Why do some online businesses fail while others succeed?

It is estimated that approximately 80%-90% of e-commerce start-ups fail, meaning the e-commerce success rate is less than 20%.

Interview with Zissy Lewin, Nutreats.co.za

This month we chat to Zissy Lewin, writer, recipe developer, food stylist and MD at Nutreats.co.za, an online resource to healthy living and a digital content creation studio. A firm believer that healthy living is simple and attainable, Nutreats was created to share content that is all encompassing, inspires action, and showcases brands, products and books in a tangible way. With her love for recipe development, food styling and fitness, she gets a kick out of creating high quality food and fitness related content for brands in the health, wellness and lifestyle industry. Describe yourself in 3 words curious, fast, creative What made you decide to start your own business? I had an idea and wanted to see it through. My attitude has always been to just jump in, try things and act on ideas. If it works amazing and if not, you have experience and a good story to tell. Describe the typical Nutreats reader We have such a wonderfully diverse readership, but the common ground is that they have an appreciation for well-researched content. Demographically, our average reader is over 30, South African and loves physical activity, wellness, reading and of course food. How would you describe your content strategy? We always look to create content that leaves our readers with their cups full and has value. Our content strategy looks at healthy living as all-encompassing and this comes out in our content pillars which include mental and physical fitness, food and nutrition, beauty and home, self-growth, and learning. We’ve developed a knack for spotting trends, finding them locally and trying them out before they hit mainstream, sharing with our readers, and becoming a place to go to if you want to know the latest in wellness, food, books and fitness. How do you attract new visitors? Good quality content that is current and has a strong SEO backbone. In addition, we have always put a big focus on people and sharing their stories – whether it’s brands, athletes or people that have a story to share. We’ve always loved that story sharing aspect and it’s exposed us to new audiences and people that become loyal readers. Every great website should have…. An easy to find search button. How do you work with Affiliate Marketing/Advertising? We utilise affiliate marketing for banner ads as well as through shoppable links within articles that allow readers to purchase things we use and love. Affiliate marketing is still young in South Africa, and we would love to see more brands adopt it. What have been your highest highs and lowest lows on the journey of building your online business? Nutreats today is very different from what it was when we started out. We started as an online store selling sports nutrition and pivoted to being a hub of wellness and lifestyle content. Making the decision to pivot the entire business was both our lowest low and the highest high. Accepting and acknowledging when something isn’t working is both difficult and freeing. The world is a very different place now from what it was 18 months ago. Has it changed the way you do or think about business? Business before was very location based. Location matters less and it’s opened us up to being able to work with international clients as well as clients around the country. We’ve become more flexible and more focused on the immediate – looking ahead a month or two at a time instead of a year – which works better with the current uncertainty. Content wise, we’ve focused more on the home – things that people can do to enhance their lives within their own space. Where will Nutreats be in 5 years from now? Our vision for Nutreats is to be the best and biggest online wellness and lifestyle destination in South Africa that also has a physical presence in the form of products and events. Find out more at www.nutreats.co.za or follow them on Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/nutreats/

Tips for boosting your conversions in 2021

Building and running an online business successfully takes a lot. It therefor becomes extra more frustrating when someone leaves your shop without buying anything, whether you are getting them via content marketing, paid ads, or any other sources. A high traffic site is worthless if visitors are not converting into loyal customers. This is why optimizing your website, landing pages and ad copies is important. Understanding your conversions rates is the first step to your e-commerce site’s success. An e-commerce conversion is recorded when a desired event occurred on your site. This is more often a sale, however, it might be sometimes adding products to cart or signing up for a newsletter. All these actions encourage your leads to go through the site’s sales funnel. Some of the most common conversion metrics for an e-commerce website include: purchase from the site adding products to the cart adding an item to the wishlist signup for newsletter social media shares any KPI your business counts valuable By calculating the conversion rate based on these attributes you can understand if your strategies correspond with your company’s goal or if it needs to be changed. Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) refers to how effectively you convert your website visitors into paying customers, leads, or other metrics by the actions they take on your site. CRO is only one metric among many that can—and do—determine the success of your website, and a high conversion rate does not necessarily equal business success. After all, a website that has had only one visitor would have a conversion rate of 100% if that visitor converted, but a single conversion will not keep the doors open. Relevancy, relationship, your business vertical, cost of your product, cost-to-value ratio, copywriting and user experience all influence your conversion rate. Hierarchy of conversions Like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, CRO has a hierarchy of conversions. The basic functionality of your website makes up the foundational layer and runs all the way up to the most specific CRO tweaks and adjustments. To quickly run through the different steps in the CRO hierarchy starting at the bottom and working our way to the top. Is your site functional, accessible, usable/user-friendly, intuitive and persuasive? When optimising your site for conversions, it’s important to start with the first step (functional) and make sure that is fully covered, before moving on to the next step and so on. Once you have these basic needs covered, you can apply the following tips to further increase your CRO: Communicate your value proposition – This should clearly communicate the benefit, or value, that the product or service in question will provide. You want to make your website visitors feel like they want what you offer. Improve page speed – Page speed is a prominent part of the core web vitals that Google intends to add to their existing search signals. Remove unnecessary formatting and properly size and format your page images to ensure your page is ready when your customers want it. Streamline page design – Distractions can stop your customers’ journey to the check-out page dead in its tracks, so don’t bombard your page visitors with too much at once! An efficient, streamlined page design not only looks more professional but also makes your customers feel like they’re in control of their site navigation. Mobile-first strategy – Assume your customers will buy using their mobile devices and then design your site and strategy accordingly. A site that’s attractive and easy to navigate on mobile puts you in a prime position the moment your potential customers are ready. A/B test your messaging – The words you use on your site can have a huge impact on your conversion rate. The language you use must speak to your ideal customers and demonstrate an authoritative understanding, not just of your brand and product or service, but of their needs as customers. Social proof – social proof is merely people doing what they see other people doing. It’s why we’re more likely to try a new restaurant if we see that many others are eating there. Make testimonials and positive user reviews readily available and visible on your site to let potential customers know they’re not in uncharted waters.   Happy selling! The Publisher Management Team

Interview with Tony Seifart, MD at Incredibility

This month we chat to online marketing veteran and entrepreneur Tony Seifart. An electrical engineering graduate from UCT, Tony has spent nearly two decades in the digital marketing space in various roles including strategist, lecturer, and speaker. In 2015 his company won the Best E-Commerce Company in Europe, Middle-East and Africa from the Business Excellence Awards, and has been nominated again for 2020. Over the last three years he has built up and sold out two online businesses as well as reading his Honours in Theology. When he is not speaking at events or lecturing, he is running his own impressive list of online companies. We pick his brain on the do’s and don’ts of building a successful business online. Describe yourself in 3 words. Stubborn, Loyal, and have I said Stubborn already? When I was a kid I wanted to be… A Fireman! My best friend Craig wanted to be a cop, and since we both couldn’t be cops, I decided to be a fireman! (you can’t defy 5-year old logic!) Tell us about Platinum Club – where did it all start? A few years back I came across a podcast where the guy was giving people advice on how to structure their finances to get out of debt. I bought the course he was promoting, and the information is brilliant. But I realised that nothing like that existed for South Africans – the advice he was giving was mostly relevant only to Americans. Financial Advisors are incentivised to sell policies, not to really help you. Bank Managers are incentivised to sell you debt. But there’s no structured system to help people plan their financial futures without a proper plan. The Platinum Club was born out of the idea of providing the resources necessary for someone to follow a structured path to create their own financial plan. Of course, we need to be careful because we’re not registered with the Financial Sector Conduct Authority, so we can’t provide advice – we only provide the tools to create the plan. Once people have a strong plan they can chat to their own Financial Advisor or CFP to put the plan into action. We’ve now also branched out into building our own Legal App for members and partnered with law firms so that our subscribers can now access legal advice 24/7 via an App (so no wasted airtime sitting on a phone). How do you decide which verticals to go into? When I started out with online lead generation, the only companies using lead generation was Insurance companies, so I didn’t have any other choice. Loans and Insurance seem to go hand-in-hand, so I’ve always focussed on those two areas. Why do some internet businesses fail while others succeed? Adaptability is probably the biggest challenge for online businesses. The bigger a site becomes, the harder it gets to change it when circumstances change (and it’s usually at government’s whim). When regulations change, you’ve got to change. When other people see what you do, they try and copy you. They dump large amounts of money into CPC campaigns, which then drives the price up. That’s been the biggest challenge for us. Unfortunately the smaller guys can’t ride out the storm. You’ve got to pick a strategy and system where big guys can’t bully you out of the market. Which channels have proven most successful in attracting visitors to your site/s? In the past we used email campaigns (the CPA put a stop to that), and we moved to Social Media and traditional CPC. Native gets us a lot of traffic, but very low conversion rates. We’re excited to be partnering with AdMarula on some of our new projects though. What is your experience from working with affiliate marketing? Gees, I love Affiliate Marketing! It’s the easiest way to make money online – you don’t have the come up with products and services, you just sell someone else’s product! The most valuable lessons learnt in your professional career, so far? Cash is King. A deal isn’t really done until the money is in the bank. I’ve had so many deals signed and sealed but collapse at the point of payment. What advice do you have for aspiring online entrepreneurs? Don’t be afraid to dump an idea that isn’t working. Some people spend months (years?) on building the “perfect” website, that costs them a fortunate, but never makes a single cent. If a business idea isn’t working, dump it and move on. Best advice anyone has ever given you? Never Give Up! Never Surrender!