The goal of any eCommerce business is to generate more sales. However, it’s not always easy to know how to do this, especially if you are new.
And while there are over 2 billion digital buyers in the world, the competition to gain their attention has never been more fierce, with over 7.1 million online retailers worldwide. Therefore, it’s essential that you implement reliable strategies that will help you gain an edge over your competitors and generate more customers. Below are some excellent strategies to try that have proven effective for countless other eCommerce sites.
Establish an Email Marketing Strategy
One of the best strategies for any eCommerce business is developing an email marketing strategy. Email marketing allows you to reach out to people who have already expressed an interest in your brand, either by submitting their email address to you or being a prior customer. Since these people have shown an interest in your brand already, they are much easier to convert into customers.
If you don’t already have a process in place to collect email addresses from your users, now is the perfect time to implement it. You’ll then want to develop a comprehensive email marketing strategy that makes use of this list, sending out targeted emails based on their interests. For example, you can send out emails promoting sales on products related to past purchases for that customer.
Provide Sales Training to Customer Service Team
When your customers reach out for assistance, this is a great time to try to make a sale. If you provide your customer service agents with some sales training, you can turn this moment into one of your best sales drivers, taking the pressure off of some of your other sales methods. Teach your agents how to listen to the customer, how to explain the benefits of your products, and how to upsell to additional or more expensive products.
For example, if a customer has a question about a specific product, your customer service agents can not only answer questions but use their sales training to pitch them on similar products or services they might like. Customer service interactions afford you the rare opportunity to interact directly with your customers, so make the most of it by adding in a sales element while you have the chance.
Develop an App
About one half of all web traffic today comes from mobile devices. If you can provide a reliable shopping experience across mobile devices, you’ll be able to significantly increase your website’s traffic potential. To do this, you can either make your website mobile-friendly or develop your own mobile app.
Developing an app comes with a few advantages. First, mobile apps are typically easier to use than mobile versions of websites. With a mobile app, you have more control over the appearance and functionality, allowing you to deliver a better experience for your customers. The other major advantage is by getting customers to download your app, you increase the chances that they become a return customer. With your app on their phone, customers will keep your brand in mind the next time they want to go shopping.
To develop an app, consider either hiring an app development team or using an app maker. These tools allow you to build simple apps on your own so that you don’t have to hire a team. You’ll want to consider what features you want your app to have, along with the costs associated with building your app, to help you decide which method to use.
Run Social Media Contests
Social media is a great way to generate more customers for your eCommerce brand. There are numerous ways you can use it, from promoting your sales to interacting directly with customers. One great option to consider is using it to run social media contests.
Running a contest on social media can accomplish a few goals. First, it can increase your social media following, which in turn will help your future marketing efforts. Second, it can help you grow your email marketing list and direct more traffic to your website. Finally, it makes the winners like your brand even more, which can help turn them into repeat customers in the future.
Gather Customer Feedback
Finally, customer feedback is essential for growing your sales numbers. Your customers know what they want, both in terms of products and the type of brands they want to do business with. There are different ways you can learn more about your customers, but sometimes the best method is just to ask them directly.
Some ways to gather customer feedback include online surveys, focus groups, and online reviews. Find out what your customers like, what they don’t like, and what they wished you offered. Then, using this information, make changes to your eCommerce store. For example, if a large portion of your customers wish you offered a certain product, you can begin the process of developing this product. Or if one product is receiving particularly negative feedback, you can look for ways to improve it.
As you learn more from your customers and make changes based on their feedback, you should start to see a rise in your sales. Remember that this should be an ongoing process. Always seek out feedback from your customers and look for ways to implement it.
See What Strategies Work for You
Every eCommerce site is different and therefore the strategies that best suit it will also differ. Strategies that work for one brand may not be as effective for yours. The best thing you can do is set up test campaigns for many different strategies and compare the results. Start with the above suggestions and see which ones bring you the best results. As you gather more data, you can try out different variations or different strategies altogether. Over the long-term, the result should be more traffic to your website and more of that traffic converting into customers.
