b'DIGITAL STRATEGIESseconds where they can enter their email address. If they leave the site, we send a follow-up email in a couple days. [By] implementing this sales funnel strategy, weve seen an increase in sales, says Wingham. It works because were meeting the consumer at that touch point, he adds. When they visit the website today, theyre thinking about it. But the worlds so busy that theyve forgotten about it a week later. The email brings them back in to buy. And if website visitors later type Nuez Acres into a web search, that further boosts the companys Google ranking. One key lesson revolved around the importance of website loading speed and factors that can elicit the percep-tion of faster load times (like colour values). This need for speed also played into the brands e-commerce strategy. The company started off with a popular e-commerce provider they saw online. Then, when Nuez Acres made it to the Grand Finals of the 2021 Pow Wow Pitch Nuez Acres creates ethical skincare and beauty products from pecans grown in Mexico British Columbia competition, they won a one-year subscription to Shopify Canada couldnt see people to sell the product to.the beauty market by using keywords andand that changed things. Thats when our digitization really began,phrases such as pecan and vegan skin-Wingham recalls. Prior to the pandemic Icare, Wingham says. Its about under- Shopify, another CCAB member, is a had never even been on Zoom. And nowstanding how putting specific keywordswell-known global e-commerce plat-here I am talking about my ad strategies! into your SEO plans helps target the audi- form for online stores and retail systems. ence that you want to reach.Switching to Shopify instantly helped Key to the companys online evolution wasus. It was a real eye-opener to what taking a digital marketing course throughPrior to embarking upon this strategy,e-commerce could be, Wingham recalls. Mtis Nation B.C. with Jelly Marketing, anWingham wasted a lot of money doingWe were able to create a beautiful online Indigenous marketing firm. Thats wherepaid social media ads. While this put Nuezstore and integrate with many different Wingham learned that digital marketingAcres in front of tens of thousands ofapps to provide different ways of buying isnt all about engaging with humans;people, they werent providing customersour products. its also about speaking to the artificialwith a place to go from there. In June of intelligence (AI) that is trying to put your2022, we started working monthly on SEOThings didnt stop there. Next, Nuez Acres product in front of people who want toand backlinks, and updating our blogsworked with the Shopify support team buy it.accordingly. Since then, weve seen ato increase the speed of their storephenomenal increase: 400 per cent moreespecially on mobile. Online compe-Understanding that theres a certainin sales compared to the last term, moretition is fierce in the beauty industry. If language that you need to speak tonew customers compared to last year,your website takes one second longer to show up in this digitization market was theand our rank on Google search listingsload than your competitors, consumers basis of the course, explains Wingham.is rising. Its truly been the key to growingwill skip past it and they may not return, Its not something you just do once; itsour e-commerce sales, Wingham says. Wingham explains. about consistency and updates. How do you make sure that youre showing up inSEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Ultimately, it all comes down to focusing front of the right people? Thats what thisNuez Acres also optimized their websiteon the customer. When they engage course gave us the foundation for, and weto better engage visitors, generate leads,with us on social media, we engage right started building it from there. and put customers into a strategic salesback. If they post about us, we share their funnel. Understanding the power of SEOpost, Wingham explains. Combined Wingham and his team initially focusedhelped them prioritize and implementwith email marketing, we make sure that on backlinks (when one website links toeffective website pop-up messaging.theyre part of the team. We give them the another) and search engine optimizationNow, when they come to the website,ball to shoot so they feel like theyre part (SEO). We differentiated ourselves fromthey see a pop-up message after a fewof every success that we achieve. 50A CCAB PUBLICATION2023'