication and thin content, that is, content of little value and quality.
Market players are many, we cannot afford to have nonexistent or even nondescript product sheets, welcome original and above all useful content.
Google is constantly updating, but it has always had one goal, to favor the end user!"
Internal duplications can be caused by both internal and editorial causes. How can we handle them?
It may be useful not to allowscanning of commonly used URL parameters via the /robots.txt file, in order to maximize the search budget by indexing.
The canonical help search engines understand that there is only one version of the url on the page that needs to be indexed, regardless of the versions of other URLs displayed in the browser that are linked to external Web sites.
We also caution against the session ID in URLs that many eCommerce companies use to track user behavior and that actually creates duplicate.
Other aspects to take into account are the external duplications given by the carrels and thanksgiving pages,internal search engine results, duplicated paths(think of a product that results in two different categories), andreview pages.
Outside our eCommerce, we also don't forget staging of development, feed of products, affiliate programs,content on other sites made by us and scaped content.
.When it comes to online sales, many consider MarketPlaces as a springboard, which are often responsible for amplifying opportunities for business, see internationalization of sales. Here are the tips from Giuseppe Noschese, Founder of eCommerce Hub.
The choice is arduous and challenges MarketPlace horizontal, with multiple merchandise categories (see Amazon), those vertical, with one merchandise category or niche (Zalando), open, with self-subscription and product uploading (eBay) or closed, where sellers are chosen and variable terms and conditions are defined (ManoMano).
It may seem obvious to say, but Amazon is the MarketPlace that has the most traffic in Italy (Source NetComm), has so many sales and consequently so much data.
While it is true that today Amazon is a place where you can acquire useful information for sales strategies,you should not exclude other ecosystems, which is why tests and evaluations are really appropriate.
A MarketPlace can ensure your business visibility in the marketplace with immediacy, just upload products and intercept new customers predisposed to purchase.
Many companies also prefer to focus on MarketPlaces for faster access to international markets.
Everything is already arranged, translations and logistical organization, without underestimating another important aspect, defined and calculable costs, accurate and timely payments.
An important tool, therefore, also to validate branding, verify product potential and increase awareness. An undisputed advantage, to approach new customers and pursue advanced strategies with respect to products, pricing and presence, with analysis of competitors, old and new.
Now we come to the cons. Presiding over a MarketPlace also means adaptability, complying with rules, adapting to obligations, but the biggest limitation perhaps is the fact that customers remain from the MarketPlace and the level of customization is low.
It takes time to get a good reputation, because the perception of our company is low, the competition high, especially in certain areas.
You need to do an industry analysis, study product pricing, and especially consider thevolatility of the service, because the company account can be deactivated at any time, causing a sudden loss of data and revenue.
Imagine MarketPlaces as a modern trojan horse: even those with their own production can use them temporarily to validate the market and retrieve useful data for an appropriate eCommerce strategy.
Ahybrid use can be effective for many realities if this step is followed by careful analysis. Indeed, we have internal, external tools and sales data to help us redesign our offerings, encouraging sales and upsells.
Here are some considerations you may not have weighed in on yet.
Analysis of traffic estimates by country and statistics released annually help you identify which countries have the largest market for your merchandise sector. While sales estimates for specific categoriesallow you to enhance the products you have in your catalog or those you can easily integrate on your eCommerce.
Same for the volume of product sales that you can promote by planning marketing activities, with attention to seasonality in different markets.
Average sales price of a product category and product pricing trends are perfect for defining a proper strategy, while organic and paid placement is boosted by estimating traffic volume, which helps us optimize product sheets and study campaigns focused on specific keywords. Feedback and best-reviewed products remain the thermometer of sentiment for brand growth.
Then let's turn to the internal tools, those sentinels that allow you to better organize your strategies.
The organic positioning surely indicates the keywords that drive the most traffic to your product or eCommerce and that you can use for your item cards. While with internal advertising you can discover new keywords, categories or products that encourage sales of your products, to optimize the ones you have on your eCommerce.
By analyzing what is purchased or what products ours carry, you can expand the catalog with cross selling activities. Of course you can go on and on. You can find out, for example,trends related to your business (Ads, editorial content...), the best-selling or most effective productsverifying the ratio of impressions to conversions to have a benchmark to use to plan targeted marketing actions on specific products (Google Ads and Shopping campaigns, Digital PR etc).
Sales data are also very important.
Start focusing on internationalizing your eCommerce products by starting with the references that are best-selling in a specific country.
By analyzing orders, you can discover buying preferences (cross selling)or the most effective product variables,which you can add as bundles within the MarketPlace or on your eCommerce.
To build loyalty and diversify your business model, don't also neglect theaverage time to repurchase by valuing marketing activities, automated workflows, or subscription plans on certain products.
While feedback and returns data help to optimize the product sheet, implement FAQs, and identify critical issues that can allow you to improve the quality delivered. Geographic data and customer type is also not to be overlooked, because it allows you to convey geolocated marketing activities online and offline.
How to increase results on social? Calogero Sciabbarrasi, Digital Marketing Manager, Accenture Song, explains it with three practical tips.
First, start setting goals,prioritizing content quality over quantity so the budget can be planned on those that make a difference.
How to rethink the role of social across the internal funnel and optimize the budget?
We often say that digital has killed TV, that Facebook is better than Tik Tok, this juxtaposition between the channels is counterproductive, have to work synergistically if you want to get higher ROIs.
The 60/40 ratio, which ideally divides brand building and performance communication, would seem to represent the perfect balance for determining the ideal budget share to allocate for digital and traditional marketing.
To achieve the goal, one must understand the language and mindset of the user on each platform anddifferentiate the message, so no to copy and paste.
But what are the social trends that we should expect in 2023? We are answered by Nicola Zanata, Hootsuite Senior Customer Success Manager, with research conducted by Hootsuite, which values social trends, social marketing, social commerce and social customer care.
This report is based on a survey* (*data was supplemented with secondary research The Harvard Business Review, McKinsey, Deloitte, Edelman, Insider Intelligence, Forrester, GlobalWebIndex, The CMO Survey, and others) that surveyed more than 10k people, including 32% C level, in 109 countries and across more than 11 industries as of July 2022.
The research found that in 2023, SMEs will become more familiar with content creators, which will be more accessible and useful for marketers to produce content consistently (52 percent), combating declining organic reach (44 percent).
The goal will be to target the most related audience, generating value with their content and breaking the patterns of cross-posting (different posts for different platforms).
While it is true that Google has always been the benchmark for searches, things are changing: socials are overtaking search engines, 16- to 24-year-olds prefer them for doing brand research over traditional search engines.
The phenomenon shows no signs of slowing down: companies must learn to increasingly capitalize on about one-third of the time people spend online on social platforms, and that goes far beyond advertising.GenZ, for example, uses social not only to evaluate products, but also to compare prices of competing brands and make purchasing decisions.
Another interesting piece of news that emerged from the research is that marketers are working to create more trust in social shopping,thanks to easy returns and refunds, ratings and reviews to increase trust and keep shoppers informed about the status of purchases throughout the customer journey.
It is true that marketers are tasked with working on brand awareness, but ignoring customer service activities can be counterproductive, which is why in 2023 we will see anincreasing focus on managing customer interactions through social and messaging channels.
"More accurate data can help us do our jobs better," invites Francesco de Nobili, LinkedIn Trainer, to reflect, recalling some features of the professional platform that can impact every business. Have you already started using them for your strategies?"
LinkedIn has updated the list of industries, i.e., the sector to which each company belongs (here you can see the full one).
Valuing this field is also important for retargeting advertisement activities, it makes a difference to be even more precise in targeting.
But it doesn't end there. Now you can publish, share and sponsor documents (file size cannot exceed 100 MB and 300 pages. Supported files are: PPT, PPTX, DOC, DOCX and PDF), datasheets, whitepapers, catalogs.It is very useful for lead generation, in B2B, in the luxury sector, but also for other verticals in general.
Depending on your goals you have two opportunities:to show the full document to download it (this lets you know the number of downloads and interactions), or preview, with the option of releasing the whole document only after filling out the native LinkedIn form. Data compilation is automatic, fast, correct, and complete with strategic data that is enhanced on the platform.
Think about how much data you collect offline.
One of LinkedIn's latest updates offers the ability to upload the information you monitor offline (events, in-person transactions, phone calls, sales into your CRM)on the platform to help you more accurately measure the effectiveness of the funnel for your campaigns. This helps focus LinkedIn targeting on the right audience, improving ROI and optimizing performance.
Manually upload your offline data to "Campaign Management" using a CSV file or set up a data connection using a partner app such as HubSpot, LeadsBridge, LiveRamp, Adverity and Make.
Enriching data collected offline is easier and more reliable. Thanks to LinkedIn you can cross-reference with first and last name, job title, experience, other important information that we can't get today for example due to Cookie restrictions, so you can better target audiences, solicit higher and impactful conversions.
Although it has been active for more than a year, Employee advocacy LinkedIn,is still a poorly understood feature and therefore deserves further study.
Employee advocacy LinkedIn puts employees at the center, the true protagonists of corporate life, able to convey authority, values, trust and generate networking.
You can create drafts available to employees' personal profiles that they then only need to post. Sharing a post is not the same, in fact, copy and paste on social penalizes the post especially if no text is added. It generates quantity and not quality and therefore has less visibility.
Corporate content posted on personal profiles is rewarded by the algorithm, which penalizes corporate ones instead, plus the links they display will continue to be on target with the campaign goals.
Great results can be achieved by promoting a corporate culture!
"Optimizing the tracking of our website, explains Felice Carotenuto, Tracking Specialist - helps us understand what actions to pursue, how to allocate advertising budgets, monitoring the performance of our products before we get to the sale."
In recent years we have become accustomed to making up for the lack of data due to two phenomena: the introduction in 2016 of the GDPR and the iOs14 update, which actually decreased campaign performance significantly.
Sending correct user information to advertisment platforms helps us optimize ads to show them to the best possible audience.
Unfortunately platforms have given us the tools such as the conversion API Facebook, Google Server-Side.
You should monitor tracking tags such as Google Analytics 4, Google Ads, Meta Pixel, Conversion API, Tik Tik pixel and link them to events such as pageview, view content, add to chart begin checkout or purchase. Getting help from tracking debug tools, different depending on the tools, such as Tag assistant (Google), Analytics Debug, Facebook Pixel Helper.Automatizing recursive marketing processes and communicating with leads, prospects, buyers, and customers by adapting to their channels of preference, responses to stimuli, and their actions and habits is vital, not only for purchase-related interactions, but also for service.
Tied with content marketing, marketing automation ranks first among the most effective digital marketing techniques (Source: Statista 2021).
"The goal of marketers is to use every cartridge at their disposal to achieve business goals, but you must also consider the hidden dangers behind marketing automation-he warns Ignazio Morici, Marketing Director power2Cloud-and that can negatively impact your audience."
The email marketing is part of automation; the numbers recorded during Black Friday are significant: 13.9 percent of consumers refer to emails for information on deals and promotions; the open and click rate skyrockets compared to other times of the year, for an estimated more than 225 million emails sent (source: HubSpot, 2021/Campaign Monitor, 2022).
Such a powerful tool is being used by companies to push so many interests, this leads to overcrowding of communication and content." Here are four dangers to consider within marketing automation paths.
Fatigue is that phenomenon that occurs when recipients of a communication stop interacting with campaigns.
This happens because we place them within automations flow that solicits audiences with too many messages, this is not always the case, maybe it is the industry to which our business belongs that does it. Tech and marketing are the most exposed to fatigue, such as eCommerce, think of abandoned cart automations, discount coupons, chat and all the channels or tools we use every day.
Unsubscribers are the contacts within our lists who, after requesting to receive communications from our company, choose and request to stop receiving them. Maybe they come from an off-target campaign or one that solicited them too much.
To be GDPR compliant, it is necessary to have tools that force us marketers to give the user the ability to unsubscribe from our massive communications at any time.
Graymail is a new concept, which is mainly based on inbound methodology. It means those emails that the contact chose to receive, did not mark them as SPAM, but did not interact (11 months) or stopped interacting (16 emails).
Graymails dirty our data and reporting, in fact we risk having penalties on the medium. Should we abandon these contacts? No, we can switch to other types of marketing automation to focus on stated preferences.
There are lots of advanced filters with artificial intelligence, mechanics, and automation on both email and chat that allow the providers and tools we use to identify those that no longer interact with our communications.
Blocklist is a list of servers or domains, which the blocklist manager has identified as SPAM operators. Not all blocklists are created the same way, either by hand or by automation mechanisms and have different filters, so they have different impact.
After this premise, we can conclude that the flow of actions-communications we send is anchored in the context, in the qualitative data of the contacts who interact with us.
If the CRM is not integrated with our channels and for collecting all this information, we have big problems managing segmentations and all the best practices, maybe we can send Black Friday emails, but then we get stuck for months.
Here are six pointers for surviving Black Friday:
"When it comes to a new technology, in order to be innovative, many people push to get it at all costs," explains Giulia Bosi Director of Conversational Content 7HYPE S.r.l. Sometimes it would be enough to stop and understand, before implementing it, what the goals are and the context in which it will be placed to make it effective."
You may remember Clippy, the world's most hated virtual assistant, introduced by Microsoft when chatbots were a mirage and Cortana did not yet exist.
Clippy was the pioneer, and he was always helpful, too bad he couldn't adequately respond to user requests: he couldn't remember information and didn't personalize his interventions in any way.
Can we do better today? Definitely. Coming to our aid are thesocial networks (conversational IG and FB), messaging apps (WA, telegram), digital avatars that can even detect emotions and adapt mimicry to the feeling of the moment, chatbots increasingly used on websites, live chats. The real innovation surely, however, comes from the voicebot, the only case in which it is technology that adapts to humans and not the other way around.
How to choose the right tool? One must keep an eye on the context, demands and mood. Under what conditions will the dialogue take place? When will the conversation take place and what will be the user's attention span?
The voicebot is perfect for assisting those who are driving, for doctors and health care workers, for help (a leisure occasion) at home, for providing caring service to bank customers, or for projects that care about accessibility.
Conversation is probably, to date, the most complex challenge of artificial intelligence. It is necessary to understand user requests in order to act with guided (button-driven) chatbots useful for short conversations, facilitating direct, simple, limited requests, collecting feedback, or engaging one's database with qualitative surveys.
You can choose intelligent chatbots to answer complex questions from users and customers, to provide good customer care service in case of problems, or to collect information about users (lead generation and profiling).
The livechat is undoubtedly among the most human retention channels. It can be added to a site to allow visitors to interact and connect directly with a support member to receive real-time information and advice.
But when does it make sense to do this? When the bot is not smart enough, the user is likely to get nervous and needs more empathy, but also when the conversation is sensitive or needs to be protected by privacy. If the bot has already gathered enough information the conversation can move on to the human assistant who will offer a valuable contact.
Among the useful strategies for creating strong engagement with customers and leads is also viral gamification. "The opportunity can be a quiz with a chatbot (conversational marketing) to encourage interactions, - explains Francesco Susca Marketing Automation Specialist - transforming a game moment into a sales or repurchase opportunity.
It is a perfect tool toprofile contact, automate and personalize interactions, leveraging virality as cost-free advertising.
We can repay sharing on social or with friends with a discount coupon to be spent on the second purchase, guaranteeing the company a repurchase. However, remember the consent to send communications, thus avoiding GDPR penalties."