How to help your Magento team through this uncertain time. While some eCommerce sites are seeing huge jumps in activity these days, that's not the case for everyone. For those companies who don't provide an essential service or stock critical items, this global crisis has probably brought a drop in sales and, perhaps, some free time for your eCommerce team. With your site quieter than usual and your support team with room in their schedule, how can you help your business thrive during this uncertain time? We have a few ideas.
Remember all those details you swore you'd get to when you had the time? Well, you've got the time now. Take a look back on foundational items that have been put off, like documentation that needs updated. Be honest, when was the last time your process flows, functional design documents, or integration strategy were updated?
And look, we know you'd never do this, but take a look at any "good enough" solutions you put in place during your implementation or integration. Do you have any stop-gap solutions that became long-term solutions? Maybe instead of FTP you've got a quick file exchange method in place, for example. Spend the few days that you didn't have during implementation to build that foundation.
This is also a great time to review and perhaps do some maintenance on your foundational analytics. If you're on legacy Google Analytics, take this time to make the switch to Tag manager. Figure out what changes you can make to improve conversions or build a better funnel for tracking the sales process.
It's no secret that adequate training takes time, so why not dedicate a few hours a day now towards Magento training? Magento U has a ton of courses that can help you achieve excellence in any area of Magento, including these courses:
Additionally, Adobe has made all of the Adobe Summit presentations available for free online. From keynotes to breakout sessions, there are hours of informative content available.
How are your search results working out for you? With some free time, why not go through your search results to fine tune your algorithms? Whether you're using Magento's base functionality or an extension, take a look at your zero or low returned result queries and analyze why they're low, then start making changes.
This is also a good time to take a look at paid search. Are your paid search efforts doing what you want them to do? Are you getting people to your site? Is there any spend you can cut? You have the time to evaluate channels and phrases you're spending money on that may not be as effective as you'd like. What can you tweak or cut?
Speaking of evaluating spending, take a look at your payment processor and compare it with other options. Can you save a few percentage points on terms with your current processor? Are there other options that can drop your fee by a few cents per transaction? Small changes like that add up big over time.
A few more new things to consider:
Use this time to really explore some new options that can boost your eCommerce site's performance and shopping experience.
Effective marketing is crucial to driving traffic and converting customers, but we know it takes a lot of time and effort that isn't always readily available. With things quiet around your site, take a look at your current interactive marketing tactics.
Start with your cross sells and upsells. How are they formulated? If you're using one-to-one, think about moving to rules-based product relations or see what kind of recommendations you can offer based on shopping patterns.
Other marketing activities to look into include:
Ready for a more in-depth overhaul? Our suggestion is to evaluate marketing activities starting with customers and working backwards towards suspects. Start with your current customers and review how you're taking care of them. How are you maintaining those relationships and enticing them to return?
From there, take a look at your prospects and opportunities. Evaluate why some people are taking a while to convert. What sort of customer contact can you implement there to help them make a decision?
Finally, how are you getting suspects onto your site? How are you turning them into prospects? Where can you improve those processes? Beginning this analysis at the end of the customer journey rather than the beginning helps you maintain your current, well-earned customer relationships while still providing an in-depth look at the overall process.
This list could easily last you much longer than quarantine will (hopefully), and you don't have to tackle everything. Any step forward is better than no step at all. Use this time to improve your site so that it's ready to perform for your clients when business is booming again.
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