Guide to Improve Customer Retention in Your Marketplace

One of the biggest ways to ensure success for a business is creating and maintaining a strong online presence. Digital marketplaces are the go-to platforms for businesses interested in growing and retaining their customer base online.

It’s no secret that online spending is increasing at a high rate. If you haven’t already, it’s time to get on board. Marketplace marketing gives companies a wider reach by using fewer resources which results in savings.

In addition, digital marketplaces are gold mines for rich data. Optimization software offers instant marketplace analytics so you can easily monitor the behaviors of customers to learn how to better engage them and increase sales.

Marketplace optimization software can give you everything you need to grow your business online and reach a larger audience. But to be profitable, you need to retain your customer base and increase repeat buyers.

While retention techniques can vary by industry or product, the following four essential factors can help you turn visitors into buyers. 

Be Trustworthy & Transparent
Trust is a pillar which can vary based on the goods or services sold. For example, selling books versus selling childcare services.

Building trust can stem from a variety of factors. The main factors buyers base their level of trust on include:

• Verification of a company and their rating
• A quality interface
• Good customer care
• Relatable and fresh content
• Transparency
• Data protection
• Insurance coverage
• Secure payments

Factors related to transparency include:

• Clear transaction costs (i.e. no surprises)
• A policy on handling user personal data
• Who’s responsible during a dispute or transaction issue

Keep It Simple
Your user interface should be intuitive and easy-to-use with clear language buyers understand. When you offer a friendly environment with simple buying steps, your buyers will develop more confidence in your marketplace and become frequent customers. Review your marketplace analytics to discover how buyers are using your website and where they may get caught up.

Build Relationships
Your marketplace success depends upon building good relationships with your customers. Buyers will have more confidence in your marketplace when they know good people are behind the platform and will help them if they have any problems. While you may never hear from most buyers, the ability to easily contact you if they need something reassures them.

As part of your marketplace marketing, include fresh content to educate customers and put their minds at ease. Another simple tool is posting an FAQ which answers the most frequent doubts of customers to eliminate any uncertainties.

Secure Payments
Submitting payment on an online marketplace can be a big source of concern for buyers. It’s important to immediately reassure buyers about how payments can be done on your site. Select a trusted payment platform with secure transactions.

At Kahuna, we offer marketplace optimization services for businesses to solve tough marketplace challenges. If you’re looking for professional marketplace marketing and detailed analytics, learn more about our marketplace optimization software today.

7 Marketing Automation Platforms for Your Business

Did you know marketing automation software can be a lifesaver for small businesses? Marketing automation tools give you time back to focus on more important things like running your business. 

Once you create initial content, marketing automation platforms send out emails and social media posts based on your set schedule. The software can also help you keep up with customer needs through analytics showing your customer’s interests and behaviors. This allows you to instantly visualize if your campaigns are being effective. 

Curious to learn more about marketing automation tools? Let’s look at seven top marketing automation platforms helping businesses improve their campaigns and customer base.

• Act-On

Act-On offers great customer service with training opportunities, basic tips, and strategy development. Their pricing structure is higher than most at $2,000 per month for the advanced Enterprise Plan allowing for 10,000 active contacts and six marketing users. But their training and customer service may make the product worth it for fast-growing businesses.  

• GetResponse

GetResponse is known as the “world’s easiest email marketing platform” with over 350,000 subscribers around the world. They offer all-in-one marketing automation tools for small businesses. Its ease of use gives them an advantage over well-known companies like HubSpot or Marketo, which require a full-time CRM manager. 

GetResponse features a landing page builder, webinar tool, email marketing, and an auto-responder while coming in at a lower price than most competitors. The only downsides are the limited newsletter templates and the user interface can feel clunky.

• HubSpot

HubSpot is likely the most well-known name in marketing automation software. They offer strong training programs with respected certifications throughout the industry. HubSpot’s platform is easy to use and learn. The drawback is the price creep that occurs quickly as your contact list grows. In addition, A/B testing is only available at a higher price point. 

• Infusionsoft

The all-in-one functionality of Infusionsoft allows you to track actions, behaviors, and purchases in the same system. It’s important to note, there is a strong learning curve for responsive email marketing. This system is more expensive than other similar options for small businesses, and the lead tracking can be spottier than other marketing automation platforms. 

• Kahuna

Kahuna Marketplaces is all about connecting buyers and sellers. They offer tools to manage your marketplace health and empower you with services to grow your client base. In one dashboard, you can view and analyze marketplace health through a variety of indicators and target problem-solving based on buyer or seller needs. They also help manage content with a full suite of optimization tools to ensure every message is personalized. The Kahuna marketing automation software is easy to use and their results speak for themselves. 

• Marketo

Marketo offers a wide range of tools and analytic options, including A/B testing and an easy-to-use interface. However, the naming conventions can be confusing compared to other marketing automation platforms, and if your sales team is using a different CRM, using Marketo could pose challenges. 

• Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Salesforce is most recognized as a CRM, but they also offer an email marketing automation program. Marketing Cloud allows you to create the customer experience journey linking email to social platforms to ads on your website. This platform is an enterprise-grade product with complex levels which may be hard to manage when limited resources are available.  

Ultimate Guide for Marketplace Analytics

Modern packages for marketplace management and marketplace analytics offer more possibilities than any company can or even should try to use at once. Collecting big data is just the first step. Here we’re sharing important ways you can optimize your marketplace marketing results.

A Deep-dive into Your Analytics Program and Using Customized KPIs
Your marketplace analytics program offers a range of statistics from unique visitors to bounce rates, average time on the site, page views, and where traffic is coming from social media. It’s for you to decide which stats are useful for your company.

Before you begin, state your purpose and agree upon it across all departments. Ask yourself:

• Do we want increased customer applications?
• Do we need to localize our strategy? 
• Do we want to boost participation in our loyalty programs?

When you know what you’re looking for, you’ll be able to dive into the numbers that mean something to you. You gain a clearer picture of how the raw data relates.

Predictive Analytics

Big data is most powerful when accompanied by an attitude of continuous improvement. Markets are moving faster than ever and marketplace analytics need to be ahead of the curve.

Predictive analytics can work best when options come from a wide range of thought which narrows as the analysis proceeds. Less data puts more ideas on the table for use. As more data is gained, improve your predictions by removing the less efficient options. Reign in the desire to test elementary ideas until your brainstorming sessions are complete and every potential idea is shared.

Data Isn’t Always Black and White

You may think the data will tell you everything you need to know, but data doesn’t show right or wrong. Rather, data will give you an interpretation of less correct or more correct. If you go diving into data looking for black and white answers, unfortunately, you won’t find them.

For example, the most effective ad may include pieces of several ads. You’ll only know this by understanding the nuances of each dataset during multivariate testing. You may discover a keyword from one ad, a sentence length from another, and a picture placement of a third could lead you to optimized marketplace solutions. 

Focus Your Efforts on a Specific Buyer Profile

Buyer profiles can range from first responders to loyalists, new prospects, and more. When you’re looking to optimize sales, you may want to focus on your loyalists. If you’re introducing a new product, direct your efforts to your first responders. Once you’ve determined who your core audience is, this will streamline your interpretation of the data for optimal marketplace management.

Consider Other Ways to Aggregate Data

You may consider a link shortener, UTM tracking codes, and social media platform metrics to strengthen the volume of your data. This is a great tip for newer companies without enough data to have an optimized sample size. However, even established companies can benefit from one test run. You may discover missing data by trying one of these options.

At Kahuna, we offer innovative marketplace solutions to boost user retention and increase profitability. Contact us today to learn how our marketplace marketing and analytics programs can help you. 

5 Conversion Rate Optimization Principles to Get Started

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) involves the process in which user engagement is increased to lead to conversion or other action. If you’re looking for useful ways to improve conversion optimization in your business, the following are five ways to enhance your CRO strategy. No matter your current skill level, you’ll find a variety of ways to improve your e-commerce conversion funnel and boost your conversion rate a few more percentage points. 

Small, Easy Commitments

You want your audience to get into the habit of saying “yes.” Micro-commitments are small actions which can help you achieve this goal. When a person signs up for a newsletter or shares a post about your product on social media, each of these small commitments can be a step in the direction you need them to go. 

With the Shopify blog, their target audience is sellers who use their platform to compete with other businesses. The top of their blog tells their audience to sign up for their newsletter to get “free business lessons.” This becomes an easy decision for businesses looking to become more successful in building their e-commerce conversion funnel. 

Make it Personal

To improve conversion rate optimization in your emails, add the recipient’s name in the subject line. Personalization gets significantly higher open rates than those without. You can even take this a step further by adding your customer’s name in the email copy and on the landing page. Our only caution: don’t get too carried away because too much personalization can seem overly eager or just plain creepy. 

A good example of balancing personalization is when Sephora sends their customer’s a “Happy Birthday” email with a free birthday gift. The recipient’s name is shown several times throughout the email making it feel personal and special. 

Test Your Conversion Rate Optimization

Testing helps you know if your conversion optimization is working. Whether you choose A/B testing or have a higher budget and traffic volume to perform multivariate testing, you’ll find the results you’re needing. 

If you haven’t done tests recently, start with these tips for your ads and landing pages:

• Use different titles and H1 tags
• Change everything about your call to action: color, button style, placement, text.
• Move elements on the page such as video toward the top and copy at the bottom.
• Swap out images and video thumbnails

Build Targeted Landing Pages

The more landing pages you have, the more opportunity to engage with your audience. Hubspot revealed companies who added five more landing pages to on top of their current 10 landing pages saw a 55% increase in leads. They allow more touchpoints with more customers and allow you to test different elements on the landing page. 

Be Consistent

Brand inconsistency leads to a loss of trust and is one of the biggest reasons people abandon websites. If your ads feature bright colors and puppies, but when they get to your website, they notice dull-colored, non-themed pages, they’ll leave. Meeting the expectations of users is important for building trust and conversion optimization. 

Take a look at your landing pages and check that they match your title tag and meta description. Find out which PPC ads are performing best and test the meta content. Change H1 tags and other text fields on the landing page to match your ad. Be consistent with the color scheme and vibe of your ads and landing pages. 

Looking for ways to enhance your e-commerce conversion funnel? At Kahuna, we help businesses convert more leads and grow their business. Contact us today to learn more

Best Email Subject Lines to Boost the Open Rates

An email subject line is perhaps the most important line in any email you send. Why? Because if it’s not engaging enough, it will get tossed in the trash. 

Whether we like to admit it or not, people judge an email by the subject line. In fact, 47% of email recipients will decide if they’ll open an email based on the subject line alone. That’s why it’s so important to create email subject lines that make people want to open the message. 

Interested in better ways to get your emails opened and read? Here are seven subject line optimization tips to boost engagement. 

7 Tips for Writing Clickable Email Subject Lines

Say More with Less

Keep your email subject lines short and sweet so they don’t get cut off on mobile devices. Since 67% of emails are opened on a mobile device, stick to less than 50 characters to make sure people read the whole subject. Toss frivolous words and keep it simple. 

Use a Familiar Sender Name

If the sender name doesn’t sound familiar, people won’t read it no matter what the subject is. Thanks to the spam mail received these days, most people avoid opening emails from unfamiliar senders. Avoid using generic company emails and send email from a real person. 

Keep it Relevant

An email going to an entire list may be relevant to some but not for others. Segment your email lists based on information you’ve been able to collect from them such as industry, location, and personal preferences. Cater your email topics to those specific lists. 

Start with Action-oriented Verbs

Subject lines are like calls-to-action. You want the words to inspire people to click. Action verbs at the beginning of emails are often more enticing and clickable. As an email subject line tester, you might say, “Dine with soccer legend David Beckham,” rather than, “Soccer Sports Legend Meal.” The first example will definitely garner attention. 

Make the Reader Feel Special

When people feel like they belong, it builds loyalty and your emails convert better. Make recipients feel special. A few email subject line testers include:

• “Private invite”
• “You’re invited!”
• “An exclusive offer for you”

Create Urgency

Urgency or scarcity in an email subject line can compel readers to click or act when phrased creatively. Avoid using this tactic on all emails and limit them to when occasions really call for it to avoid sounding spammy. 

Ask a Compelling Question

A question in your subject line can draw readers in, especially if you’re asking a question they ask themselves. This is a creative way to pique curiosity. For example, a marketing company may send businesses an email titled, “Are you making these SEO mistakes?” or “Do you know what your website is doing wrong?”

DocuSign sent an email to their leads list with the subject, ‘What are your customers saying?” Inside, the email contained case studies designed to encourage the recipient to purchase their project. 

A great email subject line tester is to A/B test a couple subject line ideas and see which emails get opened. Then you’ll know what really resonates with your audience.

At Kahuna, Inc. we specialize in helping companies craft the perfect email subject lines to get the results you want and need. Contact us today to learn about our subject line optimization services.