How to make online visitors to stay on your ecommerce site

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You’ve got them to your ecommerce site. What next?

Website ecommerce is all about getting your customers to buy from your ecommerce business. Getting your customers to stay on your site is the first and most important step to successful ecommerce business. Great. So, how do you make this happen?

Give them what they are looking for!

In website ecommerce, there is perhaps no weapon that is as effective as user experience. This is a nearly beaten to death expression that is so vast it means one thing to you and another thing to me; yet, this is the clincher. This has to be brought about by the combination of ecommerce shopping software and ecommerce design.

On the one hand, internally, the e commerce software should have the potency to power the features that the visitor looks for. Externally, the ecommerce design should be appealing and aesthetically done.

On top of it, there is a combination of website optimisation and social media marketing. Social media tools and social media services, which SEO specialists carry out, act as another bait that draws your visitor to ecommerce websites, from where it is necessary to use a few tricks to make them stay and buy.

Social Media + ROI + Investment

Being successful in social media requires an investment, and typically a greater one than many anticipate
when they begin participating. Driving even a minimal amount of social media marketing doesn’t come for
free, and doing it right often requires multiple resources, services and integration, requiring a layered
approach of best practices for success. First, companies need to establish a base social media presence,
setting up their Twitter account(s), Facebook fan page, LinkedIn profile(s) and Blog site(s). Alinean research on
social media engagements, best practices and ROI revealed that the setup/start-up investments were modest
for almost all companies.
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Getting started was the easy part.
Second, companies need to attract, connect and interact with users to create engagement. Alinean research
revealed that to do this well required a layered hierarchically approach of content and activity, forming the
Social Media Hierarchy of Needs. The hierarchy is established from a strong foundation of Content,
progressing to Campaigns, then Monitoring and finally, Collaboration. Having each layer in place sequentially
was a key to results achievement.
Third, marketers needed monitoring, campaign management and reporting tools and integration (with CRM
and Marketing Automation solutions) to help them facilitate and monitor engagements, interact with users,
nurture relationships, qualify and process leads and opportunities, and measure results.

Investment is tallied across setup, engagement and tools, including the cost for internal resources, outsourced services and tools/ integration.

Usage of Social Media Value Chain to calculate the ROI

By using each step in the value chain as a method to determine costs and benefits, marketers can understand
the components needed to achieve value, and enable the measurement and calculation of ROI.
Using the Social Media Value Chain, Alinean analyzed hundreds of different organizations to determine thepotential ROI. The research uncovered the following ROI trends:
1. Certain marketers are realizing better levels-of-engagement, and as a result, lower costs/higher
downstream benefits and a more positive ROI, particularly larger companies with popular brands, customer demographics that match social media users, and particular industries including: High
Technology, Consumer Products, Retail, Travel , Media and Entertainment, Hospitality, and Automotive;
2. The majority of organizations are currently achieving a marginal or negative ROI, especially companiesthat are having to spend more to engage effectively and reach critical mass on their efforts, especially smaller firms, those that do not have popular brands, and those in particular industries with lowengagement levels, particularly: Energy, Utilities, Wholesale & Distribution, Pharmaceuticals, Healthcare,Chemicals, and Professional Services/Service Providers;
3. Best practices matter in social media ROI success, in particular those companies that implement a
hierarchical approach to engagement, The Social Media Hierarchy of Needs;
4. Certain companies who are aggressively pursuing social media channels and implementing innovative
campaigns are achieving a significant ROI of 500% or more from these efforts.

HOW TO CALCULATE ROI FROM SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

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Calculating the ROI of social media requires a framework or model of the dynamics of social media
campaigns. This is then populated with measurement of how engagement with new prospects, existing
customers, and collaborators via social media channels helps to drive and derive a bottom-line impact to the
company, either through cost avoidance/savings or incremental revenue/margin impact.
Alinean proposes that Social Media ROI can be calculated by analyzing the value chain, from Investments to
Engagement to Benefits and Derived Value and finally, to ROI (net derived value/investments) as follows:
1. Investments — to get any benefit from social media requires an investment, particularly in marketing
labor, resources and tools to establish the social media presence, create content and campaigns,
monitor and collaborate and measure social media success;
2. Engagement — a first order effect of the investments, measuring the resultant number of followers,
advocates, reach and influence of the social media marketing efforts;
3. Benefits — the quantification of the resultant value of engagement, measuring the impact that social
media marketing is having on generating incremental revenue with new prospects and existing
customers, driving product/operational savings and innovation with collaboration partners, or avoiding
costs, such as avoiding the marketing expenses for other less effective/ efficient or redundant lead-gen
programs;
4. Derived Value and ROI — a financial summary comparing the ratio of investments versus derived
benefits to assure that the social media efforts are generating enough value compared to other
potential investments, and worthy of more (or less) investment.

Calculate your ROI from Social Media Marketing

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Marketers are investing significantly more in social media efforts, with increases from 6% to 18% percent of
marketing budgets expected within five years.
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Marketers understand that you must make an investment to
deliver social media results and success, but what spending levels are required, and how much effort needs to
be expended to deliver specific results?
As social media marketing efforts increase, so does the investment required. And in today’s ―age of austerity,‖
every significant investment now requires proof of bottom-line impact and superior value — a condition
called Frugalnomics. As a result, with the social media spending increases, comes increased executive scrutiny,
and challenges from other stakeholders who may be losing budget to these efforts. This is driving the need for
better social media measurement and return on investment (ROI) accountability.
Recent survey results from Altimeter state that measurement is indeed one of the most important aspects to
social media success; in fact, the top priority reported by 48% of corporations was ―Creating ROI
Measurements‖ for internal programs.
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According to Altimeter, ―those that can effectively measure
improvements can make the business case, and can truly obtain more budget funding.‖
However, even though social media ROI measurement is important, Altimeter found that benchmarking efforts
are incomplete, with 65% of corporations using only Engagement Data as the top measurement metric, and a
mere 22% capturing Product Revenue, a key element in quantifying value and ROI.
With so little measurement, can anyone say that there is actual ROI from social media in general and your own
unique marketing efforts in particular? Alinean believes that the sustainability of funding for social media is at
risk in enterprises that are not able to demonstrate solid business cases for these initiatives.
In the next several sections, this paper address the ROI measurement issue, outlining a practical set of
methodologies, calculations and measurements to better understand and calculate the ROI from Social Media.

Ecommerce & Big Brands in Asia

Asia-Pacific countries have experienced a rapid rise in Internet usage in recent history. China, in particular, has seen 40% of its population (or 500M people) connect to the Internet in the past 10 years, and continues to experience an increase in its user base. This large user base, coupled with a rise in wealthy households and per capita spending, is driving a dramatic increase in e-Commerce retail, specifically in the luxury goods space. Consumption of luxury goods in China has reached $9.4B in 2010, second only to Japan in the world. As luxury purchase rates continue to increase in China, luxury fashion brands are investing many resources to understand the customer, develop the market, establish the supply chain, and deliver the products. Polo Ralph Lauren (PRL), in order to continue its growth in China, is expanding aggressively through license reacquisitions and retail store developments. Furthermore, to provide its existing customers with additional products and enhanced services, and to capture consumers who live in cities without access to PRL's brick and mortar stores, PRL has set its vision to develop an e- Commerce business in China. This thesis provides a fundamental understanding of PRL's current business operations and of current e-Commerce fulfillment models for luxury apparel brands in China. An assessment of gaps was also conducted between current fulfillment operations of PRL and those of other luxury brands and 3PLs operating in China, specifically on delivery lead-time, last mile delivery options, end-to-end customer service, and return logistics. From this research, we recommend general methods for luxury brands to manage and provide best in class fulfillment service. For PRL, we specifically recommend the company maintain ownership of all customer-facing activities to ensure quality. We also advise PRL to integrate all customer information from retail to e-Commerce, further strengthening its service offering and brand image. Furthermore, we recommend PRL to locate and outsource its initial DC in Shanghai and partner with FedEx and EMS for fulfillment.

The CRASH of A380 Flight QF32 & Social Media

 “The
reports from Batam Island sparked a lot of activity on Twitter,
with people asking what had happened, seeking information
and also retweeting conversations. Several media outlets
also reported on the tweets and indicated that there were reports that
a Qantas jet had crashed after leaving Singapore. This included several
reports on wire services. This information and reporting happened very
quickly and it was difficult for Qantas to correct the record immediately,
due to the volume of misinformation on Twitter.”
Two-and-a-half hours later (by which time the aircraft was back on
the ground in Singapore) Reuters was still freshly reporting to the world
that “Qantas says crashed plane an Airbus A380 … Qantas told CNBC
television that a plane that crashed near Singapore was an Airbus A380.
No other details were immediately available.” By now, a combination of
wrong tweets combined with a misquoted, incomplete report of a CNBC TV
statement, made the crash seem authentic.
Says Mr Joyce, the big problem at that time was, “Qantas had no instant
way of getting the message out to the world in its own words.”
Despite the fact that “within minutes” Qantas officials had “provided
information to the media that no aircraft had crashed and that the A380
was making a return journey to Singapore”, the damage had already
been done. Because of the long tail of news (eg via news wires, which
are picked up and often repeated by online and hard copy conventional
media with very little change or cross-checking), the incorrect reports
were reverberating across time zones faster than the correcting news being asked about this incident.”
The same is still probably true of most
airlines. Not so Qantas. Not any more.
After this initial firefighting exercise,
Qantas then “fast-tracked the establishment
of a number of channels, including
@qantasmedia. This was set-up within 48
hours [of the A380 incident]. This account
is set up purely for the provision of factual
information for the media (and others) during
normal operations and also crisis situations.”
“We had this up and running very quickly
to ensure we could provide updates on the
grounding of the A380 fleet, as well as other
delays, incidents or news which would be of
interest to the public. We also used other
social media platforms during the next 19
days to provide updates to the public." - by Qantas CEO

Contribution of Facebook in Airline Sector

Facebook too has enormous and varied
popular appeal. It is increasingly a tool
for information exchange and a valuable
supplement for the airline’s own website,
where it can win new “likes” and provide a
focus for special offers. It is also potentially
(and controversially) a source of evolving
distribution capability, containing as it does,
massively detailed personal data, along with
access to more than half a billion consumers
(see for example, Professor Nawal Taneja’s
article in this issue, and below).
Many Facebook users are in the more
attractive market segments, with disposable
income and mobility. Despite a slowing in
growth, Facebook is still highly popular, with
extensive social relevance. As one Egyptian
activist, a local google marketing executive,
said on CNN in Feb-2011: “I want to meet
Mark Zuckerberg and thank him personally.
This revolution started online. This revolution started on Facebook. This revolution started in June 2010 when hundreds of thousands of Egyptians started collaborating content.”
Any self-respecting tyrant will take this to heart and block access to social media, just as Iran, Libya (and China) have. But that does not
apply for most airlines, which will have to live the foreseeable future with these forms of media, immediately a challenge – but also an opportunity to understand more about target markets first hand.

COUNTRIES WITH MORE THAN 100M INTERNET USERS

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China 850(in Millions)
India 760 (adding 17m/month)
USA 300
Russia 215
Brazil 205
Indonesia 170
Japan 108
Germany 107
India’s democracy is more hospitable to social
media, notably to Facebook, although less than
2% of the population is signed up so far. More
importantly, that proportion has doubled in the past
year, with some 22 million today. Sixteen million of
those are males, outnumbering females by a factor
of almost three (in the US, females exceed males).
Finding a bride is still a high priority.
Indonesia already has 35 million on Facebook;
Turkey has 26 million; and Brazil (where there is
stiff local competition in the Portuguese-speaking
country) has 13 million, double the number only six
months earlier.
Russia’s leader at present is Facebook lookalike,
VKontakte, with 28 million users. Facebook is still
small there, but growing; Mark Zuckerburg has
specifically stated he wants to penetrate that
country’s market, as a prelude to invading China.
And Indonesia and Brazil top the stats for market
penetration by Twitter, each with 21%. The US, by
comparison is a humble 12%, while Japan sits at
17%. For a phenomenon in its early stages, these are
remarkable figures.
Local dynamics are important; Japan, for example,
has US-level Twitter usage, but only tiny penetration
by Facebook. Homegrown medium, Mixi, which allows
greater anonymity, has about 15 million members,
with a market cap of USD1 billion.

Usage of Social Media In Airline industry Contd..

5) FOR AIRLINES, NEW
CUSTOMER RELATIONS
STRATEGIES ARE NOW
ESSENTIAL, REGARDLESS OF
ENGAGEMENT WITH SOCIAL
MEDIA OUTLETS. The pointed end
of social media is Twitter and instant
messaging – positively, for its potential
use in customer relations, marketing
and selling and – negatively, for its
ability to magnify problems which are
not well handled.

6) TWITTER IS A WAKE-UP
CALL TO IMPROVE MINI-CRISIS
COMMUNICATIONS. This medium
allows the communication process to be
followed back up the communications-
operations chain (and across an airline’s
“silos”). That trail can then be retraced
back down the line – keeping frontline
staff in the picture.

7) PASSENGERS FEEL
EMPOWERED IF THEY KNOW
WHAT’S GOING ON – and best they
hear it directly from the horse’s mouth
than from other dissatisfied passengers
sitting around in the informational
dark. Every “crisis” becomes a great
opportunity to shine with sensible use of
the new media.

8) DON’T USE SOCIAL MEDIA
TO TRY TO CHANGE YOUR
IMAGE WITHOUT CHANGING
YOUR FUNDAMENTALS. What
works for a fresh young LCC often won’t
work for a long-established legacy
airline, even where it has recognised
that Twitter or Facebook are for real.
And the old maxim applies – don’t overpromise and under-deliver. Upscaling
some of the current initiatives will
become impossible as one-to-one
communications propositions.

Usage of Social Media In Airline industry

1) ➤ SOCIAL MEDIA’S
OPPORTUNITIES ARE
CHANGING THE WAY MANY
HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF
PEOPLE COMMUNICATE
and, vitally, share information. The
behavioural change now under way is
irreversible. It substantially shifts the
information power balance towards
consumers. There is more to come.

2) ➤ SOCIAL NETWORKS TAKE
VARIOUS FORMS, EACH WITH
INDEPENDENT ORIGINS and
usually with different target markets.
Hence the value of connections between
the different media forms. Each has
very different potential uses (and risk
profiles) for airlines.

3) ➤ ONCE AN AIRLINE ENGAGES
FULLY IN SOCIAL MEDIA,
IT BECOMES A PARTICIPANT,
not automatically a leader. It discards
the levels of control over output that it
has been used to. But it will usually be
in a stronger position than if it does not
participate.

4) ➤ SOCIAL MEDIA OFFER
ONE-OFF OPPORTUNITIES
FOR INNOVATORS. First movers
can be rewarded disproportionately, by
using the media in a coordinated way.
But there can be no 10-year strategy.
Actions will need to be flexible and open to adjustment, as the media evolve.
Five years ago Facebook and Twitter
barely existed. They too will change
rapidly, or be replaced.

Social Media Presence in UAE : Conclusion

The most popular types of social media in United Arab Emirates are generally the same as those used
in other regions across the Middle East, North Africa, and beyond. These include social networks
(Facebook), video-sharing sites (YouTube), and micro-blogging sites (Twitter), among others. UAE
respondents were both generally skilled in the use of a variety of social media, and well aware of its
potential ethical and practical limitations. It has served as a vital source and vehicle for news,
information, business development, opinion sharing, cultural production, and entertainment. But
residents were also well aware of its potential as a platform for making business and government
practices more transparent, and its usefulness as a mobilizing platform for political change.
Further research is needed to determine the larger impact of social media, particularly on youth
and women in the UAE. Also, further research should be done to determine a more complete picture of
its benefits, liabilities, and potential in an area that maintains one of world's highest net migration rates.
In the UAE, and perhaps the Gulf region at large, social media has established its place as an
integral and interdependent actor in society.

U A E - Levels of Trust and Concern about Social Media.

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Participants expressed both a level of trust and distrust in the social media that they used frequently
regardless. They were well aware of its pros and cons.

As mentioned earlier, the relatively young and well-educated sample expressed much
confidence in their own ability to work with social networking sites. However, there approximately one quarter (26%) stated they were "Not Confident" with this medium. Even confident participants conveyed knowledge about the potential drawbacks of social media. Interestingly, the largest hindrance noted to the adoption of social media was a significant feeling of "lack of control" (42%). Reservations regarding skill level (32%) roughly matched with Not Confident levels, and about a third of those surveyed mentioned a of credibility and ethical problems as reasons for questioning social media.

The potential dangers of social media for teenagers in the UAE come out in focus group
discussion. Participants noted threats to teenagers and even children under ten years of age who are
using Blackberries and chatting with older adults who are complete strangers. They mentioned their
use of inappropriate pictures. Aside from morality, they mentioned the waste of time as children used these technologies during school time, against school policy. Participants suggested new legislation to prohibit access to these technologies by children: "Money is not more important than humanity. The USA doesn't allow children under 18 purchase cigarettes, so we hope to likewise pass laws restricting access to new technologies like social media. YouTube videos, etc." In describing their caution about social media, they said "It is like Wikipedia. Any person can create his/her own story and distribute it in the society. Uneducated people are victims of fake news when they cannot distinguish between lies and facts."

However, all participants agreed that social media is a vital source of news. They recognized
their new day-to-day reliance to get fast news updates and acquire new friends. They also noted how people submitted videos and information to outlets like Al-Jazeera after major media channels were blocked during the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. They recognized the limitations of Arab media in the past, and said that new media has "opened a new world" for them.

Perceived Benefits of Social Media in U A E

Social media appealed to most participants as both entertainment and for more practical reasons.
Survey respondents mentioned that they liked the games, tests, and gift-giving features of Facebook.
Their choice of a particular social networking site was based on the perception that it offered leads that
competing sites did not offer. For another popular site, YouTube, they liked the ability to comment
upon and rate videos. They liked the convenience offered by social bookmarking sites like Delicious
for managing and viewing websites. Flicker was mentioned as a means of finding excellent photos of
lesser known photographers.
In terms of more practical considerations, when surveyed about the potential benefits of social
media to improve a person's communication skills, an overwhelming number (97%) agreed. They
mentioned its aid in making communication more precise, in expanding vocabulary, and in developing
writing skills. Results also describe the usage and benefits of social media in professional employment.
When surveyed about which departments would be most likely to use social media to advantage, the
largest share (29%) went to Public Relations departments, while the second spot was roughly shared
equally by public government use ( 15%) and use by management (11%).