Bulletproof E-commerce: Six Surefire Ways to Boost Engagement and Conversions

E-commerce arrived long ago, but it's still pretty impressive to sit back and see how it's progressing. According to a report by the U.S. Commerce Department, e-commerce sales grew by nearly 20% during the second quarter of 2013, rising from $54.7 billion to $64.6 billion over one quarter to the next. The massive boost in spending can be attributed to the legions of people making purchases from their desktops, smartphones, and tablets.

Whether the catalog consists of a single product or multiple services, the key to e-commerce success lies in your ability to drive engagement and generate conversions. Why waste time gambling on methods that may or may not work? We have outlined six strategies that if executed early in the game, are sure to drive engagement and chalk up those crucial conversions down the road.

Increase email click through rates

Use Social Features

Stop viewing social media as an option. Start viewing it as a necessary element of your business strategy. This influential channel can help bolster your marketing efforts in a variety of ways, but when it comes to the e-commerce component, one of the easiest things you can do is simply integrate the experience. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and several other social networks offer tools that allow you to easily incorporate functionality such as liking, tweeting, and following right into your website. The presence of these features alone will drive engagement from some visitors who may have otherwise chose to browse your store and leave.

 

Engage with Email

Email is often an afterthought in today's social world, but it is a powerful marketing tool nonetheless. People you communicate with via email are likely to be far more engaged than new visitors because they've already been exposed to your brand through direct one-to-one conversations. You can keep engagement up by treating those subscribers to relevant content tailored around their needs. When designing your store, be sure to include an email sign-up form that is easy to find, and try to capture new sign-ups wherever you can. Over time, your email subscribers can be some of your most dedicated customers.

 

Be Mobile

Mobile is another critical area you want to anoint to priority status. Tech savvy consumers are wielding their gadgets to perform a broad range of functions and at the very least, they are expecting an optimal website experience. As a merchant in the e-commerce space, you have no choice other than to deliver. Your ideal customer is armed with all the capabilities they need to browse, research, and shop, so make sure you can accommodate them with a safe, and fluid experience. Work to make your web presence is mobile-friendly from day one.

 

Knock Simple Out the Park

The evolution of internet technology has made it possible to alter the user experience in some powerful ways. With that said, the simple route is usually the most seamless path to success. Only request mandatory information during sign-ups and purchases. Keep the number of options you present on your app's interface to a minimum. Use one potent call to action that drives the user directly into the next phase. When presented with less, the consumer can think more clearly, leading to more informed purchasing decisions.

 

Optimize Through Testing

Are all the elements of your marketing strategy working in harmony? Do some A/B testing to find out. With Halloween coming up, you can test a simple black and orange background against a background that combines bats, pumpkins, and ghosts to get a feel for the response. One background may blend in perfectly with the matching visual content in a blog post, yet make your social buttons difficult to notice. The other might be so busy that it lifts the potential for confusion. From product thumbnails to “pay now” buttons”, testing will reveal the path to engagement and conversions with actual results.

 

View Your Reports

Measuring e-commerce conversions is a pretty straightforward process. Either you rack up sales or your don't. Measuring engagement, on the other hand, tends to be a lot trickier. That's why it pays to have a good analytics system you can rely on. Google Analytics is the perfect tool for the job. This free software gives you an Engagement report that tells you how long people visited your site in increments and what pages they viewed. Seems almost trivial, but these details are crucial. If you see visitors are spending a lot of time on your product page without buying, it could mean you need to tweak your checkout process to move faster.

 

The engagement game is more competitive than ever. Brands are going all out to gain the willingness and affection of the consumer. What are you doing to make e-commerce a worthwhile ride?

 

About the author:

Chiko Noguchi is a best practices activist and advocate for Benchmark Email marketing services. She can be found on @email_wiz.

 

Sources

http://www.internetretailer.com/2013/08/15/e-commerce-returns-pre-recession-growth

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CEO at 3Bug Media
Gary Shouldis is the founder of 3Bug Media, a web marketing company that helps businesses create 360 Marketing Strategies to dominate their market. His blog is read by over 20 thousand small business owners a month and has been featured in the N.Y. Times Small Business, Business Insider and Yahoo Small Business.