E-commerce appears simple, but the lucrative opportunities of the digital marketplace are out of reach for businesses that don’t invest tactically. Sabri Suby outlines the ‘Black Tiger’ strategy for e-commerce.

On the face of it, e-commerce sounds straightforward. You get a product, put it online, attract eyeballs with some copywriting ‘rizz’, and sell like crazy. Simple. Or is it?

The reality is, creating a winning e-commerce marketing strategy takes a back-breaking amount of time, energy and work to get right. You need to dedicate an unnatural amount of time to learning the tools, strategies, and tricks that will take your e-commerce marketing strategy to the next level.

The most dependable and predictable way to generate wealth is to turn advertising into profit, not buying shout-outs, influencer marketing, or giveaways.

That’s where the ‘Black Tiger’ strategy comes in. It’s been used in 1067 different industries to generate over $7.8 billion in sales. 

Increase your AOV and boost your margins 

Let’s get one thing straight: in order for the ‘Black Tiger’ strategy to work, the product you’re selling must have gross margins of at least 70 percent plus. Otherwise, there’s simply not enough margin to cover your customer acquisition cost (CAC). Your approximate retail value should be over $70, and your product also needs to have a healthy repeat-purchase rate, something with an average order value of over $400. 

But how do you actually achieve that? If your product pages are more boring than a manilla wallet, your first job is to make those pages shine. It’s mission-critical that your prospective customers are landing on a killer product page with copy that pops and sizzles. 

Once they’re drooling, offer them a quantity break, which is just a fancy way of saying offer them more stuff at a cheaper price per unit. This is the perfect way to increase the average order value (AOV) because people are buying more, but they still feel like they’re getting a great deal. 

Don’t stop there: hit them with order bumps, cross-sells and pre-purchase upsells, pulling out every stop to get that AOV and day-one return on ad spend (ROAS) as high as humanly possible. 

The one-click upsell of e-commerce

After someone puts in their credit card info and checks out, don’t think it’s all over. The post-purchase upsell is where 99 percent of people are leaving huge amounts of cash and profits on the table. Even some of the biggest players in the game aren’t putting enough focus on this area. 

The one-click upsell takes place immediately after they’ve completed the checkout, but right before they reach your confirmation page. It involves offering them either more of what they just bought at a discount, or complimentary products, express shipping, warranties, or other profit-boosting products and services with a single click of a button. 

The beauty of a one-click upsell is that customers don’t have to re-enter all their payment details again, they just click and boom. This allows you to dramatically increase AOV while liquidating more ad costs and unlocking a whole new dimension of scale.

Maximise your customer lifetime value 

Once we’ve done everything in our power to get our AOV and day one ROAS as high as possible, the next focus is to ensure you’re maximising your customer lifetime value (LTV). LTV is a metric that measures the total revenue a business can expect from a customer throughout their entire relationship. 

To maximise LTV, it’s essential to increase the average order value per customer. This is where that targeted, useful, high-quality content comes in. If you’re selling skincare, create highly engaging videos explaining how to use the products they’ve already purchased. If it’s protein powder, create a free workout guide or delicious protein pancake recipes – whatever will draw your customer back time and time again. 

Behind the scenes e-commerce is a complex dance of strategy, technology, and creativity. With the ‘Black Tiger’ strategy in your back pocket, it’s finally possible to beat the competition, win the market, and let your e-commerce website shine. Because wishing is for the suckers who aren’t willing to roll up their sleeves.

Sabri Suby is the founder and head of growth at King Kong, which he describes as Australia’s fastest-growing full-service digital marketing agency. He is also the author of international bestseller Sell Like Crazy and one of five investors on the 2023 season of Shark Tank Australia.

Images attributed to Sabri Suby and CardMapr on Unsplash.

Sabri Suby