Effective Online Sales Chain: Concept
Today, everyone is familiar with such basic types of sites as a promotional site, corporate, online store, business card site, catalog site. Such a classification in addition to its incompleteness suffers from an ambiguous interpretation and does not take into account the real goals of the product. However, it is this classification that is used by many customers when contacting the studio, as well as many studios are trying to rate and segment their work on the same cliche.
What does this lead to? Focusing on these categories, some customers and studios forget to think about the goals of the site. Many customers think in terms of “what kind of site do I need?” Rather than “why do I need a site?”. They think what kind of modules or functions to implement on their site, how many news to put on the main page, which photo should be in the header and what else you can entertain the visitor of their site with. At the same time, the customer does not ask the question “Why?”. What are all these modules, functions, design for, what is the site for? Many studios also do not ask this question, and the customer receives the coveted catalog site, which in the future becomes an inefficient sales platform with extremely low conversion.
This is a key question for which every customer must find the right answer. We will consider sites designed for business purposes. The goals of such sites can be different: from cutting costs to a sales tool. In any case, the commercial organization, making financial investments, should be guided by the possibilities of returning the invested funds and increasing them. This is the very essence of the organization.
Consider the main types of profit that can be obtained from the site:
The first thing that the customer must independently determine before he starts investing in the development of the site is what kind of profit he expects. Making this profit will be the goal of creating the site.
Accordingly, the achievement of this goal will mean the successful work of the studio and the customer in developing the site.
In most cases, companies develop a website in order to profit from the sale of goods or services, so we will consider this category in more detail. Profit from such sites, of course, depends on the number of your sales, so for simplicity we will call this category of sites like that - sites for effective sales.
After several sales cycles, you can draw very accurate conclusions about the effectiveness of the advertising campaign.
In the analysis, it becomes clear that the quality of the site is one of the most important factors in successful sales, but not the only one. A website for sales will be a truly effective tool if:
Obviously, if you do not take these simple rules into account, you should not rely on high site performance indicators and hope for conversion. The site is only an element of the sales chain and it is not necessary to demand a miracle from it or from online advertising.
The site’s task is to establish communication with the consumer, make it convenient and predictable, convey the company's offer, and provide an opportunity for self-service (selection and purchase of goods, familiarization with services, price calculations in calculators, etc.)
Four components are required for this:
The entire sales chain will be as effective as the weakest link will be effective.
It is necessary to consider these four components together, which means that when developing the site all this data should be taken into account.
In this context, a studio developing this class of sites should take on much more than ordinary site manufacturers. For a successful result, the following additional specialists are required to be included in the process (in addition to the layout designer, programmer, and manager):
The combined efforts of these specialists affects all four components of effective sales, which allows us to achieve fundamentally different indicators compared with the local impact on each component individually. The whole cycle of work takes considerable time and, accordingly, requires certain budgets and preparation of both the customer and the contractor. However, the increase in conversions allows for constant campaign budgets to increase the number of calls and orders, which very quickly compensates for the costs.
In the following articles, we will take a detailed look at each link in the online sales chain.
What does this lead to? Focusing on these categories, some customers and studios forget to think about the goals of the site. Many customers think in terms of “what kind of site do I need?” Rather than “why do I need a site?”. They think what kind of modules or functions to implement on their site, how many news to put on the main page, which photo should be in the header and what else you can entertain the visitor of their site with. At the same time, the customer does not ask the question “Why?”. What are all these modules, functions, design for, what is the site for? Many studios also do not ask this question, and the customer receives the coveted catalog site, which in the future becomes an inefficient sales platform with extremely low conversion.
Why is the site being developed?
This is a key question for which every customer must find the right answer. We will consider sites designed for business purposes. The goals of such sites can be different: from cutting costs to a sales tool. In any case, the commercial organization, making financial investments, should be guided by the possibilities of returning the invested funds and increasing them. This is the very essence of the organization.
Consider the main types of profit that can be obtained from the site:
- profit from sales of goods or services from the site;
- profit from a high-quality process of communication with partners, investors, potential customers;
- profit from stimulating demand for a product or service;
- profit from cost reduction;
- profit from traffic monetization.
The first thing that the customer must independently determine before he starts investing in the development of the site is what kind of profit he expects. Making this profit will be the goal of creating the site.
Accordingly, the achievement of this goal will mean the successful work of the studio and the customer in developing the site.
In most cases, companies develop a website in order to profit from the sale of goods or services, so we will consider this category in more detail. Profit from such sites, of course, depends on the number of your sales, so for simplicity we will call this category of sites like that - sites for effective sales.
Features of online sales of goods or services
After several sales cycles, you can draw very accurate conclusions about the effectiveness of the advertising campaign.
In the analysis, it becomes clear that the quality of the site is one of the most important factors in successful sales, but not the only one. A website for sales will be a truly effective tool if:
- the goods or services that are offered are at least competitive with competitors advertised in the neighborhood;
- there is a demand for the offered goods or services, and consumers actively use the Internet to search for them;
- the site and the company will have a positive reputation, and public opinion will be on the side of the company;
- call center operators carry out professional communication with customers and have sales skills.
Obviously, if you do not take these simple rules into account, you should not rely on high site performance indicators and hope for conversion. The site is only an element of the sales chain and it is not necessary to demand a miracle from it or from online advertising.
The site’s task is to establish communication with the consumer, make it convenient and predictable, convey the company's offer, and provide an opportunity for self-service (selection and purchase of goods, familiarization with services, price calculations in calculators, etc.)
So what is needed for effective online sales?
Four components are required for this:
- a proposal favorable to the target audience, satisfying its needs;
- an effective site that will broadcast to visitors the competitive advantages of the company and the offer will be convenient and understandable to the consumer;
- effective online advertising channels;
- efficient process for processing applications;
The entire sales chain will be as effective as the weakest link will be effective.
It is necessary to consider these four components together, which means that when developing the site all this data should be taken into account.
In this context, a studio developing this class of sites should take on much more than ordinary site manufacturers. For a successful result, the following additional specialists are required to be included in the process (in addition to the layout designer, programmer, and manager):
- Marketer. If the customer’s company does not have its own marketer and there is not enough marketing data, then the studio provides consultations of its specialist.
- Copywriter. Its task is to develop a sales text that will transmit information about the offer on the site in a language understandable to the consumer.
- Specialist in site design and interfaces. Its task is to formulate requirements for the site, accumulate information from various sources and design the site structure, user routes on the site, as well as suggest the location of information blocks on the pages and develop a prototype.
- Advertising Specialist. Its functions include preliminary planning of an advertising campaign, determination of sites for future placement. In accordance with the results of this planning, landing pages can be developed, which visitors will get from various advertising sources.
The combined efforts of these specialists affects all four components of effective sales, which allows us to achieve fundamentally different indicators compared with the local impact on each component individually. The whole cycle of work takes considerable time and, accordingly, requires certain budgets and preparation of both the customer and the contractor. However, the increase in conversions allows for constant campaign budgets to increase the number of calls and orders, which very quickly compensates for the costs.
In the following articles, we will take a detailed look at each link in the online sales chain.