Leveraging Digital Commercial Operations: Your Key to Outperforming Competitors
What is a digital commercial operation?
A commercial operation consists of various marketing actions, designed to promote a company, product, or service. This could be an advertising campaign on media and social networks, organizing or participating in an event (fair, salon, open house, private sale, clearance), an e-mailing campaign... A commercial operation is built according to a strategy relative to a measurable objective, in a given context, and following a predefined schedule and budget.
Why carry out a digital commercial operation?
Firstly, going through digital marketing has become essential, knowing that in 2023, 93.3% of French households will have access to the internet. The evolution of this technology has changed consumer habits and allows companies to reach a maximum number of listeners worldwide. The objectives of a digital commercial operation can be diverse.
Increase market share
This involves prospecting new customers, improving the conversion rate to purchase, or even boosting the sales of an existing product. We recognize this type of commercial operation by offers such as a bought product is a free product, a discount after the 3rd purchase, free delivery or return, or even the deferred payment of the product.
Make a new product, a new service, or a new point of sale known
For this type of operation, one can take the example of the Apple company when releasing a new generation of iPhone mobile phone. The company always organizes a seduction operation in the form of a video advertisement presenting the new product, its new features, and its release date on media and social networks, to arouse consumers' desire and push them to purchase as soon as the product is released.
Sell off a stock of products
This is often the case for large retail chains. The Auchan chain, for example, successfully carried out a commercial operation aimed at selling off stocks of products. The chain grouped various unsold items (small appliances, toys, duvets...) in a mystery trolley covered with black plastic film. The entire trolley was then sold for a third of the original price of its contents. Customers buy the trolley without knowing its content and without the possibility of returning the items. Communications about the operation were widely broadcast on social networks and were seen by millions of people. The success was such that the number of trolleys had to be increased at the last minute to meet demand, and the operation renewed in other points of sale. The "surprise" effect and the impression of getting a good deal, for buyers, were the levers of success for this operation.
Customer loyalty
In this perspective, commercial operations often take the form of newsletters sent by e-mail, special offers such as discounts, loyalty cards that earn cumulative points that can be converted into a voucher, gifts sent during holidays such as birthdays.
How to carry out a digital commercial operation?
Before scheduling a commercial action, it is first important to analyze your own company. What are your offers? Who are your target customers? What are your strengths and weaknesses compared to competitors.
From the results of this analysis, you can define a clear objective to be achieved according to a precise schedule: Increase market share by 10% for the coming year, increase the visit or click rate on the site by 15% over 3 months, obtain 500 orders during an event... The objectives must be ambitious but achievable.
The next step is to determine the material and human resources as well as the necessary budget to carry out the operation. During this stage, the role of each employee during the operation is also assigned. It is sometimes necessary to hire additional staff, such as salespeople, sales animators. It is also common to pay a famous person like an actor, a singer, or more recently an influencer to represent or communicate about the product. For the digital part, a community manager, a web developer, an SEO specialist will be a great asset.
When preparing the budget, it is essential to take into account all the costs necessary for the operation, including hiring costs, advertising support costs, and costs of integrating new tracking and evaluation tools for activities on a website (Semrush, Google Analytics, Ahrefs...)
The last step is to evaluate the result of the operation to see if the objective has been met and to make adjustments if necessary. Many KPI indicators allow checking the effectiveness and success of a commercial operation. Depending on the type of action, the most commonly used are:
- The company's turnover at the end of the operation
- The number of new customers, or the volume of orders obtained
- The number of visitors or clicks on the site, the number of views on social networks
- The number of e-mails sent and opened by customers
Example of a commercial operation
The case of Nike for the launch of the first Air Jordan is a real stroke of genius in terms of commercial operation.
Before the release of this basketball model, Nike was already producing sports shoes, but was not part of the brands that supply players from the famous NBA tournament.
Their objective for this operation: to acquire a part of a market monopolized by Adidas and Converse.
The strategy: to produce the Air Jordan model with its revolutionary soles, to pay a promising player, Michael Jordan, to wear them during his matches and to be the ambassador of the model.
At this time, the regulatory color of shoes during NBA matches was white, while the first Air Jordan model stood out with a new red and black color. The player was thus fined $5000 every time he wore the shoes during his matches, but Nike paid the fine every time, and cleverly turned this ban to its advantage. The brand produced a commercial with the basketball player and the shoes, which went viral. The message was: these shoes are revolutionary, the NBA does not accept them and sanctions them, but it cannot prevent you from wearing them.
Budget: $5000 per match until the regulation was lifted, a contract of $500,000 per year for 3 years for the player Michael Jordan, as well as 25% of the revenue on each pair sold.
Result of the operation: $150 million in profit in 3 years. Nike became a market leader and surpassed its competitor Adidas, then bought Converse. The model has become mythical, and has allowed the opening of an independent branch of Nike, the Jordan Brand, and the creation of several other successful Air Jordan models over the years.
Conclusion
Commercial operations can be levers that take off and prosper a company's business. It is also a very effective way to communicate with target customers, provided they are the result of a good strategy and are carried out with a concrete objective. At webxmachina, our professional marketing team will concoct a personalized and precise accompaniment, according to your needs and your budget, to make your commercial operation a stroke of genius.
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