Purchase funnel In Digital Marketing

Understanding consumer journey has been always a hard task to do for a digital marketer. This complexity is due to the improvement of information technologies. This improvement affects the consumer behavior when they are shopping online as they no longer rely on advertising messages when they are determining what to purchase. Instead, choosing to educate themselves by reading product reviews and recommendations leaving behind countless of data points every day. Well, it is true that information help to improve the shopping experience, yet it made a complicated task for a digital marketer to follow their consumer path. However, with implementing and using specific software, such as Google Analytics, to measure and analyze consumer journey makes following the journey a smoother task to absorb.

In this blog, I will provide an explanation about consumer purchase funnel, from where it starts and where and when it ends. But, before digging into more details, I encourage you to check this YouTube Video:

What is a Purchase Funnel?

"The purchase/purchasing funnel is a model which describes the theoretical customer journey from the moment of the first contact with your brand to the ultimate goal of a purchase. This model is important when marketing your business as it provides a method of understanding and tracking the behavior of an average customer throughout the sales process."(1)

Purchase Funnel

I am sure that you have seen this chart many times in your life, and sometimes you feel confused because it seems complex to understand the process and steps involved. But, this Purchase Funnel process is summarized below:

• Awareness: The customer is aware of the existence of a product or service. Awareness is based on a communications message, word of mouth or independent discovery. Thus, Companies must market themselves and create awareness before they can even hope for sales. There are many ways to increase a brand awareness; for example, writing blog posts about the products or services, posting a video or a picture, and email newsletters. 
• Consideration: the main goal is to increase customer acquisition. The consumer thinks about it and asks around, but a lot of it happens online. Once a customer is aware of your product, they will consider your offering. 
• Research: The customer Use mobile phones, tablets, laptops and desktops to find more information about specific product or service 
• Comparison: The customer Compares similar products, prices, demonstrations and testimonials in the search engine. 
• Action: The customer buys, joins, sign ups, etc. 
• Review: The customer goes online on social networks to review and share their experience.

Using Google Analytics to create a Funnel Visualization report:

Google Analytics offers Funnel Visualization reports which help you to understand your consumer behavior starting from placing an item in a shopping cart, entering payment information, reviewing the final order to clicking on the confirmation. The Funnel Visualization report helps to measure the KPIs and optimize the website pages to increase the conversion rates.

To set up a goal funnel in Google Analytics in more detailed explanation, check out this article: Understanding the Funnel Visualization in Google Analytics

It is obvious that consumers start on one social media platform in the beginning of their purchase journey and then shift to another. As digital marketers, we are looking for the way to meet consumers on every touchpoint they are on to serve them the right information at the right time to guide them toward the final step in the purchase funnel. The modern customer journey begins with self-education about a product or service to discover what is the best features, compares the price and looks for the best offer before deciding on buying it. Customers research about the brand on social media, read product reviews and compared prices. Once buyers have narrowed down his/her choices to a specific brand, they will consider buying that products or service. Finally, after the purchase, a brand should carry on fostering the relationship between the brand and customers by preparing campaigns for upselling and cross-selling and boosting loyalty.

How to save your money while you are shopping online?

Do you want to buy a TV or smartphone but you are thinking about the price? Are you not sure to buy it from a physical store or go find it online? Are you waiting for the Black Friday, Thanksgiving or Christmas to get the best offer? How about if I can tell you that you could save money by installing two price tracking tools which will help you to shop smartly. In this blog, I will share with you two important price tracking tools that benefit you while you are shopping online.

Honey

Honey is a Chrome extension that helps consumers to search for discounts code at the exact time when they are about the checking out process in an e-commerce website. Honey is a useful tool focused on saving consumer’s money and providing a discount code and track the price changes in Amazon. Honey has a partnership with over 8,000 stores.

How does Honey work? 

First, you have to install the browser extension and sign up to get access to all best coupon code at checkout. For example, if you go to Target and searched for specific product, the Honey browser extension will notify you by lighting up the Honey logo at the top of your browser.

Target Home Page

Once you have selected your item and add it to the shopping cart and reached to the payment page, a friendly pop-up appears and asks if you’d like to ‘Apply Coupons’ or ‘Save Money. Personally speaking, this is the most features that I like because Instead of googling coupon codes and finding an expired code, the extension will hunt and apply the coupon for you with a single click.

Camelcamelcamel

Another free Amazon price tracker which checks millions of products and alerts you when prices drop. This is a google chrome extenuation that you have to install in your browser.

How does Camelcamelcamel work?

Camelcamelcamel offers two important services: first, Amazon Price Drop Alerts which help you to get an alert via email whenever the price of the wanted product decreases. Secondly, Amazon Price History Charts that View the price history of Amazon products over the time.

For example, when I was looking for Clarisonic Mia 2, the current price is $169.00. I set up an alert to notify me when there is a drop in the product price to $150.00 to buy it.

I would recommend you try these two chrome extenuations when you are going to buy something online, and notice the price differences.

How Beacons Technology Can Remodel Retail Marketing

In my Marketing Analytics class, my Professor mentioned something related to beacon technology. First, I did not understand what does it stand for and how does this technology works? However, after he gave a brief explanation, I have become a little familiar with this concept. I thought it will be a great idea to write a blog about beacon technology in more details and its applications in the retail sector.

So, what is Beacon Technology?

According to iBeacon Insider, the definition of Beacon is:

Beacon is the name for Apple’s technology standard, which allows Mobile Apps (running on both iOS and Android devices) to listen for signals from beacons in the physical world and react accordingly. In essence, iBeacon technology allows Mobile Apps to understand their position on a micro-local scale, and deliver hyper-contextual content to users based on location. The underlying communication technology is Bluetooth Low Energy.

Beacon Technology and the Retail Industries:

Beacon technology is connecting the actual stores and digital technologies by using device  geo-location information to enhance the in-store shopping experience. For example, Beacons can send text messages via Bluetooth to a customer's smartphone to notify them about special offers or discount in any store they are nearby.

Also, connecting Beacon to a smartphone to provide consumers with useful information about the clothes, the available size, and the price will enhance the shopping experience as it makes it quicker and easier for customers to access the information about the products they are looking for, and deliver to them special offers or discounts. 

For the retailers, Beacon technology provides them with vast of data about their customers’ shopping habits and send customized and timely offers and coupons. With this huge amount of collected data, retailers can create marketing strategies to engage with their customers, to create personalized shopping experiences and to give loyal shoppers a reason to keep coming back.

Data Analyst and Data Scientist skill set in Digital Marketing

Is there a big demand for Data Analyst and Data Scientist in the job market these days? Yes, there is. With Big Data and the Internet of Things popping up, companies are recruiting those who have skills in customer and user insights, data analytics, statistical analytics, programming, machine learning, and data visualization. As a digital marketing graduate student who is looking for a job opportunity in big data and digital marketing field, I feel that getting a master degree in digital marketing is not enough because companies are looking for those who have experience in some tools that are related to digital marketing and data analytics. Indeed, having the basic knowledge in Data, such as excel, to analyzing data is not sufficient to compete aggressively in the job marketplace. In this blog will explain what is the difference between Data Analyst, Data Scientist, and states the important skills that each job role must acquire.

To begin, when I try to search for a job in the digital marketing field- from my experiences, I have noticed that companies are looking for those who skilled in content marketing, data analysis, SEO, PPC, Email marketing, HTML/CSS, and graphic design. However, these are not the only skills that they are looking for. Currently, there is a big demand for a data scientist and data analyst to be hired in the digital marketing area. So, as a digital marketer, what are the most important skills that you should have in your resume to function as a data analyst or data scientist in an organization?

Before start answering this question, first, let me define what does data analyst and data scientist mean? and what are their main roles in an organization?

According to SAS, “Data scientists are a new breed of analytical data expert who has the technical skills to solve complex problems – and the curiosity to explore what problems need to be solved.”

Data scientists job duties

• Collecting large amounts of unruly data and transforming it into a more usable format. 
• Solving business-related problems using data-driven techniques. 
• Working with a variety of programming languages, including SAS, R, and Python. 
• Having a solid grasp of statistics, including statistical tests and distributions. 
• Staying on top of analytical techniques such as machine learning, deep learning and text analytics. 
• Communicating and collaborating with both IT and business. 
• Looking for order and patterns in data, as well as spotting trends that can help a business’s bottom line. 

Data scientist’s toolbox 

• Data visualization: the presentation of data in a pictorial or graphical format so it can be easily analyzed. 
• Machine learning: a branch of artificial intelligence based on mathematical algorithms and automation. 
• Deep learning: an area of machine learning research that uses data to model complex abstractions. 
• Pattern recognition: technology that recognizes patterns in data (often used interchangeably with machine learning). 
• Data preparation: the process of converting raw data into another format so it can be more easily consumed. 
• Text analytics: the process of examining unstructured data to glean key business insights.

On the other hand, Data Analyst defined will be responsible for importing, transforming, validating or modeling data with the purpose of understanding and drawing conclusions from the data to drive operational decision-making within the organization. Mainly looking at historical data from new perspectives, and presenting this historical data in charts, graphs, and tables as well as designing and developing relational databases for collecting data.

Data Analyst job duties

• Interpreting data, analyzing results using statistical techniques and providing ongoing reports
• Developing and implementing databases, data collection systems, data analytics and other strategies that optimize statistical efficiency and quality
• Acquiring data from primary or secondary data sources and maintaining databases/data analysis systems 

Data Analyst’s toolbox

• Ability to Build and Maintain Analytical Models 
• Analyze Consumer Demographics, Preferences, Needs, and Buying Habits 
• Basic SQL Experience 
• Experience with Statistical Software Platforms (SPSS, WinCross, SAS, Market Sight) 
• Hands-On Experience with Strategy and Competitive Analysis 
• Use Statistical Software to Analyze Data 
• Working Knowledge of Tableau

So, why does the digital marketing world continuously demand marketers with analyst and data scientist skill set?

Due to the rapid evolution of technology, it has become obvious that companies are attracting some of the best talents who are able to use data to understand customers and predict buying behavior and to create meaningful marketing campaigns and improve the customer experience. In addition, to use data analysis techniques to identify meaningful relationships, patterns, or trends from complex data sets. Finally, having a strong communication and storytelling skills to present data in order to reveal insights which will lead the stakeholder to an ultimate conclusion. It is time for marketers to start thinking like data scientists by focusing on obtaining skills that help you to analyze and visualize data. These skills are required to evaluate what is happening in a business and to model solutions that will take advantage of a new opportunity or mitigate a challenging situation.

Are Digital Marketing Certifications a Key to Marketing Professionals?

Yes, they are. Many experts encourage digital marketers to get Digital Marketing Certifications. If you are interested in getting certification in digital marketing, I encourage you to check this link:  10 Best Free Digital Marketing Certifications and Courses for 2017.

To sum up, in the past companies was looking for an employee who masters Excel very well to do data analytics and data visualization. However, with the advancement of information technology, the situation has changed dramatically. Today companies are hiring people who are enthusiastic and passionate about understanding and implementing big data.

Youtube Video Ads VS. Facebook Video Ads

Facebook and YouTube are both important channels for video marketing. Online video contents over recent years are showing no signs of slowing. According to Cisco Forecast, the video will represent 69% of all consumer-based Internet traffic by 2017; this is expected to rise to 80% by 2019.

Youtube Video Ads VS. Facebook Video Ads 

Meanwhile, another study from Business Insider estimates that video advertising will account for 41% of total desktop display-related spending in 2020 in the US. however, there are some differences between these two channels with some advantages and disadvantages.In this blog, I will compare both channels and give some statistical data and some evidence to support my comparison.

Audience:

Facebook

• 500 million people are watching videos on Facebook every day (TubularInsights). 
• 85% of Facebook video is watched without sound (Digiday). 
• 78% of online audiences are already watching video on Facebook Live. 90% think the video quality is the most important aspect of Facebook Live videos.(Source: Livestream and New York Magazine Survey) 

YouTube

• People spend more time on YouTube than Facebook and when people looking for a video. 
• In an average month, 8 out of 10 18-49 year-olds watch YouTube 
• 31.8 million users aged 18 to 24 in the United States accessed YouTube at least once in the past month, accounting for 98% of internet users in that age demographic. 
• In the last month, the 18-24 age bracket spent an average of 10 hours and 15 minutes on the site.

Source: Brand Watch

Targeting:

Facebook

• To watch a video ad on Facebook, a person has to be logged into his or her account. That lets advertisers target their Facebook video ads very specifically to a potential audience's age, gender, location, and interests. 

Youtube

• YouTube offers similar targeting categories, but they do not match Facebook’s specificity at scale. Some advertisers have compensated by contextually targeting their YouTube ads, aiming them at channel categories like fashion and do-it-yourself. 

Cost:

Facebook

• Facebook's tool offers a fixed cost per thousand impressions and estimated impressions per day. 
• Facebook’s tool sells video ads through auctions. 

Youtube

• YouTube asks the brand to enter the maximum it would pay for a completed view. YouTube then estimates the average cost per view and how many views a day. 
• YouTube ads are sold as a package though, with other media such as in-stream video ads, display ads, or featured video listings. 

Autoplay vs. Skippable

Facebook

• With Facebook Video Ads viewers simply have to keep scrolling down. 
• Facebook charges advertisers by the view and starts counting views after a video has played for three seconds. Facebook reports details like how many views lasted for 50%, 75% and 100% of the video so that advertisers can calculate the effective cost of an autoplay ad. 

Youtube

• YouTube Ads have to be actively skipped or closed. 
• Viewers can skip the YouTube ads after 5 seconds. If they do not skip the ad, the YouTube video view count will be incremented when the ad has been completely viewed or at the 30-second mark. 

As a digital marketer, you have to select which channel that you are going to use that match your goal and marketing strategies to get the optimal results when you about executing your marketing campaigns.

Case Study: How does Dollar Shave Club use data analytics to ensure its digital marketing strategies?

In this blog, I will talk about How Dollar Shave Club uses data analytics to ensure its digital marketing strategies, and I will cover their e-mail marketing and video content marketing as these were the main important part of their digital marketing success as a startup business.

Dollar Shave Club is a company started in 2011 by Michael Dublin and Mark Levine in Venice, California. Their business is selling cheap blades than the ones available on the market. However, instead of using traditional retail channels they have decided to sell directly to their customer using a subscription model. As an online business, increasing their conversion rate as well as the number of products ordered by their current customers are the Dollar Shave Club’s goals. As any startup business, Dollar Shave Club faced a problem with implementing sampling program strategy. The company had a program where it sent samples to customers to entice them to buy new products. Dollar Shave Club found that blanket sampling is very costly. Moreover, the company didn’t have the right tool to analyze data that might help it better target the samples. Hence, they decided to use Looker Data Sciences Inc. SaaS to analyze all their data to leverage this business opportunity.

“The result is impressive; Dollar Shave Club’s sampling program is able to achieve a 100% return on investment.” (1) Dollar Shave Club is now able to know exactly what sample their clients will like based on their previous purchases and types of subscriptions.

Email marketing:

Dollar Shave Club used data analytics to better personalize email marketing. Data was being collected from email promotions, Web site traffic, and volume of customer help requests, but unfortunately, Dollar Shave Club couldn’t take advantage of that data. Dollar Shave Club was starting using Looker to analyze data and provide a better business solution. As a result, Dollar Shave Club discovered that customers who buy the Shave Butter product are likely to buy other products as well. As well, Dollar Shave Club used Looker to do A/B testing of email campaigns. Dollar Shave Club made some optimizations to the collected data to improve targeting, the brand persona, and content creation strategies. Better data analytics has helped Dollar Shave Club to strengthen its e-mail marketing program based on customer preferences.

Dollar Shave Club email marketing

Dollar Shave Club email marketing

Video marketing:

Everyone knows how video marketing has shaped the success of Dollar Shave Club. YouTube was where they began back in 2012. Basically, their first video went viral. As a result, within the first 48 hours of their video going live, the company generated 12,000 new customers. This one of the most successful startup story that utilizes digital marketing to target their audience.

Everyone knows how video marketing has shaped the success of Dollar Shave Club. YouTube was where they began back in 2012. Basically, their first video went viral. As a result, within the first 48 hours of their video going live, the company generated 12,000 new customers. This one of the most successful startup story that utilizes digital marketing to target their audience.

“We do use irreverence and humor as a really critical mechanism to deliver that relatability,” says Dollar Shave Club CMO Adam Weber, “That’s what we really aim to do from a tonality standpoint that I think is different than how brands have talked to guys in the past.”(2)

Dollar Shave Club uses video as an amazing platform for storytelling.  Videos reach a large number of consumers and establish a much deeper emotional connection with video than you can in other creative venues. Telling stories via video offers a lot of unique capabilities that something like television doesn’t offer.

Unlike traditional TV advertising, people are watching Dollar Shave Club video. The 94-second spot is entertaining, engaging, and hilarious. Dollar Shave Club uses humor, social media, and originality to connect with customers.

HubSpot shares a number of compelling stats that show why diversifying content marketing to include video are a smart move:

• 92% of mobile video consumers share videos with others
• More than a third of all online activity involves watching videos
• More than a third of consumers trust video ads
• 80% of users can recall a video ad they viewed in the last 30 days
• Enjoyment of video advertising increases purchase intent by 97% and brand association by 139%

What the FAQ Marketing Campaign:

On their latest marketing campaign, which is called “What the FAQ?”, It’s a video series that Dollar Shave Club has basically used to address a lot of barriers that were hearing their customers talk about as to why they didn’t want to sign up.

“The videos answer questions around contracts, quality of razors, what members think of the razors, if it's possible to switch razors, what happens if you don't grow enough hair to justify a monthly subscription, what makes DSC so special compared to other services and why people should try DSC in the first place.The campaign will live online in pre-roll ads and other formats, including use as modules serving as actual FAQs on the website, Mr. Brownstein said, adding that it has production quality that would allow adaptation for TV if needed.”(3)

As a startup business, Dollar Shave Club has a unique idea and business model that cannot be duplicated. It is true, at their beginning data analyzing and interpreting were their real struggle. However, after implementing the right business analytics tool, Dollar Shave Club had leverage that opportunity to derived massive growth in ROI and number of subscribers. Video marketing and email marketing were their most powerful tool that Dollar Shave Club has utilized to engage with their customers and that made a difference in the company success.