I have been thinking much this past week about B2C engagement, and how to get website traction earlier in the startup business ramp up. So I put together a search routine looking for best practices in business to consumer (B2C) hacks, tips, and best practices. What I developed was a series of lists that seem to provide a basis for prioritizing engagement focus with consumers as job #1 in the website development strategy.
So here now please find my current mindshare on what is good, best, and worthwhile sharing.
25 Hacks, Tips, and Best Practices for improving B2C Engagement
Call to action; the ask...
Categories, Tags and Filters guide consumers
Clustering
Consumer peers associative shopping (ie., consumers who bought this... also bought this, etc.)
Content, fresh, engaging, and lively
Content filtering by specification types
Copy, detailed and unique
Crowdsourcing, Crowdfunding, Crowdcontests, Crowdsforapurpose, etc.
Customer needs identification
Customer reviews and testimonials with face photo
Gamification that attracts and engages
Influencer network recommendations
Integrated communications ecosystem around the customer
Live chat (including video)
Location based interactions
Measurement, analytics, KPIs, and consumer behavior tracking
Pitch the value proposition
Product videos
Provisioning - the art of customizing on the fly for consumer taste
Responsive websites - that make it easy for consumers to view data
Simplicity - 'helping your customers hit the "easy button"'
Site search
Social media content orchestration
SEM / SEO
Speed (of website and transaction)
10 Websites spotted with exceptional B2C engagement
Amazon.com
Backcountry.com
Elance.com
Evernote.com
Google.com
Kickstarter.com
Teslamotors.com
ToysRUs.com
Uber.com
Zappos.com
Blogs spotted with exceptional B2C tips and tools 10 ways to increase customer engagement in ecommerce (by Ben Davis) 7 BIG questions to drive customer engagement (by Danyl Bosomworth) 7 Top Customer Engagement Trends for 2014 (by TalkDesk) 8 Online revenue model options for Internet businesses (by Dave Chaffey) Understanding the Five Types of Crowdsourcing (by David Alan Grier) 10 Customer Engagement-Boosting Ideas for Facebook Brand Page Updates (by HeliumContentSource) Best Web Design Trends (by awwwards.com) How to build a revenue-generating website in 24 hours (by Hopkinson Report) Top Earning Websites | Most Profitable Websites (by Michael Dunlop)
Upcoming Conferences on Engagement Customer Experience Landscape | Engagement Expo (Nov 10-12, 2014 | Dallas, Texas) Customer Engagement Summit; (London, 28 November 2014)