Posted by MrLukeCarthy COVID-19 has switched up life as we know it, and it’s unlikely to stop doing so for some time. E-commerce shopping is a perfect example of how things have changed, and in a number of ways. If you feel like Shopify has been dropping huge, disruptive news bombs practically each week now, you’re right! And who’d have guessed that in the UK, the exclusively online supermarket, Ocado, is now worth more than brick-and-mortar grocers Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, and Marks and Spencer combined. The speed of transformation in e-commerce since the COVID-19 outbreak (an already fast-paced industry) has been savage. Supply chains are under strain for many brands selling online (especially where demand is high and supplies are low). How do you best manage expectations and maximize every opportunity to sell to your target audience? With your consumers now relying on the world of online shopping more than ever, how can you be sure you’re getting your fair share of that online retail pie? Well, this post is designed to help you answer precisely these questions. Whether your sales have taken a hit or you have “off the wall” levels of demand, here are some ideas to help you navigate that bounce back and to help customers stay in love with your brand. Pay close attention to changing on site search behavior Your site search is a goldmine of insight, especially right now. Seriously. Frequently checking in to understand how and what your customers are looking for once they get to your store can reveal a bunch of opportunities. It’s possible that before COVID-19 took a stronghold on everyday life, customers had different contexts in mind when searching for your products. For example, searches for “gloves” today vs. in January are likely to be visitors searching for two separate products entirely. It’s important to ensure that you’re serving today’s customer sufficiently and addressing their context correctly to remain relevant and to improve conversion. Here’s an extreme example, but it’s a poignant one nonetheless. For context, Holland and Barrett are a popular, high street healthcare retailer with a strong web presence here in the UK. When searches for “coronavirus” had skyrocketed and demand for hand sanitizer and Paracetamol (another brand of acetaminophen, like Tylenol) were painfully high, what I found incredible was that searching for “coronavirus” on their website yielded no results. This seemed particularly jarring for a retailer that, first, sells items that have been scientifically proven to kill and help prevent the spread of the virus and, second, is a dedicated healthcare business. Not only does this throw a huge wrench in the works when it comes to CX and customer perception, this tiny yet costly oversight is likely to have cost them sales and customers too. Customers are also searching for products that aren’t typically associated with a certain brand or online store due to exhausted stocks elsewhere. For example, the top three search terms for one of my e-commerce clients are now “Mask”, “mask”, and “PPE”. The search terms “mask”, “PPE”, and close variants were practically non-existent prior to mid-May. Kit and Ace, a clothing retailer, has responded to precisely this changing behavior. After seeing a huge spike in the number of site searches for masks, they’re now introducing a new, premium, scientifically-derived mask that also fits their brand. They’re donating 100% of profits from the masks, but this tactic will likely to drive more sales in their other categories too. This is a great move, especially since apparel sales have shrunk during this time. It’s important to find emerging opportunities when typical product lines are no longer in demand. The point I’m trying to make here is that, in order to succeed coming out of the other side of this pandemic, you need to ensure you’re fully in tune with the wants and needs of today’s customer — whatever that looks like for you. Using site search can absolutely give you a huge window into their demands and interests. If products are out of stock, offer excellent alternatives (where possible) As touched on earlier, supply chain management is going to be increasingly challenging — especially in areas where demand is outstripping supply — yet so many retailers miss out here. For some products, it doesn’t matter how hard you try, every retailer has them listed as “out of stock.” For branded items that have stock issues globally, being the retailer that offers a perfectly good alternative could be enough to win over that visitor and win the sale that other retailers have lost. To use a specific example, FTX is a manufacturer of radio-controlled cars, and is a brand sold on Europe e-commerce site Wheelspin. There’s an FTX item that you cannot get before the end of June (for love nor money) on any website due to COVID-19. The pandemic has forced factories to close and that disrupts production for many goods.  Specifically, in this example, it’s the FTX brushed motor that’s become victim to supply chain issues. However, there’s a brand that has a perfectly suitable alternative item that’s identical in specification, and it’s in stock:  Proactively offering solid alternatives with as few compromises as possible can be a great way of winning sales and delighting customers in a way that your competitors likely won’t be. Add an “in stock only” filter Continuing on the topic of store stock and managing a turbulent supply chain, a simple but welcome feature is to add an “items in stock” filter. It goes without saying that allowing customers to browse items they’re able to get their hands on quickly will go down well and could help improve conversion on your website. Another benefit of adding such a filter is the ability to bring light to other lines that are typically overshadowed by more popular (but now out of stock) items. Taking this a step further, you could also help your customers experience by adding a filter for products expected to arrive within a certain timeframe,

By 2022, Statista anticipates that more than 333 billion emails will be sent each data. To give you an idea of how big that number is, if each email were a star, the cluster would be 50% bigger than the Milky Way Galaxy. I hope I’m not the only one who thinks the statistic above is mind-blowing. At this point, email has proven to be a major communication tool for both consumers and marketers. But, as this channel has thrived, mobile technology. such as smartphones and tablets, has also become much more abundant in society.  And while you might think you have a solid email strategy, a huge portion of your audience might be missing out on your lead-generating content if your emails aren’t mobile optimized. Even back in 2016, when slightly less people had smartphones, most of the consumer population would disregard or delete emails that weren’t mobile optimized. Today, mounting research shows that mobile optimization is even more vital to your email marketing strategy.  But with so many resources, oftentimes in the form of extensive reports, it can be hard to find the time to keep track of important industry stats and information, such as that around mobile optimization. To help you recognize why you need to optimize your email strategy for mobile, I’ve put together this list of essential email marketing stats that you should keep in mind. First, I’ll begin with a few general stats that highlight why you need to embrace email marketing in the first place.  General Email Marketing Stats to Know in 2020 Email Marketing Tactics and Spending In the near future, brands are planning to add advanced segmentation (47%), content personalization (37%) and behavioral targeting (39%) to their email marketing practices. (Econsultancy, 2019) Last year, 66% of email marketers highlight automation as an important attribute of email solutions, up six percentage points from 60% in 2018. (Econsultancy, 2019) The top three areas for email marketers were focusing on in 2019 were automated campaigns (37%), personalization (32%) and segmentation (29%). (Econsultancy, 2019) On average, email attracted only 13% of company marketing spend in the last year, despite being attributed to 19% of sales. (Econsultancy, 2019) Email Metrics and Benchmarks Globally, the average email open rate was 22.15% in 2019. (GetResponse 2019) Average email click-through rate is 3.43%. while th average click-to-open rate is 15.49%. (GetResponse, 2019) The average email unsubscribe rate in 2019 was 0.20%, while spam complaints average at 0.02%. (GetResponse, 2019) 73% of companies rank email as an “excellent” marketing channel for ROI. (Econsultancy, 2019) Image Source The top reason email receives so little marketing spend is that email measurement is skewed towards non-commercial metrics, such as open and click-through rates. These metrics don’t always support a business case for email. (Econsultancy, 2019) Mobile Email Optimization Stats 49% of all web traffic was from mobile devices in 2019. (Statista, 2019) 60% of email opens are from mobile devices. (Aedestra, 2019) Mobile email users totaled 2.2 billion by the end of 2018. (Campaign Monitor, 2018) 35% of business professionals check email on a mobile device. (Convince & Convert, 2018) Apple iPhone is the most popular mobile client for reading emails with 29 percent of all opens occurring on this platform. Although people primarily check email on IPhone devices, Gmail is still the most-used email service, with more than 1.5 billion users (CNBC, 2019) Launching a mobile-responsive email design can increase unique mobile clicks by 15%. (MailChimp, 2019) When it comes to Gmail and mobile emails, they follow Apple making up 27 percent of the mobile email market. (Campaign Monitor, 2018) In 2016, a report found that 68% to 79% of consumers would delete an email that isn’t mobile optimized. This percentage was highest for those over the age of 56. (Aedestra, 2016) The average percentage of email clicks by PC users was 72% and 18.5%. for mobile users. (MailChimp, 2019) 9.3% of email clicks come from tablets, rather than smartphones or computers. (MailChimp, 2019) Image Source Embracing Mobile Optimized Emails The stats above tell a compelling story. Although general email is still the preferred mode of communication for the majority of consumers, and a major revenue generator, you shouldn’t forget about your huge mobile audiences when sending out your campaigns. To learn more about mobile optimization, as well as how to execute a successful and revenue-generating email strategy, check out our Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing.  Editor’s Note: This blog post was originally publishied in Dec. 2013, but was updated to reflect the current mobile email landscape and research in June 2020.