Fancy receiving a cash discount for trading in your old website for a new one?   

Denise Cowan, Online Marketing Executive at The Web Bureau is responsible for managing Online Marketing campaigns for clients. Denise offers the following insights into consumer behaviour online and how businesses can use this knowledge to increase online sales.

Selling online successfully involves applying many of the same principles as you do in a traditional shop environment.  Any good marketing strategy requires you to understand consumer behaviour, and in particular, the mindset of your current and potential customers. This article focuses on the following 3 questions:

1. To What Extent Do Consumers Purchase Online?

2. How Do Consumers Find What They Need or Want Online?

3. How Can Search Marketing Help to Increase Sales?

To What Extent Do Consumers Purchase Online?

Industry research is a good starting point to aid your understanding of consumer behaviour online. The global 2012 Digital Influence Index, led by the Fleishman-Hillard digital research group assessed the relative role and influence of different media in the lives of consumers, providing many statistics that traditional retailers and e-commerce shops can’t afford to ignore.  For example:

• The internet is the most common place people go to for advice, before family and friends

• 85% of consumers use the Internet to help make decisions about goods and services related to their children, 75% for healthcare decisions, and 68% on money matters

• 51% indicate that the Internet will influence their decisions more in the next two years

Leading search engine Google, also offers insights into online search volumes and trends via their platform.

• More than 1 billion users search on Google every week

• Google handles more than 30,000 searches per second

• Search is a database of intentions and most people are searching for needs, not brands

The IMRG e-Retail Index provides useful information about online retail trends in the UK:

• The UK is Europe’s leading e-retail economy and experienced record online sales of £68bn in 2011, a 16% increase on 2010 - with predictions of a further 13% growth in 2012 and estimated total e-retail sales of £77bn by the year end, there is little doubt that consumers will continue to buy online. 

• e-Retail now accounts for 17% of total retail sales in the UK

• The UK has 52 million internet users, 37 million of whom are internet shoppers

• The top 3 sectors in 2010 were clothing; beer, wine and spirits; and health and beauty

These statistics make a compelling argument for creating an online shop.

How Do Consumers Find What They Need or Want Online?

The simple answer to this question is by using Search Engines:

• 89% of consumers use search engines when searching for information about a brand or product (Global 2012 Digital Influence Index)

• Nearly 2/3 of consumers now use their mobile/smartphones to obtain information on products, brands or destinations at least 3 to 4 days a week (2012 Digital Influence Index)

• 90.84% of total searches take place on Google (Hitwise, April 2011)

How Can Search Marketing Help to Increase Sales?

Two key aspects of Search Marketing include Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Pay Per Click Marketing (Google Adwords). SEO is essentially a long term strategy which focuses on building a sustainable online presence for your business over time, whereas PPC involves paying for instant visibility and traffic to your website. What both of these Search Marketing Strategies have in common is their ultimate goal is to generate visibility for your website within the search engine results pages to drive more traffic to your website.  This creates enormous potential to boost your online sales.  

There are many facets to Search Marketing and Google’s algorithm, which it uses to determine where it ranks each website in the search results, but the starting point for any business is to develop a good understanding of your customers’ online behaviour. Undertaking detailed keyword research will enable you to identify the words and phrases consumers use most frequently to search for your products and services online. This knowledge can then be applied to the development of your online marketing campaigns. 

To find out more about E-commerce and Search Marketing, come along to our e-commerce workshop at the Northern Ireland Small Business Marketing Conference 2012, hosted by Business First or contact us on 028 9073 1190 or by email to denise@thewebbureau.com 

The internet continues to attain more and more users each passing year and online retail is growing faster than any other retail sector in the UK. Expect this trend to continue and your business needs to be part of it.

The Boosting Business through Technology campaign by Invest Northern Ireland encourages local companies to invest in technology, by offering advice and support. And as part of the campaign, InvestNI held a major eBusiness conference with key speakers from leading web technology providers including Google, Facebook and Sage Pay. A number of local ecommerce businesses also provided insight into their online success.

Over 350 local companies attended Invest NI’s eBusiness conference held last week at the Ramada Hotel, Shaws Bridge, Belfast. The conference highlighted the importance of selling online. Companies discovered how to drive online sales and access new export markets via social media, search engine optimisation and ecommerce.

Speaking at the conference, Cera Ward, Online Sales Manager for Google in Ireland, said ‘If you are not online, you are out of stock in the biggest supermarket of the world.’ The global market place is becoming much easier to access, and Northern Ireland companies can now compete in new export markets via the internet. If you're not in it, you can't win it.

The question is, can your business afford not to sell online? But with price comparison sites, virtual marketplaces, eBay, Amazon and Google Shopping, we understand selling products online can be a little daunting. And with growth of businesses on YouTube, social media and Search Engine Optimisation, implementing an online marketing strategy seems even more overwhelming! Our team can take care of that for you.

As a full digital agency, the Web Bureau offers a lot more than beautifully designed and developed websites. We are experts in e-commerce, search engine optimisation, email marketing, content management and so much more. Our knowledge in web technology can help your business increase sales with an effective ecommerce strategy.