For many years, companies of all scopes have been trying to figure out how to increase sales online. Yet only a few have achieved results that are consistent and possible to recreate.
This is because many strategists don’t fully understand the online journey or, if they do, their analysis is limited to graphs and data that, whilst showing the numbers, do not reveal the real essence, the origins of the sales, or how the numbers are affected by creativity, seasonality or mood. For example, can they deduce from the data what a client is thinking when he or she lands on the website? Can they predict what item he or she is looking for?
To talk about this subject we have to stop viewing the data as numbers only. We need to be able to interpret the data in terms of actions or interactions that let us predict, for example, where the next click will be and that enable us to influence the customer towards a sale at the right time.
The online journey as a boat journey
Think of the online journey as a boat journey. If you want to travel internationally, you must know the relevant laws and the trade deals that can help or hinder your business (usually hinder). You must also know the best ways to arrive quickly and safely at your destination.
What do you need to embark on this journey? You will need a captain (your ecommerce manager), a crew (your entire ecommerce team, including your IRP Account Manager) and a boat that is proven to cross this ocean (the IRP platform). Your captain and crew must be able to maintain your boat during the journey; they should guide you and show the way to prosperity, even during a storm. Much more than having a good boat, a good captain or a great crew, you need all of these elements combined.
Now imagine that in addition to the boat, the captain and the crew you also have some Artificial Intelligence (AI) that keeps working even while everyone is sleeping. AI is often in the headlines in the context of playing chess or the game ‘Go’. However, AI applied to ecommerce means much more. In fact AI is already playing the ecommerce game and will lead many companies to sell even more.
We live in a world of big data. Everything that we type becomes data and to analyse all this data would take months or years if done by a human alone. In the IRP, AI technology conducts a deep analysis of your ecommerce niche and anonymised sales data collected from all IRP instances, then informs you where you could have made more money. This information can empower your company to take the right measures and to profit from them as the company continues on its online journey.
Make your Account Manager part of your crew
Your journey does not have to include your company only. Through your Systems Integrator, you can have an Account Manager that will journey all the way with you, making sure that you are selling and improving at the same time.
Remember that your journey is not all about arriving at the destination; it is also about safety — as you might arrive nowhere. More than 70% of all businesses that go online fail and go out of the market in less than five years. Your Account Manager can help you to travel safely and stay on the right course.
On your journey, each direction can lead to a different opportunity. With the right team, the right platform and a proven strategy, you are good to go.
