The success of a modern digital company relies on many aspects. Nevertheless, winning and retaining customers is easily one of the most important factors. Otherwise, you simply won’t generate the revenue needed to survive business.
To achieve the best results, you must pay attention to each stage of the sales funnel from awareness to loyalty. Here’s how to do it in style.
Invest In Web Development
A strong website is now the most powerful weapon in any company’s arsenal. As an eCommerce brand, though, you simply cannot afford to underestimate its importance. It is the platform upon which to build all marketing and sales tactics. All potential customers will need to visit your website. If it fails to satisfy their expectations, they will leave and never return.
The most effective way to ace this challenge is to acquire the help of a WordPress web design agency. WordPress is the most commonly used website builder worldwide. So, audiences are familiar with the mechanics and navigation aspects. When combined with the creativity of an experienced professional, a WP site is the perfect way to bring your brand to life.
In addition to creating an attractive website, a WordPress expert can integrate a host of plug-ins to facilitate all major tasks. This includes content creation, sales, stock management, order fulfillment, customer care, and more. They also set up features like company email accounts.
Once launched, many businesses will be capable of managing and updating their product pages and blogs. However, some find that it makes sense to leave website management to the pros. Either way, the value of a great site ensures that the initial setup is a great investment.
Build Trust Through Your Online Presence
Creating a website that looks great and functions well, including quick load speeds and easy payments, is great. Given that you are competing against over 1.2 billion websites, though, the first challenge is getting people to discover your site. So, you must focus on building brand visibility in a way that also inspires trust. As well as boosting traffic, it delivers more leads.
Search engines continue to deliver more traffic than any other outlet. Moreover, the clicks come from people who are actively looking for products like yours. Every eCommerce brand should invest heavily in on-site and off-site SEO. It is another area of digital marketing that is often best outsourced to your WordPress team, who will use meta tags and keywords to great effect.
Link building and getting other websites to link to yours will boost SEO further. Meanwhile, a large social media following increases visibility and can make your brand stand out as a trusted name in the industry. New leads love to see that your company is loved by others.
You can take this to the next level via a combination of testimonials, affiliate marketing, and influencer marketing. Social proof is a very powerful tool that changes how people feel about your brand. It’ll spike interest and often result in a shorter path to conversion.
Deliver Smooth Customer Interactions
Making consumers aware of the brand and interested in its products can feel like a huge breakthrough. However, it counts for very little if you are unable to convert this into sales. Customer interactions will often make or break your chances of winning the customer. More importantly, it will play a central role on whether one-time clients become repeat buyers.
Many eCommerce brands overlook the importance of customer care. Not least because face-to-face interactions are rare. If anything, this should underline the need to provide quality care that removes client concerns and confusion. Adding live chat agents to your operation can be particularly effective. Meanwhile, chatbots can answer many questions on a 24/7 basis.
Consumers demand quick answers to their problems. Sadly, failure to provide this could see them lose trust in the business or enthusiasm for a product. In other words, poor customer care turns purchases into a stressful situation and sends them directly to your competitors.
A lot of people now like to discover solutions for themselves. Adding FAQ pages, video tutorials, and explainer videos, or a forum could help. You could also provide an extra layer of convenience by integrating customer care into your social media channels.
Become More Visual
Consumers start to form opinions of brands, products, and services in less than a second. Therefore, you must pay more attention to visual elements if you truly want to impress employees. The framework of your web design and branding elements like logos are a great starting point. However, it’s equally important to be visual with actual products.
The old adage is that a picture paints a thousand words. Learning to take more attractive product photos and videos is highly advised. Aside from improving product pages, it makes ad listings stand out on search engine shopping tabs or PPC ads. Capturing a consumer’s attention will then see them conduct more research by reading product descriptions.
In some cases, it may be possible to introduce advanced tech like Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality. For example, users could virtually try on a product by using their camera or upload a photo of their kitchen to see how new units would look in the home.
In addition to being visual, you should adjust your approach to selling by focusing on the benefits rather than features. People are more bothered about how the product improves their lives rather than the tech specifications. Keep this in mind when marketing them.
Execute Quick Order Fulfillment
A positive online experience of your brand will lay the foundation of a positive brand-client relationship. Similarly, you need to deliver quality products if you want to keep them coming back for more and avoid the threat of returns. Now more than ever, consumers place a lot of importance on order fulfillment. Crucially, there is a need for speed.
Research shows that 78% of consumers expect same-day or next-day delivery. This excludes customized items. If you are unable to provide this service, it will harm the views of your brand. Even when it doesn’t cost you a sale, it’s likely to impact customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores. Consequently, your chances of maintaining their loyalty will be heavily damaged.
To ace order fulfillment, your eCommerce brand must integrate dedicated software and WP plug-ins to manage stock. Behind the scenes, you either need to recruit the right candidates for packing or outsource to a warehouse management company.
As well as providing quick results, you must keep consumers updated. Automated notifications at each stage of the process, including dispatch and order tracking, will be pivotal. It builds consumer excitement, keeps them happy, and reduces the pressure on customer care teams.
Understand Your Audience
All of the above tips can help your eCommerce business regardless of its industry and location. For the best results, though, you also need to adapt to your audience. A market research strategy will help identify your place in the market, which can guide all future decisions. In truth, this may be the most important step of the entire process.
For starters, knowing the age bracket of your target markets helps you know which social media channels crave more attention. Likewise, you can use target marketing parameters to ensure that PPC budgets are used to reach the people most likely to buy your products. Even the tone of your content and brand positioning will be influenced by the data you hold.
Aside from engaging your audience, it is an ideal way to make them feel that the brand ‘gets them’ and values them. As long as your brand resonates with your customers, it shouldn’t matter if marketing efforts fall flat with outside audiences.
It should additionally be noted that most people now care about the environment too. So, your business can boost its brand appeal by using greener packaging supplies. Embracing renewable energy, going paperless, and supporting worthy causes will aid the cause too.
Prevent Potential Problems
Finally, it’s not enough to secure the customer’s initial trust and desire. The Pareto principle states that 80% of your revenue will come from the top 20% of your customers. Sadly, it often takes just a single incident to lose a client forever. Many of the issues that see loyal users leave will also deter new prospects. In other words, you must be sure to keep things running smoothly.
As a responsible business owner, you must protect the company for your sake as well as the consumers. Otherwise, data breaches and related attacks will harm your reputation as well as your finances. The harsh reality is that most eCommerce brands that suffer this problem struggle to ever truly recover. Prevention is the best form of protection. Always.
In addition to major catastrophes, you must avoid the smaller issues that could be costing you sales. A poor choice of web host could result in downtime. If consumers can’t access your website, they cannot complete a purchase.
Likewise, if links are poorly navigated, users may get lost before they complete a transaction. When combined with clear CTAs, as well as instructions on how they can stop emails falling into junk folders, the impact of your marketing will soar.