My marketing manager has told me over and over again that I have to write about topics that are provocative, proprietary and productive.
So, every time I came up with a topic that I thought would work, a simple Google search resulted in ‘it’s already been done’.
So, I have decided to do something different. Relate my everyday issues with the common errors that I see my customers make over and over again. This week, the big issue and the re-occurring theme have been…”I’m not getting traffic and I’m not getting conversions.” Sounds pretty common and I’ve narrowed down the issue to several things, but the one issue that I believe can help everyone is what I refer to as “the follow through”.
A little bit about golf… anyone who is even slightly serious about golf knows that we all have swing faults. If it weren’t for swing faults, the game would be super simple. It’s not hard to imagine getting a 2” ball into a 4” cup. The teaching golf pro would be non-existent. My swing fault, albeit many, has to do with “follow through”. You probably have heard it. Hit down on the ball and keep the club moving down the flight path. I do neither one very well, and I end up with ball flights that are so weird that it looks like a wounded duck through the air.
The same goes for ecommerce. I see customers making investments into an ecommerce initiative, which have all the elements of success except for one thing…follow through. No planning for SEO or SEM; no digital merchandising; no analytics. And I am not referring to Google Analytics, I’m referring to the analytics that will tell you how well your site is doing with products, meeting customer expectations, ease of use, etc.
So, the next time you tee it up and you think about whether your ball is going to slice or have a wicked duck hook, think about what you have done with “follow through” to you ecommerce site. Follow through could be the answer to your conversions and realizing a return on your investment.
ObjectWave is a full-service provider of digital commerce solutions. He can be reached at samc@objectwave.com.
