The TLDR; There's only 3 ways to win online: Get more prospects, convert a higher percentage of prospects, make more off of each prospect.
In 2016, a reported 27% of consumers preferred online to in-store shopping. In 2020, that number exploded to 47% (link). In 2018, 45% of mattress transactions occurred online, and in 2021 the industry exploded to a $35b globally!
The number of consumers who say they go into a mattress store to look around has also decreased from 57% to 36%, but currently only 38% of mattress retailers actually sell their products online!
The statistics suggest that online shopping is not only going to continue trending upward, but ultimately become the way in which consumers prefer to buy.
So how do you win in this ecosystem?
Option 1: Increase The Size of your Funnel: (Spend your way to Victory)
The thought here is to quickly grow online presence and drive traffic by creating massive marketing campaigns from various channels generally requiring an ad spend.
Examples include: Online ads, email marketing, social media, SEO & Search, influencers and much, much more!
Option 2: Build a More Efficient Funnel: (Optimize your way to Victory)
Getting shoppers to your site is the first challenge, the second challenge is getting them to buy. CRO or Conversion Ratio Optimization is the process of improving the ratio between the number of visitors to the site to the number that actually transact.
Examples include: Website Layoutting, Urgent/Scarce Offers, Social Proof/Reviews, Improved Imagery, Clear & Concise Value propositions, Guarantees, Page load speed improvements, gamification, product availability, and much, much more!
Option 3: Increase the Value of the Contents of the Funnel: (Strategize your way to Victory)
Once an organization can drive traffic and convert users, there's one more step (maximize the value of the transaction). Average Order Value (AOV) can be increased by upselling items that relate to the buyer's primary purchase. This is also known as "attachment rate". Generally, attachment rates are low in the bedding category as compared to in-store because companies struggle to transcend the primary motive for shopping online (saving money).
Examples include: Bundle options, suggested products, unique financing for larger transactions, incentives like free shipping for larger orders, and many, many more!
But what about retargeting?
No, we didn't forget that. Retargeting is the process of:
a) Working an unconverted prospect further down the sales funnel (CRO)
b) Putting a converted client back into the sales funnel
Retargeting existing buyers increases the ALV (average lifetime value) of your clients while simultaneously reducing your average cost of lead acquisition. These prospects are statically more likely to buy again provided that you have delivered on your initial transaction promise.
Examples include: Email drip, Calling, Mailers, Online Ads, Push Notifications, Text Offers
About Bedhead Marketing
All three phases can be issues in your client acquisition process so we help organizations review these to make sure budgets are optimized for maximum ROI! Whether you have an established funnel that needs review or need to build one from scratch, we can help!