Background:
Today the only brand differentiator is clearly the end-to-end customer experience that your store from discovery to post purchase. Shoppers are demanding more personalized experiences; this can lead to long term relationship with your brand.
According to an Insider Intelligence report by emarketer, US D2C ecommerce sales have more than tripled in the past six years. The market has grown nearly $100 billion in five years, from $36.08 billion in 2016 to $128.33 billion in 2021. We expect it will add almost another $100 billion in the next three years, reaching $212.90 billion by the end of 2024.
The D2C market still largely exists in the long tail. Most (75.1%) of the D2C merchants in the US were smaller players in the long tail of the market with less than $5 million in web sales. According to a “State of DTC industry report” by Pipe Candy report, more than 60% of the DTC companies did not have a budget for Google Ads in the last 12 months.
Low barriers to entry mean many brands can participate, but few can expect to reach scale.
A memorable experience can convert to brand stickiness and a not-so-great customer experience (CX) can lead to moving on to competition and revenue loss for brands.
Clearly this figure cannot be overlooked. Companies who successfully implement a customer experience strategy achieve higher customer satisfaction rates, reduced customer churn and increased revenues.
What is Customer Experience (CX)?
Customer Experience (CX) and User Experience (UX) are most often used in reference to each other, though they both are distinctively different they work in compliment to each other. Customer Experience is the shopper’s journey and their experience from end to end with your brand. It begins from about hearing of your brand to purchasing your brand and post purchase engagement.
Coming to User Experience (UX) – it is most referred to the interaction with the interface which in this case is the website. It references the seamless digital experience across the various touchpoints of the customer’s journey. Optimal UX helps shoppers navigate smoothly from browsing, to purchase, to payments. To sum this up we can safely say that for the best shopping experience customer experience (CX) and user experience (UX) have to go hand in hand and as a brand custodian you need to ensure it is at the top of its game.
Why is Customer Experience (CX) Management Necessary?
A well-designed customer experience strategy can have impact on business, the better experience your customer has the better are the chances of great product reviews, sharing your brand with friends and family, long lasting loyal customers, and reduces friction of complaints and returns.
a. Reduce Customer Churn
b. Increases Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
c. Boosts Client Satisfaction Rate
Some of the best practices for stellar first purchase experience and retaining customers are:
1. Invest in Ecommerce SEO
Every ecommerce business owner knows that a great SEO content can drive organic traffic to your website. But one necessarily may not know how to convert the same. SEO becomes important for your brands discoverability and visibility. It is the key component that interacts with Google and other search engines to prove relevance of your ecommerce site for shoppers.
With content rich SEO your brand will rank high on the search engine results page (SERP) and appear to shoppers first when they search with relevant keywords associated with your brand. It helps attract better qualified leads that ultimately purchase. Some of the basic investments required for SEO are:
a. Focus on Content Marketing:
Designing your content keeping search engines in mind can help you rank better in search and attract organic traffic. One can use tools like SEMrush to research topic and keywords. This tool can help you discover the key topics pertaining to your brand. It also helps develop a structure to the content you would like to create.
One must also keep in mind that grouping topical content gives topical authority and helps position you as an expert in that field to search engines.
Also highlighting your most important pages as pillar pages and position them as the pages that should rank for competitive and high-volume keywords.
At no point should one decide to stop writing or upgrading the existing content on your site, which includes blogs. Search engines also keep a track of how often does one publish new content, this can be detrimental when one slacks and doesn’t publish regularly. Keeping a publishing schedule can help tackle this. Each new piece published on your site signals potential new topics and new keywords to the list of searches that brings in the traffic.
b. Ensure the Presence of Backlinks:
Backlinks are external links; in simple terms it is a link on one website that directs to your website. Backlinks are evidence of excellent material that has the support of other websites, according to search engines like Google. Pages with more backlinks can rank higher on SERPs (search engine results pages).
Earning authoritative backlinks is one of the most important signals that Google considers for ranking content. High quality backlinks can be created with trust and popularity. If a high-quality website with excellent reputation links back to your site, Google considers this as a vote of confidence. Reputation management is necessary when it comes to toxic backlinks too, one could use backlink audit tool to review your backlinks and identify potential toxic or unnatural links.
c. Build a Robust Website Architecture:
The framework of your ecommerce site should be search engine optimized for better navigation. Your sites architecture is about how the pages and posts are grouped. It is how the content is presented to shoppers as well as search engines. A healthy website architecture will enable search engines to crawl through pages seamlessly and understand what the sites offering is. The website architecture will keep in mind URL structures, navigation menus, categorizations, internal Links. Keeping in mind that the key function of content and website architecture is to push shoppers through the sales funnel step by step seamlessly.
d. Focus on Image Optimization:
When determining which website to rank for a certain search query, Google considers over 200 variables. While having a well-optimized image will not help you rank first for inadequate content, it will help you stand out from other sites that do not optimize their images.
Why is Image Optimization Important?
It is important as well optimized images definitely rank higher on google and can drive better traffic to your site. Other benefits also include site speed, an image that’s large or formatted incorrectly can cause a slow down on your site. This can hamper the user experience or customer experience resulting in visitors bouncing out or leaving your website.
e. Technical SEO
Search engines give websites with particular technical qualities better treatment in search results for example, a secure connection, a responsive design, or a quick loading time and technical SEO is what you can ensure for great customer experience. Some technical SEO tips to keep in mind would be:
f. Build a Mobile Optimized Website
Keeping in mind this data, one must ensure a responsive site that automatically adjusts and responds to mobile and desktop versions. Google also makes it very clear about a responsive site having a better ranking, with googles mobile first approach, a responsive site is extremely important to take note of.
g. Website Speed
Maile Ohye, tech Lead at Google states that “2 seconds is the threshold for ecommerce website acceptability. At Google, we aim for under a half-second.” By monitoring your page bounce rate on google analytics and page load time, you can continue to enhance your website to serve your customers better.
h. Fix Duplicate Content Issues
Duplicate content can be a confusing for your customers, it can be a deterrent in user experience, and also hamper your search engine algorithms.
i. Use Site Map generators to create Site XML
By using site map generators one can create XML Sitemaps which helps search engines to understand your website clearly when it crawls through it. It identifies and locates to it each product page and what it contains. Its almost like a road map for search engines. It also give useful information about when the page was last updated, what are the priority pages and how frequently does updating take place.
2. Create Strong Product Offers
How do the best of brands develop attractive must buy offers? They do so by studying past purchase history. By using data generated by past sales it can help you create a strategy for what customers would like to buy into. Some of the insights that you can get through such data are the follows.
a. What items certain customers buy certain items? Do they buy at particular times
b. What percentage are repeat buyers, and how many might you need to entice back by offering coupons, deals, or exclusive sales?
c. Are there products that consistently outperform all others? What about items that never seem to sell at all? Do customers commonly buy certain products together?
d. Analyzing product sales trends gives you the information you need to offer the right products to the right people. It can also inform how you organize your store website.
By developing attractive product bundles, cross sell offers and upselling at the right time, one can create higher retention of customers. Product offerings should resonate with what the demand of your target audience is can help boost sales and create brand loyalty. A strong product offering will always differentiate you from your competitor.
Ways to Build Strong Product Offers
Sometimes it can get overwhelming for shoppers to browse and understand individual product offerings, it also can be time consuming that can lead to site abandonment. Creating strong product offers eliminates the need for research of products, thus when products are offered in attractive and price competitive manners there is definitely a valuable customer experience with your brand.
a. Build a clear USP
By creating a USP, it helps in creating a perceived value about your brand. No two brands customer experience may be the same, the experience you deliver to your customer should be perceived to be unique that one cannot find with any other brand. You may be able to offer a hero product or offering that no one else has been able to offer, customer friendly policies for higher satisfaction, initiatives to thank and engage customers. A clear USP results in improved customer experience for your brand as it results in improving trust and build brand credibility.
b. Focus on Bundling Offers
Grouping products together in pure bundles instead of selling them at individual price points is bundling. This offers shoppers a better value on purchase and some decent amount of savings instead of buying individual products. The more products a customer buys at once, the higher the average order value (AOV) will be at checkout. For example the shopper is looking for anti-ageing products on your site, instead of spending too much time on search and reading individual products one should offer a bundle that can include an anti-ageing skin care regime for mornings and evenings. Bundled products result in offering convenience and value as well as time savings resulting in an enhanced customer experience.
c. Building Cross-Selling Offers
A selling technique, that offers related or complimentary products along with products they are deciding to purchase or have already purchased. It helps shoppers find solutions to the problem. By cross-selling across your product portfolio, DTC stores not only enhance the user experience but also provide a personalized experience to customers. This not only helps in high retention but also increases customer lifetime Value (CLV).
For example, when a shopper buys a mascara, an example of a cross-sell offer could be an eye makeup remover. Since the customer is familiar with the brand and might have wanted an eye makeup remover earlier, she might instead choose to pick-up both. The store offers a 20% discount for every additional product bought resulting in both increase in cost savings, time and convenience. The world’s top DTC brands use Rebuy personalization platform to fuel data-driven shopping experiences and win more customers. To know more about Rebuy click here.
d. Leverage Up-Sell Offers
Upsell offers are a post purchase strategy that helps in driving up personalization and increasing customer experience. This tactic helps in offering more value to your customer and builds in customer loyalty. For example, if a customer purchases a protein powder from your store, you would send a post purchase offer and upsell it to a monthly subscription. The customer sees value in investing, as he sees a visible price difference in buying it monthly vs subscribing it monthly by committing to a long-term purchase. This results in improving brand trust and ultimately increasing customer experience.
3. Focus on Demand Generation
Demand generation is a marketing strategy, which helps in building brand awareness for the purpose of generating high quality leads. It is any activity that leads to interest or awareness about your brand or a service that helps build a sales pipeline. It includes various touchpoints for user experience like content, awareness, brand recognition, information, brand positioning which helps the shopper understand your brand better and finding the match for their needs. Some of the demand generation strategies that can help shoppers have a better customer experience at your store are listed below:
a. Identify Your Target Audience:
With well-defined personas one can reach out with personalization to what customers are seeking for. For this one must understand who their target audience actually is to be able to make that offering. The three simple questions one must ask are Who are your ideal prospects? How do they make buying decisions? What are their pain points?
b. Develop top of funnel content:
A first-time shopper is new to your brand; he requires more insight and education. Therefore, its important that the content targets consumers who are beginning their journey with your brand. Your job as a brand is to give this new user an enriching experience which brings about information and solution that he is looking for. The content should lead authority in the space you are in and position your brand as a thought leader. This enhances consumer experience, builds brand awareness and consideration for the brand.
c. Segment Your Leads:
It is important to score high quality leads for conversions. This can be done by understanding your visitor and customer behavior data. One can analyze the actions of such leads. Some of the actions to analyze and determine high value leads are specific pages visited, product demonstration videos watched, content shared with social or others, read content put out by brand, followed social handles, this can help segregate between quality and quantity of lead.
d. Social Media and Community Building:
For a variety of reasons, it is critical to build a strong community for your brand. It can assist in gaining crucial customer feedback on how to enhance your products and services. It can also increase consumer loyalty by allowing them to interact with your brand on a regular basis. Building a strong community, however, also involves extending advocacy, as customers begin to speak your brand’s praises outside of virtual barriers. Its no surprise that social media is huge for reaching potential buyers.
According to a Pew Research Centre Report 2021, 84% of US adults aged from 18 to 29 are active social media users This number falls slightly to 81% for the 30-49 year old age group and further to 73% for those aged 50 to 64. US adults who are 65 years old and above use social media the least. Some of the best practices for building a community are:
e. Leverage Social Media
People are already interacting with various subcultures on social media, making it the ideal platform for fostering strong bonds. As a result, go where your audience is. Instead of your brand doing all the talking, enlist the help of your community members to promote your brand on social media. The most authentic discussions and advocacy can only be led by your customers and social media is a great platform to do so. This will not only enhance brand recognition but also generate advocacy in an organic way. Social media also helps in ultimately increase consideration and improve customer experience for the DTC brand.
f. Focus on Product Reviews
Reviews are priceless when it comes to brand building. Because they come from your real customers, positive reviews give your brand more credibility and provide social proof, ultimately increasing conversion rates.
According to an Invespcro study, 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations and 72% of consumers will take action after reading a positive review. Today’s customers love responsive brands, when you engage with a customer who has reviewed your product whether positive or negative, their expectations are met in customer experience.
g. Leverage User Generated Content:
Co-create content with your customers. This is a great marketing strategy as it reduces time, resource and money needed and helps build community by engaging them. Community members become your influencers creating high engaging, honest and authentic content.
h. Affiliate Marketing:
Your community members become your best brand endorsers. They start speaking to their audiences and this leads to affiliate networks for your brand. This can be paid or organic. This definitely helps reach your brand to additional audience and increase in traffic to your site.
3. Invest in the right tools and technology
Deploying the right tools is also a part of the building a solid customer experience strategy. With a strong CX strategy one can invest minimally to begin with and help customers enhance their experience with the brand in-store and online. Choosing the right tool become essential, one should be able to help customers interact with the brand seamlessly from start of their journey with the brand. Customer behavior should be monitored, real-time feedback sought and used as an input to better serve the customers need. Investing in tools like the below would go a long way in providing consistent brand experiences to your customers both in terms of service quality as well as the product offering.
a. Live Chat:
This helps brands give customers real time information to any questions they may have while they interact with your brand from browsing to purchase. It also helps in understanding and collecting user behavior data.
b. Google Forms:
Create a form to see if potential participants meet the criteria for your research study. Add targeted questions, such as name, role, observation, and time. When responses come in, you can send them automatically to a spreadsheet and easily filter key user journeys, pain points, and other important results.
c. Google Analytics:
Look at user data from GA to identify key patterns that drive conversions to understand your core audience. Collect data from primary dimensions like demographics and interests, and secondary dimensions like age and gender. You can also use GA for cohort analysis, which is all about breaking users down into groups (cohorts) and studying each group’s behaviour.
i. Heatmap Tools: Tools like Hotjar are heatmap tools that help you identify opportunities by understanding user behavior and enhancing user experience on your site.
ii. CRO Tool: Tools like Omniconvert help your brand with A/B testing, advanced segmentation, exit intent overlays, API access.
iii. Survey Tools: With survey tools, one can launch a survey on a specific webpage or after a user takes a specific action, limiting surveys to specific user segments. This takes the guesswork out of user experience by finding out exactly what users need or think, in their own words.
5. Invest in an effective Conversion Rate Optimization Strategy:
An effective conversion rate strategy is critical to ecommerce growth. Let’s explore some of the steps to developing an effective conversion strategy for your business. Keep this checklist on hand to make sure your team is working with a focus on strategy first and tools second.
a. Begin with a goal in mind:
Its important to know where you want to go before you can find the right path to get there. Your conversion strategy should include an AB testing roadmap that aligns with what you want to discover and improve. Your objectives for an A/B testing roadmap might include:
i. improve conversion rate to purchase
ii. increase average order value
iii. increase new product engagement
b. Do your research, and do it often!
Focus on getting to data that matters. When doing research, ask yourself what specific data is important to get to your goal, how should one measure the data to get to the goal and what the data tell me about how this data can improve conversion rate and customers.
c. Clearly Identify Your Ideal Customer:
When identifying your target audience, don’t limit yourself to demographic details like age and location alone. Dig deeper to find out psychographics as well. This will help you build up a three-dimensional image of a customer and ensure every piece of your marketing strategy and every message you send resonates with them.
d. Amplify your USP:
Dig deep to uncover and fine-tune your USP. How are you different from your competitors? Why should someone choose you over them? Even if you supply a commodity, there’s something different about you that will appeal to your ideal customers. Does your location and inventory allow you to guarantee on-time deliveries?
5. Establish KPIs:
One you take a close look at the sales funnel from the moment they find out about you to when they visit your website, browse your inventory, load up a shopping cart, and proceed to payment and checkout and beyond – then. Some of the key metrics are Click-Through Rates (CTRs), Average Order Value (AOV), conversion rate of a page and abandoned cart rate.
6. Uncover friction points:
Define the various stages of the customer journey that your customer would experience when browsing through your website.
a. Identify the desired action you would want them to take in an ideal scenario
b. Now create a customer journey map at each stage of the customer lifecycle
c. Identify and implement the key touchpoints at each stage of the journey
d. Understand and identify the friction points that prevent customers to move from one sales stage to the next
e. Implement a UI,UX and content optimization framework that aims to help educate, empower and inspire customers to make a choice and take the next action. Remove friction points and customer objection.
f. Build an effective conversion strategy around your biggest problems first: determine which areas of your website are most affecting sales. There are several ways you can discover where the sticky points are on the site.
i. Heat Mapping shows you where visitors click and spend the most time per page
ii. User Testing invites visitors to share feedback about the user experience
iii. Google Analytics shows you where visitors are dropping off
6. Focus on Funnel Based Conversion Strategy:
A conversion funnel is the various stages of a customer’s journey while navigating your ecommerce website. The number of users that visit your ecommerce store is not the same as the number of customers that make it to the end of the journey. The journey from the top of the funnel to the bottom would involve browsing product pages, to adding products to the cart and then making a final checkout and payment. Funnel optimization is the process of fine-tuning a sales funnel and its stages for the highest acquisition, conversion and retention of prospective customers.
The AIDA model helps you understand and segregate your customers into the various stages of the funnel:
a. Awareness: At this step, you’re letting prospective prospects know who you are, what you have to offer, and how you’re distinct.
b. Interest & Evaluation: At this point, your prospects are determining if your product or service will meet their needs.
c. Desire: During the Desire stage, your prospects are more interested in what your company has to offer, including different options and pricing, in order to make a final purchase decision.
d. Action: The prospects are about to become paying clients and are eager to give you their business.
7. Nurturing and Segmenting Visitors via Email Marketing:
Emails are the direct line of communication between your brand and your consumers. It’s the most reliable way to engage existing and probable customers via email marketing. Segmentation helps in personalization and engagement by sharing information about brand story, products, offers, education based on preferences they choose. One can easily and broadly segment their email list for better user experience. By not sending bulk mailers to everyone on the list can help in reducing un subscription rates.
Segmentation can broadly be based on:
a. Demographics
b. Age
c. Location
d. Purchase history
e. Device based
f. Email and Website behaviour
g. Type of customer
The best first purchase experience can be enhanced by a welcome email experience. Klaviyo mentions that compared to other marketing emails, welcome emails are more engaging: The average open rate for welcome email series is 46.48% across industries, meaning nearly half of new subscribers or customers open them. This becomes a high potential conversion for loyal customers.
Welcome emails can be segmented as per the following:
a. To build trust in customers
b. Introduction of products and offers
c. Gather customer performance for better user experience
d. Conversion focused with social proof
8. Build Engagement and Loyalty:
With a good rewards program, compelling discounts, personalized offers, first to view and purchase, exclusive deals, customers are most likely to engage with such brands and remain loyal. One can create high engagement loyalty programs by survey and research, by getting to know your customers better a best suited loyalty program can be tailored for your brand.
The expectation of valuable benefits should be kept in mind and that customers are always looking to be treated as VIPs. With investment into a loyalty program one can increase Average order Values (AOV) and Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
Loyalty Programs will give you data on customers likes and dislikes. Thus, data can be used for personalization, which can help in high retention. It can also turn customers into brand advocates which can help reach new audiences and a better user experience with the overall brand.
Concluding Thoughts:
A great user experience for your customer comes from a combination of all of the above, which forms your brands UX design and framework. All of it is necessary in various phases of your customers journey, one must always try and test various aspects of user experience delivered, and act fast on noticing the gaps and even faster to implement. This can help your customers build strong and loyal relationship with your products, and scale revenues considerably.
