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Oh Deer: 3 Reasons To Pull in the Reins on Holiday Email Frequency

Posted under Email Marketing on September 1st, 2010 by Linda Bustos / Comments (1)

The holiday season is sneaking up on us, and most online sellers (83% according to Smith-Harmon) are gearing up to send more promotional email – and LOTS more of it.

The Retail Email Index, which monitors the promotional email volume of the top 100 online retailers, reports that retailers on average sent a whopping 14.3 emails to each subscriber per month during November and December 2009, with 3.9 messages in the week ending December 18th (typical shipping cutoff date).

While increasing frequency may result in higher sales, there are dangers of sending so many messages. Smith-Harmon’s latest research report, the 2010 Retail Email Guide to the Holiday Season, asks you to consider the drawbacks:

1. The cost of replacing subscribers lost to higher churn
2. The sales lost because increased spam complaints caused delivery problems
3. The opportunity cost of lost sales due to higher ignore rates as subscribers tune you out because you are over-sending

On top of the spam issue, ISPs are factoring engagement (opens) as part of their reputation score calculation. Sending a lot of messages that subscribers ignore signals to ISPs your messages are not relevant, which can hurt your future delivery to subscribers across that ISP.

Does that mean you shouldn’t ramp up frequency at all? Heather Blank, vice president of strategic services at Responsys, recommends that marketers be strategic about increasing volume, identifying customer segments that are more tolerant of high volume.

You can segment out these customers by looking at previous engagement metrics like open rates, click throughs and purchase rates. You can also ask customers to update a “preference center” where they can choose frequency, types of offers and so on (but don’t rely on this tactic, as only a few will actively manage preferences).

For more holiday email tips, Smith-Harmon is offering their latest report free of charge.

5 Marketing Checklists: Bloggers Digest August 2010

Posted under Uncategorized on August 30th, 2010 by Linda Bustos / Comments (1)

Bloggers Digest is our monthly ritual that highlight posts from other blogs that are of value and interest to online retailers and Internet marketers.

August 2010 will go down as “checklist month” as I found a lot of great checklist style posts in my feed reader, check ‘em out:

Now for 5 noteworthy, non-checklist posts:

  • More folks are reading their emails on their mobile devices – including retail email. What does this mean for email marketers?

Applying Consumer Research to Persuasion: An Example from the Software Industry

Posted under Merchandising on August 27th, 2010 by Peter Sheldon / Comments (2)

Still Shipping Software?As ecommerce marketers, often our opinions about our customers’ shopping behavior clouds our judgment and leads us to make decisions that may harm our conversion rate. It’s easy to make incorrect assumptions based on web analytics data, or worse, to presume that our customers think and behave the same way we do.

Research into the real attitudes and behavior of our customers can provide insights that contradict our assumptions. Here at Elastic Path, our research team recently conducted a study on the buying trends of software consumers (sign up to our September webinar Selling Software to Consumers, Upgrade Now! to get a copy of the research).

Use consumer research to shape your personas and persuasive messaging to address the preferences, fears, uncertainties and doubts about your purchase. This post will use the software industry as an example of this application.

Example Business Issue: Software Delivery

A pertinent business issue for the software industry is the delivery of its product, which can be digital (download), physical (CD/DVD) or a combination of the two. The COGS (cost of goods sold) is obviously much lower for digital goods, and it’s in the vendor’s best interest to offer only downloads, saving inventory (or print-on-demand costs), warehouse and fulfillment costs. The customer also benefits, with instant access to their purchase and no garbage CD lying around. Makes sense to us tech savvy folk to offer only digital product, but is that what customers want?

Our research found that 41% of US software consumers stated a preference to have a physical CD or DVD of their software shipped to them rather than download their purchase. In today’s digital world this may seem high, but considering software installed on consumers PCs, laptops and mobile phones may have a longer shelf life than the devices themselves, it makes sense. We also discovered that 69% of US software consumers use the same software on multiple machines in their home – for example, a desktop and laptop computer. For these consumers, owning a physical copy of their software purchase both offers convenience and protection should they change, damage or corrupt their PC or laptop.

Many software publishers offer a backup CD/DVD or download insurance as an upsell for customers who decide to download their purchase. Of the 59% of US software consumers who preferred to digitally download their purchase or had no preference, 40% would be prepared to pay extra for a backup copy on CD/DVD and 30% would be prepared to pay for extended download insurance.

Practical application

For software sellers that sell digital products exclusively, the segment of customers that desire physical copies need extra persuasion to download rather than seek out an alternative seller. “Instant gratification” of enjoying the purchase immediately is important to communicate.

Microsoft and Intuit both promote the green credentials of downloading software vs shipping it. This approach encourages consumer to change their attitudes about digital, and cuts warehousing, fulfillment and distribution costs.

If only download protection (insurance) is offered in lieu of a physical backup, the messaging must be very clear that the same protection is offered to address the FUDs (fears, uncertainties and doubts) this segment holds. The backup insurance option should be offered on the product page, it may encourage more people to add to cart.

For sellers that auto-apply optional download insurance to the cart, messaging should clearly convey the value proposition of the upsell – don’t just list it as a line item. Many sellers simply add the upsell to the cart, with no explanation of why the customer should not opt out of it.

Symantec uses a tool tip in the cart to highlight the value proposition of download insurance in a pop up window.

For vendors that offer some products physically and some digitally, available formats should be clearly shown. 80% of Electronic Arts’ PC games are available only as a download, yet they force the customer to select “digital” from a single option drop down box.

Save users a click by showing the single option with a pre-selected radio button:

The takeaway is that research can identify consumer preferences that can help you analyze your site and look for opportunities to persuade different types of customers – no matter what product you are selling.

To find out more about the buying trends of software consumers sign up for our September webinar Selling Software to Consumers, Upgrade Now! where we will explore the findings of the online survey and look at actionable advice for software retailers to improve the online shopping experience. All registrants will receive a complimentary copy of the research “Consumer Software Buying Trends 2010″.

Does Your Log In Make Them Drop Off?

Posted under Web Design and Usability on August 25th, 2010 by Linda Bustos / Comments (7)

Error-handling is one of the most often overlooked pieces of usability and conversion optimization. We can become so focused on cart button design, home page layouts, featured products, promotional offers, email subject lines and the like that we forget that the biggest points of friction are when the customer inputs something incorrectly in a form field. When customers don’t understand what they did wrong or how to correct it, they abandon your site. And this kind of site abandonment is more damaging than “that price was too high” or “I didn’t find the product I wanted.” When someone abandons your site because it was difficult to use, they are far less likely to have the faith to return again.

One common place of friction is with log in screens. While you should absolutely use guest checkout whenever possible to reduce the need to sign in, it’s inevitable that existing customers who want to track orders, view wishlists, write product reviews and participate in your user community will face the dreaded log in box. And unless they have the memory of an elephant, they’ve got a good chance of forgetting the username/password combination (especially if you’re a stickler for strong passwords, requiring numbers or other special characters).

The worst practice is to tell the user their login information is “invalid.”

Equally bad is to say the login “didn’t work.” Sounds like a system problem rather than an input error.

Better is to explain that the address entered does not match account records. This way, the customer understands it’s not that the system doesn’t believe the email address itself doesn’t exist, rather that it was not the email address the customer signed up with.

Target goes the extra mile to provide inline feedback and a detailed explanation of how the user can remedy the situation, including checking out with their Amazon account instead. (Problem is, folks don’t remember their Amazon account info either!)

Bad practice is to use red notification text, but to make it really small, or to camouflage it below the login box:

Can you read this?

Login screens are not the only place your visitors may be experiencing frustrating errors. Make sure you explain what the CVV is if you use ask for it, and explaining what format you require for telephone numbers, postal codes and password creation.

Your web analytics will show you which pages have high exit rates. Examine top exit pages that have input fields that may require tweaking.

Search Illustrated: 22 Features for Site Search Nirvana

Posted under Site Search on August 23rd, 2010 by Linda Bustos / Comments (9)

What makes for great site search?

Here are 22 features to consider to optimize your site search tool for usability, guided selling and customer satisfaction.

Search Box

1. Placement
2. Size
3. Scope

Placement

Search boxes should be easy to spot where customers expect them (top right hand corner or top center). Avoid “Search” links in navigation menus – most will scan your page for a box. Also avoid placing email sign-up boxes where a customer expects a search box – they will use it incorrectly! If you must show search and email sign-up close together, include instructions like “enter keywords” or “enter email address.”

Size

Search boxes should be long enough to accommodate longer search terms, it’s easier on your customers when they can see the bulk of their search phrase input before hitting “Search.” 30 characters is a minimum, but you can certainly go bigger.

Scope

Scoped search allows customers to search within a particular section of your site, for example Books vs. Music vs. DVDs. Sounds helpful in theory, but not always necessary. Usability research by Jakob Nielsen from over a decade ago revealed common problems, such as users selecting the wrong category to search within, or users not realizing they are searching within a scoped section, rather then the whole site (especially when one section is selected as the default, rather than “Entire Site.”)

In my opinion, it is better to allow the user to search the entire site, then narrow results by department, as Amazon allows:

One exception – if your store is bolted on to a parent site (as is common in the software industry), it’s a good idea to offer scoped search to allow visitors to search within sections like Discussion Forums, Corporate Info, Product Info and Store.

Search Tools

4. Autosuggest
5. Autocorrect
6. DId you mean?
7. Related searches
8. Search within results
9. Sort by
10. Filtered navigation
11. Advanced search

Autosuggest

Another workaround for scoped search is autosuggest, which reduces typos and helps avoid “zero results found” as suggestions are always for products and categories you carry.

Notice how Apple.com not only scopes results by site section, it also uses “rich autocomplete” by including thumbnail images.

Autocorrect

Rather than show “0 results found,” showing something can reduce abandonment. Tweaking your tool to handle misspellings saves the visitor from entering their search again and shows the “intelligence” of your site, and may instill more confidence in your search tool.

However, autocorrect can fail – for example, “camo” and “cami” are very different but they may be typos of each other. It’s a good idea to state that you don’t have any results, with suggestions of a similar spelled term, than to let the customer think your search has made a mistake.

Did you mean?

If you have many items that are close in spelling, you might opt for “Did you mean?” rather than autocorrect.

Related searches

Like autosuggest, related searches links help searchers drill down to more specific terms than they originally typed, and may offer ideas they never thought of

Search within results

Search within results is an “okay to have” but not a must. It’s easy enough for the searcher to go back and enter the refinement into the regular search box. If you are considering building this feature, I suggest using development resources elsewhere.

Keep in mind that searchers may mistake the “search within” box for the real search box. If they enter an unrelated query, they’re likely to get zero results and may leave your site.

Sort by

I’m a huge fan of “sort by” to re-order results based on what the customer values. Some folks are interested in top sellers, some in newest arrivals, some want to see top rated items first and others are price sensitive.

Filtered navigation

I’m an even bigger fan of filtered navigation. Sometimes called “guided search,” filters allow you to guide visitors to product based on product attributes that are important to them such as color, price ranges, brand, gender, size, category/sub-category, style, % off, etc. There’s no limit to how creative you can get with filtered navigation, like “filter by problem:”

It’s a good idea to include the number of results in each sub-facet in (brackets).

My favorite implementation of filters is on ASOS.com, where you can narrow by several attributes at the same time with checkboxes. Results are updated without refresh using AJAX.

Some online shops apply filters to categories but not to search results – don’t be one of them!

Advanced search

Most sites don’t need advanced search if they’ve got good filtered navigation. If your site truly needs advanced search, here are 11 tips for advanced search usability.

Search Results

12. Zero results presentation
13. View all
14. Grid vs. list view
15. Searchandizing
16. Product presentation
17. Quick view / image zoom

Zero results presentation

How you present “zero results found” is important. Contrast a page like this:

With these…

Drugstore.com does not carry the Bumble and Bumble line, but is tweaked to suggest products similar to that brand.

Sears reminds searchers of telephone, live chat and email contact options if customers need a hand, while populating results with products “related to current search.”

Victoria’s Secret acknowledges there were no search results found for “Linda Bustos,” but suggests a few possible corrections, and failing that, shows me the top 10 searches – I just may be interested in.

Of course, a little humor never hurts – if it’s in line with your brand personality…

View all

Rather than clicking through each and every page of results, it’s helpful to have a “view all” link. Every site should have this feature!

Grid vs. list view

Some sites allow you to toggle between grid and list presentation, like Home Depot:

Searchandizing

Merchandising on search pages may include keyword-triggered banners, but can also include features like best-selling items above regular search results.

The term also refers to the way you want your search results presented. Some search tools allow you to apply weighted scores to product conditions, for example, rank results based on relevance [40%], margin [20%], stock level [20%], sales velocity [10%], customer rating [10%]. Veering away from pure relevance-ranking is controversial, but it can produce “better” results, especially if your site search receives a lot of general “head” terms that return a very large number of matching items.

Product presentation

How you present your product listing can have a huge impact on click through. The more information you can expose pre-click, the better the customer can judge which products they want to view.

The worst search presentation I’ve seen in ecommerce is with large enterprise software sites. They are notorious for using Google-style presentation which serves every matching result from the entire site (even when you search only the store), with no demarcation of which are product results and which are documents. This is the extreme example of what not to do:

Newegg has a better presentation for software products – including scannable bullet points that include O/S compatibility, system requirements and return policy, along with a direct add to cart button and price/shipping information.

Radio Shack includes a brief product description, star ratings, stock availability and an “add to wishlist” button.

But presentation really depends on what will sell your product best. Software is different from cosmetics, is different than books, is different than clothing. People shop for apparel visually, and Gap’s extra large thumbnails speak more than bullet point descriptions:

Land’s End allows you to see color swatches and change the color of the thumbnail image right from search results:

QVC highlights video content, comparison tools, special offers like “Try Me Price” and persuasive value propositions like “Over 1 Million Sold” and “Customer Favorite.”

Endless includes sale prices in red and applicable shipping promos:

There’s many ways you can pimp your results presentation. Whenever possible, include price/sale price, thumbnail images and star ratings. Then, ask yourself these questions:

Choose your presentation features according to the products you sell, and use the above as inspiration.

Quick view

Quick look tools allow you to view details without leaving the search page.

It’s essentially a fully functional, pop-up product page.

Bonus features

18. Autoappend
19. Saved searches
20. Discussions
21. Subscribe by RSS
22. Check store availability

Autoappend

An alternative to paginated results and view all links, Backcountry.com autoappends results with more results when you reach the end of the page. No clicks required. The only downside is it can take a long time to scroll back to the top.

Saved searches

For some sites, saved search is a nice to have, like Endless.com (below), for others, it’s crucial – think B2B and complex sales that require product configuration.

Discussions

Apple.com and Sears integrate support and community content alongside product results. While this may clutter the page and reduce click through, it also exposes the depth of content the site offers that can support the purchase decision.

Subscribe by RSS

Some sites like Newegg and Ebay allow you to subscribe to a custom search result by RSS feed. This is especially helpful in a marketplace like Ebay where new long-tail products appear and disappear frequently.

Check store availability

Multi-channel retailer Barnes and Noble allows customers to find products in-store directly from search results. Innovative!

This collection of search features is not a checklist for perfect search, rather an inspiration board. Some of these features are must-haves – conventional search box placement, filtered navigation, sort-by tools and view all links. Not every idea in this post will be appropriate to your business or customer, but I hope it gives you some ideas of how you can improve the usability and presentation of your search results.

You may also be interested in 15 Things to Ask Your Site Search Vendor.