Getting an ecommerce store up and running is only the first step to launching a successful business online. Now you need to establish strategies that will help you get sales.
More often than not, what you need isn't a silver bullet but a combination of tactics working together in unison to help you reach your revenue goals.
This episode will help you brainstorm these tactics and get to the action!
If you prefer the blog version of this episode (with examples!), here it is.
Dive deeper:
Create beautiful email signup forms, coupon boxes, and pop-up surveys for your store with Getsitecontrol.
Getting an ecommerce store up and running is only the first step to launching a successful business online. Now you need to establish strategies that will help you get sales.
More often than not, what you need isn't a silver bullet but a combination of tactics working together in unison to help you reach your revenue goals.
This episode will help you brainstorm these tactics and get to the action!
If you prefer the blog version of this episode (with examples!), here it is.
Dive deeper:
Create beautiful email signup forms, coupon boxes, and pop-up surveys for your store with Getsitecontrol.
Hi,
You’re listening to Getsitecontrol Insider – a monthly podcast for ecommerce brands.
In this episode, we’ll talk about 15 different ways to increase sales in your online store. From email marketing to SEO and personalization, we’ll walk you through each tactic to help you brainstorm your strategy.
Getting an ecommerce store up and running is only the first step of launching a business. Now you need to establish strategies to increase sales.
The good news is, it isn’t as difficult as you might think! It certainly doesn’t require you to burn yourself out in the process. More often than not, it’s a combination of small techniques working together to help you reach your revenue goals.
Here are 15 ideas to get you started.
#1. Build an email list
This first one is a biggie!
Sure, it may seem like a daunting task at first, but there are countless ways to build an email list for your store without reinventing the wheel.
When you build a tribe of loyal customers, you’re checking off several critical tasks:
Email works so well because your customers choose to opt-in to hear more from you instead of getting targeted by paid promotions. Plus, you have full control of your email list, whereas you don’t own social media platforms.
To start collecting subscribers, you can use opt-in checkboxes at checkout – or you can display a pop-up email form after a customer spends some time in your store.
Want to build your email list faster? Offer a signup incentive, like a 10% discount, a product sample, or free shipping.
#2. Implement a solid email marketing strategy
The obvious next step to building an email list is to make it an integral part of your marketing strategy.
Now, here is a tricky part. You could choose to send the same newsletter to every subscriber, but that information might not be relevant to all of your audience.
Instead, segment your subscribers according to their actions and interests.
For instance, when asking visitors to confirm their subscription, you could add checkbox options to get an idea of:
When you segment your subscriber list, you can send newsletters and promotions that are more relevant to each group. This way, your audience will be more likely to engage with your brand and remain subscribed.
#3. Use scarcity tactics
Nothing gets the blood pumping more than scarcity.
If your product seems to be available in limited supply — or if a sale is only available for a short time — your visitors will be more likely to buy from you now.
Here are a few easy ways to use scarcity:
#4. Upsell your customers
When your store visitors add an item to their cart, you could celebrate that fact and do a happy dance…
… Or you could offer an upsell.
Online stores that offer upsells get up to 70% of their revenue from upsells and renewals — that’s a huge amount of revenue you’re missing out on if you don’t implement this tactic.
The best moment to offer an upsell is right on the product page, after a customer has added it to cart – or in the shopping cart during checkout. To implement this tactic, you can use dedicated apps or even upsell popups.
#5. Optimize your store for mobile
People love shopping on their phones, and that trend is on the rise.
In 2022, over 40% of ecommerce sales in the US are expected to happen on mobile devices, compared to only 36% in 2019.
The stores that don’t provide a frictionless mobile experience end up missing a lot of opportunities (and money!).
So if you want more sales, make sure your website is user-friendly for all platforms, optimize your category and product pages for mobile, and incorporate mobile-first payment options.
#6. Use SEO plugins
Optimizing your ecommerce store for search engines will increase your organic traffic, especially if you manage to rank on the first page of Google for a given keyword.
And who doesn’t love free traffic?
If you’re tempted to run away at the mention of SEO, I get it — SEO is a beast to tackle.
But guess what? You don’t have to be an SEO wizard to start optimizing your store. SEO for ecommerce stores isn’t really that time-consuming, and you can choose among plenty of great apps to simplify the process. Some are paid and some are free, but ultimately, these tools are mostly affordable and will provide a great ROI when used to their maximum potential.
Think of it this way — every time someone lands on your website via an organic search, you’re saving on paid promotions.
If you are a complete newbie and need guidance, we have a detailed article to help you optimize your store for search engines. You’ll find it in the description to this episode.
#7. Minimize cart abandonment
Cart abandonment is a splinter in every ecommerce store owner’s foot.
If you’re seeing a large number of abandoned carts in your store, you’re not alone. As a matter of fact, a 60-80% abandoned cart rate is the industry's average.
I know, it may leave you feeling helpless. But there are actually several efficient ways to minimize or even prevent cart abandonment.
For starters, you can use exit-intent surveys to find out why your customers leave without purchasing. Then, you can go ahead and optimize your checkout flow based on the responses you receive. Some customers might need a different payment option, others might be concerned by the lack of customer reviews or security badges on your website.
Whatever the reason is, surveys are a surefire way to find out and fix it.
You can also use exit-intent popups to offer your customers a discount if they change their mind and complete checkout.
#8. Showcase your top-selling items
What does your ecommerce home page look like right now?
In many stores, home page looks just like another category page, or worse – contains no information about products at all.
Think of it this way.
If that’s where most of your customers land, it’s the first thing they will see — it’s your one chance at a first impression.
By showcasing your best-selling items, you’ll
· make a great first impression
· and give a starting point for your visitors’ shopping spree, instead of overwhelming them with all your existing product choices
Plus, these products are best-selling for a reason. Leverage their power to entice all the newcomers!
#9. Integrate Instagram
With a monthly active user base of over 1 billion people, Instagram provides a wide-open window of sales opportunities.
If your business belongs to one of Instagram’s supported markets and complies with their commerce policies, you can create shoppable posts, link back to your store from the bio, invite followers to join your list, and even provide sales support.
Another way to integrate Instagram is to add your feed to your ecommerce site directly. This will encourage social engagement from your visitors, and even if they don’t buy during their first visit, they might follow you and come back later.
#10. Display your reviews
Did you know 70% of customers use online reviews to inform their purchases?
If you’re not featuring reviews in your store, you’re losing out on a huge chunk of potential income.
Here are two ways to get started.
First, ask your customers to rate your products some time after they receive them. Don’t assume they’ll do it themselves. Instead, create a separate email asking for a review and add it to your post-purchase email sequence.
Another way is to reach out to some of your most loyal customers — those who have repeatedly bought from your store — to ask for a testimonial. Testimonials differ from reviews because they’re not necessarily related to a specific product. They can build trust in your brand as a whole and recommend the overall experience of shopping on your site.
#11. Implement a live chat
Imagine this:
Your visitor needs to know if your clothing is true to size before picking which size they’d like to buy. To get in contact with you, they need to click on your contact page, copy your email, open up their email app, and type out their question in an email.
That’s a lot of steps — and you’re taking your visitor away from your store, which might end up costing you the sale.
This isn’t just speculation — 77% of customers won’t make a purchase on a website if there’s no live chat option, according to the latest research.
Meanwhile, if you have a live chat tool implemented directly on your website, your visitor can stay right on the page and interact with you or your customer service rep, without additional friction. It’s a win-win situation!
#12. Use A/B testing
How do you know what works best and what doesn’t work at all when it comes to conversions and sales?
The short answer is that you don’t. The only real way to figure out what works is by testing your options.
A/B testing is an effective method to do that. It allows you to put two different ad headlines, product descriptions, page layouts, and other elements against one another to see which one performs better.
When you understand what works better, you can iterate improvements to your store’s experience.
The better the experience, the more likely your customers will come back to buy from you again.
#13. Retarget your visitors on social media
More often than not, first-time visitors on your store browse for a while, then leave without making a purchase.
Although that’s part of the reality of having an ecommerce store, it doesn’t mean you can’t do anything to win them back.
That’s where visitor retargeting comes in. For example, using a Facebook pixel, you can detect who has visited your site and whether they made a purchase. From there, you can target your paid social media ads towards these people.
If a visitor left your store, but clicked on a certain product, you can promote this product to them on social media and offer them a limited-time discount.
If someone filled up their cart and left, you can call this out specifically and offer them a bonus if they complete their purchase.
Here’s the deal — customers might not buy from you the first time they interact with your brand. They might not buy the second time, either.
But the more exposure they get to your store, the more likely they are to eventually buy something from you.
And making that first purchase is the first step to becoming a repeat customer. That’s important because it’s so much easier to retain existing customers than acquire new ones.
#14. Provide multiple payment options
Mobile wallets like Apple Pay, Amazon Pay, Samsung Pay, and Google Pay are becoming the new normal.
If you aren’t providing your customers – primarily those shopping with their mobile device – with at least some of these options, you might be leaving money on the table.
The last thing you want is for your customers to give up their purchase because their preferred payment option is unavailable, right?
So make sure to include the most widespread payment methods for ecommerce, and always pay attention to your customers’ requests and complaints about this.
#15. Use personalization
Personalization is a big thing in ecommerce.
Personalized messages come across as more heart-felt. They can make people feel special, noticed, appreciated. That’s exactly how you want your customers to feel.
There are many ways to add personalization on different levels of your marketing campaigns, including emails, ads, entire landing pages, and even website popups.
For example, on a free shipping bar you can display a visitor’s location, current date, or even their name – if they’re returning customers.
But don’t think this is just a nice tactic to make you or your customers feel good. According to Epsilon, 80% of consumers are more likely to purchase from a company offering personalized experiences.
There you have it — 15 tactics that will boost your ecommerce sales without burning you out.
On its own, each of these tactics is quite effective. However, when implemented together, they’re rocket fuel for your ecommerce sales.
And using tools like Getsitecontrol popups makes many of these tactics effortless. Check out the description to find templates for email signup, sales, and cart abandonment popups, as well as guides to implementing them on your website.
That’s all for today,
Thank you for listening,
Until next time!