Born in Italy in 1987, Matteo spent many years working and traveling between Spain, United States and Australia. Very passionate about the online world since he was a teenager, Matteo Pittaluga took every possible course and consumed hundreds of hours of content about digital marketing until launching his very first E-commerce that was selling tickets for events in Ibiza in 2015.
Later on in November 2016 together with his business partner Fabio Gallerani he decided to launch “Marketing Genius”, an online academy specialized in digital marketing courses. Marketing Genius grew rapidly in the last few years until reaching over 38.000 students and becoming one of the most successful academies in Italy in the field of online marketing.
Matteo you definitely have a lot of experience in the world of E-commerce. The first question for you is: what does the word E-commerce mean for you?
“This is a great question. If we look at the actual meaning, E-commerce means simply doing business online. There are many people who have a wrong idea of E-commerce and believe it has to be a website with a ‘buy now’ button or a cart where people can shop online but this is just a technical aspect of it!
In reality E-commerce means to move online all the sales process: create attention, generates leads and make sales, that’s it. Let me give you an example: if I have a bakery shop and one of my products is birthday cakes, I can show pictures of a my products on my Instagram and then I have somebody who searches my website, get my phone number and order a cake… and that’s E-commerce!
In this case I don’t need a button, I don’t need an online cart… All I need is a process that happens online and drives my customer from being a prospect to becoming a lead and ultimately to becoming a sale!”
Do you believe social networks are part of the E-commerce process?
“Most definitely, however we need to understand that social networks are good for gaining followers, share our work and let people know we exist… in other words social networks are mostly lead generators, not sales generators. We need to use social networks to gain virality and popularity which is the first step and then we need to drive our leads to a website that does the rest, this is a real E-commerce process”.
What do you think are the most important aspects of a website that wants to be successful selling online?
“Clarity, design and user-friendly experience. Have you ever visited a website where you felt lost and couldn’t understand where to go? You see, clarity if extremely important. If a user gets lost in our website they will quit immediately without shopping. Everything on your website has to be super simple and easy to discover, the most important products must be highlighted immediately on the top of the page and there has to be a clear menu where users can find what they are looking for. Also the balance between text and images is realty important, too often I see websites with huge blocks of text or sometimes it’s exactly the opposite and I find plenty of images and no copy, no information at all on the product.
There are also other aspects that are quite important such as the contact details that have to be big and easy to find, the social media links and a live chat/WhatsApp button can increase sales dramatically especially when people are a bit afraid of buying or they have an objection that you can solve in a second and close the sale immediately”.
What is the biggest tip you can give to someone who want to start an E-commerce business and want to improve their website in order to make more sales?
“Invest in your website and make it fast, good-looking and easy to navigate. Your website is like your home on the internet, if you have no website or your website is ugly then it’s like being homeless. You must understand that social networks are not enough, you need a high-converting website to generate sales and drive your traffic to find a specific product or service. There is no better investment than a good website because from there it will come 90% of your sales online”.
Thank you Matteo, it was a pleasure talking to you and listening to your advice. We wish you all the best with your business and your future projects.