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Louigi in Internet Marketing on March 30, 2020

15 E-Commerce Marketing Strategies To Boost Sales

The sad reality for aspiring entrepreneurs: launching an e-commerce business is much easier than making it successful. One barrier that causes e-commerce sites to fail is because of the myriad of online store options available to buy from. Customers don’t know which to choose. There is so much competition that store owners can only survive by creating innovative e-commerce marketing plans to win customer loyalty and get them to buy from the store.

One problem that e-commerce store owners frequently encounter is that they need to devise new and effective marketing strategies to dominate the competition frequently and consistently. There are thousands of online stores on the internet selling a wide variety of products.

With so many to choose from, it’s a struggle to attract consumers to pick your store to buy products. If you want customers to choose your online store, you need to give them the best deals using various promotions, benefits, services, and discounts.

That’s why business owners need to stay alert and updated to develop and implement fruitful e-commerce marketing strategies. They do this by scouting and analyzing competing stores to obtain buyers. Then, they would devise and execute their own strategies to compete with rival stores.

As new strategies are developed and implemented, many other stores do the same — each one vying to be the top store. This proves how challenging, daunting, and unending e-commerce marketing is.

If you want to succeed in your business, the fight never stops. You need to keep looking and making up excellent plans to overtake and stay ahead of your competitors.

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E-Commerce Marketing Strategies to Increase Sales

01. Make Your Online Store User Friendly

Attractive and intuitive designs of your e-commerce store is one of the best ways to drive sales. With so many options available, a customer would rather leave an online store rather than stay in a confusing and difficult site to navigate.

Terrible e-commerce store designs don’t have a coherent value proposition. Maybe the fonts and text are difficult to read. Navigating the site is a nightmare. You’re not sure what anything is saying and where to go. A regular customer would just give rather than stay in a bad website.

Aside from that, you also need to clearly categorize and segment your products. If there are too many products and details on one page, it would look cluttered and crowded. Your audience wouldn’t be too keen on taking it all in.

What you need to do is ensure that there’s a good balance between the visuals and text. Too many visuals, such as videos or images, and not enough text might make the message lost to the visitor without enough context. On the other hand, too much text and you may lose the interest of the audience. You need an experienced web designer who will give the right balance to keep the audience engaged and provide the right message.

If you have no idea how to begin doing this, just visit different e-commerce websites. Maybe you’ll find inspiration on them. Then try to identify what you can improve on and apply them to your own site.

02. Get a Huge Number of Email Subscribers

This is one of the first steps done in email marketing. That is to gather as many email subscribers as they can.

Email marketing is a well-proven strategy to expand the reach of businesses and build their target customer base. It provides an opportunity for potential interaction with potential customers.

According to studies, email is the third most influential source of information for business-to-business (B2B) customers and 80% of retail professionals cite email marketing to be most effective in client retention. These statistics prove that you should use email marketing in acquiring customers and increasing revenue.

Before everything else, email marketing begins by obtaining hundreds or thousands of email addresses of people. There are many ways you can do that. One way is to utilize blogs and newsletters. Ask your customers base or visitors to your site to sign up and subscribe to the said blogs and newsletters. If they will sign up, you will be able to get their email address.

Afterward, you can send emails to them regarding new products, promotions, and discounts, along with whatever new plans and schemes to entice and attract them to buy from your store.

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03. Send Frequent, Personal, and Professional Emails

When you have accumulated a long list of email addresses, you can now begin your email campaign. However, you should make sure that it will be effective. An e-commerce marketing strategy requires dedication, lots of time, and strenuous effort. You need to send emails often After you have a very long list of email addresses, it is now time to launch an email campaign that works. The e-commerce marketing strategy requires your dedicated time and effort. After all, you need to send emails very often for successful email marketing.

If you want to convert your email recipients into paying customers, I have some advice for you.

First, send a welcome email to customers who are looking to buy from your online store. This gives them the impression that you truly care for them. Once you’re done with that, email them free gifts and promo codes to make purchasing again very attractive.

Second, you can use emails to remind them that you have discounts or any tips you have for your products. You can send them newsletters, which will have information on new products or developments in your company.

Third, after they buy a product, you can send them tips on using it through email.

Fourth, when sending emails, make them appear like a personal note stating your gratitude and appreciation for their business. In addition, you can contact the people who visited your site but didn’t purchase anything to ask for their feedback on what went wrong. This way you give them a better user experience in the future.

Another thing to remember here is that each email from your end should have a logo of your e-commerce store. So, create a logo that conveys your brand message effectively and put that on your emails to show your authority over the market.

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04. Upsell to Your Customers

After a potential customer chooses a product they may purchase by adding it to the cart of viewing the product page, you should immediately offer upgraded products in the same category. Not only does it allow the customer to make a more informed decision, but it also gives you a chance to generate more revenue. If you do this, the visitor may choose the more expensive version rather than the cheaper one. This is what is called upselling.

When conceptualizing your e-commerce marketing strategies, include upselling tactics in them to provide more value to customers and drive profit. Be aware that customers don’t always know that there are premium options available.  That’s why you have to upsell to them with new and upgraded products. You have to take note however that you should always upsell related products to what they are looking for. You also have to be cautious that you wouldn’t show products that are too expensive and out of their reach.

05. Don’t Let Your Customers Abandon Their Carts

Approximately half to three-quarters of customers abandon their shopping carts online. This translates to a lot of lost revenue for your e-commerce website if most don’t continue the order and just leave the products on their carts. There are many reasons they don’t complete the purchasing process you have to plan for each one.

One strategy to reduce cart abandon rates to remind your visitors about their purchase. If you can, offer free shipping or discounts. Tell them about promotions that you may have so they’ll want to come back.

Another tactic you can pull off is sending emails to the people who left their carts. You can persuade them to come back to your site and complete the purchase by promotions or additional products that they may be looking for on your site.

This is because your potential customers may just not be aware that you also offer alternative products from other brands. They may then reconsider purchasing if you can show upgraded products that have more benefits and features applicable to them. Write your email in a way that reminds them that they abandoned their cart and that you also offer other product options.

06. Use Instagram in Engaging Your Audience

Instagram has more than 1 billion users all over the world. Next to Facebook, it is the second most used social media platform in connecting with people. If you want to engage and directly communicate with brands, consumers, and social media influencers, this is the social networking service you need to use. Don’t be left behind and start capitalizing on Instagram’s massive audience. You do this by posting IG stories and photos of your business to promote your brand, advertise products and services, and expand your customer base. With so many users worldwide, you should take advantage of social media as part of your e-commerce marketing strategies.

In a survey by Facebook, researchers found that 83% of people use Instagram to discover new products or services; 81% to research products and services, and 80% decide whether to buy a product and service. With these statistics in mind, you’ll be a fool if you don’t include this platform in your e-commerce marketing strategies. So you should develop a large customer base on Instagram to inform them of your site and products.

Through Instagram, you can interact with your target audience using various methods to market your e-commerce site and products. As an example, you can conduct contests with attractive prizes to encourage people to visit and buy from your store. One more strategy is by posting about your products and writing stories behind the products. This invites the audience to learn more about your product and potentially buy from you.

07. Take Advantage of the Facebook Store to Sell Your Products

Another big social networking service you need to utilize is Facebook. Currently, it has millions of users who you can market on, sell products to, and interact with for your business. Simply, set up a Facebook store and sell your products directly on the platform.

Don’t forget to integrate the Facebook marketplace with your website though. When you have users visiting the Facebook page and show interest in buying your products, they should be directed to your main e-commerce website. Through this, you can operate the same inventory for your site and the Facebook marketplace.

On the Facebook page, you should put in the logo of your e-commerce site. Ensure that the logo design is the first impression you can make on your visitors.

08. Improve The Conversion Rate of Your Website

It can happen. You create and implement an e-commerce marketing strategy and it’s not converting well for some reason or another. What you need to do is review if the website can be improved for on-site conversion. Conversion means how many visitors coming to your site are converted into a paying customer or buyer. If you’re not converting well, chances are, there is probably something wrong with the optimization that you may not have noticed.

That’s why you need to perform proper conversion rate optimization (CRO) so that you can identify what’s wrong on your site before it becomes a bigger problem. When you implement the optimization process, you will detect and recognize the reasons why your site is decreasing in sales and visitors are leaving before purchasing. When you finally see the problem after your research — maybe it’s bad UX design or poor product placement —, you can then address that issue and provide the right solution to increase your sales.

09. Make Sure Your Site Mobile Responsive

When you go out in public, look around you. How many people are on their phones? They spend so much time in it from connecting on social media, watching videos, listening to music, and playing games. One more thing is that they like to shop online using their phones. Their phones allow them to buy products online on the move or at home freely and easily. The convenience of staying where you are instead of going to a physical store is greatly valued. Instead, they just open an app to purchase what they want.

51% of internet users in the world use their mobile phones. So, if your website is not optimized for mobile phones, you’re losing out on a large number of prospective customers. Not everyone will visit your store in a desktop so the obvious choice is to utilize a mobile responsive design in your site. This ensures that your products and information on your site is clearly displayed in any device or screen size.

You’d know a site is mobile responsive if the images, icons, and text fit just right in the small size of a mobile screen. It should also load faster as mobile phones are not as powerful as their desktop counterparts. Doing this provides a seamless and smooth experience for all users and potential customers enticing them to buy from your site.

10. Integrate a Live Chat Feature

Before deciding to buy a product, people like to have a conversation with a company representative to ask questions they may have. They want to be sure that they’re making the right choice. One way to implement this to your site by including live chat feature in your website. Through this, you can communicate with visitors and invite them for a chat so you can discuss what they want from the site. This will give you an opportunity to market your products and services or resolve issues they may have that prevent them from buying to your site. This, in turn, improves your conversion.

Generally, it’s more advisable to pop up the live chat box after the visitor already spent a few minutes on your site. You wouldn’t appear pushy and it would provide more time for them to browse your products and get information.

To whoever would handle the live chat, they must have solid product knowledge and sales skills so they can have an authoritative conversation to answer customer queries and effectively sell the products or services.

11. Utilize Testimonials from Customers

Testimonials are an effective way to get people to buy from your site. When a customer enjoys your product or service, many of them share their experience. It is either the comment or review section where they write about the product, including their advice and opinions about it. These reviews from users give future customers insights into what actually buying the product or service is like.

Most consumers trust these recommendations and reviews from other users online. If you encourage users to write positive reviews of products to your site, it would be beneficial to your bottom line.

If you can, it’s also better to make them take and post pictures of the products. This shows that they’re satisfied in buying the products thereby increasing potential buyers’ confidence and trust in your store.

12. Conduct Market Research Through Tests

In marketing, you must first test your market to assess if people will buy your product. Analyze market demand so you can find out if your business can be profitable and thereby worth time, capital, and efforts.

Initial market research for the demand for a product is through keyword research and geographic validation. One more thing you can do is creating a social media page and requesting people to offer what they can say about the product. You can also do some preliminary selling to find out if people will like your product and gain interest to place orders.

There are also a strategy where you will write that a particular product is not available. If there is interest and it’s popular, some customers will request for it to come back.

13. Consistently Posts Blogs

Posting blogs that are rich in information is an effective technique to get attention and increase sales. Posting content regularly regarding your products, services, company, or any related topic will greatly benefit your e-commerce website. Not only will you connect more with your customers, but you’ll also increase in search engine rankings.

When writing and publishing blogs, it is effective if you can give advice to help your customers use your products. You can also preemptively give tips and solutions to the problems they may encounter with your products. If you can, prepare long guides on your company’s products and services.

When you post blogs, ensure that it is user-friendly, intuitive, and loads quickly. No matter how good the content you write is, no one will read it if it’s presented in a confusing way. You can hire a web designer or web developer to create a nice blogging platform integrated to your e-commerce site. They can also ensure that your website is interesting, engaging, and search engine optimized.

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14. Give Rewards to Loyal Customers and Big Spenders

One surefire marketing tip is to reward the repeat customers and biggest spenders in your website. They have proven that they like going to your site and buying products and spending a lot. Their average purchasing power is better than average of usual customers so it’s smart to cater to them.

Return customers are a positive asset to a business. These customers may account for a significant part of your revenue. At times, they may not even cross a tenth of your total customer base. But their effect on your revenue is something you should not ignore.

Introduce a loyalty program so you can reward customers like this. Incentivize making repeat purchases so that they’d want to buy from you again. There are numerous ways you can do this. For instance, you can offer discounts, free shipping, and gifts if they buy more products or buy repeatedly. Conceptualize promotions that can be exclusive for them. This will make them want to spend more and remain loyal to your website.

15. Search for Customers Offline

This may be a little weird since you’re promoting an e-commerce site but you can actually do this. In fact, many online retailers are actually practicing this e-commerce marketing tactic. It’s not just brick and mortar stores that can do this but also your online store to increase sales and revenue.

Simply research places with large concentrations of your possible customers. Afterward, execute a business promotion campaign in that location. Research what kinds of products do they buy and how they spend their money. In that way, customers may even find your company online and buy from you.

Moreover, you can also plan promotions of your business through an event. An effective strategy you can do is distribute free promotional items with your e-commerce site’s logo in them. A good strategy will be to distribute some promotional items free with your e-commerce site’s logo printed on them. If you need other graphic design services, such as flyers, brochures, or other marketing materials, this could be a good time to give it to them. These offline promotions can be great for your online e-commerce website.

In Conclusion

These e-commerce marketing strategies can potentially give life to your business and increase your bottom line. You only need to devote time and energy if you want them to be successful. Simply having an e-commerce site is not good enough to get sales and expand your customer reach. You must utilize some new and novel e-commerce marketing tactics that work. Ensure that your site is intuitive, user-friendly with fast loading speeds. Offer rewards to your most loyal customers and launch an email marketing campaign to attract customers. Besides that, you can also offer discounts, promotions, and other enticing schemes. Don’t forget to optimize your product pages and encourage users to write about the products they bought in comments or reviews.