how to use digital to beat seasonal slumps
TRANSCRIPT
How To Use Digital To Beat
Seasonal SlumpsJustin Butcher
About Me
Justin Butcher
Head of Digital Marketing @ Return On Digital
Head up Technical SEO, Content, Outreach, PPC and Social Media teams
4 years at Return On Digital
Passionate about using data and creativity to get results
Follow me on Twitter: @justin_butcher
About Us
Our Approach
Traditional
Approach
Our
Approach
What I’ll Be Talking About
1) Importance of planning for quiet periods
2) Generating new demand for your products or services in quiet periods
3) Creating urgency to buy your products
4) How to make your traffic work harder for you
5) Driving return visits to your website
Planning for quiet
business periods
PlanningLooking at the data
Don’t wait for the quiet period to come before you start activity
Look at the data to help predict quiet online periods if this isn’t already obvious
Don’t assume that quiet online periods are exactly the same as offline ones
Look at the differences in buyer behaviour in quiet periods
To find the opportunities, ask yourself “why?”
PlanningBuyer behaviour
What products or services are sold during the quiet periods and why?
Are the customers buying these products at these times different to all year round customers?
How can we target this different audience?
PlanningBuyer behaviour
Where have they come from?
New potential target audience to target during quiet periods
“Price conscious mums looking for fun learning aids for children during the summer holidays”
PlanningResearching your new audience
Where will this new target audience be during our quiet periods?
What will matter to them at that time?
Who or what influences them?
PlanningBuild your army!
Build a following so that you can target them specifically during your quiet period
Build this audience through Facebook advertising, Twitter, email sign-ups, forumsor wherever you find them to be online!
Build relationships with the people that influence them
Generating demand
from different
audiences
Demand GenerationTriggering need
Everyone has a problem or need they don’t know about yet
You need to be there when the need is realised
You can also be the trigger that makes them realise they have a problem
Think about the triggers that will unlock latent demand from your new audience
Demand GenerationTriggering need
Create content which makes your new target audience realise they have a problem which your business can solve
Create a proposition or offer which ensures they use your business
Use this methodology to target people who may potentially buy from you at quiet times of year
Demand GenerationContent promotion
Ensure you are visible at the moment your new audience realise they have a problem which you can solve
When the need is triggered the user will typically use search to find information
Invest in trigger related content on your site well in advance of your quiet period
Show your new audience all available solutions to their problem
Creating urgency to
buy
Creating UrgencyCreating urgency to buy within existing audiences
Understand what would make your audience buy today rather than tomorrow
Is your audience proactive or reactive?
If they are reactive, what would make them proactive?
Creating UrgencyCreating urgency to buy during quiet times
Use time related incentives to buy eg “offer ends in 2 weeks”
Use fear of missing out eg “until stocks last”
Be wary of too many price reduction incentives
Use early bird incentives eg “stock up now for the winter and save £200”
Creating UrgencyWhere to target your audience with offers
Highly targeted social advertising – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
Existing social audience
Cleverly segmented email lists
Remarketing to users who have performed certain actions on your website
Making your traffic
work harder for you
Conversion RateMaking your traffic work harder for you
In preparation for your quiet season make sure your site converts well
It will be easier to generate more sales through an increased conversion rate during quiet periods than through increased traffic
In the above example an increase in conversion rate to 2% would lead to an extra £38,956
Conversion Rate
Get users from the target audience to test the site Use the feedback from this to come up with theories that can be tested with data We used data from Google Analytics and UX tracking software
User testing
Conversion Rate
UX tracking tells us where people are clicking, “hot” areas of the site and if users are scrolling down the page
User testing, UX and Google Analytics allows us to formulate hypothesis to prove or disprove with split testing
UX tracking
Conversion Rate
Making changes based on user testing, UX tracking, Google Analytics and split testing has had an immediate effect for the client above
Conversion Rate Optimisation
Driving sales from
repeat visitors
Return Visits
Return visits are usually more valuable than new visits
In the above example return visits contribute 45% of total visits but 68% of total revenue
Encouraging repeat visits and increasing customer lifetime values can further cushion you from seasonal blows
Contribution to revenue
Return Visits
Segment your email list by people who you know have previously purchased during quiet periods
Send targeted emails offering an offer or a discount on a complimentary product or an upgrade
Ideal if you the product or service you sell expires or requires upgrading annually eginsurance products
Targeted Cross Or Upsell
Return Visits
You can also use this same email segment and target them via social media
“Facebook custom audiences” allows you to upload email lists
You can show highly targeted and resonant Facebook ads to these users only
Targeted Cross Or Upsell
Return Visits
You use remarketing to target users who have previously visited your site, and tempt them to come back
Specifically, you can remarket to users who have added items to their basket but did not purchase
Works particularly well in conjunction with seasonal voucher codes to get converting users back to the website
Abandoned basket remarketing campaigns
Thank You For Listening