The Last Mile is a term used by telecommunications firms to describe how the last leg of sending a telecom signal can be the most challenging. Many rural areas and third-world countries can’t maintain the quality and consistency of the signal delivered up to that point. These challenges are related to poor wiring technology in those areas.
The same analogy can be applied to online marketing and your website’s checkout funnel.
Some companies are very focused on the traffic generation part of their online marketing efforts and may overlook the usability and efficiency of their checkout process. This is usually the case for both large organizations as well as startups alike. Regardless of the size of the organization this can be an issue.
Although many companies are more than happy to invest in their traffic generation campaigns such as email marketing, SEO and pay per click advertising; they are, for some reason, not as enthusiastic about applying the same investment into their checkout process. This is likely because improving the checkout process isn’t as straightforward as the other parts of online marketing.
Some of the challenges faced by online marketers in regards to improving their checkout funnel are:
- Lack of web development resources
- Rigid functionality in their ecommerce system
- Lack of funding or buy-in from executives
- Website systems administration is the responsibility of their IT team
- More than one team has a vested interest in the ecommerce experience
How Can an Online Marketing Manager or Director Overcome These Checkout Challenges?
Lack of Web Development Resources - Apply some of the internet marketing budget to web development contractors. If you have a $10 million marketing budget, shave off $500,000 to improve the ecommerce experience by outsourcing the web development needed.
Rigid Functionality of the Current Ecommerce System - Build a business case to replace the existing system with a new system or an outsourced shopping cart with better functionality. Your checkout process is the final leg of the ecommerce experience and could nullify any budget you’ve spent to bring the visitor to your website.
Lack of Funding or Buy-In from Executives - Create an opportunity cost analysis, comparing the existing conversion rate with that of an improved conversion rate. Provide a tiered analysis such as today vs. +3% vs +5% vs +10%, etc. This should open the eyes (and wallets) of even the most conservative executive.
Website Administration of the IT Team – A bit of a tougher scenario, but not insurmountable. Attempt to align marketing success with IT success. Work with senior executives to align IT success with online marketing success. Typical IT performance indicators are system downtime, staff responsiveness and projects launched on time and on budget. A new KPI for IT should include responsiveness to online marketing project requests.
More Than One Person Owns the Ecommerce Experience – There’s no easy answer for this situation other than to get everyone on the same page to improve the situation. With some telling analytical work and the right persuasive approach, getting everyone to see that a streamlined checkout process will be beneficial to all will seem straightforward when done convincingly.
The lesson? Don’t forget about the checkout process. Although it is one of the toughest areas to address politically within an organization, your efforts to improve it will be worthwhile in the long-run.
What other scenarios have you come across when trying to improve the conversion experience? And how are you addressing them?
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