It doesn’t matter what size your store is, what products or services you sell via your website, whether your store is based on Magento, Prestashop, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, OpenCart, Shopify or any other eCommerce platform. If you opened this article, you might be searching for effective ways to increase the number of leads and boost your business cash flow.
There is no cure for all diseases, though. Experience, gained from thousands of success stories, proves that it is always wise to follow the rule of “never putting all eggs in one basket”; so, combining various methods of attracting potential customers is more likely to pay off faster. A good example of a company that took advantage of the positive effect of comprehensive approach is Choxi. They draw traffic to NoMoreRack.com through a variety of marketing channels and techniques. The company doubled sales via social media and is now making up to $100 million, and they keep attracting more and more visitors via paid search and use up 67 emails campagnes per month. So, what eCommerce tips are in trend now?
1. SEO.
Search-engine optimization works best for online business. But please forget about keywords catering to search engines. Successful SEO draws users’ attention to interesting and useful content but not to gigabytes of unnaturally used keywords. Moreover, from year to year search engines are getting smarter and even a well-written article with too tight keyword density will not make its way to the top of the result set. You may be wondering what keyword density is considered perfect then? Some people get an idea that there is a secret number of phrases that you have to place in definite order in your texts to satisfy these robots.
Well, we are sorry to disappoint adepts of this method, but there is no secret: search engines are regularly upgraded and thousands of bright minds are working on improvement of searching algorithms to make web space better for humans. What you should really focus on is to regularly post creative content with appealing headings and what is more important: optimize your site for users, not for machines.
Content on your website must consist of naturally flowing sentences.
2. Web-store optimization.
Take care of your customers, don’t bother them with wandering around your site, make all actions easy and clear for folks. The key points are:
- Navigation. Customer-friendly navigation will help visitors to find what they are looking for on your website. Easy navigation saves customers’ time which makes them enjoy using your resource much more, since they solve their issue faster. Satisfied customers always come back!
- Signup forms. Be careful with email capture popups, they can simply turn customers off. Make several A/B tests to determine which one brings more subscribers. Play with text and design or offer remuneration for signing up this can be a little thing like eBook, promo code or any other thing may become a valuable gift for your visitor. Folks are looking for profit from signing up.
- Content. Effective copywriting sells your goods. Product/services information, how-to guides, tutorials must be easy-to-find.
- Calls to action. Prompt your visitors to act , to buy now, to subscribe for newsletter, etc. Push customers to make product reviews.
- Products. Create a compelling and unique product description. Pack remarkable photos in product profiles, showcase product or service in action. Optimize product searching process to entice ecommerce site visitors to buy.
- Checkout process. Aim for intuitiveness and simplicity in the checkout process (easy-to-use design, visible security seals in the checkout flow, editing functionality).
3. Email list.
You may be underestimating mailing, as 44% of customers admit to clicking on promotional emails and ultimately making a purchase.
Put a personalization strategy into action. Personal emails (confirmations, receipts, “thank yous”, birthday congratulations, etc.) makes your customers feel special.
Find something awesome to give away, discount or free shipping will be a reason to order from your store right away. Another good idea is to send soft reminders of unfinished order confirmations.
4 Word-of-mouth.
People have always talked about their experiences, emotions, needs, products, services and brands. It happens all the time and everywhere.
Unfortunately, people are more likely to share bad experience then good. Satisfied clients can tell 6-7 people how happy they are. But unsatisfied ones are 3 times more likely to share some negative experience with their friends; they tend to make bad experience public via numerous social channels with an attempt to punish their “offenders”; so, inappropriate quality of a product or service may quickly spoil reputation. After reading negative reviews 80% of potential customers usually ditch an idea to contact the company which makes people frustrated with the services offered. Take care of your reputation!
Customers’ expectations are rising. It becomes harder and harder to make them talk about your products, store, service or support. Free shipping transformed from bonus to a must-have feature. Flattering emails after purchase, multi-channel customer support, launchings stores on multiple platforms are now don’t perceived as extra effort, they are just expected.
To make customers talk, you can implement a referral program with a discount if your customers refer friends to your website.
Detect right influencers in your area. People trust family members, friends and famous people, who are perceived as acquaintances. Purchasing recommendations and experience from such influencers works like triggers in folks’ mind: “oh, I trust him/her I’ll try this product”. Word-of-celebrity mouth - generates twice the sales of paid advertising. But how to involve these socially powerful people?
To find social influencers you can use Publicfast, Word Perks, Exposely, TapInfluence, NeoReach, Loot, SplashScore or any other one for numerous influencer marketing platforms.
To involve family influencers you can ask to your customers to provide their relatives’ contacts in user profiles and offer them discounts or typical present products from your store to their family celebrations. For example, if your customer submits information about his son who was born May 11, 2012, you can offer him a personal discount for a bicycle for his son that will be valid during the period of May 4-11.
Donate products for others to review. These can be simple folks who can share their review in social media, writers in magazines who can publish an article about your goods, bloggers or trending vloggers who can create and publish a post or a video.
5. PPC Ads.
When your robust homepage, customer friendly web store, content and marketing plan are ready, it’s time to start pay-per-click advertising campaign.
6. Get Ads tests on FB.
Social media aren’t just a great place to highlight discounts and promotions, they are powerful lead generation tool.
With typical ROI around 152 percent, Facebook Ads is the No. 1 channel to drive eCommerce sales. Brands selling everything on Facebook have seen up to a 700% return on their ad spend.
7. Unique segmentation retargeting.
Don’t push direct sales via retargeting. Play more intelligent. Use unique segmentation in your retargeted ads. Discover customer behaviour. If your target customer spends a lot of time on ‘About Us’ page, retarget him with an offer of personal CEO consultation.
8. Discounts/ coupons/ free gifts/ loyalty program.
They aren’t new. Just never forget that these things DO work. This lovely bonuses generate leads and foster a long-lasting relationship with a brand.
