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FREE Secrets: 7 Copywriting Mistakes That Could Kill Your Sales & Conversions

FREE Secrets: 7 Copywriting Mistakes That Could Kill Your Sales & Conversions

12 Popular Types Of Sales Promotion Techniques

One of the most proven ways to draw more customers to your business while rapidly increasing your sales is by doing different types of sales promotions. You can choose to do a sales promotion to introduce or improve the awareness of a product or service that is new or that just needs more attention. Or you can also do a sales promotion to use popular products and services to draw more customers to your business so that you can introduce them to your other products and services.

Whatever pathway you choose depends on the nature of your business and how established your products and services are. Sales promotions work well for attracting new customers while encouraging your existing customers to spend more by supporting your business. They create a sense of excitement and urgency towards buying your products and services. This will enable you to increase your sales tremendously if done correctly.

In this article, I’ll reveal to you 12 Popular Types Of Sales Promotion Techniques that you can use to increase your sales.

Product Discounts

One of the most effective ways to do a sales promotion especially if you are in eCommerce is by doing product discounts.

To offer product discounts, all you need to do is markdown the price of one or more of your items and put them up for sale. When people see that you have certain products on sale periodically, they will be motivated to visit your online store now and again just to check and see what offer you’re having.

This can encourage more visits to your store. So introducing new items will be much easier. Also, you’ll find that many of your customers who are buying your discounted items also end up buying your other non-discounted items.

You can use this method for getting rid of old stock that you have so that you can make space for new item editions in your store.

Free Shipping and Returns

If you don’t normally offer free shipping and returns, you can have a promotion by offering free shipping and returns.

It is a well-known fact that most consumers will be inclined to purchasing products when free shipping and returns are offered to them. Providing them with free shipping and returns will give them a sense of security, knowing that if they do not like what they got, they can always exchange or return it. And the price they see displayed next to the item that they are interested in buying is all they need to pay as they do not need to worry about additional shipping costs.

If you’re worried that about the additional shipping costs that your business has to cover for the customers, then you can offer the free shipping only to those who have purchased up to a minimum-priced order.

Flash Sale

Having a flash sale can be one of the ways to create excitement and urgency amongst your customers. With a flash sale, you’re going to offer your products at really great discounted prices for a limited time only.

Make sure to let the customers know the duration of your sale so that they will buy your products before the sale ends. The shorter the duration of your sale, the more urgent your customers will feel about buying what you have on offer.

Make sure to have enough items on offer so that your customers will find it worthwhile dropping by your store to check out your sale!

You can also use flash sales to get rid of surplus stock so that you can bring in new stock.

Bulk Purchasing Deals

You can also increase your sales by having bulk purchasing deals for your customers.

There are some methods you can do this. You can either let your customers buy a product that is packaged with other things that complement that main product that they have bought for a really good bargained price. This can be done for eCommerce products, information products and also services.

If you’re in the eCommerce space, another way to get people to buy more is by letting them purchase more of the same type of products but at a highly discounted price.

Buy One, Get One Free

A buy one, get one free promotion also works well, especially for selling physical products.

Customers will be drawn to purchase products because the thought of getting one more unit of the same item for free will sound very attractive!

This is especially popular if you are selling perishable goods as they can be consumed in a period of time. This method will help you to finish up your stock before they expire or become bad.

Free Branded Gifts

Another way to attract your customers to buy more from you is by offering gifts when they buy products or services from you.

An effective way to do this is by having branded giveaways to customers who have bought from you up to a minimum amount of order. This not only encourages them to buy more from you but also helps you to increase the awareness of your brand when you give them gifts that have your company logos on them.

You can give them umbrellas, magnets, pens, keychains, or any other gifts that you feel best represents your brand.

Because these gifts are not available for sale elsewhere, your customers will treasure them even more. And whenever they use these gifts, they will be constantly reminded about your brand.

Loyalty Program Offers

You can also have loyalty programs for your customers to encourage a deeper connection with your customers to encourage more repeat sales.

Whenever your customers buy something from you, you can allow them to collect points through the loyalty program. And you can reward them by either giving a discount, voucher or gift whenever they managed to collect a certain number of points from their purchases.

To make your loyalty program members feel extra special, you can include them in exclusive member-only invites that let them buy your products or services at heavily discounted prices.

By making them feel special, they will enjoy going back to your business for their purchases instead of looking at your competitors.

Coupon Giveaways

You can also provide coupon giveaways to attract more people to buy from you.

This can be done either by doing an email campaign, SMS campaign, having a coupon code on your official website or by joining coupon code websites.

For your email campaigns, you can include those who have opted-in to receiving promotional materials from you and those who are already in your loyalty program.

You can also use this method to win back unhappy customers so that they will continue to buy from you.

Free Trials or Samples

You can introduce new products and services by giving free trials or samples.

By doing this, you will encourage your customers to try your newly-launched products and services so that they can see whether it’s a good fit for their needs.

And because they do not need to pay anything to start using your products and services, this will remove any hesitation that they have about buying what you have to offer before knowing the results of it.

When they use your products and services successfully, then they will want to buy it from you in the future.

This method is suitable for eCommerce, information product providers and services industries.

Competitions

Organizing competitions can create excitement that is needed to motivate your customers to increase their awareness of your business while using your products or services.

You can make it a requirement for your customers to buy products or services from you to join the competition. This will help you to drive up your sales rate.

Not only does this help with your sales, but it also helps you to increase your email opt-in rates because you will get to collect the details of those who have entered your competition.

And if you include social sharing in your competition entry requirements, you will be able to get more people to know about your brand when your contestants start sharing about what you offer.

Free Demonstrations

You can also encourage more people to buy from you by doing free product demonstrations.

If you have a physical product, you can have a video session showcasing to people how to use your product. If you have software that you wish to promote, you can do a screen recording to teach people how to use your software. And if you’re selling an online course, you can do a demonstration by conducting a free masterclass to give a glimpse of what you’re going to offer in your course.

Whatever products you are offering, this method will be great as it will help your customers to become more confident about using your products.

Seasonal or Holiday Promotions

Many people love to do their shopping during holidays and special seasons. So by having seasonal and holiday promotions, you’ll do your business a huge favour by boosting your sales.

You can get creative with your promotions and have different themes that represent different seasons and holidays.

And you can relate your products or services with that specific season or holiday that you are doing the promotion around.

You need not give huge discounts. You just need to give enough discount that will get your customers excited to make a purchase and feel that it’s the right to buy from you.

So I’ve now covered 12 Popular Types Of Sales Promotion Techniques that you can use to increase your sales. As every business is different, you will need to experiment to see for yourself which strategies will work for your business the best. Have you used any of these sales promotion methods before? If yes, which ones have you used and have they been useful in increasing your sales rate? And if not, do you have any other better sales promotion techniques you’d like to share? I’d love to hear from you in my comment section below.

9 Best Strategies To Create Better Customer Engagement

Customers are the lifeblood of any business. So to grow a business, we must not only focus on generating sales and leads. We must also place equal importance in building relationships and interactions with our customers. This is because when you can understand your customers and interact with them better, you will be able to cultivate brand loyalty and repeat sales. Your happy customers will be also willing to share about your products and services to their friends and family members. You can encourage your customers to interact and share about your brand by having strategic customer engagement strategies in place.

Typically, you will know when your business has achieved good customer engagement when you notice the following:-
• Returning visitors to your website or blog
• Increased open, click-through rates and replies for your email campaigns
• Comments, likes and shares on your blog and social media posts
• Existence of user-generated content whereby your customers start sharing photos and testimonials about your products or services
• Repeat sales from your existing customers

There are several marketing strategies that you can use to achieve a high level of customer engagement. So in this article, I’m going to share with you 9 Best Strategies To Create Better Customer Engagement:-

Use Thought-Provoking Questions

One of the best ways to create customer engagement is by simply asking thought-provoking questions to your customers.

You can ask these questions to your audience through practically any platform that you have – whether it be YouTube, your blog, Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.

The point is to ask questions that will get your customers thinking. It could evoke a sense of curiosity, excitement, joy, regret, courage or pride. It all depends on the purpose of your questions.

And when you get your customers to the emotional state that you want them to be, they will be most likely eager to answer your question and give their opinion.

When you encourage your customers to get connected with you by answering your thought-provoking questions, you will be able to use the answers that they provide to further develop your products, services and brand.

You will be able to steer your business strategies towards the directions that speaks the best to your customers.

It also makes your customers feel valued, knowing that their opinions matter to your business.

Always remember to treat the answers provided by your customers like ‘gold’. They are the ones paying you money to get you to supply with your products and services.

So if they have a say, take note of it and see what you can do for your future business plans and ideas.

Create Engaging Content

To make your brand memorable, you need to constantly connect with your customers by creating engaging content.

The best way to publish your engaging content is by either having a blog, podcast, Facebook Fan Page, Facebook Group or YouTube channel.

There is a lot of talk about what engaging content means. Engaging content is content that educates your customers in specific areas that they need solutions in.

Your content can be topic-specific to address certain challenges that your customers are particularly facing. Customers also like content that provides them with actionable steps in solving whatever issues that they are encountering. They also like content that is not too boring and somewhat entertaining.

I’ve previously written a more detailed article on creating engaging content. You can find the article here.

By providing engaging content, your customers will constantly go back to the platform that you use to publish this content for help and guidance. When this happens, they will see you as an expert and will continue to remember your brand.

And when it comes to a point when they need to purchase again, your brand will be the first thing on their mind!

Use Multiple Platforms To Get Connected

It is important to publish your engaging content and connect with your customers through multiple platforms.

Your customers may have different browsing preferences. Some of them might prefer reading a detailed blog article is in written form while others may prefer you to convey the same message in a bite-sized video through YouTube. Others may want to scroll through social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest to read the topic highlights before deciding on clicking-through to read a blog or view a video.

So by broadcasting your content through multiple platforms, you will get the opportunity to reach out to your customers through several touchpoints.

The more touchpoints your customers have with your brand, the more likely they will want to connect with your brand. This is especially the case if your content resonates directly with what they want to learn about.

Practice Customer Segmentation

You can also reach a high level of customer engagement by practising customer segmentation for your business.

This can be done by simply segmenting your email list based on the actions taken by your customers. Have they clicked on a specific link that talks about a particular topic? Have they replied to your email with a question that needs to be answered? These are clear indicators as to where your customers will fit in your segmentation list.

You can use your segmented list to decide what types of marketing message go to each group of audience. This will enable you to speak to your customers needs better – hence improving the level of customer engagement!

You may also want to develop special marketing campaigns that target the high-spenders and frequent buyers to ask them more about their needs.

Make Them Feel Special

Make your customers feel special for following you on your social media and publishing platforms or joining your email list.

You can do this by providing updates on what you’re up to in your business using a simple behind-the-scenes write-up or video. You can also announce about product updates, launches or any upgrades you have developed for your business that will serve your customers better.

As for email subscribers, you can make them feel extra special by sharing exclusive content and offers to them. You can also send them birthday wishes and vouchers that will encourage further purchases.

When you make your customers feel special for following you, they will feel valued and develop a sense of loyalty and begin to engage with your brand better.

Connect With Them At A Personal Level

People love dealing with people. So if you want to develop stronger customer engagement with your business, you need to break down the walls of having an icy-cold business. You need your customers to feel that they are dealing with an actual human being. Many use personal branding to do this.

Personal branding is getting popular nowadays, especially when a business owner wants to expand its market share online or become an online influencer. Usually, the owner of the business shows up in front of an online audience to showcase his or her knowledge and skills in his or her particular field. You can use this method to build a personal connection with your customers.

If you have a business that has several team members, you can also ask your team members to show up on your various social media or publishing platforms to introduce themselves and talk about how they can help your customers.

Apart from this, you can also give your customer a sense of personalization by addressing them by their names whenever you send them your email campaigns. You can also seek feedback from those on your email list and respond to them individually to let them know that they are dealing with someone who has their best interests at heart.

Build A Supportive Online Community

You can also work towards building a supportive online community to further engage with your customers. The best way to do this is by either starting forums or by having your own Facebook Groups.

The beauty of having an online community that you own is that you can encourage your customers and other like-minded people with similar needs to support one another through member-generated content.

By establishing your forums or Facebook Groups, you also get to reply to your customers’ questions directly and discuss any needs that they may have.

This will make your customers feel much more connected to you and your brand compared to just posting your content on social media.

Organize Attractive Competitions

Who doesn’t love getting free stuff? I know I do. And your customers will probably love them too!

You can motivate your customers to get to know your brand better, learn about a new product feature or take notice of a recent product launch that you have organized by holding attractive competitions.

Being in a chance of winning a prize by learning more about your business is usually enough to build excitement that will get people to talking and engaging with your brand more.

You can get your customers to share photos of them using your products or share testimonials and tag your business to create more awareness for your business getting your customers engaged with your brand. You can also use a specific hashtag for your competitions.

And of course, there are many other types of competitions that you can organize for your customers to get engaged with your business and brand.

The sky is the limits so it’s time to start putting on your thinking caps to work on the best possible competitions that will get more people engaged with your brand!

Ask Their Opinions For Continuous Improvements

You can also develop more engagement with your customers by asking their opinions about either an existing product or service your that you have or about an upcoming product or service that you are currently developing.

The best way to collect such opinions from your customers is by using social media. If you have a good number of followers or have people constantly engaging with your social media platforms, then you can simply ask questions to get their opinions on these matters.

Customers love to be heard. And so by allowing them to express their opinions about what you offer in your business, they will feel appreciated and be motivated to engage with your business and brand more.

Another advantage of this is that you can use your customers’ opinions to upgrade your product or service offerings and develop new products and services that will be in line with what your customers are looking for.

Creating better customer engagement for your business is one of the key things that makes people want to connect with your brand and support it. When you can develop increased customer engagement, you will find more repeat customers, more people sharing about your products and services to others and an increase in leads and sales. What are you currently doing to encourage customer engagement for your business? Do you have any strategies that work particularly well for your business? And if not, which of the above strategies that I’ve shared do you plan to use for your business? I’d love to hear from you in the comment section below.

References:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnrampton/2015/09/14/8-ways-to-engage-better-with-your-customers/#38212ab351f3
https://www.copper.com/blog/engage-customers
https://www.outbrain.com/blog/3-golden-customer-engagement-strategies-that-marketers-cant-ignore/
https://neilpatel.com/blog/10-ways-to-make-customers-fall-in-love-with-your-business/

How Chatbots Can Improve Your Business

The usage of artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming more common as an increasing amount of business owners have begun using it to help them to improve their businesses. Chatbots are a form of artificial intelligence technology that is becoming popular in recent times to help entrepreneurs increase their conversion rates while reducing operational costs.

What Are Chatbots?

Chatbots are interactive applications created to communicate with people like a human being. They can imitate human conversations and prepare immediate responses to people as well as re-direct the conversation to a real person when needed. Bots are used a lot in messaging services such as WeChat, WhatsApp as well as Facebook Messenger. They’re also used in many eCommerce websites.

With the ever-growing number of online businesses out there, customers are getting more demanding in the way they choose what to buy, the type of user experience that a business provides to them and the level of efficiency that a business can deliver so that they can get the products and services the way fast and with less effort.

When a customer goes to a website that is unfamiliar to him or her and finds trouble navigating the website and finding answers to his or her questions, then that customer will usually exit the website without purchasing anything or leaving an inquiry and contact detail.

This is why they are becoming really popular especially in assisting eCommerce and service industries because customers might be confused with the many choices they offer!

Benefits of Chatbots

By having them, your business will have a human-like device that can handle multiple inquiries at the same time that will interact directly with your customers and provide them with the answers they need to help them make a purchasing decision fast without having the hassle of waiting a long time for a reply through a customer support team.

The best part is that they can work for you 24/7!

You can program your chatbots to provide answers and do certain tasks based on the responses of your customers, triggers or predefined conditions. Your bots will answer your customers promptly and provide consistent answers to your customers. And over time, you can adjust and improve their responses when you learn more about the language of your customers and their frequently asked questions.

Using bots will reduce your operational costs while increasing your customer satisfaction – which will bring you more leads and sales!

You can also use them to improve your customer service by using it to answer onboarding and frequently asked questions.

What Are The Popular Types Of Chatbots?

There are many types of chatbots available. So choose your bots wisely according to their functions so that they will suit your business best. You can search for the different types of bots available through websites like Botlist, Chatbottle and Thereisabotforthat.

Here are some chatbot examples:-

Personal Bots

These applications offer communication with a single user only. An example of this type of bot is Poncho the weather bot.

Poncho-The-Weather-Bot_image
Photo credit: Messengerchatbots.com

Team Bots

These applications are involved in interacting with multiple users. An example is Donut by Slack.

Donut-bot_image
Photo credit: Chatbotslife.com

Website Bots

A really popular chatbot is website bots. These bots are used to increase customer satisfaction by providing the ability for customers to have live chats to answer frequently asked questions about products and services, book appointments, recommend products and services to buy as well as pointing them to the right direction on the next steps to take to complete their purchases.

They can also notify customers about specific discounts that are currently being offered.

An example of a website chatbot is the AirBnb bot.

AirBnb-chatbot_image
Photo credit: Medium.com

In general, there two main groups of bots – simple and smart chatbots. Simple bots are programmed based on pre-determined keywords and provide answers to those keywords. On the other hand, smart bots rely on artificial intelligence. They will provide multiple answers based on a particular topic that is of interest to the person it is communicating with.

What Are The Limitations of Chatbots?

It is of course practically impossible to be able to gauge every question and topic that will be asked by a customer. So this limits the ability of chatbots to respond to customers in some situations. Of course, you can improve the performance of your bots over time. But when they are not able to answer the questions of your customers, you will still need to direct them to either you or your customer support team.

How To Build A Chatbot For Your Business

If you’re ready to build your chatbot for your business, then it is important to take these matters into consideration first:

  • Determine the goals for your bot. Decide on how would you want it to benefit your business and customers?
  • Be clear about the platforms that you are using to host your bot? Is it through Facebook Messenger or any other type of platforms?
  • Decide how you would like to create your bot. Would you want to hire someone to customise it for you or do you want to use software to do it?
  • Make sure to test your bot before launching it to the public!

Chatbot Builder Platforms

If you’ve decided to create your own chatbot, below are some builder platforms that you might find useful:

Smooch.io

MobileMonkey

Botsify

Chatfuel

I hope my article for you on How Chatbots Can Improve Your Business was helpful in making you understand more about artificial intelligence and the usage of these bots in helping business growth. Do you currently use chatbots in your business and have benefited from them? Or are you planning to use them in the future? I’d love to hear from you in the comment section below.

How Digital Marketing Can Grow Small Businesses (Even on a Tight Budget!)

As an entrepreneur of a small business venture, I used to be faced with fear that I will be unable to compete with bigger players that are in the same industry as me. With more staff to do the work for them and more money to spend on marketing and advertising, it only seemed natural to think that they will eventually win the race when it comes to expanding their businesses. But I was wrong! Working practically as a solopreneur, I soon realised that through digital marketing, my business can grow regardless how many people I hire (or don’t hire) and how much money I spend on advertising.

So if you are feeling insecure about growing your small business, I’d encourage you to definitely give online marketing a go because many small and also local businesses have grown over years regardless their advertising budgets –  thanks to the power of the internet! All you need is a solid business plan and willingness to learn and apply the key concepts of internet marketing to succeed.

And if you are wondering how online marketing can help you achieve the business of your dreams, here are my top tips on How Digital Marketing Can Grow Small Businesses (Even On A Tight Budget!):-

Expanding Your Reach

When you want to get more sales and leads for your business, you need to let more people know about who you are and what you offer. Although using print advertisements, presenting coupons, and featuring posters in all major roads and shops that can attract your prospects may seem like a good idea, the number of target audience who will eventually get to know about you and your services will be very limited.

Through internet marketing, you get to target a much larger crowd (in many cases a wider global audience) to see your advertisements and get to know about your business. With more prospects seeing your advertisements and online landing pages, the probability of you getting more sales and leads will increase tremendously.

Targeted Advertising with Analytics

Unlike traditional forms of advertising that are based on assumptions and projections such as newspaper, radio and television ads, using internet marketing methods can help you achieve better results by letting you understanding your target customers’ behaviours, trends and demands first before advertising. You also get to choose to feature your advertisements to a selected group of people based on certain criteria such as gender, age, location, interests and income so that you can customise your messages according to their needs. Through this method of advertising, you get to enhance your customer experience and utilize your advertising budget wisely for maximum impact.

This will help you to increase your customer satisfaction and improve the chances of having repeat sales, while enabling you to maintain brand loyalty amongst your customers.

Two-Way Interaction with Customers and Prospects

With an online presence, you will be able to gain two-way interaction with your customers and prospects to further enhance your product or service offerings to grow your business.

Most often, when a customer is not satisfied with your products or services, they will not complain directly to you. They will express their feelings through social media, forums or blog comments. When you keep track of what is being said about your business, you will know the weaknesses of your products and services and strive towards improving them. With these platforms, you can also respond to any negative views and comments that people have about your business to clear any doubts about your products and services.

You will also be able to easily measure the success and failure of each branding or advertising campaign that you organise for your business. You can track their progress based on social media engagements and responses as well as website visits and comments – and not forgetting the total sales and leads you gained during the duration of your campaigns. You can also reply to positive responses to further encourage the support for your brand.

So in general, having an internet presence will enable your business and brand to come ‘alive’ in the eyes of your target audience. This will encourages them to support your business more and improve brand loyalty.

Cost Effective Advertising

With the existence of online advertising, you can slowly test and measure the success or failure of each of your marketing campaigns without spending a huge amount of money upfront. Popular advertising channels such as Facebook, Google Adwords and Bing Ads allow you to set your daily ad spend so that you do not exceed the limited budget that you have allocated for marketing purposes. And once you have identified a campaign that works, you can slowly increase your advertising spend to compete with your competitors. 

Free Leads and Sales through Organic Traffic

Reaching new prospects doesn’t always need to be through paid advertising methods. By applying SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategies, content marketing and being active on social media, you will soon start to see organic traffic come to your website or online landing pages that convert into new leads and sales for your business without paying anything!

Your Customers Are Already Online

Let me know honestly, when you want to find anything – whether it’s a hotel, restaurant, tourist attraction or even household items to buy, where do you go first? Do you open your favourite web browser like Google – or do you search on the Yellow Pages hard copy book, newspapers or hard copy magazines? I’m guessing that you would most probably open your favourite web browser to find the answers to your questions…Am I right?

You see, we are now living in a digital world where information are searched and accessed more through the internet than through traditional print mediums. So whatever business you are in, you will soon realise that your customers are searching for products or services like yours mainly through the internet!

So if they search for answers online and find your competitors first, they would probably settle for their products and services instead of yours!

And in the present times, if your business doesn’t have a website and social media presence, your customers will come to the conclusion that your business is not legit or it doesn’t exist. That is why digital marketing is so important when it come to growing small businesses.

Learn From Your Successful Competitors Online

It’s normal to feel inferior when it comes to comparing yourself to your competitors who seem to have more customers, products/services and advertising budget to spend. But did you know that having competitors who are already successful can be an advantage to you?

Well, believe it or not – having successful competitors can actually help you to set a benchmark for yourself and your business. You can also learn from them by seeing what they are offering, how they are crafting their marketing messages, how they are doing their branding and how they are attracting their customers to buy from them. If you are good at analysing, you can also breakdown their business models to see what works for them and what doesn’t.

This can help you to identify the best direction for your business – without the need of spending thousands and millions of dollars to test and see what works! Isn’t that great?

And with the power of the internet, researching about your competitors and their strategies becomes even easier and more achievable!

Convenience for Customers

Whether you like it or not – we live in a fast paced world where nobody the time to sit around and search for information for hours to get solutions.

So by having an online presence, you get to answer simple questions that your customers want to know fast. For instance, if you have a local business, ideally you would need to have a website indicating your opening hours, products/services, address (and even better map to your address!), telephone number and email address.

It’s also advisable to have a Q&A page to answer commonly asked questions about your products/services so that your customers will be able to find out about them without having to email or call you.

And if you sell tangible products, it will be even better if you have an e-commerce store that will help customers to know whether the products they want are in stock – even if they plan to drive to your shop to pick them up.

Being online also helps you to reach out to customers who are limited by disability or who have trouble getting to your office/shop due to long travel distance.

Stay In Touch With Customers Without Being Too Salesy

I’ve been to a particular boutique before (no names mentioned!) but was greeted by a sales person who was being too salesy. She kept on pestering me to try on more clothes and shoes and insisted that I looked great in them even though I felt they were not good for me! That totally put me off. I never went to that boutique again.

You see, when you are too salesy, instead of getting more customers to desire your products and services, they will begin to resist and push away what you have to offer.

With the power of the internet, small and local businesses are able to stay in touch and engage with customers in the long term more than ever before!

You can encourage them to follow your social media channels where you can share interesting information that are beneficial to them or fit their needs while featuring product launches and promotions. You can also send them weekly or monthly newsletters featuring stories that will be of use to them, while introducing your products and services.

This will keep your brand constantly in their minds. So when they want to purchase anything, they will think about your products/services first before looking elsewhere.

Being online lets you keep in touch with your customers at a fraction of the cost compared to traditional forms of marketing such as printing hard copy newsletters which could cost quite a lot in the long run. 

Online Sales Funnel

A confused mind always says ‘No’. Imagine finding something on the internet. You browse through the search engine and hit in to the first few websites that pops up on the front page of the search engine. You read a few lines of each article and look around a website out of curiosity – but the website is not user-friendly. You don’t know what they are selling and what they do. What will you do next? Exit, the page right?

So if you have a website for your business, it’s always advisable to try and move your customers and prospect to an online sales funnel.

The same goes if you have a physical shop. You would ideally want to attract your customers and prospects to your website and move them to your sales funnel too.

With this strategy, when a viewer goes to your website, you can direct them to opt-in through your landing page. Then you can slowly follow-up on those who have opted-in to your list to introduce yourself and what you offer to see if your products/services fit their needs. The online sales funnel will guide them towards making a decision on what to buy.  

And I guess that’s it for now!

I must say that through the power of digital marketing, many small businesses have gained the success that they truly deserve. Have you tried any internet marketing strategies before on your small business that has enabled you to gain more customers? If you have, and do not mind sharing, then I’d encourage you to leave your comments in the section below. Share this article if you have any friends or family members who wish to expand their small businesses online.

References:
https://www.jeffbullas.com/how-digital-marketing-can-transform-brick-and-mortar-businesses/
https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/en-au/blog/why-digital-marketing-is-important-for-small-business
https://www.distinctweb.design/the-state-of-digital-marketing-in-small-businesses/
https://wayoutfar.co/every-small-business-needs-a-digital-marketing-strategy/
https://marketingmatterstv.com/episodes/episode-6-digital-can-transform-business/
https://espresso.digital/small-business-marketing/

17 Ways To Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment

Have you ever gone to a shop to buy things, filled up your trolley with stuff to purchase but end up not getting anything at all? You could have gotten distracted with other things, confused with the pricing or frustrated, felt insecure about the product features or frustrated with the purchasing process. The same thing happens with online shopping…And this is what we call shopping cart abandonment! So if you have an eCommerce store, you could be missing out on a lot of sales when your potential customers abandon their shopping carts.

That’s why in this post, I’ll be sharing 10 Ways To Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment.

Below are my top tips on reducing shopping cart abandonment:-

Provide Clear Product Descriptions and Images

When people purchase stuff online, they cannot physically touch, examine and look at the products closely before buying. So when you do not give them sufficient information on the product and good quality images of the product, they will be hesitant to buy it from you.

By providing clear product descriptions that highlight the purpose and benefits of the product you are selling, they will be able to determine whether your product is the best fit for their needs.

It is also advisable to provide good quality high-resolution images of your product showing it at different angles so that your potential customer can visualize how the product will look like in real life.

This will make them more confident about buying your product to avoid the chances of any shopping cart abandonment.

Be Upfront About Your Pricing

People who shop online are more likely to abandon their shopping carts when they are suddenly slapped with unexpected fees at the end of the checkout process. This includes the addition of any shipping costs, handling fees, taxes, product customization charges and other types of fees.

If you are not able to provide the exact shipping fee because it will depend on the product/s that are purchased, then you can use a shipping calculator to give an estimated shipping cost to your potential customers. This will make them aware of the additional charges so that they will not be surprised only at the end of the checkout process.

You can also include any taxes or additional fees in the price of the product/s so that they are aware of the exact cost of what they are going to buy at the beginning of the buying process.

Provide Free Shipping

Alternatively, you can provide free shipping to your customers to increase your sales. Your customers will be more likely to buy from you compared to your competitors who are charging delivery fees.

If you are unable to cover shipping costs by just selling one or two items, you can provide free shipping to customers who purchase a minimum priced order before offering your free shipping. This will encourage them to buy more from you too!

Build Trust With Your Potential Customers

Some of your potential customers may be afraid to buy from you because they are afraid your products won’t work for them.

To build trust with your potential customers, you can follow up with your existing customers who have bought your products.

Ask them to provide you with product reviews and testimonials to demonstrate to your potential customers that your products have worked for others. This will increase their confidence in buying from you and prevent shopping cart abandonment.

Provide Relevant Contact Details

It can be pretty scary buying something online especially if you do not know how to get in touch with the company you have bought the product from. I mean, what if the product is faulty and you need a replacement? What if they send you the wrong product? What if you do not know how to use the product and need some guidance?

To eliminate this fear, you should always include relevant contact details in your website, sales funnel and/or checkout pages so that your potential customers will know how they can contact you when they have a question!

Use Secure Payment Methods

Many of your potential customers may be afraid to make online payments because they have to include their credit card information. When you use secure payment methods, you will eliminate this fear because they will be paying through a secure payment platform.

You can include security badges to help them feel better about the payment process. When they have the reassurance that the payment methods you use are secure, they would be more likely to complete the checkout process.

Offer Multiple Payment Options

Your potential customers have different payment method preferences. So by offering multiple payment options, chances are you are going to provide them with the opportunity to make payment with their preferred method. A universal payment method that is especially popular for eCommerce is PayPal.

Ensure Fast Website Loading Time

Online shoppers are mostly busy people. That’s why they do shopping online instead of taking the time to go to the shops to buy stuff. So it’s crucial that you ensure that your website doesn’t take too long to load. This is because when your shoppers are searching for products to buy, they will get irritated when they have to wait for a long time just to let your web pages load. When they get frustrated, they will abandon their shopping carts and move on to another website that provides better customer experience.

Provide Simple Website Navigation

Make it easy for your customers to find the stuff that they want to buy. Present your products in the right categories and have them organized well.

You can include product thumbnail images at your shopping cart so that they can remember what product/s they have selected to purchase.

Ultimately, your customers shouldn’t need to do more than three clicks to be able to buy what they want. The faster they can find and buy what they want, the more things they will buy from you.

Save The Cart

Many online shoppers do not buy products immediately. They browse the products and compare them with other websites. And once they’ve made their decision, they will purchase the products.

When you save their shopping cart, it is easier for them to be reminded about the products that they have intended to buy. You can do this by letting them register as an account holder at your website and saving their carts automatically.

So when they login to their account, all they need to do is complete the checkout.

Reward Those Who Purchase Immediately

Once your potential customers leave your website, chances are they might end up buying from your competitors instead of you!

So to avoid this, you can use an exit-intent popup to encourage them to buy immediately.

You can include a special discount, coupon code, free shipping or any other types of incentives to close the sale.

Use Fear Of Missing Out Strategy

If you are currently running a promotion, you can use the countdown clock at your website or checkout page to show exactly when your sale is ending.  By doing this, your customers will be motivated to purchase from you fast before the end of your promotional period.

When selling popular products, you can also show your customers exactly how many units of each product that you have left in stock. So if they really want to buy a particular product, and they know that you don’t have much stock left, they will be motivated to buy it from you immediately.

Provide Money-Back Guarantee

Many people are afraid to buy from online stores because they are afraid that they will not like the product once they see it in real life. So by providing a money-back guarantee, you will be able to eliminate this fear that is holding your potential customers back from purchasing from you.

Give A Clear Call-To-Action

Don’t leave your customers guessing what to do next to complete their checkout process. You need to give them clear call-to-action prompts to let them know what else they need to do before an order can be completed.

Take notice of your call-to-action buttons. Do they stand out against your website content? Are your call-to-action buttons too confusing to understand?

If your call-to-action buttons are not clear enough, your potential customers may get frustrated and leave their shopping carts.

Allow Guest Check-Out

Don’t force your potential customers to create an account before checkout. Many of them may have just heard about your website for the first time.

So making it compulsory to create an account at the first instance will just scare them away!

You can encourage them to sign up for an account at your website by letting them know about all the benefits of having an account.

Let them decide whether or not they want to sign up.

Use Remarketing Strategies

If you’ve managed to capture the emails of your potential customers who abandoned their shopping carts, you can always reach out to them again using remarketing strategies.

You can send them a series of emails or reach out to them through Facebook to remind them about the products that they have left in their carts and provide them with a call-to-action to complete their order.

Personally Email Your Potential Customers

You can also personally email your potential customers who have abandoned their carts to ask them whether they need any questions answered or help with completing their orders.

Many would appreciate it if you reach out to them directly to help them because it makes them feel special.

In return, they might consider completing their orders with you because they impressed with your great customer service.

I hope that this post has broadened your understanding of how to reduce shopping cart abandonment. Have you tried any of these strategies before and have found them useful in helping you to drive more sales for your business? Or do you have any other strategies that you’d like to share? I’d be happy to know.

References:
https://optinmonster.com/11-advanced-tips-to-reduce-shopping-cart-abandonment/
https://www.semrush.com/blog/10-ways-to-reduce-cart-abandonment-and-recapture-customers-for-e-commerce-websites/
https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2016/03/17/shopping-cart-abandonment
https://optinmonster.com/11-advanced-tips-to-reduce-shopping-cart-abandonment/
https://www.monsterinsights.com/smart-tactics-to-reduce-shopping-cart-abandonment/
https://www.abtasty.com/blog/reduce-shopping-cart-abandonment/
https://www.optimizely.com/anz/optimization-glossary/shopping-cart-abandonment/

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