Customers are essential for any business. Without them, there isn’t any revenue. Attracting and converting them can be more difficult than many people expect.
That’s especially true with eCommerce. If you don’t know how to grow your eCommerce store’s customer base, you could see sales and profits start to drop off.
Nobody wants this to happen. In contrast, you’ll want to see an upward trend with your sales and revenues. You’ll need to put a significant amount of effort into accomplishing this.
That doesn’t mean trying anything and everything. You should take a focused approach. Targeting specific areas can help grow your eCommerce store’s customer base more than you would’ve thought.
Coupled with that are avoiding some key mistakes, which could impact your growth quite significantly.
5 Top Tips
Target Existing Customers
When you’re figuring out how to grow your eCommerce store’s customer base, you mightn’t think of your current customers. They can be one of your greatest assets if used correctly.
Asking them for feedback can be a recommended way of generating ideas for improvements. It can also help you refine your target market research.
Using this, you can target new customers in a more accurate and in-depth way. Coupled with that is the impact that word-of-mouth marketing can have on your business.
If your current customers are delighted by your brand, they’ll be more likely to recommend it to friends and family. That’ll lead to more sales for your eCommerce store and a larger customer base.
You’ll need to put effort into delighting your current customers to do this. There are multiple things that you can do so. Discounts and promotions are some of the more notable.
Offer Real-Time Personalization
Offering a personalized service to potential customers is more likely to get them to convert. You mightn’t know how to do this, however.
Data tracking and analytics will be a significant part of this. As an eCommerce store, you can track certain information in real-time, such as user behaviour, location, and more.
Armed with this, you can better personalize your approach to marketing to them. You can also update and change marketing and website materials to convert them better.
Part of this could include chatbot integration to speak with your customers. Doing this lets them speak with you when they need to and have any specific questions addressed.
There are multiple options for this, some of which use artificial intelligence. That could mean having a 24/7 chatbot available to help your customers when they need it most.
Engage On Social Media
Social media is essential for all businesses, regardless of if they’re an eCommerce store or brick-and-mortar retailer. You’ll need to engage with your customers on various platforms.
Posting and engaging on social media should be an ongoing process. If your website is your company’s face, then social media platforms are its personality.
Taking advantage of this is one of the more cost-effective ways to grow your eCommerce store’s customer base. While you can invest in paid ads with these, you can also post and engage for free.
Before going this route, ensure that you research your target market. You should know which platforms are most popular among your core demographic.
Targeting these platforms will grow your customer base more than you’d think.
Have Informative Content On Your Site
Over the past few years, content marketing has become increasingly popular as an eCommerce marketing strategy. Much of this focuses on creating informative content for your site.
That can come in various forms, including:
- Blog Posts
- Whitepapers
- eBooks
- Videos
You shouldn’t create this for the sake of creating it, however. It should be as informative and educational as possible while being engaging for readers.
It should also be targeted at your customer’s buying journey. Having their journey mapped out and designing content for key stages in your pipeline is essential.
There are several other things you’ll want to keep in mind when doing so. Focusing on search engine optimization – ranking well on search engines – is one of the more notable.
High-quality calls-to-action should also be focused on. These are what will convince readers to sign up for your newsletter, buy a product, or perform a similar action.
Incorporate Product Videos
Video content is often an essential part of any content marketing strategy. Should you take this route, high-quality product or service videos should be made.
Several studies have shown that more consumers prefer to learn about a product through a video than text. Developing high-quality videos will make your product or service more appealing.
As a result, you can increase your conversion rates. You can make several types of videos focused on your product. These include how-tos, explainers, demonstrations, and more.
When you’re developing these videos, make sure to invest in production values. You should ensure that your product is presented in a professional and appealing way.
You can not only use these on your website but also on YouTube and in your newsletters. In turn, that’ll maximize the impact that it has.
You’ll also improve your return on investment with this.
Top Mistakes To Avoid When Growing Your eCommerce Store’s Customer Base
Part of knowing how to grow your eCommerce store’s customer base involves avoiding mistakes. That’s a lot easier said than done. Nobody plans on making a mistake.
You mightn’t even know you’re making a mistake until it’s done. Thankfully, there are ways to avoid them. With eCommerce stores, multiple mistakes keep coming up.
Because of how common these tend to be, you can prepare not to make them. With how costly many of them can be, avoiding them is more than worth it.
- Not Doing Market Research: Quite a few budding entrepreneurs have an idea, source their products, and start selling. That’s missing a crucial component; performing market research. Do people want the products or services you want to sell? If not, you wouldn’t be able to grow your customer base. If there’s an overabundance of competition, it could also be difficult to scale.
- Not Having A Target Market: Quite a few people believe that everyone would be interested in their product. That isn’t the case. You’ll find that much fewer people will be interested in it than you’d think. You’ll need to know who these people are and how to target them. Market research can help with this, but you’ll need to put the effort in. Knowing their demographic information will be essential.
- Pricing Without Research: How much are you planning on selling your products or services for? How did you pick that number? If your answer is that you simply added X amount onto your costs, you could be making a mistake. You’ll need to do research before setting a price. How much are similar products going for, and are consumers happy to pay this? Ensure you’re giving them value for money while making a profit.
- Not Having Quality Product Pages: If you want to grow your eCommerce store’s customer base, you’ll need to highlight your products effectively. Your product pages will be essential for this. You’ll need to go beyond simply listing it online, however. You’ll need to include multiple features on the page. High-quality images, customer reviews, videos, and more will all be essential.
- Not Focusing On User Experience: How your potential customers interact with your brand impacts whether or not they’ll buy from you. The more positive the experience is, the more likely they are to buy. Focusing on this from the beginning will help you grow your customer base more than you’d think. You’ll need to continually analyse and change things depending on results. As you do, however, you should see your sales and customer base grow.
Nobody wants to make mistakes with their business, whether it’s an eCommerce store or anything else. They can often be difficult to avoid, however.
People typically don’t know they’re making a mistake until they know it. If it happens, it could harm your business significantly.
Not only could you miss out on future sales, but you could lose existing customers and revenue. Everyone wants to avoid that.
Keeping the above mistakes in mind – and taking efforts not to make them – will be essential.
Wrapping Up
Figuring out how to grow your eCommerce store’s customer base can be difficult. If it’s your first time running an online shop, it could feel impossible.
It isn’t. Implementing specific strategies and tips can be more than helpful. While you’ll need to adapt these to your business and spend time implementing them, that’ll pay off.
Once you do, you should see your customer base grow steadily. Revenues and profits will start to roll in over time. Avoiding costly mistakes will also be a part of this.
Nobody wants to find themselves in a position where they’re rectifying mistakes rather than moving forward. Keeping the most common ones in mind will ensure that that’s not the case.
There shouldn’t be anything stopping you from running a successful eCommerce store.
