1. It's in the Emails
If you don’t have one already, it is important to build an email list of customers. Email marketing is one of the best ways to get customers to continue to choose your business. It can remind them of what you offer and make them aware of new products. You can send special offers or updates. They can click on a direct link to your website and quickly get to your products. Automatic email marketing campaigns are becoming easier to set up and can be a very effective way to keep in touch with your customers and keep your customers in touch with you!
2. User Friendly
E-Commerce should be user friendly. You don’t want to make customers work hard to find products or get frustrated while using your site. That’s why you should make sure your website is simple and easy to navigate so that products, services, information, and pricing are clear. And, if your e-commerce sales are not where you want them to be, it could be that your website is not properly optimized. The proper search engine optimization can bring many buyers to your site. It is also important to remember how many people use their mobile phones to shop and do research on products, so you want to ensure that your site is mobile-friendly. Is it more difficult to view your products on a smartphone? How do the desktop and mobile versions differ? These are important questions to consider when trying to increase e-commerce sales.
3. Safe and Trustworthy
Consumers want to shop on a site they feel they can trust. Customers may be wary and click out of your site if they don’t find it trustworthy. One way to ensure this doesn’t happen is to make sure your site is SSL certified, and customers can see the SSL certificate clearly displayed. This way, they know they can shop without worry. This can also mean a notification to accept cookies. Part of having a trustworthy site is also having contact information – phone number and email – clearly displayed at all times. This adds to the user-friendly, easy-to-navigate factor as well.
4. Social Media
Some businesses may not feel a need for it and may not think their target customers will find them on social media. But everyone is on social media these days and will even do their shopping on these sites. Even if customers do not choose to use social media to purchase items, it can contribute to building brand awareness. Taking advantage of social media can mean having a profile on each of these sites and posting, or investing in social media ads. For social media, it all depends how much time and money you are able to put into it and if you think it will pay off for your business.
5. Display
This is similar to being easier to use, but you want to make sure you are displaying content in the optimal way. This could mean making sure you have the high quality product photos, or including video demonstrations of products. Videos can be embedded directly on the site, or there can be a link to a YouTube channel, depending on your preference and if you want to establish a channel. An example is IPG’s website, www.itape.com. Not only are there photos and clear product descriptions, but instructional videos are provided as well.
These are just a few of the many ways you can boost e-commerce sales for your business. Try one or all of them, if you don’t do them already, and track your growth.
