Establishing and growing your brand presence across multiple channels simultaneously is one of the biggest challenges in ecommerce. Some start out small and simple with a few listings on a third-party marketplace. While it’s good to start small, it’s vital to have a robust expansion plan and strategy to grow your business.
When scaling, your business needs will change. You’ll have to adapt and keep up with them. There are significant considerations and strategies that will improve your chances of making your store successful. Make sure you cater to your customers across multiple channels and provide them with a personalized experience. Be consistent in your approach, develop regular and engaging content for your consumers.
How do you prepare for the unpredictability that comes with scaling your business?
Keep reading for full episode summary and watch Shopify Corner series on-demand here
Episode Summary
Hosted by: Gorgias - Rohan Kapoor (Technology Partner Manager)
Featuring:
- Shopify - Anthony Gouveia (Merchant Success Manager)
- Omnisend - Gabe Macaluso (Director of Customer Success)
- Dash.fi - Patrick Brady (Director of Partnerships & Business Development)
Changing digital environment
The world of consumerism has changed drastically over the last few years. More and more people have adopted a digital approach to shopping. This environment has opened up flood gates for merchants. Traditionally merchants looked for efficiencies in media – How do I bring down my CPM? How do I get the algorithm to work for me? But now the focus is on cashbacks for ad spends, better sourcing, drop shipping, etc.
Building a foundation
All brands are unique in their own way. When you and your competitor sell a similar product and target the same audience group, what gives you an edge is your customer experience. Having your mind on average order value and conversion is great. But finally, it all comes down to loyalty. When we talk about scaling internationally and across borders, building a solid foundation with existing customers is the beginning of trust, loyalty and more customers.
Doing more with less
People only watch what they like and sometimes it’s an ad. Effective communication is when you have a story to tell, a purpose to tell that story and the right medium to distribute it. When you spend your money on acquisition, spend it on customer experience too. If you are doing email or SMS campaigns, create experiences that stand out. If your customers sign up for a discount, give them the discount, but then extend it to a series of 4-5 emails where you share your story.
Utilize automation to a sufficient degree
When it comes to scaling, you always circle back to the customer. It’s been said enough or maybe not, but getting to know your customers would be page 1 in the book ‘Scaling for Dummies’. When you get to know your customer, you can send them to different paths and automate their journey to personalize their experience. Integrating SMS and push notifications have shown some fan following over the past few years. Customers have vouched that push notifications have helped them increase revenue. Tracking across websites such as abandoned carts or abandoned pages will generate incremental revenue and provide personalized products through appropriate channels.
Scaling your ad spend
If your business is scaling, congratulations! Just because you are growing you cannot cut down your cost on acquisition or customer experience. The more people come to you, the more diversified expectations you have to fulfill and the stronger your customer service needs to be.
Being authentic
Finally, be yourself. Customers come to you when your zest matches theirs. Even if you do all the right things, some customers might turn back because you are not what they need. When you give an authentic experience, you increase the chances of brand recall which eventually results in loyal customers. For instance, two-way text solutions have proved to be effective. When there is an agent on the other side of your text message who provides a real-time solution, you humanize the conversation. Not to mention, you increase the accuracy of responses. Your agent is now a beauty adviser, tech expert, a friend, a well-wisher.
Furthermore, this episode highlights how you can utilize automation, different channels, and best practices to scale your business. The panel makes you question your approach with real life examples and share what merchants are doing to scale.
