With the world’s largest digital economy, the USA is a great playground for companies looking to expand, but is highly competitive for online businesses. By 2022, the value of eCommerce retail sales in the USA is estimated to be close to $900 billion (1). It is therefore important for companies to optimize their digital marketing in order to adapt to the customer base. This requires a thorough approach to capturing attention by addressing the key aspects of digital marketing. Novatize offers several ways to help you optimize your eCommerce digital marketing strategies to perform well in the United States.
How to optimize your digital investments
For an advertising campaign to be successful, the objectives must be clearly defined in the run-up to the campaign. Whether it’s to boost brand awareness, generate leads or increase sales, each objective must be clearly defined and measurable. ROI will be your main indicator of budget effectiveness.
Stay agile in your budget allocation. A dynamic allocation, adaptable to ROI and taking into account competition and seasonality, allows you to maximize results and adjust your advertising strategy in real time for optimum effectiveness.
Bids, on the other hand, determine ad visibility. Competitive bids adapted to various channels such as search, social networks, display and video are crucial. Different bidding types such as CPC, CPM, CPA, CPV and CPI offer a variety of possibilities for adjusting bids according to the specific objectives of each campaign.
Bidding strategies are versatile, ranging from automation to achieve the best result at the lowest possible cost, to conversion-optimized bidding and bid targeting to achieve specific results. These strategies require a thorough understanding of the market, regular testing and ongoing monitoring to ensure that bids remain competitive and efficient.
Customer segmentation and personas to sell in the United States
By dividing your customer base into distinct segments, you’ll be able to tailor messages to meet the specific needs of each group. This approach requires a greater allocation of marketing resources, so that efforts can be focused on the most profitable segments.
There are several ways to segment your customer base. Demographic segmentation, based on criteria such as age, gender, income or level of education, allows you to categorize your customer base. Geographic segmentation, taking into account location, climate or region, offers a more geolocalized perspective. Psychographic segmentation focuses on people’s attitudes, values and hobbies. Finally, behavioral segmentation analyzes usage, loyalty and purchasing behavior to define segments.
Personas or archetypes are representative of the customers in these segments. Their creation is based on in-depth market research to best capture customer reality. Analysis of purchasing history provides valuable insights into common customer behaviors and preferences. Direct feedback from customers through their comments and opinions can also help you improve these personas.
Integrating these segments and personas into the marketing strategy results in targeted messages, adapted to each segment to maximize their relevance. Campaigns aimed at high-potential segments are more effective and achieve more tangible results. Creating personalized offers that specifically meet the needs of these segments also helps to attract attention and even build loyalty among these different customer profiles.
The importance of targeted content in a new market
“Content is king, context is the kingdom”. The type of content specifically adapted to a defined audience plays a crucial role in user engagement. Relevant content encourages customer interaction and loyalty, and often leads to retention and even loyalty. What’s more, targeted content tends to convert more, improving the return on investment (ROI) of marketing efforts.
Content-creation techniques
- Added-value content: Providing relevant and useful information can enhance the appeal of the content;
- SEO-Friendly: Make sure your content is optimized for search engines to maximize online visibility. Tools such as Semrush or Moz will enable you to evaluate your SEO performance and improve it effectively;
- Call-To-Action (CTA): A clear and powerful CTA guides users to a specific action.
Using data for content optimization
Data plays a vital role in the creation of targeted content. Based on :
- Demographic data analysis to create relevant content that resonates with different customer segments;
- Users’ interaction with your site allows you to adjust content according to their habits and preferences;
- Customer feedback helps you understand what they want to see and improve.
The fourth quarter is an important period in e-commerce and a golden opportunity to collect and analyze customer data. Read this article to understand your data and seize the opportunities of Q4.
eCommerce sales attribution
To fully understand the user journey in digital marketing, multi-touch attribution is a method that enables you to discern the impact of multiple touchpoints on the customer journey. It involves following a user’s journey across multiple channels and interactions, and gives you a more holistic view of the path to conversion.
This approach is vital for two major reasons. Firstly, it enables you to follow your customers across various touchpoints, to better understand their habits and behaviors. It also enables you to determine your budget effectively, since you’ll have in-depth knowledge of the best-performing channels and touchpoints, maximizing return on investment.
Different attribution models exist to assess the contribution of each touchpoint in the customer journey:
- Linear: All contact points are attributed equal shares in the customer journey;
- Decreasing: Touchpoints closest to conversion receive more value;
- U-Shaped: First and last touchpoints receive more value than intermediate ones;
- W-Shaped: Value awareness, consideration and purchase intent.
There are, however, a number of challenges that accompany the implementation of multi-touch attribution. Indeed, to get accurate results on the approach, data accuracy and reliability are essential. So you need to make sure you’re using the right technologies, and that they’re properly integrated to collect and analyze data. Careful analysis and proper interpretation of the data are ultimately necessary to understand its impact on your business.
How to launch your product in the U.S.(2)
As mentioned, the U.S. market is characterized as vast and diverse for new product launches. However, with its growing competition, both locally and internationally, it’s essential to understand the terrain and adapt your strategy to ensure success. However, American consumers are often open to trying out new products, allowing new merchants to gain a foothold.
To help you implement your strategy for establishing a presence in the United States, Novatize offers a few suggestions:
- Identify market opportunities and threats;
- Carry out quantitative analyses (surveys) and qualitative analyses (focus groups) that will give you an overall view of the market;
- Evaluate competitors’ positioning, offerings, pricing and marketing strategies to identify market gaps and opportunities;
- Identify market segments to develop your personas;
- Be sure to adapt your products, packaging and marketing to U.S. culture and norms to be relevant and respectful;
- Analyze whether your product features require adjustments to meet the needs of the American market;
- Choose appropriate distribution channels, taking into account local partnerships that facilitate logistics and product accessibility;
- Ensure that customer service is available in the local language.
“Nielsen reported that American consumers are open to trying new products, in fact, 12.1% of their online purchases are for a brand they haven’t bought before. This indicates an opportunity for international brands to penetrate the market with well-designed launch strategies”.
To make a name for yourself and stand out in the U.S. market, you need to put in place concrete strategies that will enable you to make your mark right from the start. You need to think about developing a strong brand identity to resonate with the American public. To help you do this, influencer marketing can be a good option, since collaborating with local influencers aligned with your brand will enable you to establish rapid contact with your relevant audience in the USA. You can also organize launch events and establish strategic partnerships to gain visibility.
Marketplaces Strategies (3)
The American market is dominated by online sales platforms such as Amazon. According to a study by Jungle Scout in 2023, Amazon plays a central role in the purchasing habits of American consumers. Statistics show that 61% of Americans benefit from Amazon Prime, while 43% see this status as an incentive to purchase.
What’s more, 80% of online purchases for households earning over $50,000 are made on Amazon. However, 63% of consumers use Amazon to discover new products, but buy them elsewhere. In addition to Amazon, Walmart, Macy’s, Target, Costco and Best Buy offer good opportunities, but have more restrictive access criteria. Amazon and Walmart are often the most accessible and popular platforms for online sales in the USA. Amazon remains the undisputed leader of marketplaces in the USA, generating 386.4 billion USD in 2021, which underlines the importance of considering this marketplace for your sales strategy.
The benefits of Marketplaces
Marketplaces like Amazon offer tools that simplify your first sales in the U.S. without the need to create a new platform. What’s more, some platforms take care of sales tax management, simplifying logistics for foreign merchants.
Marketplaces already have established traffic, so you can reach a large audience quickly. The Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) program enables products to be stored and shipped, even for sellers who can’t ship directly to the USA. Launching a single product is less risky on these platforms.
Before you launch, make sure there’s a demand for your products on these platforms, and prepare your product sheets to meet the specific standards of each marketplace. An advertising strategy is also crucial from the outset to generate initial sales. Finally, find out about the export and shipping rules specific to each marketplace, which are often stricter than customs.
Digital marketing mistakes to avoid
Since developing your business in the U.S. can be a stressful process, make sure you have targeted marketing in hand from the outset. Focus on your key products and increase marketing efforts on other products once profitability is established. Also allow a year to test a product’s real potential on marketplaces, and make sure your products are available year-round to build a track record of sales and customer returns.
To prepare for selling your product in the U.S., you also need to consider the logistics. Consult the 8 points to watch out for before exporting to new eCommerce markets.
Finally, expanding into U.S. marketplaces requires in-depth knowledge of the platforms, rigorous compliance with standards and a targeted marketing strategy. It’s a process that requires patience, planning and continuous adaptation.
Want to discuss it or need more help? Contact a specialist today.
Novatize
📍330-330 rue Saint-Vallier Est, G1K 9C5, Québec, QC, Canada
Sources :
(1) https://fr.statista.com/statistiques/672287/vente-au-detail-e-commerce-aux-etats-unis/
(2) Nielsen, New Product Innovation Report: Carving Out Growth in the New Consumer Landscape, 2023.
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