We’ve spoken to merchant after merchant who have seen their business start to diminish as Amazon opened up new categories of products…..and we worked with them to identify the assets that they have which will allow them to not only survive…but thrive.

This post covers how you can protect the business you have and also create a competitive edge over the bigger players…with assets you already have. To start, let’s take an inventory of those assets which will help you accomplish these goals.

What You Need to Compete

Here are the items that will give you the edge…

Product Knowledge & Expertise

If you’ve been selling products online for a sustained period of time, and better yet services that you provide around products that you sell, there is value that you’ve built in experience with serving customers to date. At this point, you should have in-depth knowledge about the products that you’re selling and able to dig in deep on topics in order to solve the pain points your customers have which make them want the products in the first place. Your experience and expertise on how to solve problems what people are searching for, products are just a way to solve those pain points. You, your sales agents, your customer service representatives….they all have in-depth knowledge about experiences and problems that your customers are experiencing which leads them to purchase a product. It’s well known that “Content is King”…..well, that knowledge and expertise is gold that fashions the crown upon that King’s head. Digest what experience and expertise you have within your business, that is a huge asset you should be taking advantage of and getting to work for you.

Great Customer Service & Responsiveness

When customers are looking at a product and have a question about how it applies to their specific product, they want to ask a question in order to get an answer before they order. On Amazon, they can do this through the product page Q&A feature, but many of those questions are answered by customers. Those customers have other jobs, other duties, and they may not get an answer in the timeframe they want it. That is a problem for them, and you have the tools to solve it.

It’s time to go back to the old fashioned values of business, in putting the customer first and making sure that they love the customer service they’re given. When you mix the product knowledge and expertise that you and your team have as your first asset, with responsive and friendly customer service that focuses on their problems and resolves them quickly…that is the recipe to get those customers to convert for you and prefer that experience. So, make sure you shower customers with ease of asking their product questions and make sure you have friendly and knowledgeable team members answering those questions quickly.

The Incentive to Do Both Well

When it comes to answering questions about specific products, Amazon’s approach is to offer a Q&A feature on their product page where they control the content and it works to their benefit…and many of the questions are answered by other customers. These customers, while creating some quality content, don’t necessarily have the incentive to do a deep dive in order to give the best responses to those product questions.

Guess who does? That’s right, YOU!

With the mix of in-depth product expertise and answering product questions well like it’s your job (because, it is in fact your job), that is a powerful combination where you can simply do it better than they can. All of the things that you need to effectively fulfill those demands are in your corner, and you have the most incentive to make sure that it’s done as best as it can be done. This is something that you have that Amazon’s way of doing things doesn’t always compete well with, and you can take advantage of it.

How to Use those Assets to Thrive

Do you have all the assets above and looking on how to capitalize on them? Good, the next part is relatively easy…and the good news is, you’re probably already doing this in some manner already, you just need to focus those efforts with the right tools.

Let’s summarize your call to action here…

Use your product expertise to service your existing customers well that increases their lifetime value and also drives new customer acquisition.

Now the obvious question. How?

We know this because at Answerbase, this is what we do and we have case studies to prove it. You need to ensure that you have Q&A calls to action and content on your product pages, and in a way that will accomplish these goals. Let’s explain how it works.

By putting Q&A on your product pages allowing your customers to ask their presales questions, respond to them with great answers, and convert those customers. Answerbase sees that up to 75% of questions answered through Answerbase turn into a paying customer. Also, anybody in the future with those same questions that ask through your site see those answers you’ve already posted, and convert as well.

But, that’s just the short term benefit…..ready for the magic of the long term benefits?

Those same question and answer pairings are valuable content that attracts brand new customers to your website through long tail search! Here’s how it works…

You answer questions with great original content based on your expertise and experience. Guess who love great original content if it’s optimized for search?

Answer, Google does! (and sure, other search engines too)

Make sure that the Q&A content from your products are published in a way that Google gobbles it up and leads users who are asking similar questions through search to your site, so they can purchase product from you. You have the expertise, you have the time, and you have the incentive to do it well…..if you get this consistent content creation working in your favor, Google will reward you with brand new traffic that is relevant to your store. How relevant?

New customers acquired through Q&A content are up to 2x more valuable that those acquired in general from organic Google search, and up to 6x more valuable than those coming from Facebook. That’s huge as you get to acquire new customers, more valuable customers, and all while you’re converting existing customers at a higher clip (as already noted above, up to 75% of customers who get their product questions answered through Answerbase turn into a sale).

Of course, the data that we’re sharing in this post is based off Answebase’s customers for merchants using Answerbase Product Page Q&A, so we encourage you to start a free trial and get your knowledge and expertise working for you today.

We hope this post has been helpful and let us know if there is anything we can assist you with in order to grow your business.

The post How SMB Ecommerce Use Their Product Expertise to Compete with Amazon, and others appeared first on Answerbase.

Let’s explore some thoughts around both Customer Acquisition and Customer Retention, and how to create a healthy balance between the two to create a very healthy ecommerce business.

Ecommerce Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)

The first thing we need to set a foundation on is an understanding of Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).   The Lifetime Value (LTV) of a customer and its relationship with how much it takes to acquire a customer is the lifeblood of a business.   This is the foundation of any healthy business, whether the business realizes it or whether they just end up in it because “it’s just working”.   As a general rule, your Lifetime Value of a customer, how much they’ll spend with you over the long term…..needs to be 3x more than the cost that it took to acquire that customer in the first place.   If its lower than that, you’ll likely end up feeling business pressures and if that ratio doesn’t get to a healthy place it won’t be a surprise to anyone if you’re out of business.   So, understanding this relationship between customer acquisition and how much they spend is critical to understanding if your business is healthy or not (and also may shed light on whether you’re consistently feeling strapped or whether you’re living in a cloud where everything seems peachy and you’re living in abundance).

New Ecommerce Customer Acquisition

The benefits of new customer acquisition is obvious, you get brand new revenue from new people and it appears to be the fastest way to hit your short term revenue goals.  There has never been a time in history that its been easier to reach your target market through social media and other channels.   Gone are the days where you need to sit at the counter of a retail store and wait for somebody to walk into your store, digital marketing and ecommerce stores allow you to get your products in front of a global audience and efficiently fulfill those sales.   Even with these new channels, you need to discover what channels are relevant for the products you sell…and make sure that your marketing costs stay in check with the lifetime value to sustain that magic ratio mentioned above…or better yet….improve that ratio.

If you have an ecommerce business and doing business, its likely you already have a decent foundation here….so we’ll just highlight a couple tips and methods here to assist with New Customer Acquisition.

• Link Regargeting: Its likely you’re already doing traditional retargeting of your audience (if not, see next bullet point)…but something to explore is “newer” services that allow you to accomplish Link Retargeting.  If you’re not crazy about getting your social media feeds super active in sharing content relevant to your target market, it may be because its a huge effort to write original content and then understand whether your audience will actually engage it or not.  You can take a step towards that, by simply following all of the industry news and content that is created by great sources…and then share those on your social media feeds consistently.   Then…simply by clicking on a link to that content created by amazing article writers, etc….you can capture who clicked and add them to an “Audience”…where then you can have your advertising show up to them as they’re browing the internet, through social feeds, etc.   This is a great way to engage your target market and grow a large list of potential customers.
• Retargeting Website Visitors: Again, this is likely already being done which is why I’m adding this last…but in case you’re not….when you get somebody to visit your website you can have advertising services like Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. add that visitor to an “Audience” and then you can create campaigns which will get your advertising in that person’s face as they browse the internet or through their social network feeds.   If you’re not doing this now, you need to be…since retargeting ads are on average MUCH cheaper than getting the visitor to your website in the first place…and you already know they have some level of interest in your products.  You can even show them products they’ve actually viewed on your website.

If you have any questions about how to accomplish the above goals, we can help point you in the right direction so feel fee to Contact Us and we can guide you with services and partner agencies that can help you out here.

Ecommerce Customer Retention

Customer retention speaks to how well you’re providing the products that you’re selling and the quality of those products.   If you sell a unique product, the product is great and they continue to want to purchase more from you….you will likely retain that customer over a long period of time.   If you’re offering exceptional customer service and you’re considered a thought leader, where the experience in shopping on your online store is just a much better experience than other stores….you’re likely to retain those customers and keep them coming back.  The longer you can retain customers, the more they’re likely to purchase from you, and therefor it increases their lifetime value.   This not only helps ensure that your business reaches the 3:1 ratio we spoke of before…but if you do it very well you can likely exceed that ratio and create a very  comfortable and healthy business where you love your customers, your customers love you….and everybody is thriving in a mutually beneficial relationship.

Sounds great, doesn’t it?  Here are a couple tips on how to get there:

• The Products:  Obviously selling great products that your customers are going to have a great experience with is the foundation here.   If you sell unique products that people love (and ideally repeat purchase), and then have other products in your offering that supplies for the needs of that same audience….as long as they continue to have great experiences with your products they should keep coming back for more.  Don’t ignore that you’re dealing with a competitive environment as well, but as long as you can supply great products at a competitive price…you’re building a great foundation for customers that keep coming back fore more.
• The Customer Experience: You can have a great product, but if your customer ordering and delivery process isn’t up to speed with a customer’s expectations….and they can get things delivered notably faster through another provider…there is a good chance you may lose them to somewhere else.   The good news is that there are all kinds of services like Shipstation and others that allow you, even as a very small provider, to have top notch turnaround/shipping that competes with the best of them.
• Service & Support: What can distinguish between you and the huge corporations sometimes is the fact that you combine what is listed above with that old fashioned fact that you care and are more closely connected with ensuring your customer has a great experience.  All other things being equal, are you or your direct employees more motivated to shower your customers with amazing customer service than a person sitting in a cubicle working for somebody else, and about 5-6 management levels down (or more) from the actual owners of the business?   I would assume the answer is yes, so make it happen.  Ensure that YOU are the thought leader and expert behind the products that you sell…and you freely share that information in a way that us super helpful to existing customers and potential customers.  Make the experience not only painless, but actually insightful where the customer walks away thinking “they are all-stars”.   They’re more likely to come back for more.

Retaining Customers & Acquiring New Customers Simultaneously

There are ways to do both of these things in the same breath, and in ways that can actually reduce your costs at the same time.   As your customers are going to your product pages and getting details around that product to see if they want to purchase, both new customers and those who have previously ordered….there are questions that they have which they’d like answered before they pull the trigger on the purchase.   For both of these groups, give them an easy way to ask those questions about the product and get a great answer from your team.

If you’re using the right ecommerce product page Q&A software, they should also be building a knowledge base of product-specific Q&A content as time goes on….so that you only need to answer a question once..and then every time its asked again down the road it pulls up your previous answer where that customer gets services instantly and simply goes on to purchase.  Answerbase customers see up to a 60% reduction in repeated questions as those are managed automatically which reduces costs and then up to 75% of customer questions turn into a new conversion from this process.

Finally, that content that your posting is VERY VERY VERY valuable for search engines.  The same questions that your customers are asking on your product pages….are the same (or very similar) to questions they’re asking on Google (and other search engines) when looking for products like those that you sell….so if your Q&A software is doing its job its managing this SEO benefit as well.   Answerbase creates a new landing page for relevant Q&A from your product question interaction….and that has lead to year over year organic traffic growth in the ecommerce merchants we service.   Here is what one customer had to say:

Answerbase has doubled the overall traffic to our ecommerce site, and increased our organic search traffic by four times! – Ron from Epestsupply

When it comes to Lifetime Value of those new customers coming through that process, we’ve also seen that new ecommerce customers acquired through Answerbase are up to 6x more valuable than those coming from Facebook and up to 2x more valuable than customers coming from Google as a whole to the ecommerce stores we service.  This goes a long way as you look to retain more existing customers, attract new customers, and grow the Lifetime Value of our average customer over time.

We hope things post has been helpful for ecommerce store, feel free to Contact Us with any questions and we’ll look to provide helpful consultation to help your ecommerce business thrive.

You can also start a free trial of Answerbase today if you’d like to add Q&A to your product pages, or upgrade to a more efficient use of that Q&A content.

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