B2B Marketing Trainer and Consultant
Do you want to please your ego, or do you want to sell more? Intuition can be a good starting point to explore new options, but you must A/B testing everything. Don't trust your gut feelings, only trust data. Tip #128 – © Franco Folini When it comes to business, there is not right opinion... Continue Reading →
For many websites there is an opportunity to boost pages SEO performances with a simple JSON-LD structured data injection. In many cases it's a low hanging fruit, and we should take advantage of it.
Reduce friction! Don't bother the customer with questions or options when an algorithm or a query in a database can figure out the answer. Simplify your customer's life, not your job! Tip #127 – © Franco Folini If you are 80% confident you can guess the correct answer fill the corresponding input fields with smart... Continue Reading →
You know your visitors and customers love videos (and Google too), but you are concerned videos will slow down your product page?Display a video’s snapshot and use Javascript to embed the video on-demand, when the user clicks on it. Light pages, great UX , improved SEO. Tip #126 – © Franco Folini Any Javascript programmer... Continue Reading →
Structured data, particularly JSON-LD, enhances SEO by clearly defining page content for Google. It simplifies validation and helps create Rich Snippets, improving visibility and attracting more visitors. Utilizing JSON-LD is straightforward, and resources like Schema.org provide formal definitions. For eCommerce, leveraging this tool can significantly boost online presence.
A single positive review can convert a hesitant shopper into a loyal customer. Highlighting top reviews on product pages builds trust and boosts confidence in your brand. However, it's important to maintain authenticity by keeping negative reviews visible. Overall, showcasing testimonials can significantly influence purchase decisions.
Don’t compete on price! Eventually, your competitors will match your lowest price. It’s a lose-lose battle. Compete on quality of service, brand image, visibility, and user experience. Tip #123 – © Franco Folini Nobody likes price wars, don't start one! Unless you are moving huge volumes and have access a exceptional prices on a consistent... Continue Reading →
This article was first posted on LinkedIn on November 20, 2019. Recently I was asked to explain the rules to make a company marketing email newsletter worth reading, a newsletter that gets read. It's an excellent question. Publishing a newsletter gives you the opportunity to increase awareness and understanding of your company and its products... Continue Reading →
Relationships outlast transactions. Invest in building strong relationships with your customers, transactions will follow. Don’t let shortsighted salespeople focus only on transactions. There’s life after the end of the quarter! Tip #122 – © Franco Folini Marketers call it Loyalty and Advocacy. I prefer to call it simply relationship.Happy customers will return to your website... Continue Reading →
To effectively engage customers, send regular newsletters containing useful information like new products and promotions. Ensure compatibility across various email systems and avoid overlapping with other communications. Consider segmenting your audience to tailor content. For more insights, refer to my recent blog post on improving open and click rates.
Be careful about the font-size you select to display the product's price. Make it small, and the price will disappear, make it big, and it will be perceived as too high. Run A/B tests to find the optimal size. If you can't, use the same values used by big eCommerce players as a reference. Tip... Continue Reading →
Don’t hope or wait for a product review, ask for it! A few days after an order has been delivered or a trial downloaded, send your customer a personalized (automated) message asking to write a review. Tip #118 – © Franco Folini People are busy, they forget to go back to your website and leave... Continue Reading →
Building a strong brand reputation requires consistency, kindness, and a commitment to customer satisfaction. Businesses must go beyond mere transactions by mastering trust through excellent service and support while demonstrating expertise. Reputation is a long-term investment, yielding benefits like organic referrals and premium pricing, but cannot be achieved through shortcuts.
Fine-tune your product’s pages <title> and <meta name='description'> tags. It's important! Google will uses them to display your products on SERP (Search Engine Result Pages). Great page title and description are the main factors to improve your organic CTR (click-through rate) also called SERP CTR. Tip #116 – © Franco Folini Many modern CMS will... Continue Reading →
Create Urgency and Scarcity.Where and when possible (and makes sense): For each promotion, highlight the deadline and show a countdown.Limit the quantity and show how many items are left. Tip #115 – © Franco Folini This is another technique that is coming straight from psychology books. We all are sensitive to scarcity. eCommerce showing a... Continue Reading →
The customer is always right, but... Some customers have negative CLV (Customer Lifetime Value) because of too many returns, complaints, and support requests. Don't be afraid to block those customers, but do it very, very smoothly. Tip #114 – © Franco Folini I wish we could have a customer score similar to the popular "credit... Continue Reading →
Join the pain, split the gain. People are more sensitive to pain (losses) than to gain. On your pages, group pain points (e.g., price and shipping) in one item and split gain points (discount and free shipping) into multiple items. Tip #113 – © Franco Folini This techniques leverage the results of several psychological studies.... Continue Reading →
The first easy steps to improve your Conversion Rate (CR)? Minimize friction! Simplify, simplify, simplify! Simplify and streamline the entire checkout process. Eliminate all distractions from the cart, including social media icons. Reduce the number of clicks needed to complete the transaction. Use a clean, minimalist page design. Once your marketing team successfully brings a... Continue Reading →
Do you know if your eCommerce is ready for the Machine Learning era?You need to be ready to transition your eCommerce to machine Learning technologies. The big eCommerce guys, like Amazon and Walmart, are already extensively using Machine Learning (ML) to process customer data to control their marketing efforts and to personalize the interaction with... Continue Reading →
Merchants seek to gather more data, but customers prefer shorter forms. To enhance conversion rates, implement guest checkout options and postpone account creation until after purchase. Request only essential information upfront and clearly mark optional fields. This balance improves customer satisfaction while fulfilling data collection needs for merchants.
Franco Folini is a marketing trainer and consultant with a background as an e-commerce entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. He taught at UC Berkeley Extension and currently teaches at the University of Strasbourg and Università della Montagna in Edolo, Italy. Recently, he moved back to his native Valtellina in the Italian Alps. Franco frequently speaks about the impact of AI and other technologies on marketing. For more details, visit his LinkedIn profile or email him at folini@gmail.com.