Never before have we as a society been so tuned in to technology. It’s rarer to find someone who doesn’t have a smartphone these days than it is to find someone with one, which certainly wasn’t the case even ten years ago.
As a result of these technological advancements, we’re more dialed in than ever, more connected than ever to the internet, and more tech-savvy than ever, giving e-commerce businesses more opportunities than ever to hook potential customers.
Getting traffic to your website is only the beginning, though. Once you draw potential customers to your site, the real work begins. The important part is turning those website leads into actual sales, and turning those sales into repeat business!
If you’re looking for insight on how to turn your increased website visits into sales, here are a few helpful tips:
1. Engage Your Customer
The quicker you are to interact with a customer, the more likely they are to buy. Whether it’s via a chat feature on your website, a follow-up email, or a direct text message, engaging with a customer directly with a personalized focus makes them feel important, and can help turn a looky-loo into a loyal customer.
2. Offer Incentives
People like free stuff, it’s just a fact of life. It doesn’t matter if it’s free shipping or a 5% off coupon, when someone feels like they’re getting something for free, it becomes so hard to resist! If you’re worried about your bottom line, don’t be. You can build the cost of the free shipping or coupon discounts into your prices, and chances are your customers will never know. The important thing is that they think they’re getting a great deal, and it’s SO hard to walk away from a great deal!
3. Follow Up
Follow up before, during, and after a sale. Engaging a customer before the sale is a great way to make them feel valued, like we discussed above. How about during the buying process? When you notice that a visitor to your site has abandoned their shopping cart, the key is to act quickly before they move their focus on to something else. Abandoned cart SMS messaging is a great way to follow up with a customer and increase the likelihood that a visit will become a sale. Once that sale happens, following up with an email can help ensure future business (especially if there’s a coupon inside!)
4. Set Yourself Apart from the Competition
Consumers today literally have the world at their fingertips. The customer that buys from the first website they visit without first thoroughly researching the product and where they can get the best deal is a thing of the past. Assume that your customer is going to vet you against your competitors – so you need to do it first. Check out the competition, and then set yourself apart. This can be done by revamping your website, adding real-life reviews, and engaging in a multi-channel marketing strategy, which includes the abandoned cart SMS messaging we discussed above. People LOVE feeling like they’re getting individual attention, and following up via text is one of the best ways to ensure that your customers are engaged with your company when they make their buying decisions.
Text message marketing is still an evolving field (though an insanely popular one), so learning to use it and master it before your competitors do is a sure-fire way to make sure that your increased website leads turn in to sales, and that your sales turn in to repeat customers.