10 Customer-Centric Ways to Grow Your Ecommerce Revenue

You want to grow your ecommerce revenue. Your customers want to feel valued, understood and have a seamless user experience with your website. How can those two things work together? We’ve got a few ideas that are bound to make an impact.

“Show me the money!” — you, after implementing these 10 methods for growing your ecommerce revenue:

1. Content Marketing

Organic content marketing gives you the opportunity to naturally get the attention of potential fans and customers. According to a survey by Havas, 84% of people expect brands to create content that “provides solutions, experiences, entertainment, and events.” (NewsCred Insights)

As the Internet becomes an increasingly crowded playing field, break through to the noise by investing in your content that’s tailored to your target audience and they just might pay attention. Additionally, if you’re using awesome scheduling tools like Buffer or Edgar, be sure to have some in-the-moment posts to ensure your content is authentic and timely.

 

2. Psychographic Segmentation

You already know demographic information about your customers — age, gender, location, etc. — is key to successful marketing. But did you know psychographics are just as valuable for growing your ecommerce revenue? Knowing the goals, emotions, values, hobbies and habits that drive purchasing decisions help you to understand your customer’s “why.” Once you know their habits, you can transform your marketing to fit your customer.

This article by the folks over at Sumo is a great resource, aptly named, “Literally Everything You’ve Ever Needed to Know About Psychographic Marketing“. It’s going the extra mile that can make a big difference in growing your ecommerce revenue.

 

3. Automated Emails

Email is an effective (not to mention, cheap!) way to market to your existing customers and ultimately grow your ecommerce revenue. The catch? Most everyone else has figured this out as well. So how do you stand out in someone’s inbox amidst a steady stream of other offers? Focus on the customer experience.

Automate your email marketing program to recognize customer milestones and behaviors like signing up for blog updates, downloading something from your website, cart abandonment, or re-engaging inactive customers (HubSpot). Personalization is an incredible factor in terms of open rate and customer retention. Keeping in touch with your customers every step of the way keeps your brand top of mind. Also, don’t forget to have fun with your subject lines to help grab the attention of your customer base!

 

4. Streamline Your Checkout

No one has ever said, “that checkout process was just a little too efficient.” In the world of online shopping and ecommerce, quick and easy processes are never going to go out of style. Once your customers have almost committed to buying a product, you need to get them to cross the finish line and in a snappy manner. A few ways you can make this happen are (via Kissmetrics):

• Asking for the shipping/billing ZIP code first to auto-complete city, state, and country
• Automatically determine credit card type by using the first few numbers
• Automatically logging in returning customers
• Automatically selecting the least expensive shipping option
• Offer guest purchase (it’s not ideal as you can’t collect their personal info but 23% of users will abandon their shopping cart if they have to create a new user account!)

 

5. Automate Birthday, Anniversary, and Seasonal Discounts

We’ve all got a birthday, and we all like the perks that come with it. Seriously, even if you aren’t a “birthday person,” there’s nothing that says you can’t take advantage of a free scoop of mint chocolate chip or a complimentary donut (or both 😏).

Recognizing customer milestones with a small token, like a free item with purchase or discount, can help your customers connect with your brand and gives them an extra incentive to shop with you. Check out Smile.io for some easy and convenient ways to automate your loyalty and reward programs!

 

6. Cheeky Product Descriptions

When done well, product copy is proven to sell. But everyone in the game already has robust product descriptions featuring a comprehensive list of features and benefits in an easy-to-read format, so how do you differentiate? Add some life to your copy! Tailor your descriptions to your brand voice, and don’t be afraid to let a little humor shine through. Just as you would in a salesperson, you want the voice of your brand and content to have a personality that reflects the vibe of your brand and store.

7. Multichannel Marketing

Think outside the box…errr, in this case, the box is your customer’s computer. Get offline and literally target your customers where they live with direct mailers like postcards. Think about how you could use these or other tools, such as SMS messaging, to engage with your customers, solve their problems, and increase their loyalty to your brand. Many companies will integrate with your CRM system to allow you to send personalized SMS messages to your customers, some automation tools are beginning to offer this as standard!

 

8. Turn Likes into Leads with Social Contests

People love free stuff (see above: birthday donuts), but they also really like a chance at free stuff. Running a contest on one of your social media channels is one of the most rapid, affordable and scalable tactics for capturing email addresses and potential leads.

For giveaways, be sure to offer something that’s relevant to your business as opposed to something that anyone would want — a gift card to your store or some of your products vs. an electronic tablet — so that you’re attracting qualified, interested customers.

 

9. Authentic Reviews

It may seem counter-intuitive to let negative reviews hang around on your website, but did you know they can actually work in your favor? Customers are more likely to trust sites that have a mix of good & bad reviews; it shows that they’re authentic and you aren’t trying to hide anything. Putting your customers’ interests first and foremost by helping them make the right buying choices can go a long way for your brand. Use negative reviews as an opportunity to highlight your stellar customer service skills. Handle negative reviews in a calm, understanding matter and you’ll come out on top and maybe turn a Negative Nancy into one of your biggest fans!

If you’re wondering how to get the ball rolling, try our tips for encouraging customer reviews.

 

10. Targeted Social Ads

Highly-targeted Facebook ad campaigns help your business attract new customers and can retarget past store visitors in an effort to convert them. You can create these audiences yourself in Facebook (head’s up, there are a lot of options) or use an automated tool like Vantage to help target your perfect customer.

There You Have It!

10 customer-centric ways to grow your ecommerce business. Tell us in the comments below if you have had success with any others not mentioned here. We’d love to hear your success stories!