Creating a digital roadmap for your eCommerce brand.

While we can probably agree that 2021 so far has continued to throw us one curveball after another, Covid-19 has effectively catapulted the growth (and need) for eCommerce retail platforms. Customers have rapidly turned to the click-and-collect universe to meet all their shopping needs - from daily meals and pharmaceuticals to cosmetics and even gardening equipment. 

And that’s great news for your eCommerce retail brand! Or rather, it appears to be. 

If you already have an eCommerce option for selling products online that's great, but it also means you’re  going head-to-head against some of the biggest, most successful eCommerce retailers out there, which is no easy feat.

However, there’s no need to panic. You can ensure that your brand thrives among competitors and achieves its business goals with ONE key consideration - a digital roadmap. 

What exactly is a digital roadmap?

A digital roadmap is a plan or guide that outlines your brand vision, business goals, and how to achieve them through various digital initiatives. These include SEO, Google Adwords, website user experience, targeted social media marketing, insight tracking, digital content and more. 

Simply put, a digital roadmap is the blueprint that your eCommerce brand needs in order to plan your course of action, maximise your customer reach and develop long-term, sustainable results. 

While the demand for eCommerce is steadily increasing right now, it helps to be prepared for some of the challenges that your brand might face next year. 

Retail challenges in 2021:

• Standing out from the crowd. Brands are using different advertising channels and trends, including AI marketing technology to convert browsers into buyers. How can you optimise your marketing strategy to reach your ideal customer?
  
  

• Meeting high expectations from customers. With so many brands to choose from, you’ll want to consider how your business is serving customers. How is your brand fulfilling their expectations of a fast and easy shopping experience?
  
  

• Rising costs of acquiring new customers. Reaching new customers is important, but it’s also becoming increasingly expensive and uncertain as big tech companies like Facebook and Google are criticised for being too intrusive. What efforts are you making to retain existing customers and inspire brand loyalty? 

Source: Shopify

The reality is, customers aren’t searching for specific brands anymore, they’re searching for solutions.  According to analysts, 70% of Amazon searches do not include a brand name and 90% of product views on Amazon result from search, not from merchandising, ads or product aggregators. 

If you truly want to harness all the opportunities that 2021 has to offer, it’s time to create a foolproof plan to accelerate your growth and keep your business on track. 

And that’s why a digital roadmap is essential for your brand.  Not only will it help you prepare for the looming challenges, it’ll also optimise your marketing strategy and significantly reduce conversion costs. 

4 steps to create a digital roadmap for your eCommerce retail brand:  

Step One: Gather insights on your target customer. 

How well do you really know your target audience? Most brands have a general idea of their customer demographics but make the mistake of stopping there. For customers to resonate with your brand, it helps to dig a little deeper.

Consider asking yourself:

• What challenges are my customers facing? 

• How do they buy products? 

• What matters to them? 

• What motivates them? 

• What values do they care about? 

• What keywords are they searching for?

• How do they interact with your site? 

• What content are they engaging with the most? 

By answering these questions, you’ll gain more clarity on who your ideal customer is and how your brand can meet their needs. 

Step Two: Construct your customer’s journey. 

Now that you’re an expert on your target customer, it’s time to outline a messaging structure that aligns your brand with their expectations:

• Define your brand purpose. Why does your brand exist?

• Identify how your brand will fulfil customers’ needs. 

• Describe what your brand hopes to achieve through its products and services. 

• Build a brand story. This includes your brand background, point of difference and brand values. 

Step Three: Assess your current benchmarks and create future milestones.  

This next step will forge a clear path to get from where you are to where you want to be.  

• Evaluate your current website analytics and sales numbers. 

• Measure the results of your current marketing strategy and media plan.

• Identify new business objectives and outline your budgets for the rest of the year. 

• Fix a reasonable timeline for what you need to do each month.  

Step Four: Devise effective strategies to reach your goals. 

You’ve done the groundwork, and now It’s finally time to create a cohesive media plan. Use the information that you’ve gathered to: 

• Decide which media channels are the best suited to your objectives. 

• Establish a content strategy to foster customer engagement. 

• Define an appropriate budget based on your goals. 

• Set metrics to measure results so you know what’s working and what isn’t. 

And you’re good to go! We hope that this guide has given you some clarity and confidence on creating a digital roadmap for your eCommerce retail brand. 

If you need help putting your digital roadmap in place, book in a free pre-Discovery session with Dream Config.