Category: Strategy

There is no secret that any e-commerce tracks its sales data through Google Analytics. But how correct and reliable are the sales figures?

We tried to compare the tracking of the most used free analysis tool in the world with the precision segmentation of Rfmcube – let’s find out the differences!

The Method

For our research we have selected a sample of 3 e-commerce stores of different sizes using Rfmcube.

For each, 3 segments have been created on Google Analytics:

• New Customers (transactions = 1)
• Recurring Customers (transactions per user> 1)
• All other clients

Then we analyzed the buying behavior of the 3 segments in 2 different periods:

• last month
• the same month of the previous year

Finally, we compared the Average Receipt (AOV), Order Number and Revenue metrics with the Rfmcube charts to see if and to what extent the numbers differ.

As a result of doing this we have selected an e-commerce with Analytics accounts as “healthy” as possible to exclude gross tracking problems.

Data comparison Rfmcube / GA shop # 1

The first E-commerce examined sells hi-tech consumer products and has a volume of about 700 orders / month.

COMPARISON 1. February 2020 data

As you can see, the numbers shown by Analytics deviate significantly from the reality shown in Rfmcube.

What stands out is the greater attribution of sales to new customers in GA, followed by a negligible number of recurring customers: only 48 are tracked compared to 283 by Rfmcube, with a turnover of only 13.235 euros instead of 37.923 euros as it is supposed to be

Finally, the most surprising data is: these 48 recurring customers (instead of 283), who spent 13k (instead of 37k), had an average receipt of 275 euros, while the average receipt of recurring customers accurately tracked by Rfmcube is only 134 euros.

Having read the Analytics data it may seem that there are very few recurring customers who buy with an average receipt of 80 euros higher than new customers.

Instead the reality that clearly emerges in Rfmcube is that:

• sales of recurring customer are much higher: 283 instead of 48
• consequently, the turnover generated by the applicants is highertoo: 37k instead of 13k
•  the average receipt of applicants is much lower: 134 euros instead of 275
• on the contrary, the average receipt for new customers is much higher than what is reported in GA: 235 euros instead of 195 euros
• GA tracked a total of 722 orders instead of 754: an error margin of “only” 32 orders is lower than the only recurring segment

GA data always have a certain margin of error, which tends to deteriorate in the Recurring Customers segment.

The most accurate figure of GA is the aggregate figure of the average receipt – 200 euros instead of 197 euros.

We continue the analysis to see if our suspicions are confirmed.

COMPARISON 2. data February 2019

The data from February 2019 shows a similar trend with far fewer recurring customers tracked by GA than in reality (54 instead of 283).

Compared to 2020 data, we observe:

• a better match in overall turnover volume: 137k instead of 147k, i.e. only 10k difference
• a greater margin of error regarding the number of orders: 630 instead of 754, i.e. 124 orders of difference!

Shop # 2 data comparison

The second e-commerce analyzed sells costume jewelery products is smaller than the previous one with a sales volume of about 200 orders / month.

COMPARISON 1. February 2020 data

We find more or less the same discrepancy in the data, which increases severely in the case of Recurring Customers:

• 29 orders instead of 140
• 1.5k euros of turnover generated instead of 7.3k

In relation to the lower numbers, the discrepancy in the aggregate data is even greater than in the previous case:

• 169 orders instead of 296
• 7,588 euros instead of 13.601

Instead we see a good match in the turnover of new customers (6k instead of 6.2k), which is probably because many sales attributed to them by Google analytics are actually attributable to recurring customers.

Once again, the most accurate metric remains the average receipt.

COMPARISON 2. data February 2019

The data of February 2019 confirm the discrepancies of 2020. What is more, there is a significant error regarding the Average Receipt of the Applicants: 29 euros instead of 45.

Comparison 3

COMPARISON 1. February 2020 data

Here we have the third and final E-commerce of our analysis. Sales volumes are much higher than the previous ones, namely over 2k orders/month on avarage.

The same errors are unavoidable, and we can already begin to consider a constant:

• a significant but not serious difference in the number of total orders (2.157 instead of 2.327)
• an overestimated number of new customers (2.003 instead of 1,297)
• a small number of applicants compared to reality (154 instead of 1.030)

Also in this case, the average receipt is the best comparable value.

COMPARISON 2. data February 2019

The situation in the February 2019 report is the same.

Conclusions

GA’s data exhibits discrepancies at various levels, but these are critical when dealing with recurring customers.

The most likely explanation for this discrepancy is quite simple: Google Analytics struggles to determine when a customer is recurring.

This is because the recognition of users in GA takes place through cookies and the tools that the browser makes available (local storage), so this cannot guarantee the user’s identity over time.

Having a hard time recognizing a user as a recurring user (because they deleted their cookies, changed their device, etc.) they will tend to attribute much more sales to new customers than required in reality.

Concerning the orders as aggregate data that Analytics was unable to count, they can depend on several factors such as:

• the user closed the thank-you-page before the Analytics code was activated
• the customer subsequently canceled the order
• by mistake some marketing employee has viewed the thank-you-page because he had to do some work, but has not set an IP filter on GA and is counted as a customer
• backend orders have been generated, for example in the case of closed sales with the help of telephone support

How do I solve these problems? Should I throw Google Analytics in the trash can?

Absolutely not! Google Analytyics remains the best free tracking tool ever, and a powerful ally for analyzing the performance of your E-commerce

Particularly when you have to analyze data such as browsing behavior between pages, or traffic acquisition sources, there’s nothing better than Google that can give you the data you are looking for.

The problems begin when it comes to tracking less “fluttering” entities such as orders and customers.

In this case, as we have seen, common tracking via javascript turns out to be approximate at best, misleading at worst (as in the case of recurring customers).

It is possible to partially fix this if you have a programmer willing to take the time.

GA in fact provides APIs for developers and allows you to significantly improve the quality of tracking through technologies such as User ID and Server-side tracking (go to the Google Analytics developer guide).

But keep in mind that in the free version of GA, even if you have the time and resources to set it up, the tracking problems will never completely disappear.

Although cross-browser and cross-device user recognition is possible (at least in theory), certain limits seem objectively insurmountable, for example:

• the problem of tracking a return or order cancellation remains
• you can not measure backend closed orders (e.g. telephone orders)
• during platform switching periods, it is easy to make mistakes and run into “holes” of orders in the migration period

However, the most insurmountable mistake of all remains one:

• the inability to show retroactive data (and I would also like to see, it’s free!)

This means that even now if you decide to start a more serious tracking on GA, it will always and only from NOW onwards.

As an alternative you can continue to use Google Analytics for the countless valuable Reports it provides, but rely on Rfmcube when you need to accurately measure order and customer data.

Starting from the free trial, you will be able to have an instant and retroactive overview of all your customer history, from the first to the last day of your Store’s activity with 100% accuracy.

Do you think your Google Analytics is better and doesn’t have all those discrepancies seen above?

Challenge accepted! Compare the data of your GA with the data you will find on Rfmcube: if the data is 100% aligned (2020 and 2019 data) you will receive 1 full year of free subscription as a gift!

What are you waiting for? Find out the real story of your customers now ⬇️⬇️

Summer is a time for vacations and travel. Some people want to go to the sea, in the mountains, in nature, while others prefer large cities and distant countries. But all share one thing – the desire to have a good rest in comfortable conditions.

At this point, many people start thinking about how to organize a perfect vacation: to ask for help from a travel agency or to cope on their own. As practice shows, most people choose the second option, because it is at least can be much cheaper, and as a maximum – you can choose all the details yourself. And some people just love these worries about planning trips.

This is where booking comes to the aid of travelers. Read our article about what it is, how it works, and what advice experienced travelers can give.

Online Hotel Booking

If you are planning a short trip or a long trip, you will have to review more than one site in search of a hotel. It is only necessary to type in the search engine the city of the intended residence, as the user sees a whole list of services offering hotels of any category, apartments, rooms in a pension, houses or rooms. Among them, “Booking.com” occupies one of the leading places.  It is a site where anyone can easily find an appropriate hotel based on the desired location, reasonable price and other characteristics.

However, Booking is not the only system for searching and booking hotels. There are many similar resources where you can book accommodation and even find unique offers.

We would like to recommend booking to experienced travelers who like to bother with the organization of travel more than they want to save money and protect themselves from force majeure situations. No matter how you look at it, every user of the service can meet with booking incidents (especially with payment by card) and unpleasant situations in the trip, which will have to be solved by him, and only by him.

Online hotel booking is the same as regular booking, only automated via the Internet, bypassing the human factor.

The client selects the desired option on the Internet: country, city, hotel, room of the appropriate category, date of arrival and departure, payment method, necessary services. The client must fill out the form and provide information about themselves.

Advantages of Booking

In fact, there are many advantages of online booking:

First of all, permanent access to booking — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, that is, the ability to book a room at a convenient time. At any time of the day or night, regardless of time zones, the tourist simply fills out a form, the electronic system checks the availability of the number itself and enters the data. The hotel Manager controls the availability of rooms during working hours and enters data into the system. When checking in or booking data is automatically entered in the database, double booking is excluded.

Secondly, a tourist can book a room in a matter of minutes— no need to wait. In a world where we value every minute, this is a very important advantage.

Third – it saves your money. Prices in online booking are always cheaper than in the agency and, as a rule, less than at the counter.

Fourth, you can book a room from literally anywhere with Internet access. During the flight, you changed your mind and want to stay in another hotel? You can easily do this using online booking.

Fifth, you can carefully read the offer of the hotel and the rooms booked, choose additional services and take advantage of discounts set by the owner or manager.

Another advantage is that booking cancellations also occur in the online system. The hotel announces the dates before which you can simply cancel the room without penalty. If the trip was canceled, conditions and dates changed, the tourist cancels the reservation. The action also takes a few minutes.

And the most important thing is confidence. When you arrive at the hotel, you risk facing the fact that all the rooms are occupied and you will have to look for another place. You can’t disagree, this can spoil all the impressions of your vacation. With online booking, you don’t have to worry about this. Online hotel booking helps you get a guarantee of your room in a few minutes. Just fill out the form on the site, send a request and confirmation will appear immediately. The online booking system will send all the necessary documents to the traveler by email. The hotel will know the date of arrival and personal information, will be able to pick up staff who speak the language of the tourist, and prepare everything for a comfortable stay.

Disadvantages of Booking

Like any online system, booking has its drawbacks. Here are some of them:

1.   You may not always be sure that you will get exactly the room you have booked. Unscrupulous hotel owners often post photos with better conditions than they can offer themselves or photos of rooms from a higher price category. And, unfortunately, there is no way you can check it before you arrive.
2.   Another bad thing about booking is that your card details end up in the hands of the hotel staff. Usually there are no problems with this, but sometimes there are reviews on the Internet that unscrupulous hotel employees stole money from the card. To avoid such a misunderstanding with you, it is better to use a separate card for hotel booking when booking, where there is enough money only for booking, or there is a limit on withdrawals.

How to Book the Best Room

Choosing the best option, you need to start from your requirements and budget. And start the search, of course, with the hotel. You should pay attention to such items as:

•         Location. First of all, see if it will be convenient to get to the hotel from the airport, whether there are metro stations nearby, and whether it will be convenient for you to visit the places you wanted.
•         Number of stars. This item depends more on your budget. Do you want to relax in style or do you need a small but cozy room? Perhaps you will not refuse the hostel?
•         Client feedback. Hotels can tell you about their services in any color, but in this case your main assistant is the reviews of those who have already lived in this hotel. If the reviews are bad or completely absent, you should think about it.

Many hotels offer different prices for the same room. The minimum fare means that you are dealing with a non-refundable fare and even in case of force majeure, you won’t be able to get your money back after canceling the trip. If the room price is higher, the reservation is canceled in full without penalty.

When the hotel is selected, you can proceed to selecting a room. Usually, online booking services can set search filters based on any details, up to whether you want a room with a bath or shower. Pay attention to all the details. Do you want a room with a view of the city or a courtyard? Is Breakfast included in the price? What facilities are available in the room?

Some booking sites have special offers. For example, they give a discount on a reservation for each invited friend, or offer discounts when booking for a certain amount. Read these offers carefully and you may be able to save some money.

Be sure that among all the variety of offers you will find the perfect option for yourself.

Once you understand what a booking is, you will make your life much easier. You will not have to pay agents for the simplest actions that are available to everyone. Now you can easily plan and organize your trip, as well as make adjustments to it at any stage.

Travel with pleasure!

E-learning has ceased to be something innovative long time ago. There is probably not a single person who is not directly or indirectly familiar with it.

Today, you can find a huge number of training courses in any direction on the Internet. E-learning has become so popular that some people even prefer this method of education and refuse to go to universities. Scientists suggest that in a few decades, e-learning will completely replace higher education institutions and become the main way to get education.

So it is not surprising that people are creating more and more of their own educational programs and opening whole e-schools.

In this regard, a very important question arose on the agenda: how to effectively distribute and sell these e-courses?

Working in a highly competitive market forces entrepreneurs to introduce new tools for interacting with the target audience for the purpose of selling into their marketing strategy. And direct marketing has become that strategy.

What is direct marketing and how it works with e-learning – we will try to explain in this article.

What is Direct Marketing

Direct marketing is a direct personal communication of market participants, the purpose of which is the object of marketing. It is one of the main means of marketing communications.

Direct marketing has this name because it does not use intermediaries for communication and assumes feedback from the consumer.

This is a marketing tool where the seller communicates with the target audience by directly addressing each representative of the target audience personally.

Direct marketing tasks:

•         filtering communication subjects from a large target group
•         lead generation;
•         conversion of communication subjects to clients;
•         acquisition of new clients;
•         retention of clients and further development of relations with them;
•         forming the necessary opinion and decision.

A special feature of direct marketing is the personal selection of potential buyers to establish direct two-way communication with them, as well as regular maintenance of individual relationships with this buyer.

The main tool of direct marketing is an organized and constantly updated database of consumers of educational services. Educational institutions use these databases to identify potential consumers of their services, select a group from the total number of consumers a specific offer can be sent to, increase customer loyalty, and promote sales of educational services and products. With complete information about the characteristics and preferences of the consumer, manufacturers can make a special personal appeal to the buyer, who otherwise will remain indifferent to advertising.

What is Good About Direct Marketing

Direct marketing is perfect to use in case the personal value of the subject of communication is high. When as a result of direct communication, it is likely to get a new buyer. The cost of direct communication, in this case, is significantly lower than the benefit from selling the marketing object to this buyer. E-learning is one of these market segments.

Direct marketing is an indispensable tool for spreading e-learning for a variety of reasons.

First of all, direct marketing speeds up the process of attracting potential customers. Direct marketing campaigns allow manufacturers to quickly connect with their target audience and make the right offer at the right time.

Secondly, direct marketing contributes to the effective promotion of services and products. Unlike other strategies, direct marketing allows manufacturers to create targeted campaigns to attract only interested leads. This is really effective, given the fact that the owners of electronic schools know their buyers exactly. This ensures maximum efficiency when sending promotional mailings to a segmented audience.

Third, it allows to send personalized content. Marketers collect information such as age, income, and behavioral factors to send personalized messages. Thus, with minimal effort, brands show interest in each client. In that way, they win their trust and stimulate the desire to purchase their product.

And the last but not the least, it is easy to evaluate performance. Brands track the success of campaigns based on indicators such as the number of customers who responded to ads and the revenue generated. In addition, direct marketing lets you know how many customers are willing to spend on certain products or services.

Direct Marketing Types

1.   Personal sales – direct interaction with one or more potential consumers of e-learning services in order to organize presentations, answer questions, and conclude training contracts;
2.   Direct mail advertising is an advertising message for one type of e-learning service distributed by mail can be simple (a letter on one page) or complex (a package consisting of a multi-page letter, a brochure, additional advertising leaflets, etc.);
3.   Telephone marketing – to make personal contact with a potential consumer of e-learning services, electronic schools use phone calls. In this case, both incoming and outgoing calls are used. In incoming calls, a potential customer may ask for a more detailed description of the product and service, and in outgoing calls, the product is advertised.
4.   Trial lessons are also a great way to promote e-learning due to their visibility. A potential customer not only gets a beautiful fairy tale about the product, but also can independently verify its quality and convenience. Such free trial lessons give a potential client time to think and compare the services with other e-learning services, so, first of all, it is necessary that the lessons are of high quality, interesting, illustrative and memorable.
5.   Unique offers-discounts, coupons, promotions, etc. These tools will also serve as a great way to attract customers. After noticing such offers, a potential buyer is unlikely to refuse to buy. After all, everyone loves profit.

Of course, these methods work best together. However, we can also use them separately.

Advantages of DM

Earlier in the text, we have repeatedly said that direct marketing is the best tool for promoting e-learning. Now it’s time to tell you why this type of marketing in this case is simply irreplaceable.

1.   Direct marketing allows you to build long-term relationships with the client. Due to the fact that this method allows to identify the needs of each individual client, they become not one-time, but regular customers. Accordingly, the same customer will use the services of a particular e-learning company more often.
2.   Due to the fact that communication with the client is direct, you can adjust a particular service or product, taking into account customer complaints and suggestions. In addition to the fact that this will probably improve the company’s e-learning service, it will also let the client know that their wishes are being listened to. This means that they will stay with the company longer.
3.   This marketing strategy is suitable for promoting any type of e-learning (and not only e-learning).
4.   Relatively low costs. This is achieved due to the fact that the ad aims at an already interested person.

Hopefully now we have finally managed to convince you that direct marketing is the best assistant in promoting e-learning. Due to its unique advantages, this type of marketing has become one of the most popular in the field of e-learning advertising. That’s undoubtedly not the only way to promote e-learning, but, as experience has shown, it is the most effective. Therefore, using it in addition to other advertising methods, you will definitely succeed in engaging new customers.

Don’t know how to properly manage marketing for your online business?

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Over the past few years, many companies have massively moved to the Internet. Today it is difficult to imagine that any organization does not have a website on the Internet or at least a page on Facebook. Some companies even have abandoned offline sales altogether and only carry them out through the network.

These global changes have made it necessary to somehow establish online sales and find some ways to reach more customers than ever. Numerous researchers have shown that the user makes a purchase on average after 4-6 site visits. And the solution was found: retargeting appeared.

Today, there is hardly a person who is not familiar with this concept, or at least has not heard of it. Retargeting is so popular now that some universities have introduced it into their curriculum. Moreover, major companies such as Google and Facebook have even created special Ads to help set it up.

What is so remarkable about retargeting and how to work with it – let’s try to figure it out in this article.

What is Retargeting

Has it ever happened to you that after viewing a website, you started being “harassed” by ads from the same site? If so, congratulations, you have encountered retargeting!

Retargeting is an advertising tool that can be used to return users who have already visited the site.

According to statistics, 95-99% of users leave the site without a purchase or request. There are a lot of visitors that companies spend a lot of money to involve, but they leave the site without buying and may never return. The point of retargeting is to bring these users back to the site.

Remarketing is also a common concept. In fact, retargeting and remarketing are the same technology. The only difference is that the concept of remarketing is used when referring to ads in Google Ads, which will be displayed in the Google display network, and retargeting – ads in social networks, such as Instagram or Facebook.

Retargeting helps companies to complete customer’s conversions. For example, a user visited a site but did not place an order.

What companies can do with retargeting:

•         motivate the user to complete the purchase;
•         recommend products based on user’s views;
•         show new products or offers to engage in a new purchase cycle or encourage repeat purchases;
•         show brand ads so that users remember the brand better.

Retargeting: how does it work

Every time a new user visits the company’s website, pixel adds an anonymous cookie to the user’s browser and it will be added to the company’s retargeting list. After that, using the Internet, the customer will constantly receive the necessary advertising for the company. This will happen until the company will not disable ads or the user will not clear cookies in the browser or switch to another browser or device.

Retargeting is aimed at a smaller audience, but everyone is a potential buyer.

The principle of retargeting is approximately the same on all sites. The only difference is where the ad will be displayed. If we set up retargeting on Instagram or Facebook, the ad will only appear on the pages of the corresponding social network: in the feed and ad blocks.

If we set up remarketing in Google, banners and ads will be displayed in search results and on Google sites.

Google Ads: Retargeting channel #1

Google Ads (or Google AdWords) is a contextual and personalized advertising system from Google.

The entire Google Advertising network is divided into two large groups:

1.   A search network that includes Google Search pages, other partner search sites, and Google services (Maps, Shopping, etc.).
2.   A contextual display network (CDN) consisting of partner sites and Google sites (Gmail, YouTube, etc.).

Ad campaigns are often active across the entire network, but you can set it up only to the search engine or only to the CDN.

Google Ads are displayed on the following sites:

•         Google search results page;
•         In search results and on YouTube video pages;
•         Mobile advertising in the Google Play app store search and in the apps;
•         Web interface of the Gmail mail service;
•         On the pages of more than two million sites.

The main advantage of Google Ads is the huge number of customers who use this platform.

And it is not surprising, because Google occupies a leading position among search engines and other services.

The ad placement and the ad format will depend on the selected campaign type. You can use several formats in the AdWords account. Here are some of them:

•         Text ads that consist only of words.
•         Adaptive ads. They adapt to the advertising platform. The size, appearance, and format are changed automatically. You can add both text and images to these ads.
•         Image ad. Images can be static or interactive.
•         App ads. These ads are only served on devices that are compatible with the app itself.
•         Video ad.
•         Product listing ads. It consists of the product name, its image, price, store name, and other information.
•         Ads with a phone number. Designed to increase the number of calls from potential buyers. These ads are only served on devices that have the ability to call.

Facebook Ads: most popular social network retargeting channel

Facebook is not just a social network for communication. This is the most powerful digital channel for promotion.

Ads Manager is an advertising platform on Facebook that provides access to a wide range of functionality and various tools.

Here is a sample list of things you can do with Facebook Ads:

•         create advertising campaigns;
•         set targeting options;
•         select an audience for targeted ads;
•         create various ad formats;
•         analyze company results and statistics.

Facebook retargeting campaigns allow to effectively segment the audience and personalize ads.

Facebook has advanced retargeting settings — it allows to set up not only remarketing on users, but also to select users similar to them based on the data base that the company already has.

You can create ad campaigns in the Ads Manager and post them not only on Facebook, but also on other social networks linked to it. Instagram ads are also created through Ads Manager.

It is important to understand who and when you should show targeted ads on Facebook. There is no point in putting everyone together – everyone has different goals, intentions, and interests.

Which Service is Better

Facebook and Google are the undisputed giants of the digital world. Each of these companies has a resource that is visited by more than a billion users around the world every day. Targeted advertising tools offer access to this huge number of users. But which one is better?

In fact, there is no definite answer in this case. It all depends on your company and your budget.

After all, although Google and Facebook are engaged in essentially the same thing in terms of retargeting, there are still significant differences between them.

For example, if using Google ads, you get traffic from users who are purposefully looking for a certain product, then using Facebook Manager you can reach an audience that may only be interested in your services. Also, if you still do not know your customer well, then highly likely, Facebook ads will not give any results. And, of course, Facebook ads will cost you much less. And there are many such differences.

In practice, these services are approximately at the same level in terms of the number of companies using them. And they work best together. So, if your budget allows it, you can use retargeting on both sites. And you can be absolutely sure that if your product is good, the advertising will be as effective as possible and you will engage a lot of new customers.

We hope this article has helped you get a better notion of what retargeting and remarketing are and decide which platform is the best to use.

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The development of existing and the emergence of new players in entrepreneurship contributes to the growth of competition. Today, this competition has reached perhaps unprecedented proportions. Companies need to win this competition in order to not only exist, but also actively develop in these conditions. And here marketing comes to the rescue. In this article, we will try to tell you what marketing strategy is and what general marketing strategies exist today.

What is a Marketing Strategy

Any organization has a common strategy that corresponds to its global goals. One of those is the marketing strategy.

In general, marketing strategy is a general plan for implementing the company’s goals.

The essence of a marketing strategy is to create tools aimed at achieving business goals.

The main goal is to increase sales volume and net profit. The development of a marketing plan is carried out by professionals who help the organization to effectively use existing resources and create a sales market with the expectation of a long term.

A marketing strategy is an action aimed at optimizing the workflow within an organization in order to develop it in the internal and external environment.

The success of organizations today is determined by the degree of demand for the product of its activities by consumers. Therefore, the marketing strategy plays a key role in the company’s strategy that ensures its long-term market success. When forming a marketing strategy, top manager takes into account a number of very important factors:

•         the place of marketing in the management of an organization;
•         overall development strategy of the organization;
•         state and features of competition in the market;
•         demand state, trends in its development and other factors of the external marketing environment;
•         management resources and capabilities of the company itself.

An action plan is sometimes drawn up for a period of up to 25 years! But more often, especially in small and medium-sized businesses, planning tends to be carried out for up to 3 years. It plays a huge role, especially when the situation is changing rapidly. At the same time, you should make adjustments to the plan, otherwise the company risks getting a decrease in sales, losing to competitors.

The general marketing strategy is the main direction of an organization’s action, that should lead it to its intended goal in the long term.

The general strategy should ensure the organization’s long-term survival, which means in a competitive market environment producing a competitive product that will consistently find buyers.

Marketing Strategies

Any marketing plan must be consistent with the company’s overall strategy to achieve set goal. Here are some strategies tasks that are solved by marketers in the company.

1.   Increase the brand’s market presence. Any company or enterprise needs sales markets for the implementation of its marketing plan. That’s why the goals of the specialists in this case are pretty simple – to “occupy” as large niche as possible.
2.   Growth of sales. If customers don’t buy company’s product enough, it means that marketing strategy doesn’t work properly. Because as the market share increases, the number of customers always increases too. And with customers, orders and sales come.
3.   Increase of the company’s profit. Sales growth directly affects the profitability of the company.
4.   The brand positioning. To constantly sell products at the market price, the company needs to be correctly positioned in the niche. The target audience must understand the value of the product and associate the qualities of the product with the brand.

Let’s talk about these strategies more detailed.

General Marketing Strategies

Currently there are 3 general marketing strategies:

1. 
   

   Differentiation strategy

The differentiation strategy implies that the company gains a competitive advantage and, as a result, more fully meets consumer demand and provides high-quality products at high prices. Inflated prices are considered justified – the buyer is willing to pay money for the unique quality of the product.

The differentiation strategy means not only the presence of a unique product/service, but also obtaining such product properties that it is quite difficult for competitors to repeat. It’s better if it can’t be done.

To develop a product with special properties requires additional costs – research, know-how in technology, changes in packaging design, and so on. To promote the product and convey its benefits to the target audience, you need an investment, while to compensate for these costs, a higher price should be set for the new product. Product differentiation contributes to increased sales and profit growth as a result of attracting new loyal customers.

By applying a differentiation strategy, a company often becomes the market leader for a specific product category. But you need to be able to protect the competitive advantage of a product – and thereby, use a patent.

What methods of differentiation should you use in practice to stand out from the competition? This can be different taste characteristics, exclusive design, availability of a more complete range, and so on.

This strategy has two serious drawbacks. First, such companies can lose a lot of potential buyers, because not everyone is willing to pay a lot, even for the best quality. Secondly, it is almost impossible to create an absolutely unique product that other companies cannot imitate.

2. 
   

   Market segmentation strategy

This type of marketing involves developing a product to meet the specific needs of clearly defined groups of consumers.

This marketing strategy involves dividing the market into several separate segments and working with each segment separately.

To divide the market into segments, you need to choose the principle by which this division will be made, and develop a segmentation system. In practice, most often the market is divided by the income parameter and the level of customers ‘ solvency.

The segmentation strategy (working on multiple segments, considering each segment according to its needs) allows companies to focus on the needs of customers. If the company has segmented markets, it can develop specific products, promotion strategies, distribution systems, as well asprices for each individual segment.

Segmentation helps to stimulate the development of new products, as well as the development of an effective marketing mix. Understanding the needs of a segment helps you develop advertising strategies. Another advantage of segmentation strategy is that it helps distribute marketing resources between different products.

One of the significant disadvantages of this strategy is that companies that specialize in a few segments have a high risk of going bankrupt if customers of one of the segments lose interest in their products.

3. 
   

   Market share strategy

This strategy involves reducing product prices by reducing production costs. By implementing this strategy, companies strive to produce low-cost products as efficiently as possible and increase their market share due to increased demand for goods.

Companies increase their competitiveness by being able to provide more products at lower prices.

This strategy is quite risky, because companies deliberately reduce their profits and can only hope for an increase in demand for products. Also, such companies need to look for markets with a few the same retailers that sell products at low prices. This significantly restricts sales markets and makes companies less flexible in the face of increasing competition. Withal, such companies have a fairly limited range of products that they can offer to consumers.

However, despite some significant disadvantages, all these strategies are quite common and effective and are popular among other marketing strategies.

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In today’s world, where everyone is trying to get the maximum financial benefit from just about anything, it is hard to believe that there are still non-commercial organizations that pursue other goals. However, non-profit marketing is quite common. There are more than 1,5 million non-profit organizations at the USA. Therefore, today we will try to let you understand what non-commercial marketing is and why it is needed.

So let’s start with the basics!

What is Marketing?

Marketing is a complex discipline that includes the ability to analyze competitors, predict consumer demand, and skillfully build communications with the target audience. In short, a professional marketer must understand how to turn the needs of people or organizations for services and products into consumer demand.

Thus, if we describe marketing briefly, it is an activity to meet the needs of customers. In fact, it is the main goal of all marketing strategies of the company.

What is Non-Profit Marketing?

Non-profit marketing is a type of marketing that is carried out by organizations or individuals acting in the public interest and advocating a particular idea without the goal of generating financial profit.

Non-profit marketing is a non-commercial component of the marketing activities of non-profit organizations. This activity is aimed at achieving goals related to creating and maximizing social impact.

Non-profit marketing is a marketing, which leading subjects do not seek to make a profit and have non-financial goals and objectives.

Non-profit marketing is a tool that non-profit organizations use to collect donations and distribute their main ideas.

Non-commercial marketing has a number of features:

1.   Non-profit marketing involves organizations, territories, ideas, and even products and services.
2.   More complex marketing goals, since success or failure cannot be measured in purely financial positions.
3.   People can expect or demand specific actions and results from non-profit organizations.
4.   The advantages of non-profit marketing are not associated with the payment of goods and services by consumers. At least, very often.

Main Goals

While in a commercial company, the indicator of successful marketing activities can be the resulting profit, for a non-profit organization, the indicator of success is the public benefit, and first of all, bringing public goods to the neediest groups of the population, and then to organizations.

Today non-profit marketing solves at least three problems:

1.   Rational provision and distribution of social services and other products;
2.   Increasing the prestige and attractiveness of individual social ideas, social institutions, and individuals within a particular social community;
3.   Increasing the prestige of this social community.

Using the concept of non-commercial marketing, its tools and procedures allows non-profit organizations to:

•         study and formation of consumer needs and demand;
•         create an optimal internal environment that is appropriate to your stated mission;
•         influence your customers, competitors, and contact audience with marketing communications;
•         creating non-commercial products that meet demand;
•         ensure effective non-commercial exchange and full satisfaction of particularly important social needs of the society;
•         win an investment competition (or pass it) and secure the necessary funding for your business;
•         create, maximize and master external, including social, effects in these specific conditions;
•         ensure efficient use of limited resources of the society.

Non-Profit Marketing Types

As you can see, there are several types of non-profit marketing. This way, companies can use different marketing strategies to involve more people. Here are some of them:

1.   Point-of-Sale Campaign

Such a campaign assumes that the company offers a potential donor to add a donation to a purchase they are already making. Surely you have encountered a similar phenomenon. Most often, such manipulations are carried out at the checkout counters of large stores.

2.   Message-Focused Campaign

This is also a fairly common type of non-commercial marketing. In implementing this strategy, organizations associate the collection of donations with some widespread events usually also published in the media.

3.   Transactional Campaign

This campaign is a bit similar to the first one, but it is used on the Internet and social networks. This is a great example of how a non-profit organization cooperates with a commercial organization, from which both parties benefit. A non-profit organization engages more people in its campaign, while a commercial organization gains positive features for users.

Main Differences Between Profit and Non-Profit Marketing

Okay, now you know what is non-profit organization and how it works. But there is one more important thing you need to know.

What are the main differences between for-profit and non-profit marketing? Let’s try to compare it.

•         Non-profit products are more difficult to” sell “because they almost do not cause the” buyer ” to feel a direct benefit. A person feels that he has done a good thing, but often this motivation is not enough.
•         Imagine a store. When you buy a product there, you pay for it exactly as much as the store owner estimated it to be worth. You cannot give less or more for it, or in any way affect its value. In non-profit marketing, the situation is different. Here, the amount of donations is almost always determined by the donor and the charity organization is practically powerless in this case.
•         Unlike commercial organizations, non-profit organizations are often not aimed at a specific target audience. They should have an impact on the entire population.
•         Despite the fact that commercial organizations are in constant interaction with many companies, non-profit organizations still win in this competition. Due to the fact that they are aimed at many people, they can also involve a lot of joint-stock organizations, companies, and other non-profit partners.
•         Just like for-profit organizations, non-profit organizations can also provide their own products and services. The difference is that for non-profit organizations, they often do not pay off. Therefore, other companies are more loyal to them, and often do not require any financial return.
•         Commercial organizations receive most of their income from the sale of goods and services. Non-profit organizations mostly profit from donations and charitable contributions.

Recommendations for your Non-Profit Marketing

Non-profit marketing should catch attention of donators right here and right now. Therefore, it is very important to understand what you should pay attention to in order to involve much more people.

Perhaps, after reading this article, you want to open your own non-profit organization? Then here are some recommendations for catching people’s attention!

1. Set yourself a clear goal and develop as detailed a strategy as possible, and then achieve it.

Trust me, this is the most important thing! When you know what exactly you want to do and how you are going to do it – there is nothing impossible.

2. Create a large database

Information is your everything! The more information you have about potential donators the more effectively you can influence them and direct them to make a donation.

3. Collaborate with market leaders

This way you can not only get support, but also learn something new that can improve your organization.

4. Enlist support

The more people involved in your project, the greater your chance of success.

We also would like to offer you help and suggest you to try out our trial that will help you optimize your marketing strategies, develop a system for segmenting your customer base and purchases, and contribute to the development of your organization.

Hope that you will take advantage of our offer!

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With the development of technology, our life has become rapidly replenished with new concepts. Today there are so many concepts that there is hardly a person who knows at least half of them. We will try our best to explain what is CRM marketing and how it can help you in your business.

What is CRM Marketing

CRM marketing is not some complicated program or a system solution. It’s not even a technology which aimes to standardize sales processes and simplifying business processes.

This is a business concept based on a systematic approach aimed at customer orientation.

CRM is a Customer Relationship Management system.

It involves collecting customer data, analyzing it and working with potential buyers, which leads to increased sales.

CRM is basically an approach that allows organizations to collect data about their customers, analyze it, and extract the necessary information. It can be such information as “men 18-45 years old”, “women 25-50 years old who run their business”, “customers who have already worked with our company” etc.  

As a result, companies use this information to increase their sales by working with customers correctly.

The CRM marketing strategy is based on unique information about current users and leads, accumulated and analyzed in the system. As the result of this work you get personalized offers that allow you to customize products to meet the needs of each individual customer.

CRM marketing is working with potential buyers based on information about them.

You have already realized that CRM is aimed at solving such marketing tasks as engagement, informing and sales.

Now let’s figure out how this system works.

CRM Marketing: How It Works

No doubt the main task is to motivate the customer to make a purchase, expand the list of items to order, and so on. Here are a few steps to achieve these goals:

1.   The CRM system collects data about clients based on incoming calls or special forms filled out directly on the site.
2.   The received data is segmented according to certain parameters.
3.   Scripts are written automatically for different segments. Yet, messages for them are written manually.
4.   The scripts are launched*.
5.   Feedback is enabled.
6.   DONE!

*Depending on which method of interaction with the audience you choose (email, social network messengers, SMS mailing lists), one of the following scenarios applies:

•         manually (a manager calls clients using a prepared script);
•         automatically (using additional software).

This method of operation allows companies to:

1.   Highlight trends in online behavior. Marketing automation allows you to track user activity on the site and identify their interests. At the same time this information makes sales much more efficient.
2.   Weed out useless leads. The symbiosis of marketing and CRM processes allows you to lead potential customers along a profitable path, filtering out potential customers who have little or no interest in the commercial offer. This automated screening process allows you to work with potential clients as effectively as possible and not waste time.
3.   Clearly formulate the strategy. Pretty obviously, sales professionals use the information they collect to develop a strategy that guarantees a successful deal.
4.   Retention the customer. With data coming through various marketing channels, it is easier for sales professionals to retain customers and take measures to increase their loyalty.
   

Benefits of CRM

The main advantages are that the CRM system helps to solve the following tasks:

1.   Accounting of the potential client’s data. Attracting new customers requires significant financial expenses, so it is important to properly organize a tracking system for each request. Automation allows you to capture the flow of customers and structure information about each of them in the appropriate database, so that the effort and money spent bring the maximum effect.
2.   Monitoring the work. Thanks to the integration of the CRM system and other marketing services, each employee can track their progress, determine priorities, and quickly recognize difficulties that hinder the achievement of business goals.
3.   Activity analysis. CRM marketing products will open access to a full-fledged database, which will allow you to analyze performance indicators, as well as more accurately predict and plan further steps.

Costs of CRM

But so as any system, CRM marketing also has its drawbacks. Here are some of them:

1.   The result is not immediately, but gradually visible. CRM marketing is just a tool that affects sales growth only some time after its implementation. Consequently, sometimes the company’s profit growth is not noticeable at all.
2.   A complex procedure for adapting to the platform. Most marketers consider this fact one of the main problems that hinder the successful implementation of CRM marketing. In theory, automation should make it easier for company employees to record and process information. However, in practice, this is only possible if you choose the right CRM system and conduct the necessary training. Otherwise, marketers will need a lot of time and effort to master the technology. Or they will only know it superficially and will not be able to use all the opportunities to the full.
3.   High cost. The costs here are not limited only to funds for its purchase and integration. Part of the cost should be spent on system support of the platform and communication. In addition, the company will have to spend money on training employees working in the field of CRM marketing and, highly likely, on expanding the staff.

Today, all these disadvantages significantly limit the spread of the CRM system. However, this system has already shown its effectiveness and efficiency, so it is likely that it will develop and spread.

Do You Need CRM Marketing?

All things considered, CRM Marketing is perfect for you if:

1.   You have a lot of customers or consumers, which practically excludes personal work with them through managers;
2.   Your client’s financial value justifies personal communications. The cost of collecting data and interacting with each individual consumer should be recouped by the benefits it generates.
3.   You can collect information about these clients, including contact information.

So now the decision is up to you! 

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Clearly most marketers have different perception of marketing strategy. The term itself refers to a company approach intended for development, production and positioning of goods and services to specific customer groups in order to meet their needs best. Marketing strategies prioritize forward-looking company objectives and uses planning marketing programs that help companies insight into their objectives. Companies turn to marketing strategies for not only established product lines, but also for new products and services.

The Marketing Development

Even though marketing practices have a longer history than commerce has, marketing was not recognized as a formal discipline until the 1950s, i.e. precisely when businesses began to apply to analysis and ask questions: how to attract more clients? How to make customers feel satisfied? How to deal with competition? At that point, marketing transformed into the process of analyzing and focusing business on the customer. So that businesses can provide goods or services valued by consumers.

In fact, marketing presupposes never-ending decision making that strongly affects consumer interest in a company, e.g. pricing, product line, promotions, advertising and etc. The majors concerns of marketing are usually referred to as the “four Ps”, or the “marketing mix”: product, price, place, and promotion.

Consequently, marketing provides shaping a company’s reputation and creating a good impression onto customers, as well as developing and implementing policies that will enable a company to maintain its repute. This is where we encounter a marketing strategy which constitutes the process of planning and implementing those policies seeking to both understande company objectives and adjust them to the company vision.  Marketing strategies are rather general, for instance market segmentation and loyalty campaign, as well as countless focused strategies for specific areas of marketing.

What are the best marketing strategies to use?

Businesses tend to face this head-scratcher all the time. It is apparent they are in a great need of increased visibility to improve their sales substantially. However, a visibility increase requires money expenditures. This brings in the question: what are you supposed to do having run out of your financial resource?

Unfortunately, we are not going to suggest you definite answers to that question covering any situation you might encounter or a universal strategy that will become a salvation for your commerce. But there certainly exist some things that will help you reach more customers. And you can do them right away on a shoestring budget!

General Marketing Strategies

General Marketing Strategies chart the course for all marketing actions and campaigns by explaining how marketing can reach its targets in broad terms. Although there is ample diverse General Marketing Strategies, the majority of them can be regarded as belonging to one of the following categories:

Market Expansion

This general strategy lets marketing specialists enhance overall sales applying to one of the two methods:

Boost your Existing Products Sales – In this way the marketer aims to robust growth of the overall products sales and can accomplish this through:

1) more purchases by existing customers,

2) purchases by potential and new customers (meaning those who haven’t bought from you yet),

3) sales of current products in new markets.

Intensify New Products Sales – That is how we can achieve our goals by introducing new products to customers. This can be done by the introduction of:

1) updated products that you already sell,

2) extensions of your current products,

3) totally new products.

Share Growth of the Market

This strategy gives us a chance to scale up the overall share of our market. As a rule, this can be obtained only through taking sales away from competitors. Hence, the Share Growth strategy frequently draws on aggressive marketing and selling tactics.

Niche Market

As for this strategy, it seeks to overrun a commanding position in a particular market segment. Most commonly the niche market appears to be way smaller than the overall market with respect to total customers number and sales figure. The ideal model of this strategy is to view the product as distinct from the one other companies offer to the larger market. Here you are to make every effort to position the product.

Status Quo

This strategy is about preserving your current position in the targeted market, e.g. upholding the market share. It prompts us to reflect on the life-asserting principle “Be happy with what you have”. This works when you want to sustain your level of expenditures and overall position in the market.

Market Exit

The Market Exit strategy looks towards removing your product from the company’s range of products. This can be attained by means of:

1) sales of your product to another organization,

2) the organization’s product offerings removal.

The paramount advantage of the described General Marketing Strategies is their being universal and adjustable that allows us to customize them to literally any kind of market you’re targeting at. The only thing you’ve got to do is to define the right strategy for your business.

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Awareness of your clients’ nature is truly vital to determine what loyalty strategies should be implemented in order to maintain your customers’ loyalty.

Often studying a dense and endless customers list and sorting them into segments can become a real nightmare, where you spend whole days crying in front of .csv files and attempting to fill useless tables.

Fortunately, RFM Cube provides you with highly precise segmentation of your clients’ transaction history in real-time and with maximum freedom of choice, guaranteeing you a maximum overview of your customers’ purchasing behavior which is not the only beneft, in fact.

As RFM Cube is an action-oriented tool, it also allows you to connect found segments to your favourite marketing software and to launch triggers and automation whenever you find it necessary.

Let’s have a look at the key segments that can help you create your Marketing Retention campaigns.

Note: the following segments are generic and used as an example. With RFM Cube you can perfect your search experience using a multitude of filters that will give you a highly accurate targeting!

1. Small Fish

These are the clients with the lowest monetary score, the bad news is that they make up the majority! Take a look at the RFM Cube filter below:

By selecting only customers with Monetary = Bronze (in the given case they spent less than 100 euros in total), we can see that 52% of all customers of this E-commerce generated only 17% of the entire turnover!

It is not an accident that these customers are referred to as “small fish”, as they spend 51 euros on average compared to the global median sum of 163 euros. So they are highly unlikely to make you break into the market!

In certain highly competitive sectors, with high advertising costs and low margins, these customers may even be toxic, i.e. failing to generate a return on investment.

Therefore it is particularly important to understand how to recognize them. WHAT TO DO: You can try to create special email-funnels with big discounts motivating your small fish-clients make one more purchase, but as the Recency goes down, you can consider pausing them in the dedicated list or even removing them from your database.

2. Whales

 

Whales are the customers with the highest Monetary score, they represent the crème de la crème of your customers!

In this case the situation is the opposite of that with the small fish:

Customers with Monetary = Platinum are those who have spent more than 1,000 euros.

Despite being only 1% of your customers, whales alone bring 10% of the entire turnover compared to an average Monetary of 1,491 euros which is 10 times more than the average sum!

➡️ Evidently, customers are not homogeneous.

This cluster of customers represents your true Core Business, they are perfectly targeted ambassadors of your brand who have decided to choose you for their massive online purchases.

WHAT TO DO: reward them with gifts and confidential secret offers, activate dedicated surveys, send them loyalty cards, involve them in reserved events and offer exclusive affiliate programs. In other words: make them feel important!

As the Recency subsides, you are to activate a dedicated recovery funnel so as not to miss them.

3. New promises

In the filter above, customers with only 1 purchase but Monetary Gold and Monetary Platinum are selected which in our case means an expense of over 300 euros.

With just one purchase these customers tend to achieve a 2.6 times higher expenditure than the general average!

For this reason, they deserve confidential treatment. In addition there is a high likelihood they will buy more and become high-spending recurring customers.

WHAT TO DO: based on the category of purchased items, you can create customized cross-selling campaigns and push the sale of accessories and related products.

4. Scrooge McDucks

 

That’s what we call customers who have made more than one purchase, but have an average receipt below the global median expenditure.

 

In this category we include all customers who have made at least 2 purchases, and therefore have become recurring customers. Then we apply a filter to display only customers who purchase with a lower than average average receipt.

The average receipt for these customers is 58 euros compared to 95 euros of the global average customer expenditure, despite the fact that total spending remains slightly above the average.

WHAT TO DO: you can create a discount reserved for these customers, based on reaching a minimum shipping threshold that will more or less coincide with your average receipt (in the case above it’s 100 euros).

In this way you will increase your average transaction value. Of course you needn’t give discounts to those who have already reached the threshold!

For the latter customers, you could think of a higher minimum discount application threshold (e.g. 150 euros).

5. Dormant Bears

 

Here we’ll discuss customers who have the lowest Recency score, meaning they have not made purchases for a long time (usually 1, 2 or 5 years depending on the sector).

 

If your ecommerce has been active for several years, dormant bears could make up the majority of your customer history.

We like to call them “dormant” instead of “lost” because in the E-commerce sector it doesn’t make sense to declare a customer lost forever. What’s the point? You don’t know the causes of the customer’s absence and he/she could always decide to go back to shopping whenever he/she needs this.

WHAT TO DO: create recovery mechanisms with strong discounts to encourage them to return! You can customize the strategy by segmenting further for Frequency and Monetary.

6. Champions

 

These are the customers with the highest Recency, Frequency and Monetary scores. They’ve made a purchase recently, make many puchases in general and have high expenditures: is there anything more you can wish for?

WHAT TO DO: create exclusive prime services and VIP questionnaires for your champions, put a surprise in the package (over delivery) and offer affiliate programs.

7. Bad customers

 

By “bad clients” we mean customers with the lowest Recency, Frequency and Monetary scores. In this e-commerce, 25% of customers made a single purchase more than 2 years ago, spending less than 100 euros. WHAT TO DO: put them in a separate list and create campaigns with strong discounts. Then remove the list of users who don’t interact with the campaigns.

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These are just a few macro segments you can create with RFM Cube. Combine the data with the Recency and the filters such as brand, purchased category and delivery region, and the results you achieve will be unlimited! Do you want to discover some of the most effective ways to segment your customers?

 

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