By Mashum Mollah
So, you’ve set up your E-Commerce store – great! Now you can sit back and all the customers will come to you and buy out all of your inventory, right? Wrong. It’s not enough to simply set up an e-commerce site. Yes, it is an important first step if you want to sell your products online. However, if you really want your store to succeed, you have to do effective marketing and direct traffic to your site.
There are ways to boost your e-commerce sales quickly. You just have to make sure you do what’s right for your business. It’s important to understand a few things before you decide on a marketing strategy for your e-commerce store:
- Who is your customer?
- What will your customer base respond to best?
- Are you trying to expand your customer base or branch into other customer bases?
There are two ways to build your business. You can look for vertical growth (get your customers to buy more items, more often.) Then there is horizontal growth – getting new customers from different target markets to buy your goods or services. The following tips will work no matter which direction you are taking your business.
1. Use social media:
You can boost your sales on social media for very little cost. Make sure you have a presence on all social media platforms including:
- Youtube
This will allow you to not only reach more potential customers but connect with existing customers. Every now and then you need to remind your customer base that you exist. A great way to do this is by using social media. For a small fee, you can boost your page on Facebook. It allows you to view the number of people you have reached with your page boosts as well. For Twitter and Instagram, make sure you publish daily tweets and Instagram posts to increase your social media presence. This is free advertising and it can help increase traffic to your site. Here is the best dropship lifestyle course.
2. Paid traffic:
You can spend as little as $50 and get a lot of paid traffic. It’s important that you spread your marketing amongst different sites and with different ads. Early on, you may not know who your customer base is. You want to reach out to as many people as possible and give your e-commerce store a chance with all target markets. There is a misconception that paid traffic is expensive. It doesn’t have to be. Start out small. You want to test the waters before you dump a ton of money into this type of marketing. Over time, you’ll learn what kind of advertisements work best and which platforms generate the greatest response.
3. Build trust in your funnel:
If you are using a sales funnel to increase traffic and sales, you need to make sure your funnel is trustworthy. For example, if you offer a promotional product or service to those in your funnel, you need to actually deliver on that promise. Not only will this help improve your reputation as an honest e-commerce store, but it will also increase repeat business.
4. Have an easy checkout process:
One common complaint of potential customers is that your checkout process is either too complicated or too time-consuming. In this age where people want instant results, you need to make sure your checkout process is quick and easy. Don’t make customers fill out more than the information necessary to process their sales. Don’t require them to complete a survey before they complete their checkout. If you want them to do a survey, send it to them via email after their product has been delivered.
5. Accept all payment methods:
A lot of merchants only offer a few payment methods on their e-commerce sites. There is no good reason for this. Yes, some payment methods may cost you a small percentage of each sale. However, if having that payment method is going to increase overall sales, who cares? For example, a lot of people use PayPal to buy items online. The fees associated with PayPal are nominal at most. Customers like to know that they can shop online and use whatever their preferred payment method is. Don’t limit your customer base or total sales by only offering a few payment methods.
6. Punchout Catalogs:
Punchout catalogs make it easier and more convenient for a customer to shop on your website without having to toggle between different sites. The customer can access your e-commerce store right from their procurement application. They “punch out” their procurement application and enter your website. Your website is launched within the buyer’s browser frame. Your customers can add items to their shopping cart while maintaining the connection with their procurement application. They bring their shopping cart with them after leaving your store’s site. They then can proceed to place their order, change their order, add or remove items from their shopping cart. It’s easier for the consumer and it gives them the option of thinking about their purchases before they actually click “order.”
Now that you have an idea of what you can do to help boost your e-commerce sales today, it’s time to put them into action. You can get your social media boosts and paid traffic set up within a day or two. Set aside a few hours to focus on this. It does take a little time to reap the benefits of this type of marketing. However, it is relatively inexpensive and can create a domino effect when it comes to garnering new customers.
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