Many marketers spend significant time on acquiring new customers, while almost ignoring the tremendous impact of retaining customers and investing in the long term value of ongoing, post-conversion engagement. Savvy marketing teams understand that the the acquisition and retention of a customer are linked and is a job that requires finesse and can't be relegated to customer support.  Generating leads is the initial step to growing a business but laying a solid foundation to create an ongoing relationship with customers will generate significantly more profit over time.  Marketers should be looking long conversion strategy and should always identify the customer lifetime value (CLV). Improving CLV means optimizing existing conversion funnels and systems to ensure that the customer is always placed at the center of the equation.  Once a conversion is secured, the company's job is not over. In fact, it is just the beginning and we'd like to offer some of our favorite post-conversion strategies to increase CLV.  Why is post-conversion so important? Remember customers have invested their time and money to purchase a product on a specific site. Once they buy on a site, they are more likely to return and convert again.  With all this talk on post-conversion, here are a few effective post-conversion tips that are easy to integrate and can increase the long term relationship with every converting customer. Customer Service is the Focus Improving customer loyalty boils down to fulfilling, and hopefully, surpassing customer expectations at all times. No company, regardless of how amazing the product may be, will succeed in attracting loyal customers and brand advocates if they're treated as if they are not valued.  How can customer service be improved? This question is filled with a bastion of options.  Amazing customer service is rare. Identify the companies, like Zappos, that are famous for providing superior customer value. What qualities from their customer value system can be replicated? Anything that shows that a company is focused on constantly improving customer value, will positively influence the long term relationship with the customer. Surpass Expectations and Surprise Immediately after purchasing a product, regardless of size, customers always feel a sense of uncertainty about the potential of finding a better deal somewhere else. It is as this moment of ambiguity that companies should respond to by exceeding expectations.  What added value can be offered to a customer that has just completed a purchase on the site? Is there an awesome surprise that can considered? Perhaps this is the ideal opportunity to maximize customer engagement by encouraging them to market and push the product to their social network. Integrating a post-conversion customer centered marketing campaign can increase a company's CLV while reducing overall costs of acquisition.  Automate the Customer Experience Automation and post-conversion marketing sound like opposites. Actually, when combined correctly, the two can create a truly personalized marketing experience extremely simple.  Why? As a company creates more personalized content to their customers, the likelihood of repeat conversions increases exponentially.  Integrating a automated campaign can be as simple as designing a flowchart that identifies customer needs throughout a specific time frame. Like the baby business, who continuously automates the content to parents to fit the age and development of the child.  As a business, cultivating customers is critical to the long term success, and growth, of the business. Once acquired, customers should sense their value throughout the conversion process. Identifying post-conversion engagement opportunities will dramatically improve the lifetime value of any customer. ...

  How do you get your customers to follow you anywhere? How do you get customer loyalty? Traditional marketing as we know it is rapidly changing. Many people confuse customer loyalty with aggressive sales. Once you have a loyal customer, you pitch them over and over again with your products or services. That style of beating an audience over the head with products is passe. What is the new method? Customer loyalty. Customer loyalty today is being equated with customer engagement. The quality of product is important but keeping a customer engaged can make a tremendous difference in repeat purchases. Engagement doesn't have to mean only pushing sales offers and discounts. It could mean integrating gamification into the marketing mix by conducting raffles, competitions, or photo contests. Any of these ideas can implemented with software like Wishpond or rafflecopter. Engagement is key in today's fast-paced digital world. It keeps customers interested in the brand story line, the creative ideas intrigue visitors and the 1:1 interaction adds a personal touch to the product. Another method is by producing good content that relates to the lives of the customers beyond that of the product or service. By communicating with consumers on topics that are important to them, the product then receives an added value. For example “you want to win a t shirt?” or “we thought you’d like this check out this video.” Keeping people engaged will encourage them to seek out the brand on their social profiles. Then, when running a sales promotion these viewers are more likely to convert since they already know your brand and the added value of the product. As the ratio of community engagement increases, so does the customer loyalty and conversion. Aggressive marketing is something of the past. Today people don’t want to be sold or forced to buy the whole time. A brand that uses this spam style of marketing, will quickly find their consumer base depleting in remarkable levels. Avoid spam. Engage with customers across digital platforms. Increasing engagement will increase loyalty, brand name and most importantly conversions....

  Understanding what is working on e-commerce site, involves consistent testing. Measuring site traffic and click throughs are important but only for a relatively young site. Once a site has matured passed the one year mark, terms like Lifetime Value (the value of the customer in their lifetime), Client Acquisition Cost, days between transactions, year over year growth of revenue or conversion rate, should become integral metrics to analyze. Here are 5 mistakes that e-commerce sites continue to make and how to avoid them. One of the Crowd Following the crowd is good, but if an e-commerce site wants to succeed, differentiating itself among the competition is critical. Standing out can be done with an excellent site design, product offerings, and exquisite marketing. Traffic Focused Driving traffic to an e-commerce site is good, converting that traffic is critical. E-commerce sites should remain razor focused on optimizing the user experience, content and voice of the site to drive conversions. Customer is Always First The best customers for e-commerce sites are repeat customers. Keeping a loyal fan base of customers sufficiently engaged to continue to purchase on a specific site, requires prioritizing customer needs. Over delivering customer service and impressing them with great value, will easily drive returning customers. Ignoring Personalization Personalization is not a trend, it's become the new marketing reality that is changing the way brands segment and optimize content to specific segments of their fans and followers. Today’s e-commerce sites should continue to focus on enhancing user experiences by targeting offers that respond to user needs and interests. Bridging the virtual gap via personalized marketing tactis, will establish a strong brand affinity and directly impact on sales. Relying on Instincts E-commerce decisions are often made based on instincts. Relying on feelings and emotions will result in low conversions. Core business decisions require analysis of data and research. Always put the customer’s needs first and you will be one step ahead of the game....

  2014 is the year of visual content. Brands and businesses are realizing that solid visual content are more powerful in engaging and enticing consumers than simple text. Yes, content remains a critical component of a website. Visuals show a product and highlight its benefits while keeping the consumer in control of the purchase process. A solid graphic will succeed in supporting quality content. Quality images are directly responsible for increasing conversions by over 22%! Simple text is ideal for creating the story line. The visual focuses on amplifying and guiding the consumer on a visual journey. An online brand should not rely solely on product reviews and the technical details. Engaging a user means adding value to the product that surpasses any text. Content should be inspiring. It should focus on motivating the customer to continue through the sales funnel. Text is there for initiating an interest, visuals are for converting. In today's hyper social market, brands are relying more on engaging consumers. In the growing e-commerce and m-commerce markets, visuals are becoming the initial touch point with a consumer. A Facebook post with a supporting graphic yields twice as much engagement over one with simple text.  63% of all social media is made up of imagery – that just shows how much people love their images. To date, brands looking to increase engagement are moving to Instagram, a completely visual platform. Investing in visuals is important for any brand. Creating visuals doesn't mean spending significant resources. Today, there are many graphic tools can help any business in creating amazing images without much hassle. Any business can succeed in creating engaging visual content. Here are a few visual creation tips to propel any brand into the year of visual content. Fotor- This site is great in creating collages. For brands, publishing content from an event, or from a specific campaign is no longer a daunting task. Creating engaging collages is no longer a challenge. A collage of images is engaging, memorable and unique. Creating a collage, provides a new ways for brands to engage with their audience on a number of different levels  Don’t forget to give it an alt tag with the targeted keyword in it. Tip: Creating a Twitter photo collage is easy with their native feature. POV Images: Brand evangalists are excellent in incorporating personal photos into a brand narrative. Using unique point of view shots, marketing with unique angles can enhance any brand collateral. When creating visual content, remember to focus on consumers using the product. Personal photos are almost always a big hit. Show yourself using the software, wearing the clothing, talking on the phone. Multiple visuals: One image is good. Two or more is even better. After creating the images, linking to product pages will increase conversion ratings. . There are many editing platforms available. The best ones include Canva and PicMonkey. Mobile photo editing is great for many brands harnessing real-time marketing opportunities. Visual editing apps like Snapseed, VSCO, and LINE Camera are among the leading ones. Now, designing visual graphics is no longer an expensive process. Visuals are engaging. They support text to create a unique brand narrative. Engaging consumers with graphics is no longer difficult. A brand interested in continuing the engagement, may consider integrating an onsite virtual agent. By directing and navigating the user journey throughout the site, maintains focus and is responsible for increasing and simplifying the conversion process. Creating a unique digital story means combining text with supporting graphics. Motivating users to interact with brand content is an ideal way for online brands to engaging existing users and securing relationships with consumers. is important and does engage the reader, the image or the video, or the virtual agent completes the picture for the viewer....

  It happens time and again. E-commerce sites religiously check their web analytics to track progress and gain insight into site performance. One metric that yields consistent shock value- a growing bounce rate.  What does bounce rate mean? How does a company fix it? Bounce rate means that the site is seeing traffic from visitors but they are not sticking around They came, they saw, they left. How quickly the visitor left is bounce rate. Clearly, the goal is to bring the visitor to the site, engage them, and ultimately to take action. Action can be to make a purchase, sign up for a newsletter or provide other information. There are many factors to what causes a visitor to leave. It could be out of lack of interest or confusion about the call to action. A site with a bounce rate over 70% means that it's time to reevaluate what factors are contributing to visitors leaving. Understanding why they left is what's important. 3 Tips on How to Decrease Bounce Rate Good User Experience If visitors are bouncing off a site, it's usually a sign of bad user experience. Meaning, that the site is confusing and it is difficult to navigate in a logical manner. Visitors want a seamless experience throughout their online journey. If at any point there's confusion that will cause them to leave. If the e-commerce site is complex or requires explanation,  a virtual agent or explainer video could be helpful and is relatively easy to integrate. It could also be that the sales pitch is for the intended audience. The content may also not be relevant or sufficiently engaging to the audience. The content should resonate with them, respond to their needs and provide true value. Colors Colors evoke emotion. What emotion does the current color scheme evoke? Is it threatening? Is the color enhancing or detracting from the user experience? Today, color plays a significant role in consumer behavior. Messaging A website is the storefront for any e-commerce business. There is no room for subtlety or obscurity. Assume that the consumer is looking for clear and concise information. Guide and inform the viewer, don't confuse them. Navigation on the site should be natural. Design should be pleasing and simple. A site that is too busy is risking a high bounce rate. Remember, bounce rate is how long the viewer stays on the site. Give them a reason to stay. Clickable Zones People tend to navigate a site in the form of a Z or F. They follow that pattern. Use heat maps to track behaviors and then use the data to make informed business decisions on enhancing the site. Use the pattern and the information to create zones that are optimized for clicking. Make them click the button to watch the movie, make them click to read more. Audience Once the audience has been identified and their online navigation behaviors have been targeted, providing value on a usable site is easy. Of course, bounce rates vary with every industry. They also are unique to each site and its target user. When looking to lower bounce rates, keep these tips in mind. The important thing is to make sure that the viewers stick around. Gaining the insight about why visitors leave is important for any e-commerce site looking to reduce bounce rate. How has your e-commerce site lowered its bounce rates ...

  In today's digital marketing space, there are two kinds of landing pages – click through and lead generation. Click Through Landing Pages Click through landing pages are typically used for e-commerce sites to funnel visitors through to another page. The landing page is used to describe a product or promote a specific offer with ample detail to ease the purchase decision of the potential consumer. E-commerce sites often direct customers directly to a shopping cart or a registration page. Directing customers to pages that provide insufficient information about the product, yields low conversion rates.   The goal of the click through page is to provide valuable information that eliminates any customer confusion while maintaining a level of ongoing engagement. Lead Generation Landing Pages Lead generation landing pages purpose is to capture user data, name, email, or other useful information to continue marketing at a later date. Since the only goal of a lead generation page is to data collection, the page is designed to capture this information. Clearly, personal data is extremely valuable and a commodity that is not given without some form of reciprication. The company will often offer some form of digital value to those who enter their information. A few examples of what companies offer for completing their landing page: E-book or whitepaper Registration to a Webinar Discount coupon Free trial of a product Access to other content   Regardless of which landing page style a company decides to implement, there are some basic rules that should be followed to yield optimal results. Rules of Landing Page Success As we've mentioned, a company has only 8 seconds a company has to capture the interest of a customer. The message should be clear and quick. What does simple mean? 1.Text Overload- Less is Better. Invest in revisions. 2. Graphic Overload- No more than one or two graphics. Visuals clutter a page. Keep the consumer focused by minimizing the number of graphic distractions. 3. Call to Action- There should be only one on the entire landing page. It can appear multiple times. Asking to watch a video at the top and then having a form at the bottom is confusing. 4. Specific Information- Data is critical but is also extremely personal. Only ask for what is absolutely necessary. If the company has a lot to convey on a landing page, then an explainer video or a virtual agent may provide significant value to clarify the product.     These tools engage consumers and maintain their attention to further encourage them take a desired action. In addition to these landing page tactics, a critical aspect is continuing the relationship by delivering the promised content or coupon in a timely manner. Sticking to these fundamentals can enhance any landing page and improve conversion rates....