How do you increase traffic and conversions for your ecommerce store?
Here’s a quick answer: Ecommerce Marketing.
Ecommerce website marketing helps tick off three goals:
- Attract traffic to your online store
- Convert visitors to customers
- Retain those customers in the long term
In other words, ecommerce marketing goes beyond simply promoting your online store. It involves strategies that you can apply on and off your website to increase sales.
Here are six tactics to get started.
Marketing Tactics to Boost Your Online Store
Upsell and cross-sell your products
Upselling encourages customers to purchase an upgrade of the original item.
Cross-selling, on the other hand, is offering related — or complementary — products of the original item.
Both strategies are either done interchangeably or alongside each other.
For example, a customer is looking for good leather shoes on your website. When he finds one, you can upsell by highlighting a more valuable option, such as shoes made with premium vegan leather.
Then, cross-sell by offering accessories, like a leather cleaner or extra shoelaces.
It’s no surprise that upselling and cross-selling increases your profits.
But make sure to use these techniques cautiously. Consider these points to upsell and cross-sell flawlessly:
- Make sure upsell or cross-sell items are closely related to the original product.
- The higher price point should justify the quality of the upsell.
- Be honest and transparent in the pricing of your upsell or cross-sell offer.
- Show the value of your offers through testimonials or customer reviews.
- Reward customers who took your offers with a thank-you note or discount code.
READ: The Beginner’s Guide to Starting an Ecommerce Business from Scratch
Reduce abandoned carts
There are countless reasons why customers leave their cart — from lack of payment options to security concerns.
On average, 69% of ecommerce customers abandon their carts. Imagine the profit you’re pouring down the drain from those uncompleted purchases.
You can explore ways to reduce cart abandonment, yet the simplest works each time — Send a reminder.
A recovery email grabs your customers’ attention and draws them back to your website. Most of all, it converts them into paid customers.
You can optimise your emails with the following tips:
- Show your customers what was left in their cart.
- Reel them in with an irresistible headline and copy.
- Apply a sense of urgency. Let them know you have limited stock.
- Send a discount code or a limited-time offer.
Simplify your checkout page
The checkout page should only direct customers to do one thing: check out.
Strip down your checkout page and show only the necessary info. Banners, random products, and any link that directs a customer out of your checkout page would have to go.
You can also consider removing your website’s header and footer navigation as they are added distractions.
Keep the checkout process simple. Putting too many custom fields for customers to fill out only encourages them to skip the process altogether.
Simply put, making it easy for your people to check out is one foolproof way to get them to do so.
Curate your offerings
You may think that having a myriad of products will entice customers to buy from you, but it’s actually bad news for your store.
People are easily overwhelmed when faced with many options that they end up not buying at all.
One of the clever ways to improve your business’ online presence is to offer premium products.
Curate your offerings and feature only the best products. Or, add a filtering option on your catalogue for added convenience. This way, customers can easily decide what to buy and end up purchasing.
Identify frustration points
Customer experience means everything to your online store.
Around 89% of customers will stop doing business after a bad experience. What’s worse, most frustrated customers don’t complain — they simply leave your site.
Identify what’s keeping customers from converting through online analytics tools.
Google Analytics is a popular platform that tracks and analyses website traffic, bounce rates, and other insights that’ll help you understand your customers.
Heat map tools, like Hotjar and Lucky Orange, show realtime engagement of a page on your website. They help identify which sections customers read — and which buttons they clicked — before leaving your site.
Looking out for frustration points helps you address them better as you establish a good customer experience.
RECOMMENDED: How to Setup an Ecommerce Website that Sells
Explore other platforms
When it seems like you’ve exhausted all efforts to boost your online store, explore other platforms.
Social selling
Social sellers gain 66% greater quota than those who stick with traditional selling methods. Social media platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, promote your products to a wider audience.
Third-party ecommerce sites
Startup online stores find it hard to drive traffic to their websites right away. Since ecommerce marketplaces, like eBay and Amazon, have a huge customer base, selling on these platforms will shoot up your sales in no time.
READ: Ecommerce Website or Marketplace: Where Should You Sell Your Products Online?
Affiliate marketing
Finding a good affiliate associate means free marketing for your online store. While you need to pay your associates a percentage of your profits, it could make up for the sales boost. Plus, you’ll only have to pay out when a purchase is made.
Test out your options
A successful online business won’t happen overnight — it is an ongoing trial-and-error process.
Find out which hacks work best for your online store. Constant data testing and analysing help you know your customers better, enhance your business, and boost your sales in the long run.
