Do you think your e-commerce business deserves more business than it gets? If yes, read on. 

Acquiring customers through paid traffic has become easy but getting these new customers to trust you enough to give you business is still tough. While they are on your website for the first time, customers are broadly looking to answer the following:

1. How does your website make them feel?
2. Is your product/service interesting enough for them to buy?
3. How will it elevate their lfe? Is it solving their problem/need?
4. Do they trust you enough to make a financial commitment?

While you should definitely think about funnel-based marketing and conversion rate optimization, there are some simple principles you must bear in mind if you want to increase e-commerce sales. 

1. Make it easy for your customer to understand your product

Within a couple of minutes on your website, your customer should have an idea of what you do and be intrigued enough to know more. The first step towards sale is showing the customer what your product does and how it improves their life. 

Read, edit, and re-edit your product page content. It should follow these principles –

1. Short – Make it a quick read
2. Relevant – Make it look like you understand their problem
3. Structured – Make it easy to navigate
4. Relatable – Make your customers feel like you know them

Even if you have a complicated product/service, find ways to break it down and make it easy to understand. Show them how they can use it through both visuals and text and also make it clear to them that this might be the solution to the problem that got them to the website in the first place. Your product page content should be clear, clutter-free, organized and trust-building. Highlight all the customer-centric policies you have apart from selling the product so that the prospective customer sees that you have their best interest in mind. 

While the home page is a great place to introduce your brand, use it to start building context about your product in a user-centric way. That means speaking about your expertise in making their life better in a way that they value the most. So while you speak about what you stand for and your brand story, do not forget to give some space to the hero of your story – your product. While you don’t need to go into the specifics of it yet, you should utilize the home page to introduce, and build interest and intrigue for your product.

Don’t forget to add these elements while explaining your product- 

1. Social Proof – People give more weightage to what others say about your products compared to what you have to say about it.
2. User-Generated Content – Seeing others use your product is the ultimate validation of its usefulness.
3. Utility showcase – Show people all the ways in which your product can be used. 

2. Make it easy for your customer to return

Making the sale is one thing. But impressing the customer enough to make sure that they buy again from you is another. An e-commerce strategy that doesn’t work on increasing the lifetime value of a customer is ineffective in the longer term.  

In a world where acquisition costs are getting competitive and steep, it is important to have efficient retention strategies that keep getting customers back for more. While retention begins with a good product, it extends much beyond that. And in many cases, a good retention strategy can get even disgruntled customers back to the website. Your retention efforts must address the following:

1. Your customer’s post-purchase needs
2.  Your customer’s need for familiarity and trust
3. Your customer’s quest to keep elevating their life
4. Your customer as your influencer

Let’s take Apple’s example to explain the first point. When you buy one apple product, Apple has ensured their next purchase from you by creating a seamless ecosystem of products that work beautifully together. So the iPhone must be paired with the AirPods, the Apple pencil must follow the Ipad purchase, and so on. While this speaks volumes about their product development strategy, there are a lot of marketing lessons in there as well. From strategic in-store placements to personalized email marketing, every post-purchase experience is curated to sell more apple products.

 Is a customer who bought a T-shirt from your store likely to buy the shorts or lounge pants too? There is a good probability that they would. How do you convert that probability into definitive action? By showing them the way. That includes staying on the top of their mind (with the right kind of messaging and product recommendations) and making them feel good to be associated with your brand ( community content, a ‘rewarding’ rewards program, and personalized offers). 

Part of your retention strategy should be a consistent commitment to elevating your customer’s life even after their first purchase. This means asking yourself ‘what is the best-suited treatment or product for my customer if they have taken a particular action on my website?’. Design your retention programs in such a way that your existing customers feel like they are the center of your world. Dedicate a part of your website to your returning customers so that they get relevant, succinct information in a way that is most valuable for them. If your returning customers need to be rewarded through preferential discounts, freebies or ungated resources, then that’s what you should pay attention to. 

3. Make it easy for your customer to recommend

Capturing a ‘win’ and leveraging it to attract more ‘look-alike’ customers is a very important way to make your acquisition investment stretch to the max. So give some thought to how you’re going to get customers who feel good about your brand to also talk good about it. 

This begins with finding the right testimonials to showcase. The truth is, most people think about reviews only if they are unhappy with their experience. So it often gets difficult to find the people who have enjoyed your product and are willing to talk about it. Making it easy for people to recommend your product would start with reaching out to them, followed by incentivizing them to engage with your brand post-purchase. Sometimes, just asking with the intent to improve does the trick. Your past customers can provide the best critical feedback for your product and also offer insights on how to improve the overall experience. 

While many brands manage to get customers to talk with consistent follow-ups, the following strategies are also used to increase the likelihood of a review/feedback/recommendation.

1. Give your past customers a chance to become affiliates
2. Offer personalized discounts or reward points for people who leave feedback on social media 
3. Design a content curation program around incentivizing past customers to create video content around your product
4. Design a marketing automation funnel that helps convert past customers for other relevant products on your website

Past customers are those people who have shown trust in your brand and given you a chance to be a part of their lives. Successful brands value that opportunity and give them a personalized experience that will make them feel like a part of their story. 

If you design your website and e-commerce marketing strategy around your customer’s needs, you will definitely be on track to making a place in their heart. Every word, call-to-action, and visual on the website should be a ‘win-win’ for both your brand story and your customer.