March 10th marked an important milestone for AB Commerce and Magico, the launch of the second AB Commerce Summit in The Heritage Hotel in Co. Laois.
The conference saw 80 delegates (56 of whom were retailers) and 12 exhibitors (including AIB Merchant Services and Humm) join for a day of presentations, expert speakers and panel discussions on how retailers can build brand loyalty and increase revenues through innovative eCommerce and online developments.
A Retailer’s Journey with Stakelums
Magico’s Ursula Normoyle welcomed delegates before introducing Stakelums Hardware’s Joe Connolly for an insightful interview on Stakelum’s online journey. The conversation outlined how they built their eCommerce platform and successfully promoted it and engaged with customers throughout Covid, using innovative collaborations and activity to double-down on brand exposure and combat storage and logistics challenges.
“The catalyst for change was Covid”, explained Joe. Stakelums had an eCommerce platform in place at the time of the first lockdown, and when the effects of the lockdown kicked in and online orders kicked off, he and his team leaped into action.
Awareness and Acquire
The first session of the day – Awareness and Acquire – covered how to build awareness among your target market, convert them to a sale, and retain them as customers into the future.
Magico’s Breige Grogan started her presentation by pointing out the No.1 eCommerce myth: “If they build it, they will come”.
“When you get your business, your journey is only starting.” explained Breige, reminding delegates that it’s not enough to set up your online platform, you must reach out and connect with potential customers.
Acquiring a potential customer’s attention requires a marketing investment. When it comes to choosing the ideal marketing mix, it’s all down your target audience. Who are they? Where are they? What channels of communication do they use? What are their motivations and what messaging are they likely to respond to?
Once you have your target audience and a strong eCommerce and communications team, the next step is to start planning. “It’s better to be proactive than reactive,” explains Breige, “because being proactive means you can react more effectively.”
An Agency View
Giving an agency’s perspective on communications, Paul Walsh from Adhere Digital discussed the usage of Push and Pull marketing in raising Awareness and Acquiring new customers.
Push Marketing
Paul recommends using Push Marketing (pushing your products/brand to customers to raise awareness through content-based communications like emails and social media) in the following types of situations:
- When trying to sell a new, niche or unique product
- When launching a new website
- During holidays or seasonal events
- When clearing out end-of-season or excess stock
- When promoting brand awareness while competing against competition
He gave a caveat that Push campaigns tend to reach a wider audience but may yield lower conversion rates than Pull campaigns in the short-term.
Pull Marketing
As for Pull Marketing (where you draw customers to your products/brand through less intrusive communications like SEO), Paul recommends this channel:
- When you have high-demand products and you’re trying to sell them on your website
- To build a steady stream of users to your website
- When you want to maintain dominance in a certain search category
In contrast to Push Marketing, Pull Marketing will reach a smaller, more targeted audience, but will yield better conversion rates.
An insightful panel discussion on Acquisition Marketing including heavins.ie, stakelums.ie, pharmacystore.com and pharmadirect.com wrapped up this session.
In the next issue, we will cover the second session of the day, which covered: Convert and Fulfil.
