FridayFive: ‘Success Leaves Clues’

“Success Leaves Clues” – Tony Robbins

I’m not a huge fan of Tony Robbins, but that quote has stuck with me every since I heard it.

It’s important to be unique. To standout from your competition. But it’s also wise to copy.  Billion dollar companies have billion dollar marketing. So, ‘stand on the shoulders of giants’. ‘don’t re-invent the wheel’. Yada yada yada… There are many similar sayings, and for good reason.

Amazon is the number 1 online retailer with an estimate worth of $24 Billion.

It has achieved that through years of marketing developments, constant improvements in eCommerce design, customer service and customer retention. And because of that, it should be seen as the model upon which every eCommerce website starts it’s base. Even if you are an offline service company, the principles here are worth noting.

Here are 5 marketing lessons to learn from Amazon:

1. It’s clever, repeated use of suggestions throughout the buying process. It’s OK to sell complementary products – even if they are not your own. Give the customer everything they want, and more.
2. One click order. The easier, simpler and more seamless that you make the buying process, the more likely your customer will buy from you now, and in the future.
3. Adding to order, after the card transaction has completed. We’re getting a home delivery, might was well add a little bit more to it.
4. Genuine customer reviews. Transparent customer feedback and genuine testimonials will do more for your business than any other copy. You essentially gain sales by a ‘transfer of trust’, and we trust consumers who own the product more than anyone else.
5. Affiliating and segmenting. You may not realise it, but thousands of separate, and often very successful, websites are nothing more than a shop window for Amazon products (e.g. Zappos).  If you sell organic skin cream to women , then why not create a separate website that focuses on selling organic skin cream to men. Same product, different label. Segmenting a market by price or demographic can easily increase your sales, and it can be as simple as creating a matching website with slightly different branding.

Just 30 minutes analysing Amazon alone can bring a huge insight in to proven online marketing methods.

Think.

Who is the most successful company in your general market? And by successful I don’t mean the largest.

• Who consistently delivers the best service?
• Where do they advertise ‘consistently’?
• How do they stay in contact with their prospects and customer?
• What keeps those customers coming back?
• Do they sell the same product to different segments of the market through different branding?

Your answers to these questions can identify key areas that your business may not be focusing on, or may generate a whole new segment of customers to market to.

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Incidentally, I have just uploaded a free report: ‘The 7 Deadline Internet Marketing Blunders Most Business Make ‘, which covers these topics and much more.  Click here to grab your copy.