As we enter the final month of 2022, now is the time to upgrade your e-commerce business for 2023.
Begin by finishing the tasks discussed in previous articles.
What are those tasks?
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- Review your business vision, mission, and goals
- Assess your marketing goals
- Conduct a content audit
- Assess competitor performance
- Analyze your content channels and engagement benchmarks
Next, to upgrade your e-commerce business for 2023, you’ll want to review and analyze the data and trends shaping digital marketing. Trends such as rising social channels, content types, and user behavior should form the foundation for strategically deciding where and how to spend your 2023 marketing budget.
So let’s start by diving into those end-of-year tasks.
Review Your Business Vision, Mission, And Goals
Now is an excellent time to review your founding vision and mission. Your vision and mission should be reflected across all your branding materials, including your website, social media, and print media.
Are your vision and mission the same?
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- Do your brand messaging and personality genuinely reflect your vision and mission?
- Do realities in the market suggest that it’s time to reframe or expand your mission?
What were the business goals you set at the beginning of the year?
Examples might be:
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- increase revenue by x%
- improve customer retention by x%
- produce 12 podcasts
- publish and sell 1,000 e-books
- diversify inventory
- expand into new markets
How did you do?
Upgrade Your E-Commerce Business For 2023: Assess Your Marketing Goals
Remember, your business goals and marketing goals are not the same. However, your marketing goals must be based on your business goals. The strategies and tactics you incorporate in your marketing should be to achieve the business goals you established at the beginning of the year.
For example, if you set a marketing goal of increasing your followers by 1,000 this year and achieved this, but it didn’t result in customer retention, then this marketing goal didn’t help you. A better marketing goal to help you meet your customer retention business goal might be to grow your brand community, launch new reward programs, or increase your use of customer-generated content.
Content Audit
Assessing the performance of your published content is critical to optimizing your e-commerce business for 2023.
Your audit should include every piece of content that you have published, including
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- your website
- videos
- podcasts
- white papers
- infographics
- social media posts
- presentations
- print media
Why is a content audit critical? It’s the only way to learn if
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- your content assets align with your marketing goals and brand personality,
- your content is engaging your target audience and achieving your business goals.
Without conducting a thorough content audit, you could waste time and money on content that is not helping you meet your business objectives.
Assess Competitor Performance
You have competitors unless you operate in a very narrow or unique niche. And those competitors are also targeting your audience. So, you’ll want to know what they’re doing better than you are.
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- For instance, are they using keywords in their website content that draw customers away from your website?
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- Are they publishing more short-form videos on social channels where your audience hangs out?
Using your social listening tools, find out what consumers say about your brand vs. competitor brands—what do they like or dislike?
It’s a big task, but the ROI is worth it. Take advantage of competitor analysis tools to make the job more manageable.
Analyze Your Content Channels And Engagement Benchmarks
Content Distribution Channels
Great content is only as good as your distribution channels. You can’t simply wait for someone to find it.
What distribution channels are you using?
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- Are these channels the best places to reach your target audience? (is your target audience on these channels?)
How are you driving customers to your website?
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- What does your website analytics tell you about the sources of your traffic?
Are you wasting time on channels that are not bringing customers to your website?
Engagement Benchmarks
Hopefully, you’ve set engagement metrics to measure the success of your marketing strategy. However, you want to know more than how many people clicked on your social post or landed on your home page.
For instance, KPIs for your website would include:
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- pages per visit
- bounce rate
- duration on the pages
- click-through-rate
- conversion rate
- new vs. returning visitors
Your engagement metrics reveal how your customers are responding to your content.
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- Is your content of high quality?
- Is it useful?
- Is your website easy to navigate?
- Are the images engaging?
You’ll also discover which content designs and types result in return visitors and customer satisfaction.
Do videos keep your customers on the page longer?
What is the conversion rate for customers who watch your videos to the end?
Do your customers respond more favorably to colorful designs? Gifs? Memes? Infographics? or more informative content?
For social media, KPIs you should track include:
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- Comments/Shares
- Reach/Impressions
- Video Views
- Total Watch Time
- Link Clicks
- Likes
- Downloads
- Engagement Rate
Strategize How to Embrace New technologies To Upgrade Your E-Commerce Business For 2033
As the competitive landscape of e-commerce continues to evolve rapidly, you’ll want to embrace emerging technologies such as voice commerce, AI, and automation.
Voice commerce has become a popular shopping option, allowing customers to search for and purchase items using only their voice quickly.
AI and automation can be used to make personalized product recommendations, automate processes and improve customer experience.
A lot of attention is placed on customer acquisition, but customer retention is the lifeblood of any business. Nurturing your customers through the purchase journey and anticipating their needs and preferences is essential to building loyalty and repeat business.
Applying customer insight with new technologies such as AI, voice commerce, online chatbots, and automation will ensure that business processes, customer service, and product and marketing strategies are tailored to customer needs and behaviors.
Invest In Omnichannel Customer Experiences
While your website is the signature element in your marketing toolbox, it is not the only place your customers want to interact with you. Today your customers expect to interact with your business across multiple channels, such as email, social media, chat, and mobile messaging.
If you invest in an omnichannel strategy designed to meet your customers on their favorite channels, you’ll be better equipped to provide a consistent and seamless shopping experience.
And you’ll upgrade your e-commerce business for 2023!
Bottom Line
The 2023 e-commerce landscape is uncertain. What we know for sure is that there are global economic disruptions. Everyone is operating on less money– companies and consumers. To succeed in this ecosystem, you’ll need a comprehensive marketing strategy.
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- Begin by reviewing and assessing your 2022 performance across all aspects of your business and marketing activities.
- Invest in automation and AI that delivers critical customer data that you can leverage to optimize customer experience and drive customer loyalty.
- Offer a seamless omnichannel experience tailored to customer preferences and behavior.
- By embracing new technologies that create personalized customer experiences and meet customer needs, you’ll be positioned for success in the 2023 e-commerce marketplace.
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