SEO vs. Community in the Online Trading Field: Which Promotion Strategy is Better?

    Throughout the year, I have been watching two online trading companies. Both companies have owned online stores for at least two years and have generally been familiar with the Internet for quite some time. Over the past couple of years, both online stores have come out on the plus side, expanded their product range and customer base, and, I'm not afraid to say, have grown from startups to successful businesses. Today I bring to your attention an overview of the common features and differences of these stores, and - most interesting - a comparison of the ways in which stores went to success. Paying tribute to the current topic, I will also describe how the current crisis has affected both players, in particular, the devaluation of the ruble.

    I will make a reservation right away. In this review there will be no real names and titles, and the actual figures in the reports are proportionally changed upwards in order to preserve the anonymity of my experimental subjects.


    I represent the experimental:


    Online stores under the pseudonyms "Camomile" and "Berry" sell goods for hobbies. Both are several years on the market. Both have mature business processes. Both, according to suppliers, are among the leaders in their market. Shops have approximately equal monthly turnover of 4 million rubles. Attendance - 3500 hosts / day, other statistics, except for traffic sources - is similar. The staff of companies is 5-6 people, not counting outsourcers.

    Now - individual portraits of stores.

    "Chamomile"


    The amount of the average check in "Daisy" is 3000 rubles. The assortment of goods is quite wide and amounts to several thousand items. The assortment includes both expensive technically sophisticated products and penny consumables. The Camomile website does a good job of presenting the goods and placing an order, moreover, it offers several services important to the buyer, such as accurate calculation of the cost of delivery to a particular region by mail or delivery services, preparation of payment receipts. Slightly worse on the site with texts and photos. The biggest drawback of the Chamomile website is design - it is about 8 years old.

    The marketing strategy of Daisies is expressed in building a community of customers. The store sells goods for hobbies, and adherents of certain hobbies, as practice shows, are happy to join interest clubs, creating social networks (in the broad sense of the term) not only on the Internet, but also in real life. “A fisherman sees a fisherman from afar,” yeah. So, completely ignoring SEO technologies, “Daisy” spends a lot of money and effort on forming a hobby club around itself. The main tool for this was the portal with a hobby forum. The company employs experts who have posted on the site more than a thousand professional articles on hobbies and related areas of science and technology. And, despite the fact that the site and the forum are far from technical and design excellence, the site has been successfully operating for many years, Attracting new users and increasing attendance. The company pays a lot of attention to the audience of the portal, organizing at its own expense congresses of forum participants and organizing events for them at thematic exhibitions and conferences. A professional approach to the formation of content was not in vain - the site is in first place for hobby-specific medium-frequency queries. It is not surprising that at least half of the traffic the Romashki store receives from the portal and a couple of related sites of the company. Some more traffic flows from partner sites and Y. Market. Experiments with display advertising, despite the fact that it was placed on thematic highly visited sites, ended in complete disappointment. fully organizing congresses of forum participants at their own expense and holding events for them at thematic exhibitions and conferences. A professional approach to the formation of content was not in vain - the site is in first place for hobby-specific medium-frequency queries. It is not surprising that at least half of the traffic the Romashki store receives from the portal and a couple of related sites of the company. Some more traffic flows from partner sites and Y. Market. Experiments with display advertising, despite the fact that it was placed on thematic highly visited sites, ended in complete disappointment. fully organizing congresses of forum participants at their own expense and holding events for them at thematic exhibitions and conferences. A professional approach to the formation of content was not in vain - the site is in first place for hobby-specific medium-frequency queries. It is not surprising that at least half of the traffic the Romashki store receives from the portal and a couple of related sites of the company. Some more traffic flows from partner sites and Y. Market. Experiments with display advertising, despite the fact that it was placed on thematic highly visited sites, ended in complete disappointment. that at least half of the traffic the Camomile’s store receives from the portal and a couple of related sites of the company. Some more traffic flows from partner sites and Y. Market. Experiments with display advertising, despite the fact that it was placed on thematic highly visited sites, ended in complete disappointment. that at least half of the traffic the Camomile’s store receives from the portal and a pair of related company sites. Some more traffic flows from partner sites and Y. Market. Experiments with display advertising, despite the fact that it was placed on thematic highly visited sites, ended in complete disappointment.
    I don’t know how much Chamomile’s profit would have increased if it had included commonly used methods such as contextual advertising and SEO in its marketing strategy, but one cannot help but admit that the “shop with a hobby community” strategy has been quite successful. Subject to honest, open and mutually beneficial principles of building a community, the latter not only provides a sufficient amount of demand, but also brings great benefits in terms of building the company's image and competition.

    "Berry"


    The average check at Yagodka is significantly higher than at Chamomile and amounts to about 10,000 rubles. Assortment of goods - about 1,500 items, most of which are expensive technically sophisticated products. "Berry" has created a modern, ergonomic and, as many believe, a beautiful site. All products are equipped with high-quality photographs and professional texts, written not without taking into account the needs of SEO. Making an order with Yagodka is the simplest - registration \ authorization, a choice of two delivery \ payment options, the operator then works.

    The main emphasis in marketing “Berry” is on website promotion. There was display advertising, contextual advertising, working with blogs and forums, but now the main direction is SEO. 90% of visitors come from search engines. All possible methods are used - scrupulous work on buying links, and extreme internal website optimization, and serious work with statistics, analytics. Specially trained specialists work on the texts of the site and, in particular, the texts of links and headings. There were experiments to create satellites.
    I must say that no less attention is paid to the functionality and ergonomics of the site. It is safe to say that in these matters “Berry” is ahead of most competitors.

    No steps were taken to create a club of buyers of "Berry" and generally no community, despite the rather significant traffic of the site. At one time, Yagodka collaborated with an independent interest club, but this did not become a determining factor in the development of the store. The main role in the success of Yagodka was undoubtedly played by a high-quality website and first-class SEO.

    To summarize


    Two subjects came to similar business performance in fundamentally different ways. Approximately equal business size, comparable turnover and profit. As far as I can judge (fairly reliably), the costs of achieving current indicators are also approximately equal. Different ways, but the same result. On the one hand, both companies have achieved success, and on the other - each, as it seems to me, has not yet realized the opportunities that it has so far ignored. It is clear that to implement a comprehensive marketing plan does not seem realistic, and everyone chooses the strategy that is closer to him. But I would be curious to see how now, having already achieved success, “Chamomile” and “Berry”, in addition to their roles, will take on each other's roles. I think it will be interesting.

    The most important. The crisis!


    Oh yes, I forgot to talk about how both stores affected the global economic crisis and, in particular, the devaluation of the ruble. Both stores sell imported goods; therefore, they are faced with the negative consequences of the devaluation in full. In addition, although it is believed that buyers refuse to spend on hobbies in one of the last stages, the decline in demand cannot be denied. But what’s really important is that if Yagodka’s demand fell very, very seriously, and its attendance increased solely due to SEO manipulations, then Daisy sank very moderately, and store traffic and interest in goods on the contrary, they continue to grow. The number of calls and completed orders at Yagodka objectively decreased, while at Chamomile it increased, although the average check “lost weight” by 15-20%.

    Conclusion


    I hope that the described stories from the life of two online stores will help online merchants to present a variety of marketing strategies on the Internet and provide interesting food for thought.

    To be continued, I hope, follows.

    Also popular now: