Category: Social Media

E-commerce businesses are excellent options for small business owners and start-up companies in today’s digital business environment. There are many innovative ways for businesses to effectively sell their products and services online and reach their target audience. Here are effective ways to promote your eCommerce store:

Reach Out To Clients On Social Media

Companies can promote straight to their target demographic via social media. Customers appreciate consistency online, so companies must provide high-quality content that reflects their brand and regularly promotes them as an asset to their target audience. Businesses should concentrate their efforts on the most popular social media sites, based on the platforms their clients use, and post relevant content at a convenient time.

Use PPC Marketing

Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing is an advertising method in which businesses pay marketing platforms when a user clicks on their advertisements. PPC marketing tactics may be used on search engines like Google and social networking sites like LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. Cost-per-impression and cost-per-click calculations are used to bill for ads that show across social media feeds and timelines.

You may tweak the campaign and try out fresh concepts as you go utilizing PPC advertising. Business owners must track the success of every ad and ensure that the yield on investment is worthwhile.

Improve Your Seo Strategy

Getting an SEO plan in place is a great approach to boost your eCommerce store’s online exposure, especially on search engines. Writing good content and incorporating keywords that your target audience frequently looks for into your articles will help you improve your SEO and increase traffic to your web page, leading to more sales.

Make A Blog.

Blogs could be an effective e-commerce marketing approach since they help drive traffic to your website, generate brand loyalty, and establish yourself as a reliable information resource for your customers. The type of material you produce is up to you and your audience, but it must attract people to visit your website again and again. Content could range from instructive videos to blog entries that address common problems among your target audience.

Master Your Content

Any listing is incomplete without content. Customers obtain their information from titles and descriptions; therefore, they must be clear and simple. When it comes to titles, try your best to put the most important and relevant information first. You may do the same thing with captions, but you also need to think about the layout and readability.

Encourage Product Reviews

Customers can get a feel of your products just by reading online reviews. Consumers rely on the opinions of past customers because they can’t personally inspect e-commerce products before buying. Reviews can persuade customers. Thus it’s critical to keep a favorable rating and a large number of high-quality ratings.

Host Giveaways

The easiest way to generate your brand’s attention and increase sales is to have a giveaway contest on social media. You can effectively attract customers to buy more from you by providing them with a chance to win free items.

Freebies and giveaways aim to establish a relationship with customers and encourage them to interact with you more.

Final Thoughts

Creating the ideal eCommerce advertising plan is a never-ending task. You’ll need to be quite familiar with your company’s target market and its purchasing habits. Even then, you’ll have to adapt, tweak, and update your marketing plan regularly to stay up with the ever-changing industry. However, if you follow these suggestions, the returns would be well worth your time and effort, as you will see your brand rewarded for your efforts.

Have you ever seen celebrities or famous personalities promoting a product to their audience? That is called influencer marketing. Just like a TV commercial that uses actors/actresses to advertise a product, influencer marketing makes use of public figures (who have a huge following) to promote products on social media.

Social proof and social approval matter. In e-commerce marketing, bear in mind that people buy from people they know and trust. When your target customer sees someone who he follows patronize your products, he will likely do the same. His purchasing decision gets influenced by a more recognizable person. 

This is why most e-commerce store owners use the power of influencer marketing. By reaching out to celebrities, public figures, models, and industry leaders, you are building brand awareness and boosting sales.

What is a social media influencer?

An influencer is a person who has established a reputation and credibility ins a specific industry. They use social media platforms to spread their message and influence their audience. Influencers can be Youtube vloggers, podcasters, Facebook personalities, or Instagram famous.

Influencers make their names known by regularly posting content and sharing their knowledge and expertise about a certain topic. For example, a beauty influencer talks about makeup, skincare tips, beauty products, etc.

Level of Influencers

There are different levels of influencers and it is based on how huge are their following. 

• Mega-influencers

These people are already famous before they take on their social media networks. Some of them are television stars, musicians, sportspeople, chefs, and movie stars. They have more than 1 million followers on their social media platforms. 

Since you are just a small to medium-sized brand, it is not ideal to reach out to mega-influencers unless you have a million-dollar to pay per post. Major brands like Coca-cola, Nike, and Adidas use mega-influencers.

• Macro- influencers

Macro-influencers have between 50,000 – 1 million followers. They are very good at raising awareness and educating people in their chosen niche. They are either small celebrities, photographers, models, online experts, or content creators who worked hard to gain a wider audience.

Before reaching out to macro-influencers, find out the quality of their followers as some are bots and can be easily purchased. 

• Micro-influencers

These are ordinary people who become known because of their interesting vibe and the knowledge they share about a specific niche. Some examples include fitness enthusiasts, teachers, yoga instructors, and just normal persons. 

Although they have followers ranging from 1,000  to 40,000, average people can trust them the most. This is because they can build relationships and interactions with the micro-influencers. 

Micro-influencers are the popular choice among e-commerce business owners since the pay-per-promotion is manageable. Depending on the agreement, micro-influencers can demand a fixed price or a % commission for each sale.

How to Work with Influencers

Don’t make rush decisions when finding an influencer for your brand. An ideal influencer should be aligned with your brand’s mission and target market. For example, if you are selling fitness products, you would want to connect with fitness trainers. 

Don’t be pushy and obvious

Not because you’re using influencers, the majority of the audience will make a purchase. It is not about posting content with “Buy this now” or “check them out” captions. 

Instead, create content that delivers value to the audience. What is your product all about? What are the benefits that it gives? What problem does it solve?

Create content that entertains

Create meaningful content that entertains and educates your customers. A good way to do this is through storytelling. Relate to your audiences’ pain points and problems and share how your product can solve them. You can also utilize product reviews and testimonials to draw attention and trust. 

E-commerce is not just about selling a product to a customer. It’s also about providing assistance to your customers in their purchasing decisions and resolving any issues and concerns. 

Since e-commerce is not a face-to-face interaction between a customer, you need to develop a system that provides them with a seamless shopping experience. Customer service directly impacts brand loyalty. If you are not paying attention and properly engaging with your customers, you can lose potential sales and build a bad reputation. 

Here are some effective ways to ensure superior customer service.

1. Get Organized 

If you are just handling your online business alone, chances are you’ll get bombarded with a lot of tasks and inquiries. Organize the buyer’s journey and the processing of orders. 

If you have a dedicated team, equip them with tools that will help them handle customer service efficiently. Communication and collaboration are important to solve customers’ requests and purchases.

2. Offer Live Chat Support

A typical website has a contact form but that can be boring. Instead, offer a more interactive option which is a live chat or a toll-free number to call. Live chat gives you a ton of advantages from proactive selling, answering inquiries, up to post-sales support. Create pre-written transcripts to handle common questions and timely responses. 

3. Utilize FAQs

It can be tiring and time-consuming to answer the same question again and again. This is why it’s recommended to have an FAQ section on your e-commerce website. Put the frequently asked questions and the corresponding replies in them. 

Through this, your customers can just hover to your webpage and get the information they need. This keeps them informed about your products and policies; helping them find quick answers and stay on your website longer.

4. Offer Phone Support

Offering messaging options to your customers enhances a shopping experience. While some can leave a message on the contact form, others prefer text messaging especially when they are shopping through their mobile phones. 

You can send them a response to their order confirmation or requests via SMS. This makes customer service fast and convenient. You can easily connect with them about the product details they need, answer urgent questions, solve complaints, and increase shopping cart conversion. 

5. Social Media Messaging

Social media enables your customers to get in touch with you without going to your website. Integrate social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter into your online store. Establish a strong social media presence and use these platforms to boost brand awareness and enhance customer support. 

Social media can highlight your brand and reach a broader audience. It’s a great channel to start conversations and share customer reviews.

Final Thoughts

Customer service is a vital part of your e-commerce business. In the competitive e-commerce landscape, managing customers’ feedback and expectation is a deciding factor for success. Invest in tools and systems to improve your customers’ shopping experience. This will help your business retain and acquire more customers, and build long-term loyalty.  

With growing competition in the e-commerce space, businesses need to focus on building customer loyalty. The cost of retaining a customer is lower than customer acquisition. This means that remarketing to your current and existing customers costs lower advertising spend than creating new Ads for potential customers.

Are your customers coming back to your store or are they just happy with their one-time purchase?

What is Customer Loyalty?

Customer loyalty means that your customers are willing to engage with your business and repeatedly purchase your products. These returning customers do not easily switch to your competitors and choose your business’ offerings based on certain positive factors.

How do you make your customers not switch from site to site and stick to your store? 

By knowing how to create long-lasting relationships and implementing the right client retention approach, you can create lifetime value and generate more sales from your current customers. 

1. Improve your customer experience

The way you treat your customers has a huge impact on your business. Customers who are treated poorly will likely leave your store and jump to your competitors. Customer service matters. Your business should invest in customer service to enhance customers’ experiences online. 

Show patience, clear communication, and empathy to your customers. Pay attention to their inquiries and guide them through the buying journey. The last thing you want is to give them a bad experience. The negative encounter can be easily spread to a wider audience and can ruin your business reputation. 

2. Offer multiple channels for communication

Customers have different preferences regarding communication channels. You need to adapt methods to reach your customers better. The easier for your customers to communicate with you, the better brand experience they’ll get. 

The popular communication channels that e-commerce stores should utilise are email, social media, and phone. Customers who don’t spend much time on social media can be reached through email inboxes while social media users can be reached on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. 

Messaging apps like Webchat offer chatbot feature to provide helpful resources to help answer customers’ frequently asked questions. A phone call option is also a good way to reach customers directly whenever they feel stuck with automated prompts. 

3. Give exclusive perks and offers

To encourage repeat purchases, you need to make your customers excited about your brand. Offer customers with discount codes, free shipping vouchers, and other exciting perks. This encourages target customers to consider shopping in your store because of the value you provide.

However, don’t offer discounts often as this can hurt your branding. You want your customers to constantly check your products and get excited with your latest offerings. 

4. Develop a customer loyalty program

One of the best ways to encourage your new customers to make their next purchase is to reward them with incentives. You can kickstart a customer loyalty program and offer interesting perks and irresistible gifts to your customers. 

Many brands implement a point-system customer loyalty program where a customer earns points for every purchase they make. Then, they can use the accumulated points as credit for their next purchase or get an exclusive item as a reward when the target points are met. 

5. Add more Payment Options

One reason why customer abandons their carts is due to your store not offering quick payment options. Add multiple payment methods to your Shopify store to accommodate customers’ different payment preferences. Allowing customers to conveniently purchase your products electronically will make them happy. 

Putting limited and complicated payment options can be annoying to the customers as they have to sign up to a new payment platform and enter into a tiring process.

Wrapping Up 

According to e-commerce studies, a repeat customer is 9 times more likely to convert than a first-time customer. This is why businesses should exert effort in customer retention. A 5-10% increase in customer retention can boost profits by 25-30%. With a proper remarketing strategy and customer loyalty program, you can double and triple your sales and become a successful online entrepreneur.