Countdown to the Summit: Becoming a Data-Driven Company

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Friday, August 5th, 2011

Today’s Yahoo! Store Blog post comes from Scott Smigler, President of Exclusive Concepts, Inc., a leading resource for Yahoo! stores seeking to accelerate their revenue without the overhead. For the third year in a row, Exclusive Concepts is a Patron Sponsor of the 2011 Yahoo! Merchant Summit being held August 9 and 10 in Santa Clara, CA.

When I started Exclusive Concepts 14 years ago, ecommerce was nothing like it is today. Competition among online retailers was low, and building a highly successful store was easy. In fact, simply choosing the right domain name was enough to make a store a big success. Search engines prioritized web sites that had the right keywords in their domain names, and popular search directories were easy to game as well.

It was a fun time to be in ecommerce, but you all know what happened next: things changed.

Search engines grew more sophisticated
The popularity of online shopping surged
More merchants opened online stores and competition increased

Fast forward to today

Surviving and thriving in ecommerce requires a more sophisticated approach to marketing, branding, merchandising, and operations than it ever has before. Ecommerce is growing up from its adolescence, and the reward for growing past your competition has never been bigger.

As this year’s Yahoo! Merchant Summit approaches, the question I recommend every merchant try to answer for themselves is:

How can I prepare my company to survive and thrive as ecommerce evolves?

I believe the answer is: become a data-driven company.

What does it mean to be data-driven? It means using data to make strategic and tactical decisions that will impact your company, and only relying on your "gut instinct" when there’s not enough data to inform your decision.

My company, Exclusive Concepts, will be a Patron sponsor of the Yahoo! Summit again this year. The message you’ll hear from us at our booth, in our collateral, and during my speaking sessions is simple: be data-driven.

We’ve designed our entire company and all of our services around helping Yahoo! merchants utilize a data-driven approach to growing revenue, and we believe that the answers to most challenges merchants currently face can be solved by becoming more data-driven.

Examples:

Search Engine Optimization

Merchants want an effective vaccination or antidote for recovering from Google’s Panda update, but no such magic pill exists. Panda is Google’s attempt to use a data-driven, algorithmic approach to assess quality on the Internet. Think about what that means!

Many people would say that it’s impossible to use an algorithm to judge quality, but Google is trying anyway. As a result, you must address Panda by thinking like Google, which requires that you use analytics to improve the quality and naturalness of your site’s content. During my presentation on the first day of the Summit, I’ll offer tips on using analytics to do just that.

Conversion Improvement

Merchants also want an effective approach to continue improving conversion rates, and for good reason. Offline retailers wouldn’t accept a scenario where only 1 out of every 100 visits to their store results in a purchase, and you shouldn’t either. During my presentation, I’ll show you a simple way to use analytics to change the way you think about improving your store’s conversion rates. If you visit the Exclusive Concepts booth, our consultants will also tell you about the new hosted conversion improvement software we’ve built that can dramatically lift your conversion rates.

Optimized Email Marketing

Finally, many merchants I speak with are looking for a controllable source of revenue growth. We’ve found that a data-driven approach to email marketing can deliver a substantial boost to your bottom-line, but hardly any retailers are taking advantage of it. I’ll share a brief case study from a merchant who used testing to double their revenue from email marketing, and then doubled it again, in only 3 months.

I’m looking forward to seeing you at this year’s Yahoo! Merchant Summit, and to sharing my ideas on the importance of becoming data-driven!

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Scott Smigler
President, Exclusive Concepts, Inc.
Guest blogger for Yahoo! Small Business
Follow @YSmallBusiness on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook

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