The coronavirus (COVID-19) has been a drastic agent of change across the globe. It’s forced us to adapt how we live and work to the new pandemic environment.
If things go right and we flatten the coronavirus curve, we could be social distancing for quite a while. Already, this has put many small businesses in a difficult position, especially those that rely on in-store purchases.
It’s important to work together during this time. So, to help other small businesses, we’re sharing this guide to digital marketing during COVID-19. By improving your business’ presence on the internet, not only can you endure the pandemic, but build the foundation for success when it ends.
Graphic courtesy of Four51 OrderCloud. Used by permission.
The world of B2B selling is ripe for a revolution. Ecommerce technology has flourished in the B2C sector for decades, but it has not yet seen widespread adoption in B2B. Of course, that’s for good reason: the limitations of old software made eCommerce cumbersome in the complex world of B2B.
All that has changed. B2B eCommerce is now a viable alternative to the complex legacy systems used by many B2B companies. The benefits of adopting an eCommerce model in the B2B sector are many. To the company, eCommerce offers a better bottom line with less waste, higher margins, and all backend complexity maintained and streamlined; to the customer, it offers a simplified, intuitive buying experience that works on any device.
For today’s B2B executives and managers, only one question remains: which B2B eCommerce platform is right for my company?
[clickToTweet tweet=”Which #B2B #ecommerce platform is right for your company–#PaaS, SaaS, or in-house?” quote=”Which B2B eCommerce platform is right for your company–PaaS, SaaS, or in-house? ” theme=”style1″]
First, we’ll talk about the problem. Then we’ll outline 4 potential solutions.
The Problem: B2B Ecommerce Solutions Must Handle Complexity Efficiently
B2B selling is complex. In many legacy systems, that complexity means wasted time, money, and effort. For example, a typical B2B sales path might include:
A customer service representative who takes orders over the phone and enters them manually into a tracking system.
An email newsletter platform that can only communicate with a customer database through manual data entry.
Inability to take electronic payments.
Customer-facing website that displays products but cannot offer on-site purchasing due to complex permissions governing pricing.
Customer-facing website that is not optimized for mobile devices.
Each of these points of information exchange contains hidden inefficiencies. These inefficiencies add up to lower margins across the board for B2B companies.
Ordering through CSRs may not be the first choice of some demographics, such as Millennials. That means HR expense that may not be necessary.
Manual data entry is inefficient.
Processing non-electronic payments can be time-consuming.
A non-eCommerce website serves as little more than a print catalog of offerings, forcing the customer to jump through another hoop (phone call or fax) after determining what to purchase.
A non-mobile-friendly website could lead to missed sales as mobile users give up on type that is too small to read and buttons that are too small to tap.
Worse, every time information is exchanged within a system like this, there’s potential for error—which introduces even more waste.
CSRs can make mistakes in manual order entry, leading to costly returns.
Marketers building email lists from customer lists can make mistakes in data entry and grouping.
Paper invoices and checks can get lost in the mail.
Customers can make errors in relaying their buy lists to a CSR. These errors may come under dispute later.
For non-mobile-friendly B2B eCommerce websites, difficult navigation leads to more attention needed from CSRs. That is a cost to the company.
Solution 1: Cloud-based PaaS (Platform as a Service)
In an interview on the 216digital blog, Bill Osteraas, VP of Channel Development at OrderCloud, talked about the features which PaaS offers for B2B ecommerce. “We face this topic with a different approach,” he said. “Flexibility over features.”
[clickToTweet tweet=”.@OrderCloudIO shatters the B2B #ecommerce #PaaS market with ‘flexibility over features’” quote=”OrderCloudIO shatters the B2B eCommerce PaaS market with ‘flexibility over features’” theme=”style1″]
OrderCloud is an API-first platform that allows developers to build the exact custom apps that a unique B2B eCommerce client needs.
In other words, B2B managers don’t have to sort through a long list of “included” and “not included” features when trying to figure out if OrderCloud’s PaaS will work for them. If other B2B eCommerce solutions are a finished house with most fixtures installed, OrderCloud is a floorplan and foundation. Everything else is open for development, ready to be built out into a unique, efficient configuration.
In the world of B2B eCommerce solutions, PaaS is ideal for companies that have complex relationships with manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, and multiple sets of customers. Platforms like OrderCloud are ready to be built out into multi-portal eCommerce stores, with features like varying permissions per user group, variable pricing per user group, CSR interface that talks directly to inventory, and much more.
Example 1: Bachman’s B2B Ecommerce Model
Image courtesy of Four51 OrderCloud. Used by permission.
Because OrderCloud is PaaS, the core foundation is ready to integrate with all the 3rd-party APIs that this company needs to run its business. The flexibility allows a custom solution, and the company pays only for what they need.
Pros of cloud-based PaaS for B2B eCommerce:
API-first configuration ensures that your third-party software will work seamlessly with your store across ongoing upgrade cycles.
Your custom PaaS solution is built right the first time with functionality that fits your unique, complex operation and the place you occupy in your market.
You do not pay for a one-size-fits-all SaaS solution that then requires customization to work for your unique business.
You don’t have to build from scratch. A raw, highly-adaptable framework is provided, ready to be built out.
Your custom applications are cloud-hosted and can be accessed from any web browser.
Upgrades are automatic.
Pay-as-you-go pricing.
Flexible support plans that grow with your business.
PCI compliance built-in.
Total flexibility in payments.
Omnichannel order management.
Total order fulfillment tracking.
Powerful CSR automation.
Solution 2: Licensed SaaS (Software as a Service)
In a SaaS (software as a service) solution that is not hosted by the software provider, you purchase a license to use eCommerce software. You must arrange your own web hosting and install the software there. This is a common arrangement in the B2C eCommerce world. How well it adapts to B2B will depend on your business’s unique needs.
Common SaaS eCommerce platforms not hosted by the software provider include Magento and WooCommerce. Note that while these platforms can be adapted for simple B2B operations, they were originally intended for B2C eCommerce. They may not provide all the custom rules which a B2B eCommerce solution requires.
[clickToTweet tweet=”A #SaaS solution for #B2C may not provide all the functionality required by B2B #ecommerce” quote=”A SaaS solution for B2C may not provide all the functionality required by B2B eCommerce” theme=”style1″]
Pros of Licensed SaaS:
You can choose the most competitive hosting plan that meets your company’s specific needs.
Because hosting is not tied to your eCommerce software, the cost of your hosting will likely depend on bandwidth and storage needs, rather than a sliding revenue-based scale.
Likewise, there are no transaction fees deducted from your revenue.
Cons of Licensed SaaS:
You must adapt an out-of-box solution, with or without customization and/or add-ons, to the complex needs of your unique B2B eCommerce operation.
SaaS solutions are often not API-first.
You may have to establish PCI compliance yourself.
You are responsible for routine maintenance, updates, and upgrades to your eCommerce store.
You are responsible for emergency troubleshooting if the store goes down or a third-party integration stops working with your store.
Third-party integrations, critical to B2B operations, are often available only in paid add-ons which must be updated separately from the core software. These add-ons can break your store when compatibility issues arise.
Unknown whether you can create customer groups that allow multiple users from a customer company to log in and see each other’s orders.
Checkout process may require modification to meet the complex needs of B2B.
Solution 3: Bundled Hosting and Ecommerce (Cloud-Based SaaS)
SaaS hosted by the software provider offers tradeoffs that may be attractive to some business models. These solutions may charge revenue-based fees and/or transaction fees for use of the service. They are generally geared toward B2C eCommerce startups, and their application to large B2B enterprise operations is questionable.
Common SaaS eCommerce solutions hosted by the software provider include Bigcommerce and Shopify.
Pros of cloud-based SaaS hosted by the software provider:
All-in-one eCommerce and hosting package that does not require you to get your own hosting.
Software updates are pushed automatically without compatibility issues.
Cloud-based solutions are generally PCI Level 1 compliant.
Easy, cost-effective solution for small B2B startups that do not require complex functionality and do not plan to grow beyond the capacities of cloud-based SaaS solutions.
Omnichannel functionality is available, generally with paid extensions.
Cons of cloud-based SaaS hosted by the software provider:
Different pricing for different customers or for different customer groups may require third-party add-ons.
Complex permissions structures may require third-party add-ons.
Revenue-based pricing.
Transaction fees.
No FTP access.
SaaS solutions are often not API-first.
Unknown whether you can create customer groups that allow multiple users from one company to log in and see each other’s orders.
Checkout process may require modification to meet the complex needs of B2B.
Frankly, this is an obsolete solution. Even for large companies that can afford the expense, the benefits gained by such a great capital outlay are available for a much lower price with a PaaS solution. Since PaaS providers like OrderCloud have already covered the ground of building the foundation, you gain nothing by reinventing the wheel—particularly when these providers make their reusable eCommerce foundations available at highly competitive prices.
Pros of proprietary in-house B2B eCommerce solutions:
Total control over all aspects of the solution.
Cons of proprietary in-house B2B eCommerce solutions:
They uselessly reinvent the wheel.
They do not provide any value beyond that of existing solutions.
They cost far more than any PaaS solution to develop, deploy and maintain.
Making a Decision
Paul Demery reports in B2B Ecommerce World on a recent study by Forrester Consulting with examined emerging trends in PaaS and SaaS deployment for B2B eCommerce. The study found that “the rate of increase in planned PaaS-based deployments over the next two years is twice that of the increase in planned SaaS-based deployments.”
[clickToTweet tweet=”Next 2 yrs, % of planned increase in #PaaS installations=2x planned #SaaS installations in B2B #ecommerce” quote=”Over next 2 yrs, rate of planned increase in PaaS installations=2x planned SaaS installations for B2B eCommerce” theme=”style1″]
In other words, the B2B world is moving to eCommerce. And it’s choosing PaaS over SaaS.
For B2B decision-makers, the time is now to begin pursuing a new B2B eCommerce solution. As more and more companies roll out their own highly customized B2B eCommerce machines, companies without a competitive solution will be ill-equipped to meet the market’s new expectations. They’ll be stuck with old processes that don’t work and customers who can’t get a seamless, personalized front-end experience.
PaaS solutions are beginning to lead the B2B eCommerce services market. As one of theTop eCommerce Development Companies, we believe that the trend will only increase. PaaS solutions offer the right balance between customization and an affordable foundation to build on. Where SaaS is too constraining for modern B2B eCommerce, the sky is the limit with PaaS. Where in-house, proprietary eCommerce solutions uselessly reinvent the wheel, PaaS offers a client-agnostic, reusable foundation for an infinite variety of eCommerce businesses.
Fast-loading product pages could make or break your conversion rate.
As an independent ecommerce retailer, you know how tough it is to compete with the big boys. Amazon can outsell us all, and they can afford fast-loading mobile functionality at scale. Luckily, independent e-retailers can optimize their experiences to compete—and it’s cheaper than you might think. With the increasing growth of mobile shopping, Google’s AMP project offers a unique opportunity for ecommerce stores to load product, category, and home pages instantly for on-the-go mobile customers.
[clickToTweet tweet=”#AMP for #ecommerce means lightning-fast product, category, and home pages. @216_digital” quote=”#AMP for #ecommerce means lightning-fast product, category, and home pages. ” theme=”style1″]
Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is an open-source project that aims to kick the mobile web into high gear. AMP was originally intended for publishers, whose sites often load slowly on mobile due to multiple JavaScript queries for numerous ads. But AMP is great for ecommerce, too.
Slow mobile load times can kill an ecommerce store. The first pages in the conversion funnel MUST load lightning-fast. You don’t want to blow the customer’s moment of expectation. AMP is the perfect solution.
So what does AMP for ecommerce mean? Let’s break it down.
What is AMP?
AMP is an open web standard that cranks up page load on mobile. It uses a limited subset of HTML. It does not allow 3rd party JavaScript, only the AMP JavaScript library, which must be pulled from the AMP CDN (content delivery network). AMP pages are cached and served from a free Google CDN. This combination produces lightning-fast load times on mobile.
In mobile search results, AMP pages appear in a carousel at the top of search. They are notated with the lightning bolt symbol and the word AMP. AMP results may also appear below the carousel.
“AMP pages are highly distilled versions of the corresponding HTML page,” says 216digital developer Justin Sims. “They’re not as media-rich or as heavy as other pages.”
[clickToTweet tweet=”#AcceleratedMobilePages are highly distilled versions of the corresponding HTML page. @216_digital” quote=”#AcceleratedMobilePages are highly distilled versions of the corresponding HTML page. ” theme=”style1″]
Why is this important?
As AMP picks up momentum, we fully expect it to become the new standard for mobile development in certain environments.
Google reports that it has indexed 150 million AMP pages, and that 4 million new AMP pages are added every week. That’s a fast-growing trend. Since AMP represents a new competitive edge for those sites that use it, it’s critical to adopt this standard early.
How do I get AMP on my ecommerce store?
“With any large-scale, widely adopted platform, there will be easy 3rd party solutions implemented,” says 216digital developer Justin Sims. “WordPress and Magento already have premade AMP solutions. At the end of the day, though, there will be a huge difference in quality and effectiveness between manually developed amp pages and those generated through plugins.”
In other words, AMP plugins will work for simple situations, but they may not offer the full control which more complex ecommerce stores require. In that case, an experienced developer can help you get the most out of AMP, either with or without a plugin.
How can I tell if AMP is doing its job?
AMP supports A/B testing. That means you can gather real data on two or more versions of an AMP page to see what drives conversions and what doesn’t.
As Search Engine Land reports, you’ll want to set up Analytics to monitor four dimensions of page performance. Ideally, you would compare these stats for AMP pages against non-AMP versions of the same products on your site. If you can’t do that, you can compare your AMP pages against different products that generally perform the same as your AMPed products.
Here are the four dimensions to monitor:
– Traffic– Engagement– Conversions– Revenue
Is Google giving AMP pages a ranking boost?
Not directly. “To clarify, this is not a ranking change for sites,” says the Google Webmaster Central blog.
But think about this. Google DOES consider load speed and engagement/CTR (click through rate) metrics when ranking a page. As more and more users surf the web on mobile, mobile engagement data will make up a bigger slice of the overall engagement data for a page. And as knowledge of AMP spreads, users will likely prefer the results that are marked with the AMP lightning bolt, ⚡.
Will Google give AMP pages a ranking boost? No. But users will.
[clickToTweet tweet=”Will @google give #AcceleratedMobilePages a ranking boost? No. But users will. @216_digital” quote=”Will @Google give #AcceleratedMobilePages a ranking boost? No. But users will. ” theme=”style1″]
What does Google Cache mean for onsite traffic?
AMP pages are served off a free Google CDN, not off your server. For many of us, that may sound like a red flag.
But wait. This is actually a win.
Think of it like this: you give up increased traffic to your domain at the very top of the conversion funnel. In return, you get super-fast load times, and you’re still displaying your product and branding. The conversion funnel still leads to you. Google doesn’t get the money; you do.
Even better, your domain-level bounce rate *could* go down. People are more likely to abandon your site because the product they landed on wasn’t what they wanted. Now, if they abandon your AMP product page, the bounce happens from Google’s AMP cache domain, NOT from your domain.
Once you transition customers to your domain, which you should do at the add-to-cart stage, they are actually much closer to buying if you’ve offered them a value proposition that meets their needs.
Plus you’ve already wowed them with a lightning-fast product page.
To capitalize on the value which the speed of AMP offers, you need to optimize your onsite checkout for fast load time and seamless UX on mobile.
Two versions of the same page? Isn’t that duplicate content?
In this case, no. Will Critchlow explains on Distilled.net: “You should always link to the canonical version (which is the desktop version). That should have a rel=”amphtml” link to the AMP version (and the original AMP version and all cached versions should have a rel=”canonical” link back to the original).”
In other words, proper AMP markup tells Google, “There are two versions of this page, the AMP version and the desktop version. The desktop version is the canonical (original) version.”
Duplicate content issue solved!
What pitfalls should I know about?
A misconfigured AMP page shows an AMP error in Google SERPs. It’s important to hire a developer who understands AMP.
Make an annotation in Analytics so you know when you published your AMP pages. If your stats take a dive, there might be something wrong.
Do I need to AMP my entire ecommerce store?
Luckily, no. AMP will only help your business when it’s applied to pages that might show up in SERPs or in social media feeds. In ecommerce, that means your homepage, some product pages, and major category pages. If you’re practicing content marketing with a blog, you could also apply AMP to your content marketing articles, since you want these to be discovered in SERPs and on social media.
You do NOT need to AMP your cart or checkout pages, since these lie farther down the conversion funnel. The main purpose of AMP is to secure the customer’s commitment higher in the funnel, at the stage when many people abandon mobile pages because of slow load times.
Note, however, that your checkout process MUST still be fast and painless. Cart abandonment is a real problem at checkout. AMP can’t help you with that. If you don’t optimize your checkout experience on mobile, all that AMPing will be in vain.
We recommend trying AMP on a few select product and category pages, as well as your homepage. If you begin to see a higher conversion rate on your AMP pages, you can start rolling it out to more pages.
The best part? You can move as fast or slow as you want in building out more AMP pages for your site. We recommend faster, though, especially for products which will have high demand this holiday season.
AMP is so stripped down. What ecommerce functionality is left?
Again, AMP is really only appropriate for use on homepages, category pages, and product pages. You can’t build every page of your purchase flow with AMP. But the fact that it doesn’t support the usual bells and whistles doesn’t matter. The goal is not to build the entire conversion funnel in AMP, but rather, to use AMP to serve up product pages—fast.
AMP is well-suited to these 3 types of pages because it DOES support product carousels, though they have to be hand-coded in AMP markup. AMP also supports social sharing, with Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Google+ coming preconfigured. You can also manually configure any social network that isn’t preconfigured.
A thumbnail carousel with large image display is still under development. See the GitHub thumbnail carousel documentation for more.
AMP also allows you to display different content depending on whether a user is logged in or not. This has obvious applications in ecommerce.
The Bottom Line
The mobile ecommerce experience doesn’t have to be slow. AMP offers the perfect solution for slow-loading product, category, and homepages. If you’re interested in exploring the possibilities of AMP for ecommerce, get in touch today. Let’s start talking about your next big thing.
Whether it’s in the blogosphere, at conferences, or on social media, we’re hearing a lot about the growth of B2B ecommerce this year. B2B sales are moving from the phone line to online, and that has profound implications for both the B2B industry and the ecommerce solutions industry.
To facilitate this discussion and help educate professionals in the B2B and ecommerce services industry, we interviewed 9 experts on the emerging trends in B2B ecommerce. We asked some pointed questions, and we got an array of intelligent, informative answers. We hope this article will help B2B ecommerce developers, designers, and industry professionals.
Here are the questions we asked:
1. How might an ecommerce model streamline the world of B2B sales?
2. What types of innovation would you like to see in B2B ecommerce functionality?
3. Where does a professional sales staff fit into a B2B ecommerce business plan?
4. How can B2B ecommerce managers encourage their customer base to transition from phone orders to web orders?
1. Bill Osteraas – Vice President, Channel Development, Four51
How might an ecommerce model streamline the world of B2B sales?
There are huge benefits when it comes to an ecommerce solution – one of them being automation. By integrating your ecommerce solution with your ERP, CRM, analytics, and other current softwares, you are streamlining your processes and removing the manual steps that used to take place. This cuts down on costs, reduces order errors, and frees up your personnel to work on larger issues. In fact, we’ve seen companies like Turtle Wax go from a 6% order error rate to less than 1% after implementing a B2B ecommerce solution. Additionally, you remove the 9-5 barrier by allowing customers to order 24x7x365.
[clickToTweet tweet=”By integrating your ecommerce solution with ERP, CRM, & analytics, you streamline processes. @Four51inc @216_digital” quote=”By integrating your ecommerce solution with ERP, CRM, & analytics, you streamline processes. “]
What types of innovation would you like to see in B2B ecommerce functionality?
We face this topic with a different approach: flexibility over features. Many ecommerce softwares are rigid and companies must have a “you get what you get and you don’t have a fit” mindset. With an API-first platform, you open up the possibilities for your users immensely. Not only can they utilize the features already available, but they can customize them completely to their business. Integrations become easier than ever, allowing businesses to personalize their platform to their specific processes.
Where does a professional sales staff fit into a B2B ecommerce business plan?
Many people have proclaimed that B2B ecommerce will replaces sales reps. However, ecommerce will free up employees from monotonous, administrative tasks and allow them to have a greater impact on the company with consultative selling or working closer with customers. It’s important to have at least one employee dedicated to your ecommerce solution, especially as ecommerce becomes the main go-to-market strategy for many businesses. Adding or upgrading your online channel requires a company-wide digital transformation, which includes all employees.
How can B2B ecommerce managers encourage their customer base to transition from phone orders to web orders?
Luckily, many customers will naturally transition to web orders, as they have grown accustomed to it in their own personal lives. Many are already using their web devices to search for products – according to Forrester, 74% of B2B buyers are researching at least half of their business purchases online. For those who don’t naturally transition, set the right expectations. Tell them why it’s good for them – for example, faster fulfillment time, automatic delivery updates, and the ability to order anytime, anywhere and from any device.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bill Osteraas is the Vice President of Channel Development at Four51. Four51 offers OrderCloud, a customizable, flexible B2B ecommerce platform that’s entirely cloud-based. Bill has 20 years of experience helping customers with complex ecommerce solutions. Find Four51 online, on Facebook, or on Twitter.
2. Marcel Nanning – Founder, B2BMarketeers
How might an ecommerce model streamline the world of B2B sales?
Ecommerce is a serious channel in B2B sales these days, and it’s still growing. I have seen customers generating 10% extra revenue the first year a B2B shop opened. That is 10% extra business they would not have had without the shop. It is exciting to see how it is used in different applications. You see some companies selling complex products online, while other companies choose just to sell parts or maintenance products with their website. There is also a difference in how customers and potential customers are served. Some companies use a B2B ecommerce channel just to take in new orders from existing customers. Others try to sell products to the whole world. B2B ecommerce is a way to increase sales, find new markets, and serve customers fast and easy. It is also a field to be further explored. Every case is different—there is no ecommerce template that fits all B2B companies.
What types of innovation would you like to see in B2B ecommerce functionality?
All the B2C innovations will be useful for B2B shops. I think we will see lots of innovations with big data and connectivity. Lots of new possibilities emerge if data is connected to the shop. If a B2B machine company uses sensors to measure the lifetime of certain parts, it could give the owner of the machine a signal if it needs to be replaced. The company could also set up the order in a shop, with some complementary products or services like a mechanic to install the product. The customer just has to approve the order and wait for the product + mechanic to arrive. Everybody wins. That’s just one example of the range of innovations that is going to take place.
Also important: we will see more shops in professional services markets. Services, like consultancy, will be productized and sold through online shops as well.
Where does a professional sales staff fit into a B2B ecommerce business plan?
Sales provides all the input for the ecommerce activities. And good B2B salespeople with deep knowledge of products and markets will always be important in sales and marketing. Call it sales, call it marketing; it is about adding value, making the connection, and being of importance to the customer.
How can B2B ecommerce managers encourage their customer base to transition from phone orders to web orders?
By helping them experience the fun and ease of it. And by giving them an essential role in the process. Most importantly, include them in the B2B ecommerce projects from the start.
[clickToTweet tweet=”Include your customer base in your #B2B #ecommerce project from the start. @b2bmarketeers @216_digital” quote=”Include your customer base in your B2B ecommerce project from the start. “]
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marcel Nanning is founder and editor of the digital magazine b2bmarketeers.nl, one of the biggest b2b marketing blogs in the Netherlands. He is also Campaign Manager at GAC Business Solutions, a Microsoft partner in The Netherlands. GAC Business Solutions serves customers all over the world with smart Business Software solutions for ERP, CRM, Office 365 and B2C/B2B e-commerce. You can connect with Marcel on LinkedIn.
3. Tim Peter – Founder, Tim Peter & Associates
How might an ecommerce model streamline the world of B2B sales?
It really depends on your product or service. If you’re offering a subscription-based SaaS tool that customers can configure on their own or aftermarket parts for your products, you can easily lower your costs and streamline your customer’s purchase journey by offering self-service purchasing.
I’ve seen Fortune 100 companies sell components and, in some cases, complete systems online, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue by focusing more clearly on understanding that customer journey and where ecommerce activities actually improve the process.
I recommend B2B marketers look at their process in terms of “tracks,” helping customers follow the most appropriate track for their particular purchase path: “fast track” (i.e., heavily ecommerce focused) for self-service or simpler purchases; a “standard” track, featuring some hybrid of person-to-person, for the typical purchase path; and a bespoke or advanced track for more complex, customized solutions, perhaps using a product configurator or something similar to start the conversation and show what’s possible—and to generate leads.
Where does a professional sales staff fit into a B2B ecommerce business plan?
It’s really important to remember that B2B sales often are much more complex than B2C transactions for a variety of reasons. First, unless you’re selling to SMB (and even then…) you’re likely dealing with multiple stakeholders within the organization. B2B offerings often feature complex and customized implementations. And, they’re often at least one step removed from the actual end-user of the product.
[clickToTweet tweet=”#B2B #ecommerce sales are much more complex than B2C transactions for a variety of reasons. @tcpeter @216_digital” quote=”B2B ecommerce sales are often much more complex than B2C transactions for a variety of reasons. “]
If these cases apply to your business, your sales staff plays a key role in addressing objections among those stakeholders, walking prospects through each step in the process, and helping stakeholders realize the benefits their customers will see from your product or service.
In these situations, it’s really about finding the right place in the customer journey to hand-off to a sales professional who can close the deal and assist prospects with—or, where appropriate, upsell prospects to—your more customized services.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tim Peter is the founder of Tim Peter & Associates, LLC, an internet marketing, ecommerce, and consulting firm. Before launching his own company in 2011, Tim worked in the luxury hotel and resort industry, where he helped companies achieve more than $2 billion in online revenue. He has written extensively in the digital marketing industry, and his blog, Tim Peter Thinks, has a large monthly readership. Connect with Tim on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
4. Melissa Buening – Director of Marketing, Apruve, Inc.
How might an ecommerce model streamline the world of B2B sales?
An ecommerce model can streamline the world of B2B sales by reducing the total cost to serve and sell to customers. It can help with reducing the time it takes to find products, improving order accuracy, reducing payment friction, and reducing customer service questions. Ecommerce also allows customers to order products on their own schedule, make repeat purchases, and go paperless.
What types of innovation would you like to see in B2B ecommerce functionality?
We would like to see B2B ecommerce sites better enable buyers to apply for credit and pay on terms in an online way. Much of this process is still being handled offline with a phone, a fax machine, and a traditional A/R process, which is inefficient and costly.
[clickToTweet tweet=”#B2B #ecommerce sites should enable buyers to apply for credit and pay on terms online. @apruve @216_digital” quote=”B2B ecommerce sites should enable buyers to apply for credit and pay on terms online. “]
Where does a professional sales staff fit into a B2B ecommerce business plan?
A professional sales staff can fit into a B2B ecommerce business plan through new customer acquisition, customer retention, answering specific product questions, and ongoing customer support. B2B sellers can continue to commission a sales rep for orders no matter how they come in. Sales people can spend more time selling and less time processing transactions, which should lead to an increase in sales attributed to each sales person.
How can B2B ecommerce managers encourage their customer base to transition from phone orders to web orders?
B2B ecommerce managers can simply outline the benefits to their customers. Most people say they want to order online (75% according to Forrester), so it shouldn’t be overly difficult for most companies to convince their customers. Another option would be to build incentives for their customers to move online, such as better payment terms, discounts, or online-only product specials.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Melissa Buening is the Director of Marketing at Apruve, Inc. Apruve allows B2B ecommerce businesses to stop acting like a bank toward their customers. Invoices created in Apruve are paid within 24 hours, and the company also offers credit approval, financing, and account setup. You can connect with Apruve on Twitter.
5. Chris Guerra – Chief Marketing Officer, Blue Acorn
How might an ecommerce model streamline the world of B2B sales?
The B2B sales process is extremely antiquated. In many cases buyers are still using paper and fax machines. Ecommerce provides a 24/7 mechanism for buyers to learn, build purchase orders and easily reorder items. No longer does a buyer need to wait for a sales rep to get back to them. Buyers have an “on-demand” experience.
[clickToTweet tweet=”In #B2B #ecommerce, buyers have an ‘on-demand’ experience. @blueacorn @216_digital” quote=”In #B2B #ecommerce, buyers have an ‘on-demand’ experience. “]
What types of innovation would you like to see in B2B ecommerce functionality?
Once companies take the first step to establish a B2B presence online they will quickly learn how valuable the analytics beyond purchase data are. From understanding what categories, product and content buyers are interacting with it helps build a deeper profile and understanding of buyer interests. This data can empower sales reps or be used to personalize the buying experience.
Where does a professional sales staff fit into a B2B ecommerce business plan?
Ecommerce will never replace “relationships”. However, it can help build them. Sales staff can use the ecommerce site during various stages of the buying process whether it is to build lookbooks, bookmark items, or propose purchase orders. Again, the analytics allow for a smarter sales rep making calls more targeted and productive.
How can B2B ecommerce managers encourage their customer base to transition from phone orders to web orders?
B2B ecommerce managers should explore features like loyalty point, promotional pricing, exclusive content. Building strong “My Account” functionality and treating it like a repository for orders, communication and contact information can turn what is typically a boring portion of a website into the highest trafficked destination.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chris Guerra, chief marketing officer, joined Blue Acorn in 2012. Chris has over 10 years of experience working with IR500 merchants. Extensive knowledge in replatforming, digital marketing, ecommerce operations, and financial planning has led Chris to hold several leadership positions throughout his career. Connect with Chris on Twitter.
6. Dr. Sam Bayer – CEO & Cofounder, Corevist
How might an ecommerce model streamline the world of B2B sales?
How has ecommerce streamlined the buying of books, clothing, jewelry, electronic equipment and beauty products? It has removed the need to walk to a store, speak to a person or do either only when businesses are open. B2B ecommerce will have the exact same benefits. Only the impact on the economy will be much larger because the flow of B2B products around the world far exceeds the volume of B2C sales.
What types of innovation would you like to see in B2B ecommerce functionality?
We don’t need any more innovation in B2B ecommerce functionality than we already have. We already have way more than the vast majority of B2B companies can take advantage of. The real innovation that we need is to figure out a way to make B2B ecommerce websites quicker to implement and more affordable. Frankly, the vast majority of B2B ecommerce transactions are still phone/fax and email. FAXES in 2016! Corevist is focused on disrupting the B2B ecommerce technology space by innovating on the adoption of these projects without sacrificing functionality.
[clickToTweet tweet=”We need to make #B2B #ecommerce websites quicker to implement and more affordable. @CorevistInc @216_digital” quote=”We need to make B2B ecommerce websites quicker to implement and more affordable. “]
Where does a professional sales staff fit into a B2B ecommerce business plan?
Either on the bus or they become extinct. If your value as a saleperson is delivering information that is easily available on a website and accessible via a smartphone, than your days are numbered. Salespeople need to reinvent themselves to not sell products but to help their customers become more successful from a business perspective. Websites will replace transactions but it’s a lot harder for them to offer advice. That’s where salespeople should evolve.
How can B2B ecommerce managers encourage their customer base to transition from phone orders to web orders?
By making it easier to do business on the website than it is by speaking to a human being for routine transactions. You can promote by offering discounts to kickstart traffic on the website, but at the end of the day, if life isn’t better for your customers on the website, they won’t use.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Sam Bayer received his PhD in chemistry at age 23. Career highlights include connecting IBM to a new market segment (laboratory information management systems), introducing the first B2B ecommerce website for SAP® manufacturers, and launching Corevist, which focuses on the convergence of cloud-delivered services and the consumerization of B2B ecommerce. Connect with Dr. Bayer on Twitter.
7. Brian Massey – Cofounder, Conversion Sciences
How might an ecommerce model streamline the world of B2B sales?
You can easily streamline your B2B sales by NOT implementing a B2B ecommerce model. Your competitors will take care of the orders for you!
[clickToTweet tweet=”Streamline sales by NOT implementing #B2B ecommerce model. Competition will handle the orders! @bmassey @216_digital” quote=”You can easily streamline your B2B sales by NOT implementing a B2B ecommerce model. Your competitors will take care of the orders for you!”]
In a recent Conversion Sciences webinar, Jeff Philipp noted research showing:
1. 74% of B2B buyers perfer to buy through a website2. 93% of B2B buyers prefer to execute a buy the moment they find what they are looking for.
A B2B ecommerce site can be expected to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty while reducing the cost of selling. This means higher margins and more repeat business, a powerful combination.
What types of innovation would you like to see in B2B ecommerce functionality?
Unfortunately, the ecommerce innovation that B2B companies lack is having an ecommerce offering. According to Forrester’s Peter Sheldon, only 25% of all B2B companies sell online today. This is an opportunity.
However, there are some challenges unique to B2B ecommerce. Blue Fish Development Group CEO Jeff Philipp summarized thirteen of them on our webinar. Here are seven of the most common:
1. Highly complex, customizable products2. Importance of delivery dates and ordering backlog3. Complicate pricing formulas4. Complex sales tax issues5. Multiple buyer accounts and multiple locations6. Shipping options can be complex7. Integration with backend systems
Watch the on-demand Lab Coat Lessons webinar for all thirteen.
Where does a professional sales staff fit into a B2B ecommerce business plan?
Without proper project management, sales can be an obstacle to B2B ecommerce efforts. They may see the site as a threat. In truth, a B2B ecommerce site works well as a sales support platform. The site may actually increase phone calls for visitors that prefer the interaction of a sales person. It is not unusual for the B2B ecommerce site to be the choice of returning customers, while the sales team continues to excel at landing new customers’ first orders.
How can B2B ecommerce managers encourage their customer base to transition from phone orders to web orders?
In the words of Peter Sheldon, “Buyers are way ahead of the sellers.” Making the ecommerce site known to phone callers will be all that it takes to get customers to switch. A larger and larger portion of new customers will be looking for the ecommerce site first. In almost every industry, the fastest-growing segment of online traffic is mobile. All a business has to do is stop telling them they can’t order via the web and offer them a great online solution.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brian Massey founded the website optimization company Conversion Sciences in 2007. He is a bestselling author (“Your Customer Creation Equation: Unexpected Website Formulas of The Conversion Scientist”), computer programmer, and entrepreneur. He has written for Search Engine Land, Marketing Land, the Content Marketing Institute, and others. Connect with Brian on Twitter.
8. Elan Sherbill – Corporate Blogger, cleverbridge
How might an ecommerce model streamline the world of B2B sales?
Even simple payment functionality goes a long way toward improving B2B customer experiences. Offering business buyers the ability to research and then pay for their items entirely online saves time and money for both sellers and buyers. The biggest boon for sellers is that digital shopping experiences increase overall revenue and let sellers focus on building better products.
[clickToTweet tweet=”#Ecommerce increases overall #B2B revenue so sellers focus on building better products. @cleverbridge @216_digital” quote=”Digital shopping experiences increases overall revenue and lets them focus on building better products.”]
What types of innovation would you like to see in B2B ecommerce functionality?
There needs to be a bigger focus on global markets. Most organizations are so focused on their existing customer base that they ignore millions of dollars from cross-border shoppers who are simply not afforded the chance to buy from them. This is because these organizations do not offer localized customer experiences that make it possible for international buyers to conveniently pay for goods or services online.
If businesses truly want to leverage digital shopping experiences for B2B buyers, they have to make sure they are offering all customers products in local currencies, at prices the local market can bear. It also means providing customers the option to use preferred local payment methods and ensuring that the entire customer experience complies with local regulations so far as issues like taxation, privacy and security are concerned.
Where does a professional sales staff fit into a B2B ecommerce business plan?
With digital B2B customer experiences, sales teams are going to have to pivot from order takers to expert consultants. The shopping experience is going to be increasingly self-managed on the buyer’s end. That doesn’t mean you abandon loyal employees. Digital shopping removes a lot of the face-to-face touchpoints between customers and businesses, so you still need a highly trained sales staff who understand their customers’ pain points and who helps them understand how to drive better business outcomes with the tools they sell.
How can B2B ecommerce managers encourage their customer base to transition from phone orders to web orders?
I honestly don’t think it’s going to take much encouragement. Every B2B customer is also an individual consumer who shops online at least once a month (if not more frequently), and they have high expectations for digital customer experiences. Business buyers want to be able to pay for their orders as conveniently as they do when they’re shopping on Amazon. And it’s not just about the payments. B2B customers want to self-manage all their customer account information, including upgrading and downgrading plans, adding and removing licenses, or updating payment information.
Think about your own shopping preferences. You don’t like taking time out of your busy schedule to make a phone call to renew your order when you could easily accomplish the same thing with a few clicks or swipes. And neither do your customers.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Elan Sherbill is a corporate blogger at cleverbridge—a global subscription billing provider that helps companies build long-term customer relationships and grow recurring revenue streams. You can connect with him on Twitter or LinkedIn.
9. Gareth Daine – Co-Founder, Content Sleuth
How might an ecommerce model streamline the world of B2B sales?
Well, according to Forbes, the B2B ecommerce market will be worth $1.7 trillion by 2020, so, I’m not sure it’s a case of ecommerce streamlining B2B sales, as it appears it’s already in full swing. Look at Alibaba as a B2B ecommerce marketplace. While it’s had its fair share of problems and controversy, it’s hugely successful.
Look at Littlewoods (the Shop Direct Group), who used to run catalogue services, but now are solely based online. The benefits to the business are huge. They save overheads in many areas, can automate a lot of the process, and it allows them to funnel those investments into expanding the model.
Whenever anyone comes to purchase products and services, whether businesses or not, usually, their first port of call is the Internet. This presents huge opportunities for B2B businesses, as providing their products and services via an online (usually account locked) platform, like Magento, for example, allows them to offer the convenience of online ordering and user account management, as well as features such as re-ordering, back-ordering and such.
Customers find these types of conveniences extremely helpful, and it helps them speed up their ordering, dispatching and delivery processes, helping them save time and money.
What types of innovation would you like to see in B2B ecommerce functionality?
I would love to see some solid innovation in drop shipping functionality and connections with marketplaces like eBay, Amazon and Alibaba. A sort of Software as a Service (SaaS) model would be great, where companies can sign up, and the service provider would handle the rest. Could be big money in something like that, especially if they linked in with suppliers, and provided checks.
[clickToTweet tweet=”We need innovations in #B2B drop shipping functionality & integrations w/major markets. @contentsleuth @216_digital” quote=”I would love to see some solid innovation in drop shipping functionality and connections with marketplaces like eBay, Amazon and Alibaba. “]
Where does a professional sales staff fit into a B2B ecommerce business plan?
Obviously, digital marketing and social media are key, but professional sales staff of the old-school variety still have their place. Contacting current and prospective companies to offer a streamlined service, perhaps offering discounted prices for onboarding on to the online platform.
How can B2B ecommerce managers encourage their customer base to transition from phone orders to web orders?
As mentioned above, offering discount pricing for online orders and account management, web only incentives to entice customers to use the online model, a great user experience by making it simple, fast and straightforward to use. Take the headaches out of the process by automating as much as possible. There are many benefits, including re-ordering previous orders, backordering, easy account management, fast ordering, etc.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gareth is a seasoned software engineer with over 19 years’ experience in the industry. He specializes in ecommerce design and development. He is also the co-founder of Content Sleuth, a new social media automation tool for content marketers. You can find Content Sleuth on Twitter, or read their in-depth, actionable tips for social media marketing.
The days of rocking SEO with spam links are over. Today’s SEO game is all about building high-quality, high-authority, contextual backlinks.
Google is smarter than ever, and that means webmasters need to get on board. Link-building services ensure that your site publishes great content marketing—the kind of stellar content that publishers in your niche actually want to link to. When your amazing articles and blog posts get high-authority links in your niche and related niches, your overall domain authority goes up—which means your sales pages (the money makers) start ranking better, too.
Over time, link-building services build real value into your domain. But how does this actually happen? How does “link juice” (the industry term for the authority that Google values) get passed from one website to another?
We’ve answered that question with this animated infographic. Check it out!
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Link-Building Services: Real Links from Legit Websites = Real Results.
How are link building services different from general SEO efforts? Glad you asked. SEO is a broad area of practice that encompasses many elements. Link building is a subset of general SEO efforts, but it’s one of the most important. After Google’s algorithm updates in recent years, white-hat link building is arguably the ONLY legitimate way to aggressively pursue higher rankings in Google search. White-hat link building works because it respects the needs of real human readers—something which the old spammy tactics didn’t do.
We’ve outlined our entire link-building strategy above in one diagram. But what’s happening here? If you’re new to the SEO game, that’s a lot to digest. We’ve broken down the link building process into 7 steps. Read on!
1 – Content Market Research
That’s not a typo. This isn’t only content marketing research, but content MARKET research. You’re entering a content market with its own unwritten rules. You need to know what you’re doing.
Any link building service that’s worth its salt will ground your project in data. That means finding out what types of content are ranking for your keywords already. With backlink analysis tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush, link builders analyze high-performing pieces of content to see who’s linking to them and where they’re ranking.
But this stage of research isn’t only about hard data. The best link builders are also highly-practiced readers and flexible professional writers. They pick up contextual clues and intangible qualities surrounding a content niche, and they file these things away so they can write in the same voice (but even better) when they write for you.
2 – Creative Brainstorming
After all this research, link builders take hordes of data plus intangible clues and start brainstorming topics. The goal here is fantastic content that will delight audiences. The key is knowing how to differentiate between audience types and write for multiple audiences in the same piece—a secret which few link builders will divulge to anyone but their clients.
3 – Writing and Revising
The writing process gives shape to the data findings and creative brainstorming which the link building team has developed. This is where ideas are crystalized into fantastic articles, blog posts, infographics, and more. The best link builders know not to rush this phase, as it can lead to bad copy, typos, and factual errors.
4 – Publication
Believe it or not, this isn’t a simple matter of copy and paste. Depending on the CMS (content management system) settings, a lot of things will need to be reformatted inside the blog editor. For example, an article composed in Microsoft Word, with images included in the copy, can’t simply be copied and pasted over to WordPress. Each image must be uploaded individually through the WordPress media uploader, and each image may need its HTML rendering manually adjusted so the image will resize on mobile screens. Publication is not a stage for skimping, either; no one wants to get partway through promotion and find that an image has broken the layout of the post.
5 – Outreach and Promotion
There’s an old saying: “the publish-and-pray approach is dead.” That’s more true than ever. As writers and marketers ourselves, we believe that a piece of content only deserves as much effort in creation as it will receive in promotion. A great piece of content is dead in the water without a plan to expose it to the audience that will eat it up.
Here’s where initial research of your content market comes in handy again. With all the research you did, you should have a vast list of webmasters, bloggers, and publishers who will be interested in your content. If you did your research right, this list is promotion gold. Of course, the list alone isn’t enough to guarantee success. You have to talk the talk. Professional link builders are quick at picking up the feel of a particular discourse space, and they’re also well-versed in best practices that ensure their emails get opened, read, and replied to. No step can be the most important step, but outreach is pretty darn close to that.
6 – Incoming: LINKS!
It’s true. If the content marketing strategy was executed properly from the beginning (including such stages as link creator research, topic research, and outreach communication style), your content pieces will actually get links. Real, contextual, high-value links from sites within your niche and related niches.
7 – A Rising Tide Raises All Ships… Generally… With a Caveat.
When links are distributed fairly evenly across a good number of articles and pages on your site, your domain authority will go up. Domain authority is one of the biggest factors Google considers when assembling rankings. However, note that links to a page don’t always equate with a higher domain authority. Too many links to one page alone, and Google will see that page as having more value than your domain as a whole. This is not necessarily a problem, especially if that page is the most important part of your website; however, in this situation, the concentration of links to that page will not help raise your overall domain authority as much as a distributed link profile will.
The Bottom Line
Link building services are the ultimate SEO strategy for the white-hat world. White-hat link building works, and it directly improves your SEO when it’s done right.
However, it’s not a simple solution. Researching a content market, writing high-value content, and maintaining relationships with link creators in your niche is an ongoing, time-consuming process. Many companies see great value in outsourcing their link building needs. At 216digital, Inc., we practice white-hat link building for a wide variety of clients. You can learn more about our white-hat link building services here.
On 11/19/15, Google posted an update to their search quality rating guidelines. In the post, you’ll find a link to a PDF which provides instructions to Google’s search results raters. These are human users who rate the quality of results that Google returns for search queries. Google’s PDF does not provide direct advice on best practices for SEO—that’s simply not its intent. However, by reading Google’s instructions to its human raters, we can understand SEO best practices in a new way. In this post, we’ll comb the Google document for new information that’s relevant to ecommerce store owners.
A large portion of the document deals with mobile search results. While much of this information is not new, it’s great to have it all in one place, straight from the source. However, there are a few points to be made.
User Intent Behind Queries
Google classifies search types based on user intent. This is a great way to approach the keywords you’re trying to rank for. What is the user intent behind the keyword? It should always match what users will find on the page which you’ve optimized for that keyword. It’s a fairly obvious point, but it’s worth making. For example, if you’re a paid stock photo site trying to rank for the keyword “free stock photos” so you can persuade users to buy stock photos when they searched for free photos, the intent of your landing page does not respect the user intent behind the keyword. This practice is fundamentally deceptive. Just don’t do it. As Google’s instructions to raters show, Google continues to refine its ability to match user intent to honest search results.
If you’re a brick-and-mortar business, you should pay special attention to “Visit-in-Person” search intent—that is, local searches on mobile in which the user is looking for a nearby brick-and-mortar location. For example, a music store with both a physical retail location and an ecommerce store should prepare its online presence for Visit-in-Person search intent. As well as a fully functional, mobile-responsive online store, this business should have a fully populated Google Business page with accurate location, contact information, and hours. Incomplete or inaccurate information could stop mobile users from finding the brick-and-mortar location they’re looking for. You’ll find this information in section 12.7.4 of the PDF.
Google Is Getting Better at Understanding User Intent
Image Link
In that same section, you’ll find a discussion of ambiguous queries that could be the name of a restaurant (Visit-in-Person intent) or the name of a spice (purely informational query). In writing web copy for your site, you should be precise, leaving no room for semantic ambiguity, while also writing naturally. Be informative, clear, and natural. This will allow Google’s powerful Semantic Search to match precise contextual results to keywords that display ambiguous intent when examined out of context.
Take note here: fundamentally, Google is getting better at divining user intent behind queries. That means that SEO efforts will gradually move away from technical precision (e.g., including exact-match keywords in copy at a recommended density) and towards excellent, well-written copy that matches user intent. Good content marketing is fast becoming the most effective road to good SEO. We expect that trend to continue.
Special Content Result Boxes
Special Content Result Boxes Image
In Google’s PDF, you’ll also find a discussion of “Special Content Result Blocks” (section 12.8.2). If you haven’t noticed, this feature has started appearing at the top of SERPs when the query has a definite answer for which no entity can claim copyright. As the document makes clear, SCRBs only appear when the user has asked Google a specific question—for example, “how much does a gallon of water weigh?” In our screengrab, the SCRB appeared with a URL to a landing page—but not all SCRBs have landing pages associated with them.
Content Strategy
For ecommerce stores, that means checking content strategy very carefully. If some of your content strategy involves trying to rank for questions with definite, non-negotiable answers related to your niche, you should trim those topics from your content strategy. Google is so sophisticated at this point, it’s starting to give us answers directly, without sending us to 3rd party sites for the answers. That means content strategists must narrow the focus to topics on which they can provide fresh, useful information which Google can’t get elsewhere or prepare from aggregate data.
Give Users Fresh Content When That’s What They Want
For ecommerce stores associated with a niche that evolves regularly, that means publishing fresh, accurate content on news within your niche. If users google “boston marathon” and your business is associated with the marathon, you should publish timely content about the next marathon. That’s what users are likely searching for.
The Bottom Line
Google is always tweaking things. This causes some stress in the SEO community—but it shouldn’t. Google is trying to create a better experience for users. Keeping up with Google’s constant algorithm refinement helps us all to create better experiences for our users. For ecommerce store owners, happy users mean satisfied customers. There’s really nothing to lose.
When the mobile revolution hit, everyone had to get a mobile-responsive website. That’s still critical, by the way. If you don’t have a responsive site, you’re losing mobile customers. But now mobile ecommerce is changing again. Buy buttons are coming to the major social media platforms—and to Google.
What does this mean for brands and digital marketers? There isn’t one single answer. Brands that use Pinterest will need a different strategy than brands that primarily use Twitter, for example. In this post, we’ll take a quick overview of each platform’s buy button functionality. And we’ll tell you what it means for brands that thrive on that platform.
Pinterest is unique among social platforms. Its underlying philosophy is brilliant: to capitalize on our voracious appetite for visual beauty—and to enable our love of stashing things for later use. But as users have long complained, Pinterest didn’t offer an easy tie-in to purchase the items you had pinned.
That has changed.
As Pinterest announced on their blog, buyable pins are coming to Pinterest. Initially, only big brands—Macy’s, Neiman Marcus, and Nordstrom—will have access to buyable pin integration. However, Pinterest plans to roll out the function to many more brands, particularly those using Shopify, Demandware, Bigcommerce, or Magento as their ecommerce platform.
Initially, the Pinterest buy button will be available only on iOs mobile devices. However, it is coming to Android and desktop soon.
For small-to-midsize ecommerce retailers whose primary social market is on Pinterest, this means two things. One, waiting (unfortunately) until the buyable pin integration is available more widely; and two, preparing a good marketing strategy now. Once buyable pins are dropped in your lap, you should be ready to go.
Pinterest Buy Button Strategy
Think about what the Pinterest buy button will do: it will enable instant purchasing of a product—when the user is still feeling love at first sight. In a sense, the Pinterest buy button will accelerate the Pinterest shopping experience, cutting out the delay that can change intent-to-buy into a lost sale.
That means putting your best foot forward on buyable pins—your best foot in every area: most attractive products, best photography, products priced best for your market, and highest margins for you. These are the products you should prepare first for buyable pins.
The Twitter buy button will appear directly in a tweet—that’s right, a regular tweet that can be favorited and retweeted. That means unprecedented viral potential for actual product listings. Of course, this functionality only enables virality at the platform level. Most likely, only truly innovative and astounding products will see significant viral lift from the Twitter buy button.
Still, the Twitter buy button is attractive for many reasons. For one thing, Twitter isn’t starting with a few major brands. The buy button is now available to all ecommerce store owners in the US who use Bigcommerce, Demandware, or Shopify as their ecommerce platform. By our count, that’s over 173,000 online stores. In this blog post, Twitter advises ecommerce store owners to contact their ecommerce platform representatives to discuss implementing the buy button functionality.
Twitter Buy Button Strategy
If you’ve used Twitter’s advertising function, you know that the targeting options are highly granular. As well as choosing from hundreds of interests, you can target users who follow certain Twitter accounts, users who watch certain TV shows, and much, much more.
Couple all of this with the coming of Twitter buy buttons, and you have a whole new level of ecommerce targeting precision. That means when you go to promote a buy button tweet through a Twitter ad, you should come to the table with complete, detailed, and accurate information for the market demographic that wants your product. If you match product to demographic well, you should see a high conversion rate.
Instagram Buy Buttons For Visual Shopping
Instagram previously displayed concern over advertising on its platform: would ads disrupt the seamless visual flow of the Instagram experience? Instagram decided the answer was no—as long as the advertising format was considered within the context of the Instagram experience as a whole. Now Instagram is rolling out its own version of the social buy button. According to the platform’s official blog, Instagram’s buy button functionality will provide “an advertising experience that feels native to the platform.”
If you’re concerned about targeting options for the Instagram buy button, you shouldn’t be. According to that same blog post from Instagram, the platform will work with Facebook, enabling advertisers “to reach people on Instagram based on demographics and interests… We want to leverage the best of Facebook’s infrastructure for buying, managing and measuring the success of ads on Instagram.” This sounds like a great partnership, and advertisers who are familiar with Facebook’s high-powered targeting options should find it easy to add Instagram advertising to their repertoire.
Google Buy Buttons: BIG Changes Are Coming To Online Shopping
As Google announced on the Adwords blog, the search giant will start adding buy buttons to “I-want-to-buy” paid search results on mobile. For ecommerce retailers, that means mobile consumers can purchase from your store without ever visiting it. Google will transmit all the purchase data to participating retailers.
For consumers, this sounds like a great way to streamline the mobile purchasing experience. But what will it mean for ecommerce retailers? That’s a bit unclear. In the same blog post, Google says, “While Google hosts the product page and provides purchase protection for customers, retailers own the customer communication and can offer customers the option to receive marketing and promotional messages.”
How will this work? That remains unclear. Allowing customers to opt in to your newsletter is one of the greatest assets to your checkout process as an ecommerce retailer. Will Google collect this data, giving consumers that option? Will Google funnel this data to you in a useable format? It’s too soon to say. As usual, Google’s blog post on the subject is incredibly vague.
Facebook Buy Buttons: Not Quite Yet!
If you were ramping up for the launch of the Facebook buy button, you may have to wait a little longer. As the New York Times reports, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s COO, said, “We are working on this, but it’s not the most important thing we’re working on.”
How will the Facebook buy button affect ecommerce when it does arrive? Clearly, it will work hand-in-hand with Facebook’s sophisticated ad targeting capabilities. That should give merchants the ability to promote a product post directly to the audience that’s most likely to buy the product. For niches whose primary social platform is Facebook, this will be a godsend.
However, not all products may see success with this form of promotion. For example, products with many options, like clothing and tech, might appear too streamlined in an in-line product listing in Newsfeed. Without all the options readily available, consumers might think, “that looks nice, but is it exactly right for me?” Doubtless, Facebook will address this problem; but for now, it remains a valid question.
The Bottom Line
What’s your ecommerce market? At 216digital, we’ve specialized in ecommerce consulting for over 15 years. We know the digital marketing landscape backwards and forwards, and we make informed recommendations to our clients every day. If you have questions about social media buy buttons in your market niche, get in touch. We’re happy to advise you.
Welcome to Part 5 in our in-depth analysis of major ecommerce platforms. In the previous four posts, we discussed WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento, and Bigcommerce. We examined the inherent pros and cons of each platform. In Part 5, we’ll talk about the ecommerce dark horse: Miva Merchant—or simply Miva, as it’s now called. Let’s get started.
How Does Miva Stack Up?
First, let’s talk about what Miva isn’t. Because Miva is so functional and expandable, it’s not for the entrepreneur on a shoestring budget. The old saying, “you get what you pay for,” holds true in ecommerce platforms as in everything else. While Miva isn’t free by any means, it provides great value and—if managed intelligently—great ROI. With a small but devoted development community and none of the inherent limitations we examined in Shopify and Bigcommerce, Miva customization is limited only by store owners’ imaginations.
[clickToTweet tweet=”Because @miva is a subscription service, PCI compliance comes built in. @216_Digital #ecommerce #saas” quote=”Because Miva is a subscription service, PCI compliance comes built in.”]
Also, note that like Magento, Miva isn’t for DIYers who don’t know code and can’t hire a developer. An entrepreneur considering WooCommerce likely isn’t in the market for Miva. Miva runs on a proprietary script, and major modifications are best left to professional web developers. However, just about every modification you can imagine is possible; and because Miva is a subscription service (unlike Magento), key functionality like PCI compliance comes built in, giving you one less thing to check off your list after signing up.
For code-savvy entrepreneurs (or those with plenty of development budget), Miva and Magento might look like neck-and-neck contenders at first. However, as G2Crowd reports, Magento doesn’t stack up too well against Miva. While Magento offers a free platform with added robust functionality at a development price, Miva offers a subscription platform plus added functionality at a lower total cost. Since Miva comes with more functionality out of the box, Miva development is simply not as expensive as Magento development. And while you’ll have to outsource Magento support to your 3rd party developer, Miva support is included in every subscription—even at the boutique pricing tier. That means you don’t have to pay $20,000/year to get someone on the phone. As Miva puts it on their website, they offer an enterprise-quality ecommerce solution without the enterprise-level price tag.
Miva: The Ecommerce World’s Best-Kept Secret
Don’t tell, but Miva is awesome! – Photo courtesy of Steven Depolo. Licensed under CC 2.0.
Now, Miva isn’t as well-known as some of the big ecommerce players. But why should it be? Where Miva’s competitors win new customers with a glitzy marketing machine, Miva is arguably the ecommerce world’s best-kept secret. Remember, marketing is expensive, and businesses pass expenses to their customers. If you sign up with a marketing-heavy service, you’re paying for the marketing that convinced you as well as future marketing to net new customers. Ecommerce owners who choose Miva do so for quality and reliability, not for the feel-good experience of working with a great salesman.
Miva has always maintained a transparent relationship with its users. Miva executives can be found posting in Miva forums and responding to reviews on 3rd party blogs. While Miva script is proprietary and customizations require involvement from the development community, the culture of Miva has an open-source feel. Among Miva users and developers alike, the saying is, “if the solution doesn’t exist yet, it can be created.”
Let’s put it this way: if you google “best ecommerce platforms,” you may not see many mentions of Miva. But that’s a testament to the other companies’ focus—marketing. Miva has a dedicated community of longtime clients and experienced developers. If you search for Miva reviews, you’ll find many testimonials from store owners who’ve been using Miva for a decade or more. Most say they would never switch.
Miva isn’t super aggressive in pursuing the low-budget startup—and for good reason. The shoestring budget can’t afford the quality that Miva provides, and the uneducated entrepreneur will take the sales pitches of the big companies anyway. Miva’s strategy focuses more on providing the very best ecommerce platform possible to those who can pay for it. Where Shopify’s average customer does $10k/year in sales, Miva’s average customer does $500k/year. These average customers are both small businesses, but as Miva president Rick Wilson explains in this post, “it’s a different kind of small.”
Further, the average lifespan of a Miva store is 8 years. For Miva’s competition, that average store lifespan is 2.5 years. We think that says it all.
The Bottom Line
As in all things ecommerce, there’s no right answer to the platform question. That answer depends on your market’s growth potential, the functionality you need, your budget, your projected yearly sales, and more. For larger small businesses that need limitless functionality without the handicap of transaction fees and limited access to development tools, Miva and Magento remain excellent choices.
In the early days, like everything else, design was a male-dominated profession. Today, women designers are changing the face of design with incredible innovation. At 216digital, we’re design connoisseurs. We thrive on innovative design thinking. We keep a pulse on the design industry, and we take note when someone creates something amazing. In this blog post, we wanted to talk about our favorite women designers and their work.
You’ll see an incredible amount of innovation in these designers’ portfolios. In the disciplines of graphic design, illustration, typography, and more, these 26 designers are pushing the boundaries of convention and creating new visual expressions.
We’ve organized our favorite designers into several specialty areas. But let’s be clear—these designers aren’t ranked in any kind of order. They’re all great, and no two are alike.
Jiani Lu practices groundbreaking graphic design in Taipei, Taiwan. Her work integrates all aspects of visual communication—imagery, graphic elements, and typography—with a new kind of flair that we haven’t seen before.
Shown: To My Future Self. Used by permission of Jiani Lu.
Jiani is a Canadian designer working in multiple disciplines. She has won awards from AIGA, Graphis, Adobe, and others.
Fanny Öhlund is forging a career in cutting-edge design. Her work features beautiful graphics and typography integrated into a unique whole. She has done work in print design, album cover design, branding, and more.
Shown: Áhpi album cover. Used by permission of Fanny Öhlund.
Fanny’s sense of pattern, contrast, and color is truly beautiful. For this writer, her work is often more than the sum of its parts. For more of Fanny’s work, see her website or Behance page.
Teresa Sdralevich has forged a remarkable career in illustration, poster design, and cover design. Her work utilizes large blocks of color and bold typography. She often engages social, political, and cultural issues, and her approach draws the most out of a simple collection of elements.
Book cover: Vota Larry, by Janet Tashjian. Used by permission of Teresa Sdralevich.
Teresa was born in Milan in 1969. She currently lives and works in Brussels, where she practices silkscreen printing in a collaborative space shared with other artists.
Best Ecommerce Platforms for 2015 – Pt. 4 – Bigcommerce
Welcome to Part 4 of our series on ecommerce platforms. In the previous installments, we examined WooCommerce, Shopify, and Magento. We discussed the inherent pros and cons of each platform. We concluded that WooCommerce is an excellent basic option. We also mentioned that Shopify’s transaction fee schedule could hurt high-growth businesses. In looking at Magento, we concluded that almost every business model would need custom development to fully utilize Magento’s functionality. In Part 4, we’ll look at another big ecommerce name: Bigcommerce. Let’s jump right in!
Bigcommerce:
Bigcommerce is growing fast. The Revolution Fund invested $40 million in Bigcommerce in 2013. SoftBank Capital and others pitched in $50 million in 2014, bringing the company’s net worth to $500 million. With something like 90,000 online stores running on the platform, Bigcommerce has big market share. Its features are quite competitive, though customer complaints suggest a lack of adequate support.
Industry insiders agree that Bigcommerce has one thing down pat: they’re a marketing powerhouse. An aggressive campaign has netted them tens of thousands of new users. When Magento pulled the plug on Magento Go, their SaaS (software as a service) version, they sent approximately 10,000 customers to Bigcommerce. However, big things develop their own kinds of problems. When a company’s goal is to eat up an entire market, other considerations can fall by the wayside. Though ecommerce beginners may not realize it, Bigcommerce has some serious shortcomings that limit its adaptability.
While Bigcommerce boasts tons of bells and whistles, it doesn’t give users some crucial features. As this thread in the Miva Merchant community forums explains, Bigcommerce doesn’t allow for template logic. In other words, you can’t add code to create a conditional statement like, “for this family of products, include a download link to the manufacturer’s docmuntation.” This is a serious shortcoming—and one with no workaround. Further, because of Bigcommerce’s API, you can’t integrate 3rd party functionality into the platform. This stands in stark contrast to Miva and Magento, which offer vibrant development communities and total freedom to develop custom 3rd party integrations.
Photo courtesy of Mark Sebastian. Licensed under CC 2.0. Modified by 216digital.
[clickToTweet tweet=”Unlike #miva and #magento, #bigcommerce can’t do template logic. @216_Digital” quote=”Unlike Miva and Magento, Bigcommerce can’t do template logic.”]
That’s not the only thing we worry about when we look at Bigcommerce. In the development area, user FTP access is limited to a few folders. Worse, Bigcommerce doesn’t provide any database access. That means if you want to change anything in those areas, you’re out of luck. Some developers complain that Bigcommerce’s code is too hefty, potentially dragging down SEO results. Finally, as with Shopify, you can only host a Bigcommerce store on Bigcommerce servers.
The Bottom Line
For a certain segment of the ecommerce market, Bigcommerce will work just fine. Ecommerce store owners who don’t need certain functionality and have no development background will love Bigcommerce. It works, it looks great, it provides a lot of power out of the box, it’s easy to use, and hosting is included. The trouble is getting functionality that’s not provided in the software itself. For store owners who want limitless custom functionality, Miva and Magento are lightyears ahead of Bigcommerce.
Stay tuned. In Part 5 of 5 in our series, we take an in-depth look at Miva. Mellier has built a remarkable career in graphic design, typography, and print design. Her work uses simple geometric shapes arranged in strategic placement. Her strong eye for color transforms her minimal geometry into vibrant, cohesive works.
Fanette completed her education at the Graduate School of Decorative Arts in Strasbourg. She learned from masters such as Pierre Di Sciullo and Pierre Bernard. With this background, she has contributed significantly to the world of typography and intellectual communication.
Anna Kuts is a graphic designer, photographer, and calligrapher from Kharkiv, Ukraine. Her work marries a strong emphasis on texture with a nuanced approach to color. She is passionate about logo design in particular. She often combines unique textures with clear vector elements, and the results are beautiful.
Kharkov Guitar Quartet Poster. Used by permission of Anna Kuts.
We see a little Soviet Constructivist influence in this poster, but the overall effect is unmistakably contemporary. The piece contains excellent contrast, and the overall look is quite balanced.
Mercedes Bazan specializes in UI, UX, and editorial design. She lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her work features strong graphic elements, complex alignments, and refreshing color palettes. Her editorial designs in the magazine field are fresh, contemporary, and surprising.
Shown: Nikola Tesla Pressbook. Used by permission of Mercedes Bazan.
Cristina Pagnoncelli’s work utilizes great typography, balanced composition, and a clear sense of cohesiveness. Cristina shows an ability to weave seemingly unrelated elements into a total composition. Her use of type and lettering is particularly inspiring. Facebook asked her to create 10 letterings inspired by American cities. Now Facebook users can use these letterings on their photos.
Shown: Orlando lettering. Used by permission of Cristina Pagnoncelli.
With her sister, Raquel Pagnoncelli, she runs Des Figure, a communication studio. Cristina’s work shows an intuitive understanding of diverse graphic disciplines. She is one to watch.
Sue Doeksen is a graphic designer based in Amsterdam. She often focuses on bold color, eye-popping texture, and a fun approach to high-concept design. Her work is thoroughly contemporary, yet it knows its roots in great European design.
Shown: Landmark Pins. Used by permission of Sue Doeksen.
Sue describes herself as a “visual adventurer.” This approach shows in all her work. Sue’s designs are not static works; they seem to transform themselves as you look at them—even those that aren’t animated. Sue has collaborated multiple times with fellow Dutch designer Marta Veludo (see below).
9. Marta Veludo
Marta Veludo is an Amsterdam-based graphic designer, artist, and visual thinker. She works in a wide variety of design fields, including art direction, graphic design, brand communication, and set design. Her work regularly features playful colors and visual relationships.
Shown: D & R Wedding Invitation. Used by permission of Marta Veludo.
Marta’s work is truly unmistakable. She marries a quirky eye to a strong sense of formalism. The result is a dynamic visual language that is contemporary, yet knows its history. She has collaborated multiple times with fellow Dutch designer Sue Doeksen (see above).
Along with Enikő Deri (see below), Nora Demeczky runs De-Form, a design agency based in Budapest. Her work features a strong graphic impact and carefully-constructed balance across a cohesive whole. She achieves a great balance between form and content.
Enikő Deri runs De Form, a Hungarian design agency, along with Nora Demeczky (see above). Her work often features dramatic use of geometry in strict black-and-white. Her shapes and organization are incredibly fresh, and the overall effect she creates is mesmerizing.
Shown: Albert. Used by permission of De Form.
II. Branding Design
12. Kelsy Stromski
Photograph by Kyle Caldwell.
Kelsy Stromski founded Refinery 43 to design cohesive visual identities for her clients. She has designed unique branding for interior design studios, personal brands, nonprofits, food products, and more. Her design expertise is highly fluid and adaptable.
Shown: Bouchard Family Farms Ployes pancake mix packaging. Used by permission of Kelsy Stromski.
Kelsy’s work is firmly grounded in a thorough knowledge of her clients. She combines this knowledge with a deep understanding of the intended audience for the brand. The result is highly-targeted branding.
Ipek Eris is a freelance designer working in the fields of branding, logo design, and corporate identity. She has lived in Kenya, France, Germany, and England. This experience has given her an eclectic visual sense, and it shows in her work.
Shown: Rumeli70 Pharmacy branding package. Used by permission of Ipek Eris.
Ipek’s work shows a keen awareness of her client’s needs, married to a great visual sense. She establishes unity between separate elements by repeating motifs with variation.
We didn’t have to look far to find this designer. Sarah Yeager works for us! And while you may chuckle at the fact that we included our own designer in this list, wait till you see her work. It’s why we hired her.
Shown: MatVacay app design.Shown: Textbookly.com website.Shown: Sarah’s award-winning design of EmpoweRING, a piece of jewelry that lets the wearer send a distress signal to emergency contacts if he or she is in danger.Shown: #BrainCandies branding for WedoWE.
Sarah received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Communication Design from Kent State University. Aside from her design education, Sarah’s wide range of interests also informs her design process. She has worked in entrepreneurship, videography, photography, and painting. She finds these experiences invaluable as she designs websites, logos, and creatives for our clients.
Shown: John French with Hasselblad, paper collage on panel, 18×12.5 inches. Used by permission of Lola Dupré.
Lola Dupré has created an incredible illustration style. Working exclusively with paper and scissors, she makes surreal, distorted images, often using the human body as her subject. In enlarging some parts of her source image, she criticizes cultural assumptions about gender and beauty. Her work is beautiful, disturbing, and unmistakable.
Nina Geometrieva is a rising star in photography, graphic design, and branding. She brings a strong sense of geometry to her design as well as her photojournalism. For this writer, her most incredible work is the stunning photoshoot of Tokyo which she produced with Damjan Cvetkov-Dimitrov—including the capsule hotel photos which you’ve probably seen somewhere on the internet already.
Shown: Tōkyō desu. Used by permission of Nina Geometrieva.
Nina and Damjan documented their Tokyo trip in this Medium post. Check it out for more incredible animated GIFs.
Nadzeya Makeyeva is an illustrator and designer based in Minsk, Belarus. Her work features ingenious use of texture and line, and each piece seems to create and inhabit its own world. Check out her Psilocybin Rabbit:
Shown: Psilocybin Rabbit. Used by permission of Nadzeya Makeyeva.
Nadzeya attended College of Arts #26 in Minsk. She has worked as a concept artist, illustrator, designer, and UI/UX designer, at multiple firms and as a freelancer. Her work shows a remarkable fluidity and ability to adapt to different purposes, styles, and materials.
Vicki Turner is a British designer and illustrator with a strong eye for color, shape, and line. Her work features incredible geometric representations of common shapes. Vicki has developed her own consistent style, almost an iconographic language which is easily understood by anyone.
Shown: Misty Morning Commute, shortlisted for the AOI & TFL Prize for Illustration. Used by permission of Vicki Turner.
Vicki has worked with non-profits, startups, and everything in between. She brings a problem-solving mindset to the client relationship, and she offers insight on product and branding. She is also the founder of Feist Forest, a boutique builder of fine wooden tables for creatives.
Erin Zingré started her illustration career in style, at age 4, with a preschool drawing of the Headless Horseman, a Guillotine, and Death Himself. As she puts it, this drawing still captures the essence of her work: “kinda cute, kinda creepy, and altogether not-quite-right.” It’s a beautiful kind of not-quite-right.
Shown: Coloring Book for Grownups. Used by permission of Erin Zingré.
Erin is a multidisciplinary designer now working out of Seattle. She is not taking freelance work at this time, due to her work designing at Amazon. With this talent, it’s no surprise she’s been snatched up.
Anna Grosh is a Siberian designer working in San Francisco, CA. She specializes in illustration, typography and lettering, and design. Her illustration shows a nuanced touch and a powerful expression of emotion.
Shown Circus D’Hiver Bouglion poster. Used by permission of Anna Grosh.
Anna also excels at highly ornamented work and calligraphy. In the digital age, it’s refreshing to see a human touch and detailed hand work. Anna is one to watch.
V. Typography, Calligraphy, and Typeface Design
21. Marian Bantjes
Marian Bantjes has forged a remarkable career. Her work spans graphic design, typography, calligraphy, and lettering, and it has won her international acclaim. In the following piece, which she created for AGI’s annual special project, she used dirt and sand from around the world to create a Coexistence poster. Note the obsessive attention to detail—and the transience: she didn’t glue the sand down, and she wiped the poster away after photographing it.
Marian worked as a book typesetter from 1984-1994. From 1994-2003, she ran Digitopolis, a graphic design studio which she cofounded. From 2003 to the present, she has pursued freelance work in design, art, and lettering.
Laura Pol is a designer, photographer, and videographer based in Venice, CA. As a designer, she has created a wide variety of logos, both type-based and graphic, in which she integrates clean typography with an overall aesthetic. She has also created several fonts, which are available for free (donation suggested) on her website.
Shown: Tyde Font sample. Used by permission of Laura Pol.
Typography and typeface design aren’t Laura’s only pursuits. She has also collaborated on editorial designs, art direction, branding, and more.
Lisa Pan (Pan, Yi) is a graphic designer based in Taipei, Taiwan. She has developed an incredible illustration style, and she also excels at creating beautiful typography. She often combines lettering with illustrative work. Her pieces are truly jaw-dropping.
Shown: Typoholic Zoology Collection. Used by permission of Lisa Pan.
Lisa shows an incredible ability to adapt her illustration style and her typographic sense to any project. Her work also shows a great balance between complex and simple textures.
Louise Mertens received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in graphic design at Sint-Lucas Antwerpen. While in school, she interned at Mirror Mirror. After an internship at Sagmeister and Walsh, she launched Louise Mertens Studio in 2014. She now specializes in art and art direction, with a strong emphasis on collage. In the work below, she achieves a dynamic unity from several competing elements.
Shown: Jiyu 4. Used by permission of Louise Mertens.
Louise’s use of color and her carefully-combined textures are unmistakable. As she says on her website, she is “inspired by the female body, the mysterious, and the incomprehensible.” She has developed a truly unique style.
Marta Gawin practices design in Katowice, Poland. She specializes in editorial, poster, exhibition, and visual identity design. Her work features strong contrast between graphic elements, plus incredible typography.
Shown: JazzArt Festival 2015. Used by permission of Marta Gawin.
Marta earned her MA in Graphic Design from the Academy of Fine Arts, Katowice, in 2011. She works as a freelancer now, and she is regularly hired by both commercial organizations and cultural institutions. Her work is high-concept, with a heavy emphasis on unique content.
Candy Chang takes her background in urban planning, her expressive sense, and her training in design and combines them to create beautiful public art installations. Among many incredible works, she created the Before I Die phenomenon—a black wall stenciled with the phrase, “Before I die _____”.
Shown: Before I Die. Used by permission of Candy Chang.
This is a participatory public artwork which invites passersby to share their deepest longings in public. The original Before I Die wall in New Orleans gained international attention, and now there are over 1,000 Before I Die walls in 70 countries around the globe.
Design is changing faster than ever. New trends are always emerging, and in our opinion, things just keep getting better and better. These 26 women are pushing design to new places we’ve never seen before. This is truly a golden age of design, whether in web, branding, typography, illustration, or photography.
From 216digital, a hearty THANK YOU to these designers for their willingness to share their work. Keep at it!
Google Plus: Google’s Gift to Local Area Businesses – EXPANDED
Editor’s Note: A version of this article first appeared on 216digital’s Cleveland Plain Dealer blog. It was such a hit there, we’ve expanded this version to include a few more helpful details.
Have you noticed that local search has changed? What’s going on? Instead of local business sites alone, Google now shows Google Plus results alongside websites. If you don’t have a Google Plus page, or if your page is in bad shape, it won’t pop up in SERPs (search engine results pages). Whoa. This is serious. Luckily, there’s a lot you can do to optimize Google Plus for local business. In this post, we’ll cover some of the basic techniques, as well as point you towards some in-depth resources.
Google Plus and SEO: A Little Nepotism Never Hurts!
At this point, you’re probably wondering if Google Plus affects your search rank on Google. You bet it does! Claire Abraham, social media manager at 216digital, stresses the importance of Google Plus for SEO to every client we get. As she puts it, “The more of Google’s toys you play with, the more it likes you.” In other words, Google favors its own product, Google Plus, in considering what to show in search results. Now, before you start yelling, “unfair,” consider this: Google is a corporate business entity. As this post from Copyblogger reminds us, Google can do whatever they want. They don’t owe any of us anything! The trick is to figure out what Google likes—and just do it.
The real gold that Google Plus offers is that G+ pages display in Google search results when the user is logged in to their Google account. This gives users a direct chance to interact with your business’s page if they’re searching for your business or something that you rank for.
As a social media platform, this is where Google Plus really integrates with SEO efforts. Facebook posts don’t show up in Google SERPs. That puts Google Plus in a great position to integrate your social efforts with your SEO efforts.
Every social media platform has its own quirks, and Google Plus is no different. It’s not simply Google’s version of Facebook or Twitter. Google Plus is its own space with its own rules and best practices. You’ll need a thorough understanding of how Google Plus works before you start leveraging it for your local business.
Getting Your Local Business onto Google Plus
This is easy. Simply sign up for a Google Plus account. One important note—do not use a Gmail address to sign up. Use an address from your business domain name (for example, you@yourdomain.com). This will help greatly when you go to verify your page in the future.
Linking Google My Business and Google Plus
While My Business and Google+ are separate Google products, local business owners should link them to get the most out of Google’s presentation of their businesses. For business owners, that means logging into your Google Plus account (or creating one, if you don’t have one), then finding your My Business page and claiming it. Note: you’ll have to verify your business by phone or by postcard. This is critical! An unverified page won’t show up in SERPs.
Another critical step: you’ll need to determine if there are any duplicate Google My Business pages for your business. If there are, you must delete them. Also, you’ll need to ensure that your My Business page hasn’t been penalized. Duplicate pages and penalties will kill the SEO contributions which your My Business and Google+ pages should be making.
Your Business Info: Get It Right!
Just about every point we make in this article is critical. This one is no exception. You mustensure that your business name, address, phone number, and hours of operation are 100% correct. If not every bit of information matches up between your website and your My Business page, Google sees a problem.
Also, take note of this. As Casey Meraz writes on the Moz blog, you can’t use a PO box as your address, and you can’t list an 800 number as your phone number. If your business has a physical address, you need to list that address. You also need to list a phone number with a local area code.
You’ll find a Categories field as you’re filling out your profile. This field is extremely important. You’ll want to use all the Categories that are allowed for your industry. Note: these categories reflect what your business is, not what it does. If your business is Dave’s Dry Cleaners, your category would be “Dry Cleaners,” not “dry cleaning.” Also note—there are no custom categories! You have to choose from the available options.
Your Profile: Complete It!
An incomplete profile will only hurt your Google Plus page. Make sure you fill out every bit of information until the profile says it’s 100% complete. There’s a lot to do, so pay attention to the details. For example, you need to fill out your intro description. Make sure it’s relevant, engaging, and at least 250 words long. You’ll also want to upload high-quality photos of your business location.
To really round out your appearance on Google, consider hiring a Google-trusted photographer to do a 360-degree shoot inside your business location. Google calls this Business View, and it’s quite possibly one of Google’s greatest gifts to local businesses. Business View gives online users the chance to see what your restaurant or store looks like on the inside before they even leave the house. This is an especially great opportunity for retail establishments with a unique, well-branded décor.
Don’t use a Gmail address to sign up. Use an address from your business domain name (like you@yourdomain.com).
[clickToTweet tweet=”Don’t use a Gmail address to sign up for #GooglePlus. Use an address from your business domain name. #localseo” quote=”Don’t use a Gmail address to sign up. Use an address from your business domain name.”]
Remember how almost every point in this article is critical? Here’s another one. You need to link your website to your Google Plus page. This will allow your Google Plus page to appear in SERPs.
Along those lines, you’ll also want to claim a custom URL for your Google Plus page. This is your opportunity to have a URL that matches the name of your business. For both users and Google, this custom URL will look better than a string of numbers and letters.
You’ll see a section of your profile called Links. You’ll want to put as many relevant links in this area as possible. Relevant links include your blog(s), your social media pages, and any other online properties which make up your business’s digital assets.
Google Plus Circles
Circles are unique to Google+. Photo courtesy of Horia Varlan, licensed under CC 2.0. Modified by 216digital.
Among social media platforms, the Circles function is unique to Google Plus. Circles are a way of organizing your connections—say, into groups like Personal Friends, Industry Leaders, and Coworkers. While Circles are primarily a backend organizational feature for your benefit as a user, they do affect your connections: when you post to Google Plus, you can choose which Circles see that post.
Like many aspects of Google Plus, Circles really have no analog on Twitter and Facebook. As Cassy Hicks Kerr (@modernmktgspark) writes on MMSpark, “The key to building circles is not to focus on the numbers but on the relationships you have with the people you circle.” On Twitter and Facebook, you might try to get as many relevant followers as possible. In Google Plus Circles, it isn’t the number of people in any given Circle that bring you marketing value; rather, it’s the people themselves and their position in your niche. Think of it like “less is more.” You want to get the right people in the right Circles. Rather than a broadcast perspective, trying to hit as many random readers as possible, this is “niche-casting”: hitting a few people in your niche who will find your content insanely valuable.
In this respect, the structure of Google Plus is far more optimized for digital marketing than the structure of Facebook–or even Twitter.
Posting to Google Plus
Google Plus has some quirks. For example, when you post to your Google Plus page, the first 45-50 characters get pulled like a title in SERPs. Weird, right? You’ll just have to work with it. That means writing the first 45-50 characters of your G+ post like a titleand like the first line of a post at the same time.
If you want to include a link in your Google Plus post (and you should), make sure you use the Link function rather than adding the link manually to your text. This Link function is SEO gold.
How often should you post to Google Plus? Well… the answer is, “regularly.” We recommend posting every day. However, if this simply isn’t feasible, shoot for once a week. Whatever you do, stick to it.
Getting Followers on Google Plus
To get followers, you should join relevant Communities and stay active in them. That means posting every day. However, take note: no one really scrolls through the Google Plus newsfeed like they would on Twitter or Facebook. You can choose which Circles see your posts, thereby targeting your information to the most interested parties. You should take advantage of this function. It will increase the content value of your brand in your followers’ eyes.
Communities and posting aren’t the only way to gain followers. Social media is all about networking. Since you’re using Google Plus for local business marketing, why not start leaving excellent reviews on the G+ pages of other local businesses? Whether you do this out of the blue, or for a longstanding partner of your business, you can’t measure the value of this act of good will. Don’t be surprised if some businesses reciprocate the favor and start leaving excellent reviews on your page.
[clickToTweet tweet=”Don’t just dump your email contact list into G+ and invite them all to follow you. #googleplus” quote=”Don’t just dump your email contact list into G+ and invite them all to follow you. “]
What shouldn’t you do to gain followers on Google Plus? For starters, don’t simply dump your email contact list into G+ and invite them all to follow you. That’s unprofessional, and it’s unlikely every contact in your list will find your business relevant.
The Bottom Line
Google Plus is essential to the toolbox of any small business. Like Facebook and Twitter, it offers great social networking opportunities; but unlike them, it also integrates easily with your Google SEO efforts.
If your small business isn’t using Google Plus yet, sign up now and start interacting with your customers. If you’re already using Google Plus for local business, we want to hear from you. What’s working? What’s not working? Leave a comment below, and let’s continue learning together.
