For this week’s installment of our Esparza blog, we wanted to offer you a glimpse into the mind of our agency’s founder and CEO, Del Esparza.
Del’s new book, The Next Dinosaur, is about the necessity of e-commerce and how you can keep your business from going extinct. The excerpt included below will give you some insight into the way Del (and everyone at Esparza) thinks about product management, website development, and the benefits of analytics:
Customers today are more informed than any time in history. They have fingertip access to research, price comparisons, reviews, and user experience, all before they click “add to cart.” It’s crucial to your success to understand their thought process.
Here are five benefits of analytics information for your business:
1) PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
Knowing exactly what people like and dislike is key to improving your connection to customers. They have a lot of options, and you want to ensure that they not only come to your website but return often and recommend your business to others. You may realize through this information that you have the potential to tap into a niche market by simply rebranding or making minor adjustments to existing merchandise.
2) INVENTORY MANAGEMENT
By understanding the ebb and flow of your merchandise, you will know the right time to reorder to avoid the dreaded “out of stock” when customers come looking. While existing customers might return to your website out of loyalty, new prospects aren’t as likely to return, especially when they find what originally brought them to your site elsewhere.
3) NEW SALES OPPORTUNITIES
Cross-selling and up-selling are powerful activities that many companies miss. According to Forbes, it can cost five times more to attract a new customer than it does to retain an existing one, and 65% of a company’s business comes from existing customers. With a clear understanding of what your customers are looking for, you can leverage this toward greater success and retention.
4) ENHANCE THE USER EXPERIENCE
Customers aren’t just interested in your inventory and prices, they also care a great deal about the usability of your website, especially on mobile devices. The analytics information will show you how and where customers spend time on your site. You can let this inspire improvements that meet customers’ wants and needs.
5) AMPLIFY ADS
Possibly one of the greatest insights you will gain from these analytics is how successfully your ads are driving customers to your e-store. You may learn that an expensive ad is creating little foot traffic to your site, while a free “tell a friend” Facebook post has created the newest customer interaction. Analytics takes the guesswork out of how your ads are affecting business.
(Esparza, 47)
Conclusion:
Hungry for more insights that can benefit your business? The Next Dinosaur can help you understand how Esparza thinks about e-commerce, and how you can better prepare yourself to meet the needs of your customers in a digital space.
You can purchase The Next Dinosaur, HERE
