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Rebuy: 5 Questions with Ambaum

Recently, we had the pleasure of sitting down with Miles Shattuck, Rebuy’s Senior Content Marketing Manager for a think tank of Shopify Plus solutions. Our Founder, Chad Fisher, and our COO, David Stober, hashed out legacy D2C brand potential, professional recommendations for online store improvement, and exciting projects on the horizon. Check out the full article through Rebuy here, and a TL;DR 10 minute video below.

Key Takeaways

  • Ambaum provides Shopify Plus users with the resources they need to grow their businesses, integrating into unique templates to raise performance indicators.
  • Every three to four years, revitalize the template for your Shopify store to stay current with software updates and improve performance metrics.
  • Although top-of-funnel awareness can be generated from social selling on sites like Facebook or Instagram, Shopify businesses are best benefited by driving traffic to their online store.
  • Future ecommerce tech stacks must be adaptable and agile, able to react swiftly to shifting trends.

Whether you are an entrepreneur with an idea on a napkin, a bootstrapped startup, an SMB re-platforming, or a high-flying CPG brand, we help accelerate your growth through world-class strategy, design, and development. Get the most out of your Shopify Plus store, and schedule your complimentary consultation today.

ChargeUp New York 2022

Recently, I was fortunate enough to spend a lovely and rewarding day in New York attending the ChargeUp event hosted by Recharge. This was my first event since the pandemic began, and it will not be my last. With the inspiring thought-leadership (and impressive hors d’oeuvres pictured below!), Recharge has proven to be truly apt in their event planning in the new post-pandemic tide.

After checking in, I was met with accessible high-top tables and enjoyed delicious breakfast items (most importantly; Coffee).

Welcome & State of the Industry // Recharge Product Roadmap

Led by the VP of Strategic Alliances, Lindy Crea, we discussed how undeniably there has been a spike in ecommerce growth during the lockdown, and we’re now seeing the gradual descent as we settle back to stasis. In addition to this, merchants are facing supply chain issues and clogged shipping channels, which has disrupted a significant amount of delivery flows.

The supply chain is not just backlogged, but it is getting more expensive. Customer acquisition cost continues to increase in the “cookie-pocolypse” causing merchants and consumers alike to pull back from social spend. 

This has made the need for reliable revenue evermore evident for merchants.

Succeed with Subscriptions: Attract Subscribers

We then broke out to discuss one of the foundations of reliable revenue and successful, scalable, business being on customer retention, the marketing track led by Christy Ottesen, Senior Product Marketing Manager. One of the foundations of the panel; 32% of customers are prepared to abandon their loyalty to a company after one very bad experience. In a very interesting correlation, 80% of stores feel they’re delivering a great customer experience, where only 8% of customers feel they’re receiving a great experience.

Customer Experience (CX)

To add more on a merchant’s plate, buy online, pickup in-store (BOPIS), is forecast to grow by 19.3% by 2027. Whether or not this is already cultivated, this will grow into a more significant vertical for merchants as the post-pandemic stasis levels out. 

Finally, research has shown that through conditioning from big league experiences such as Disney, consumers will be expecting the utmost in response time and excellent customer service. As a merchant, you are expected from customers to perform within the same parameters as those big leagues with your customer experience. So, customers are not only expecting you to outperform your competitors, but they’re expecting you to provide the same level of customer service as a multi-level, thousand-employee-marketing-team, with granular operations, and nearly 100 years of honed experience.

I know. Like, what? How the heck are you supposed to do that?

There is a ton of strategy around the best CX, and this will change as the market does. Recharge has broken it down into three major principles:

  • Speed
  • Convenience
  • Friendliness

Speed: Attentiveness in responding to your customers is key to making them feel heard and understood. Recharge has partnered with Gorgias to serve and resolve subscription questions faster. This integration allows the sales team to re-active, refund, or cancel subscriptions all within the same window, so there is no need to switch between tools. 

Convenience: RechargeSMS is a free tool for Recharge merchants that allows for subscription management through customer self-service via SMS. Providing the flexibility for customers to manage their own subscription dramatically increases customer lifetime value (CLV). All functions of the customer portal can be completed via text and this tool has proven to increase CLV up to 30%.

Friendliness: Providing an excellent customer experience on an omnichannel strategy is key to retention. Average customer behavior has been proven to pay a premium for additional benefits such as early access, a customized experience, and long-term discounts.

Understandably, lunch was buzzing with subscription strategy conversations and methods to increase retention, and decrease churn. I discussed a few areas of nuance with merchants of varying demographics such as customizations for subscription-pause, specifically around the school year, and how to automatically resume after summer and winter breaks. I also discussed how difficult the transition can be from WooCommerce to Shopify Plus without support, and how to decrease the churn that comes with customers needing to enter additional information or create a whole new profile on a new platform. 

This event quickly made me realize that as our tech partners here at Ambaum begin to scale, these merchant needs are where our services can really step in to help. Through years of agency experience with over 30 active merchants, we are able to quickly identify this low-hanging fruit to then build long-term solutions and strategies for the merchant’s success. By working with many of our preferred partners within the first few years of their conception (Recharge for 4+ years!), we are able to travel parallel with their updates, step in, and solve these types of customizations that merchants need.

Case Study: Optimize your Subscription Business with Customization and Integrations // Happy Hour

The conference ended with a case study between Klaviyo, Wandering Bear Coffee, and their Shopify tech agency, where we covered their transition into e-commerce over the pandemic. Taking on Klaviyo for email and SMS, the merchant was able to take their sales to a new level. As Recharge provided the flexibility for customers to manage their own subscription, they saw their CLV soar. Through this panel discussion we answered the question: When do you start the conversation with your customers? The answer: Either now, or yesterday.

After wrapping up the conference, we finished with a happy hour on the terrace rooftop, and plenty of in-depth discussion about what is on the horizon for subscription services. Recharge has new updates upcoming including a way to understand the entire customer experience in a single view, data consistency between Recharge and Shopify where you can perform bulk discount imports with one click, and a widget for Shopify Plus for an incredibly easy subscription service setup. As these updates roll out, you can be sure we’ll cover them here, so sign up for our newsletter now (if you haven’t already!).

Conclusion

I thoroughly enjoyed the day from the organized setup, to discussing poignant thought-leadership with peers and partners over the bustling city below. I look forward to the next event with our partners here at Ambaum, and new updates from our partnership with Recharge.

Top 5 Marketing Trends for 2022

trend: /trend/ “a general direction in which something is developing or changing.”

While consistency is always important, being consistent also means incorporating change. Keeping your finger on the pulse of what’s new and useful toward your marketing efforts is key to growing your reach and your new converting customers. Let’s break it down to some pivotal elements for success.

1. A/B Web Testing with SEO

Trends wouldn’t be trends without testing – this is a way to truly understand your audience and their subtle changes. Although A/B testing is traditionally used as a tactic toward paid advertising, a brand can also utilize A/B testing for organic reach and search traffic to the site. A low-cost tactic; identify the blog post or page that drives the most traffic and run some A/B tests. Track conversion, duration, and bounce rates to optimize your site. 

Check out how we were able to help in our partnership with Pair of Thieves to optimize their site and improve their SEO.

scrolling .gif of Pair of Thieves

2. Motion Graphics and Video

With a reported 8-second average attention span in 2021, grabbing a user’s focus quickly and efficiently is more important than ever. And, with fast moving apps like TikTok, the average attention span is sure to shrink even further. So, how do you compete in this high speed highway of content? Try motion graphics and video content. This can be as simple as switching out a .jpg with a .gif, or creating full-blown videos for social posts and ads as they are proven to be more effective. Leverage and strategize the effectiveness of channels such as TikTok and Instagram Reels. Try different approaches to stop-the-scroll within the first 5 seconds of your content. Of course, as in all things marketing, keep brand authenticity at the forefront.

Pro Tip: Make sure all video content includes captions. This promotes inclusive usability and allows the user to enjoy your content in spaces where having sound on is not possible or preferable. This can also increase conversion rates.

3. Mobile Optimization

With the marketing world becoming even more fast paced, on-the-go convenience will be vital to a brands success. In fact, we know that in 2020, about half of global website traffic came from mobile devices. Having the ability to purchase, navigate, and otherwise interact with your site is pivotal as millennials and Gen Z increase their buying power. Always check how the output of your content interacts on mobile devices, and with different mobile devices, ensuring the user’s journey is reflective of a more fast-paced and cross-channel user for the following key elements:

  • Ensure products are explained with the least amount of clicks. Include FAQs about the product, reviews, and images that can be zoomed in on a mobile device.
  • Consider additional customer service options. Be sure to give users many options if they have questions about your product or service – via email, phone, or live chat.
  • Make the payment process as easy as possible. This can be done by allowing the user to create an account and save their credit card information for easy check-out in the future, to allowing alternative payment options such as ApplePay or GooglePay. But, keep the fillable forms as short as possible so you do not lose the users interest or attention. In this independent study, creating payment options resulted in a 101% increase in conversions.

Pro Tip: Do a double-check on your email content, as well, to make sure it is optimized for mobile.

Example of a websites view on mobile

4. User-Generated Content (UGC)

Often overlooked, and with minimal effort on the brand’s part, is cultivating brand loyalty through UGC. This is a direct way for users to feel like they have a voice, are valued, and increases word-of-mouth awareness. User-generated content can incentivize influencer and partnership programs, as a clearer channel toward customer reviews and feedback. Incorporating UGC into your marketing channels is cost effective, and takes a bite of content-creation off your Social Media Manager’s plate. Shopify offers a UGC app to make this easier such as Cevoid or even Shoppable Instagram & UGC.

Another tactic here is to make sure you give back to the community, especially the users helping through UGC. This could be in the form of a promo code for them and to share with friends, free product for their review, or feature them in a sweepstakes to build followers mutually.

Example of UGC from gopro

Featuring these users as Brand Ambassadors gives them a VIP feeling, and creates a partnership between them and your brand. But, don’t stop there. Reach out to your team, and empower employees to advocate for your brand. Word-of-mouth is statistically proven to be one of the most effective forms of lead-to-customer conversion, so take every opportunity to promote real-life interactions with your product.

5. Personalization

Especially in times of bulk discounts or times where KPIs need to be met, personalizing your content output can get lost in the fray. A few ways to tighten the scope:

Identify buyer personas

How can you create content without knowing who the audience is? See how granular you can make the buyer personas. Find stock images, write out what their hobbies are, if they consume content on a Mac, PC, or mobile (and, if so, what type of mobile?), what music they listen to, what they do after a long week, etc. Writing content toward a specific audience will evoke a more emotional response and keep them engaged.

Email segmenting

Keeping a good email database is like keeping a carefully pruned bonsai. It takes careful attention and pruning to ensure that the overall channel is healthy and growing. Segmenting your email list by data points identified in your personas and customizing those emails and promotions toward the consumer increases open rates, click-through-rate (CTR), and ultimately conversions. 

Think of the consumer’s journey

From usability to personalization, keep trying to think of each personas experience as they navigate through the journey you’ve built for them. If a user converts from an email, how is their journey different from a user converting from word-of-mouth? From a social media post? From digital paid advertising? Even, from traditional physical advertising? Then, how does that user journey change over time after they are now a converting customer? Taking a look at the Human Design of each user’s path toward the main road of your core customer is key to maintaining and measuring a user’s customer lifetime value (CLV).

Infographic of success

Listen to your audience, provide opportunities for them to express their feedback, and try for those subtle changes to your interface. Interested in talking more about how we can help you on optimizing your user experience? Drop us a line.