As recently as 20 years ago, ecommerce seemed like a pipe dream. The idea that people would actually shop on computers seemed almost fanciful – or at best, something that would appeal only to a niche market. However, not only have online purchases exploded, but they’re being conducted on mobile devices no futurist would have predicted two decades ago.
Traffic and sales are on the rise
As Brafton reported, mobile ecommerce traffic has been increasing, and now, 30 percent of ecommerce visits come from mobile device users. However, what’s really important to businesses conducting web marketing campaigns is growth in online sales in general.
The latest Custora Ecommerce Pulse survey conducted in February 2014 indicates ecommerce sales have risen 10 percent since the same time last year. Additionally, the platforms shoppers use to browse for products and make purchases are shifting. While desktop sales declined to 81 percent from 87 percent last year, tablets increased from 8 to 10 percent. Even more importantly, sales made on smartphones rose from 5 percent to 9 percent.
Capturing the mobile shopper
Marketer who are creating content marketing campaigns to take advantage of this growing demographic should understand one of the most important trends in ecommerce: Personalization. A Synqera study found that 85 percent of U.S. online shoppers prefer to receive personalized results based on their previous purchases. Basically, the more companies remember about their customers, the happier clients will be.
85 percent of U.S. online shoppers prefer to receive personalized results based on their previous purchases.
This requires business to walk a fine line. As Brafton covered, people don’t like when companies collect too much information about them. However, purchase history is the most important data to have when it comes to ecommerce, and content can be created to reflect that info. For example, marketing emails can be sent to past customers with product recommendations based on the amount they’ve spent and the types of things they’ve bought, or simply to share blog posts and news stories relevant to previous purchases.
In the same way search engines are using social and mobile information to give searches more context, businesses should be taking the same approach with prospects and customers. The more information available, the better. So the devices shoppers are using and the products they’ve previously bought are important elements in any content marketing campaign.
