It’s 2018 and E-commerce is booming. Everyone is looking to set up an online store and this shouldn’t shock anyone. As technology has developed over the past few years, it seems almost impossible to disconnect from the internet. The people of today are spending a majority of their days checking social media, listening to podcasts, watching videos from their favorite content creators and a long list of other activities connected to the internet.
It’s not enough to set up a nice looking website and expect traffic and sales to roll in. You need to study various digital marketing opportunities and build out a marketing strategy that will effectively bring traffic with the likelihood to convert into sales. The following tips are all proven (and highly trackable) tips you can implement for increasing e-commerce sales as well as improving your website.
Run a Facebook Advertising Campaign (The Right Way)
Marketers have seen tremendous success on Facebook thanks to the highly targetable and cost-effective nature of the ad platform. Facebook’s algorithm is just straight up scary accurate with being able to deliver the correct ads to the proper audience, which could explain why 93% of marketers reported using Facebook advertising regularly.
Even with the average ad price rising an average of 246% in 2017, the platform still remains to be a cost-effective traffic channel for your business, maintaining an average cost per click of $1.72 across all industries according to Wordstream, a highly respected campaign optimization tool.
In order to see results with Facebook advertising, you’ll need to build a unique funnel strategy. You won’t find much success by just appearing on someone’s timeline and shouting “BUY MY STUFF!”. Even if you’ve come up with a well-defined target market for your campaigns, the chances of the user being in the buying mood will be slim.
A basic, but still effective Facebook marketing funnel looks a little bit like this…
Ad 1: Warming up the audience- Unless you’re a household name brand, your audience won’t have a clue who you are, meaning there’s no trust or relationship between you and the audience. Deliver an engaging piece of content (Typically a video or a blog post) about a topic to gets people thinking about a problem that your business solves.
Ad 2: Give An Irresistible Offer- After you’ve run your first ad, you can build an audience made up of people who have watched a selected percentage of your video, or visited your blog post.
Side note: You must make sure your Facebook tracking pixel is properly installed on your site.
Once this audience is populated you need to offer these people and offer so good, they would be insane to turn it down. It’s as simple as finding out what your consumer wants and giving it to them. Let’s look at what an offer for a skin care company could look like. The second ad could be an offer for a skin care sample kit with the following...
- A selection of skin care products with significant retail value
- A coupon for $(insert discount amount) off future purchases,
- A money back guarantee
- An e-book or guide with tips for using the products.
Anyone interested in skin care products would be insane to turn this offer down. User’s who’ve claimed this offer now have experience and a relationship with the company backed by trust.
Ad 3: Start Selling- Target those who’ve opted into your offer and begin selling to them! If we use the example irresistible offer from above, you already know they have a discount coupon for future purchases. You can run an ad selling what the specific coupon is relevant for or whatever any other item they user may be familiar with that has a high return-on-investment for your business.
There are a TON of different Facebook sales funnels that you can implement and use for your business so be sure to spend time doing your research on an effective paid social strategy for your business.
Build A User’s Trust In The Checkout Process
Let’s take a moment to think how someone will typically visit your website. First, they see an ad, then view your product page, view the checkout page, then finish the checkout process. If anything distracts or scares the user before they click to confirm the purchase, the chances of having someone convert from a click into a customer will be drastically reduced.
You can build trust by including social proof around what you're selling. If you make sure to include positive reviews in plain sight around your product, a user will be much more trusting of your company and what you’re selling. After all, 77% of people who make purchases on the internet consult online reviews.
If you can, include a live chat option. This will allow you to quickly and easily answer any questions or concerns a user may have, as well as remind the person they're doing business with an actual person, and not some anonymous corporate entity.
It’s also worth noting that 17% of people who abandon their carts site concerns with payment security. Trust badges are simple to get and can have a powerful impact on conversions. It’s best to go with easily recognized badges, like Paypal.
Simplify Your Checkout Process
The internet is amazing for many reasons...But helping people’s attention spans is not one of them. People are hit with distractions left and right, which is why you need the checkout out process to be quick and easy. All it takes is one exciting notification from an app or a text from a friend to disrupt the checkout process.
You can simplify a user’s checkout process by removing the need to sign up for your business. Provide a guest checkout. The goal is to remove all possible sources of friction that could be applied to a user during checkout. When a user finishes filling out their delivery address, you can include a button to let people use the same address as their billing with a simple click. Finally, if there are any possible fields of information you may not need, ELIMINATE THEM!
To Wrap It Up
If you’re running an e-commerce business you must immerse yourself in the latest trends and direct marketing tactics to increase sales for your store. When you understand the online marketing vehicles that work for your business as well as how a user interacts with your site, you’ll be able to optimize conversions and increasing sales.