These effective ecommerce marketing tips, will help you create a solid plan and lay a long-term foundation for your business.
Make your customers feel safe
Keep in mind that you don’t have a personal store where customers can actually see and feel your products or services, which is why establishing trust is one of the most important aspects of boosting your sales. The problem with online selling is that due to its dodgy nature, people shy away from buying things online thinking that it is fraudulent or deceitful.
To counter this, you need to make your customers feel safe whenever they are browsing your ecommerce store. A recent study found out that 77% of customers read reviews before they make any purchase online. And, as an e-commerce entrepreneur, you need to capitalize on having great product or service reviews to entice customers. On top of that, you should create a safe browsing experience, especially if you are capturing sensitive data such as customer details and credit card information.
- Use SSL or Secure Socket Layers certificate to encrypt confidential information.
- Display trust badges such as VeriSign, PayPal Verified, and BBB on your e-commerce site.
- Place them on various locations like on product page, checkout pages, and website footers.
- Work with your payments provider or e-commerce site provider to ensure you are using the most up-to-date security measures
Cross-sell and up-sell
Another marketing strategy to boost sales is to encourage customers to buy more products or additional services than what they have originally purchased. Cross-selling is the art of persuading customers to obtain additional items on top of their first purchase. A good example would be offering phone accessories like screen protectors, cases, and power banks for customers who bought smartphones.
You could also practice up-selling to encourage buyers to spend more than what they have initially bought via upgrades. This technique won’t increase sales volume but it will boost your average sale value, leading to higher profits. Up-selling is a very common technique used by many sales agents. How many times have you heard the line “you’ll get the best value for money if you opt for a 43” TV rather than the 32” one?”
- Use the data you’ve collected to make the right product or service recommendations.
- Always make related recommendations according to their original purchase.
Utilize paid media
The next tip on how to boost ecommerce sales is to utilize the powers of paid media. When it comes to promoting your online business, nothing could be more effective than digital marketing. With the right advertisement, proper timing, and appropriate selection of channels, a single marketing campaign can bring hundreds of customers.
When using paid media, remember that it is essential to discover winning campaigns first before investing a whole lot of money on advertising. Always test the waters by spending smaller amounts on various campaigns and see how it goes. Don’t forget to define your audience and measure the success of your campaigns through tools.
- Paid media options include Google Ads, Bing, Pay-Per-Click (PPC), and Display Ads.
- Social Media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are known for their flexibility.
Give the best possible checkout experience
People love to shop online because it is simple, fast, easy, and best of all convenient. However, the worst part of the buying process is finalizing and paying for the purchase. Cart abandonment is definitely real and almost 70% of shoppers leave their shopping cart right at the checkout page. If you want to boost sales, you need to push people to go ahead and complete the checkout process.
Don’t make the whole buying experience or availing services complicated, make it as simple and as easy as possible. Try to add a progress bar where customers can clearly see how many steps there are to complete the purchase. Also, incentivize your checkout page by offering coupons and discounts that need to be entered on the last step of the process.
- Offer free shipping coupons that can be claimed right before checkout.
- Reward customers with discount codes in exchange for an email address and use it for email marketing to remind them of items in their cart.
- Always show confirmations to verify that their purchase has already been completed.
Customer service is king
The last tip on how to boost ecommerce sales is to prioritize customer service above anything else. Remember that customers want to be heard and that their opinions or suggestions matter. Convincing yourself that you have good customer service is always subjective, so instead, use objective metrics to measure the level of your online support system.
Do you have a platform where customers can easily contact you? What about updating the status of their delivery? What if there is a return or exchange? How they can reach you? Do you answer queries within hours of posting? Are you consistent when it comes to responding to clients? Do you practice conversational commerce? To increase your sales and customer base, make sure to:
- Utilize tools such as livechat that allows on-site chatting with customers.
- Use chatbots on social media platforms to modernize your support system.
- Set up a live chat that is available 24/7 to answer all customer concerns.