Unlocking Sustained Growth: The Power of Subscriptions on Shopify Plus
Explore how Shopify Plus subscriptions can drive your eCommerce business towards sustained growth. Discover strategies for leveraging subscriptions successfully….
- E-commerce, Digital Transformation
- E-commerce, Digital Transformation
Top 10 ways to Increase eCommerce Sales for Autumn 2022
- Nathan Lomax
Every ecommerce store is constantly striving to grow, and with so many online businesses out there, you’ll need to arm yourself with some hard-hitting marketing tactics in order to increase your sales and scale your business.
There’s more to growing your ecommerce business than size and revenue; it’s about long-term vision and the results you’re achieving. The foundation of success and, therefore, growth is customer satisfaction. Rather than judging your success on basic metrics like conversion rate, you should be looking at your customer acquisition, retention and loyalty.
If you start by focusing on making and keeping your customers happy with your service and products and ultimately, your brand, growth, and therefore increased sales should happen naturally, with a little hard work and some robust marketing tactics in place.
1. Gather Reviews
Never underestimate the power of “word of mouth”. According to Trust Pilot, consumers actively seek recommendations, with around 90% of customers making a conscious effort to read reviews before completing a purchase. It’s not just the product being reviewed and recommended, it’s the company selling it, and good reviews build trust between your brand and your customers, both existing and potential.
Reach out and ask your customers for reviews, either at the point of sales, perhaps in a confirmation email or in an after-sales email. This not only encourages them to leave a review but also offers the opportunity to gather genuine feedback and solve any issues that may have arisen.
Never censor negative reviews. Less than favourable reviews actually provide a chance to show how you deal with any criticism and solve problems customers may have encountered, therefore alleviating concerns potential customers may have.
2. Improve your content and SEO
Content and search engine optimisation (SEO) are absolutely king. They are how you find and engage with customers, both existing and potential. SEO is how most of your customers will find you initially, and good SEO ensures high search engine page rankings (SERPs).
Your content, whether that’s product descriptions or skyscraper blog articles, is what engages your audience and builds your relationship with them.
Hopefully, your landing pages will be optimised for particular keywords and search phrases in order for people looking for specific products to find yours. The key is to think of the search terms your customers may use, not what you assume they will. You can use blogs to produce search results for more ambiguous search phrases to bring more potential customers to your ecommerce site.
Well-written, informative articles can provide more information on your products or your industry as a whole. It’s important they offer value and aren’t an obvious sales pitch. They’re another great opportunity to build customer relationships.
3. Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the most efficient channels to acquire potential customers who you can reach out to with marketing messages. Email marketing is cost-effective, and by building your email list, you can form a good relationship with your audience and turn them into paying customers.
The easiest way for ecommerce businesses to grow their email list is via a simple newsletter signup form. The most vital thing there is to ensure you’re offering real value to your subscribers and make them eager to learn more about your brand. Consider offering a good welcome discount if they opt-in and always provide an easy way for them to unsubscribe.
4. Make your website easy to navigate
A badly designed ecommerce website means that your potential customers might have trouble finding the items they’re searching for and consequently leave without making a purchase. You need to make sure that all of your products are categorised properly to provide a straightforward and seamless experience.
It’s equally important to find the right balance between text and images on your pages. Don’t pack too many images on one page, as it will look cramped and confusing. Instead, choose 1 or 2 really great images and provide the option to view more or view close-ups. You should always aim for ease of use and practicality.
Additionally, choose an easy-to-read font to make your website more pleasing to the eye and provide users with the best experience possible.
5. Provide a live chat or chatbot
Live chat is a highly effective tool in an ecommerce store’s marketing strategy. It allows customers to easily start conversations with you and get the answers they seek throughout their buying experience. It also provides you with the chance to mitigate any potential issues that may arise, for example, problems at the checkout stage.
Live chat software should allow customers to get answers to most questions easily, either from chatbots or via live chat with an agent. Live chat lets customers converse with you without needing to leave your site to email, for example. The possible delay of back-and-forth emails could cost you a sale.
6. Encourage user-generated content
User-generated content (UGC) can be anything from reviews to images or videos of them using your products. To encourage more UGC, you can ask customers to use certain hashtags when posting on their social media channels, organise competitions or simply have them share feedback on your review platforms.
It’s vital that ecommerce businesses show that their products are relevant to potential customers, and UGC is the perfect way to do this as well as provide social proof and increase your brand trust.
7. Make it personal
Personalisation is an effective marketing strategy for both small ecommerce businesses and larger ones to drive more online sales. A good place to start personalisation is using a subscriber’s name in your email subject lines and recommending products or content based on the user’s previous behaviour on your site.
In order to deliver a more personalised experience, you can use behavioural data about past actions and preferences.
You could also opt for segmentation which is essentially dividing subscribers into smaller groups based on certain criteria, for example, demographic, psychographics, location, etc. You can easily collect any data you need to do this via your signup forms, just make it clear why you’re asking for the information.
8. Set up a loyalty programme
Customer loyalty is probably one of the most convenient ecommerce marketing tools you can have in your arsenal. Compared to one-time shoppers, loyal customers have already placed their trust in your brand, choosing you over other companies. To keep them engaged, however, you need to offer them something in return. By implementing a customer loyalty program, you’ll encourage them to keep returning to you.
A loyalty program could be anything from offering special discounts, free shipping, or exclusive offers that will get your VIP shoppers to act.
9. Use influencer marketing
Influencer marketing is an increasingly popular ecommerce marketing tactic as it leverages personas who already have strong bonds of trust with their followers to promote products. This strategy is especially useful when you’re launching new products or wanting to create a buzz around something specific.
One of the best benefits of influencer marketing is that the products are presented as part of a lifestyle, so it looks natural rather than forced advertising. A long-term collaboration often works best as these build credibility and a fluid representation of your products.
10. Launch a Facebook Shop
Although you already have an ecommerce store, a Facebook shop could help you expand your reach and engage customers you may not be visible to otherwise. Most consumers spend at least some time every day on social media, so it’s a great platform to utilise.
Many modern consumers don’t want to leave a platform to go to an external website. By providing the option to complete a purchase on Facebook, you can encourage them to finalise the purchase and merge your social media and ecommerce marketing.
It’s fairly easy to set up a Facebook shop, and if you’re already using an ecommerce platform such as Shopify, you won’t need to keep a separate inventory as your store can seamlessly integrate directly with it.
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