Your website is live and you’re ready to sell, but you just can’t seem to attract enough customers. Even when you get shoppers to your site, they’re just not converting. Sound familiar? Don’t give up hope for a bustling business.
Here are 7 e-commerce marketing techniques to boost your online sales.
1. Leverage Email
Email is by no means a new marketing technique, but it is often misused or underutilized. Although 82% of B2C and B2B companies use email marketing strategies, only 28% of consumers actually wish to receive promotional emails more often. To garner your customer’s attention and turn them into brand advocates, it is it important to seek their feedback and cater content to your target customer base. This goes far beyond just sending a “Thank You” email after a purchase.
To effectively interact with your customers you need to:
- Send a thank you message after purchase
- Send a quick poll asking for customer satisfaction (usually a couple of days after purchase)
- Segment customer data including those that rated satisfaction highly (8-10)
- Create an automated workflow for these customers
- Test your content and the time you send your emails
With a clear plan, you will be able to determine the likes, dislikes, and interests of your buyers. Your emails should feel personal and helpful to your customers, not overwhelming, spammy, or rude. By focusing on your customers’ needs at every step, you will be more likely to create content they are happy to receive.
2. Implement APIs
Intuitive, seamless website experiences are an expectation in today’s world. Make sure your site and functionality live up to demanding customer expectations. You can use APIs to help accomplish this. For example, you can use APIs to lower the cost of running an online shop and increase customer retention. Cart abandonment is a huge problem for online sellers—almost 70% of customers abandon their cart. This costs e-commerce businesses $260 billion in lost revenues.
APIs can be used to provide real-time shipping rates and other functionality that make the checkout process more efficient. Lower prices attract customers to shop online, however 60% of customers abandon their cart due to shipping costs. Minimizing these costs can help e-commerce businesses retain customers during the checkout process and ultimately increase sales.
3. Take Advantage of Social Media
Social media is a fantastic way to connect with new customers and maintain relationships with loyal followers. Social media gives you a way to communicate with your customers, and let them communicate with each other. This connection can help to build trust and loyalty.
Social media is also a great way to spread the word about new promotions and sales, driving more traffic to your site. You can target existing customers as well as the friends they have in their social media network.
4. Use Conversion Rate Optimization
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) allows you to use data to figure out where your website is falling short. You can use conversion rate optimization to identify the points where customers are leaving your site. Once you find these weak points, you can design new pages, buttons, and images. You can then test these alternatives with CRO testing models to see whether you’ve solved the problem.
5. Design an App
Apps are an effective way to drive sales since customers are increasingly using mobile apps more than their browser. In 2018, mobile users spent an average of around three and a half hours per day using apps while spending only around 51 minutes per day on mobile websites. Since customers are more likely to spend time on an app than a mobile website, e-commerce businesses should develop apps to reach customers and drive sales.
6. Plan Around Holidays
One simple but effective way to increase sales is to use holiday-themed promotions. Sales are known to increase around holidays and your business can take advantage of this fact. Design engaging, festive promotions that give your customers an extra push to complete a purchase.
7. Explore Paid Traffic
Finally, paid advertisements can often be an effective way to boost sales. Explore paid advertising on Facebook and Twitter as well as on Google—think about where your target customers spend their time. If your customers are heavy social media users, it makes sense to advertise on social media. If not, you might be better served by Google Ads.
Don’t let the effort you put into building your website and products go to waste. You can use the 7 tactics described in this article to help you increase traffic, engagement, loyalty, and watch your sales rise.
Nick Rojas combines 20 years of experience working with and consulting for small to medium business and a passion for journalism to help readers grow. He writes about technology, marketing, and social media for the aspiring entrepreneur. When Nick is not sharing his expertise, he can be found spending time at the beach with his dog Presto. @NickARojas
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