Four Small Mistakes With Big Consequences

With the holiday season rapidly approaching, eCommerce stores should be preparing for one of the busiest times of the year. Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday kick off the shopping season, and preparing your business ahead of time will help ensure your success and your customer’s satisfaction. While focusing on big tasks is important, here are some small but significant mistakes you might be overlooking.

Not Spreading Your Focus:

Everyone has their preferred marketing methods. Maybe you have an incredible Instagram or a hilarious Twitter account. That’s great! Keep putting the focus there, but remember that your customers might be looking for you on other platforms. Spreading your efforts across different social media platforms, as well as emails and advertisements, help you reach a wider audience and connect with more people. As a marketing team, use each other’s strengths to create great content across all platforms.

Using An Inconsistent Brand Voice:

Having a business that is quickly growing, or one that tends to stay very busy, can make it difficult to focus on keeping a consistent brand voice. When you are promoting your products across different platforms, it is easy to get caught up in the “voice” of whichever platform you are using. For example, Twitter tends to be very casual while Facebook is a little more formal. Know your audience on each platform and cater to them, but also keep a consistent voice. Start by brainstorming a few words that best describe your brand. Perhaps you are dependable and friendly, or quick and communicative. Use your adjectives to influence your voice, and it will help you keep consistency.

Ignoring Questions And Reviews:

One of the most frustrating things for customers is trying to contact a business and not getting a timely response. While it is unreasonable to expect an immediate answer at all times, do your best to respond as quickly as possible to customers. Be mindful of the language you use, especially with negative reviews. When customers are rude or have a bad attitude, it is coming from a place of frustration so do whatever you can to diffuse the tension and resolve their issue. If someone leaves you a kind review, it is good to acknowledge those as well to encourage future reviews.

Many customers will still try to get in contact with you via phone, but in today’s age of technology consider adding a live chat feature if you have not. Also, keep up with your social media inboxes and mentions. With so many ways to get in contact, it is important to keep an eye on every potential channel a customer can reach out on to make sure they get the response they need. It can be overwhelming, so consider using a website such as Mention to help you keep up with everything.

Not Optimizing Your Marketing:

Good products should sell themselves, but if nobody has heard of your product they can’t buy it. Make sure you are making the most of your marketing efforts. Reach across several platforms, track what your customers are responding well to, and utilize keywords and hashtags when you can. When your marketing team is busy, coming up with creative and effective hashtags might be the last thing that they want to do, but it’s the little details that add up to make a big difference.

Little mistakes are easy to make but can have some pretty big consequences. Take some time before the big holiday rush to asses what your team is doing well with, and what little things you can improve on to make this your most successful holiday season yet.