Customer-centric ways to drive sales to ecommerce

3 Customer-centric ways to drive sales to ecommerce

According to Practical Ecommerce, 80% of online stores fail to generate enough sales. One of the reasons is that they focus too much on their products and not enough on their customers.

If you are struggling to drive sales to your ecommerce store, then you may need to change the focus to your customers. Here are some proven tips to boost sales.

Focus More on Social Selling

Focusing on your customers requires earning their trust. Unless you have built a tremendous brand, it’s nearly impossible to earn through advertising alone. It’s particularly difficult for ecommerce stores, because they don’t get to interact with their customers face to face like brick-and-mortar companies.

The best way to get their trust is by providing social proof and engaging with your customers. Use social media to build a rapport with them. Show that you are a genuine human being, not a marketing looking at them like prey.

Here is a three-step process to creating a great social selling campaign:

·       Identify the core message of your ecommerce brand

·       Share relevant, valuable content that supports your message

·       Respond to your customers as quickly as possible

Netania Engelbrecht of Usabilla predicts that social selling is the future of ecommerce. Don’t ignore it.

Base PPC Copy Around Customer Needs

Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is one of the best ways to generate sales from your ecommerce store. Unfortunately, far too many online entrepreneurs do it wrong. Their ad copy overwhelmingly focuses on the benefits of their solution, rather than the needs of the customer.

Let’s take a look at the headlines of some weight loss ads on Google right now:

“Best Diet Pills of 2017”

“FDA Approved Weight-Loss”

“2017s Top 3 Diet Pills”

“Nutrisystem Weight Loss”

None of these ads are particularly good. Why? They simply tell the customer what the product is.

Ecommerce marketers are paying a lot for PPC ads, so it makes no sense to waste your money on ads that don’t convert. Instead, you should create ads around your customers’ needs. You will generate far more sales by putting yourself in their shoes. Ask yourself, why would someone want to buy my product?

If you were an ecommerce company that sold diet products, you would probably do better with the following headlines:

“Diet Pills to Make Your Jeans Fit Again”

“Diet Pills to Turn Guys Heads Again”

“Diet Pills – Lose Weight Without Working Out”

You get the idea. These types of ad copy will work better, because they appeal to pain points that motivate customers to take action.

Don’t Get Too Automated With Marketing Automation

Running a growing ecommerce business requires a massive investment of your time and resources. You need to look for ways to eliminate redundancies as much as possible. Marketing automation and instant messaging are great ways to streamline your marketing. However, it’s possible to take it too far.

Fully automated marketing just isn’t possible anymore. In the 1990s, ecommerce companies could throw up a website, stuff it with a bunch of relevant keywords and wait for the search engines to send them the traffic they needed to generate sales. They didn’t have to be engaged or make any major changes.

Marketing an ecommerce business in the 21st Century requires a lot more interaction with your customers. You can use marketing automation software to make things go more smoothly, but still need to make a point to engage with them yourself. You need to read their replies and come up with unique responses.

Conclusion

The ecommerce industry is growing rapidly, but it still isn’t getting easier.  You have to work hard to earn the trust of your customers. Make sure your marketing strategy revolves around them.