Establishing your brand online is only the first step to growing your business. Figuring out how to increase online sales comes next. You'll need Ecommerce strategies that can help you improve your bottom line and support your business in the long-run.
The State of Ecommerce Today
For a business owner, getting on top of Ecommerce trends is as crucial as managing your online store. Before we dive into sales growth strategies, let's take a look at the current state of Ecommerce. Every year, the industry keeps on growing. More brick-and-mortars are populating the online market. In 2019, Ecommerce sales made up 14% of global retail sales, and it's estimated to hit 18% in 2021.This year, the size of the global market can reach 2 billion digital shoppers. It will continue to increase next year as more businesses are learning to adapt to consumers' needs, offering benefits such as convenience and cost-efficiency. With its steady rise, the total value of Ecommerce can achieve $4.13 trillion this year and $4.88 trillion in 2021.Who wouldn't want to have a share of that?
Strategies to Boost Your Online Sales
Attracting site visitors and converting them into customers has become more difficult. The key lies in figuring out strategies that will work for you, which can pave the way for your business to become a successful venture. At first, it can be daunting—you might not know where and how you can start to increase online sales. But we got you covered. Here are seven proven Ecommerce strategies that you can try and customize for your business.
1. Reach Your Audience with the Right Channels
Nowadays, you have more ways to reach your audience. However, you won't reach anybody if you try to talk to every consumer through every digital and print marketing channel available. Choosing your marketing channels is an essential step in growing your business. Audience targeting helps you determine which of these channels are worth the investment. With this, you segment a market to focus on a specific group you want to target. In doing so, you can reach people who are interested in your products. Even better, putting your budget on the right channels will prevent you from wasting money on uninterested consumers. Speaking directly to your target audience brings better chances of resonating with them. It can create long-lasting and valuable customer relationships that will lead to more repurchases in the future. The owners of Bushwick Kitchen knew that creating awareness for their product was the key to sales. MixedMade is a combination of raw honey with chili peppers, but more importantly, it's in an entirely new category in the market. Because of this, Bushwick Kitchen implemented the following channel strategies:
- Went after every press target they had
- Sent emails to their contacts
- Posted on their personal Facebook accounts
The results were impressive. Within ten months, they reached $170,000 in sales. For the 30 days up to Christmas that year, they had a 2,200% growth over the previous months' average. They also had TV appearances on CNBC and Today Show and features on Bon Appetit, Esquire, and Vanity Fair. Bushwick Kitchen has shown that when you target the right channels to communicate your products to your audience, you can create a long-term investment whose returns you can keep harvesting in the long-run.
2. Create Unique Content
The way we do content marketing is evolving. In the old days, it used to focus on your audience only. The downside is that since everyone is doing this, you might start to sound like your competitors. With that, now's the best time to create unique content and stand out. The same old posts show up on consumers' feeds and search engine results pages. With unique content, you'll have better chances of capturing your potential buyers' interest and curiosity. To achieve this, you need to lose the fear of creating something that no one has done before. When you deliver unique content, you show your audience that you have expertise in your niche—enough to put twists in the typical content and excite them into building a relationship with your Ecommerce business. Beer Cartel created unique content with their annual Australian Craft Beer Survey. For its second year, it ran from June to July 2017.
Photo credited to Beer Cartel
Their objective was to develop a report to change how consumers, suppliers, and their industry think of beer cartel as a business. In doing so, they wanted to generate publicity for their business, grow their mailing list, and boost their sales. To encourage mass participation, they provided incentives for both businesses and consumers: a free copy of the industry report for the former and a $10 coupon code and a chance to win $500 of craft beer for the latter. The result? Their online revenue increased by 34% from the previous year. Their unique site visitors more than doubled to 128,000, and their email list grew to 30,000 subscribers. The power of unique content knows no bounds. Content that no one has done before is now one of the best ways to turn heads and drive more sales.
3. Focus on the Sales Channels that Work for You
For every 7 out of 10 businesses, a multi-channel sales strategy has helped increase their sales. Compared to a single-channel approach, it can drive at least twice the revenue. Aside from that, a multi-channel strategy can have a positive impact on customer loyalty. What's stopping you from bringing your products out of your site and making them available on other platforms? To start, you can choose among online platforms where you can sell to consumers who are not yet aware of your Ecommerce business. From social media to general marketplaces, each has a strength that you can utilize to meet your audience's demands. In general, online shops use social media sites to communicate new products to consumers. You can also use Facebook to accommodate impulse buys—customers can get a transaction done within 30 seconds. On the other hand, consumers who frequent marketplaces like Amazon and eBay have a higher purchase intent. However, products sold through these platforms are made to look like they carry the marketplace's brand. If you're just starting and you want to establish your brand, this can be a disadvantage. Think Crucial found the right sales channels that worked best for them. As an online shop for replacement household items, they knew they needed to be everywhere. This strategy has led to product listings on multiple online retailers and marketplaces like Sears, eBay, Walmart, and Amazon.
As a result, Think Crucial grew into an eight-figure brand. By taking advantage of multiple sales channels, they met consumers where they like to shop. Once you choose to expand to other sales channels, full-service Ecommerce agencies can help you construct attractive product descriptions suited to your choice of platforms. Help Me with Product Uploading
4. Utilize Pop-Ups on Your Site
Consumers' attention span is short; it's no surprise that on average, readers only spend 15 seconds on a page. This interaction won't do any good to your bottom line. ZooShoo had the typical problem of customers passing through their site without making any purchase. The solution? They promoted a coupon giveaway using a pop-up. Any site visitor who signs up to their email list would receive a 10% off coupon, applicable to their next purchase. After two months, the online shop's revenue had a 7% growth. Moreover, their subscription list increased by 5,000, with more than a thousand later purchasing from their site. Pop-ups are used not just to collect emails, but also to deliver a message, whether it's a prompt or an offer. On average, pop-ups can generate up to 10% conversion rate (CVR). However, if you execute them well, you can reach beyond a 50% CVR. Don't know which type of pop-up can serve you best? ReferralCandy made a list of pop-ups you can use to increase your sales:
- Welcome Pop-ups
In exchange for their email, customers can receive a treat, from free ebooks to free shipping promo codes.
- Exit Intent Pop-ups
When customers show intent to leave the site, a pop-up will show up to entice them into completing their transaction.
- Upsell & Cross-Sell Pop-Ups
A pop-up will appear to offer alternative or more items when customers show interest in a particular product.
- Time-Limited Pop-Ups
They are used to drive urgency, whether for a sale that's ending soon or a coupon that will expire in a few hours.
- Show Pop-Ups
They let the customers know that your business can ship to their location.
Pop-ups generally have a bad rep due to being poorly executed. To prevent yours from getting undeserved hate, you can partner up with a full-service Ecommerce support agency. These companies have web designers that can develop pop-ups that capture the right kind of attention and encourage more site visitors to become your customers.
5. Optimize Your Checkout Process
A crucial part of an Ecommerce business is your checkout process. However, more than half of site visitors leave their carts without buying. A bad checkout process with too many steps can contribute to a decrease in sales and a higher cart abandonment rate. For your checkout process to be effective, include only a few steps and guide customers through a hassle-free transaction. If possible, the whole shopping experience from landing on your page to checkout has to take a minute or less. NatoMounts achieved this when they prioritized an optimal checkout experience. The tech accessory store learned that most of their traffic comes from mobile. Recognizing an opportunity, they devised a 43-second shopping experience, with one-touch payment integration with well-known platforms like PayPal and Amazon. After optimizing for the device that brought the most customers to them, NatoMounts saw their mobile conversion rate increase to 5%, and over 80% of sales were attributed to the mobile visits. Here are some tips you can use for an optimal checkout process:
- Make error validation user-friendly.
- Provide real-time support in case your customers encounter any issues.
- Avoid surprises with the shipping cost.
- Follow up with a confirmation email regarding your customers' orders.
After applying these techniques, you're on your way to a fully optimized checkout process.
6. Remind Users of their Abandoned Carts
Most Ecommerce businesses face cart abandonment challenges. But don't worry—you can still regain shoppers who left their cart with a cart abandonment email campaign. It's a conversion optimization technique to recover lost sales. Customers who left their carts receive an email, which will remind them about their incomplete purchase. On average, cart abandonment emails have an 8% conversion rate (CVR) with an open rate of 41%.Envolopes.com saw better results when they started to send follow-up emails to customers who didn't complete their purchase. Seeing their opportunity to increase their sales, the online store first tested sending the emails at two alternate time lapses after the cart abandonment. Eventually, Envelopes.com figured out the best time to send the follow-up emails—48 hours after cart abandonment. The emails delivered based on this time lapse had a 38% open rate and a 40% CVR. Now, how do you successfully deliver a cart abandonment email? You can send two to three emails after a customer has left their cart. The first can go out as soon as a customer abandons his cart. One to three days later, you can send the second email. The last email is crucial to driving urgency—it can deliver messages such as that the product they added to their cart will run out of stock soon. You can send this third email four to seven days after the cart abandonment. To execute a cart abandonment email campaign, you can use any of the tools below:
Remember, when sending emails, you have to showcase trust and credibility to bring back your lost sales. You can even include coupon codes to entice your customers to finish their purchase.
7. Set Up a Customer Loyalty Program
What makes customers loyal to your business? High-quality products, great customer service, and on-time delivery are just a few factors that contribute to their loyalty. In turn, they'll become more willing to buy repeatedly from a business they trust. Because of this, loyal customers are more profitable. A customer loyalty program can strengthen their loyalty by providing rewards to customers that often put your products first when they need it. These repeat customers have a higher lifetime value, and retaining them costs five times less than acquiring new prospects. With these, your ROI can increase if you foster your relationship with your existing customers. When creating a customer loyalty program, determine first for what kind of actions you'll reward your customers. These can range from referring their friends to your business or purchasing five items from your shop within a month. Next is to devise a way for your customers to redeem their rewards and to identify which kinds of rewards you'll offer. You can go for free shipping, store discount, or even a free item that they can avail through a promo code. The last step is to set the rules for your customer loyalty program. You can limit the program's members to only customers who made one purchase in the past or provide a disclaimer right from the start that the rewards are non-transferrable. Doing so will protect your program from abuse. A great example of a business with a well-executed loyalty program is The North Face.
With their VIPeak, customers receive a free membership once they sign up. Every dollar spent can get them ten peak points, which they can earn in The North Face's online and offline stores. In the long-run, a customer can use his peak points to get discounts from the store.
Implement Your Ecommerce Strategies
The competitive online industry has strengthened the need for Ecommerce strategies. Once you figure out the best ways to increase your online sales, you're on your way to sustaining your business's growth. Should you need any help in developing the right strategies, KDCI Outsourcing has the right expertise to help your Ecommerce business grow. We have services for Customer Support, Digital Marketing, Graphic Design, and Web Design and Development that our experts can tailor to your strategic needs. Partner with Us
