288 | SMS & email marketing strategies with Arianne Foulks, Aeolidia
Research has shown that you have about 8 seconds to capture people’s attention when they come to your website. That’s the average attention span for your website visitors, and that’s not a lot of time! If you fail to articulate what you sell, who those products are for and how you’re different from your competitors, you may have lost your chance to convert that potential customer. We have to be intentional about how we’re interacting & connecting with our customers so that we’re not only keeping their attention but also converting them into customers.
Today’s guest is Arianne Foulks, of Aeolidia, a web and graphic design agency. Arianne and her team work exclusively with brands with a penchant for design and they have launched thousands of online shops. She loves having a problem to solve, and has focused throughout her career on building online homes for fascinating people.
You may remember Arianne from episode 114 of Proof to Product where we talked about abandoned cart emails.
On today’s episode, we’re talking about common mistakes she sees product business owners making with their e-commerce site, SMS marketing strategies, and why you need automated email flows—like welcome and abandoned cart sequences—to better nurture and retain your current customers.
Today's episode is brought to you by our Proof to Product LABS program. If you are looking to strengthen your business foundation and are looking for coaching and a trusted community for support, come join Proof to Product LABS. Our vault of on-demand trainings runs deep, but the incredible community, the connections, and the collaborations are like no other. If you sell physical products, come join us! This is a space that was intentionally built just for you.
Common Mistakes E-Commerce Sites are Making
Over the last couple of years, Arianne has performed website audits, where she looks over an e-commerce site for just 10 or 15 minutes and provides feedback on the initial mistakes a brand might be making on their e-commerce site. This helps brands to optimize shopify and e-commerce stores to not only better communicate their goals, but also provide better sales conversions.
Business owners are so into their business that they overlook little things—that’s why having an outside perspective to audit your website is so valuable. The major questions that Arianne asks as she approaches these audits include:
What is this about?
Who is it for?
Why should I care?
Through these questions, Adrianne can help guide an e-commerce brand into better communicating and connecting with their audience, which in turn promotes sales.
Here are a few common mistakes brands are making on their e-commerce sites:
Header/Hero Image - Does it show what you sell, who it’s for, and a story of why they should care?
Brand - If you are trying to put together a website around a brand that isn't fully formed, that will show through, so put your investment behind your brand first.
Social Media Links - Don’t put your social media links at the top of your website, that’s the most distracting thing taking your potential customers off of your website.
Disorganized Navigation - Create an easy-to-navigate website, which means not having too many or too few menu items. Find a happy medium that highlights your primary product categories (consider one line and no overlapping based on your design).
Marketing Strategies for Your E-Commerce Site
Once you’ve optimized your shop, marketing your brand is one of the best strategies for getting traffic to your site. While there are dozens of ways you can market, many businesses will focus on just one approach, even if it’s not effective for them. Usually, it’s because they’re choosing a place that’s fun versus logical!
If you’ve been going for a while, the best way to optimize your marketing strategies is to look at the numbers and data. Consider utilizing Google Analytics by setting up goals and reviewing which traffic sources are actually driving sales.
Paid Advertising
One really amazing way that brands can grow their website traffic is through paid advertising. The hesitation that most brands have is the complications and difficulty of managing something that is constantly changing. It’s hard to keep up with when it isn’t something you specialize in—that’s why it’s important to consider hiring help from someone who knows how to optimize it for you.
Content Marketing
One really valuable approach to marketing is content marketing. Essentially, you’re creating interesting content for your website that people want to come see, read, and engage with. While this sounds challenging for an e-commerce site, you can always create a section called “Articles” where you share the most important info about how to use your products or what's interesting about them!
In your product descriptions you can link to some of the content you have created. This does a couple of things:
Improves SEO for your Shopify site by internally linking to other pages on your site
Allows potential customers to learn more about you, your brand, and your product
SMS Marketing
Customers often get a lot of emails that feel like spam or things they don’t want to look at in their inboxes. While it’s still important to keep email marketing as a priority, another approach you can take to marketing to existing customers is through SMS Marketing.
SMS Marketing is different because when you text somebody, they're going to get that text. People who sign up for text from you are really interested in what you offer, otherwise, they wouldn’t sign up. These end up being your BEST customers.
Not only is this approach somewhat new, but it’s also unique in that there are not a ton of brands offering it yet. This means you’re not competing for attention in their texts.
Optimizing Your SMS Marketing Strategy
While your SMS Marketing strategy will have a different cadence, style, and tone from your email marketing strategy, there are some advantages to consider.
First, you don’t have to worry about the design! Second, it requires minimal copy—short and sweet, yet impactful. When it comes to best practices, there are still learning opportunities in every audience.
Email Marketing
The more traffic you get to your website, the more email newsletter subscribers you can earn. One of the most effective marketing strategies is through email marketing—while yes, they’re people who have already found you, they are people you want to keep coming back. The hard work you put in to get them there doesn’t have to end there. Email can be one of the biggest ways to get sales by nurturing existing customers.
One way to look at how you’re allocating resources and budgets is to look at how you’re marketing to new customers and existing customers. Breaking them apart allows you to consider different strategies, including referral programs.
Implementing Klaviyo Into Your Email Marketing Strategy
One opportunity that business owners miss out on is integrating their email marketing with their online store like Shopify.
To optimize Shopify stores, you can use Klaviyo to customize your email marketing messages to your user’s behavior through APIs. You can build out a customer welcome sequence as part of your email marketing for new customers when they sign up—to help them get to know your brand better. Not only is the welcome sequence valuable, but so are the ongoing nurturing emails as well—post-purchase, abandoned cart, birthday, loyal customers, and more!
At the end of the day, you need to make sure your marketing strategy not only drives more traffic to your e-commerce website, but also ensure that you’re nurturing those existing clients as well!
In Conclusion,
Like the research shows, you only have 8 seconds to capture someone online so you have to have a great first impression. You can do this by ensuring the following pieces are in place
Header/Hero Image that shows what you do and who it is for
Branding that is consistent throughout your webpage
Social Media Links (and other distracting links) in your footer…keep those people on your website!
organized Navigation find a happy medium that highlights your primary product categories
Quick links:
Here is a round-up of links shared in this episode to help you optimize a Shopify site.
191 | Why Your Email List Is More Important Than Any Social Media Platform with Meera Kothand
161 | Optimizing our website with Jessica Freeman, Jess Creatives
114 | E-Commerce Strategies & Abandoned Cart Emails with Arianne Foulks, Aeolidia
120 | Managing a wholesale & retail e-commerce shop with Kaitlin Fontenot, Kait Studio
Today's episode is brought to you by our Proof to Product LABS program. If you are looking to strengthen your business foundation and are looking for coaching and a trusted community for support, come join Proof to Product LABS. Our vault of on-demand trainings runs deep, but the incredible community, the connections, and the collaborations are like no other. If you sell physical products, come join us! This is a space that was intentionally built just for you.
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MEET ARIANNE
Arianne Foulks is a popular educator and small business enthusiast. At Aeolidia, her web and graphic design agency, she works exclusively with brands with a penchant for design, and has launched hundreds of online shops. She loves having a problem to solve, and has focused throughout her career on building online homes for fascinating people.
CONNECT WITH ARIANNE
WEBSITE: aeolidia.com | INSTAGRAM: @aeolidia | LINKEDIN: @ariannefoulks
Connect with Katie Hunt
Katie Hunt is a business strategist, podcaster, mentor and mama to four. She helps product based businesses build profitable, sustainable companies through her conferences, courses and coaching programs.
Website: prooftoproduct.com | Instagram: @prooftoproduct
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