How to boost sales on your e-commerce site (+ 8 essential tools)
This morning, you log on to the e-commerce CMS with which you created your website, and make the same observation as the day before: the sales you make on it are still not up to your expectations.
Nothing to be discouraged! The challenge of running a commercial site today is more pressing than ever - but there are levers to activate to boost your results.
To Help You, We've Put Together For You The keys to boost sales on your e-commerce site, as well as 8 tools to use to do so.
Happy reading, and to you the performance!
Reminder: What is e-commerce?
We call”e-commerce” or “electronic commerce” the fact of Sell your products or services via an online store, a dedicated application, or even now social networks.
In this sense, any organization can become an e-merchant. It is then a question for her to choose her online sales channels, and to design a store that is similar to a physical store, by highlighting its offers in an attractive way, and by creating a smooth buying journey on the Internet, until the final transaction.
What are the challenges of e-commerce sites today?
Creating an online store is a daily challenge. Whether you are already a seasoned e-merchant, or you are just starting your online sales site, maybe you will encounter the following?
Benefit from Real Online Visibility
Driven by the digitalization of consumer practices, but also by successive lockdowns, which have pushed traditional retailers to launch online sales, e-commerce has exploded in recent years. And who says explosion of online sales, necessarily says Increased competition in all sectors of activity !
Where the competition is really tough, of course The visibility that your e-commerce site can get online. On all the communication channels where your targets are located, your competitors develop strategies to highlight their offers: search engine results, social networks, digital advertising...
Enough to motivate you to set up, you too, a carefully designed strategy, which includes all potential visibility levers, and which promotes the e-reputation of your site.
Convert Visitors Effectively
Once your visitors are attracted to the site, it is a question of convincing them to buy your products or services online. And again, the task is not as simple as it seems. Consumers are becoming more and more suspicious about their online purchases: Security, but also the customer experience offered to them, are carefully examined before they click on the “Buy” button.
This is why you cannot do without thinking about your user journey, which must be fluid, and above all, reassures your potential customers about the reliability of your site.
One of the keys to meeting this challenge is to Integrate quality content into your site, which both reassures on the quality of the products, but also on the security of their payment and delivery.
Also, be careful to set up an optimal user experience (UX). Work on the layout of your e-commerce store, on the elements that should catch the eye, on the personalization of recommended products... Remember that you are facing consumers who are increasingly demanding in terms of the quality of the shopping experience they live, as well as Offline WhatOnline !
Retain highly volatile customers
Another consequence of extreme competition in the e-commerce sector: the growing difficulty in retaining customers who, if they have so many choices online, can easily “go elsewhere.” And, when you know that selling to an existing customer is much cheaper than reaching a new customer, you know how crucial it is to Develop a real e-commerce customer loyalty strategy.
To do this, you must continue to attract customers to your e-commerce site after they have purchased them. For example, you can offer them quality newsletters, or attractive promotional campaigns.
Also, don't forget to Take Care of Your After-Sales Service and Your Order Returns. These are elements that are often overlooked by e-retailers, but which can quickly contribute to the experience that your customers live, to make them true ambassadors of your offers.
Fighting Against Web Giants
It's a fact: GAFA are everywhere. Google is making sure to get Internet users out of its search results less and less, which affects the visibility of online e-commerce sites. Amazon is the first Marketplace In the world, and brings back huge traffic to the catalog of products offered on it. Facebook, like other social networks, are developing their own marketplaces, where consumers no longer even have to leave the platform to buy their products.
This is a challenge that creates A complex competitive environment for online retailers. This is why many of them decide to use the GAFA e-commerce platforms to their advantages, by making their products available on Amazon, by broadcasting advertisements on Google Shopping, or by creating their Instagram Shopping store.
In short, creating an e-commerce site is no longer enough: it is a question of developing a real brand image, which will compete with Pure Players with flawless user experiences!
Develop an omnichannel strategy
For e-retailers who also have physical points of sale, it is crucial to develop a omnichannel customer experience. What do we mean by this term? Quite Simply A consistent business experience across all customer touchpoints, That They Buy Online gold Offline.
To do this, your marketing and communication must be consistent across all of these touchpoints. You must highlight the same values of your brand, the same visual identity, or even similar prices.
How can an e-commerce marketing strategy help you boost your online business?
Fortunately, faced with these common problems, a well-crafted e-commerce marketing strategy can help you become a real web ace. Here are the few things to take into account in order to get the best fruits out of it.
Online visibility on all channels where your targets are
To ensure that your potential customers find the way to your e-commerce website, you must of course work on the natural referencing (SEO) of your pages. The idea: Raise the search engine results, on keywords related to your activity, thanks to quality content.
But also be sure to integrate other levers into your e-commerce marketing strategy to be visible online, such as:
- Social networks Where your customers ask for information: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok...
- The opinions of your satisfied customers, on verified review platforms and on your website
- A newsletter and promotional emailing
- Online advertising, on Google Ads or even on social media...
If this is relevant to the profile of your targets, do not hesitate to also deploy a marketing plan on offline channels. Display or DOOH can be expensive to attract traffic to your online store.
Improving your conversion rates through compelling content
At the heart of any e-commerce digital marketing strategy is Relevant content, which aims to convince your targets to click on “Buy”.
But also take the time to include in your strategy An analysis of your UX (user experience) and UI (user interface). This includes analyzing the location of the various elements on your pages, checking that navigation on your online store is smooth, or that all your key marketing messages are clearly visible at a glance.
Levers to Retain Your Satisfied Customers as They Should
In your e-commerce marketing strategy, you will also integrate all the web levers that make it possible to retain your customers:
- A newsletter strategy That Allows You to Engage Your Targets Even After Their Purchase
- Blog posts That Reveal Trends and Tips for Using Your Products
- A Loyalty Program with regular attractive promotions...
A brand image and a community to face the GAFA
Setting up a marketing strategy also means taking an interest in your brand image, and the values you convey by selling your products. If the GAFA did not succeed in obtaining the absolute monopoly of e-commerce, it is because other commercial sites highlight Ethical and Social Values (Linked to CSR) That Web Giants Are Unable to Maintain !
To Face Them, You Can Also Tackle The Creating Communities, on social networks or around a blog space with high added value, where your customers feel included in the history and life of your brand.
A well-established omnichannel strategy
By developing an omnichannel marketing strategy, you ensure that your brand messages, prices, and product promises are consistent across all of your potential sales channels.
But you can also look at The Development of a Strategy for Drive-to-Store, which makes it possible to attract your customers to the store, in particular thanks to a local SEO strategy.
And now, a riddle: what is at the center of a good e-commerce web marketing strategy? The content, of course!
8 ideas to modernize the content of your site and boost your sales
Let's go to discover the tips that will help you modernize your e-commerce brand communication, thanks to relevant and innovative content.
Design Modern Product Sheets
You probably already know it: a Product sheet Basic should include At the very least accurate information on your product, photos that allow the customer to plan their purchase, and clear prices and conditions for customer return and delivery...
What if you innovated a little more on your product sheets? For example, you can...
- Use a 360° visualization tool, to give an even more immersive overview of your products
- Integrate content that allows you to compare different functionalities Or the various prices offered visually
Use video
It's a fact: video is the ideal format for Humanize your e-commerce brand image, and use the Storytelling To Create Emotion, in order to arouse the desire to buy.
In the form of a customer testimonial on your product pages, to present the values of your company on your About page, to provide advice on using your products in your FAQ page... The video is multifaceted by nature, and can be used at each stage of your e-commerce buying journey. Think about it!
Focus on interactive content
We call it “interactive content.” The type of content where the visitor must be engaged, click and think, to consult it. It thus gives a feeling of personalization to the experience that your customers have on your site, and therefore to a good UX.
For example, why not offer a quiz to your customers, which helps them choose the right product according to their needs? Or a return on investment calculator, for a particularly expensive product?
Set up a newsletter with high added value
This advice seems basic, and yet, many e-commerce sites don't master the art of the newsletter. Here, we are not only talking about an email that provides promotional offers or news related to your products, but alsoAn email that gives your targets keys to use your products or keep up to date with trends of your sector. In short, think of added value above all!
Be sure to personify your brand, using a recipient who actually works in your business. Also, take care to use the Storytelling To engage your targets when reading your newsletters.
Streamline your navigation thanks to a chatbot
A Chatbot, When Well Designed, Comes Answer the most frequently asked questions from users dynamically. It thus takes over from an FAQ page which remains static and not very engaging.
So think about developing your chatbot, so that it adopts a tone consistent with the tone you use in your other content. Be careful that it gives real added value to your e-commerce site - it should not only refer your visitors to your FAQ, but also help them navigate your site.
Integrate social proof into your website
To complete their purchase, current consumers need to be reassured about the quality of your products and services. And to do that, they consult Reviews from existing customers: This is what we call social proof.
So be sure to highlight testimonials and customer reviews on your website. And to go further, why not also include User Generated Content ? This is the content that your customers create about your brand on social media, in the form of social media posts. Nothing like it to reassure your visitors, and boost your conversion rates!
Implement an influencer marketing strategy
In the same vein as social proof, influencer marketing is proving to be a winning strategy for e-commerce. By launching a campaign ofInfluencer marketing On social networks, you offer promotional codes that your influencers share with their audience. To do this, be careful to choose influencers who share the DNA of your brand.
You Can Then Highlight on your website the content created by these influencers. Display Social Media posts (visuals, videos, etc.) that were produced by these influential people on your home page or product pages: you will see your conversion increase.
Use the Web Story Format in a Relevant Way
If you are not yet familiar with web stories, you are missing out on an opportunity to modernise the content of your website in a simple way! Web Stories Are Short Pieces of Content mobile-friendly that combines several forms of content (text, image, GIFs, links, quizzes...). They are quite similar to the stories that can be found on Instagram or Facebook, except that they belong to you, are not ephemeral, and you can integrate them into your website.
However, web stories are a great way to:
- Boost your SEO strategy, and therefore your visibility, since they can be optimized and indexed by search engines
- Improving the user experience of your site, by integrating dynamic and innovative content
- Reassure your prospects and customers on your e-commerce site, by promoting social proof (User Generated Content or influencer marketing posts)
For example, integrate a web story on your product sheets, where customers describe how they use your products, and help your visitors to project themselves into their purchases. Or integrate it into your FAQ page, to highlight key information related to your e-commerce site in a digestible way.
Need to know more than this innovative format? Discover 12 ways to use web stories in your growth strategy.
The 7 essential tools to create the content of your e-commerce site
You have plenty of good ideas to create content that will modernize your e-commerce site. What if you added the following 7 to your marketing toolbox?
An SEO optimization tool
To boost the sales of your e-commerce site through content, you have seen that natural referencing played a predominant role: that of making your pages visible in search engine results.
To do this, you need an SEO optimization tool, which helps you use all the latent semantic field that Google uses to classify your web pages in its search results.
The Tools to Consider :
An interactive content tool
Do you want to boost your site, and boost the time spent on your pages, thanks to interactive content? Get one or more tools that allow you to create quizzes, interactive videos, games, or calculators to integrate into your site.
The Tools to Consider :
- Typeform, to create polls and quizzes where you can highlight interactive media
- Genial.ly, to design interactive presentations and infographics
A chatbot tool
To boost the sales of your online store, your chatbot must absolutely be finely configurable, according to the content of your site and the tone of your brand. Many tools for designing a chatbot exist: be sure to check that the one you have allows you to create a quality chatbot.
The Tools to Consider :
- HubSpot chatbot, for a free chatbot
- Crisp, for a chatbot focused on customer relationships
- Botsify, to use Artificial Intelligence at the service of your conversational agent
A newsletter tool
You got it: the newsletter is a key lever for retaining your targets, and boosting the sales you make with these satisfied customers. However, to do this, you must have a suitable emailing tool, which allows you to design attractive newsletters, and which has automation options (Marketing automation).
The Tools to Consider :
A tool for harvesting User Generated Content
To Use Your User Generated Content On your website, it is crucial to have a tool that allows you to create Social Media feeds, based on the mentions of your brand hashtag or your mentions on social networks. Also, make sure that this tool allows you to collect the authorization of your targets to collect this UGC - and for you a social proof integrated into your e-commerce site!
The Tools to Consider :
A video creation tool
Creating professional quality videos internally, without going through an agency, and without specific technical skills: it's possible! To do this, you need to find a tool that is easy to use and offers customizable templates from which to create your content.
The Tools to Consider :
A tool for creating web stories
Do you want to surf the emerging trend of web stories, to boost the efficiency of your e-commerce site? This is exactly what JOIN Stories offers you, and its very easy to use, drag-and-drop platform and What You See Is What You Get. Les Templates Customizable ones included in the tool allow you to start from trendy web story canvases, with a modern design, for effective web stories created in no time!
Discover now how to turn your visitors into buyers with JOIN Stories.
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