To keep dollars flowing through your e-commerce site, you need to bring visitors to your site, convert them into customers, and give those customers such superior service that they can’t wait to shop with you again.
The winds of the internet are constantly changing, so you need to continually tweak your approach to make sure you’re keeping up with the latest search algorithms and customer expectations. Here are some tips for attracting, converting, and retaining customers.
Image via Flickr by StormKatt
Buy Misspelled Versions of Your Site Name
How many different ways might people misspell or mistype the name of your site? Buying up those domains and pointing them to your site is often a very cheap way to bring extra shoppers to your virtual door.
Use Social Media Wisely
Use your own social media channels to build brand awareness, keep your current customers aware of new offerings and discounts, and stay accessible to people with questions. Consider approaching influencers in your target market to showcase your most exciting products in their Instagram feeds. People with huge followings get top dollar for this kind of product placement, but you can probably find up-and-comers in your market who will offer quick reviews or Instagram posts in exchange for free merchandise.
Make Videos of Your Products
Videos get a lot more play on social media than photos or links. Create short videos that show your products in action. Publish your video clips on YouTube and embed the code on your pages to keep load times quick and to attract traffic from two sources. Facebook gives a lot of play to videos published directly to your page, so upload copies of some of your videos there as well.
Run A Shopping Campaign
If you’re still running search campaigns on Google AdWords, consider a shopping campaign instead. For e-commerce sites, it’s a much more robust alternative. Shoppers will see your products right on their search pages with an image and a price, which is much more likely to persuade buyers than a site link and a few keywords.
Remarket on AdWords
Getting people who’ve visited you online to return to your site is smart salesmanship. Remarketing campaigns are a great tool for appealing to shoppers who showed enough interest in your site to visit you once. Remarketing ads are easy to set up and tailor to your needs using the ad building tools on AdWords. Consider including a coupon code in these ads to help you get that conversion.
Go After Abandoned Carts
According to some estimates, more than two-thirds of all shopping carts are abandoned before checkout. That means there could be twice as many customers interested in your products than there are people buying them. Are you letting those well-qualified prospects get away? See if your shopping cart provider offers email recovery campaign actions, either built into the cart or via a plug-in. Experiment with reminding customers about the items they wanted; maybe even offer them a discount code to complete the transaction.
Allow Guest Checkouts
Do you require shoppers to register on your site? This could be killing your conversion rate. Some buyers resist registration for security reasons, others worry that registering will lead to spam, and some simply can’t be bothered. Remove the obstacle of registration from your sales funnel and you’ll stop losing so many buyers during the checkout process.
Be Available
Customers who are ready to buy an item want to get it done quickly and get on with their busy lives. If they can’t get immediate answers to their questions they will buy elsewhere, even at a higher price. You and your senior staff should be available to give instant answers to your customers or service staff by email and chat at any time. Get notifications on the Samsung Gear through T-Mobile’s reliable network so you can respond instantly to questions and issues that arise. The Samsung gear is stylish and 4G connected to T-Mobile’s lightning speed network. The pairing of these two will make sure you’re always there to help your customers get what they need.
Spend a little time tweaking your site each week or month to stay on top of the latest trends. Keep looking for ways to reach out to potential customers and remove buying obstacles. Don’t forget to market to your existing customers; they are your very best prospects for future sales.
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