Author: Franz Malten Buemann

 

 

In one of our earlier insights, we showed how the rise of the CLV-ROI approach is changing eCommerce business models. But let’s get right to the point of this marketing insight: Turning your customers into loyal fans requires you to first convert visitors into customers.

This is why we understand conversion rate (CR) as the most fundamental metric in eCommerce. Without a honed CR, you just run a website. Here’s why.

 

What is the Conversion Rate?

 

In an increasingly competitive eCommerce world, there are some dos and don’ts when it comes to encouraging customers to buy items from your business. This act is called a conversion, and it’s just about the most important metric you’ll need to watch as you plan on building your business and increasing revenue.

CR is the percentage of visitors landing on your website who complete a desired action.

In eCommerce, conversion means the percentage of website visitors who purchased something from your online store in a set period of time.

Next, we are going to explain why this metric is so important, though with this definition we have probably spoiled the surprise. Isn’t it obvious why we are talking about the foundation of an actual, working eCommerce business rather than…just a website?

 

Traffic into Sales: Why CR Is a Crucial Metric in eCommerce

 

Actually, no, there is one situation in which you can ignore CR, just set up an online store, start sending visitors to the site with paid advertising, and call it a day: It is when you have budget orders of a magnitude greater than even the worse possible costs—and it will be that way for the rest of your eCommerce life—and your wares are extremely expensive.

In this scenario, you are able to draw millions of visitors to your website. Even with awful CR, some visitors will turn into customers, buying your obnoxiously overpriced product. 

The question is: Why do you even start an ineffective eCommerce business if you have such massive amounts of money at your disposal?

Any rational business model must work efficiently. Unless you can convert those visitors—lead them to take the next step along the path from prospective to happy customer—then you’ve wasted your time and your money building traffic. Any page on the internet can buy traffic, but a conversion-optimized website turns that traffic into sales and a poorly-performing website fails to capitalize on the opportunity.

 

The Tremendous Effect of CR on ROI

 

Let’s get to the numbers.

Suppose your eCommerce is currently converting visitors at the rate of 2%. Two out of every one hundred people who visit your site end up purchasing something within the timeframe of your measure.

Your average monthly traffic is 500K unique visitors, and your average order value (AOV) is $150.

With these numbers, you’re realizing $1.5M in monthly revenue. Then you apply the proven principles of conversion rate optimization (CRO) to coax your CR up by 2%, and you’ve doubled your monthly revenue to $3M.

CRO not only converts more of your visitors into buyers, but it also draws more sales and pushes your AOV up. If your 2% improvement of the CR also results in the AOV rising to $200, your new monthly revenue will climb to $4M.

You’ve gone from $1.5M to $4M in monthly revenue simply by boosting your CR and AVO.

 

Good eCommerce CR: What Does It Mean?

 

Average eCommerce CRs are 1%–2%. Even if you are doing everything right, you can still expect to win the sale around 2% of the time.

A 2%+ CR should be the baseline goal for your online store. The best websites have CRs of 11% or even more.

But is 2%+ really good for you, specifically? How does it compare with the CR of your competition? You might get frustrated by spending money to draw traffic to your site then seeing those visitors leave without making a purchase. Is your paltry CR normal? Or have others found ways to get more and better-targeted traffic?

To understand which CR is good at a specific moment for your business, you must understand one very important thing: Your most important competitor is you. To properly assess your progress, always compare it to your own previous achievements.

It is all about the small steps you make on the road of CRO.

 

What Is CRO?

 

Conversion Rate Optimization is the process of optimizing the experience of your site or landing page based on visitor behavior, with the aim of improving the probability of the visitors taking desired actions—namely conversions.

Since the introduction of tools like SALESmanago’s Customer Preference Center, optimization efforts can be undertaken not only on the basis of first-party data, like behavior, but also on the basis of zero-party data, preferences revealed explicitly by the customers. 

 

The Importance of Continuous CRO

 

It’s not uncommon for eCommerce businesses to focus on achieving ambitious, long-term goals throughout the year. While long-term goal setting is an important part of running an eCommerce business, you shouldn’t overlook the value of setting marginal, short-term goals along the way. 

Very often we see eCommerce managers overemphasize the importance of one central goal while overlooking the significance of making marginal improvements every day. We recommend focusing on making incremental improvements to your CR by a small percentage each day. CRO is an ongoing process that sometimes uncovers areas where big gains can be made quickly. Such an effect can be obtained, for example, by incorporating zero-party data into your marketing toolset and utilizing it to hyperpersonalize your website. But most often you’ll be working to make incremental improvements over time. 

Is your current CR high enough? Probably not. You may not be able to double revenue overnight, but you can certainly do more with what you have. That is the goal of CRO. 

 

To Sum Up

 

There are many methods for achieving effective CRO, and this is something we will tackle in our next insight. As all of them may be summarized as ways of showing what customers want to see and what they will react to, the recent revolution in eCommerce technology has exponentially increased the means at your disposal. This is especially true in the case of actionable zero-party data. Because “what customers want to see and what they will react to” can, in turn, be translated into just one word: hyperpersonalization.

 

Last Updated on May 5, 2022 by Rakesh GuptaBig Idea or Enduring Question: How can you automatically create a public group for a new account? If you have a large Community implemented and a very active instance of Salesforce,  you are probably leveraging Public Groups extensively. The public group represents a group of
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So, you have created a revolutionary product. That’s great! The next step is to take your product to market and generate revenue. A successful launch can dictate the pace for revenue growth, which is why you should plan it meticulously.  In this guide, we’ll show you how to plan and deliver a successful product launch.…
The post Your Product Rollout Checklist appeared first on Benchmark Email.

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Within the Buffer Advocacy team, we’ve experimented with a few different training formats including live training at meet-ups, training over zoom, lightning talks, and recorded trainings. Training together as a team often fosters a sense of community and feels energizing! In contrast, watching a training video alone can feel isolating, and we hadn’t quite cracked the code on following up with other teammates or the trainer. At the beginning of this year, we had a chance to explore new training ideas for our remote team.Juliet Chen, a Senior Customer Advocate at Buffer, and I were tasked with creating a four-part training series to help the Advocacy team with strategies around productivity and organization. As the team has grown, we’ve widened our coverage across the globe. We now have teammates who have almost no overlap with each other, spanning from every timezone in the US, to Europe and Ghana, to our teammates in Dubai, Brunei, Thailand and Australia. This means that live training sessions over Zoom have become more challenging to schedule. When planning the training sessions, we immediately recognized that four live training sessions might not be realistic and it would not be inclusive for the entire team. Asynchronous (async) training made the most sense for us. But we also knew that many teammates would have valuable input to share with the team and we wanted to capture that. We recognized that there are no “correct” strategies for productivity and organization, so we wanted to be sure to surface different perspectives through this training series. Also, how could we prevent the isolation people feel when training alone? We also wanted to give everyone an opportunity to interact with each other, feel a sense of togetherness and get excited about the training topics. We needed to find an engaging way to present the information and encourage participation. To address all of these challenges, we had a few brainstorming sessions and came up with some formatting and participation ideas that we’d love to share with you.The training formatWhile we have had one-off training sessions asynchronously in the past, we had never done a series of trainings with a set schedule of participation before. To kick off the training, we posted a short introduction Thread (Threads is the primary tool we use to communicate asynchronously at Buffer) to the team, outlining how it would be presented and how they could participate. We also shared all of the topics that would be covered and a schedule:Jan 21 – Jan 31: Planning for a productive 1:1 sync with your Advocacy leadJan 31 – Feb 14: Keeping up with Buffer communicationsFeb 14 – Feb 28: Leveraging performance reviews as your gateway to growthFeb 28 – Mar 14: Preparing for product launchesThroughout the quarter, we offered a new training every two weeks that was part of the overarching theme of productivity, communication and organization. We hoped this would encourage the team to continue thinking through these topics and promote sharing and learning for several weeks.Each training outlined any Buffer company or Advocacy team expectations and then the trainer shared strategies, techniques and tips. It was written out in an article-style format without a template or any specific guidelines or rules, which let each of us write in our own conversational style. We also offered screenshots, supporting resources (such as blog posts and articles from others in the industry) and even some fun gifs. How we encouraged participationAt the end of the training, we opened it up for submissions from any teammate who also wished to share what has worked for them. We asked the team to follow up on the training in two ways:Create their own submission with organization tips or strategies they use successfullyComment or share feedback on the training or on other teammate’s submissions When we asked for submissions, we decided on the following parameters:We encouraged (but did not mandate) that all Advocates participate in at least two of the four trainings.The submissions could be submitted in written or video format – we wanted to give them the opportunity to share in whatever way felt most comfortable.We gave a two week deadline for submissions as we planned to include them in our wiki with the training once the session was complete.We asked them to submit right in the Thread so that everyone could see the training and submissions in a single place. We hoped this would also encourage conversation and feedback.As the training sessions progressed, we saw some incredible submissions from some Advocates who had several strategies to share with the team. Some were very detailed, outlining an entire process, while others were simple (but effective) methods that really added value. Other Advocates simply added a comment of praise or validation that they also used the same strategies to great effect or learned something new from the training or their teammate’s submissions.These submissions were added (with credit) to the training when we moved them over to our internal team Wiki and it’s our hope that any new teammates who read these will benefit from the added submissions from their peers.What we learnedOur most popular training was created by Darcy Peters, a Customer Advocacy Manager, on “leveraging performance reviews as your gateway to growth”. Hearing specific strategies and techniques from a manager’s perspective was invaluable for many advocates.“Wow, I’m amazed by how thoroughly developed your system is, Darcy! You have thought of everything.”  — Julia CummingsWe were excited to see so many Advocates read through the trainings and responded positively throughout each training Thread.  We also received great feedback about the training series overall.“I wanted to let you know that these trainings have personally been soooo impactful. It felt like each one landed with me just when I needed to focus on that area – for one reason or another.”  — Dave Chapman“These trainings have been incredibly valuable and insightful!”   — Essence MuhammadFormattingIn the past, we’ve identified that many of our teammates learn very differently from one another. Some learn best by listening to a speaker or watching a video, while others prefer to read, for example. This can be tricky when choosing how to best format training for the entire team. Now that we’ve tried a purely written format, we’d love to experiment with more formats in future async trainings. Some ideas include offering a written post, but also including an audio or video version of the trainer reading the post, or perhaps even including a simple slideshow.Another idea would be to share an overview, then add bite-size info to the topic each day for a week (like a Twitter thread). We’ll continue to survey the team to find even more ideas on how to be inclusive with all learning styles while also keeping the training creation as lightweight as possible for trainers.ParticipationWhile we did receive a lot of positive feedback, the submission participation wasn’t as high as we had hoped it would be. The inbox was very busy during these weeks and some people were feeling a bit of information fatigue with many new announcements and conversations that naturally happen in the first quarter. Perhaps another reason some Advocates didn’t offer a submission was that they felt the their own strategies were equal to what we offered in the training. But if they didn’t have many strategies themselves and the training was indeed valuable, we had hoped they would share more about what they might try. We saw a lot of positive emoji reactions, but we still hoped more people would participate by directly replying to the Thread.With this in mind, we plan to further clarify the “submission” definition to encourage more participation and togetherness. We especially want our teammates to continue to get a chance to share their thoughts and to learn from one another. For future async trainings, we’ll ask Advocates to to simply “check off” that they’ve read the training, and then also choose one of the following ways to submit:Add a new strategy or technique that works well for themOr, identify a strategy we’ve presented that they’d like to adopt into their own workstyle and why they think it might work for them or how they will implement it.We’re also going to explore ways to follow up with the team several weeks after the training to see how the strategies have helped them.Looking aheadWe took a big chance by offering an entire series of async training for a full quarter, but we learned a lot and we saw some great benefits for the team.Everyone had equal time to absorb the material and to participate, and teammates who wished to share their own strategies and tips had time to articulate those thoughts. It prevented us from adding four more meetings to everyone’s calendar — the team could schedule the training according to what worked best for them.Lastly, the training and the valuable team submissions were easy to add to our wiki as resources for any new teammates coming onboard after the training session was over. Overall, we’re excited about the future of async training for the Advocacy team and look forward to trying new formats and submission ideas! What questions does this spark for you? Send us a tweet!

There’s something every single company needs to operate, regardless of the industry or product, and that’s people.

Just as there are professionals who specialize in managing products and services, there’s also a need for human resource management.
Learn what it is and the key functions every HRM needs to operate.

What is human resource management?
5 Main Functions of Human Resource Management

Recruitment and Staffing
Employee Relations
Learning and Development
Performance Management
Company Culture

Recently, we’ve heard the term “People Operations” used much more frequently than human resources. Are they the same? Not exactly. People ops is technically considered a subset under HR. However, in many companies, they are used interchangeably.
While human resources focus on the structural and legal pillars such as hiring, compliance, compensation, and benefits, people ops look at the cultural implications and focus on things like employee satisfaction, productivity, and diversity and inclusion.

5 Main Functions of Human Resource Management

1. Recruitment and Staffing
When you think of HR, recruitment and staffing is probably the first thing you think about.
HRM requires working hand-in-hand with recruiters to identify top talent, set budgets, conduct background checks, and negotiate compensation and benefits.
In addition, they must be well versed in employment law to know how to comply with federal and state legislation regarding worker rights, discrimination, and more.
HRM also oversees onboarding, the process of integrating a new hire into the company. This involves setting up training, providing equipment and access to necessary software, and team introductions.
Knowing how new employees are responding to them can be helpful in ensuring the employee’s long-term success at the company.
In fact, a 2021 data by Microsoft revealed that new hires are 3.5 times more likely to be satisfied with their onboarding experience if their manager played an active role.
By knowing this information, they can tweak the process to increase managerial involvement in onboarding.

2. Employee relations
A 2021 HBR study found that 89% of workers were not satisfied with their jobs – 85% said that their well-being had declined and 56% said that their job demands had increased.
For HR, that’s a major concern because that can directly lead to high attrition. HR professionals are tasked with identifying these issues through internal NPS surveys, meetings, and other methods, then putting systems in place to address them.
In addition to these responsibilities, conflict resolution is another major aspect of employer-employee relations at the workplace. This can be anything from friction between two employees who don’t get along to a sexual harassment claim.
Human resources management is tasked with investigating these claims and taking appropriate action to maintain a safe workplace for all.
Beyond conflict, a communication standard can also be set by HR to promote transparency and encourage openness. This can look like mandatory weekly one-on-one meetings between managers and direct reports, monthly skip-level meetings, quarterly AMAs, and more.

3. Learning and Development
According to 2021 Glint data, having opportunities to learn and grow is now the top factor that people say defines an exceptional work environment.
The survey also found that employees who rate their culture highly are 25% more likely to be happy at work and 31% more likely to recommend working at their organization.
This is why investing in employees’ development can directly impact a company’s bottom line.
This can look like allocating stipends for role-related courses, providing access to third-party providers, and hosting management training. Having options that cater to both individual contributors and managers is essential to making sure all employees are growing.
Once these programs are up and running, HR must evaluate their effectiveness and make changes as needed.

4. Performance Management
Performance management is another key function of HR, which involves setting performance metrics, review schedules, conduct guidelines, and more.
For instance, what happens if an employee underperforms during the quarter? What are the steps they and their manager can take? This process should be determined by HR.
From probation to termination and everything in between, HRM has it covered.

5. Company Culture
A company’s culture is the set of values, beliefs, and behaviors that define its way of doing business.
Culture is incredibly important because it affects every aspect of a company, from how employees interact with each other to how they serve customers. Unhappy employees make for unhappy customers.
HRM entails figuring out what employees want and care about and balancing them with company resources. For instance, there has been a shift to remote work since the start of the pandemic in 2020.
While this may seem separate from company culture, how easily companies adapted to this shift is representative of their culture.
In 2020, a Glint report found that a sense of belonging is the second-highest driver of work culture, behind opportunities to learn and grow. How do you create that belonging?
That’s where HRM comes in – creating this environment and making sure it’s scalable and flexible.
Human resources management is an essential part of every organization, making sure that their most important asset – the people – has everything they need to succeed.