In the world of e-commerce, sales and marketing should be the most important departments that you should constantly strive to improve and take to that next level – next to running an efficient and effective customer service department as well. Your goal should be to sell more and capitalize on customer acquisition as well as customer retention, but in order to generate quality leads that you’re going to convert into paying customers, you have to invest time and money in your digital marketing efforts as well.
With that in mind, today we are taking a look at some of the sales and marketing strategies that you should be using in order to build a more successful e-commerce business. Here’s what you should do.
Build an amazing e-commerce brand
Before you can start optimizing your marketing and sales strategies, you have to create a solid foundation for all of your campaigns – your brand. E-commerce is a highly-saturated industry, filled to the brim with uniform brands that all look alike, sound alike, and sell similar or even identical products – and so none of them truly stand out, and none of them are able to retain their customers over the long term.
Keep in mind that your customers won’t have a single problem replacing you for another online store with a better discount, so you have to make them stay by selling your brand first. Be sure to build a unique brand identity and to weave your core business values into your website. Next, create a distinct brand style and a website design that will set you apart from the competition, and make sure that all of your content uses a unique tone of voice that will truly resonate with your target demographic. This will enhance loyalty and will help you generate leads.
Optimize the entire checkout process
One of the best sales tactics that you can implement is to simply optimize your checkout process, and tidy up your entire website structure while you’re at it. The key here is to make shopping a fun and rewarding experience, to enhance UX across the board and make your store easy and intuitive to navigate – this will inspire shoppers to put something in their carts and actually complete the purchase.
Be sure to stick to a simple website structure with main and sub-categories, add functional tools like quick filters and a search bar, and then optimize the checkout process by eliminating unnecessary steps. Don’t make your visitors fill out sign-in forms but ask for their essential info instead. Provide all relevant purchase information on a single page, and don’t make them click more than three times to complete their purchase.
Focus more on local SEO
Too many business leaders in the e-commerce industry focus predominantly on paid advertising when they should be putting effort into search engine optimization. After all, your goal should be to build a recognizable and trustworthy brand, and one of the best ways to do that is to rank higher on Google and all other relevant search engines. Most importantly, though, you shouldn’t forget to optimize your site for the local search results. This is especially important if you operate in a highly-competitive region such as Hong Kong that’s bursting with potential but is also saturated with other stores
This is why growth-oriented e-commerce stores will work with a reliable SEO company in Hong Kong that can help them rank higher in the local market, in order to capitalize on the gargantuan e-commerce industry in the region. After that, you can easily start optimizing for the general search result, and refocus your strategy on building a global presence.
Optimize your site for Mcommerce
Of course, you have to stay on top of the latest developments in the industry and capitalize on them as soon as possible before your competitors do. For example, Mcommerce is currently on the rise, as more and more companies are optimizing their online stores for seamless online shopping and browsing on mobile devices. Be sure to use accelerated mobile pages to optimize your website for the mobile audience, and help it rank even higher in the search results.
Don’t forget about paid ads
Lastly, SEO and paid ads work great individually, but combined they can truly take your business to the next level. There are numerous marketing tactics you should employ in order to generate quality leads and boost your sales, and paid advertising should definitely be one of them because they allow you to improve your brand’s visibility, and to bring quality traffic to your site quickly.
Wrapping up
Sales and marketing are the most important department in any growing e-commerce business. Be sure to use these strategies to take these departments forward and set the stage for another successful year in the e-commerce industry.