Top Ten Marketing Tips for Your Ecommerce Business
Let us first talk about e-commerce, e-commerce or electronic commerce is the process of buying and selling goods over an electronic network aka the Internet. These transactions (business transaction) occur either as B2B (business-to-business) or B2C (business-to-consumer). E-commerce helps many organizations to reduce the amount of time needed to process, distribute, retrieve and manage paper-based info. It helps a company to reach worldwide customers and provide better and quick customer service. Marketing is a trick, the best trick brings results faster. eCommerce marketing tips are important to learn while we run a business. Increasing average order value in online business must be focused in some new way of marketing.
There are many examples of e-commerce websites such as Amazon, Olx, Flipkart, eBay, and Quikr. E-commerce business is doing well so that it is expected to reach $27 trillion by the year 2020.
In case you are planning to start an ecommerce business, then here are a few tips that you can use to boost it.
Marketing Strategy for e-commerce
“People should not be unfamiliar with strategy. Those who understand it will survive and those who do not will perish”- wisely said by Sun Tzu. Good marketing strategies are very important for any business to retain its old customers, form brand loyalties and get new customers on board. With every business opening online stores, competition is only getting touch every day.
REAL-TIME PERSONALIZATION APPROACH – Most people get irritated when they are shown irrelevant ads and content. Showing ads and recommended content according to that person’s buying pattern or search history plays an important role in data science that can prove to be quite helpful in such a situation. People like it when they can relate to things, it helps form a connection.
It is also better to adopt a real-time personalization approach to track behavior and understand the audience. It helps measure, analyze and respond quickly. For example, if a question is asked in real-time it can be quickly answered. This can be done with online chatbots that are available during business hours or sometimes even 24/7. Utilizing a person or a chatbot with thorough knowledge of business ready to help customers with queries anytime can be quite helpful.
SPREAD THE WORD ON SOCIAL MEDIA – This may be a very cliché technique but it never gets old! Social media is all about being active and posting regularly to keep your audience entertained. Posting regularly allows you to frequently reach and engage buyers. Focus more on the channels that buyers are using so that buyers can get gravitated towards your platform.
You can track which platforms buyers are using the most with data-driven tools. Social media not only include Facebook and Instagram but also make efficient use of LinkedIn and Twitter as well. Learn techniques on marketing on all of the social media platforms.
SITE OPTIMIZATION– Optimizing your e-commerce is a vital step in getting your business off the ground. Make sure that your page loads times faster than your regular sites because buyers are super impatient and even a one-second wait can convert a purchase to an abandoned cart so be careful with the loading process. Site optimization thus should be the top priority. Nobody likes to waste time on slow, lagging sites.
HANGOUT ON INSTAGRAM: This is part of social media, but why specifically Instagram? Here is why! Start your business on Instagram because it has a lot of viewers who can check what you have got in store for them. With over 500 million daily users, it is one of the fastest-growing social apps and is best for connecting consumers, influencers and brands. Learn to make use of the hashtags accurately, learn about insights and find out when your target audience is most active.
While shopping, seeing is believing. Take attractive photos related to your business and post daily; condition your consumers to your brand name and brand image. Instagram has more interactive features, which can help keep people interested in your profile. Buyers only need to click a link in the bio to shop for more and see more items, which makes it easier and likelier for them to make a purchase. You can go live as well once in a while. Add links with your stories and posts as a direct pathway to purchase.
MAKE YOUR E-COMMERCE WEBSITE MOBILE-FRIENDLY – As per a Google survey 61% of consumers are likely to leave a site if they feel that the site is not mobile-friendly. A mobile-friendly website helps buyers to find the product that they need instantly over their phones. When a buyer is not able to find something they are looking for, then can immediately switch to another website. A better way can also be to create an app to enhance user experience and make the buying process simpler.
RETARGETING – Most customers do not convert on their first visit to the website, and hence you need to keep reminding them of retargeting. There are many ways you can retarget a customer so that they would return to your site and buy your product. Recall the ads you see on a certain website about some other website that you have just visited. These ads are like banners on the top or side of the websites. This is a very effective method of retargeting. You can use email as another tool for retargeting your customers. Sending emails to remind them that they visited ABC product and would be interested in buying it. Something interactive and engaging that would always keep your site at the top of your consumers’ minds. A lot of times we put items in the cart, without actually buying it and sometimes receive an email from that site which says something like “your items are still in the cart, buy them now!” This is an example of email retargeting.
GO MULTI-CHANNEL TO ATTRACT MORE BUYERS – Increase your reach by selling on multiple platforms like Amazon, eBay, and many others. Many people sell their content on more than 3 channels to get a better response and it only makes sense because selling on multiple platforms increases the visibility of your online shop and merchandise. Each platform has several unique visitors who may not have known about your online store. You can reach these buyers by selling and spreading your products across multiple places. Especially for new or small businesses, it can be a great start to sell on third-party websites.
ADD LIVE CHAT – Your brand gets humanized by live chat support. Live chat allows customers to ask a question or express their ratings or concerns before buying a product, thus increasing your conversion rate. It will create a great shopping experience for your brand, but you should keep track of the time/response rate. The longer you take to respond to the chances of a customer turning to some other brand increases.
Many customers appreciate live chat because of response time. Many believe that live chat is an effective method for asking anything about a product. 31% of the US and UK consumers buy a product after they have had a live chat with the representative. It makes a customer feel important and cared for. Just like Windstream Internet Customer Service that offers around the clock service to its users so that they can contact anytime through call, message and various forms of communication.
OFFER FREE SHIPPING– There are many benefits as to why free shipping is necessary. If your website doesn’t have one, you should consider offering at least for some time. It is time-consuming to type in all of your details and then finding out that there is a huge shipping cost attached to the product, which discourages most buyers and also increases your bounce rate. Show shipping costs in the details of the product and be very clear about it. It would be better if you do not charge for shipping because most buyers are inclined towards low-cost products and hence are more attracted to sites with no shipping/delivery options.
A Study from comScore and UPS said that 52 percent of American shoppers add items to their eCommerce shopping cart to qualify for free shipping.
OFFER DISCOUNTS: Discounts attract! It is better to have discounts and free deals on your website because that makes people purchase more stuff. Once a month put a sale that you will give 20% off or as much as you want a discount on every product or some featured products. It is a great way to attract new buyers that didn’t even know your website exists. Discounts work like magic on important events like black Friday. You can also add the option to avail of code, which will enable people to get more discounts if they use the code. For example, XXX. It will help attract new customers and allow existing customers to make more purchases.
HAPPY MARKETING!
Use these tips to boost your sales. Always remember marketing is the key to sales and customers’ love when they feel heard, valued and cared for. Humanize your brand as much as you can, form a connection with your customers because it is the only way that will ensure that they keep returning to you.
