Scientific method to improve

EcommerceMarketing

Using a process derived from the scientific method,

ecommerce marketers may be able to make their

ads and other promotions more effective,

increasing return on advertising spend and

encouraging growth.

The scientific method is a process to help

researchers learn the truth. It relies on observation,

asking questions, creating a hypothesis,

experimentation, analysis, and refinement.

Adopting some of the scientific method’s steps can

help to improve ecommerce marketing.

Start With Problems and Questions

In a sense, ecommerce marketing is really about

solving problems or meeting challenges.

You open a new online store, but you don’t have

many customers. That’s a problem. Or you have an

established ecommerce shop but your average

order value is low. That’s a problem.

The scientific method starts with observing some

phenomenon and asking questions about it. So try

this with your ecommerce marketing problems. If

you don’t have many customers, ask, “How do I

attract shoppers to my store?”

Then try to make your question more specific. How

do I attract shoppers to my store without buying

ads? How do I attract shoppers to my store this

month? How do I attract male shoppers to my

store?

Develop an Hypothesis

Once you have a question, try to answer it.

You may start with what scientists call a working

hypothesis, which is really a guess meant to help

get you started with research. You read some

articles, you ask questions in forums, or you make

contact with amarketing professional on Twitter.

You learn how others have answered similar

questions and eventually you develop a highly

probable solution of your own.

If your question is, “how do I attract shoppers to

my store without buying ads?,” you may develop a

hypothesis that content marketing will, over time,

attract potential customers.

Similarly, if your question is “how do I attract

shoppers to my store this month?,” you may have

decided that Facebook ads are the solution.

Come up with what you believe is the best answer

to your question.

Test Your Hypothesis

Once a scientist has developed a hypothesis, he

will design a series of experiments meant to test

that hypothesis. Think of it this way: An

experiment is a process that you design

specifically to learn if you’re right or wrong.

So if your question was “how do I attract shoppers

to my store this month?” and your hypothesis is

that Facebook ads are the best solution, develop

an experiment, or likely a series of experiments, to

put Facebook ads to the test.

You may want to (a) create ads for specific

products or brands, (b) test different sorts of

product and lifestyle photography, or, perhaps, (c)

test your ad copy.

Analyze Your Test Results

Scientists carefully review the results of their

experiments. Ultimately, the aim is to either accept

or reject your hypothesis. Were you right about

Facebook ads?

Your analysis may lead to additional questions.

This, too, is part of the process. The important thing

is to genuinely look at how your marketing

experiments turned out, draw some conclusions

from those results, and take what you learned with

you to the next step of the process.

Refine Your Hypothesis or Question

Perhaps your Facebook ad or content marketing or

social media campaign did not turn out exactly as

your hypothesis predicted. Nonetheless, you may

have learned something that you can use to make

your marketing more effective.

For example, perhaps, you learned that a

Facebook ad brought lots of traffic, but not a lot of

conversions. This didn’t make you very happy. So

go back and adjust your question. Instead of

asking how you can attract more shoppers this

month, ask, “how do I make more sales this

month?” or better still “how do I increase profit 20

percent this month?”

The idea is simply to take what you learned and

return to either your hypothesis or question.

Improve it, refine it, and begin to develop new

ecommerce marketing experiments. You’ll be done

with the process when you have effective

marketing tactics that can answer your question

repeatedly.

Don’t FiddleWith Your Results

Your campaigns will be more effective if you begin

each of your marketing plans with a question and

then develop a hypothesis. From there, experiment,

analyze, and refine.

There is one small caveat. Be careful not to fiddle

with your results.

Scientists who know what they expect from an

experiment can sometimes see a result that

doesn’t really exist, or only report data that

supports their hypothesis whilst ignoring evidence

to the contrary. In fact, in 2010, The New Yorker

published an interesting article about scientific

results called “The Truth Wears Off: Is There

Something Wrong with the Scientific Method?.” It

addresses some of the problems of reporting

scientific findings.

The same thing can happen with your marketing

experiments. Let the result speak, if you will, for

itself.