Inside the Profession PR Training

Sellout Online: Critical New Business Practices for Online Success

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Online commerce today should focus on current high value customers because it’s cheaper to upsell than to cross sell. The key to retention and conversion lies in the customer experience. Relevancy on search and relevancy on site must touch the user. Customer retention means micro targeting with calls to action, solicited, measurable feedback, comparative pricing, and ranking well in search.

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Successful online commerce means knowing critical new business practices which result in online success. Dawn M. Yankeelov, president and founder of Aspectx, shared these practices and so much more in her session “Customer Retention : Learn Critical Factors for Maintaining Online Commerce Success” at the PRSA 2010 International Conference. Below are the pearls of wisdom I gathered from her exceptional session.

E-commerce Goal: Customer Retention
Online commerce today should focus on current high value customers because it’s cheaper to upsell than to cross sell. The key to retention and conversion lies in the customer experience. Relevancy on search and relevancy on site must touch the user. Customer retention means micro targeting with calls to action, solicited, measurable feedback, comparative pricing, and ranking well in search.

E-commerce Facts

No more is it a goal to get people to go online and buy. The fact is, Americans love to buy online. Which states have the most online purchase power? Take a look at North Dakota whose citizens average $7975 worth of online purchases a year. Second are Alaskans who spend an average of $5414 per person.  In third place are those who live in Connecticut spending $5054 annually. Three states who spend the least online are Rhode Island, South Dakota, and Maine.  Overall, women tend to purchase more than men because they like to research products and don’t have time to go out and shop.  Women prefer deferred payment accounts and auctions.

E-commerce Trends

Mobile ads leading to payments continue to grow in popularity. Incentives and payment cards are back in a big way.  Comparative pricing has become the norm. Cross channel campaigns are in demand. Companies should be listed in all the right shopping sites. Personalized communications to top shoppers paves the way to more sales. Group buying sites are trending up and crowdsourcing, or leveraging a community’s support to grow sales is powerful and effective. Facebook, when used with coupon generating software based on consumer likes, is a successful conversion tool.

E-commerce Roles: PR, Marketing, and Sales
The advent of social media along with tools that support and track it have blurred the lines that used to separate marketing, PR and sales. Today, PR and marketing ARE sales. As a result, all three should know how to micro target customers with calls to action, use solicited, measurable feedback, offer comparative pricing, and rank well in search. Dawn Yankeelov recommends marketing, public relations, and sales professionals get to know the following array of software to help with this conversion work:

Presentation

Catherine Lockey, chief operating officer,  oz 2 designs LLC, is the content strategist behind  The Creative Marketing Channel. With over 25 years combined experience in marketing, education, counseling, and journalism, Catherine enjoys educating others about digital marketing at mixers and business expos.  Connect with Catherine on LinkedIn, Facebook, and on twitter @oz2designs.

For more coverage on the PRSA 2010 International Conference: Powering PRogress, visit PRSA Intelligence, follow #prsa_ic and the Conference blog.

About the author

Catherine Lockey

14 Comments

  • One of the most eye-opening lessons in the book comes on page two in the form of a pyramid that illustrates how people make decisions on whom to hire to provide a service

  • Somehow I find al the definitions slightly traditional. Most of them suggest it is simply a case of pushing messages via various media to defined publics. I feel that communication as a whole is no longer about basic sending and receiving, it is more about networks, sharing, participating and collective opinion forming. Not just deciding what to say and when and to whom but how to facilitate for people to connect. Among each other, to specific topics and with the members of organizations on all levels. 

  • Somehow I find al the definitions slightly traditional. Most of them suggest it is simply a case of pushing messages via various media to defined publics. I feel that communication as a whole is no longer about basic sending and receiving, it is more about networks, sharing, participating and collective opinion forming. Not just deciding what to say and when and to whom but how to facilitate for people to connect. Among each other, to specific topics and with the members of organizations on all levels. 

    • While PRSA’s intentions were good, the lack of updates is unacceptable. It gives PR professionals a bad name. The voting should have been posted the week of December 5th, but we have yet to hear anything. The last blog is dated December 2nd, it’s now 20 days later. Our team is very disappointed in PRSA’s poor effort to keep up  the appointed schedule originally posted. 

      • Thanks for your interest and concern in the progress of the “Public Relations Defined” initiative. As PRSA Chair and CEO Rosanna Fiske notes in today’s blog post announcing the updated timeline for the initiative (http://ow.ly/85mA4 ), there has been unprecedented interest in the initiative, including some 927 submitted definitions encompassing more than 15,000 submitted words.

        Due to that interest, PRSA’s Definition of Public Relations Task Force, in conjunction with our 12 global partners in this initiative, determined it was necessary to extend the project timeline in order to provide more time for thoughtful input and consider of the data collected.

        We hope you will remain interested in the initiative and will continue to provide your feedback. Please do let us know where you see opportunities for improvement and we will be happy to consider those.

        Thanks again for your feedback.

        Keith Trivitt
        PRSA

      • Thanks for your interest and concern in the progress of the “Public Relations Defined” initiative. As PRSA Chair and CEO Rosanna Fiske notes in today’s blog post announcing the updated timeline for the initiative (http://ow.ly/85mA4 ), there has been unprecedented interest in the initiative, including some 927 submitted definitions encompassing more than 15,000 submitted words.

        Due to that interest, PRSA’s Definition of Public Relations Task Force, in conjunction with our 12 global partners in this initiative, determined it was necessary to extend the project timeline in order to provide more time for thoughtful input and consider of the data collected.

        We hope you will remain interested in the initiative and will continue to provide your feedback. Please do let us know where you see opportunities for improvement and we will be happy to consider those.

        Thanks again for your feedback.

        Keith Trivitt
        PRSA

    • While PRSA’s intentions were good, the lack of updates is unacceptable. It gives PR professionals a bad name. The voting should have been posted the week of December 5th, but we have yet to hear anything. The last blog is dated December 2nd, it’s now 20 days later. Our team is very disappointed in PRSA’s poor effort to keep up  the appointed schedule originally posted. 

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