Introduction
With more people moving to digital platforms for most of their daily shopping activities, e-commerce has been growing rapidly over the years. When we were hit with the global pandemic, we were forced to move online. The lockdown rules ensured that we weren’t stepping out. At a time like this, with thousands of small businesses and e-commerce sites in place, it is extremely difficult to bring the right customers to your site. Those who go the extra mile for their customers are the ones who stand out in the crowd.
What are the secrets to help us achieve higher conversion rates? How can we bring more relevant customers to our sites? Through this blog, we will understand how to increase online sales through the best digital marketing strategies. Let’s get started! You can also take up a digital marketing course to gain comprehensive knowledge and power ahead your career.
Also Read: App Engagement & User Retention Strategies that always work
How to Increase Online Sales
1. Boost Product Visualization
Visual representation of products tends to catch the attention of users more easily when compared to textual content. If the product is visually appealing, there is a greater chance that the target audience would click on it to view more details. There are several tools available today that allow users to zoom in on the products, provide a 360-degree view and see how the product would look when it is being used. One such example is lenskart, where the user can virtually try a pair of glasses or sunglasses to see how it would look on them.
2. Collect Targeted Leads with Quizzes
One of the greatest challenges as a marketer is to convert the prospective customer into a lead. Putting up lead generation quizzes on your site can be a good way to collect leads. One of the best examples of lead generation quizzes is the Function of Beauty quiz on their homepage.
The quiz helps you figure out your hair type based on a few basic questions. They also offer a certain discount if the user subscribes to their products. Thus, collecting a super-targeted lead.
3. Ensure that your site is mobile friendly
With the internet at the tip of our fingertips, most people easily access e-commerce sites. If you want to know how to increase online sales, one of the best ways to do so is by ensuring that your website is mobile-friendly. As a customer myself, I would click off a site that has a poor mobile interface to switch to a more user-friendly one. Ensuring that the add-to-cart and check-out buttons are easily accessible is crucial to boosting online sales.
4. Leverage Artificial Intelligence
With the advancement in artificial intelligence, one way to boost online sales is to leverage the technology. Several algorithms help you predict customer behavior based on past data. Metrics such as bounce rate, engagement rate, and conversion rates can be tracked to gain valuable insights regarding your digital marketing strategies. Gathering data will help you provide more targeted advertisements, emails, product recommendations. This can then help you ensure that customers are coming back to your site in the future. Taking up courses related to artificial intelligence will help you improve back-end strategies and plan better.
5. Make your products available on social media
With the Facebook marketplace and the new Instagram shopping options on social media, it would be a great idea to make your products available on these platforms. Building your brand’s social media presence can also ensure that your products and services are available on these platforms. As we live through the digital era, most of us spend a great amount of time on social media, and being able to easily click on an item on social media is how to increase online sales.
6. Automate with Chatbots
Although chatbots do come under leveraging AI, they deserve to be mentioned separately as this may be the first point of contact for a potential customer. If the chatbot experience is a good one and it is able to answer the questions the customer poses, it can make the entire shopping experience much easier. Thus allowing them to make way to their shopping carts. A friendly shopping bot can provide a rather personalized experience and influence purchases. They can act as an excellent sales representative and also inform the customer of any discounts available on the site.
Also Read: Basics of building an Artificial Intelligence Chatbot
7. Personalized Content
In an extremely competitive environment, providing customers with personalized content is a great way to boost online sales. There is a lot of data available to us. Collecting this data, analyzing it, and coming up with valuable recommendations by studying interests, customer behavior, and demographics will help you create better brand campaigns, content, and experiences that resonate with your customers.
One such brand that provides great personalized recommendations would be Spotify. Based on the customer’s listening history, Spotify creates weekly playlists. Netflix, Amazon, and Apple Music are other such examples.
8. Leverage Wish Lists
Customers often add items to their shopping wish list to buy later. However, with their busy schedules, they might need a nudge towards reaching the final purchasing step. This is when you can leverage wish lists to your advantage. Sending reminder emails or push notifications regarding clearance sales and low inventory will create a sense of urgency in the customer. Thus, pushing them towards making purchases.
9. Tap into influencer marketing
Influencer Marketing involves working collaboratively with influencers who your audience would likely listen to. Seeing an individual who we follow to use a particular product or service pushes us towards trying out the products ourselves.
Finding the right influencer for your brand may be quite a struggle, but it is surely worth the effort. Here are the top five influencer marketing campaigns that you can take inspiration from. Influencers can act as good marketers and help drive their audience to your brand, thus, increasing your engagement and boosting online sales.
10. Flexible Delivery Options
There have been several times when I didn’t end up ordering a particular item because the delivery option provided did not suit my needs. Providing options suitable to the customers, such as different delivery timings or dates, will help them choose according to their convenience. BigBasket provides different delivery slots. Doing so allows the customer to choose a time that is best suited to their daily schedule and will help retain the customers and ensure that they complete their purchase orders.
11. Convert customers through FOMO
Although there is a slight risk in doing so, as it may lead to a customer’s frustration, this is a good opportunity to collect valuable leads and a greater chance to convert them into leads. When the item is back in stock, the customer can be notified about the same. However, instead of sending them back empty-handed, you can show them similar items they may buy. Creating a sense of fear-of-missing-out (FOMO) will push the customer towards buying other similar products.
12. Showcase user-generated content
User-generated content can be in the form of testimonials, reviews, or hashtags on social media platforms. When a user is satisfied with your products or services, they are more likely to leave positive feedback or review. They may also use certain hashtags or tag your brand on social media. What better way to boost online sales than through user-generated content? Seeing that other people are enjoying the product or service is positive reinforcement for potential customers and will push them closer to making a purchase.
Conclusion
Digital marketing strategies are essential to help you stay ahead of the competition in the digital era. We hope that you now have a better idea of how to increase online sales. If you have any other digital marketing strategies in mind, leave them in the comments below. Want to kickstart a career in Digital Marketing? Check out Postgraduation courses in Digital Marketing.
