9 Tactics to Drive More Sales for Ecommerce
Launching and growing an ecommerce business is a daunting task. There are many moving parts that shape success and affect customer acquisition and retention. What is more, you need to overcome numerous roadblocks before you can make strides towards your set goals. The good news, though, is that others have been where you are now. They have left a trail of surefire tactics and steps in the wake of their success. Here are some that will help you take your sales to the next level.
Mobile optimization
A growing number of ecommerce sales originate from mobile devices and the upward trajectory will continue. Thus, it has never been more important to optimize your store for small screen sizes. Responsive design is one of the most common methods of doing this, but there are some additional ways to explore. For instance, you can use your mobile-friendly ecommerce software to add mobile payment processing and revamp the checkout process.
Social media marketing
Expand your reach by establishing a presence on booming social hubs like Instagram and Facebook. Post content regularly— long form-posts with striking images and videos tend to drive the most social signals. Furthermore, take part in conversations and engage the audience. Hold contests and giveaways and offer nice rewards. Take advantage of influencer marketing to tap into new audiences. These tactics improve your trustworthiness and spread brand awareness far and wide.
Power of research
To delight customers, you have to get to know them. So, make sure to carry out market research and uncover buyers’ wants, preferences, and needs. Use analytics tools to gather valuable insights from past interactions with visitors. Google Analytics and KISSmetrics can help you learn why people are bouncing and abandoning the site without buying anything. They provide a visual representation of where the holes and leaks in your conversion funnel are.
Enhance User Experience Design
Speaking of the sales funnel, this aspect is closely linked to user experience (UX) of your digital storefront. Namely, you want to foster a personalized onsite experience that enables buyers to get what they want with as few steps as possible. That way, you can garner long-term consumer loyalty and improve lifetime value. To stay on the safe side, conduct A/B tests. Figure out what UX tweaks are really going to improve conversion rates.
Get key page elements right
In general, brands need to use colors, fonts, white space, and layout to highlight key on-site elements and allow smooth navigation. Many of them follow the principles of minimal UX design to eliminate visual noise and clutter and make clickable objects clearly visible. Another handy trick is to write great product information, which attracts more organic traffic. Finally, you can add quality images, customer testimonials, and estimated delivery times.
Straightforward checkout
Next, it is time to simplify the checkout process. Think about the steps customers have to take here: sign in (registration), delivery and payment information, order details, order placement, and order verification. Make sure they can hop from one action to another in a seamless manner. Reduce the form fields and the amount of information required for singing in. Include a progress bar to let visitors know which step they are currently undertaking.
Efficient payment system
Secure and fast payment gateways are an essential piece of the ecommerce success puzzle. Credit cards are still an industry standard, but it is best to offer additional options via a flexible enterprise payment solution. You can also consider including mobile wallets (such as Amazon Pay and Apple Pay) that are growing in popularity recently. Anticipating and adapting to such trends will give you an edge in the market.
Email marketing
Use email as a highly-effective ecommerce channel. Instead of sending standard bulk emails, take on list segmentation. This data-backed approach is the key to improving click-through, transaction, and open rates of your emails. While at it, make good use of marketing automation tools to send seasonal, anniversary, birthday, and other discounts and personalized messages. Bear in mind that percentage-off discounts, dollar-off discounts, and free shipping offer the highest ROI.
Get on top of SEO
Domain rank determines your place in Google search results for certain keywords and thus profoundly influences the volume of traffic you attract. If you manage to make it to the forefront of SERPs, you are likely to be able to flatten the competition. So, do a site-wide SEO audit to identify any technical issues that hamper ranking. Start keyword research and choose relevant words and phrases to bid for. Lastly, optimize your content and maximize the number of backlinks.
Conclusion
To successfully navigate the market waters, you must find reliable ways to generate more sales. Start by doing your homework to familiarizing yourself with the target audience. Take your time improving the storefront and nurturing stellar UX. Embrace personalization and employ new technologies and cutting-edge tools to streamline operations and processes. Make headways into new customer avenues like social media and enhance your bottom line.
Elaine Bennett is a blogger, currently writing for Bizzmark Blog. She’s a digital marketing specialist, passionate about helping small businesses grow. Follow her on Twitter to find more of her articles.
