← The Digital Marketing Podcast
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to the digital marketing podcast brought to you by targetinternet.com.
- [00:14]
B
So the next myth I want to discuss with you and again, this is a very common one, that you can become an overnight global success just instantly. Really success is going to be instant if you go online and have the right e commerce platform.
- [00:26]
C
Yeah. You know, and I think we all, we can all associate with this because the world in which we live in, we're encouraged to think big. And I think that's good to a certain extent. But if we are putting global dominance before setting global standards, I think we've got that the wrong way around. So it's only through setting global standards. The likes of Zappos that I've just mentioned or the delivery that I took from AO at the weekend. My, the service that I got there was great. So I'm now on a podcast championing what they've actually done. And funny enough, they're both businesses that are sort of starting to or certainly they're aware people are aware of them on a global stage. So yeah, I think it's putting the global standards first and then the crowd will follow.
- [01:23]
B
Indeed. I think it's interesting actually a lot of these myths that we're discussing have a common theme which is really understanding your customer and literally walking in the shoes of your customer to make sure that you've checked that the understanding you think you have is actually correct.
- [01:37]
C
Right, yeah, without a doubt, without a doubt. Putting the customer first is definitely important. Understanding what they want, what I'm really trying to get home with the content that I've put together is just making people believe in themselves a little bit more and just use their own intuition a little bit as opposed to believing the heart or believe in any e commerce blog post that they might have read. Certainly on this particular myth in terms of going global and becoming overnight success doing it, the amount of customers that I've seen that have approached a new territory, a new country, and when I've questioned them about their approach to that territory, it would usually be as high level as oh yeah, I'd say why have you chose X, Y and Z country? And they would say, oh, we spoke to Google and Google have said to us that there's a load of people searching for X, Y and Z product in such and such territory. Okay, that's interesting because there's going to be a little bit more to it and you've definitely got to consider the local culture if you are making a move to do it. And by that I mean not just translating the website in terms of the written word, but also what are their expectations in terms of payment gateways and checkout? You might find there's certain products that do work in that territory that don't work in the uk or vice versa. We are leading the charge, I would say, in terms of global E commerce, I think the UK has definitely got. I believe that we're out in front of people. When I look into what the territories are doing, we're certainly at the forefront, but other cultures obviously work in different ways and we have to be respectful of that. When we're thinking we can just pop up a shop in a new location.
- [03:26]
B
Yeah. There's no shortcut to doing your market research and putting a strategy around what that research tells you. Definitely. But it's so easy to just press the button and launch. Right. And direct traffic to it. Do that at your peril. So the next myth that you shared with me, I particularly like my mobile website should convert at the same rate as my desktop website. Why isn't it?
- [03:54]
C
Yeah, why not? Why not?
- [03:57]
B
So just explore this. What's the reality behind mobile website conversions? What should we be expecting from them?
- [04:05]
C
Well, what should we be expecting from them? I think, you know, if you. Again, if you believe everything that you read, 2018 is the year of the mobile, as was 2017, as was 2016, as far back as you want to go. So, you know, we're just on a. We're on a curve at the moment. We're somewhere along the universal or the mobile universal life cycle, and we're starting to see it go through various different changes. We're certainly seeing a move in terms of customers that we work with. Many more people are starting. Much more traffic is coming from mobile. We've seen some websites with traffic from mobile at around about 70%, which is relatively high. I'm sure there's others out there that are higher still. And I think it really depends on your website and your customer base and where they're coming from, as to the amount of traffic you're getting from your website and ultimately the conversion that you're getting as well. Improving that, improving that mobile experience and making it easy for people to not only look at your products on your website, but also to check out and buy is going to improve what mobile conversion is, but to look at what desktop conversions. And this is what I usually see someone say on the desktop conversions. And this can obviously change depending on industries as well. So I'm giving numbers just for the sake of the example.
- [05:22]
B
Yeah, yeah, sure.
- [05:23]
C
My desktop Conversion is like, I don't know, 3%, 2%, whatever it may be. But my mobile conversion is only like 0.8%. I really think mobile conversion should be the same. It should be two. Yeah. It never usually works that way. I've seen it the other way around, where conversion on mobile has actually been better than it has been on desktop, as another example of what I've seen. But whilst there's always room for improvement to say that it should be the same across devices, it's just not going to happen, whilst there's always room for improvement. So again, it comes back to understanding your data, understanding your customers, understanding where does mobile fit in this user journey? Because mobile might be playing a really important part in terms of acquisition or where are sales coming from. So you may well see that a lot of people are maybe getting, as you said before, getting emails sent to the mobile. We're opening on the mobile, we're thinking, that looks kind of interesting. I think I'll maybe check that out later. But I'm just about to get out of a cab, so I'm not in a position to buy the product because I'm just sort of almost idling and checking my emails. So later on that day I go back and check, but I go and look at it on a different device. Is mobile still important at that point? Should some of that sale have been attributed to mobile sale? Because in actual fact, it came from an email that you sent to me, which was via mobile. It just so happens that I wanted to look at it later on when I was back in front of my machine that's hooked up to a screen. So I think that's where again, you can bring in, maybe bring in the experts to understand. Well, it's not just that mobile conversion needs to be higher, we actually need to first of all understand where does it sit in that user journey.
- [07:16]
B
Yeah, and I think that a lot of that, the answers to that will be in the analytics data, if you've got your analytics set up correctly, undoubtedly. But it requires a bit more than a cursory glance at the default reports to really get to the bottom of that. So, yeah, I couldn't agree more. Getting an expert in that field to help you understand that is definitely a good thing.
- [07:37]
C
Like you said, bring in someone in who can read the data. We've got a chap at Space48, our head of insight, Oliver, who's an absolute whiz with analytics, and even just switching your analytics and looking at, well, what does the attribution look like on last click versus the first click. The kind of changes that can actually make to your data could completely change your mindset of just how well mobile is actually doing, in fact.
- [08:09]
B
So moving on to our last myth, then again, I think this one made me laugh the loudest actually when I first read it. The myth that what I say goes and I don't need a vision or a plan because I'm a marketer, I'm in charge. And I think the reason I love that so much is actually working as a consultant for many years, heard that so many times that people will get you in and you know, you listen really hard to, you know, what the problems are and what they have to say and you go away and you look at the data, you make some recommendations based on, you know, your experience and then they just ignore you. You just think, why, why didn't it. No, because I, I don't think that I, I think this and what I think is the most important thing and it's a, it's a big problem. It's very hard to, to help people when they're in that mindset.
- [08:54]
C
Yeah. Yeah, without a doubt. E commerce is definitely team sport. No two ways about it. Space fortiate. This is a team of 40 odd people now and we've all got different skill sets, some overlap obviously, but we only work, you know, we only achieve great results by, you know, not only working together as a team, but by being an extension of the customers that we work with. And they'll have a unique view and they'll have unique understandings of each of their projects, but it's only by working together that, that we create successful teams which ultimately translates to successful projects.
- [09:30]
B
So if I've got a, you know, maybe I am the business leader that's been a bit of a block to moving, moving forward. Are there any ways that you can recommend any kind of tips you can give to help these people? Some of you may be listening. How do we know if we're actually part of the problem and getting in the way? Are there any kind of tips that you could give us on that?
- [09:53]
C
I mean, your own self, I mean stating the obvious really, but you know, your own self awareness of what you're really good at and making sure you're comfortable in bringing people in that can drive forward different parts of your business is kind of like me stating the obvious really. And creating the right kind of environment where the last thing you want is a dysfunctional team. So creating an open environment where it's okay to challenge each other, it's okay to push to try and get things done differently or done better, but that should be expanded across the team and people should be encouraged to challenge others. I think in terms of creating a performance triangle, if at one corner you've got a coach, and if at one corner you've got a challenger, and at the other corner you're only going to have a champion. Because by creating that kind of a dynamic where people are encouraged to coach and challenge each other in the right way, obviously I'm not saying that they should always end up in an argument or you're creating some kind of fight club. I'm really not trying to say that. But creating an open environment where people are happy to challenge each other about the way that you're doing things and you're working with an agency that's happy to challenge you and vice versa. I think as an agency owner, when we go and meet with prospects or with customers, it's not that we just challenge for the sake of it, but if we believe that something is wrong, I always encourage my team to say, we don't agree with that. Or can you explain your thinking or why? Approaching things this way, which sometimes can be slightly funny resistance, because if someone's used to it being, well, what I say goes and you're the supplier, almost, I'm telling you what I want, then I would say, well, what have you got me here for? You've got me in to help me do things differently. I'm okay and I'm cool with the challenge. But let you know, even someone challenging me and my approach and why I'm doing things the way that I am. But let's talk it through and let's come to an agreement that we're all happy with. And then you can even go around, perhaps you could go around personality types to understand, well, why are we actually making this decision and creating the right kind of environment where people feel free to talk about a problem and say, right, these are the ideas that I've got and this is how we could solve it. There's no bad ideas. Let's just talk about it in the ideation session. And then let's be a little bit more analytical and let's sort of refine that so we've got more of a problem to solve. Let's do an ecology check. Let's make sure that if we make this change, what do we think about it? What does our customers think about it? What does the rest of the team think about it? And then finally, have we got an action plan? And I think that's, again, the plan part of it probably comes right back to the start of the first myth of having a very clear plan is something that I think is critical in business. Never mind just e commerce. You have to have a clear plan that you communicate consistently to your team so that they know what it is that you're trying to do and what's expected of them and what you're trying to achieve. And are they aligned with it as well? There might be a time that they look at the plan and think, well, I don't think I'm part of that. And that's okay to get off at that point. And other people will, you know, be attracted towards what you're. What you're openly communicating.
- [13:19]
B
Fantastic. Well, John, thank you so much for making the time to speak to us. I've really enjoyed exploring this with you. If we want to get in touch with Space48 and find out more about what you guys do, where do we go? Who do we speak to?
- [13:34]
C
Yeah, sure. Yeah. Well, our website is space48.com or you can follow us on Twitter, which is space48ers. Or you can even look me up on Twitter as well. I'm John Woodall. So, yeah, thanks again for having me, Kieran. I really, really enjoyed it and we.
- [13:51]
B
Look forward to seeing what your team come up with next. I should be watching with bated breath because I think certainly in the E commerce space, you're continuing to innovate and improve and drive things forward. So we wish you the best of luck with that.
- [14:05]
C
Thank you very much.
- [14:13]
A
Thanks for listening to the digital marketing podcast brought to you by Target Internet. If you're investing in your digital marketing skills, take a look at our free benchmark skills test and look at the wealth of online learning we provide to help marketers get up to speed and stay up to date. Just visit targetinternet.com for forward/ benchmark.