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66 March 2014 | beautystorebusiness.com they wanted, and a survey of what manu- facturers wanted. The StyleBell.com Pro Program is like Amazon Prime for salons and stylists; they get quick, free, two-day delivery on any purchase plus the low- est prices on every product. It's password- protected so that every person needs a salon retailer ID or licensed cosmetologist number. Each application is hand-verified. It's a very lucrative and growing market, but manufacturers were concerned that some might not really be cosmetologists, so we have an intense verification process. We see month-over-month growth of 100%, and it's accounting for 30% to 40% of our sales, so it's a big chunk, and it's something we're really committed to. How do you use the data you receive online to help you sell more? I consider our company to be an analyt- ics company that also sells hair products. Coming from finance and accounting in college, I'm all about numbers. Every decision we make is based on analytics. Even while I'm talking right now, I know who is buying, where she comes from, where she's going next and what she's searching for. I can view buying patterns and make assumptions for future buying patterns. I can use segmented data to create smart targeted marketing geared toward various customer groups. We use this data for everything, even for deter- mining locations for site features, such as where the "add to cart" button should go. We're constantly doing testing on the various components of our site to help usability. We always focus on usability, and you need Big Data to do that. We get most of our analytics from Google Analytics, and we also use our internal ecommerce system. Merged, we have a good picture of what we're doing. What are some of your marketing tactics, including your social-media approach? Our bread-and-butter marketing tactic is with Google, a longtime partner. We just received the Google Trusted Store badge. Email marketing is, and probably will always be, the most cost-effective marketing channel we have. We do a lot with affiliated partnerships, working with sites that are of like minds, differ- ent blogs, etc. We do a lot with social media; we're always very active on our Facebook and Twitter accounts. As an ecommerce retailer, it's always very important for me to be on top of any online marketing channel that's avail- able. We value the opportunities that social media can have. It's very difficult to monetize that social traffic as far as conversion rates and so forth; and I think companies, such as Facebook and Twitter, are trying to make great strides in beefing up mobile advertising. I think there's a major opportunity that's still going to pan out in social media in terms of pure conversion. It's a great brand- ing tool as is, but there will be great strides in social media that will make a drastic difference in conversion rates. Within advertising, mobile- and tablet- device usage are increasing so much, but there are issues with mobile advertising, including monetizing that traffic. Conver- sion rates for mobile are lower, so a lot of it derives from limited user data. On your desktop, there is a lot more data we can see. On mobile, you can't see where the traffic came from and so forth. Continued from page 50 "About 25% to 30% of our traffic is mobile. Tablets account for 14% of our overall traffic." Join our 5-week international trade and business education program taught by leading health and beauty industry experts. BIMA participants will develop an export growth plan and access participation in the world's leading trade shows. Limited to 20 companies per session. Apply now! Space is Limited. 866-940-1039 citd@lbcc.edu BIMA Winter Training: January 2014 Upcoming Trade Show Delegation: Beautyworld Middle East May 2014 60 Since 2012, The CITD assisted 33 California companies achieve more than $20 million in export sales through its California Pavilion initiative at Cosmoprof Worldwide Bologna and Beautyworld Middle East. T h e O n l i n e E m p r e s s . i n d d 6 6 The Online Empress.indd 66 2 / 3 / 1 4 3 : 3 0 P M 2/3/14 3:30 PM