Did you know that 203.5 million Americans shop online? The COVID-19 has seen the growth of eCommerce sales and purchases. This trend is expected to continue even in 2022. There is also an influx of new eCommerce businesses in the market, so you need to make your eCommerce business growth a priority. Read on for 11 practical strategies to grow e-Commerce business in 2022.
Understand Your Target Audience
The first step to ensuring that you’ll grow e-Commerce business is identifying and understanding your target customer. The better you know your target audience, the better you will cater to their needs, increasing the chances of choosing you over the competition. Perform basic market research to gather as much information as possible about the different types of customers you will serve. Next, use this information to determine their needs, likes, and dislikes. You should then develop innovative ways to help your business flourish based on your findings. For instance, you could devise a practical strategy to enhance market demand and trigger interest in your products and services.
Develop an SEO Strategy
When customers are looking for products and services online, they often choose the first provider who appears on the first page on the Google search results. This shows that your website has to rank to help your target audience find you.
Use SEO to optimize your listings for voice-based and text-based search, research high-volume with low competition keywords to create high-quality content, and cultivate backlinks to your website to develop domain authority. This increases your website visibility and credibility, leading to more traffic and leads. Developing a perfect SEO strategy is a time-consuming and challenging process, so you should consider hiring a digital marketing agency to revamp your business with the best SEO practices.
Leverage Content Marketing
Content marketing is one of the most effective and proven ways to help most eCommerce businesses succeed. While it requires you to dedicate a lot of time, effort, and consistency, content marketing is guaranteed to help you achieve your goals in the long term. Sharing content on your blog boosts organic SEO and establishes you as an expert in your niche, building credibility and trust. This increases the likelihood of having potential customers purchase from you.
Create educational, engaging, and helpful content tailored to your target customer. Avoid focusing solely on sales-oriented content. Some informative content you could publish includes: ‘how-to’s,’ tips, checklists, or e-guides relating to your target market and products and services.
Be Active on Social Media
Social media is among the most significant discovery points for brands apart from search, so you cannot ignore it in your marketing strategy in 2022. Sharing content on social media platforms, especially when your target audience lives online, increases the chances of discovering your company and building solid relationships thanks to direct communication, which drives sales.
Strive to have a robust online presence on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram as they provide an excellent opportunity to publicize special deals and product promotions. However, do not let your post revolve around offers and promotions only as this alienates your customers. Instead, along with your products and services, offer authentic and valuable information. Be sure to include contact information and links to your posts on social media content to boost customer acquisition.
Invest in Email Marketing
Emailing may be one of the oldest forms of digital communication, but it provides an effective way to scale your eCommerce business. You are also guaranteed a $38 return on investment of each dollar spent on your email marketing campaign. To create a successful email campaign, you should first create an email list. The bigger your email lists, the higher the conversions, sales, and profits. Create an email list by placing sign-up forms on your company’s website.
Next, keep in touch with your subscribers. You can achieve this by sending out newsletters regularly, offering exciting deals and discounts, informing them about new products and services, or sharing helpful information, tips and news. Send automated subscriber anniversary or birthday messages to make your customers feel special, appreciated, and valued.
Collect Social Proof
Most customers rely on the views of others to make a purchasing decision. This means that you have to seek reviews and testimonials from satisfied clients to appeal to a larger audience. Apart from displaying video testimonials or textual reviews from influencers, be sure to enlist existing loyal customers to talk in-depth about your business’s usefulness and efficacy. You should then upload these testimonials on your home page or brand page so that they are the first thing a potential client encounters when they visit your website.
Dedicating a section of your website to talk about your business’s founders and employees gives your store a human touch, enabling you to establish personal connections with your clients.
Remarket and Retarget
Many first-time visitors to your online store often look through your products and services then exit without buying anything. Consider using remarketing and retargeting strategies to get to these bouncing customers. For instance, when a prospective buyer clicks on a product on your website then leaves, you could advertise it on different platforms then offer a discount. This drives the customer to take the desired action, leading to a return on your investment and increased revenue. Retargeting and remarketing also benefit customers in that they receive timely and relevant ads tailored to their needs, which improves their online shopping experience.
Develop a Mobile-friendly Website
Consumers prefer shopping via mobile phones. This means that you may lose a sales opportunity if your website does not offer a seamless mobile experience throughout the buyer’s journey. For this reason, you should ensure that your website is mobile responsive. It should also be adaptable, have a fast loading time, include autofill suggestions and easy clicks, and feature a seamless checkout process while reducing friction on the payment page. The web content should also be displayed appropriately.
Offer Incentives
Incentives make customers feel like they are getting a deal and instill a sense of urgency to buy. You should consider offering incentives such as end-of-season sales and discounts. To motivate customers to act quickly, inform them that your offers are on a first-come-first-served basis or include deadlines.
Allow Multiple Payment Methods
The absence of different payment methods leads to cart abandonment. You should allow different payment options such as debit and credit cards, ACH transfers, and mobile phone payments. Allowing various payment options enhances customer experience, widens geographic coverage, and boosts sales and conversions.
Provide Excellent Customer Service
The secret to increasing sales, getting more return customers, benefiting from client referrals, and an excellent reputation for your eCommerce business is providing superior customer service. Knowing that they can quickly contact you when they have queries about your products or experience problems on their purchasing journey gives customers peace of mind. Ensure that all your contact information, including phone numbers and emails, is functional. You could also invest in an automated customer service software system to ensure instant responses to customer questions.
Grow E-Commerce Business – Endnote
With customer preferences shifting to eCommerce, you need to grow e-Commerce business to stay ahead of the competition and increase sales. Consider implementing the above strategies to attract more traffic and customers and scale your online business.