7 Tips to Grow Your Sales with E-Commerce Marketing
Effective e-commerce marketing should drive traffic to your website, convert that traffic into paying customers and retain those customers.
With online shopping on the rise, it’s more important than ever to optimise your businesses e-commerce marketing efforts. We reveal our top tips to make the most out of your e-commerce marketing and grow those sales.
1. Email Marketing
Email marketing is still one of the most effective ways to generate sales and re-engage with customers. Done well, you can create a loyal customer database and help future-proof sales. Other ways you can support the growth of future sales are:
- Integrate with customers’ wishlists – set up emails notifying them when an item they are watching is on sale or low in stock. This is an effective way to convert those sales.
- Product notifications – set up options on your products for customers to be emailed when an out of stock product becomes available, or when a product launch is about to happen.
- Behaviour targeted emails – tracking a customer’s behaviour on your website is a great way to gain insight into their interests. With this information you can send targeted emails of products they are actually interested in rather than just generic ones, providing you a higher conversion rate.
2. Reduce Abandoned Carts
It was recently reported by Baymard Institute that over 69% of shopping carts are abandoned. Think of all those lost sales! Abandoned carts are one of the most effective ways to win potential customers as there are often a handful of reasons as to why the cart is abandoned in the first place.
Top 3 reasons people abandoned carts:
- Extra costs are too high; shipping, tax, fees
- Had to create an account to complete a purchase
- Too long/complicated checkout process
Putting steps in place to avoid these, or address them when a cart has been abandoned, can be an easy way for you to win back those all-important sales. For example, having an email recovery campaign can encourage the potential customer to return to your site and complete the process. This could include sending them a reminder of the items left in their cart with a short description, helping them remember why they wanted the product in the first place. Or, offering a one-time discount code or free shipping, reducing the cost that potentially put them off completing the order in the first place.
3. Upselling and Cross-Selling
Upselling and cross-selling are very common methods for increasing sales and are techniques you will find on most websites. As a brand, there are many ways in which you can do this, whether that’s suggesting similar products to the one they are viewing,
suggesting products that go well with the item they are interested in or even showing best-selling products or your top brand recommendations.
With so many different ways to up and cross-sell you can find the method that best suits your brand and benefits your products. For example, if you’re selling computers the best way to upsell might be showing the user the upgraded option of the product they are viewing. However, this method will probably not work if you are selling makeup brushes but showing the user a makeup bag that matches the brushes they are looking at might. Remember, it’s not a one size fits all approach.
4. Optimisation for Mobile
When designing your site, it’s important to have user experience at the forefront, as this will be how your customer engages with your website and brand. For more information on how to design a UX friendly site, read our blog on why does user experience matter.
It is also key to optimise your website design for mobile, as most customers now browse websites in this way. If people have a negative experience on your website via mobile, they’re 62% less likely to purchase from you in the future. These could be simple changes like having a button that lets the user jump back to the top of the page rather than having to scroll. Again, it all comes down to UX.
5. Content Marketing
Content marketing is a great way for you to engage with your customers. Creating captivating pieces of content via a blog can give your customers a reason to regularly visit your site. Making sure your content is also search engine optimised can improve your page ranking. Doing both of these can increase site traffic and therefore increase conversions.
Creating valuable content is also a way of building trust and loyalty with your customers. Providing them with useful information and advice on brand-related topics can help you develop a trusting relationship, giving your customers a reason to choose your brand over others. A notable way to grow that customer loyalty is with the ‘about’ section on your website. This section should give insight into your brand and company, creating a story and a clear brand message or ethos that the customer can get behind and buy into.
6. Integrated Social Selling
With 66% of the UK population active social media users according to Statista’s 2018 study, it creates huge potential to reach new customers. The best way forward is creating online stores with social platforms like Facebook. Once created you can tag products in images on both Facebook and Instagram. This allows customers to directly shop the tagged products from a post without having to fully navigate your website.
It’s worth making sure you correctly hashtag your product posts to the relevant audience to see that increase in engagement, traffic, and sales.
7. Reviews
Finally, reviews. In many studies, it has been shown people trust reviews more than a brand. Having positive customer reviews on your website can help grow sales, by increasing potential customers trust, making them more likely to purchase a product.
An effective way to increase the number of reviews you get is to set up an automated email system, that after a purchase and selected amount of time (allowing your customer time to use the product) an email is sent asking the customer for feedback on the item. It can be as simple as a star rating option. Contacting the customer with a kind reminder makes it easier for them, as often people forget or sometimes don’t even realise it is an option. You could also offer an incentive for them to review the product such as 5% off their next order, this can in turn help improve customer retention.
Do you need support with your E-commerce Marketing?
Do you feel overwhelmed or is there more you could be doing to drive sales? Now is the perfect time to re-evaluate your marketing efforts and see how the iCandy Design team can support your business to get it where you want it to be. Contact us today to discuss your business needs!
