How to increase online engagement

During a recent webinar hosted by Gavin Laugenie, Global Head of Content at Dotdigital, and Chris White, Senior Partner Manager at Styla, a poll revealed that high bounce rates on websites and landing pages are one of the biggest challenges marketers are facing.

This can be for numerous reasons, from a lack of planning or consideration of website design, to a lack of relevant and inspiring content conveying your brands’ message.  It’s preventing visitors from converting and damaging your bottom line.

To stop this from happening, it’s important that marketers create shopping experiences which are relevant, exciting, and make it as easy as possible for customers to complete their purchase.

Tactic #1 – Create stunning content

Three seconds is all a consumer needs to absorb the visuals on your web or landing page and decide whether to stay or not.

In the Amazon-age we live in, online retailers need to work harder to differentiate themselves. The best way to do this is by creating unique digital experiences and curating engaging product stories that Amazon can’t. Using a consistent mix of eye-catching visuals helps to guide visitors down the page and clearly tell your brand’s story.

To keep your returning visitors engaged, these pages need to be updated regularly. Unfortunately, the process, from planning through to development and implementation, can often be a slow one. An automated design process that takes minutes to update will help you maintain a high level of engagement and encourage new guests to browse. This is where Styla is here to help.

Tactic #2 – Shoppable content

Connect content and commerce by delivering branded content with relevant product information.

Help your customers mentally commit to their purchase by populating your content with important product details. Making your page directly shoppable significantly shortens the path to purchase and improves your conversion rate by 3.5x.

After successfully driving shoppers to engage with your ad, social, or email campaign, you don’t want to leave them with choice paralysis. Most failures to convert are caused when they can’t find the product or service information that they want. Including shoppable content prevents this from happening.

Including user-generated content will increase your conversions even further. But, as your designs need to be updated regularly, you also need to keep your content fresh to ensure new and returning customers alike are staying engaged.

Tactic #3 – Segmentation

After taking the time to design and regularly update your content you need to ensure you’re successfully driving visitors to your page.

Hitting the Mark 2018 found that 66% of brands still aren’t segmenting their audiences. By segmenting your audience, you can get a clearer picture of their likes and interests, which will improve the relevancy of your content. The more relevant your content, the more inspired customers will be to act.

When building your segments, it’s essential you fuse your implicit and explicit data. This includes data gathered directly from the user, such as through a preference center, and behavioral data like online browsing habits. Using advanced segments really brings your communications to life.

By targeting your segments, you’ll be delivering the right message to the right person, in the right context.

Tactic #4 – Personalization

Further increase the effectiveness of your marketing efforts by personalizing your customer engagements.

The conversion rate for personalized emails are 6x higher than generic emails. After all, who doesn’t like content specifically designed and chosen to meet your unique needs?

Hyper-relevant content, such as abandon cart emails are proven to drive results. 50% of users who engage with abandon cart content go on to complete their purchase. But, the impact of these communications would be significantly reduced if customers were directed to generic product grids, once again emphasizing the importance of creating visually appealing and shoppable landing pages.

Personalization drives a response from audiences, but the relevancy of your landing pages is was makes them act.

Put it into action

Using rich content across all stages of the customers’ journey helps you build stronger relationships with them. This, in turn, helps you pave the way to purchase and customer retention.

To learn more how to put these tactics into action, check out our webinar: 4 tactics for increasing online engagement.