In conversation with Jonathan Quin Q&A

In 2004, Jonathan Quin left his high-flying city job to start WorldFirst in a South London basement with a dream of making it easier, faster, safer and cheaper for people and businesses to trade internationally.

15 years later and with a business of over 550 staff, spanning 8 global offices, which has served more than 250,000 businesses and individuals, WorldFirst was acquired by the world’s highest-valued fintech, Ant Financial.

Now, in this webinar aimed at ambitious CEOs, CMOs and CFOs who are looking to expand their cross-border business in 2020/21, Mark Stimpfig, Co-Founder of GTM Global gets to ask Jonathan Quin, now Head of Strategy Ant Financial Europe about:

• Jonathan’s past – How he launched and grew WorldFirst in 2004. And how WorldFirst expanded globally to its purchase by Ant Financial and joining the Alibaba ecosystem in 2019.
• Present – How his new role in Ant Financial supports the vision for making it easier for European companies to do business everywhere.
• Future – What he looks for in a scale-up business as an investor and the growth opportunities selling to international markets can bring.

Mark also talks to Jeff Parker the new CEO at WorldFirst about:

• Jeff’s past – In investment banking and international payments.
• Present – How WorldFirst is nurturing and supporting scale-ups in seamless and innovative cross-border trade.
• Future – How he will be working alongside Jonathan, Ant Financial and the wider Alibaba ecosystem to grow opportunities for globally ambitious businesses.

If you attend the webinar live you’ll be able to ask Jonathan and Jeff questions around:

• Cross-border trade
• Global supply chains
• Digital payments and the importance of localising them
• What it takes to succeed internationally
• What investors look for in start-ups
• The new global normal – post-COVID

This free webinar takes place on Wednesday the 8th of July starting at 11am so register now to reserve your place.

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Wix launch extended ecommerce solution

Website creation platform Wix have announced the launch of their extended ecommerce solution. Wix say that their new ecommerce solution gives all merchants and brands a range of irresistible features that help with branded customization, dropshipping, data and analytics, marketing and more.

“Now more than ever, owners need a comprehensive platform to move every aspect of their business online. Online shopping has entered a stage of hyper growth, and businesses need the resources to meet this increasing demand. From selling products or services and getting paid online, to managing finances, fulfillment, sales channels and more, our new eCommerce functionalities are designed to help our customers sell anything, anywhere.”
– Avishai Abrahami, Co-founder and CEO

The Wix eCommerce solution Features:

The solution includes lot’s of features and tools to help businesses grow and thrive, according to Wix those features include:

• Online store with customizable branded storefront, cart and checkout.

• Access to thousands of high-quality products and seamless dropshipping with Modalyst.

• Multi-language site and in-cart multi-currency convertor.

• Product subscriptions for recurring revenue from product sales.

• Automated sales tax calculations with Avalara.

• Secure payment solutions for a variety of businesses, including CBD, events and more.

• Integrated payment management and competitive payment processing rates with Wix Payments.

• Integrated sales channels including social media and marketplaces.

• Streamlined order and fulfillment management through a single platform.

• USPS shipping integration with up to 70% discount on shipping rates.

• Extensive shipping & fulfillment solutions, including integration with warehousing and 3PL services powered by Corvid by Wix.

• Integration with Ascend by Wix, a complete CRM and marketing product suite.

• Customizable business automations, like abandoned cart recovery.

• Advanced business reports with out-of-the-box reports and the ability to customize or create your own.

• A variety of professional eCommerce partner apps in the Wix App Market.

To help business owners grow and adapt, Wix also launched the Wix eCommerce School where merchants can access live lessons sessions with veteran merchants and agencies.

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Top Dropshipping Niche Ideas for Starting an Online Business in 2020

One of the most defining features of 2020 so far has been the the COVID-19 pandemic. This global event has affected individuals in every walk of life, overwhelming our medical facilities, forcing businesses to shut down, and compelling organizations to move to virtual meetings. While our scientists are putting in the hard work to contain this virus, entrepreneurs everywhere are leveraging ecommerce tools and resources to start home-based businesses and make the best of their time in lockdown.

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How To Grow Your Ecommerce Store With Facebook Messenger Marketing

Facebook Messenger is the #2 most downloaded iOS and Android app of all time and over 1.3 billion people use Messenger every month to communicate with their friends and family.

So if you’ve been on the fence about using Facebook Messenger bots to market your ecommerce store, here are some facts that might tip you over the edge.

• Facebook Messenger is growing at a rate of 600K users per day.
• Facebook Messenger’s reach will eventually include Instagram and WhatsApp users
• Facebook Messenger ads are incredibly cheap right now and cost around $.02 per subscriber
• Facebook Messenger can drastically reduce your customer support costs.

When I first heard about Facebook Messenger marketing, I was skeptical that people would tolerate marketing messages in their inbox. But I was completely wrong!

After using chatbots to market my handkerchief store for the past several years, I discovered that Messenger marketing is significantly more efficient than email.

In fact compared to email, Facebook Messenger offers….

• A 5X increase in open rates
• An 8X increase in click-through rates
• A 3.5X increase in revenue per subscriber

Right now, Facebook Messenger marketing is still in its infancy and there’s a long way to go until this platform becomes saturated. In fact, only 1% of businesses are using chatbots today.

As a result, there is no better time than now to take advantage of Messenger’s incredible benefits for your ecommerce store.

Here’s how I’m using the Facebook Messenger platform to grow my sales..

What Is A Facebook Messenger Bot?

A Facebook Messenger bot is automated messaging software that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to interact with your customers.

Using a tool like ManyChat, you can program your bot to answer questions automatically and save you time and money with customer support. You can also use your bot to gather leads and generate sales on autopilot.

In fact, Facebook Messenger is a lot like email in that you can build up a subscriber list and send broadcasts to your list.

But the key advantage of Facebook Messenger over email is that the open and click through rates are significantly higher.
For example, whenever I receive an email, I rarely open it right away and sometimes I forget about it altogether.

But I always remember to check my Facebook messages. For me, Messenger is a much more personal form of communication that I reserve for friends and family.

To give you an idea of how powerful Facebook Messenger marketing bots can be, here’s a snapshot of a targeted broadcast that reached 1888 people where 292 recipients clicked on the message. The return on ad spend for this broadcast was 13.74X.

The Rules Of Using Facebook Messenger

Now you are probably wondering why I’m quoting “return on ad spend” numbers for Facebook Messenger. After all, shouldn’t sending messages to your subscriber list be free like with email?

The primary difference between email and Messenger is that with the exception of a few cases, Facebook forces you to pay to reach your audience through the use of Facebook Sponsored Message ads.

Here are the exact rules you must obey.

The 24 Hour Rule

You are only allowed to send free promotional messages to a subscriber within 24 hours of their last response. This means that you can not blast your entire subscriber list with random coupons and sales whenever you feel like it.

If you want to send a promotional message outside of the 24 hour window, you have to pay to play. Right now, I’m paying roughly $.02 to reach a subscriber which is very inexpensive.

Non-Promotional Messages

You are allowed to send non-promotional messages for free outside of the 24 hour window but only if they fall under the following guidelines.

• Confirmed Event Update – You can remind a customer of a scheduled event that they opted in to attend
• Post Purchase Update – You can give a customer an update on their order
• Account Update – You can give a customer an update on their account status
• Live Chat Human Update – You can chat with a customer 1 on 1 in real time

Most tools will allow you to send broadcasts to your entire list whenever you feel like it and it is up to you to make sure that you obey the rules.

I’ve seen many companies get away with sending free promotional messages but if you break their rules, Facebook will eventually ban you.

Remember, you are only allowed to send coupon codes and sales after a subscriber has interacted with you within 24 hours or if you pay for Facebook Sponsored Message ads.

Therefore, to avoid getting banned with your free messages, you have to get creative in how you interact with your customers.

For example, instead of outright blasting an offer, you can ask your customers questions to get them to reply during a post purchase update and then follow up with an offer.

But in most cases, you’ll have to pay for ads to reach your entire subscriber base.

Facebook Messenger Automated Ecommerce Flows

Similar to email, you can have your Facebook Messenger bot send automated messages to your customers. As long as the messages you send fall within the 24 window, you can send targeted messages to close the sale.

Here are the automated flows that I’m currently running for my store.

Abandoned Cart Recovery

Whenever a customer starts checkout but doesn’t complete the process, my chatbot will send them an automated message 4 hours later to remind them to finish their order.

In this message, a customer is shown the exact contents of their cart along with a “Checkout Now” button which takes them directly to checkout.

Browse Abandoned Cart Recovery

Whenever a customer looks at a product but doesn’t add to cart, my chatbot will send them an automated message several hours later to remind them to add this item to their cart.

In this message, a customer is shown a picture of the product they were looking at along with a “Shop Now” button which adds this item to their shopping cart.

Order Confirmation

Whenever a customer checks out, I send them a confirmation message and try to entice them to come back and shop for more products if they respond.

I also encourage customers to join our customer loyalty program.

All Of These Flows Make Money On Autopilot

All of the Messenger flows described above make money on autopilot. And because they do not violate any of Facebook’s rules, they can be run indefinitely for free without your intervention.

Here’s a snapshot of how much money these automated flows generated for my store last quarter.

Implement A Facebook Messenger Loyalty Program

Customer loyalty programs are one of the most effective ways to boost customer retention.

And according to Bain and Co, a 5% increase in customer retention can result in a 75% increase in revenue.

For Bumblebee Linens, while only 12% of my customers are repeat, they make up over 36% of my revenues.

Studies have also shown that 69% of customers are influenced by retailers that offer loyalty and rewards programs and 58% shop more often at stores where they’ve joined a loyalty program.

Even though there are many “off the shelf” loyalty programs that you can pay for like Smile.io, if you’re cheap like I am, you can implement a loyalty program for free via Facebook Messenger and build your list at the same time!

How My Messenger Loyalty Program Works

My loyalty program chatbot begins by asking a customer whether they want to join my rewards program. If they click “yes”, they can now be messaged about anything within 24 hours, as per Facebook’s terms of service.

Then, I ask the customer to provide the exact email address that they used to place an order in my store. This is important because email is the primary way I use to track orders.

Once they sign up, I tag them as a loyalty program member and reward them with 50 free bonus points. Their point totals and their email addresses are all stored within ManyChat.

Once a customer places an order, I provide them with a special Messenger link which embeds the order number and passes this information along to ManyChat.

This order number is then stored in a custom “Order Number” field.

If the customer is a member of the loyalty program, ManyChat sends the customer email address along with the order number to my website to verify that it is in fact a valid order.

If the order is valid, then:

• The number of loyalty points is incremented by the last order value.
• The order number is added to the list of redeemed orders in ManyChat. This list is used to ensure that the customer doesn’t try to redeem the same order twice for points.
• The customer is thanked for their order, given their new points total, and invited to check out what prizes they can redeem.

Redeeming Prizes

Redeeming points for rewards is completely automated. When a customer has accumulated enough points to redeem a free prize, they simply click on the reward.

If the customer has enough points, ManyChat pings my website and a coupon code is sent to the customer along with instructions on how to redeem their prize.

If the customer doesn’t have enough points, they are given their point totals and encouraged to continue shopping.

For all of my rewards, I purposely do not include free shipping because I want customers to shop for other items in addition to their prize.

The beauty of this loyalty program is that it’s 100% automated. In addition, I also set up ManyChat to email my customers every 28 days to remind them of their point totals to encourage more shopping!

Use Facebook Messenger To Reduce Customer Support

Every online store has to answer the same repetitive questions and you can use a Messenger bot to reduce your customer support load.

I do this by using keyword automations within Facebook’s messenger bot. This is a tool that recognizes keywords in a customer’s chat entry and responds with appropriate, automated messages.

Here’s an example from my shop.

If a customer types “How long will it take to receive my order” into the Facebook Messenger chat window, they get the following series of responses:

Because customized products in my shop take longer to fulfill, I’ve programmed my messenger bot to first ask the customer if they are purchasing a personalized product.

• If they click “Yes”, they are told that it takes up to five business days for their order to ship.
• If they choose “No”, they are told that their order will ship the following day.

To implement this functionality into your Facebook Messenger bot, you can use ManyChat to recognize certain keywords and answer the majority of your commonly asked customer support questions.

For example, Bumblebee Linens is often bombarded with questions such as:

• Do you ship internationally?
• Do you sell wholesale?
• Do you offer discounts?

We’ve programmed all of these with pre written responses to help alleviate the pressure on our customer service team.

Only if a customer asks a question that we do not have an automated answer for, do we connect them with a member of our customer support team.

As soon as the customer clicks on “Talk to human”, I get a notification in ManyChat that my customer service team needs to act.

How To Grow Your Facebook Messenger Subscriber List

The ability to send broadcast messages and automated flows can not be accomplished unless you get your visitors to opt in to your Messenger bot.

But what’s nice about Facebook Messenger is that a visitor only has to interact with your bot a single time in order for them to become a subscriber. As a result, it is extremely easy to quickly build your subscriber list.

The rest of this article will show you different ways to build your Messenger following for your ecommerce store. You can then use these lists to generate sales, launch products, and get reviews.

Ideally, you should use these strategies in combination with your email gathering efforts. Because Facebook controls the Messenger platform and changes the rules all of the time, I always prioritize email over Messenger.

In fact, here’s what I try to grab in order of priority.

• Email address
• Messenger subscriber
• Push notifications
• Retargeting pixel for Facebook and Google ads

All of these methods allow me to bring customers back to Bumblebee Linens from multiple platforms and shop more.

Method #1: Run A Facebook Messenger Giveaway

Running a Facebook Messenger giveaway contest is probably the fastest way to grow your subscriber list.

The beauty of a Facebook Messenger giveaway is that it’s evergreen, 100% automated and you can gather emails directly within your bot at the click of a button with no typing required.

Especially if you sell on Amazon, you can quickly use a Messenger giveaway to build a following and launch a new listing.

Here’s how to set up a Facebook Messenger giveaway contest:

Step #1: Download my Messenger chatbot conversation flow

Here’s the exact giveaway flow that I’m using for my shop. It might look complicated but you can download it for free by clicking here.

First off, I ask them if they want to enter my giveaway. If they click “yes”, they instantly become a Messenger subscriber.

Step #2: Grab Their Email Address

Then, I grab their email address. The beauty of using Facebook Messenger to gather emails is that your visitor’s email address is automatically populated with the email associated with their Facebook account.

All they have to do is tap on their email to enter.

Step #3: Pick Your Winner

You can use a randomizer to automatically pick your lucky winner directly from within your chatbot after 23 hours.

The winners get instructions on how to redeem their prize automatically from your website, while the losers get a special consolation coupon for your shop.

Overall, I like running Facebook Messenger giveaways over traditional giveaways because they can be started and stopped at any time and it basically runs on autopilot.

Method #2: Add A Live Chat Widget

When someone visits Bumblebee Linens, a live chat window pops up in the lower right corner of the homepage:

If the user goes on to click on the “Chat Now” button, they will see the following options:

As soon as they click on any of the above buttons, they instantly become a Facebook Messenger subscriber.

If you don’t know where to begin to set up a Live Chat bot, try populating your options based on the most frequently asked customer support questions for your ecommerce store.

For example, “Get Delivery Time” and “Check On An Order” represent 70% of the inquiries I get on a daily basis.

Here’s what happens when a user responds to one of these calls to action:

If they click on “Get Delivery Time”, they are taken to a page that tells them approximate delivery times depending on what they order

If they click on “Check On An Order”, they are taken to a page where they can get a detailed status on their order.

If they decide to “Ask A Question”, they are prompted to type out their inquiry or give my customer service team a call.

So far, the Live Chat widget on Bumblebee Linens has generated my business a steady stream of Facebook Messenger subscribers at no cost!

Method #3: Offer A Free Gift On Add To Cart

Another great way to grow your Facebook Messenger subscriber list is to offer a free gift with a checkbox opt-in to your Facebook Messenger bot.

In the above image, I’m offering a free gift if they check the box and click the “Add to Cart” button.

Note: I’m purposely mysterious about what the free gift is and many customers check this box out of curiosity.

This automatically opts them into Facebook Messenger and you can start sending them product and order specific messages!

Method #4: Run Facebook Ads

You can also run Facebook ads to build your Facebook Messenger subscriber list.

Here are some examples of ads that I’ve run for my shop.

This first ad below is a free plus shipping offer for top of funnel customers.

Whenever someone clicks on this ad, they receive the following Facebook message:

As soon as the customer clicks on any button, they immediately become a Facebook Messenger subscriber and are presented with an attractive offer in return.

In this case, after they click on the link, they are taken to a custom landing page where I ask them for their email to take advantage of the free hankie offer.

Running a free plus shipping offer this way is great because you can get a Facebook Messenger subscriber, gather an email address, pixel your visitor for retargeting and obtain a sale.

Method #5: Run Facebook Retargeting Ads

In addition to top of funnel ads, I also run Facebook Messenger retargeting ads to build my subscriber list.

Here’s an example of an ad I’m running to customers who have not purchased in the last 60 days.

Instead of giving away the coupon directly in the ad, you can funnel your visitors through Facebook Messenger to gather a new subscriber in the process.

This way you can contact your customers in the future and automatically remind them to redeem the coupon..

Method #6: Create Facebook Live Videos

If you have a Facebook page for your ecommerce store, you can also gather subscribers whenever someone comments on a post on your page. This works especially well for Facebook Live videos.

While you are giving your live presentation, tell visitors to leave a comment in return for the slides or a special offer.

As soon as a user leaves a comment, they instantly receive a Facebook message and – bingo! – become a subscriber. It’s as simple as that.

However, be careful not to explicitly tell people to comment in the post itself as Facebook will likely reduce the reach of your post.

Method #7: Use A Spin To Win Popup

Customers love to play games. And I love to get their email and a Facebook Messenger subscriber at the same time.

To accomplish this, I created a special spin to win popup for my shop’s website where the customer must redeem their prize via Facebook Messenger.

But the trick is that there are no losing spots on my Wheel of Fortune. In fact, there’s only a 50% chance of winning a coupon code and the conversion rate for this form is 2X higher than a typical coupon form.

Here’s how you can set this up through a Facebook Messenger chatbot:

1. Implement a spin to win Wheel of Fortune popup on your site with a free tool like Privy

2. Ask your customer to leave their email so they can spin the wheel.

If they win, they must click on a link that takes them to your business’ Facebook Messenger chatbot to redeem their prize. In the example below, they need to click on “Yes” to redeem their coupon.

As soon as the customer clicks on “Yes”, they instantly become a Facebook Messenger subscriber.

After they see their coupon, they click on a button that takes them back to checkout with the coupon code automatically applied.

Just make sure you use the “Ref URL” growth tool in ManyChat or your favorite Facebook Messenger chatbot provider to create a separate bot for every prize on your wheel.

Wrapping It All Up

If you haven’t implemented a Facebook Messenger bot for your ecommerce business yet, then you should definitely start now.

The reality is that every customer prefers to interact with your brand in different ways. Some people like to read email. Others prefer Messenger.

But you can’t reach all of your customers unless you can communicate with them everywhere.

If you follow all of Facebook’s rules, Facebook Messenger marketing can be an excellent strategy to bring customers back to your shop for more sales!

Get started now while the platform is far from saturated and ads are still cheap!

The post How To Grow Your Ecommerce Store With Facebook Messenger Marketing appeared first on eCommerceFuel.

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Royal Mail new Chief Commercial Officer announces Inflight delivery options

Royal Mail appear to have a new Chief Commercial Officer and one of his first actions has been to announce new Inflight delivery options for Royal Mail Tracked 24 and 48 hour services.

Not before time either, during the Coronavirus lock down more consumers than ever before have been at home to receive their parcels, but as the country gets back to work people will naturally be leaving their houses more frequently again and missed deliveries will once again start to lower first-time delivery success rates. The new Royal Mail Inflight delivery options aren’t however a response to the pandemic – they’ve been working on them for some time and today’s announcement follows a successful pilot of the service in the South East of England.

How Royal Mail Inflight delivery options will work

When retailers and other customers send items via Royal Mail Tracked, prior to delivery the recipient will receive a notification including an estimated delivery window and the Inflight delivery options. Royal Mail haven’t specified how you’ll receive notifications and ultimately it will depend on the information passed to them by the retailer – but you can expect a combination of mobile text message, emails and notification via the Royal Mail app to be in the mix.

If the receiving customer knows that they may not be at home at that time, the new Inflight delivery options will enable them to request their item is delivered to a safe place or a preferred neighbour instead. The initiative is designed to offer greater convenience for recipients while increasing the number of first-time deliveries.

Following delivery, Royal Mail will also notify the customer when and where the parcel has been left in line with their selected Inflight delivery option. If left in a safe place, Royal Mail will provide a photograph of the parcel in the requested location.

Later this year, Royal Mail will be adding further Inflight delivery options and expanding the range of parcel services it will be available on. Options in the pipeline include arranging for the parcel to be delivered for collection at the customer’s convenience at a Royal Mail Customer Service Point, a local Post Office branch or arranging for the parcels to be delivered on a different day.

Nick Landon, Chief Commercial Officer, Royal Mail

“At Royal Mail we are proud to help our UK customers stay connected during these challenging times. Inflight delivery options have been the number one ask from our sending customers in e-commerce. Giving customers the option to specify where their parcels are delivered – in the event they are not at home to receive them – is just one of the ways we are helping to bring greater convenience to the lives of our customers.”
– Nick Landon, Chief Commercial Officer, Royal Mail

Nick Landon has only this month become Chief Commercial Officer at Royal Mail and now overseas all commercial and service areas for UKPIL and Parcelforce (UKPIL stands for UK Parcels, International and Letters).

Now in his 10th year at Royal Mail, Nick Landon has had various roles including Managing Director Royal Mail Parcels and most recently Chief Customer Officer. It’s safe to say that Nick will be surviving the cull of 2,000 senior leaders and senior managers which will see many of his long serving loyal colleagues leave the business.

It’s now Nick Landon’s job to drive profitable growth as Royal Mail tries to sort out an ecommerce distribution that works whilst still handling letters, so it makes sense for him to be the spokesperson on this announcement. If you have a problem with your Royal Mail account or fall foul of the Revenue Protection bods, ultimately the people you will deal with report to him. You can probably also ultimately thank him for any price changes.

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German temporary VAT cuts from today to 31st Dec 2020

Boris is saying ‘Build! Build! Build!’ to get the country’s economy going again after the pandemic and in very Labouresque style banished all thoughts of austerity, as he throws caution to the winds, aiming to spend our way to prosperity. Quite how much money will be spent while the nation is still racking up billions in coronavirus costs remains to be seen until Rishi Sunak makes his statement next week to share his plan for paying down the debt. One thing that’s widely expected however will be temporary VAT cuts.

Germany has already announced temporary VAT cuts as a way to get consumers spending again and they kick in today.

German temporary VAT cuts

• 19% to 16% (regular VAT
• 7% to 5% (reduced VAT rate)
• 1st July 2020 – 31st December 2020

Time to lower your prices?

The aim of temporary VAT cuts are that retailers pass the cuts onto consumers. For marketplace sellers this mean adjusting your pricing but of course that’s not always easy unless you have separate listings on German marketplaces. If you have listings which have visibility in Germany then there may not be much you can do, but if you have different pricing rules for different countries then you may want to adjust your formulae to edge German prices down by 3%.

Of course you may decide not to reduce your prices and pocket the additional margin, but this tactic could quickly mean that you’re uncompetitive. If you are a UK merchant, you could potentially ignore the German temporary VAT cuts however if the UK acts in a similar matter and the Chancellor cuts VAT then you will want to act if the UK is your primary market.

Regardless of whether you lower your prices, you will need to ensure you take into account any temporary VAT cuts when completing VAT returns for the countries you are registered in.

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How to Define Your Target Demographic Audience?

Understanding who your target audience opens up endless possibilities. The success of the business will depend on how well you know these people. After all, the time of mass marketing is behind. Personalized companies survive today. According to the study, 49% of consumers made impulsive purchases, thanks to an individual approach to service. But how can a differentiation strategy be achieved without the knowledge of its customers? No way. Further details on how to find your audience.

How does understanding your target audience begin? 

 

• Analyze your product

 

To determine the audience you need to understand your business perfectly. What tasks does the product solve, in what price segment is it located, what problems does it solve. Feel it, think why you are different from others and why you are better. This will help to form the initial picture and develop USP.

When you find a fundamental difference, you can clearly identify the target audience and develop an effective strategy. 79% of US consumers said they could switch to another brand if the price was more favorable, while 52% would do if the quality of the goods was better. Understanding the target audience allows you to understand the motives and take this into account in promoting.

Protip: Make sure you don’t skip your own social media. For instance you can find very useful data about your own customers from your Instagram’s business account analytics.  

 

• Do a competitor study

 

A large number of businesses forget that the market is a place where there are other players. Each of them conducts its activities and affects what is happening around. This creates game conditions that cannot be ignored. Analyze the activities of competitors, find their strengths and weaknesses, who their consumers are.

One of the most obvious ways to conduct such an analysis is to use benchmarking, where the company determines the effectiveness criteria and compares them. Evaluation is carried out on a scale, so it is very easy to find your advantages and weak areas.

. In order to study competitors’ clients, use social networks and view subscriber profiles. Pay attention to who these people are, how old they are, what they are interested in, marital status, sphere of activity. Try to find out as much as possible. It will be very useful.

 

• Segment your audience

 

Customer segmentation is the best way to meet their needs in a quality manner. Divide the audience into several groups, depending on the problems they seek to solve. This will allow a precise approach to the issue and maximally solve it. The same product may have different users. We give an example of segmentation. Let’s say your business is dry cleaning. Your target audience may be end-users, as well as other businesses. In the first case, most likely customers will be interested in cleaning clothes that require special care, in the second – these may be hotels that give away linen, towels, etc. And so it works with any business or service. Thus, we have at least 2 consumer groups who need different approaches, pricing systems. You cannot broadcast a similar message to different segments, otherwise it will not be effective. The selection criteria can be a huge number. This is especially well demonstrated by creating a customer avatar.

https://unsplash.com/photos/cY_TCKr5bek

How to create a consumer avatar

A consumer avatar is a clear idea of the people who buy from you. This is an opportunity to get to know each other and understand the motives. The technique helps to imagine who your ideal client is. Further more about this.

 

• Identify important criteria

 

Creating an avatar involves considering all the details. This is not just an analysis of demographic indicators. The approach is much deeper and more relevant in today’s market. Today it’s not enough just to know where the target audience, marital status and number of children come from. To understand the motive and create effective strategies, you need an avatar. Among the possible criteria:

• Position. Describe in detail what the avatar does, what decisions it makes and what zone of influence it has. Make it as detailed as possible.
• Demography. Where does your character come from, what kind of education did you receive, his age, gender, marital status, income level. All this is included in this criterion.
• Psychography. Try to think like a consumer. Think about his hobbies, habits, what he is interested in and what values ​​he shares.
• Problems. What he wants to achieve, what excites him and keeps him awake at night. Penetrate into his consciousness and find pain points.
• Objections at the time of purchase. What prevents him from making a purchase? Why hesitates and whether he makes a decision on the acquisition.
• Information sources. What books and newspapers he reads, which sites he prefers. 

 

• Confirm hypothesis

 

It is possible you created the best consumer avatar, but it’s better to make sure that you are right. To do this, check the data. You can do a survey, focus group and chat with the sales department. If you do not have customers yet, analyze the audience of competitors in social networks, conduct a survey, look for information in industry publications or use the tools for analyzing competitors in social networks. Confirmation of the hypothesis is an important stage that cannot be ignored, because on the basis of this information you will build a strategy.

 

• Make a study

 

Transfer all avatars to the table format, so you can visualize all the avatars and develop activities for interacting with each. To do this, you can create your own version or use the templates. There are a lot of them on the Internet, select the one that suits you and use it.

https://www.digitalmarketer.com/blog/customer-avatar-worksheet/

Conclusion

Understanding the target audience is the only way to gain acceptance among consumers. Business development to outstanding results is impossible without it. Not so long ago, exclusively demographic characteristics were used to work with the audience, but today this approach can cost a lot for companies. Therefore, marketers are increasingly developing consumer avatars. This gives a clearer picture and helps ensure differentiation in the process of developing strategies. Which provides better results and lower marketing costs.

Image credit: Serj Marco

The post How to Define Your Target Demographic Audience? appeared first on ECN | E-Commerce Nation.

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