Do you have an e-commerce business and want to know what online sales strategies to adopt to increase sales? What actions and activities do you need to implement? Do you want to know what the risks might be?
You have come to the right place.
In recent years, many companies have decided to set up e-commerce, driven by the growth of online sales.
If you too have decided to implement strategies to sell a product or service online, know that having a site may NOT be insufficient.
Unless you decide to build a marketing strategy that allows you to increase sales so that you will soon (and well) return on your investment.
As with physical stores, to run an e-commerce site successfully, you must know the sales processes and online sales techniques appropriate to your Business, your products, and your Buyer Persona.
Online sales strategies, when are they easy?
There are three cases in which an e-commerce has a great chance of taking off quickly:
- When you have acompany that is already well-known, with a strong brand and high website traffic;
- If you have a very rich database of contacts to which you can send newsletters or text messages;
- Whether you have tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
With these three cases removed, opening an e-commerce requires a major investment marketing and communication strategies to find new customers.
That of e-commerce is not too different a dynamic from what happens in offline life when opening a physical store-the issues to be addressed are the same.
What are the aspects to consider in order to build an online shop that works?
To open a physical store in a city you have to choose the location, create the brand, set up the warehouse, and advertise to attract customers. The same thing happens to open an online store.
To open an online shop that works you must:
- Creating the brand and visual of the online shop;
- Renting a fast, high-performance online hosting space;
- Choose the platform to use, such as WooCommerce or Magento or Shopify, or build it from scratch. The choice depends on the amount of products to be uploaded.
Advice? Within about 10,000 products, WooCommerce is fine.
If the products are more I recommend Magento or other platforms.
Online sales strategies: 7 valuable tips
The only effective way to increase online sales of your e-commerce is to accompany the potential customer throughout the buying process. How?
Curating all touchpoints and doing lead generation.
But also by using the tools the Web makes available to you to reach potential buyers.
1. Position yourself on search engines with SEO
SEO is one of the most effective strategies for getting a potential customer to find you.
In fact, it allows you to optimize content-in this case, your product sheets-on the basis of the most searched keywords on Google.
The goal is to intercept user searches and increase the visibility of your brand, product or service.
To be visible, you need to be in the first few pages of search results, or possibly in the first few results.
This allows you to meet potential customers without investing in ADS or PPC (Pay per Click) campaigns.
2. Online sales strategies: Use content marketing
Content marketing can be a great help in doing lead generation and getting in touch with target people.
Content to get you discovered can be blog articles, product sheets, social media posts, PPC campaigns.
Try to take potential customers to a landing page, where you ask for their consent to be added to your mailing list.
If you send newsletters that are useful, interesting and have the recipients’ permission, e-mail marketing is still a very effective tool.
Use content to do lead nurturing, pamper prospects and help them make progress in the buying process.
3. Write a more engaging product description
Never underestimate the power of product (or service) description! Engaging, persuasive copy that describes what you are selling can be a game changer.
Try to include all the information a potential customer may need to make a buying decision, thoroughly but in a reasonable space. Create a description that inspires or engages your potential customer.
For more effective text, use the persuasion levers of copywriting(you can find out about them in the dedicated article on Factory’s blog).
4. Strategies to increase online sales: invest in quality photos
Before buying one of your products, people want to see it.
Enrich your e-commerce with quality photos that also show product details.
This may require an investment in professional equipment, or in arranging a shoot with a professional photographer. But it is well worth it!
5. Get positive reviews from customers
One of the copywriting levers I mentioned above is social proof.
It means that people are more likely to buy if other people have done it before them and left a positive review. That’s why reviews are so important.
Reviews on your e-commerce must be real, from real customers.
To get real positive reviews, there is only one way to go: create a relationship with the customer.
How? With quality: in content, products, service and customer care.
6. Online sales strategies: use a smart pricing strategy.
Another sore point is pricing. Often in the world of online sales, people try to keep up with giants like Amazon. However, competition is impossible, especially for smaller entities.
Rather, create your own pricing strategy:
- To put people in a position to buy your product at the right price;
- To have a satisfactory profit margin.
Remember thatit is almost never price competition that determines the success of an e-commerce business. In fact, if you are well positioned in the market and have found your niche of people, they will be willing to shop online even if you cost a little more than your competitors.
The differentiators are others: brand, values, quality, made in Italy, sustainability, etc. Use pricing intelligently, giving the right value to what you offer your customers.
7. Create Ads campaigns by leveraging Google Performance Max
Last tip: Use Ads campaigns to find new potential customers, perhaps harnessing the power of AI-based tools such as Google Performance Max.
Google Performance Max allows you to optimize pcc campaigns to reach your target audiences. It automatically adjusts the budget to get a better investment to earnings ratio.
For your part, you need to know your target audience well, create attractive and persuasive copy Ads , and take potential customers to a landing page that converts. Here, for example, they can look at the catalog or sign up for the newsletter.
It is not always in the world of online sales that people who enter your virtual store buy the first time.
Creating lasting relationships is very important, which is why it is important to integrate inbound marketing and email marketing strategies that enable you to create effective short-, medium- and long-term relationships.
Selling online strategies by Factory Communication
Factory Communication is a marketing and communications agency that can help you at all stages. From the creation of your new e-commerce to its launch in your target market.
An expert’s point of view and knowledge of all the steps to running a store and related online sales techniques effectively is critical to succeeding in a marketplace with stiff competition.
Having a clear ecommerce sales strategy and realistic goals is the key to not burning a hole in the ground with ecommerce.