10 eCommerce tips to help boost sales. | Aware Digital
Successful marketing in the world of eCommerce is difficult, the competition is ever increasing and reaching your target audience to entice them in to make a purchase is certainly challenging to say the least.
Here at aware we want your eCommerce site to be the best it can possibly be, so we’ve created a list of helpful tips to aid your eCommerce store. These approaches will help sales increase you can then show your customers why your store shines and hopefully make a customer for life.
1. Remarketing
First, we need to get those potential customers back to your eCommerce store, at aware we know this is the first fundamental step in increasing your sales. You need to reengage the customers that have browsed your store so they return.
So what is remarketing? Remarketing is a way to connect with potential customers that have previously interacted with your eCommerce store. It allows you to strategically position your ads in front of these potential customers as they browse Google or its partner websites, thus helping you increase your brand awareness or help remind about making a purchase from your eCommerce store.
The benefits of this are:
- Prompt reach/Well-timed targeting
- Focused advertising
- Large-scale reach
Efficient pricing - Easy ad creation
- Campaign statistics
Customers returning to your eCommerce store from these adverts are more likely to convert as they have already viewed your store once and have made a conscious to return due to your advert.
2. Abandoned basket emails
eCommerce basket abandonment varies between studies and is been 70 and 80 percent. Sending out emails to customers is an essential strategy to help return customers to your store and increase sales. Using a quality extension will help you send targeted emails to customers who have dropped out from the checkout process if logged in or have made it to provide an email address.
If the custom was logged in you can send more specific and targeted emails telling them about related items they purchased in the past or may have in their Wishlist. Some studies show that more than 40% of these are opened and around 50% receive click-throughs back to the site, as eCommerce specialists we know that making the emails clear, concise with easily seen links back the basket is proven to increase conversions. It is the visual reminder of the product that the customer was interested in to bring them to your eCommerce store that helps bring them back again.
Here are some best practices for abandoned basket emails:
Don’t just send the one email and be done with it, send a series of emails for the best results. The first email should be sent within a 1 hour window of the customer abandoning the basket then a further couple of emails over the following days.
Make sure to test the emails are setup correctly, the last thing you would want is for the email not to be correct or when the customer clicks the email they are greeted with an empty basket putting them off your eCommerce store.
Personalise the emails where possible. Make your customers feel wanted if you have the customers name use it make sure you show the correct product that the customer had in their basket.
3. Customer reviews
Gathering customer reviews is only the being. Making good use of the reviews collected is what will really make the difference in your stores sales. Placing the reviews in the correct locations can make the difference between someone making a purchase and them looking elsewhere.
Reviews from customers are a proven way to encourage a purchase. Reviews of your eCommerce store and products you offer from previous customers give a sense of trust that lowers the barrier to entry when customers are making their first purchase from you.
Looking at the statistics for reviews shows that reviews on your eCommerce store really do matter.
- 92% of consumers read online reviews.
- When judging a business, the star rating is the #1 factor.
- 44% of consumers deem reviews written over a month ago to be irrelevant.
- 26% of consumers think it’s important that a local business responds to its reviews.
These statistics show that customers care about reviews, this is why you need to test where you are putting the reviews, don’t just plunk them everywhere on the page this might ruin the UX you’ve worked hard to achieve place them in specific points along the user journey of making a sale this is more than likely to double the sales conversion.
4. Exit-intent popups
Using Exit-intent popups are very effective ways of capturing the customers attention who have decided for whatever reason to leave your store. This popup gives the user a final chance for you to show them why they should stay and make a purchase or to return in the future. You may want to offer a discount if they sign up for the newsletter once this email is captured you then have the opportunity to send emails enticing the customer back.
Exit-intent are great ways to help keep the customer on the site, triggering your exit-intent popup can be set to show as the customer move towards closing the tab or leaving the page window, the popup will then show before the customer closes the window or tab.
5. Welcome popups
This is an effective way of capturing the email of a customer by offering a discount or free shipping on their first order or similar. These popups are a great way to capture emails to send customers promotions in the future, or to drive customers through the site to make a sale by displaying an offer.
Popups, when used well, can increase your email list by an average of 50.8%.
So as not to upset the customers make sure that the popup is easily closed and that it is not shown straight away when landing on the site.
6. User-generated content
User generated content help give customers about to make a purchase more confident in their buying decision. The more feedback from previous and existing customers showing positive experiences the more likely that a new customer will be converted in turn increasing sales.
Customers happy with the service and product will often post pictures of the product on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or YouTube showing a short review, when you see one of these posts ask permission to repost them on your site in blogs or product pages, share them on your social media channels or add them to email campaigns.
7. Upsell products
To help maximise sales upsell across your eCommerce store it should be priority to maximise on customers sales. Upselling can help boost sales by encouraging your customers to purchase a more expensive item. Personalisation and customer product recommendations allow eCommerce marketing to take place all across your store. An example of upsells would be buying a laptop and offering a latest newer model.
8. Cross Sell products
With upsells in place cross sells is also very important. When a customer has added a product to their basket, its a great opportunity to cross sell.
You can show them items that are related to the product that they currently have in their basket, meaning they might purchase the extra items. An example of this is if the customer adds a mobile phone to their cart you could offer cables, screen covers, cases and chargers.
9. Blog posts – New content for your site.
New content for sites is always key, offering new engaging content not only helps customers understand your business, but it helps Google to understand what you do as a business. Focusing on topics that your customers and target audience are interested in helps not only engage your current target market but new customers.
Writing new content in a blog format is one of the best ways to increase new traffic and drive customers to your eCommerce store. Always aim for high quality content, it’s not about the amount of content, it’s about the quality of the content produced.
10. Offers and guides
Once you’ve got valuable content in your blog, you’ll have the chance to engage your customers in a different way. Offering downloads or guides that can help your customers learn about different products you may sell. Or learn about your store and your business.
A great example of extra content you can create is doing video reviews on the products that you sell. It would be a great way to not only broaden your target market but also help with backlinks from external sites.
Here to help!
Each store is different, there is no easy solution that works across every site when it comes to eCommerce marketing, making sure you trial various strategies to find what works for your store and for your customers.
At aware we love helping businesses grow online and make the most of their eCommerce store. We’ve worked with some top brands to help drive sales.
If you’d like help with your current store get in touch and see how we can help you grow your online business.