The Winner Takes All

In ecommerce we compete in a near winner takes all marketplace.

There’s no referee making sure that all sellers get their fair share of the customers looking to buy that product.

Imagine that! Oh John Lewis has had a lot of customers today so let’s send some to Marks and Spencer!

“One Competitor Tends To Dominate Over The Rest”

This means that in many areas one competitor tends to dominate over the rest.

This is more skewed in B2B markets where purchases are less aspirational and more about features, price, reputation and less about personal taste.

Also, it’s completely skewed in commoditised markets where e.g. everyone is selling the same Aga Kettle.

The flip side of this means that a small advantage over the competition means that you become the winner that takes all.

“Pay Huge Attention To The Buyers Choice For The Products That You Sell”

Given this, it makes sense to pay huge attention to the buyers choice for the products that you sell.

I like to go deep into the mindset of the customer and see what they are presented with.

But it’s not always obvious which factor is the main advantage that works to get the sale.

Knowing the advantage, especially when it’s not obvious, will scale your revenue.

“We Need To Uncover The Trigger That Makes People Buy”

We need to uncover the trigger that makes people buy, how do we do this?

– Ask the buyers why they bought
– Put a survey in the path of cold traffic on AdWords for the main keywords
– Find people who are about to buy what you sell and look over their shoulder
– Use competitive data tools like SEM Rush or HREFs to find the competitor who buys the most traffic and reverse engineer their offering
– Split test a lot of different messaging in your Adwords text ads
– Split test your reasons to buy on your landing pages

Once you find the key message that triggers the purchase, your next job is to amplify that message across the site. Use a tool that shows you where peoples eyes focus on the page and move the trigger message to this position.

Have a look at what happens to your Google Shopping campaigns when you find the right trigger https://go.markhammersley.co/get-started

Thanks

Mark (Trigger Hunter) Hammersley