In a traditional company, you’ll have product or service to sell. There’ll be people making the product, marketing people promoting and creating demand, and sales people completing the sale.
In ecommerce, it shouldn’t be that different. But it is. This is what I typically see:
The person owning the business makes or sources the products. They get someone to make the website. Someone does the marketing - SEO, SEM, PR, etc. There’ll be a designer to make it all look pretty. There’s one thing missing though. Can you see it? Who is doing the selling? Well that’s easy you say, it’s the website itself. That’s the beauty of ecommerce, it replaces the need for sales people, it allows you to scale up. Ok, fine, I buy that. So who is in charge of making sure the website makes as many sales as possible?
That’s about the point where I hear silence and lots of ummms and ahhhs. It’s crazy - arguably the single most important thing, making sure the website actually sells, and it’s neglected. It’s a bit like getting an expensive car, marketing it and then asking an 8 year old to sell it. Sure, they’ll sell a few, but a seasoned, experienced sales person will sell many times more.
Don’t get sales blindness - sell your products!