6 Ecommerce Growth-Hacking Strategies

Ecommerce brands face fierce competition, not only from other online retailers but also from local offline-only stores.

As of 2020, there are 24 million ecommerce websites. The number of digital buyers in 2020 is predicted to reach 2.05 billion (a quarter of the world population).

As an ecommerce business owner, you would want to attract as many customers as possible. However, to do so, you will need to implement different growth-hacking strategies.

Let’s look at the six major ecommerce growth-hacking tactics that will help you attract more customers and boost your conversion rate.

1- Build your Brand

This is where it all begins. First, you have to build a brand that your target audience trusts. Building your brand means letting your customers know what you are offering as well as the quality of your products and services. Without a reputable brand, nobody will be willing to buy from you.

Notably, most online shoppers only want to purchase products from the most established brands because of the risks involved in online shopping.

Your brand is more than your company logo. It is the impression you create for your target customers. Ensure all your products and messages reflect your brand’s personality. Once you brand your products, customers can easily differentiate your products with those of your competitors.

Apple, Pepsi, Amazon, and Walmart are all famous in their respective industries because they have been able to establish a reputable brand. Most consumers are loyal to brands, not the products.

Once you are successful in building your brand, you will be able to acquire customers easily even when you introduce a new product to the market.

So how do you ensure you establish a reputable brand? Follow these steps to build a brand:

Let your target audience know why you do what you do? What problems does your product solve?
Delve into the power of social media. Share your life and product stories on various social platforms like Instagram and Facebook so that target customers can learn more about your business.
Research your competitors to determine how they are branding themselves. This empowers you to differentiate yourself from them. Highlight things that you offer your customers but others don’t.
Ensure consistency between your online and offline marketing. The colors, type, theme, and tone of voice should be the same across channels.
Focus on the benefits of your products instead of features. Highlighting benefits allows you to appeal to customers’ emotions, thereby increasing your chances of being remembered.

For example, Mercato, an online grocery delivery store, uses social media to share its stories. Their story tells people about why they are doing what they are doing. It helps Mercato build trust with its customers and establish their brand.

2- Know your Customers

You must know who your real customers are before you even think of enticing them to buy your products. Knowing your customer is crucial to crafting your marketing message and coming up with products that meet their specific tastes and preferences.

If you have been in business for a while now, you should know your ideal customers. These people are most likely to purchase from you.

But if you feel completely lost when it comes to identifying customers, considering hiring someone with a background in marketing that can help. Or, consider sending a team member for a few marketing courses, or even back to school all together. That way someone on board understands consumer behavior, factors that influence buying decisions, and modern marketing practices. Their knowledge and skills can help you understand your customers better and increase your sales.

You can also learn more about your customers using different marketing automation tools like MailChimp. You can also adopt customer journey mapping to know what your customers do when they visit your online store.

Identify your target customer behavior and what makes them come to your store, then capitalize on enhancing their experience.

Test different types of email copies to determine what resonates the best with your customers. Analyze the open rate, click-through rate, and conversion rate.

Additionally, use analytics tools like Finteza to gather insights into your customers’ preferences. Ecommerce reports in Finteza show where your customers come from, how they behave on your website, which payment options they prefer, average order value, most popular items, and conversion rate. To get all these insights, all you need to do is pass ecommerce events via API and call the fz method.

3- Use Video Content to Engage Customers

Video content helps you increase engagement and drive traffic to your business. 76% of marketers produce videos as a part of their marketing efforts.

Unlike blog posts, video content is more attractive and easy to follow. Apart from entertaining your customers, it also helps them retain the information you share for longer.

You can create videos to share updates about your business and products to your customers. Besides, creating videos doesn’t require you to set a high budget. You can even shoot a video from your smartphone’s camera.

Follow these best practices when creating video content to engage customers:

Define your target viewer and their pain points before creating a video.
Ensure that you educate, entertain, and engage your customers in every video content you create.
Add captions on your videos, so they convey your message even when muted. This is crucial because the vast majority of Facebook and Instagram videos are watched without sound.
Make sure your videos look great on different devices. Watch out for text size, because what looks big on a TV screen will look small on a smartphone.
Adjust the video length, depending on the platform you are sharing. For example, a YouTube viewer may watch long videos (10 minutes or higher) happily, while an Instagram user might not give it more than 60 seconds.

4- Guest Post

Guest posting is another great way of driving more traffic to your business. Once you write blog posts and have them posted on the most competitive blogs in your industry, you can easily reach out to new customers.

All you have to do is ensure the blog post is published on a site that your target customers visit. Include backlinks in the content so that customers can visit your online store directly from the guest blog post.

When writing a guest blog post, make sure it is not overly promotional. Instead, focus on writing an informative and engaging content that adds value to the readers’ life, something that teaches them. The best way to do this is by writing on a topic that addresses your target audience’s concerns or pain points.

There are various websites that accept guest posts, such as Business 2 Community, Business Insider, Zapier, Creately, and Food Tank.

When guest posting, keep in mind, every blog is different, and so is their audience. Conduct research to determine what topics resonate the best with their audience.

Also, every website has a different set of rules for guest blogging. Some cover only niche topics, while some accept posts only from influencers.

Make sure to read all the guidelines before you pitch for guest blogging. This will help you target the right website and save a lot of time.

5- Build a Perfect Landing Page on your Site

A landing page is the one that is created especially to convert your website visitors.

A perfect landing page is one with all the elements that your visitors need to conveniently access your products and services. It should focus on limiting the checkout process and focus more on converting visitors to buyers.

Follow these landing page best practices to increase the chances of conversion:

Use a clear, compelling copy that encourages your visitors to try your product.
Keep the call to action button above the fold to remind users what action you want them to take.
Show your product in action.
Use high-quality images to allow customers to inspect your product.

For example, Bose uses high-quality images to show its product in action. Bose also displays its products from different angles, providing a 360-degree view to the customers.

If you are targeting a global market for your products, you should ensure your landing page has over 50 language translations. Lastly, advertise your website on various social platforms to drive more visitors.

6- Get Social Proof

Having the best marketing strategy is never enough to drive more traffic to your online store and increase sales. You must show your customers that your product is the best they can get in the market. That’s why social proof is important.

Customers want to know how it feels to have or use the product before purchasing it.

Here is how you can highlight what your customers think:

Include customer reviews and product ratings on your landing page. You can add a happy customer section on your about page to show customers that your clients are delighted with your products.
Post testimonials from your recent satisfied customers in your newsletters and ads. Testimonials create a platform for customers to share their positive experiences with other customers.
Share customer testimonials on social media to drive followers to your website.

Final Thoughts

Growing an ecommerce platform is never a walk in the park. You have to come out of your comfort zone and leverage growth strategies. The six tactics mentioned above are proven to deliver great results for ecommerce brands. Always focus on positioning your business as an authority before the target customers to grow your brand and increase your sales revenue.

Author:

Richard Parker

Richard Parker is a freelance writer and author at TalentCulture.com and Readwrite. He covers industry-specific topics such as Seo, small business solutions, entrepreneurship, content marketing, word Press development & web design. You can connect with him at Linkedin , and Google +.