1. Review the customer profiles of your business.
It is impossible to improve your ecommercer’s sales if you do not make an effort to understand the consumers to whom you sell your products, what their needs are and what motivates them to buy them.
Therefore, it is possible that by following one of the best practices of online marketing you have already created buyer persona profiles.
1.1. If you have not created these profiles:
You should know that buyer personas are representations of your potential customers. When we talk about buyer persona in marketing, we think of very specific socio-demographic profiles, much more than what we know as audience or market niche.
Buyer personas are buyer profiles of whom we know not only some demographic data, but especially their tastes, needs, reticence, content they consume, favorite digital channels and, probably what interests us most, what their buying cycle is like.
A first approximation to the elaboration of these profiles will be provided by Google Analytics data. This essential Google analytics tool will show you how users are coming to you from different sources. You can find out their age, their gender, their main interests on the Internet and who converts the most and with which products. On the other hand, it is recommended that you research the latest consumer trends in your industry.
It’s a good idea to research your direct competitors and see if they have seen a need in these consumers that you may have missed. As we have already mentioned, one of the most interesting aspects of buyer personas is their buying cycle, not only the phases, but how long it lasts for each type of consumer and what, for example, motivates them to abandon their shopping cart.
1.2. If you have already created these profiles:
So, if you have already mastered buyer persona development, you could think about reviewing them, identifying changes and adding profiles based on what you have observed. Think of buyers as a living marketing tool. This means that from time to time (annually or biannually) you should edit, complete and refine them.
If you think about it, consumer trends have changed with the pandemic and this has certainly affected the way your customers consume. buyerThis is one of the most interesting aspects of these profiles, since it helps us to implement the different actions of our marketing and sales strategy.
On the other hand, we are now increasingly seeing the weight of consumers that we had not previously considered. For example, you should not lose sight of the new generations of Internet users, such as generation Z, whose buying preferences can set trends for younger generations and who will be the most important consumers in 10 years, if not already for your business.
2. Review your branding work.
It is essential to carry out a review of your brand. It should be aligned with the preferences of your consumers. In other words, the values and messages must be aligned, otherwise they will not be attracted to the products you offer.
Just as we have reviewed the customer profiles to whom we sell, before we start to market products and services online through an elaborate ecommerce we must also review the
branding
of our business. This does not mean that a rebranding is necessary, unless you think it is appropriate:
{{cta(‘428775ab-8272-41bc-b786-6000636b1a99’)}}
But, really, when we talk about reviewing your branding what we mean is to identify if it is necessary to review part of the strategy, your corporate identity, what we call DDC strategy(definition, differentiation and communication):
2.1. To review the definition of your business:
Keep in mind what you have just discovered about your buyer personas. Think that the values of both (them and your brand) must be aligned, so identify if it is necessary to rethink what they are. For example, one of the factors on the rise for consumers is sustainability and another is greater representation of society in content and messages.
You are probably seeing how more and more ecommerce from different sectors are incorporating information about their actions in favor of sustainability, this together with the work being done to represent a more diverse society with their images, their contents or representatives is what you should probably work to include in your way of defining yourself and your methodology.
2.2. To review the differentiation of your business:
Do you know what your brand’s value proposition is? Do you know what sets you apart from your competitors and makes you special? If so, congratulations, but most likely after a few years of work, or intense months like the ones we have spent, you have lost sight of some points of your corporate identity, including how you differentiate yourself from your competition.
It is common to conduct research on the marketing and sales actions performed by other ecommerce similar to yours. However, this can make us forget what makes us unique and different and what we should promote through our messages, with every action we take, through the way we communicate.
2.3. To review your business communication:
In short, the communication style guide is based on everything you have learned (or unlearned) in the review of your corporate identity. Maybe you have found it necessary to modify your style to better adapt to the preferences of your consumers, or maybe not. You may have discovered that the materials you are using do not represent your brand or your customers and you should change them. This, of course, will help you generate content that is more aligned with your consumers:
3. Optimize your content strategy.
Content is the cornerstone of any marketing and sales strategy. It’s what your consumers need to make a buying decision. If you help them with more entertaining and comprehensive content, you will improve conversions.
If you have already started to take care of the images, the writing style and the selection of topics based on what you have discovered from reviewing the behavior of your buyer personas and their current preferences, it is also time to optimize the content.
3.1. Optimize pages for search engines and consumers.
It is common for many ecommerce companies not to pay attention to the definition of their products. These pages can and should be optimized for both search engines and consumers. Depending on the type of product, you should know that clear and well-crafted descriptions are the order of the day.
If you think about it, today’s consumers are not only versed in searching for products, but especially in searching for information on the Internet. Before making a purchase decision, they not only compare but also consider whether the product provides an answer to a problem or need they have. Therefore, don’t skimp on words, but don’t skimp on visuals either.
3.2. Bet on including video content.
We know that video is the content format that is best consumed. Even a short video of a few seconds can make a difference. Here are some examples: the Adidas store with its 360º videos of its sneaker models or the Asos store with its 10-second pills to show the garments. It is not necessary to make a large investment in video marketing to get a quality video today to help you showcase your product and improve sales.
You only need to invest time in doing so and we recommend it because, not only can this improve the positioning of your pages, but also these contents can be reused in every way imaginable, especially in social networks such as Instagram, which are booming.
4. Work seriously on Instagram.
Instagram is one of the social networks in which today’s consumers feel most comfortable, following both influencers and brands that take advantage of it to publicize their products and also market them.
We may not have to tell you, but of the social networks, Instagram just keeps growing. This platform is an excellent launching pad not only to improve the impact, reach and reputation of your brand in the digital world, but also to directly market your products.
4.1. Improving the type of publications you make.
It is one of the social networks with the highest ROI (Return on Investment) of ecommerce. For this reason, it should occupy a special place in your content calendar (which we also recommend you do if you don’t have one). Planning is essential to be consistent and efficient in the development of your content, especially in social networks like this one. On Instagram you can make different posts for different purposes:
- You have image publications with descriptive captions that you can use for promotions, sweepstakes, product descriptions.
- Short videos on your wall that you can use for demonstrations, advertising or lifestyle publications due to their short duration.
- Reels that will help you set an example in the use of your products, or help your community by explaining topics related to them that are of interest to them.
- Stories to share your latest publications, viralize them, give them importance and link to those products or pages that interest you.
- Direct in which you could collaborate with influencers who share the same values and who are also consumers of your products.
4.2. Marketing directly from this platform.
As you can see in this social network there are a myriad of possibilities, among them is the marketing of your products (unfortunately it is not possible with services). In addition to Facebook, Instagram allows you to use its platform as an ecommerce. Users can shop in just a few clicks without leaving the feed.
This is why Instagram is growing and why it has established itself as a great showcase for products from the ecommerceA new sales channel in which to diversify in a smart way as it not only attracts more traffic to your website, but also improves sales for your business, making the shopping experience much easier for consumers in the process.
To do so, you must create a company profile or creator on this platform and link your Facebook Fan Page, a platform where you must have a Business Manager account and where you can also market your products.
{{cta(‘bb2971b9-bf36-4c36-8edc-75223dba5208’)}}
5. Boost your email communications.
For an ecommerce company, email along with marketing automation and CRM are the most important pieces when it comes to increasing sales, since you can boost cross-selling and up-selling of your products as well as the loyalty of your customers.
Attracting a larger number of consumers in the face of so much competition is not always easy, but by aligning your values with those of your customers and maintaining a stable online reputation, nothing prevents you from keeping these customers for much longer, improving their LTV(lifetime value) and building customer loyalty in the process.
For this, email marketing is one of the fundamental strategies because, believe it or not, emails are one of the pieces of content that get more return on investment. However, in order to master this strategy there are a number of points to keep in mind.
5.1. Use a CRM that allows you to segment.
A CRM is a tool in which you should not only have your contacts, maybe segmented, but in a very basic way. A CRM should be a tool that allows you to perform a professional segmentation based on your buyer personas, from which you can also extract relevant information about their behavior, seeing what content they consume and what their preferences are at the time of your reports.
With the right CRM you can achieve more effective segmentation of your customers and contacts to communicate with them at the right time in their buying cycle. With it you could devise the most appropriate up-selling and cross-selling strategies, offering products that you know almost for sure that they might be interested in. In addition, it is the one that makes it possible to carry out the most intelligent automation of actions.
5.2. Apply automation to improve your communications.
Automation involves sending emails at specific times, based on certain triggers: a purchase, a new subscription, a visit to a certain page, a request for information via a form. This automation will not only help you be more efficient, but it will also make it easier for you to promote your products at specific points in the buying cycle, improving the likelihood of product conversion.
5.3. Review the contents of your emails and personalize them.
Analyze the performance of your emails. Remember that you must adapt them to the preferences of your consumers and that may involve improving their design and content. We recommend A/B testing to change one element at a time and see what works best. If you were to change it completely, you wouldn’t know what is improvable about them. Remember to review both transactional and promotional emails.
On the other hand, it never hurts to personalize your emails. If you have a smart CRM that allows you to do this step, you’ll know that you don’t just have to put the person’s name, but there are many more properties/fields/data that you could include in your communications to make the emails appear to be written exclusively for them. To make them feel special and encourage them to continue with their purchase process, which will improve your online sales.
