The move from online sales to experience sales
The digital shift and transition to online sales have been core drivers behind business growth over the past decade. As such, businesses have focused on improving the online sales experience on both desktop and mobile. Much like a retail shop in the high street, however, the online sales channel is only as good as the conversion rate and basket size. Layered on top is the increased fragmentation of the media landscape, combined with relentless competition for each and every minute of your audience; this poses more and more obstacles when it comes to achieving growth through online sales. So how do you get past limited goals and market fragmentation? Is this really how you achieve growth in the long run?
This is where the shift from online sales to experience sales happens. Online sales focuses on sales on an online platform. Experience sales is platform agnostic. It can happen anywhere and at any time. Because that is where your customers are. Online sales has boundaries, experience sales is limitless. In the era of online sales, the platform is the central focal point. For experience sales, the customer journey is the focal point.
Maximising the value of customer attention
In recent years I have been driving online sales and marketing for companies such as Google, Expedia and Adobe and, together with my teams, I have been part of the transition from analogue sales to online sales. The success of these organisations has been based on the fundamental principle:
Attention * Experience = Sales
Or to put it another way, if your business is discovered by many people and all those people have a great experience while interacting with you, then sales and growth will be the natural outcome.
A crafted and targeted marketing campaign can drive attention while the experience is driven by the desktop and mobile site: which leads to sales. Online conversion rate is the most important KPI here. In order to achieve growth, efforts therefore tend to focus on improving the web and mobile conversion. Conversion rates can wary in range depending on product and industry of course, but most common is that you will see sales conversion rates below 10%, leaving a large share of the customers that look but do not buy. But if you work in the online sales space – you know this by heart by now. So, what’s new?
From traditional online sales to experience sales
By looking at online domain conversion rates only you are missing out on a big share of your customers attention. Customer experience becomes limited to the web- and mobile site. Looking back at our previous formula - Attention * Experience = Sales - instead of two variable factors we set one fixed. And, by doing so we will limit ourselves as well as our ability to grow. With this mindset strategies are crafted and founded in company structure, as oppose to customer experience. An inside out perspective is adopted, as oppose to a customer centric outside in perspective.
Growth will always be limited by the online platforms, where you will struggle for attention in an already fragmented landscape. In addition, customer experience is not founded in your customers idea of how they want to interact with you – but more in your idea of how you want to serve your customer.
The notion of your customer shopping online is valuable to any business, because of the premium margins, however this may not necessary be what your customer likes to do. And what your customer likes and does not like is the guiding star of our time.
Your customer moves in a world which is profoundly different than the world your company moves in. They live and breathe, play and eat and socialize and go about with their lives. If you want to be successful you therefore need to be where your customers are, and give them the best possible experience in that place. And, this is not necessarily on a website.
Each product, service or brand is unique in some way (that is why they are out there). The way you sell to your customer needs to be as well. How, and where you sell to your customer needs to be exactly how and where they want to buy your product.
This journey will move freely between various touchpoints, offline, online, direct and indirect as well as between own, bought and earned domains. The main task of the digital strategy will be to manoeuvre these channels, to make the customer experience seamless, to continuously derive and work with insights and data to further develop the experience in each channel. By doing so you expand your notion of customer experience, you make the most of the attention your audience gives you and hence maximise your ability to grow.
Helena Juhlin Pink works as an advisor within digital transformation, supporting brands on their journey to becoming digitally savvy businesses.