Shopify’s Ecommerce blog has always been an excellent source of useful, actionable information for online retailers. When we encountered Dan Wang‘s 13 actionable marketing tactics, we simply had to apply our infographic treatment to it. Enjoy! 14 Marketing Tactics To Drive Online Sales and Apps to Execute them TACTIC 1 IMPROVE STORE DESIGN Poor design … Continue reading 14 Marketing Tactics To Drive Online Sales and Apps to Execute them [Infographic]
What are the most effective tactics to encourage word-of-mouth referrals? Which of the following core tactics would most successfully encourage customers to refer a friend or colleague to use the product or service of a “brand they love”: Direct, monetary or material incentives such as discounts, free swag or gift cards. Social recognition (e.g., the … Continue reading Study: 39% of Customers Admit They’re Much Likelier to Make Referrals If Directly Incentivized
Professor Jonah Berger has spent a decade investigating what makes things go viral. What he found were 6 principles of virality (STEPPS): Social currency – we share what makes us look good. Triggers – we share what’s at the top of our minds. Emotion – we share what we care about. Public – we imitate what … Continue reading Your Friends Will Be Sooo Impressed! 15 Examples of Social Currency Used in Marketing
Customer referral programs and return policies don’t always play together very nicely. For instance, what if an advocate refers a friend to your store, who buys something (earning a cash reward in the process)… and then returns the product? That could get a little messy. The simplest way to prevent complications like these is to … Continue reading Setting A Referral Review Period
The Made to Stick principle we’re covering today is Credibility. While similar to Cialdini’s Authority, Credibility (as described in Made To Stick) deals with situations where you do not have an authority to endorse your brand. Dan and Chip Heath cite five ways to boost your credibility: Use an Anti-authority – Use “living proof” to show that … Continue reading See For Yourself! 12 Examples of Credibility in Marketing
We’re all about customer acquisition, and one of the best ways to learn about how to do it effectively is to study the success stories of those who came before. Here are 7 fashion ecommerce brands, and their stories about how they acquired their early customers. 1. Threadless – championed word-of-mouth in its community One of Threadless’ crucial early … Continue reading How 7 Fashion Ecommerce Businesses Acquired Their First Customers
To boost your customer acquisition efforts, you need to be knowledgeable on various topics, such as SEO, content marketing, email marketing, website UX and web analytics. We searched the messy and crowded land of the Internet, and put together a list of awesome customer acquisition content for you: SEO allows your site to be more … Continue reading List of The Best Customer Acquisition Content Available on the Internet
Kickstarter projects succeed because of word-of-mouth. Projects don’t come to fruition unless they meet their goals, backers have to get involved in spreading the word to see their favoured projects succeed. Even after funding is complete (every project on this list has exceeded it’s goal funding!) the system of stretch goals keeps backers involved in … Continue reading 13 Of The Best Kickstarter Projects Achieved Success With Word-Of-Mouth
Previously, we wrote a post featuring the insights of 10 successful ecommerce founders, from brands like Bonobos, Amazon, etc. We decided to build upon that list to bring you more quotes about the challenges faced by successful fashion ecommerce founders: 1. Joseph Robins, founder of Mostyn Clothing Photo: Mostyn Clothing “I have had to take on … Continue reading Fashion Ecommerce Is Hard: 14 Quotes From Founders Who Made It
“You can’t be what you can’t see.” Diversity is still an issue in the startup ecosystem. There are few women entrepreneurs, and disproportionately fewer black and Latino/a entrepreneurs. More worrying is the fact that there are just as few minority or female investors. And fewer minority investors mean that fewer minority-led entrepreneurs get funded. Diversity matters. … Continue reading 28 Examples Of Diversity In The Startup Scene
Sometime last year, we wrote a post about Chip and Dan Heath’s “Made to Stick”, exploring 6 different ways to make your marketing message more memorable: S – Simple U – Unexpected C – Concrete C – Credible E – Emotional S – Stories In this new series of posts, we’ll be providing you with … Continue reading Keep it Simple, Stupid: 23 Examples of Simplicity in Marketing
The Friend Offer is an incentive given by your store that your Advocates offer to their Friends, to encourage them to make a purchase at your store. In general, consider giving a Friend Offer equal to or more than the Referral Reward incentive. The more you can make the Referred Friend feel like they’re getting a good … Continue reading Best Practices For Setting Up Friend Offers
Slogans condense the essence of entire brands into singular phrases. A sticky slogan is a very powerful way to influence how customers talk about your brand. To help inspire your slogan writing skills, we compiled a list of the greatest slogans ever… along with their origins – some of which you’d never expect! 1. Nike … Continue reading The 10 Best Marketing Slogans Of All Time
Love them or hate them, IKEA products have become ubiquitous in our lives. The company is known for its modern architectural designs for various types of home appliances and furniture, and its simple, eco-friendly interior design work. When it was founded in 1943, IKEA was a mostly mail-order sales business, which only started selling the … Continue reading How IKEA Became A Global Household Name
Ecommerce is a lucrative, growing industry. But it can also be complex, challenging and overwhelming. How do you survive in such a chaotic market? To help you get a clearer picture, we studied dozens of interviews with successful ecommerce entrepreneurs. We’ve picked out the best marketing advice we could find, and framed them in a … Continue reading Ecommerce Marketing Strategies: Tips From 28 Top Players [Infographic]
The average customer is now female. 1. Women are earning, spending, and influencing spending at a greater rate than ever before. From the Ad Age white paper, “The New Female Consumer”2. Over the next decade, women will control two-thirds of consumer wealth. (If that sounds a little unreal, just think of all the mothers out … Continue reading How To Sell To Women
6000+ people pledged $50,000+ to help make potato salad. Zack Danger Brown from Ohio wanted to make a potato salad. He asked Kickstarter for $10. “Basically I’m just making potato salad,” he wrote. “I haven’t decided what kind yet.” At the time of this writing, the kickstarter campaign has raised over $50,000 from over 6,000 … Continue reading Customer Acquisition Lessons from a $50,000 Potato Salad Kickstarter Campaign
You have just started building your brand, and have a great product, but do your customers see it the same way as you do? One of the hardest things to do for any new brand is to penetrate the market and to compete against the bigger players. Fortunately, people evaluate brands comparatively. That means you don’t have … Continue reading 5 Ways to Improve Your Customer’s Perceptions of Your Brand
The following is a guest post by Kriti Sarda from Unbxd. Follow her on the Unbxd Blog. It’s tough enough for ecommerce retailers to bring steady traffic to their sites. With a quality customer acquisition strategy in place, and with effective tactics like SEO, social media marketing and content marketing, site owners do succeed in … Continue reading 5 Ways To Use Personalization To Engage Your Customers
If you’re interested in the elusive “viral”, take a leaf from some of the US’ recent social movements. These are the campaigns that have gained massive traction and inspired global participation. Some of them, like #IAmTrayvon have even become points of comparison for descendent movements. Here, we highlight a few social movements with remarkable success and … Continue reading Marketing Insights From 7 Social Movements
The beauty industry is getting a $100m makeover. Julep and Birchbox estimate that beauty and cosmetics is a $160b industry tech investors are ready to disrupt. Even though fashion and beauty command a relatively small share of the money flooding the startup scene ($107.6m of $4.5b invested), a significant number of beauty startups are raising … Continue reading Beauty Referral Program Examples – 10 Glamorous Referral Programs
Storytelling is powerful – it’s a way of teaching and inspiring others to take action. Why do we read books, watch movies, listen to songs, and hear about one another’s life experiences? In Made to Stick, Gary Klein, a psychologist who studies high-pressure decision-making, suggests that stories are often retold because they contain wisdom. A story has … Continue reading It was a dark and stormy night… – 24 Examples of Storytelling in Marketing
Dr. Cialdini’s 5th principle of persuasion: Authority. In his book Influence, he covers these three factors that trigger the authority principle: Titles – Dr., Prof., Ph.D., President, Chairman, Founder, CEO, Industry experts Clothes – Uniforms, Suits, religious outfits (worn by pastors, monks, nuns, priests) Trappings – Accessories that go along with certain positions/roles (e.g. police badges, religious robes, rosaries, … Continue reading Trust Me, I’m a Doctor: 7 Examples of the Authority Principle Used In Marketing
When we were putting together “10 Successful Ecommerce Founders, 21 Great Interviews, A Whole Lotta Wisdom”, we found ourselves trawling through many, many interviews. As we searched for gems of insight, we found ourselves being repeatedly amused by the stories of founders BEFORE they built their now-famous companies. We thought we’d put that information together … Continue reading 12 Ecommerce Legends And Their Unusual Career Paths [Infographic]
When we were going through Harley Finkelstein’s talk about the modern marketing tactics used by Shopify retailers, we couldn’t help but notice that Warby Parker gave a talk at the same event. And so we watched and transcribed that too. This talk is by Tim Riley, who heads up the online experience at Warby Parker. … Continue reading How Warby Parker Earned Word-of-Mouth By Using Storytelling And Remarkable Experiences (8+ Examples)
“Amazon has a secret weapon in Amazon Prime.” – CIRP co-founder Josh Lowitz The largest ecommerce player in the U.S. just launched a customer referral campaign. This is a great move by Amazon because: Prime members are a lucrative demographic. A survey found that they spend almost twice as much as other shoppers on Amazon.com. They … Continue reading Amazon Prime’s Referral Program – 8 Points To Take Note Of
In this post, we’ll be covering the usage of Dr. Cialdini’s Liking principle in marketing. You know you want a Lamborghini.Why do brands selling automobiles and alcoholic beverages always feature a sexy female model? (Granted that sports automobiles and alcohol advertisements usually target males.) Dr. Cialdini explains that we are more likely to comply with … Continue reading Laws of Attraction: 7 Examples of the Liking Principle Used in Marketing
Seth Godin is THE marketing OG. We really enjoyed these articles packed with Godin’s advice for marketers in a new landscape forever changed by the Internet and social media. We’ve condensed that wisdom into an infographic for your pleasure, enjoy! Seth Godin Marketing Advice – Transcript: The Internet and social media are the first mediums in a century … Continue reading What Marketers Get Wrong, According To Seth Godin [Infographic]
Ernest Dichter was an Austrian-American psychologist and marketing expert in the 1950s. And from what I’ve read, it seems like he was quite a creepy guy. He called his focus groups his “living laboratory”, and lived in a castle of sorts. But he was also a total genius. He coined phrases like ‘put a tiger … Continue reading Ernest Dichter’s Marketing Insights
We’ve been on a roll lately, running through a whole bunch of referral program examples. Here’s the latest one! Seedrs is a UK-based Equity Crowdfunding platform. Say hello to their landing page: Strong ‘hero’ image! There’s actually a lot to learn from their landing page– it’s beautifully designed, responsive, has strong images, great copywriting and strong social … Continue reading Investor Referral Program Examples: Seedrs, The Equity Crowdfunding Platform
Storytelling is an amazing tool in marketing. As attention spans dwindle and the amount of content skyrockets, it’s become more important than ever to know how to tell a good story. That’s why we’ve compiled and distilled the information from the best articles on storytelling to create The ULTIMATE Storytelling Guide for brands! A Story … Continue reading Storytelling for Brands: The Ultimate Storytelling Guide [Infographic]
In late 2013, in This Week In Startups, Jason Calacanis interviewed Shopify CEO Tobias Lutke. Our takeaways: Distribution keeps getting more ubiquitous, so people will pay primarily for experiences. 1: There are many different kinds of innovation– not just in software. Innovation was a common thread throughout the conversation– Tobi and Jason talked about how it … Continue reading The Future Of Retail, According to Shopify CEO @Tobi
When it comes to the adoption of relatively new products/systems, word-of-mouth is very effective in helping to spread the word around. SUNworks is a company by Solar3D, Inc., a leading provider of solar power solutions. They provide solar energy solutions to homes and offices. I’m all for renewable energy; so I was happy to know they … Continue reading Renewable Energy Referral Program Examples: SUNworks
It sometimes seems like there’s more business advice popping up on shelves than there are people being born (for context, there are approximately 15,000 births an hour). What we’ve noticed is that the best business advice tend to show up year after year. Holgar Seim at TheNextWeb aggregated the 7 most most common and enduring pieces of … Continue reading The Best Business Advice From The Last 30 Years [Infographic]
Let’s see how some ecommerce predictions have been coming along.A popular infographic by Offerpop made five social media marketing predictions for 2017, and they are as follows: The consumer becomes the new content marketer Brands will weave a social layer over traditional advertising Marketers will connect the dots between email and social Brands will make new strides … Continue reading Ecommerce Predictions in Social Media – How Have We Been Doing?
You have a good product team, marketing team, and sales team. Your sales figures are okay, but they’re aren’t spectacular. Why’s that? What’s the difference between powerhouse brands and feeble ones? According to Simon Sinek, it might be because you’re selling your “WHAT” (product) instead of your “WHY” (vision). Simon Sinek is an author and … Continue reading Sell Your Vision, Not Your Product
When we talk about viral content, what usually comes to mind? What Does The Fox Say? Gangnam Style? Cat videos? These are videos that have been watched and shared millions of times worldwide, and are great examples of viral content. But how exactly did these videos become viral? And how can you create content that … Continue reading Viral Ad Examples – Why These 6 Ads Went Viral, According to Jonah Berger
When you have a product to sell online, designing the website can often feel like an afterthought. You might think that how the website looks doesn’t really matter, so long as users can add the product to cart, key in their credit card number, and ship it. And you’d be wrong. When it comes to web … Continue reading Get More Customers: 10 Ways to Increase Sales By Optimizing Your Ecommerce Site
Launched publicly in 2008, Evernote is a digital note-taking app that allows you to sync your notes across multiple devices, add photos, voice, and text instantaneously. It even allows you to present your notes as slideshows. Evernote is, essentially, a cloud notebook on steroids. Their app has been extremely popular, gaining their first million users in 446 days (approximately 14 … Continue reading Web App Referral Program Examples: How Evernote Gained Millions of Users
Pinterest is a tech company that doesn’t want to keep you online. Instead, it wants to inspire you to go offline and do the things you love. It’s also a company that chose to specialize in images and timeless content when its entire industry was focused on being text-based and time sensitive (think Twitter). Pinterest … Continue reading How Pinterest Grew From 3,000 to 73 Million Users
Over the past few weeks, we’ve explored the 6 principles of persuasion by Dr. Robert Cialdini, with more than 60 real-life marketing examples. Here’s a recap of how Dr. Cialdini’s 6 Principles of Persuasion work, and how to use them in your own marketing strategy: Reciprocity Commitment & Consistency Social Proof Liking Authority Scarcity The Reciprocity … Continue reading Dr. Robert Cialdini’s 6 Principles of Persuasion
The third principle from the STEPPS model is Emotion. Emotions help us connect with one another, and inspire us to act. When we come across a story that’s exciting or cool, we want to share it with our friends immediately. But are all emotions equally effective at motivating us to share? Well, not really. Different emotions have … Continue reading Literally Arousing – 15 Examples of Emotional Marketing
Ordering food delivery can be tricky. Sometimes the delivered food doesn’t look appealing; sometimes it’s cold and doesn’t taste as nice after reheating. But fret not; Munchery is here to solve all your food delivery woes. They provide gourmet-standard food cooked by local top chefs, delivered right to your doorstep. Their menu is very extensive and … Continue reading Food Delivery Referral Program Examples – Munchery
So far, we’ve written about several components you need to configure while setting up your referral program: What kind of referral rewards should you give: Cash? Credit? Or Discounts? Who should you be rewarding? Advocates, their friends, or both? What’s the best referral review period for my company? But even so, there are many different things … Continue reading Improve Referral Rates and Get More Sales In 8 Steps
Amuze is a members-only fashion portal that gives discounts on authentic designer labels. They feature a wide range of brands for both gentlemen and ladies, such as Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent. Members can enjoy discounts of up to 80% off, and participate in flash sales and daily deals. The dress from Chloe in the … Continue reading Designer Fashion Referral Program Examples: Amuze
In this post, we’ll be finishing up our Dr. Cialdini’s ‘Principles of Persuasion’ series with the Scarcity principle. Scarcity. FOMO. Exclusivity. We know it by many names, but it’s all fundamentally about the same thing: if it’s hard to get, it must be worth something. The Scarcity Principle: People attach more value to things that are few in quantity. … Continue reading Hurry, While Stocks Last: 19 Examples of the Scarcity Principle Used in Marketing
Founded by fitness expert and trainer-to-the-stars Marco Borges, 22 Days Nutrition promotes healthy living through plant-based lifestyles. We’ve noticed that their referral program has been gaining momentum, so we interviewed Michael Farin, CTO for 22 Days Nutrition, to learn about his experiences with ReferralCandy. Building on what’s already working 22 Days Nutrition has built a … Continue reading Programs for Healthy Living: How 22 Days Nutrition Uses ReferralCandy To Tap Into Their Fanbase
When we think about fans of comics, movies, or celebrities, the really loyal ones are those that give themselves names. For instance, fans of Lord of the Rings are called Ringers, and Star Trek fans call themselves Trekkies. As it turns out, fans of Australian leggings and apparel company Black Milk have a name too; they … Continue reading 3 Ways Black Milk Clothing Created a Crazily-Loyal Fan Base
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