Many ecommerce brands know their data is critical – they prioritize collecting and storing it, and perhaps even use some of it – but aren’t able to be strategic about leveraging it to grow their business. And large amounts of data (as much as 60-73%, by Forrester’s estimate) simply sit dormant, locked in systems that don’t talk to other systems.
The above scenario is relatively common. We call these organizations “data-aware:” they know the data exists and that it has value, but for whatever reason struggle to unlock that value. To evolve into a data-influenced or data-driven organization, it’s essential to understand how to harness the power of all that information.
Naturally, there are a lot of solutions designed to help merchants achieve more data maturity, but as a services organization with deep experience in HubSpot environments, we’ve assembled what we consider the ultimate HubSpot ecommerce tech stack.
When HubSpot changed its prevailing inbound framework from a funnel to a flywheel, it was a natural progression into today’s customer-centric environment. Rather than treating customers as the end result of a top-heavy methodology – where all the investment goes into attracting customers, only to see them fall out the bottom of the funnel – the flywheel puts customers at the center, and takes into account their ability to help your business grow through referrals, word-of-mouth, ratings, and reviews.
With our partners at HubSpot leading the charge, we've adapted their flywheel model for the ecommerce use case, as illustrated below:
The flywheel works best when it’s frictionless, meaning that opposing forces are reduced or eliminated. Ecommerce brands can reduce friction by making it easy for customers to find them, simplifying the buying process, and streamlining the rating and review process – all without getting tripped up by tech that’s either bulky or balky.
As we’ve discussed in previous articles, data-aware organizations have data – lots of it. And perhaps some of their most important tech tools are already talking to each other. However, we’ve seen that more sophisticated integration and the addition of a few critical elements can really move the needle beyond data-awareness. Based on our real-world experience with successful brands, we want to shout out the tools that are best equipped to empower our clients to increase data maturity and create flywheel velocity.
Depending on what your brand wants to accomplish, this is the ideal-world scenario we recommend…because we know it works!
Along with marketing automation, shopping carts are the backbone of your ecommerce operations. Integrating these two critical systems will automate workflows and provide important customer insight.
We recommend: Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, WooCommerce
This is where many people will jump into your flywheel. They might see a piece of your content, read a rave review, or click on a targeted ad in a social platform. Regardless of how they arrive, at this point, they’re still unknown to you, and you can begin to learn a bit about them. How did they find you? In general, who are they? What can you learn by examining what they do when they go to your website and start clicking around? Even at this early stage, you can start to identify what makes some potential customers navigate away from your site or leave something in their cart. What you learn from these early interactions can help you find more people, find the right people, or get people to return.
We recommend: Lucky Orange, CoSchedule, Facebook, Google AdWords
Transforming someone from prospect to customer is a big win, and another great opportunity to gather more valuable data. Engage these buyers with personalization that goes beyond name-checking them in an email subject line – emerging technologies like artificial intelligence can put your once-passive website to work converting casual visitors to loyal customers.
Here’s where the power of the flywheel pays off for ecommerce brands – customers aren’t just an end result, but fuel for your growth engine. It’s in your best interest to make it easy for satisfied customers to rate, review and recommend your products and services. You can also reward customers for their repeat business to increase customer retention and spend. Creating customer evangelists has the happy dual effect of boosting your capital among prospects and strengthening your relationship with people who already know and love you.
We recommend: Stamped.io, YotPo, Swell, LoyaltyLion, Smile.io
Connecting all your data inputs to a reporting function is critical for ongoing planning, strategy and execution. Knowing where your best leads originate and where your ad spend is doing the most work can refine your future plans and apply your budget where it will have the most impact. This is an area where you can really add momentum to your flywheel – the better you are at targeting valuable customers, the less friction you’ll experience. As a bonus, this is a big step in moving from data-aware or data-influenced to data-driven.
We recommend: Wicked Reports, Databox
In our experience, focusing on a few tactical areas yields the best results for ecommerce brands that want to get the most out of their technology and use their data as a springboard for growth.
Resist the temptation to start from scratch or get rid of something that’s barely had a chance to prove its worth. Instead, amplify the value of tech investments you’ve already made by applying robust integrations to your shopping cart and marketing automation tools. You can eliminate time-consuming manual work and get the data and insights you need to better understand your customers.
Do you know what might be hiding in your data? More customers. Taking a deep dive into some key ecommerce metrics and engagement data can reveal more people who are ready to buy. The more data-informed decisions you make, the more data you’ll get – and all of that information provides more opportunity for growth.
Once you’ve got your data flowing, what’s next? Increasing strength in key functional areas like customer lifecycle, email programs, reporting, and lead generation will reduce friction on your flywheel.
We’ve acquired a lot of on-the-ground experience with ecommerce technology. It informs how we work and ultimately led us to create the data maturity model. If you’re in a “data-aware” state (not sure? Score yourself) and want to take steps to evolve into a data-influenced or data-driven organization, these are the tools that can help you achieve that result.
To understand more about the data maturity model, how to implement the ultimate ecommerce tech stack and how to build momentum in your e-commerce flywheel schedule an introductory call with us!
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