In eCommerce, Friction is the Enemy

We were recently reviewing the pipeline in our business. What struck us was the consistent theme of the potential deals we were working on. At AirTank we focus on website development (eCommerce and Lead Generation), and Performance Marketing services (PPC/SEO/Social). Regardless of the deal, it was centered around one simple client need - reducing FRICTION. Friction is the largest enemy to the success of our clients and potential clients. Here are the 3 most current kinds of friction our customers are trying to overcome and how we are trying to help.

Websites - Friction -  Marketing Wants to Go Faster than IT can

Many of our clients have great development organizations and talent. However, they are very very busy. They are working on large projects that take dedication and focus. The Business and Marketing team wants to move quickly to respond to the market. So when it comes to creating a landing page, updating an analytics tag, or just swapping out the image on the homepage they want to do it yesterday. Here lies the friction. Too many websites and eCommerce experiences still require a heavy lift from the development teams and this creates friction between Marketing and Development. However, this doesn’t need to be the case anymore. eCommerce platforms like ZiftrShop, BigCommerce, Shopify, VTEX, and even WordPress put a ton of power into marketing's hands. By moving your brand's website to a more modern SaaS platform you can reap the benefits of moving more quickly and letting your Development team stay focused on more strategic priorities. 

Conversion Rates - Customers Want an Improved Experience

Reducing friction isn’t just something brands feel internally, they also want to reduce it for customers. This comes in the form of making finding what customers are looking for on their websites easier and of course the checkout process. Customers are looking for payment options that don’t make them go find their wallet (PayPal, ApplePay), or make buying what they want more financially feasible (Buy Now Pay Later - Affirm, Klarna). We are working to help our customers make their websites easy to navigate and get to the conversion events with as little friction as possible. Examples could be improving the search experience or proving better landing pages. Using heat maps, and analytics data to identify points of friction and help reduce them as quickly as possible.

Customer Acquisition - Helping Customers Find Your Brand

Another common friction point for our clients is helping customers find their brand. This comes in the form of search engine optimization and paid search marketing. When searching our brands want to align their products and services with the customers who are looking for them. So we work with them to create content, optimize sitemaps, build links, and refind keyword lists. All this with the goal of providing the right information to customers as they seek solutions. The harder customers have to work to find our client's brands, the more friction and the less likely they are to convert. Search engines are one of the most commonly used tools on the web and the mission of Google and our clients are strategically aligned, “organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.” This is a better way to say, reduce friction.

Analytics - Turning Data into Insights

Another great example of friction in digital is how to organize the massive amounts of data that are created with each interaction. We applaud digital for it’s ability to track and spinoff data about how consumers experience our website. However, what creates friction for brands is they get buried in data. There is so much that is created it becomes difficult to align the business, or quickly turn those data points into insights that can inform decisions that can turn into action. We are talking with our customers about creating dashboards for them that help them answer the core questions they have in their business. We start by working with the stakeholders in their business and understanding what questions they need to be answered quickly to make decisions. Once we have that information we can ensure their data is being tracked to answer those questions, and finally, we turn that data into dashboards that can be used on a daily basis. 

These are just a few of the ways friction manifests itself in digital. It is the enemy of success for our brands and customers alike. That is where businesses like ours come in. We know how to leverage the tools available to reduce friction for our customers and get them to create better experiences for their customers which will help them be successful and grow.