3 ways to make your business customer centric

The online landscape for businesses is changing rapidly. With business owners now able to launch an online store overnight, it has become important now more than ever, to build a relationship with your customers.

But how do we do this?

Say hello to your new best friend - data!

Whether it be your site analytics, Facebook Ads Manager or CRM platform reporting, there is an abundant of data now available for online business owners to help them reach their consumer, learn more about what it is that consumer needs, and communicate effectively.

So let's dive in!

Know your data!

Data segmentation may sound like a foreign language but if you are building a customer-centric online business, understanding your data is a crucial first step! By taking the time to regularly review and monitor your data across all channels you will be able to refine your messaging and provide more effective communication across all channels.

Data segmentation is also a very powerful tool to support any SEM (Search Engine Marketing) activity, or paid campaigns.

Now - what do I mean by data? From your site analytics and/or Facebook Analytics, you will be able to see your customers:

• Age
• Gender
• Geographic location
• Income
• Other interests

In addition, you can start to extra psychographic data on your customer including:

• Values
• Goals
• Emotions
• Purchasing drivers and
• Reasons to buy

Never before has this information been as readily available as it is now!

Targeted Email Marketing

Most online business owners understand the importance of building up their email database, but too often I see clients overlooking the power of a good email marketing strategy.

Email marketing is not a monthly or weekly newsletter. I consider this just business as usual and the minimum requirement for an online business.

The business owners who are out kicking goals and achieving revenue targets are the ones who have taken the time to build up data profiles of each of their customers and are leveraging this data to create targeted email marketing campaigns.

Most email platforms these days provide the ability to segment your database. This can be via tagging or at a basic level, individual mailing lists.

By segmenting your database you have the ability to then communicate more effectively. If you have a group of customers on your mailing list who found you by a particular freebie you were promoting, you could tag those consumers with something meaningful that relates to the freebie, then email only that group in the future.

Now, if you have in place an email marketing platform with a little more smarts, such as Active Campaign, Infusionsoft for those looking for all the bells and whistles, you can create automation campaigns and unique follow up series all based on the data you collect on your customer. Then in future, should you have a new product to launch, you know which communication style is going to work most effectively with each of your email marketing groups.

Customised your check out

This is applicable to any business that provides the option of purchasing online.

Do not create long check out pages. Do. Not.

If your customer has given you their time by browsing your site, selecting their preferred product, and adding it to cart, the worst thing you can do is make them complete a complicated checkout process, or provide too much information that they are forced to read.

Think Amazon. Think as close to 1 step check out as you can achieve with your current technology stack.

The quicker your customer can check out, the quicker that sale reaches you.

Don't put obstacles in the way for a customer to navigate. Keep it as simple and as streamlined as possible.

Need help with maximising your Online Store Conversions?

The next round of my Online Course is opening which includes an entire module on Facebook & Instagram Ads. For more details click the image below: