8 Quick Ways To Boost Your E-commerce Business
Starting the journey of launching your E-commerce business is an exciting thing but, as with any new venture, it doesn't come without hurdles. While learning from mistakes is a tried and tested process, we'll save you the hassle with these 8 tips to help make your E-commerce business a huge success!
1. Experiment
To really succeed, you’re going to need to experiment a lot. You’ll need to create ads for different products. Test different copy, formats, and images. Experimenting with ads is what will eventually bring in customers and drive sales and, once you’ve created profitable ads, you can start experimenting on your website. Avoid making assumptions about your customers and be open to being wrong about what really works – you won’t know the truth until you look at the data.
2. Build out your channels from day one
As soon as you’ve bought your store domain name, start building out an audience. You might start with organic posts on social media to grow an audience so that, when you launch, you have a following ready to buy. Once your store is launched, you’ll want to start collecting email addresses and building referral traffic. By doing this from day one, you’ll grow your customer base faster. By focusing on building out your social media, email list and referral traffic, you’ll likely need to spend less on ads over the long term and you’ll be able to promote your content to your audience through your own channels organically.
3. Be different, but how?
Make your content unique for your audience. For instance, if you’re dropshipping products, odds are you need to find a way to stand out among your competitors. The easiest way to do this is by creating unique content. Pumping out blog posts several times a week is a great way to build an audience and educate visitors while keeping your website looking fresh and up to date. You can also create videos online to build your brand. YouTube is amazing for this.
4. Make sure customers have access to relevant information
When starting an E-commerce store, you’ll want to make sure your customers have access to everything they need to make an informed purchase. You’ll want to include shipping and return information so that customers are aware of the policies before they commit to a purchase. You’ll also want to make sure you always have a visible contact page so that customers can easily contact you should an issue or enquiry arise.
5. Make a great website experience
Your entire website should be very visually appealing. Product pages should have multiple product images showcasing different angles and uses. Your homepage should have an attention-grabbing banner image that allows the customer to picture themselves with the product. Even your blog posts should be very visual. You should have several images, gifs and maybe even a video in each post to separate bodies of text.
6. Multiple social media outlets
When it comes to social media, many E-commerce sites make the mistake of only being on one platform. For example, some may only post on Instagram and focus their marketing efforts there through influencer marketing. Others are exclusively on Facebook as they find Facebook ads work great. However, although using a combination of platforms might be slightly more work, it gives you a competitive advantage in my opinion. A competitor can see you’re only on Instagram and focus their efforts on a wider range of social platforms which eventually leads to their business outperforming yours. Being on about 3-4 social networks is often manageable. That said, be wary of social channels you definitely don't need to be on. For example, TikTok would be perfect to show off your 100% cotton dinosaur-themed pyjama sets in a fun way, but doing the same on LinkedIn might not do so well, proving to be a waste of time & resources. Just have a good think about where your product best fits.
7. Know the needs of your customers
Building relationships with customers is time-consuming but really important nonetheless. A simple thing we do to get better insight into our clients' requirements is to simply email them. We conduct surveys with our client base and ask them about their experience, if there are any other types of services our firm could offer and if there’s any type of blog content they’d particularly like to see more of. I might throw in a voucher code as a thank you for their feedback in the first email I send as an extra incentive to provide this information. Not all people will reply, but the ones that do will help you better understand your customer’s needs. This method works for any type of business and is crucial in helping you better serve them.
8. Invest, invest, invest
Of course, it can be tempting to keep any profit you make. After all, that’s what brought you to the world of business. However, if you want your business to grow, you’ll need to reinvest in your business. By reinvesting the profit for several months, you give your business a chance to grow and become sustainable. I understand newer & younger entrepreneurs will feel anxious to do this, but trust me - this is one of the most important tips on this list and should be carefully considered.
If you have any further questions please don't hesitate to email me at roy.butcher@raffingers.co.uk or click here.