Scottish Enterprise provides good support and advice for Scottish companies trying to grow and reach new markets using E Commerce channels. Wednesday’s event in Edinburgh’s Sheraton Hotel was well attended with some great speakers including Catriona Campbell; founding director of Foviance and Grant Whiteside; founding director of Ambergreen. The event was hosted by the incredibly smart Kaye Adams, who did a great job trying to work an audience that had a very wide range of skills, interests and responsibilities.
Estimates suggest that over 90% of Scottish e-commerce transactions are to customers out with Scotland and with the latest growth figures of digital marketing spend sitting at 12.6%, it is apparent that the opportunities are there to really expand to reach a wider audience.
The speakers were all asked for 5 top tips for attendees to take away from the event. For those that missed the day; here are Grants top tips:
Your digital landscape is constantly evolving. Your audience is more fragmented than ever before, they use a wide range of devices to engage with your content. Optimise your content so that it works on mobile, tablet and PC’s and align your marketing campaigns to reach your audiences in a way that works for them.
If you think online marketing is having one or two trophy keywords in the search engines results; then think again. Each search query used to find your website is the start of a conversation, the more qualified search terms that you can get found for, the more qualified conversations you will have.
Receiving website traffic is great, but converting it into sales is another thing. Constantly refining your sales process through conversion optimisation is key to maximising the opportunities that come from your website traffic.
Make your marketing goals measurable and align them with your business goals. If most sales enquiries come in from a telephone call, use call tracking to measure the attribution to enquiries that your internet visibility is creating for you. If it is footfall into your store, you can measure the amount of traffic from local search. If you are running ABL campaigns, measure the lead time and attribution to brand enquiries online. Everything is measurable and can be made more efficient and profitable.
Your brand is not your own. Brand awareness and social recommendations is key to convincing your audience that you don’t only have the right product or service; you are the right company to buy it from.
Many thanks to the Scottish Enterprise E Commerce Team for putting on such a well organised event, we’ll be looking forward to the next one!
