Marketing Strategies for E-Commerce
You’ve increased traffic, now make sales!
You have done all you can do to optimize your site in search engines, and you have studied up
on how to increase traffic to your site, now all you need to do is sell. But, how can you make
sure that once a potential customer lands on your site, he or she will actually buy from you? The
following are strategies for doing just that.
Offer a Quality Product
The first step in increasing sales is to offer a product that people want to buy, or to present that
product in such a way that the presentation itself makes them want to buy it. For this you must
offer products for which there is a market. Engaging a professional to conduct marketing
research is one way to determine whether there is a market for your product, but you can do
much of this on your own as well, if you prefer not to invest the money for a marketing
professional.
Sometimes marketing research can be as simple as searching the same or similar products on the
web, but in order to know if those products are actually selling, you may need to invest a little
more time and effort. A couple of methods you can use for this are mass e-mail solicitations
with questionnaires designed to elicit information about people’s desire and need for certain
products; or posting on-line surveys or questionnaires to obtain buying habits of potential
customers.
Once you have determined that there is a market for your product, make sure you offer one that
is made with quality workmanship or you will feel the pain of having to deal with returns and
refunds or exchanges.
Maintain a Quality Website
Your website is the first impression your potential customers will have of you, so it must reflect
your professionalism in every way possible. The following recommendations relate to making
your website a place where customers will want to shop.
1. Keep it clean! Websites that are over-crowded and stuffed full of photos, graphics, and
teeny-tiny text are hard on the eye and give a “cheap” impression.
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2. Organize it! Ensure that the layout of your site makes sense and that similar products
are grouped together so that your visitors don’t have to jump around looking for things.
3. Maintain it! Broken links are one of the primary reasons that visitors will navigate away
from your site. They will figure that if you cannot keep your website running properly,
then they will be unable to expect proper service from you. Also ensure that your pages
load quickly; when forced to wait too long for a page to load, your customers will simply
“x” out and go to your competitor’s site.
4. Stimulate the eye! While you want to avoid too many photos, people love to see
pictures, so make sure you have quality photos that show all angles of your product.
Include call-outs that allow the customer to zoom in on larger and different views, as well
as to see alternate color choices, if offered.
5. Describe it! In addition to including quality photos, you will need to provide accurate,
detailed descriptions of your products. Anticipate what customers will want to know
about the product and include that information. If the product is something that requires
a size or measurements, make sure you list that information.
6. Proof it! One of the biggest turn-offs for most people is to try to read copy on a webpage
that is full of grammatical, spelling, or typographical errors, so make sure you proofread
and spell-check your site. If this is not your strong point, enlist the help of someone who
is good at it.
7. Be up front! Post your shipping charges where your customers can see them before they
reach the end of the checkout process. Sales and return customers can be lost when you
force your clientele to navigate all the way through check-out in order to see what their
total cost will be. Additionally, include a return policy that is easy to find on your site,
easy to understand, and easy (read no hassle) to use.
8. Be reasonable! Offer sensible shipping and handling fees – there’s a reason that those
annoying infomercials put the shipping and handling fees in microscopic print, and that’s
because those fees often exceed the cost of the item they want you to buy. Gouging your
customers will cost you repeat business and word-of-mouth referrals.
9. Make it easy! Ensure that your check out or shopping cart process is easy to use without
unnecessary steps. People do not want to navigate through more than three pages to get
to the end of the process, and many will simply give up before they get to the end if they
have to jump through too many hoops.
10. Get personal! Include information about you or your company. Doing so lends your
site a personal touch that makes people more comfortable with buying from you.
11. Anticipate questions! Include a frequently asked questions (FAQ) page that pulls from
questions you have had in the past and those that you can anticipate being asked in the
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future. Doing so will also save you some time and effort in responding to the same
questions over and over.
12. Back it up! Use testimonials from your customers or link to articles that support your
product to enhance its value. Be careful with this however, as too many such
testimonials or links can start to make your site appear “cheesy” and will have the
opposite effect.
13. Make it irresistible! When you can, discount your products to provide your customers
with a true value. Of particular importance in today’s economy is making sure that your
pricing is competitive enough to attract sales. If you have unique or hard-to-find items,
then higher pricing makes sense, but pricing your product well above your competitors
will ultimately cost you sales.
14. Let them find you! Make sure your contact information is easy to find and avoid forcing
your visitors to search all over the site to find out how to ask you a question.
15. Be responsive! Always respond to questions within a reasonable period of time. If you
make your customers wait too long, they will find another site from which to purchase
the product. Consider using an auto-responder if the volume warrants it, but keep in
mind that personal service is always appreciated.
16. Let them know! Include a method by which your customers can sign up for e-mail alerts
for new products and sales. Use this marketing tool wisely, though, so as not to give your
customers the impression of being “spammed” which can be a huge turn-off for them.
17. Keep it safe! Make sure your site clearly states that your customer’s information is
secure and that it is safe to buy from you.
18. Offer choices! Give your customers as many payment options as possible, including
PayPal, credit card payments, and other popular payment methods.
19. Be humble! There will be times when you make a mistake – it happens. When it does
happen, though, be prepared to handle the situation with a sincere apology and an offer to
make it right. Service recovery can not only correct an issue, but if handled correctly,
may win you the loyalty of a customer that you might otherwise have lost.
20. Be creative! Don’t be afraid to try new ideas, but don’t invest yourself in them to the
point where you are unwilling to let them go if they are not working.
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