Robert Giovannini, CEO, IronPlane.
getty
Now more than ever, businesses are monitoring their investments in areas like technology, staff, marketing and product innovation. In the world of e-commerce, I find this to be particularly true. While many companies are unhappy with at least some aspect of their existing e-commerce technology infrastructure, they are similarly unhappy with the prospect of a re-platforming project.
This results in businesses becoming laser-focused on doing more with what they have by making investments that will deliver concrete returns in customer satisfaction, market reach, lead generation and/or sales. For these businesses, strategic resource allocation is paramount to not only survive but thrive in the competitive digital marketplace.
But where do you even start with allocations of a constrained budget? How do you prioritize? Smart resource allocation is both an art and a science, requiring a deep understanding of historical engagement data applied to a finger-on-the-pulse perspective of customer behavior, industry trends and your own place in the market.
To help guide your own strategic resource planning, consider the following eight areas as you formulate your plan:
1. Measuring And Iterating
Define and track KPIs relevant to your e-commerce objectives. I particularly recommend monitor metrics such as conversion rates, customer acquisition costs and customer lifetime value. Regularly assess performance against these benchmarks and actively seek and analyze customer feedback.
Once you get all of this, use it to identify areas for improvement and allocate resources to address customer pain points. Ultimately, I've found that focusing on a customer-centric approach can lead to increased loyalty and repeat business.
2. Leverage Data Analytics
For data to be valuable, it has to be the right data. This is data that reflects the key elements that drive your business. It should provide clear, regular, reliable and actionable insights about your business. Specifically look to use your data to develop insights into website traffic, visitor engagement, sales patterns and overall customer experience with your business. These insights in turn allow for optimized budget allocation for maximum impact.
3. Evaluate And Prioritize Core Initiatives
With the latest and greatest technologies, it is possible to design and develop cutting-edge innovations to set your business apart from the competition. But just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. When resources are limited, I encourage you to focus on the core elements that drive your e-commerce success. Often the greatest returns can be found in the more mundane work of optimizing site speed, product search, conversion triggers and overall customer experience.
4. Channel Prioritization/Augmentation
Most online businesses are active on a variety of platforms to sell their products. I believe that now is a good time to do a cost/benefit analysis of each channel. Whether it's your own website, marketplaces like Amazon or social media channels, this analysis can allow you to allocate resources to the platforms that yield the best results. Of course, the inverse can also be true. Once you have a clean product data file, it can be leveraged across multiple channels. Tools like Feedonomics can make this a very efficient process.
5. Personalize Where You Can
Personalization is a hot topic in e-commerce, and I see a particular emphasis on external platforms that can offer AI to help understand individual customers and market to them with personalized messaging and product placement. Before investing in these technologies, though, understand what is available with your existing tools and data that can help develop your own personalization efforts.
6. Marketing And Advertising Strategies
Similar to the other efforts outlined in this section, your marketing and advertising should be evaluated to:
• Identify the ROI value for each marketing channel. Analyze the return on investment (ROI) for every marketing channel utilized, ensuring resources are allocated effectively to those generating the highest returns.
• Identify new channels. Find ones that provide opportunities to reach existing audiences as well as new audiences.
• Maximize internal resources for content production. Whether it is product specialists or customer service reps, your internal teams can generate content of value with real SEO potential. These strategies enhance your online visibility and attract organic traffic.
7. Nurture Customer Relationships
Your customer experience team can be much more than a post-purchase problem-solving team. In creative companies, it's important to keep in mind to enlist your customer experience team to:
• Collect customer experience data.
• Test new product offerings.
• Upsell/cross-sell.
• Practice loyalty program administration.
• Manage live chats.
• Contribute to social media efforts.
• Optimize returns experiences.
Remember, maintaining strong customer relationships and facilitating repeat purchases is often more cost-effective than acquiring new customers.
8. Leverage What You Have Already
It is often the case that we are attracted to the next new idea or tactic because it holds the promise of better and faster for less money. But I find that it is often far more efficient and effective to look at the tools you have and ensure you are using them to their fullest capabilities.
Particularly with e-commerce platforms, there are usually many features and functions that can help measure, drive and grow the website but are rarely used.
Limited resources, including time, employees and capital, necessitate a thoughtful approach to decision-making. Success lies not only in the size of the budget but in the efficiency and effectiveness of its allocation.
The e-commerce industry is ever-evolving, so continuous monitoring and adaptation are essential. If a particular channel or initiative is underperforming, consider reallocating resources to more promising areas. In short, regularly assess the performance of your strategies and be ready to adjust your resource allocation response to the latest data you have available.
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