There have been many trials and tribulations in the world of ecommerce over recent years. From the pandemic to the rise of digital transformation and an ongoing cost of living crisis, store owners have been forced to navigate much market volatility. But how is it possible to care for your sales when there’s so much uncertainty surrounding the industry?
In such a fiercely competitive marketplace, it’s difficult for brands to maintain their sales while generating new leads. One of the biggest changes that the landscape has been forced to adapt to is the demand for more value-driven experiences for shoppers.
Today, ecommerce stores must look to build customer loyalty as a priority alongside sales. Consumer Goods Technology research suggests that 82% of shoppers want a brand’s values to align with their own, and this has been a major marketing factor for ecommerce store owners in leveraging sales.
But how can these value-driven techniques earn more custom and maintain sales even while uncertainty fills the ecommerce space? Let’s take a deeper look at four creative approaches that can help ecommerce brands leverage more sales in a sustainable manner.
With Small Business Digital Ready, you gain access to free events hosted by industry experts. Plus, get opportunities to network with peers in your area.
1. Build a Vibrant Online Community
For many ecommerce stores, it can be difficult to make the transition from Covid-19 era purchasing trends to the recent slowdowns that have been caused by inflation and struggling economies.
As a result, it’s essential that you look to nurture your leads in an altogether more valuable way. One of the most valuable ways to do this is to build a community surrounding your brand. This way, it’s far easier to target and convert leads who already have a relationship with your brand than an unfamiliar top-of-funnel prospect.
(Image Source: Waterstones on Instagram)
The great thing about establishing an online community surrounding your brand is that you can inspire great conversations through simple prompts and polemics. Here, we can see that book retailer Waterstones does a great job of highlighting its latest releases and asking followers which books they’re interested in buying.
For your ecommerce store, take a look at what areas of your industry users are most interested in discussing and seek to spark a conversation surrounding different topics. You may even find that this audience feedback will not only help to build more brand loyalty but can also help to make your marketing campaigns more focused by highlighting your most popular products.
2. Guest Blogging can Reach New Audiences
As ongoing headwinds impact consumer spending power, it’s becoming more challenging for ecommerce stores to leverage more sales. However, guest blogging can be a key tool in driving organic traffic back to your store and increasing your visibility online.
Guest blogging is a highly rewarding SEO practice that involves creating content to be published on external websites with high reputations. With the help of strategic backlinks, your content can be seen by a wider audience who will be more inclined to visit your store.
Your backlinks can be keyworded to improve visibility, and in producing work for external sites, you have a better chance of positioning yourself as an authoritative voice within your industry, helping to generate more brand value in the eyes of your customers.
But how can you create guest posting content that resonates with a wide audience? Firstly, it’s important to know where you’re publishing your content.
(Image Source: Ahrefs)
Let’s continue with our look at Waterstones’ marketing by exploring their website’s backlinks using Ahrefs. Here, we can see an assorted range of websites that refer back to Waterstones, highlighting the publications that produce content that features referrals.
Although it’s possible to rank for higher Domain Rating (DR) websites, this can be a difficult process to outreach, due to their high volumes of popularity.
(Image Source: Ahrefs)
However, by looking at existing backlinks articles at around DR 75-85, you can see that there are many websites that see traffic of over 200,000 visitors, which could drive far more visitors back to your website.
But how can you get your content published in external publications? Using contact forms and investigating editor emails, it’s possible to introduce yourself, explain why you’re a useful industry voice, and pitch article ideas to editors. This can help you to build relationships and become a prolific industry author to help grow your brand.
Because this is a time-consuming process, there are several agencies that run guest blogging services to help publish backlinks and content on your behalf. Solvid is a leading example which is currently the industry’s only guest blogging agency to offer DR90+ placements or Domain Authority 80+ placements for clients.
Having worked with hundreds of businesses, Solvid has helped some of the world’s leading brands skyrocket their link-building with effective guest posting campaigns and improve their SEO writing for a chance to climb the SERPS.
3. Cross-Sell to Maximize Your Potential Sales
Cross-selling is an excellent way for ecommerce brands to maximize the sales potential of their products. No two customers are ever the same, and as a result, it pays for ecommerce stores to dedicate server space to different marketing campaigns.
While it can be tempting to build one campaign as a one-size-fits-all strategy or to use your most recent successful campaign and rehash it for all your offers, it’s important to personalize all of your promotions to ensure that you’re reaching the best possible audience for your products.
Here, it’s important to note that many visitors will find products on your website without seeing any of your homepage promotions–particularly if you’re utilizing guest blogging or social media engagements as a way of generating traffic.
This means that you should adapt your promotional strategies for the many consumers who will discover your product pages directly from search engines over the coming months.
4. Customer Service Should Be Your Priority
Today, the online shopping experience is defined by customer service. In fact, some 30% of US consumers claim that they would switch companies should they receive even one instance of poor service from a store.
As digital transformation continues to gather momentum, more businesses than ever are vying for the customers that pass through your sales funnel. This means that any form of friction or cart abandonment will invariably result in an opportunity for your rivals to take advantage of a new prospective customer.
One way for you to deliver a memorable experience for your customers is through an exceptional level of customer service. Here, big data can help to create a seamless experience for your visitors.
Data can help to offer feedback for businesses and pave the way for a far quicker customer service response time in addressing issues while offering insights on how to improve products and services.
Technology can also help to offer a faster customer service response time, and the rise of intelligent chatbots can move instantly in addressing customer queries to help ensure they stay on site and are still willing to act on their interest.
The SuN Takeaway
Fundamentally, in this highly competitive ecommerce climate, it’s imperative that your brand consciously moves to position your customers as a priority when it comes to leveraging sales.
Negative experiences can lead to a loss of customer loyalty forever, and while spending power is at a low, it should be imperative to retain existing customers at all opportunities.
By seeking to improve your experience on-site and by building a community online, your brand can enjoy better levels of engagement, loyalty, and trust amidst this highly volatile ecommerce landscape. It can also provide you with a stronger platform to build your customer base when markets calm, and it’s time to scale up your operations.
