5 Steps to Build Brand Advocates Online

Step 1: Reintroduce traditional customer service. 

Times have changed, and consumer expectations have changed along with them. The commoditization of online retail has almost come full circle. If you, the retailer, are looking to differentiate yourself from a competitor, competing purely on price is no longer enough. Lower your price and you might make today's sale, but cutting costs to make that bargain profitable is likely to affect more than just your bottom line. Delivery, packaging and quality are all likely to take a hit too, reducing your chances of making a sale with that customer again in the future. Price and convenience will always have a role, but there's so much more to selling effectively.

Step 2: Add a personal touch.

The personal relationship is fundamental to successful engagement with a target audience. Consumers have moved beyond the "nameless/faceless" internet; they increasingly want to "lift the veil" and speak with the person behind the site or platform and understand the stories and motivations behind the business. Consumers today are ever more focused on customer service relationships, supporting small businesses and helping good causes where they can, and there's a definite trend towards individuals researching the background of businesses before deciding to spend with them.

Step 3: Build content as well as inventory.

Some of the most successful e-commerce sites today don't appear to be selling anything at first glance. If you look at the success of Pinterest alone, you can see that overt selling is no longer a prerequisite to e-commerce success. Rich, detailed content is increasingly important not just in showcasing products and driving sales, but also in giving consumers a reason to keep coming back to you. If you provide all of the information they need, as well as valuable opinion about trends and purchasing decisions, a customer is going to come straight back to you next time they're searching for inspiration.

Step 4: Build multichannel into your strategy. 

Creating experiences that fit perfectly into a mobile platform is essential to compete in today's market. 77 percent of mobile searches are now conducted when the consumer is in the vicinity of a PC. A quarter of all consumers have visited a retail site from their mobile device and, more significantly, 28 percent of all mobile searches result in conversion. Even more impressive, 55 percent of these sales occur within an hour of the consumer starting their search. These figures will only grow as consumers increasingly rely on mobile-connected devices. The rise of showrooming offers the savvy online retailer a great opportunity to better target sales. Mobile analytics offer detailed behavior as well as the ability to follow your customer wherever they go, meaning you can better and more easily target them with relevant offers and incentives.

Step 5: Deliver against promises.

So you've used social media to build a relationship with the customer, you've showcased your products clearly and you've made the process of actually making a purchase so easy there's little excuse not to. What happens after the all-important click to buy? Logistics and its importance in ensuring safe and efficient delivery is primed to be one of the next big battlegrounds. Whether you promise same day, same hour or 14-day delivery, the important element for the consumer is that you make the timeline clear and you deliver.

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