Author: Ina McDaniel

DOJ pressuring journalists to aid its prosecution against Julian Assange: report

The U.S. Justice Department is pressuring some British journalists to cooperate with the prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is accused of publishing classified U.S. military documents leaked to him by a whistleblower.

The DOJ and the FBI are using “vague threats and pressure tactics” in their efforts to receive journalists’ help in building their case against Assange, according to Rolling Stones’ James Ball, who said he is among the journalists being pressured to cooperate. Ball is sought by the DOJ as someone who had briefly worked and lived with Assange, and was a whistleblower revealing what he described as “WikiLeaks’ own ethical lapses.”

The first attempt at receiving Ball’s cooperation in Assange’s prosecution came through London’s Metropolitan Police in December 2021, he wrote. He remained silent at the time, on the advice of counsel, but has since learned that more journalists have had police show up at their doorsteps in the last month. Former Guardian investigations editor David Leigh, transparency campaigner Heather Brooke and writer Andrew O’Hagan have all been approached by police.

Assange is facing an uphill legal battle over his potential extradition from London, where he has been held at the high-security Belmarsh Prison, to the U.S. over Wikileaks’ 2010 publication of top secret cables detailing war crimes committed by the U.S. government in the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, detention camp, Iraq and Afghanistan. The materials, which were leaked to him by then-U.S. soldier Chelsea Manning, expose instances of the CIA engaging in torture and rendition. Wikileaks also published a video showing the U.S. military gunning down civilians in Iraq, including two Reuters journalists.

SUPPORTERS OF JULIAN ASSANGE RALLY AT JUSTICE DEPT. ON 4-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF DETAINMENT

The Australian journalist would face 17 charges for receiving, possessing and communicating classified information to the public under the espionage act and one charge alleging a conspiracy to commit computer intrusion if he is extradited to the U.S., and could be sentenced to as many as 175 years in an American maximum security prison. Manning was convicted by the Obama administration’s DOJ in 2013 of violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses over the Cablegate leak.

Assange has been held at Belmarsh Prison since he was removed from the Ecuadorian Embassy four years ago for breaching jail conditions. He had sought asylum at the embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden over allegations he raped two women because Sweden would not promise him protection from extradition to the U.S. The investigations into the sexual assault allegations were eventually dropped.

Ball was first contacted about helping in the Assange case by a Metropolitan Police officer on the special investigations team, who had called him on a blocked number Ball failed to answer. He then received a “deliberately innocuous” email from the police.

“James, I would like to meet with you to ask if you would be willing to participate in a voluntary witness interview,” the officer wrote. “You are not under investigation for anything. It is a delicate matter that I am only able to discuss with you face to face.”

A lawyer spoke to police on Ball’s behalf and learned that U.S. and U.K. authorities were asking him to testify about a story he wrote on Assange’s relationship with Israel Shamir, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ball wrote, adding that, without his testimony, the “U.S. government cannot make much use of what I revealed in the article in a court of law.”

Ball said he was “more than willing” to write about his relationship with Assange in the media, but he does not believe “it should be used to help a vindictive prosecution of Assange.”

REP. RASHIDA TLAIB URGES FELLOW HOUSE MEMBERS TO DEMAND DOJ DROP CHARGES AGAINST JULIAN ASSANGE

An officer told Ball’s lawyer that U.S. intelligence agencies claimed to have discovered that “‘James Ball’ doesn’t exist,” which Ball said was a false accusation as the name is his actual birth name that has never changed. After seeking further legal advice, Ball was told by multiple attorneys not to travel to the U.S. or speak out publicly over concerns about potential prosecution for his refusal to cooperate.

“That uneasy truce has come to an end,” Ball wrote. “As a journalist, I need to be able to travel to the U.S. to work, and I am doing so this week. Also, other journalists are now being contacted in relation to the case. Both together make continued silence impossible.”

Ball said the two years he avoided traveling to the U.S. on legal advice has “stifled stories I would otherwise have written for U.S. outlets. I had a real and credible fear of prosecution.”

Last year, the editors and publishers of U.S. and European news outlets that worked with Assange on the publication of excerpts from more than 250,000 documents he obtained in the Cablegate leak — The Guardian, The New York Times, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El País — wrote an open letter calling for the U.S. to end its prosecution of Assange.

The Obama administration elected against indicting Assange after Wikileaks published the cables in 2010 because it would have had to give the same treatment to journalists from other major news outlets that worked with Assange on the documents. But former President Trump’s DOJ later moved to indict Assange under the Espionage Act, and the Biden administration has continued to pursue his prosecution.

“If President Biden wants his Department of Justice to reverse the decision of the Obama DOJ on prosecuting Assange for his 2010 actions, he should at least explain it, and say why it is worth the silencing effect it is having on mainstream journalism,” Ball wrote.

“As it stands, Biden’s DOJ is threatening the U.S. media’s First Amendment rights, even as it claims to be standing up to a Supreme Court that is threatening many other rights. The hypocrisy should not stand,” he continued.

Assange’s case has received the attention of some lawmakers on Capitol Hill, with Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., leading a letter to the DOJ demanding the charges against him be dropped. Lawmakers in Australia and other countries have also pushed the U.S. to end its prosecution of Assange. Pope Francis recently met with Assange’s wife, Stella, who said the Pope expressed support for her family’s situation and concern about Assange’s suffering.

The Trump administration CIA reportedly had plans to kill Assange over the publication of sensitive agency hacking tools known as “Vault 7,” which the agency said represented “the largest data loss in CIA history,” according to a 2021 Yahoo report. The agency had discussions “at the highest levels” of the administration about plans to assassinate Assange in London. Acting on orders from then-CIA director Mike Pompeo, the agency had also drawn up kill “sketches” and “options.”

The CIA had advanced plans to kidnap and rendition Assange and had made a political decision to charge him, according to the report.

Overtime – Episode #453: Privitization, NRA, #MeToo Wall Street, Civil Service

Bill and his guests – Beta O’Rourke, Billy Bush, Pete Dominick, Nayyera Haq, and Andrew Ross Sorkin answer viewer questions after the show. (Originally aired 03/16/18)

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The post Overtime – Episode #453: Privitization, NRA, #MeToo Wall Street, Civil Service appeared first on Buy It At A Bargain – Deals And Reviews.

Your Guide to Small Business Lending Trends In 2022

It’s no secret the past two years have wrought havoc on the economy.  Workers were laid off in droves.  Small businesses suffered. Now, with things starting to get back on track, many displaced employees have found their own entrepreneurial spirit.  As a result, they are looking to start their own business. In fact, it’s being dubbed “The Great Resignation,” and it’s going to turn small business lending on its head. 

What’s Ahead for Business Lending

Many of these displaced employees are in the 30—45 age range. While some are looking for other employment, many are considering starting a business. Of course, this age range typically does not yet have a huge retirement plan, or a lot of savings at all for that matter. As a result, the demand for small business financing is going to increase greatly.  

Whether you are ready to start a business or already own one, there are some things you need to know about small business lending in the new year.

Interest Rates Are On the Rise

Everyone is saying it, and they’re right. Sadly, interest rates are rising. Thankfully, throughout the pandemic the Fed kept the rate low.  Obviously, it was an effort to counteract all the other crazy things happening in the economy. Now, it’s becoming obvious that a correction will be needed. 

It’s time to pay the piper, and the Fed is considering rate hikes as early as this year. What does that mean for small business lending?  If you need business funding, or think you may need it in the future, now’s the time to jump on a loan or a line of credit. 

Inflation is Coming Fast and Furious

Here is another reason to make sure you secure funding as soon as possible. Inflation is imminent. In fact, according to comments made to CNBC by Fed President James Bullard, it’s coming sooner than expected:

“… we were expecting a good year, a good reopening. But this is a bigger year than we w

ere expecting, more inflation than we were expecting.” 

It’s already started, and it always gets worse before it gets better. Make sure you have access to funds now, before it costs you more to get them.  Then, when you start to feel the squeeze of inflation, you have what you need. 

Regulations Aren’t Likely to Change Much

Even though small business funding options are increasing, it’s not likely the industry will see tighter regulations soon. Business owners will still have to find their own reliable and affordable funding. 

This is where the services of one of the business credit specialists at Credit Suite can be especially helpful. These specialists have their finger on the pulse of the small business lending industry. They can help borrowers make informed decisions based on that knowledge. 

The SBA Will Likely Play a Much Smaller Role

The Small Business Administration has had a tough couple of years as well. This is due mostly to the fiasco that ensued with the Paycheck Protection Program. A good idea that must be rushed is virtually guaranteed to have problems. The SBA was directly in the line of fire. 

They are working to rectify it, but their role in small business lending will likely be smaller in 2022 than it has been in the past. 

Online Lenders Aren’t Going Anywhere

Not only are online lenders sticking around, but they will continue to offer more options as their role in business lending continues to grow. 

The demand for business funding services that are less stringent when it comes to approval processes is stronger than ever.  There are plenty of alternative small business lenders standing ready to fill the gap. 

According to the 2019 Small Business Credit Survey 32% of small business applicants used online lenders, and that was before the pandemic. That number is very likely to grow in the coming year for a number of reasons. First, online lenders are typically more flexible. Also, they tend to offer a wider range of funding solutions, including:

Furthermore, they are usually faster and more efficient.  Not only do borrowers get faster approval, but they typically gain access to funds faster as well. Not to mention, you can apply for funding with just a few taps on a keyboard.  

It’s likely that this year and in the years to come, online lenders and other fintech companies will continue to provide lending solutions to small businesses. 

Online Lender Examples

There are a lot of well established online lenders out there, and new ones are popping up everyday. Be sure to vet each one carefully, and double check details before you apply, because they can change often. We have reviews on a number of them to help.

Here are a few you can start with: 

With all of these choices, we highly recommend that you check their websites directly for the most recent qualifying and term details, as these can change over time.

Credit Line Hybrid

If you need more of an alternative loan option rather than an alternative lender, a credit line hybrid may be a good option. This is a form of unsecured funding, and the Credit Suite Credit Line Hybrid has an even better interest rate than a secured loan. In fact, it can sometimes be as low as 0% for the first few months. 

It’s a credit card stacking program, and many of the cards report to business CRAs. That means, you can build business credit and access cash for your business with no personal guarantee. 

You do need a good credit score,  or a guarantor with good credit, to get an approval.  The minimum FICO is 680. There are no financials required, and you can often get up to $150,000. It is important to note also, some cards may report on your personal credit. 

Fundability, Including Business Credit, Will Be As Important as Ever

With increasing demand and competition for all types of business lending, building strong fundability will be increasingly important. Part of strong fundability is having a good business credit score. There are many ways to build your business credit score. 

You need help from someone with inside knowledge of the industry and relationships with the vendors and lenders that can help you build your business credit. This makes the whole process go faster and keeps frustration to a minimum. A free consultation with a Credit Suite Business Credit Specialist is a great place to start.

The post Your Guide to Small Business Lending Trends In 2022 appeared first on Credit Suite.

11 Proven Hacks to Keep Your Customers Buying More

It costs 5X less to retain a customer than it does to acquire a new one.

That’s why customer retention is crucial to growing your Ecommerce business.

What is customer retention?

Customer retention is the ability to encourage customers to keep coming back to make purchases. Research shows that repeat customers spend more than once-off customers, making retention a priority for any Ecommerce business that wants to grow. With research showing that retail Ecommerce sales are set to be more than $548 billion by 2024, you’ll want your customer retention strategy to be solid enough to get you a piece of that pie.

This post will dive into the strategies you can use to boost your customer retention rates. We’ll also look at foundational principles like attracting and converting customers. So, let’s get to it, shall we?

5 Customer Retention Strategies and Corresponding Tools for Ecommerce Companies

Many businesses make the mistake of investing heavily in customer attraction. Sure, if you don’t attract new customers, there’s a possibility your business may fold. However, attracting custoTapymers is not the key to business growth.

The key to business growth is customer retention.

That’s why you must develop strategies that will help you retain the customers you attract. You also need to have the right tools for the job.

Why is customer retention so important?

I’ll give you a few good reasons:

  • boosts loyalty
  • helps drive referral marketing
  • increases ROI
  • increases average order value (AOV)

Speaking of ROI, research shows that a mere 5 percent increase in customer retention can boost your revenue by over 25 percent, depending on the industry, product, and other factors.

With that said, let’s dive into the five customer retention strategies you can use to grow your Ecommerce business.

1. Understand the Customer Journey and Optimize Your Customer Experience Accordingly

One of the first steps to designing a customer retention strategy that works is to understand the customer journey. The heart of customer retention lies in meeting or exceeding the expectations your customers have.

To do that, you must understand the customer journey and optimize it for positive customer experiences (CX) at every step.

If you can keep your customers happy, they’ll keep coming back for more.

How do you do that?

Understand Your Audience

Understanding your audience allows you to know how to craft personalized messaging and experiences at every stage of the journey. Personalized experiences are essential in driving return sales. To better understand your audience, use:

  • Audience research tools like surveys and quizzes to gather demographic and psychographic data on your target audience.
  • Social media platforms and tools like Facebook’s Audience Insights tools to better understand your audience demographics.
  • Tools like HubSpot to build buyer personas.

To build and optimize customer journeys that effectively retain your customers, you must first understand who your target audience is and what they want. This way, you can ensure each touchpoint is meaningful, resulting in a positive CX and, ultimately, higher customer retention rates.

Design an Effective Customer Loyalty Program

Part of your customer journey must include creating a customer loyalty program.

Customer loyalty programs play a big role in increasing customer retention.

Customer loyalty is your customers’ willingness to keep buying from you. Loyalty programs encourage them to do just that and help increase their customer lifetime value (CLV). Designed and executed well, it increases sales and, most importantly, improves your customer retention rates. Here are a few tips and tools to help you design an effective customer loyalty program:

  • Know what rewards are meaningful to your customers.
  • Define the rules of your loyalty program. This includes which actions get rewarded and the kinds of rewards tied to each action.
  • Use tools like the Net Promoter Score to gauge your customers’ loyalty. This will help you know how effective your customer loyalty program is and how much work is needed to improve it.
  • Leverage customer loyalty programs like ReferralCandy to build and execute customer loyalty programs.

Designing a customer loyalty program must never be an afterthought; it must be an integral part of your customer retention strategy.

Running a hybrid B2B/B2C business?

My partner for this post, BigCommerce B2B Edition, makes it easy for you to offer different price lists and products to your different customer segments. You can also tailor your customer loyalty program to each customer category.

2. Follow Up After the First Transaction Is Completed

For most, a sale is the ultimate goal of running an Ecommerce business. However, to retain your customers, you must follow up after the first transaction is completed. Some follow up strategies you can implement include:

Use Email to Build Meaningful Relationships

Many Ecommerce businesses send a thank you email after a transaction. To retain your customers, though, you must do more than just thank them. You must build meaningful relationships with them.

That’s why following up after a transaction is essential. Here’s an example from Zoe’s Kitchen:

Customer Retention Strategies for E-Commerce Companies - Follow Up After the First Transaction Is Completed

Following up after a transaction helps you build meaningful relationships with your customers. For your follow-up to be effective, you must show your customers that you can provide more value. You do that by sending post-sales emails like:

  • product updates
  • cross-selling and upselling emails
  • feedback surveys
  • promotional emails
  • informational emails

This is where Ecommerce platforms like BigCommerce come in handy. It has many features you’ll get to help you grow your business. One of them is the automated email tool and integrations that will help you run follow-up campaigns. Coupled with BigCommerce’s fully customizable email templates (using code or the text editor), creating follow-up campaigns couldn’t be easier. That’s especially since you can add discount codes and coupons to your email templates to encourage conversions.

Be Proactive With Customer Onboarding

Customer onboarding is one of the most crucial steps to ensuring that a first-time customer becomes a repeat buyer. Onboarding refers to all the steps you take to gain customers’ trust until they become loyal customers. A few tips to enhance your customer onboarding include:

  • Use email marketing to welcome and nurture new customers.
  • Invest in interactive content to engage customers and get more data to create hyperpersonalized experiences.
  • Where necessary, create a tutorial to educate your customers on how best to use your product.

Customer onboarding is an essential follow-up process that allows you to show your customers that you value their success. Once they see that, it becomes easier for you to retain them.

3. Segment and Target Existing Customers for Customer Loyalty Programs

By this time, your interactions with your customers have opened up a gold mine of data. Every interaction helps you paint a better picture of each customer.

This is precious data you can use to segment your customers.

Segmentation is crucial in helping you create targeted and personalized campaigns. When it comes to customer retention, segmentation plays an integral role in creating effective customer loyalty programs for your existing customers.

Segmentation is key to increasing your chances of creating a customer loyalty program that will help you retain your existing customers.

For your loyalty program to work, you must create tailored rewards and experiences for the different segments as their needs are different. Examples of segments you can consider creating among existing customers include:

  • high spenders
  • cart abandoners
  • coupon lovers
  • one-time buyers

This is another area in which platforms like BigCommerce shine. It has a built-in tool that allows you to create loyalty groups, making it easy to target particular segments of your customer base for your customer loyalty program.

4. Allow Changes to Orders

Customer retention hinges on creating memorable experiences for your customers. One way to do that is to allow your customers to change their orders once they’ve made a purchase. For example, a customer may change their mind and want a product that’s a different size, color, etc. For BigCommerce users, allowing customers to change their orders is a cinch. That’s thanks to the order editing functionality the platform provides.

Allowing customers to change their orders is an excellent way to encourage customer retention.

When that happens, allow your customer to swap their purchase for the one they really want.

One of the results of this is that your customers will trust you more. It shows that you have their back and are willing to bend over backward to make them happy. Of course, that kind of trust can only lead to one thing—higher customer retention rates.

5. Offer Outstanding Customer Service

Customer retention is a function of the experiences your customers have with your brand. Besides the shopping experience, customer service is one of the biggest elements of ensuring you serve your customers exceptionally well.

That’s why you must offer outstanding customer service.

When you solve your customers’ problems in a friendly and efficient manner, they’ll see you as a reliable partner. Although they had an issue with your product, you’ll have earned their trust and loyalty.

How do you ensure your customer service is good enough to bolster your customer retention strategy?

  • Offer omnichannel customer service: Make it easy for your customers to reach you by being available on multiple communication channels. MobileMonkey is one of the best customer service tools that will help you create a cohesive experience across multiple channels.
  • Assign the right agent to the right customer: Assess your customer’s needs and assign the agent most qualified to handle them.
  • Learn from your competitors: Research how your competitors handle customer service issues like returns, faulty products, faulty charges, etc. Also, read customer reviews and call their customer service line to see what the customer service experience is like.
  • Help your customers help themselves: Some people prefer to troubleshoot and solve their problems. Creating an easy-to-navigate knowledge base using tools like HelpJuice will help you do just that.

Creating an outstanding customer service experience will undoubtedly help you win your customers’ loyalty. People want to know that they can depend on you to help them fast and efficiently if anything goes wrong. On the other hand, poor customer service will cost you customers and, ultimately, your business.

Customer Retention Bonus Tips/Pro Hacks

Customer retention is all about creating memorable experiences for your customers. Here are a few more ways you can do that:

Ask Customers to Set Up Profiles

Creating profiles offers a platform where customers can input important dates like anniversaries and birthdays. Doing this allows you to send reminders and personalized product recommendations for the special occasion.

Create an Affiliate Program

Create an affiliate program where satisfied customers can begin promoting your products and earn a commission. Besides the potential to earn revenue, an affiliate program makes your customers feel like part of your brand. The result is heightened customer loyalty.

Create a Community

People love being part of a special group. That’s why creating a community around your brand is an excellent way of boosting customer retention. An example of this would be creating an exclusive Facebook group where you share content surrounding your brand.

Now that you know how to retain your customers let’s briefly take a step back and look at how you can attract and convert your customers.

How to Attract Customers to Your ECommerce Businesses: 3 Strategies

While customer retention is one of the main pillars of business growth, you can’t have retention without attraction. So, let’s briefly look at a few ways you can attract customers to your Ecommerce store.

1. Have Great SEO to Attract Organic Traffic

Paid ads are a great way to gain traction, especially for a new Ecommerce store. However, if you want to play the long game, you must invest in a robust SEO strategy. The main reason being SEO is one of the best ways to attract organic traffic. A few tips to help you with your Ecommerce SEO include:

Let the Pros Take Care of It

If you have the budget, one of the easiest ways to boost your SEO is to hire an agency to take care of it for you. Besides freeing up your time to run your business, hiring an SEO agency has the advantages of:

  • Access to the right tools, resources, and human resources.
  • Agility to change strategy to align with the ever-changing SEO landscape.

Learn SEO and Take a DIY Approach

No budget for an SEO agency?

Then you could DIY your SEO.

While this approach will require time and commitment, learning the ins and outs of e-commerce SEO will help you better understand what it takes to attract the right traffic to your store. So, invest in a couple of SEO courses or teach yourself the art and science of driving traffic to your Ecommerce store.

Leverage an Ecommerce Platform Designed With SEO in Mind

An essential aspect many entrepreneurs overlook when picking an Ecommerce platform is the SEO aspect. Always consider the SEO features of a platform before investing in one. This is one of the reasons BigCommerce is one of the best platforms on the market. Here are a few SEO-centric features you can expect:

  • Fully customizable URLs.
  • Access to editing robot.txt files.
  • 301 redirects and URL rewrites to reflect any changes in product names.
  • CDN to increase site speed.
  • Microdata and schema markup to enhance your search result listings.

BigCommerce also offers in-depth guides like this one and this one to help ensure your store’s SEO is on point.

2. Create Engaging and Targeted Paid Ad Campaigns

As said, SEO is about the long game—it takes time to see results. To drive traffic to your site quickly, you’ll need to leverage targeted paid ad campaigns. Research shows that 46 percent of the most visited Ecommerce stores spend up to $1,000/month on paid ads. The top 16 percent spend upward of $20,000 per month, so yes, if you want to drive traffic to your store, you must invest in paid ads. While paid ads may cost you, they have several advantages that include:

  • Drive hyper-targeted traffic.
  • Generate sales faster.
  • Boost brand awareness.

The main advantage of paid ads is the speed at which they produce results. So, if you’re running a promotion or simply want to boost your monthly sales, paid ads could help you drive the traffic you need.

For your ads to be effective, though, you must ensure they’re engaging and targeted. To do that:

  • Understand your target audience and develop an ideal customer profile (ICP).
  • Choose and understand the platform you’re advertising on and follow best practices.
  • Thoroughly research your keywords and negative keywords (Ubersuggest is an excellent tool for this).
  • Craft personalized ad copy.
  • Determine the ad format you’ll use (video, text, etc.)
  • Use a campaign management tool like AdEspresso to create, manage, and optimize your paid ads.
  • Optimize your landing pages for better conversions.

It can be quite scary to put money in paid ads. After all, the ROI is never guaranteed. Creating engaging and targeted ads helps make your ads more effective, ensuring that you drive relevant traffic to your products.

3. List Your Products On as Many Channels as Possible

Today’s buyer is spoilt for choice regarding the platforms and channels they consume content on.

That’s why, when creating your Ecommerce paid ad strategy, you must advertise your product on as many channels as possible.

You must adopt an omnichannel approach to advertising.

Omnichannel marketing will ensure that you meet your customers where they are. It makes it easier for you to create ads that will appeal to your customers—ads that convert.

What exactly is omnichannel marketing?

It is an approach to marketing where you anticipate that your customers may start their journey with your brand on one device or platform and continue on another. With omnichannel marketing, you create a cohesive and unified experience for your customers across all platforms and at every touchpoint.

The result is a positive CX that results in more conversions and, ultimately, higher customer retention rates.

This is important as research shows that over 73 percent of online shoppers use multiple channels when shopping. A few tips to help you create an effective omnichannel strategy for your Ecommerce store include:

Make Every Touchpoint a Shopping Experience

Thankfully, with Ecommerce platforms like BigCommerce, your customers can easily buy from other channels (like social media) other than your store. You can also leverage external social media payment processing solutions to sell products directly on social media.

Offer Omnichannel Customer Support

Being available for your customers on their preferred channels helps you create a positive experience that will get them hooked to your brand.

Create a Mobile App

It’s no secret that mobile has overtaken desktop in terms of usage. Creating a mobile app helps you create tailored experiences for your customers on multiple platforms. It also helps you put your store in your customers’ pockets.

Listing your products on multiple channels is a great way of getting them in front of a larger audience. As a result, you’ll drive more traffic to your store and generate more sales on the different platforms you leverage.

Customer Attraction Bonus Tips/Pro Hacks

Besides the three main customer attraction strategies mentioned above, you can use other more advanced ones. Here are a few of them:

  • Leverage AI: AI can help you create accurate buyer personas and serve users personalized product recommendations.
  • Create viral content: Understand your audience’s pain points and aspirations and create your content around these. Also, make sure to meet search intent.
  • Distribute your content: Effective content distribution results in your content being published on the right platforms and being seen by the right audience.
  • Partner with influencers: Partnering with influencers is a great way of tapping into a large demographic that’s a perfect fit for your ICP. The followers are more likely to be interested in your products, and thus the chance of them visiting your website (and converting into customers) is higher.

Developing a strategy to attract customers to your Ecommerce store is an essential step to customer retention. If you can attract an audience in the right way, it improves your chances of them converting and, ultimately, becoming loyal customers.

How to Convert Customers: 3 Strategies

There are three steps to growing a loyal customer base:

  • Attracting the right audience.
  • Converting traffic into paying customers.
  • Retaining your customers.

We’ve already dealt with attracting and retaining customers. Now let’s take a quick dive into how you can convert visitors into customers.

First—what is a conversion?

A conversion in Ecommerce is any visitor who purchases one of your products. Conversion rate, therefore, is the percentage of visitors to your store who turn into customers.

The higher your conversion rates, the more sales you make. Don’t take our word for it. Check out LARQ’s case study. After partnering with BigCommerce, their conversions lifted by 80 percent and they enjoyed a 400 percent average increase in YoY revenue.

How do you improve your conversions?

  1. Create Outstanding Landing Pages

    Your landing page is an important element of your sales funnel as it’s usually the one that does the heavy selling. That’s why you must ensure you create outstanding ones that convert.Customer Retention Strategies for E-Commerce Companies - Create Outstanding Landing Pages
    Here are a few tips to help you do that:

    Keep it simple: Your landing page must be easy to read and understand at a glance. To do that, keep your design clear and uncluttered.

    Have only one objective: Your landing page must only have one goal—conversion. Keep it focused on that.

    Personalization is crucial: From meeting search intent to using language and visuals that appeal to the visitor, personalize your landing page as much as possible.

    Add detailed product descriptions: Your landing page is meant to sell, and one of the best ways is to give visitors a detailed description of what they’re buying. Include high-quality images.

    Use multiple CTAs: Include the same CTA at different places on your landing page. Doing so makes it easier for your visitor to click-through and purchase whenever they’re ready.

    Use a tried, tested, and proven landing page builder: If you’re a BigCommerce customer, you can use the built-in Page Builder tool to quickly and easily build landing pages.

    Your landing page is an essential part of your sales funnel. Besides helping you target specific customer segments, they also help you drive higher ROI for your paid traffic. That’s why you must invest in creating optimized ones for your Ecommerce store.

  2. Ensure Your Site Is Secure to Make Users Feel Safe Making Purchases From Your Shop

    Another crucial factor that helps boost your conversions is site security. Your customers want to feel safe when handing you their details during the checkout process, especially with the recent spike in data breaches. To ensure your site is secure, you must:

    Use a Secure Ecommerce Platform

    The first step to securing your Ecommerce store is to use a platform designed with security in mind. For example, platforms like BigCommerce offer sitewide HTTPS and other security features like firewalls, intrusion detection, and much more. A secure platform makes your customers feel safe to transact with you. It’s essential to boosting your conversions.

    Support Multiple Payment Methods

    Your customers will have different preferences when it comes to how they want to pay for your products. They feel more secure using a payment gateway they’re familiar with.

    Using multiple payment methods is a great way of giving your customers more options. Besides, it also enables you to offer multi-currency options—a crucial ingredient to improving your CX for global customers.

    While supporting multi-currency payment options may seem like a daunting task, with a platform like BigCommerce it isn’t. That’s because BigCommerce natively supports over 140 local currencies and over 65 payment gateways.

    Closely Review and Monitor All Plugins and Third-party Integrations

    When installing third-party solutions to enhance your store, you must make sure they’re from a trusted source. It’s also essential that you monitor them to ensure they’re regularly updated. Once you have no use for one, remove it from your store. You must keep third-party applications on your store to a bare minimum as they can create vulnerabilities in your store. 

    Stay on top of your Ecommerce store’s security by using tools like FreeScan to check for vulnerabilities and TrustWave for threat detection regularly. A secure store will not only protect you from cyberattacks, but also helps boost your conversions. Just make sure to invest in a secure Ecommerce platform and additional security tools if necessary. 

  3. Use an Abandoned Cart Saver

    Cart abandonment is an aspect of Ecommerce you can’t avoid. Research shows that, on average, close to 70 percent of carts are abandoned at checkout. That’s why, if you’re to improve your conversions, you must address this issue.

    One of the best ways to do that is to use an abandoned cart saver.
    An abandoned cart saver is a feature that allows you to send an email to customers who loaded their carts but didn’t complete the transaction.

    With BigCommerce’s Abandoned Cart Saver, the emails are fully customizable, allowing you to create personalized invites (with discount codes or coupons) to encourage customers to complete their purchases.Customer Retention Strategies for E-Commerce Companies - Use an Abandoned Cart Saver

Other Customer Conversion Pro Hacks

Besides the three conversion strategies discussed above, here are other tips for increasing your customer conversion rates:

  • Run targeted ads: Targeted ads appeal emotionally to your target audience. They also make your product seem like the perfect solution to their needs.
  • Retargeting: Use social media ads, apps, banner ads on websites, or email to retarget customers who viewed products on your store.
  • Use easy-to-fill forms: A/B test different form designs on your landing page to find out which works best for your customers. Test the number of form fields, copy, placement, etc.
  • Offer free shipping: Free shipping is another great incentive to encourage visitors to your landing page to convert into customers. Make sure to display this benefit.
  • Optimize your checkout page: Optimize your checkout page by eliminating distractions, showing trust signals, offering multiple payment options, etc. These will encourage customers to go through with their purchases.

Attracting the right kind of traffic is always the first step to customer retention. The next critical step is converting that traffic into customers. Be deliberate about both.

Frequently Asked Questions About Ecommerce Customer Retention Strategies

Still have a few questions concerning customer retention strategies you can use to boost your Ecommerce business?

Let’s quickly clear the air on some of the most common ones:

What Is Customer Retention?

Customer retention is the ability for a business to generate repeat customers from visitors to their business. Therefore, customer retention rate refers to the percentage of your customers that continue to buy from you over a given period.

How Can I Improve My Customer Retention?

Improving your customer retention rate is dependent on many factors. However, at the heart of a good customer retention strategy lies creating positive customer experiences at each touchpoint.

What Are Some Examples of How You Retain Customers?

There are several activities you can undertake to retain customers. Here are a few examples: creating loyalty programs, using email to build relationships with your customers and designing outstanding customer service experiences.

What Is a Good Customer Retention Rate for ECommerce?

Customer retention rates are affected by many factors such as industry, product, and others. However, the average customer retention rate for Ecommerce is said to be around 30 percent.

{
“@context”: “https://schema.org”,
“@type”: “FAQPage”,
“mainEntity”: [
{
“@type”: “Question”,
“name”: “What Is Customer Retention?”,
“acceptedAnswer”: {
“@type”: “Answer”,
“text”: “Customer retention is the ability for a business to generate repeat customers from visitors to their business. Therefore, customer retention rate refers to the percentage of your customers that continue to buy from you over a given period.”
}
}
, {
“@type”: “Question”,
“name”: “How Can I Improve My Customer Retention?”,
“acceptedAnswer”: {
“@type”: “Answer”,
“text”: “Improving your customer retention rate is dependent on many factors. However, at the heart of a good customer retention strategy lies creating positive customer experiences at each touchpoint.”
}
}
, {
“@type”: “Question”,
“name”: “What Are Some Examples of How You Retain Customers?”,
“acceptedAnswer”: {
“@type”: “Answer”,
“text”: “There are several activities you can undertake to retain customers. Here are a few examples: creating loyalty programs, using email to build relationships with your customers and designing outstanding customer service experiences.”
}
}
, {
“@type”: “Question”,
“name”: “What Is a Good Customer Retention Rate for ECommerce?”,
“acceptedAnswer”: {
“@type”: “Answer”,
“text”: “Customer retention rates are affected by many factors such as industry, product, and others. However, the average customer retention rate for Ecommerce is said to be around 30 percent.”
}
}
]
}

Summary of Ecommerce Customer Retention Strategies

One-time sales are good, but they don’t grow your business.

For your Ecommerce business to be successful, you must encourage your customers to keep coming back.

That’s why designing a customer retention strategy is crucial.

Using the tips above, growing your business by attracting, converting, and retaining customers is no longer a lofty dream. Putting the tips into action will turn your dreams of growing your Ecommerce brand into reality.

And remember, your choice of Ecommerce platform also plays a huge role in your success in retaining customers. Platforms like BigCommerce that come with in-built customer retention features (like single-page checkout, coupon and discount codes, etc.) are your best bet.

Which customer retention strategies and tools have worked well for your business?

The art of effective market risk management during a period of transformation

This white paper takes a current view of market risk management, its growing complexity and how it can be transformative to institutions as the industry is widely recognising what are the right approaches to addressing evolving risks. 

The post The art of effective market risk management during a period of transformation appeared first on Buy It At A Bargain – Deals And Reviews.

How to Do SWOT Analysis For PPC

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) marketing can be one of the quickest and most effective ways to drive customers to your site.

But it can be hard to make money through PPC ads. It’s all too easy to make common mistakes that can wreck your campaign.

Luckily for you, I’ve got plenty of tips that can help.

And there’s one strategy I’ve borrowed from my business analyst friends, which I’m going to share with you today.

It’s called a SWOT analysis.

A SWOT analysis can help you see a different side to your PPC campaign and improve its performance in the process.

This article will help you carry out your own analysis and take your PPC campaigns to another level.

What is a SWOT Analysis?

A SWOT analysis is a corporate evaluation technique that can be used to assess anything from an entire company right down to a single PPC campaign.

So, what does SWOT stand for?

It stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors, things you control. Opportunities and threats are external factors. These are happening in the market right now, whether you like it or not. You may not be able to change them, but you can react to them.

Typically, SWOT analysis is used at an operational level to help business leaders assess a company’s current position in the market and highlight areas for future growth.

It can also be used to assess your PPC campaigns. A SWOT analysis can show you how well your campaign is performing, what’s holding you back, and how you can improve.  

Why Your Company Should Do SWOT Analysis for PPC Campaigns

A SWOT analysis should be considered essential if you don’t want your PPC campaigns to fail.

Too often, when brands try to optimize their PPC advertising, they look at their campaigns in isolation. They only analyze their own keywords, bids, and landing pages. But your PPC campaigns don’t exist in a vacuum.

You are competing with hundreds of other brands for the same cherished three or four spots.

A SWOT analysis will help you to understand external factors that may impact your PPC campaigns. Things like competitors, the economy, and the state of your industry can all affect the performance of your ads and the likelihood that someone will buy when they click them.

You’ll also identify new opportunities for your campaign. That could be doubling down on what you do well, or it could be fixing one of your weaknesses. When you lay out what’s working and what’s not, it’s much easier to put together a plan that involves more than just raising your bids.

Ultimately, it will help you to look at your PPC campaigns in a different way. Despite the wealth of advice out there on optimizing PPC campaigns, it’s easy to get stuck in a routine of researching keywords, testing new ad copy, and creating new landing pages.

There’s much more you can be doing to improve your campaigns, and a SWOT analysis will help you take your PPC campaigns to the next level.

How to Do a SWOT Analysis of Your PPC

All you need to do is sit down and brainstorm each of your campaign’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. They are typically displayed in a 2×2 grid.

PPC SWOT Analysis Chart

But you can just make a list below each header if that’s easier.

It can help to have a goal in mind when starting your SWOT analysis.

By focusing on your PPC campaigns, you have already narrowed your focus, but can you get an even clearer picture of what you want to achieve?

Maybe you want to figure out why your PPC campaign isn’t driving as many sales as your Facebook ads, for instance. Or find ways to maximize what is already a profitable channel.

It’s best to do a SWOT analysis with more than one person. The more views and opinions you can capture, the more complete a picture you’ll be able to develop. You can brainstorm together or complete the analysis individually, coming together at the end to share your thoughts.

Finally, try to keep things as even as possible when brainstorming. If you have 10 strengths, find 10 weaknesses. Find a threat for every opportunity. You get the picture.

SWOT Analysis S: Strengths

Start by making a list of all the strengths of your PPC campaign. Strengths are all the internal positive factors about your PPC efforts.

For instance, maybe you have an excellent ROI or a high Quality Score. Covering hundreds of relevant keywords could also be a strength, as could your CTR or bounce rate.

Think about the advantages you hold over the competition, too. That could be the PPC agency you partner with, for instance. It could even be the quality of your products or the strength of your brand. There’s no reason to limit your strengths to things that are specific to your PPC campaign.

Don’t be modest, here! Now’s the time to boast if ever there was one.

PPC SWOT Analysis Strengths

SWOT Analysis W: Weaknesses

Next, examine your PPC campaign’s weaknesses. These are things you are in control of that are stopping you from increasing your ROI and generating more revenue. They could also be things your campaign currently lacks, like A/B testing.

But they could also be broader weaknesses like a small budget or a lack of PPC experts.

Remember to only include things you have control over in this category. Having a bigger, better-funded competitor is not a relevant weakness of your campaign. Operating in a very competitive market is, on the other hand. You can’t control your competitor, but you can choose not to compete. Or at least not compete directly.

When in doubt, look at your strengths section and think about the opposite.

PPC SWOT Analysis Weaknesses

SWOT Analysis O: Opportunities

Now consider any external positive factors that could improve your PPC campaigns in the future. You could be launching a new advertising campaign, for instance, that would increase the demand for your product.

Maybe a competitor is on the verge of bankruptcy or is pivoting their business model.

Take into account the time frame of these opportunities. A new marketing campaign may only increase demand for a few months, whereas ongoing market growth (like the acceleration of e-commerce) may last for years.

Don’t forget to combine what you’ve done so far by including weaknesses that can be turned into strengths.

PPC SWOT Analysis Opportunities

SWOT Analysis T: Threats

Finally, look at threats to your PPC campaign. These are also external factors that you have little to no control over. And this is where you’d list those bigger, better-funded competitors who are constantly outbidding you.

It’s not just your competitors you need to consider, however. What’s the market like for your current product? Are consumers shopping somewhere other than Google? Could anything change that would impact your success, like one of your employees taking a new job?

It can help to think about your company and your industry at a broader level, too. Does your product risk becoming obsolete, for instance? Or could changes to the market weaken demand for your offering?

PPC SWOT Analysis Threats

Visualizing and Displaying Your SWOT Analysis

There are several different methods to display your SWOT analysis.

As I have shown above, the most common format of a SWOT analysis is a 2×2 chart. This makes it easy to visualize your analysis as a whole, as every section is displayed in relation to each other.

But it’s not the only way you can display your SWOT analysis.

There are plenty of ways to make your analysis more digestible and visually engaging.

Check out this graphic analysis of a Nike SWOT by Business Strategy Hub.

Nike SWOT Analysis

Or this creative McDonalds SWOT graphic by Creately.

McDonalds SWOT Analysis

If design isn’t your forte, Lucidchart has a SWOT analysis generator you can use instead.

Making Your SWOT Analysis Actionable

One problem with a SWOT is that it doesn’t produce actionable results. It only helps you understand where you currently are.

You need to make your analysis actionable.

Start by looking at the relationship between each section. For instance, ask yourself whether you can use your strengths to create new opportunities, or whether you can remove threats by improving your weaknesses.

Let’s start by looking at how you can turn your strengths into new opportunities. Basically, this means doing more of what you are good at. In the example above, we highlighted landing page creation as a strength.

You could turn this into an opportunity by creating more landing pages for your ad groups. Doing so could improve your quality score, decrease your bounce rate, and increase your conversion rate.

Next, identify how you can turn your weaknesses into strengths. Again, in the example above, I listed a lack of a dedicated PPC account manager as a weakness. Assuming you have the budget to hire a new employee, this is a pretty easy one to fix. Alternatively, you could work with a digital marketing consultant.

Now let’s look at opportunities. Is there any way you can capitalize on the opportunities you’ve identified? We listed e-commerce growth and new products as opportunities above. One option is to increase our budget to take advantage of the growth in e-commerce. Another would be to create new ads and landing pages for our new products.

Finally, look at the threats. You probably won’t be able to change any of these directly, but you figure out ways to mitigate the threats. For instance, if you have a larger competitor with a bigger budget, you can maximize your ROI as much as possible or target longer tail keywords.

Examples of SWOT Analysis for PPC Campaigns

Are you ready to start your own SWOT analysis? Hopefully, you can use my examples as a jumping-off point. But just in case you need more guidance, here are a couple of other examples of SWOT analysis for PPC campaigns.

The first is by White Shark Media.

White Shark Media PPC SWOT Analysis

You can see they get very specific listing ad KPIs in both the strengths and weaknesses columns. They also do an excellent job of balancing strengths with weaknesses and opportunities with threats.

The second is by SEMrush and Hanapin Marketing.

SEMRush PPC SWOT Analysis

This is a much broader approach to PPC SWOT analysis, including things like product prices and availability. They also do a nice job of matching up strengths with weaknesses and opportunities with threats.

Conclusion

A SWOT analysis is a great way to get a different perspective on your PPC campaign. Remember, your campaigns don’t exist in a vacuum, and neither should your optimization efforts.

By thinking about your ads in the context of the broader market and economy, you can optimize your campaigns at a level your competitors can only dream of.

Why stop at creating new ad copy and running A/B tests when you can find out ways to capitalize on new consumer sentiment or shifts in the market.

What have you uncovered with your SWOT analysis? Let me know in the comments!

The post How to Do SWOT Analysis For PPC appeared first on Neil Patel.