traffic building
DESCRIPTION
A detailed analysis of the way online fashion retailers use traffic building techniques to drive audiences to their site.TRANSCRIPT
Traffic Building
Analysing traffic
building techniques
within the online
fashion retail
industry.
The Online Fashion Industry
Traffic building is
“The use of online
promotion and
offline promotion
techniques to
increase the
audience of a site”
(Chaffey. D and
Smith. PR, 2008).
“More than half of 15-24 year olds prefer buying clothes in store rather than online”
Do all retailers need an online website to keep up with competitors?
“ASOS and Debenham’s most visible fashion retailers, online”
Searches for the women's wear related products were the most popular, with more than 1.3 million searches having been made.
1 Introduction
2 Online Fashion Market
4 Primary Research – Questionnaire
6 Primary Research – Interviews
7 Search Engine Optimisation
8 Search Engine Marketing
9 Crawling The Web
10 Blogs
14 Online Public Relations
15 Social Media Marketing
16 Successful Social Media Marketing on Facebook
17 Email Marketing
18 Offline Marketing
19 Behavioural Targeting
20 Mobile Marketing
21 The Future
23 Conclusion
24 Recommendations
25 References
„Traffic building strategy for
web sites and other online
presences … involves
selecting the right mix of
digital marketing tools or
channels‟ (Chaffey, 2013). The
aim of traffic building is to
increase the amount of visitors
passing through a site by the
use of both online and offline
techniques.
In order to create successful
traffic building, businesses are
constantly developing new
marketing strategies in
attempt to continually drive
traffic to their website.
The aim of our magazine is to
discover both successful and
non-successful traffic building
techniques that are used
within the online fashion retail
industry. In our magazine we
will discuss the different
methods used by online
marketers to build traffic, as
well as giving real examples of
companies that have used
these methods.
We have chosen to
analyse the online fashion
retail industry. This
industry is continuously
growing due to the
expansion of online
shopping. Thus indicating
that successful traffic
building is more important
than ever in order to
succeed.
Page 1
Introduction
Creative Team
Page 2
Market Sector – Online Retail
The growth of the internet all around
the world has lead to the popularity of
shopping online. In 2011 British
online shoppers spent over £65
billion; according to WARC (2012)
online retails accounts for only 13%
of overall sales. “Online outlets are
set to capture a third of the UK retail
market by 2022, a new forecast from
the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)
has shown” (WARC, 2012).
The rise of online shopping has been
majorly influenced due to the rapid
rise in smart phone and tablet
devices, this allows users to browse
the web and use apps to shop or link
consumers through to the main
business website. The availability of
online shopping lets consumers to
shop when and where they want
making online shopping even easier
for consumers. Over the next few
years “the mobile retail channel will
rise by 504%” (WARC, 2012). This is
why fashion retailers are creating
apps and building better mobile
websites for their businesses.
The fast growth of the online shopping
market has forced retailers to invest in
traffic building techniques in order to
keep consumers returning to their
website.
Showrooming a new trend which
involves consumers going into high
street stores to look at the goods first
before comparing prices or buying
online. The “showrooming” trend is
forecast to continue to grow over the
next couple of years causing shops to
be “showrooms” and “act as a
channel for consumers to see, touch
and try out goods – even if they make
purchases using other means”
(WARC, 2012)
According to
statistics £1 in every
£10 is spent online
(Office for National
Statistics 2011).
Indicating the
popularity of online
shopping amongst
consumers.
„The online
clothing market
has doubled
over the last five
years‟ (Harry
Wallop, 2011)
Primary Research
Page 4
The main majority of our target audience is
female, therefore more females were asked to
complete the questionnaire.
The target audience of most online fashion
retailers we looked at aim for a target
audience of 18-35 therefore more of this age
group was asked.
A large number of candidates asked only
purchased from online stores a couple of
times a month, some even less. This
suggests that sites may not have trouble
getting people to visit them but can‟t persuade
people to actually shop from them frequently.
Research shows that show-rooming is
becoming increasing popular amongst
consumers nowadays (Inc.com, 2013).
Although our results don‟t reflect this in terms
of online fashion retail shopping.
Primary Research
Page 5
The overall preferred way to shop was in
the high street. A lot of respondents said this
was because they could see the product up
close, try it on and see if it fits.
From the research it indicates that the
promotion fashion retailers user influences
people to go to the website creating traffic
and potentially buy from them.
It is still most common for customers to visit
websites through a laptop or computer
rather than an app on a tablet or through
their mobile.
Most of the traffic building through the
website is coming from search engines
(58.73%). This indicates that the website
address isn‟t easy to remember to be able
to just go straight to the website.
Page 6
Interviews
General feedback from the focus
group was that individuals did not
know what „traffic building‟ was and
how it functioned effectively. Once
an explanation was provided, they
then believed that is was important
for businesses to focus on building
traffic to their sites. As a result it
would increase sales revenue and
brand awareness.
Participants claimed that the
easiest way to find the sites was
through search engines, indicating
to us that search engine
optimization is key for businesses.
Spending money on analytics such
as Google and Adwords is an
important factor for companies to
use in order to gain a full amount of
traffic. By paying for an
advertisement will in terms „pay off‟
as it will be seen by a wide target
audience and promote the site over
competitors.
Our results also showed that
individuals prefer to shop online
rather than in store due to „easier‟
and „quicker‟ processes. Showing
growth in the online shopping
market. They do however like to
be able to try on and „get a feel‟
for the items, which is something
that online retailers have yet to
explore further. (Marketing
Magazine).
Participants explained that
the most common online
marketing techniques they
have seen is in the form of
advertisements. Mostly
adverts that link directly to the
site. They believe these are
affective ways to traffic build
as they remind them that the
site exists and that they can
purchase items 24/7.
The adverts are normally in
the form of banners, or side
advertisements when looking
at the web. This could be
when individuals check their
emails, or search for
information that is not
relevant to fashion at all.
However it can catch the
users eye, and persuade
them to visit the online
retailer.
Advertisements are
increasingly targeting an
individual rather than an
audience as a whole. They
track a persons search habits
and link relevant adverts to
their computer. Examples
include searching „Hunter
wellies‟ either through the
official website, EBay, or
additional retailers such as
John Lewis. Even if a
purchase has been made, all
advertisements that then pop
up on the individuals
computer will be about
„Hunter wellies‟ and what
offers or deals you can
receive.
Pages that appear because of their
relevance to search terms, rather than by
merit of being a paid listing.
ASOS has both an organic search and a
PPC (pay per click) advertisement to build
traffic through to their site.
Keywords are majorly important when it
comes to SEO, this is because the more
you have and use, the higher up the search
page your company will be.
Search Engine Optimisation Le
vel o
f re
leva
nce
to
ASO
S
Lower down on the relevance scale of
ASOS is the brands social networking
sites which direct consumers straight to
the pages. This still creates traffic to the
site in the long run as, the links for the
social elements will eventually link back
to the main website and vice versa.
Recent news stories about the
company also feature high up on
the search, to inform customers
with up to date information about
the brand they are choosing to
deal with.
A keyword such as „fashion‟
produces a ranking of 4th for
ASOS, behind vogue and
newspaper articles. It is however
the first fashion retailer placed
upon the organic search and is
reinforced with a PPC
advertisement placed to the right
of the main search.
90% of
clicks
Page 7
On-page optimization
Keyword density Title Tag optimization
Keywords in the content Quality of original
content Keywords in hyperlinks
Keywords in headings and bold tags
Keywords in URL Meta Tags (some
engines) Sitemap
Link structure "Indexability" of the web
page
Off-page optimization
Amount of incoming links Quality of sites that link
to yours Relevancy of sites that
link to yours Keywords in the anchor
text
Search Engine Marketing
These are paid for listings and
„sponsored links‟ that appear when
a keyword or phrase is entered
into a search engine.
Advertisers only pay when
searchers click on the sponsored
link. This ensures search
relevance and they tend to earn
more clicks, move higher in ad
rank and bring more success.
Ways to do this include using
Google Adwords, simply setting it up
online or calling experts to help you
set up your first campaign. This in
turn results in customers viewing
your sites adverts.
You then get to choose a
daily budget which suits your
sites and once customers
begin clicking is when you
begin paying.
As well as Google Adwords
a website can use an
independent company to
manage their PPC. This
saves the company time
however it can be very
costly, especially for smaller
retailers.
PPC
Price – Cost = Revenue
CPC
Conversions / clicks =
conversion rate
10% of
clicks
Page 8
Crawling the web
How often does Google crawl the web?
Crawls are based on many factors such as:
•Page rank
•Links to a page
•Crawling constraints
“Our crawl process is algorithmic; computer
programs determine which sites to crawl,
how often, and how many pages to fetch
from each site. We don't accept payment to
crawl a site more frequently” (Google Home
2013).
http://youtu.be/vS1Mw1Adrk0
Before a search engine can tell you where
a file or document is, it must be found.
Crawling the web refers to an internet bot
that browses the world wide web for a
relevant search amongst millions of pages
and URL‟s.
When the Google spider looks at
an HTML page, it takes note of two things:
•The words within the page
•Where the words were found
The Google spider was built to index every
significant word on a page, leaving out the
articles "a," "an" and "the.“(Google Home
2013).
Algorithm – A complex mathematical
formula used by a search engine to
rank the web pages that it finds
by crawling the web. The online fashion retailer ASOS appeared
in the top ten for 66 out of 72 generic
fashion search terms in Google.
ASOS led the retail sites with 8.2m
clickthroughs.
“Online fashion retailers featured more
prominently in paid search terms for
womenswear compared to multichannel
retailers” (econsultancy.com)
Page 9
Blogs
Blogs can be very important when
building traffic for fashion retailers. If
stylists recommend a certain product on
a particular site, many of it‟s followers
will visit those sites in order to purchase.
The use of links on those blogs, can
take the audience straight to for
example, ASOS, River Island etc..
Direct links to wear
the outfit was
bought. This results
in traffic to the
retailers sites.
“Start a blog and build
page volume by posting
regularly – every day or at
least 3-4 times a week.
Work on your page
optimization to maximize
chances of having more
of your pages including in
Google‟s index”
(Anna Hoffman2013).
Blogging helps to
promote your business
and lead traffic through
you site more
frequently.
1. Blogging works to
generate traffic and
leads.
2. The more you
blog, the more blog
traffic you will
generate.
Page 10
Example Blog
Blogs
66% of
companies
use a blog and
update it
regularly.
Blogging = Traffic
“If you add a blog to your site, and feed it regularly with new postings, you’ll instantly make your site more interesting, and give your first-time visitors a reason to come back for more”
If retailers can gain working relationships with bloggers or produce their own blog, this extra promotion will bring traffic to their sites
The
more
people
are
talking
about
products
the more
likely
they are
to visit
your site
Page 13
Online PR „involves building
links to website or delivering
information about a company
or its brands‟ (Chaffey, 2013).
Online public relations allows
companies to structure a
positive brand / company
perception amongst audiences.
If done right, it allows
businesses to differentiate from
competitions and fuels a brand.
Online PR holds many benefits
for businesses due to the
relatively small costs. For
example, social media sights
such as Facebook and Twitter
have no sign up costs and
therefore costs businesses
nothing to post information to
their audiences. However, due
to the size of the online web,
businesses are unable to
control every piece of
information that is published
about their business or brand.
Negative PR could affect a
company and brand
dramatically, therefore PR
needs to be managed
effectively and link with traffic
building or no measure of
effectiveness can be made. An
advert can build traffic to a
website if there is enough
„hype‟ and speculation around
a range or new clothing line.
Page 14
Online Public Relations
A recent example of
successful online PR was
the recent advert from
H&M which went viral. On
the 6th February 2013 the
advert was released online
staring the football legend
David Beckham. The
advert features the star
losing his dressing gown,
and his procedure to chase
the car through the
Hollywood Hills. Within
days the advert had gone
viral and was being
watched all over the world.
The star even self
promoted the advert on his
Facebook page to create
more buzz. H&M used
David Beckham, the global
brand to reinforce their
company values and
reputation as well as
building awareness of their
new products being
launched.
Page 15
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing refers to the
process of gaining and building awareness
of your site through a range of different
online platforms.
Success of social networking sites
Facebook and Twitter has encouraged
companies to use social media as a form
of marketing. It enables them to reach a
wide variety of audiences who may not use
the traditional platforms of advertising.
Now 75% of businesses use social media
marketing. It is accessible to consumers
and can maintain brand awareness and
loyalty.
It has been found that 66% of consumers
who follow a brand on Twitter will purchase
products and 66% of consumers
increased their searches due to
information found on social sites.
Social sites can link directly to the fashion
website, which increases traffic overall, it
also enables companies to update
information regularly and offer customers
exclusive deals and promotions,
something which they might not receive
in store. The social market is expanding
to not only to include, Twitter and
Facebook, but to branch out to Instagram
and Pintrest. These are picture only sites,
which could link in well with fashion
blogs, to promote a clothing range or
particular item. These pictures then
promote the websites which sell these
garments and drive customers online to
purchase them immediately above other
customers, especially when items are
exclusive or limited edition.
Successful Social Media Marketing On Facebook
Page 16
Within the fashion industry the most
popular way companies target their
audiences is through the social media
site Facebook. Facebook allows
companies/brands to publish any
content they want (text, pictures,
events, etc) allowing them to directly
interact with their audiences.
The high street shop River Island,
have successfully used social media
sites to target their audiences. The
River Island Facebook page have
over 1 million likes, with over 29,000
active users talking about the page.
The company use their Facebook
page to provide their target audience
with interesting fashion focused
content they wish to see. River Island
update their page daily with new
posts so that users who have liked
the page will see the updates posted
every time they log onto their
Facebook account. All of this helps to
build traffic for River Island as it
encourages audiences to visit the
Facebook page or the companies
website.
With different content added daily the
River Island brand is constantly
being reinforced to the target market
(users who have liked the page) and
continues to let them know the brand
exists. With the overall aim to
encourage audiences to visit the
company website, and potentially
purchase.
Email Marketing
Page 17
Email marketing allows businesses to directly
reach their consumers through electronic mail.
Email marketing helps companies to reach
audiences who are interested in their business.
Email marketing is a good way to guide existing
customers back to business, as emails remind
consumers the company still values it‟s
customers. Email marketing enables companies
to track the effectiveness of their email marketing,
by tracking how many hits their website gains
from a direct email.
Having an incentive for customers to sign up will incline them more to give their email
and interact with the brand. Email addresses are usually gained by an „opt-in‟ email
choice or from previous activity on the site. “Opt-in e-mail advertising or permission
marketing is a method of advertising by electronic mail wherein the recipient of the
advertisement has consented to receive it” (Web1Marketing, 2013).
Personalisation of an email
A direct email can let
businesses target a
consumer based on
what they have looked at
on their website and
provide them with what
they‟re interested in.
Seasonal promotions
Brand emphasis
Many companies use email marketing to keep their target
audience up to date on their latest offers giving them
reason to return to their website therefore building traffic
through it.
Offline Marketing
Offline Marketing can generate traffic through a website by promoting special sales that
are only available with a physical voucher, this holds a code which can be used at
checkout on a website.
Page 18
This offer promotional codes for
online fashion retailers which
persuades them to shop online. It
is often personalised to shopping
trends the user has previously
bought. H&M send a catalogue to
houses where customers have
previously bought online. This
causing customers to continue to
interact with the brand and
potentially re-use the website. You
can also order a copy of the
catalogue from the website which
give customers an update of the
latest fashion, thus inclining the
consumer to go online to buy
these latest trends.
Offline PR can generate free
promotion for a business as it
create word of mouth, for example,
fans hearing about Rihanna doing a
line for River Island, they don‟t
usually shop on River Island but are
interested because of the celebrity
endorsement. Newspaper articles
or magazine mentions can also
spark interest within a consumer as
they talk about the latest fashion
and the possibility of where
consumers can find them cheaper
at places such as TopShop or
very.co.uk. Now Magazine have a
fashion section where they show
catwalk fashion pieces and similar
piece they can find online.
Offline PR Direct mail
Behavioural Targeting
A definition of behavioural targeting is “personalised, relevant messages are delivered
for example by email or web which relate to a customers current interests” (Chaffey,
2008). Behavioural retargeting is when “ads are displayed elsewhere on a site or other
sites in an ad network after a customer has interacted with an initial ad or related
content” (Chaffey, 2008).
Networks such as Google or BING create profilers of web users interests which are
constantly updated every time they use the site or a connected site. Users usually are
identified by cookies which sent information to the advertising networks about the sites
they view, their current interests, their location and their gender allowing the networks to
place ads which are appropriate to the user (The Telegraph, 2010).
Conlumino “predicts 11% of
sales will be derived from the
online channel by the end of
2013 compared to 8% at
present” (New Media
Knowledge, 2013)
Page 19
The table shows the results fort
natural searches meaning the
most relevant pages compared
to the keywords searched.
The ads will create interest, from the side bar or pop –up, getting the users attention
and creating traffic to their site and potentially through to the buying process. The
fashion retailer will know that the user is interested as they will only target users
based upon previous relevant keywords searched by that user. Thus targeting
consumers interested in the brand or business advertised.
Mobile Marketing
“Mobile is dramatically
changing the way people are
shopping and exchanging
info” (Heather Hopkins,
Freeland, CMO, Gilt City)
The breakthrough of mobile
marketing happened in 2008 when
Apps where first introduced. Apps
allow business to market to their
consumers directly, they are easy for
audiences to use and relatively
cheap for businesses to produce.
According to Warc “‟the rise of
smartphones and tablets has
depended the relationship between
consumers and their devices‟ (Warc,
Mobile Marketing 2012). This means
for companies want to create traffic
for their company, they can use apps
to grad the attention of their
audiences.
In order for mobile marketing to work
it is essential that marketers
understand how their audiences use
mobile devices. Different audiences
require different approaches. Apps
allow companies to target their
audiences in one approach as the
ones who visit a certain app will be
the audiences who are interested in
that particular companies products.
28% of the UK use Apps to
purchase products (Warc,
Mobile Marketing 2012)
„Mobile is now an opportunity
to engage consumers in a
targeted and contextual
manner‟ (Stephanie
Baghdassarian, Research
Director, Gartner)
Page 20
Many fashion retailers now have their own Apps
that allow their customers to search for
products, view products, purchase products,
read reviews and also look for special offers.
from the comfort of their mobile phone or tablet
devices. This makes it even easier for
customers to shop for products.
The Future
So what is next for digital and the online
fashion sector?
“The widely accepted point of view
was that luxury is inherently
exclusive, while digital is largely
about inclusivity and furthering
accessibility – opposite ends of a
diametric scale.
Therefore, it's definitely encouraging
to see luxury brands sampling the
latest technologies and trying to
create something innovative through
their fashion week activities” (Laura
Tan, The Guardian 2012).
This quote suggests that digital can
be used for not only high street
retailers but the more expensive
luxury brands too. Including some of
which attended London Fashion
Week. They have realised they need
to embrace digital in order to expand
their audiences and continue
pleasing existing customers.
Branching off from the digital
umbrella retailers are beginning to
use media across all technologic
devices. This includes apps on
tablets and smart phones which
many retailers have begun
financing. These apps are a medium
in which traffic can be increased to
the main website, it also increases
brand awareness for the retailers.
The development of apps needs to
be increased and the technicality
behind them also. Designs and
viewing options need improvement
to engage fully with the user.
How are you using new
technologies to improve
customer experience and drive
sales in-store and online?
“We're using social media
platforms like Twitter, Instagram
and Facebook to build a direct
relationship with our consumers
and bring to life the House of
Holland experience. We monitor
where our customers are
coming from, how they shop,
what they are buying and when
they make purchases – from
this we can see that a large
proportion come from these
channels. One key move for us
was to integrate our online store
within our Facebook profile,
allowing customers to shop
directly through Facebook as
well as the main website”.
(Interview with designer Henry
Holland).
http://youtu.be/P1S5Z14OoF4
Page 21
The Future – continued…
“Studies have shown that
users are more engaged
on mobile apps than on
websites”
Boaz Tal
“Morgan Stanley survey
predicts that more people will
be accessing the internet from
mobiles than from desktops by
2014. If a sizeable percentage
of your online traffic originates
from mobile platforms you
need to deliver a superior user
experience on these
platforms”.
Targeting the audience at
different times of the day is
important, they will use
different devices throughout.
Online retailers need to
develop media which is
accessible and relevant to the
individual at a particular time of
the day.
In terms of traffic building,
each online platform used
needs a link to the actual
site website or a means of
measurement itself. If
purchases are being made
through apps it would be
interesting to see the step
by step process in which
the audience are using the
different site options.
Whether the app leads
them online later on to
purchase, or perhaps the
website then builds traffic
to the smart phone app.
Page 22
Page 23
Blogs
Email Marketing
Email marketing is an effective way
for fashion retailers to stay in
contact with customers who have
previously bought items or have
opted-in for their newsletters. This
way they know that they are
targeting interested customers who
are more likely to go on the website
after being emailed. It is efficient in
building traffic through the website
as the consumer can opt-in for
specific items they want to be
emailed about therefore the email is
personalised for them making it
more interesting for them and
encouraging them onto the main
website.
Conclusion
Facebook is an effective
marketing tool for retailers as it
allows them to directly market to
their target audiences. Audiences
of pages can choose what they
like or follow therefore retailers
are specially marketing to those
consumers who want to see their
posts and page. Retailers use
Facebook to post content and
links that will direct audiences to
their site and encourage
purchases.
Overall, there are many successfully traffic building techniques that online
fashion retailers use is order to drive audiences to their sites. We believe the
three most successful traffic building techniques for online retailers are
Facebook marketing, Email marketing and Fashion Blogs.
Blogs allow creators to use
certain online retailers to
discuss and showcase the
latest fashion trends. Blogs
create free PR for online
retailers as creators do it for
their own personal reasons.
Blogs build traffic by featuring
the retailers name and
sometimes a direct link to that
site, this creates an overall
buzz around a particular
product or trend.
Recommendations
Page 24
Online retailers use social networking sites as
another form of advertising. Examples show most
recent trends with a direct link to the retailers site.
Recommendations would include continuing the use
of this medium in order to build traffic and further
purchases.
Bloggers hyperlink where they have bought
products from, creating traffic directly to that
site. Retailers could support successful blogs
either in the form of advertising or sponsorship
in order to gain more publicity.
If blogs do not have direct links there is relevant fashion
advertisements featured throughout the bloggers page,
which audiences can click on to be redirected to the site. For
the future bloggers should look into acquiring
advertisements not only for profit but build traffic to their own
blog and the retailers website.
With the rise of the use of mobile apps for businesses
fashion retailers could become more competitive by
having an easy, useable fashion app. This way
customers are able to shop on the go and access the
app anywhere, at anytime. The use of the app will
enable consumers to shop when its convenient for
them.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/9055064/Online-behavioural-targeting-QandA.html
http://www.web1marketing.com/glossary.php?term=Opt-In+Email+Marketing
http://gossip.greenlightdigital.com/sector-reports-fashion-retail/fashion-retail-sector-report-issue-16-january-2013/
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