Unlocking the secrets of successful Direct-to-Consumer businesses
E-commerce trends & models
Newsletter #12 - Metaverse & E-commerce: marketing hype or real market?
February 23, 2024
Ralph Lauren dresses racing drivers on Fortnite, Gucci sells bags on Roblox and Yves Rocher plants trees on Minecraft.
More and more brands are integrating video games and the Metaverse into their marketing strategies, to the point of wondering whether it's a marketing stunt or a real market.
In this newsletter, I will share what I know about the subject and show you the super-creative campaigns of brands launching themselves into the virtual world!
What is the Metaverse?
The Metaverse is a virtual world inspired by science fiction:
🌎 Unique and fully conceptualised,
📲 Accessible via any connected device,
🤝 Collective and cooperative,
😎 Created and operated by users who interact via avatars,
💸 Governed by virtual and independent currencies that rely on the blockchain (such as Cryptocurrency or NFTs).
☝️ Not to be confused with Web3.
Web3 is a web version in which technologies and data are decentralised. Currently, our data is held by the companies that own the platforms on which we interact and create content (Google, Meta, etc.). In Web3, we would all own it, and our information would be stored and secured through the blockchain.
When fully developed, the Metaverse will revolutionise how brands connect and interact with their targets and customers.
According to the experts, this is still a good 20 years away.
An up-and-coming business...
The Metaverse does not yet exist.
But metaverses, virtual and independent universes, do.
And it is a flourishing business:
🤖 Roblox, the #1 metaverse platform, has surpassed $1.9 billion in revenue by 2021 and counts over 320 million users (67% of them under 16).
🪵 The Fortnite platform, estimated to be the most profitable game in history in 2019 and valued at $21 billion in April this year, has more than 350 million users (62% of whom are between 18 and 24).
🥽 As for Meta, while its augmented reality platform Horizon Worlds has only 300,000 users, its revenue could reach $630 billion by 2030.
No wonder brands are setting out to conquer these new digital worlds to position themselves now with a younger, digital native target.
👦🏼 Slow and steady wins the race
Before you think about releasing your products in 3D, I share here some tips to learn about Gen Z and easily adapt to their consumption patterns.
... and ultra-creative!
There's no need to panic if you don't yet have the budget to launch a virtual collection: e-commerce, as we know, still has many years to go.
On the other hand, brands' infatuation with these universes has led to the emergence of super-creative campaigns, which give a glimpse of what marketing could look like in the near future ⤵️
🐎 Ralph Lauren dresses Fortnite avatars
The American brand recently launched a collection of clothing and accessories called "Polo Stadium" in collaboration with the platform and revealed it live on Twitch.
Real-life pieces were also available online and in shop.
💅🏻 Urban Decay invites itself to Paris Hilton's party on Roblox
For Halloween, the cosmetics brand belonging to the L'Oréal group teamed up with the "Cryptoqueen" to host its first-ever virtual operation on Roblox.
Users could interact with the brand and discover some of its products in dedicated rooms.
🚗 Fiat launches its virtual car showroom
It's a departure from retail, but it's a first in automotive history!
Developed with Touchcast and Microsoft, users can discover the brand's latest releases and even interact with the virtual version of a human advisor who answers all their questions.
🌳 Yves Rocher plants trees in Minecraft
Last year, the brand partnered with the famous construction game to develop the "Minecraft #PlantForLife" project in favour of biodiversity.
For every tree planted virtually, 1 tree was actually planted in one of the 35 plantations of the Rocher Foundation. The brand had set itself the goal of reaching 100,000 trees.
👜 Gucci sells more expensive bags on Roblox
The luxury house launched the Gucci Garden on Roblox last year, a virtual exhibition space accessible for a few days only.
It was a successful marketing operation for the brand, selling a virtual bag for more than its authentic counterpart.
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E-commerce trends & models
Newsletter #11 - Elevate Your E-commerce Game with a Winning UGC and IGC Strategy
February 23, 2024
If like 87% of consumers, you read reviews on social networks before placing your first order, you already know that user-generated content and influencers are powerful conversion levers.
But how do you choose which strategy to adopt for your brand?
For this first newsletter of 2023, I compare their advantages and share with you five tools to break through in influencer marketing 🔥
Benefits of Influencer-Generated Content
Influencer-generated content is content created by users with at least 1000 subscribers. They are usually made at the explicit request of the brand, often for a fee.
Why are they so popular?
- Between 2016 and 2020, the influencer marketing market grew from $1.7 billion to $9.7 billion and is expected to reach $24.1 billion by 2025.
- 49% of online shoppers rely on the opinions of influencers before buying.
- They help build user trust in your brand.
- You leverage the influencer's community to reach a specific target.
- They can help you identify relevant trends for your products...
- ... and encourage users to create organic content!
👀 Who loves me follows me
By regularly calling on influencers on its various social networks, the Rouje brand organically retrieves qualitative User-Generated Content for free.
Benefits of User-Generated Content
UGC is content generated by your customers about your brand or your products. Their formats are more varied: videos, photos, stories, opinions or comments...
Why are they so popular?
- 92% of customers trust a brand recommended by their peers more.
- Consumers are 2.4 times more likely to consider a UGC more authentic than content created by your staff.
- Their engagement rate is, on average, 6.9 times higher.
- They make it easier for customers to relate to your products and encourage buying.
- They are an excellent way to gain their trust and federate a community
- 68% of customers who have had a positive experience with a brand are willing to recommend it!
💙 Bigblue Tip
UGCs are an integral part of Unbottled's marketing strategy and each of their products has several hundred reviews. Same method for making physical sales: reviews and comments are also displayed in shop!
PS: To easily collect reviews, Unbottled uses the Bigblue application to personalise its post-purchase emails and integrate the proper call-to-actions.
IGC or UGC: which one to adopt?
To define which strategy to favour, here are some requirements that can help you ⬇️
Influencer-generated content is an excellent option if you:
- Are looking for ultra-qualitative content that you can't produce in-house,
- Believe that your target audience is more likely to follow and rely on influencers.
- Have the proper marketing budget.
As for user-generated content, this is the perfect option if you :
- Want to collect content in large quantities and at (very) low cost.
- Choose authenticity over quality.
- Are confident in your post-purchase experience to build customer loyalty and boost engagement.
🪄 Nothing is lost, everything is transformed.
Reuse user-generated content and influencers for your ads! Thanks to this strategy, the Cabaïa brand recorded a 4x higher click-through rate.
Five tools to break down influencer marketing
As promised, I'm sharing some tools to optimise the collection, creation and distribution of content created by influencers and users!
- Archive: automatically saves the posts in which your brand is identified.
- Kolsquare: to quickly find the right influencers for your brand.
- Kynship: connect with the right content creators and turn them into ads.
- Wiink: to turn your customers into ambassadors and automate your UGC production.
- FOMO (it's all in the name): to notify your visitors what your customers are ordering in real time and generate a fear of missing out.
PS: Bigblue CEO Tim, recently shared his list of favourite e-commerce tools on LinkedIn 👀
E-commerce trends & models
Newsletter #9 - 4 tips to turn your marketing campaigns into viral content on TikTok
January 31, 2024
Nearly 50% of consumers use TikTok to discover new products, and 37% buy them immediately.
TikTok offers a golden opportunity to increase your turnover and your brand's reputation easily.
In this email, I will share our Top 4 tips to turn your marketing campaigns into viral content on TikTok and multiply your sales! ⚡️
Tip #1: Spot TikTok trends before anyone else 🔮
To find TikTok trends before anyone else, use the Creative Center.
This tool allows you to search by country and industry and then target trends that can be useful to you, such as:
- Hashtags: identify the most relevant and successful ones, find the creators who use them, get valuable information about their audience, etc.
- Songs and sounds: find the songs already trending or get ahead of the competition and find out which ones are gaining popularity.
🥊 Bigblue Hack
TikTok Creative Center does not include user-created sounds. To get them, head to the TikTok Sound Trend page and find out which ones generate the most engagement.
- And finally, the types of videos that work to your inspiration.
Tip #2 : Create User Generated Content to boost your sales 🤳
User Generated Content (UGC) is ideal for quickly increasing your prominence on networks (and your sales!):
💗 Super popular and viral content e.g. Over 155 million views for a Dermalogica unboxing,
👂 74% of consumers rely on peer recommendations on social networks before making a purchase,
⭐️ 68% of consumers would be willing to leave a review or comment for free if you ask them to.
You have two options to get good UGCs: through your customers or content creators/influencers.
For this, go to the TikTok Creators Marketplace to find relevant creators according to their country and number of followers!
🤜🤛 Bigblue friend
Build your community with WeWiink! It’s the perfect way to turn loyal customers into brand ambassadors and strengthen the community surrounding the brand that helps you make more sales.
Contact Joseph
Tip #3: target influencers on Amazon 🧾
With Amazon’s Influencer Program, content creators can link their TikTok account to their Amazon "storefront" (the equivalent of a page with their favourites).
Users can then easily find the products that the influencers present in their videos and, above all, buy them very quickly!
Cosmetic brands such as CeraVe, Aquaphor ou Paula's Choice have seen their Amazon sales increase by 83% on average after a viral video on TikTok.
🌱 Not selling on Amazon?
Content creators can add a link.tree to their TikTok bio! For example, you can negotiate the addition of a link to your site for a specific period.
Tip #4: Link your TikTok account to your Shopify 🛍
You can easily manage your TikTok ad campaigns from Shopify!
You must select the product you want to highlight, and the ad is automatically created.
Users are then redirected to your site to proceed to payment.
By implementing these tips, you'll be able to leverage the unique features and trends of TikTok to build a successful influencer marketing campaign.
Plus, if you want to take your influencer marketing strategy to the next level, check out our playbook, 'Product Seeding: The Key to Becoming an 8-figure Brand with Influencer Marketing'. You'll find everything you need to know about using product seeding to build brand awareness and drive sales via influencer partnerships.
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E-commerce trends & models
Newsletter #8 - 15 tips for a memorable unboxing experience
February 23, 2024
It is often said that you should not trust your first impression, especially in e-commerce.
Even the last impression is the most important because 80% of your customers will only order again if they are satisfied with the delivery experience.
One of the secrets to boosting their Lifetime Value is to offer them a memorable unboxing experience.
To inspire you, I have shared the strategies and secrets of the most beautiful DNVBs to make them unforgettable!
Personalise your packages to make you unforgettable
The number one rule for successful unboxing is to personalise your packaging so that your customers are immersed in your world.
68% say that personalised packaging guarantees quality and inspires trust.
Merci Handy understands this and always creates very creative packaging, as seen from its collab' with Stranger Things ⬇️
Don't worry, you don't have to go to that extreme. To stand out with your packaging, you can opt for:
- Personalising the outside and/or inside of your package
- A scotch tape or sticker in your colours.
- An original silk paper.
- A thank you card.
💡 Bigblue Tip
Thanks to Bigblue, Unbottled add a personalised thank you card written by Sarah, their founder, in their parcels. A little attention goes a long way; their customer satisfaction rate is 90% on average!
Be generous, and you will win your customers’ hearts!
In marketing, evoking emotion is the best way to attract attention and make yourself memorable to your customers and prospects.
61% say that the package's aesthetics plays a role in their enthusiasm when unpacking it!
To do this, you can take inspiration from those brands that include an unexpected product in their orders:
- Aesop’s small canvas bag that can be used as a toiletry bag.
- Sézane or Rouje tote bags, very easily identifiable and ultra-desirable (they are even sold on Vinted)!
- Pop stickers from From Future that you want to stick everywhere (like on Jules' computer from Bigblue)!
- Samples of your products, like Dermalogica.
🛠 Bigblue Tip
Dermalogica uses the Bigblue app to add free samples to their orders, but also customizable flyers according to seasonality (coupons, pre-sales, etc.).
Adapt to your customers’ needs
A returning customer costs on average 7x less than acquiring a new one!
Showing your customers that you know and care about them is a great way to build loyalty.
Transform your occasional buyers with packaging that fits their needs and fits them!
- Easy-to-carry packages with a built-in handle like Asos or Eram.
- A package/shoe box like CAVAL to store your pair of shores and reduce packaging.
- A ready-to-return package with tape and a pre-printed return slip like Zalando.
PS: if you like the design of their packaging, I found their patterns on Ken Hegemann's website 🤫
↪️ How about building customer loyalty through returns?
With our customisable returns portal and printerless technology, your customers return their orders independently. With store credit, you reduce refunds and retain revenue.
Tell me more
Tell your story
Take advantage of your packages to tell your story and highlight your values!
- Zeta reminds us of its mission, the components of its sneakers and their impact on the environment.
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- Cabaïa uses a protective bag made of 100% biodegradable and compostable vegetable cellulose, they guarantee its products for life and even show their support to the delivery people!
🌱 Bigblue Tips
At Bigblue, all our packaging is plastic-free! To protect fragile products, we use block box made from recycled and easily upcyclable clothing! Feel free to click here if you'd like to learn more about our commitments.
Go viral with your packaging!
Your packages can be excellent marketing levers because they allow you to get UGC!
This is no mean feat when you consider that 48% of consumers say that UGC allows them to discover new brands.
- The fun side of Hipli's reusable packages allows SMOON to retrieve content from Instagram and TikTok easily.
- Ziggy's parcels turn into a Meoeow Car and delight their customers, who send the brand photos to publish each week.
As you may know, we at Bigblue are obsessed with the marketing power of UGC.
We've held three webinars and written several newsletters and articles on the subject.
I'm sharing our free playbook Anatomy of a €3M UGC campaign with EVERYTHING you need to know about customer-generated content.
If, like me, you are passionate about unboxing (and a little curious about what others are doing), I recommend this Instagram account.
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E-commerce trends & models
Newsletter #7 - Partnerships: Leverage your network and gain new customers 🎯
January 31, 2024
Because they are the most effective and least expensive organic acquisition channels on the market, Networking and Partnerships continue to be successful marketing tools in the UK.
To help you strengthen or build your referral strategy, I've shared the method that Caroline Mignaux revealed to our CEO, Tim. This method highlights how you can easily gain new customers via partnerships and boost your sales during Q1.
The 3 benefits of networking
1️. Reduce acquisition costs by sharing your audiences with your partner, rather than spending a fortune to get new customers.
2️. Gain visibility to an ultra-relevant audience and grow your community.
3️. Leverage your social proof and establish your authority by increasing your partner brand awareness.
The most effective types of partnerships
- Co-branding
Co-branding, or collaboration, is not a new method and simply consists of two brands creating a product that merges their two worlds.
Contrary to popular belief, this marketing practice is popular between the big (Apple x Hermes) and between the small (M.Moustache x Hast). Today, it is becoming more and more common that the small and the big are partnering up with one another! (Nespresso x Zeta, CAVAL x Saint James, Faguo x Aigle, etc.)
Thanks to their partnership, Faguo was able to take advantage of Aigle's Asian clientele which established itself in a new market. On the other hand, Aigle gave itself a facelift by associating itself with a DNVB.
- The bundle
This is when two brands offer their products and services together, for example, in a limited edition range or a competition. As with Unbottled x Meuf, this allows you to boost your engagement by taking advantage of cross-communication, generate more leads, and increase your sales.
🔀 Are you interested in bundles?
Using Bigblue, Meuf and Unbottled launched a bundle offer and set up their cross-sales campaign.
- Affiliate marketing
E-commerce affiliation consists of selling your products on an affiliate site, often from a dedicated page. The affiliate receives a commission for each sale made and the advertiser’s site increases its sales and traffic.
- Cross-selling
Cross-selling is when you offer your customers the opportunity to buy additional and often complementary products. This technique increases your sales by an average of 20% and improves your customer’s overall experience. If your products and your partner's products are complementary, you can definitely use cross-selling to mutually increase your sales, like Campingaz with Decathlon.
🛠 Bigblue Tip
I recently discovered the Capio tool; this makes it easy to find the right partner site to cross-sell to!
The check-list to organize and automate your partnerships
✅ Step 1: Define your objective
To do this, all you need to do is determine what impact you are going to prioritise:
- Gain visibility
- Build your authority
- Generate more leads to increase your database
By focusing on one objective, you'll have a much better chance of maximising your profits and making your co-marketing operation a success.
✅ Step 2: Find the right partner
"Like attracts like". Yet, 70% of partnerships fail because of a poor choice of partner.
To succeed in your partnership, you need to have a culture fit:
- a common goal,
- similar values,
- similar audiences,
- equivalent processes,
- resources that complement or reinforce each other (for example, if you are looking to launch on Youtube and your partner is already present there).
💡Tip for finding the right partners quickly
The Reachmaker tool created by Caroline analyses more than 2000 of your competitors and peers to propose collaborations adapted to your needs.
✅ Step 3: Process
To save time and quickly enrich your list of partners, I strongly recommend that you offer them an onboarding kit.
For example, you can make a dedicated onboarding kit, as if you were welcoming a new employee to your team.
As you will be working together, it is important to share knowledge e.g. tips, tricks and resources... be generous! Your partner will feel more involved and your partnership will thrive.
E-commerce trends & models
Newsletter #6 - Pro or Cons: the secrets to winning big this Black Friday
January 31, 2024
As the most important sales period in the retail world (30% of annual turnover on average), it is difficult to miss Black Friday when you are an e-tailer.
Whether you're for or against it, it's essential to be well prepared so as not to miss the opportunity to get your brand talked about (a lot), capture new customers and anticipate your sales for Christmas 2022.
To help you out, here are 4 tips, tricks and brand examples to get you in shape and shine this Black Friday.
1️. 10 letters: a-n-t-i-c-i-p-a-t-e
November has become as big a month as December for e-commerce in the UK, largely due to Black Friday.
In 2021, Shopify's sales exceeded $6 billion over the BFCM period and the platform is targeting a +23% increase for 2022.
Your customers have money to spend, now is the time to go and get them!
💡This also applies to your post-purchase experience!
Whether you manage your shipments in-house or go through a 3PL solution, I'm sharing my checklist for optimising your logistics this BFCM:
☑️ Announce achievable delivery times (with increasing volumes, carriers are bound to fall behind).
☑️ Predict the right level of stock (depending on sales, types of promotions applied, etc.). To help you, I recommend Prediko.
☑️ If you manage your logistics in-house, you will definitely need additional manpower to prepare orders (you can go through Side, for example).
☑️ Make your returns easy and take care of your follow-up emails to ease your customer support!
2️. Segment your audiences
The closer D-Day arrives, the higher the CACs will climb.
So much so that it will be virtually impossible to reach a cold target without sacrificing a good part of your annual marketing budget.
Whether you participate or not, anticipate and take advantage of the pre-Black Friday period to segment your audiences and invest in your future hot targets (customers, subscribers, fans, etc.)!
🔥 During Black Friday, the trends are reversed!
I share with you the ranking of the sources that generate the most traffic:
🥇26 % via SEO.
🥈24 % via paid (social and search).
🥉17 % in organic searches.
⭐️ 7 % via email.
Source: Contentsquare
3️. Be creative and vary the formats.
Stand out in the feeds/email box/Google results of your potential customers by being creative!
For inspiration, here are some examples of brand campaigns for and against Black Friday ⤵️
✅ FOR
Gymshark's parody of a gym session to announce their Black Friday 2021 offers to their customers.
👀 Are you interested in Gymshark's campaigns?
We've listed about 20 of their email marketing and Ads campaigns for you in this playbook.
Download for free
Apple's "FOMO" emails (aka. Fear Of Missing Out), to keep the suspense going and tease your offers gradually.
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Kohl's Twitter contest. The brand offered $500 gift cards in exchange for retweets and comments. A great way to get the word out, while creating interaction with their current and potential customers!
❌ AGAINST
Not doing discounts is not a reason not to communicate.
On the contrary: this is the time to promote your commitments!
Here are some examples 👇
Patagonia's "Don't buy this jacket" campaign in 2011, a first. In 2016, with "100% for the planet", it committed to donate all its profits to environmental protection.
To make it memorable, the Picture brand had completely closed its site on 26 November 2021.
Click here to watch the video ⤵️
For the 2021 sales, the fashion brand Asphalte played it funny with the "No Sales", an idea you can totally pick up for Black Friday.
✊ Unity is strength
More and more brands are fighting back and boycotting this day! To learn more, I list here a small but not exhaustive list of anti-Black Friday collectives and initiatives:
-> Make My Friday Green Again (Faguo)
-> Black for Good (Typology)
-> Green Friday (Federation Envie)
4. Optimise your website on mobile!
Heavily influenced by the health crisis, Black Friday has become a real mobile phenomenon: 70% of Shopify sales were made on smartphones.
Knowing that 52% of users will not go beyond the second scroll, I strongly recommend that you optimize your e-commerce on this medium as a priority by prioritizing simple landing pages and product pages!
The product pages that convert the most on mobile are those on which you can see:
- The name of the product,
- A photo,
- Its price,
- A brief description,
- A call to action
🌱 3 tips for a more eco-friendly website
Small streams make big rivers, whether you are doing discounts, or not!
-> A dark theme requires fewer resources than a white theme (see the new SNCF website).
-> 2D animations require fewer resources than 3D ones.
-> Videos take up a lot of space on the servers, so choose light visuals for your product pages.
E-commerce trends & models
Newsletter #5 - The ultimate cheatsheet to generate high-open rate email subjects
January 31, 2024
In a marketing email, writing the subject line is probably the most important step.
The future of your campaign will depend on these few words: convert your leads into customers or end up in the spam folder.
To avoid the second option, let me share my cheat sheet with you so you can write subject lines that will send your open rates through the roof ⤵️
☑️ Keep it short
About 40% of your leads will open your emails on mobile. If your subject line is too long, it will be automatically cut and you may miss your goal: for your email to be read.
Therefore, it is better not to exceed 50 characters
To make sure that your subject line is visible on all media, I recommend that you always start by setting up your email on mobile before you do the same on a desktop!
💡 Bonus tips to shorten your subject lines.
-> Delete adverbs, adjectives, pronouns and prepositions.
-> Replace sentences with one word.
-> Prioritise single-digit numbers over longer numbers (I’ll tell you more below)!
☑️ Provoke an emotion
If you want your recipients to click, you need to pique their curiosity.
To do so, there are keywords that give rise to 7 universal emotions:
- Vanity: brilliant, sexy, awesome, unbeatable...
- Laziness: guide, simple, in less than, child’s play...
- Greed: enjoy, benefit, huge...
- Urgency: don’t miss out on, more than…
- Humour: funny, entertaining, original...
- Trust: approved, tested, authentic, a lifetime...
- Desire: for you, custom, unique...
🎁 Bonus: 17 words that naturally arouse curiosity
-> adjectives: surprising, strange, limited, overview, unknown, confidential, forbidden, unprecedented, private...
-> verbs: discover, unveil, reveal...
-> nouns: secret, invitation, confession...
-> expressions: behind the scenes, hidden side...
☑️ Don’t be afraid of humour!
Like yours, your leads’ inboxes are flooded with emails every day.
Using humour is a great way to stand out (and to improve your personal branding, by the way)!
PS: brands that sell using humour know their target audience inside out, so I recommend you segment your lists before you start.
💌 How to achieve +30% sales through email.
To help you increase your turnover quickly, I'm sharing Bigblue and Wisepop's free playbook to learn how to segment your target audience and build an effective email marketing strategy for your e-commerce ⤵️
Access the playbook for free
☑️ Use numbers
It’s science, the human brain is naturally attracted to numbers, partly because they help us organise information in a logical way.
There is even talk of "brain candy" 🍭
💡 3 fun facts on the use of numbers in marketing.
-> Small numbers (digits) are easier for the audience to get their head around,
-> Odd numbers are perceived as more authentic than even numbers,
-> Even numbers make it easier to retain information.
☑️ Speak the same language
If you had to remember just one rule about subject lines, let it be this: always talk to human beings.
When you write your subject line, ask yourself "Would I like to read this?" and you will quickly identify superfluous words.
PS: applied to the subject lines of all your marketing emails (and even to your overall strategy), this concept is a great way to improve your customer experience!
For example, in your follow-up emails:
✅ "Your order is on its way!"
❌ "Order n°438643763 is being processed"
🌈 Maintain a good relationship with your clients, even after payment!
To give your customers a memorable experience and increase your Net Promoter Score (NPS), personalise your post-purchase emails like those of OMA&ME!
Know more
☑️ All caps and exclamation marks should be banned
Subjects lines such as "OPEN FAST AND GET A FREE TRIAL" or "50% discount for 24h only!!!!!!!! will not help you improve your open rate.
Your mail will probably be ignored, or worse... it will end up in the spam folder!
All you will have managed to do is to lower your Sender Score.
⭐️ What’s the Sender Score?
A score between 0 and 100 (>70 is considered bad), it defines your reliability as a sender based on the behavior of your recipients (spamming, number of unsubscriptions, etc.). You can calculate it for free on Senderscore.org.
☑️ Remain human
The secret to getting a place in your leads’ inboxes: become their best friend.
The first step is to humanise your “from” name (see your email address, for example: julie@yourfriend.com), even if your email is automatically sent from a generic address.
Unbottled sends their marketing emails using Sarah’s name, their founder. ⤵️
PS: Don't worry, I’m not a robot 🤖
☑️ Use emojis
56% of brands that use emojis in their subject lines have better open rates.
This is not surprising since they allow to:
- Easily convey an emotion or idea (ideal when you run out of space),
- Stand out in your recipients’ inboxes
- Remember a message more easily.
💡3 fun facts about emojis in marketing
🧔🏻♂️ Men are more likely to view emojis as having no place in a brand’s communications,
👧🏼 Those aged 25 to 44 year are the most favourable to emojis,
🥇 There is a Hubspot ranking of emojis with the best open rates ⤵️
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E-commerce trends & models
Newsletter #4 - SEO: How to rank first on Google in just 3 months
January 31, 2024
If you're ever looking for the perfect place to hide a body, you may be recommended on page 2 of Google results: 91% of users never go there.
However, if you want to make your acquisition strategy profitable, placing your e-commerce webpage in the top 10 Google results must be in your top 3 priorities.
But, facing giants like Amazon or La Redoute and improving your natural organic ranking when you are a DNVB can quickly become impossible...
... unless you have the right strategy!
So, I will now share with you Adrien Croville's checklist (SEO expert and founder of the Mentor Marketing agency) to thwart the SEO strategies of marketplaces thanks to the right keywords and rank first on Google.
☑️ Capturing user’s intent
Before you start looking for keywords for your e-commerce, you must divide them into 2 categories:
● Informational keywords: the gateway to your SEO tunnel (e.g. how to keep your vegan trainers in a good shape).
● Transactional keywords: those that users will type in when they intend to buy (e.g. buy vegan trainers in Paris). These are generally the most difficult to capture, as they are often taken over by the biggest e-shop vendors.
🛣 Adrien's advice to increase your traffic
Avoid trying to put too many keywords on your product pages as they can change regularly (especially in the clothing sector). Instead, Adrien recommends optimizing your category pages!
☑️ Identify your keywords and their monthly search volume
There are different methods depending on the size of your business and your needs:
🛠 Free tools.
- Do a manual search on Google, to check if you appear on the first page or not and pick out keyword inspirations.
- The Google Search Console tool gives you info on user queries before they get to your site.
- Ubersuggest gives you an overview of your positioning compared to your competitors.
💸 Paid tools.
- For €89/month, Ahrefs generates lists of keywords according to their search volume, CPC, location, etc.
- For around €100/month, you can use its competitor, Semrush, which has a database 3 times larger.
☑️ Inspecting Meta Titles
You simply have to enter your keyword, followed by "allintitle:" on Google and it will give you the number of websites where it is found in the Meta Title (e.g. more than 166k for "linen pillowcase").
If the result is under 5k, you should be able to rank pretty easily with this keyword. However, above 10k, it becomes more complicated.
☑️ Estimate the ideal word count for your product pages.
To do this, there's nothing like following your competitors. Using tools like yourtext.guru (which offers free trials!) or Semrush 👀.
Their algorithm will analyse the number of words present on the first 10 URLs.
⏱ Growth technique to go faster
Semrush also allows you to grab other keywords to rank higher in Google searches! For example, for the query "linen pillowcase", competitors also position themselves on "fitted sheet" or "natural duvet".
☑️ Marketplaces are your friends!
Despite all expectations, having marketplaces ranked in the top 10 of Google results can be a great asset for your e-commerce! This is because Google is likely to prefer the small ones and automatically rank them higher.
💡 Bigblue Tip to improve your natural SEO
Once again, get inspired by the marketplaces and their functionalities! For example, by offering its customers an intuitive and personalised return portal, the brand CAVAL improves the referencing of its FAQ and its site at the same time!
Learn more
☑️ Determine your minimum Referring Domain
It's about identifying the number of backlinks you need to rank by keeping an eye on your competitors.
You can use the SEObserver tool to find out how many backlinks they have and use this as a guide for your SEO strategy.
🐫 Adrien's two tips if you don't have enough backlinks
1️.First, you can focus on optimising your informational keywords and producing content (blog posts, etc.). It will improve your internal linking.
2️. Keep an eye on your competitors to get inspired by their strategies! With Ahrefs or Semrush, you can see the backlinks that redirect the most traffic to their product pages!
☑️ Avoiding duplicates
Here are two things you should know about duplicates:
● Plagiarism does not please Google, and if the No. 1 GAFA ever accuses you of plagiarising a site, you should consider getting a lawyer.
● This is important because if you have two identical pages, Google will randomly choose to display only one of them.
☑️ Analyse the order of the tabs under the search bar
For transactional keywords, if "Shopping" appears after "All" when you type in your keyword, it means that Google recognises that it is a commercial query, and you are more likely to rank higher.
For example, the query "guinea pig wig" exists as a commercial query, whereas "camel wig" does not!
According to Adrien, if you apply this method every time you search for a keyword, your efforts should start to pay off within three months.
You'll be able to sleep peacefully while your e-commerce business naturally rises in the Google rankings.
And to push your SEO knowledge a little further, here is the link to a free and ultra-detailed playbook on the subject ⤵️