Ecommerce Growth
6 Retail Marketing Ideas to Drive Traffic & Conversions on Your Ecommerce Store
- Written by Dakota Murphey
Two things every ecommerce store owner craves:
- More traffic.
- More conversions.
We all know there's a plethora of retail marketing ideas out there to achieve both of these. But are you missing out on any? Here, we take a look at six killer ideas you can action right now to drive more traffic and conversions for your ecommerce store.
SEE ALSO: 34 Essential Ecommerce Tools to Accelerate Growth in 2019
- Create a buzz with giveaways
One of the most effective retail marketing ideas for driving traffic to your store is to create a vital reason for people to visit. A great way to do this is to use contests and giveaways – everyone likes the opportunities to win something for free, and competitions give you the chance to get the contact details of clients who are already clearly interested in your products. Get creative and unique with this though. You can range from something as simple as getting people to enter by engaging with your social media: But can also mix it up with things like:
- Enter-to-win sweepstakes.
- A photo sharing competition using unique hashtag.
- Photo caption contest.
- Vote-to-win contest.
- Referral competition.
You can use a tool like Wishpond to easily create some pretty epic social promotions and giveaways. Once you have the contact details for your entrants, make sure to send out offers and limited time messages to bring them back to your store.
- Utilise the power of social media influencers
Using influencers is one of the best retail marketing ideas for driving traffic to ecommerce stores. It effectively uses the fame and credence of specific social media celebrities and popular users - people who hold a lot of sway with their recommendations. In fact, research from Twitter and Annalect claims 49% of people say they rely on recommendations from influencers when making purchase decisions. Use a tool like HypeAuditor to find and analyse engagement for YouTube and Instagram influencers. Then reach out to relevant, popular and engaged accounts to see about partnering up. Some influencers will simply charge a fee to post about your product(s) on their account. But there's also the option of just sending them your product for free and asking to review (something that works particularly well with micro-influencers). You can even offer specific discount codes for influencers to share, allowing to the track sales generated and reward them with affiliate commissions: One of fitness brand Alphalete's growth tactics is to go as far as hiring a team of influencers to act as 'sponsored athletes' modelling their activewear apparel: Maybe your brand has nothing to do with fitness and 'sponsored athletes' wouldn't work. But you can bring influencers on board to become brand ambassadors for your products in a similar way. Whoever you use and in whatever way, it's essential to make sure that:
- They have an audience relevant to your brand.
- The audience is engaged, not full of fake or uninterested followers.
- You measure results to make sure there's a definable return on investment (ROI).
- Make better use of paid advertising channels
You might have been put off paid ads on the likes of Google, Facebook and Insta because you've found it too complex or challenging. But this is a mistake, as they can be absolutely invaluable channels to find new customers. In fact: According to Smart Insights data, social and paid search combine to bring 33% of all revenue for online brands - tied with organic as the biggest sales-driving traffic source. So if you're not making paid advertising work, you're probably doing it wrong. Think about:
- The way you angle and present your product to the market.
- Making sure you communicate benefits over features and specs.
- Having a scroll-stopping ad creative that grabs attention.
Deliveroo could have gone with something feature-based, like "Easily order takeaway from anywhere in your area". But instead went with: And the business selling this handy multi-tool gadget could have tried to describe it in words. But instead show how it works in a video: It's also important for you to think about the range of different paid advertising channels – it’s not just Facebook; if your products better suit Google, Twitter or Instagram then make use of these options.
- Improve website page load times
You might think page loading speed is only a minor factor in whether a customer converts or not. But it can actually play a very significant role. Quite frankly: Slow loading websites are incredibly annoying. And the longer a page takes to fully load, the more people who are just going to give up and leave. Not good - especially if you've paid out cold, hard cash for that click from Google or Facebook ads. Web hosting specialists Wirehive recently commented on the issue, saying “our clients often choose us because of our excellent track record of delivering fast page loading speeds. This has become a crucial issue across the ecommerce industry”. But what can you do?
- Actively track site speed with a tool like GT Metrix.
- Limit the use of plugins and apps on your site to strictly essential ones.
- Re-size images on each page to only the size they actually need to be, and consider a lazy load option.
- If you're using Magento, make sure you know how to choose the best hosting solution.
- Showcase reviews on your site
If there's one retail marketing idea that absolutely every ecommerce site should adhere to, it's a reviews section. Having reviews shows potential customers that:
- Other people have bought from your store in the past; and
- your products and brand are trustworthy and legitimate.
The vast majority of online shoppers treat reviews as essential before they buy. So don't just timidly put a few on product pages, showcase them right across your site. Music equipment retailer Andertons do a great job with this. To start, they build homepage trust by highlighting their stellar independent Feefo rating: Then clearly showcase star ratings around the key price and 'add to cart' area on product pages: Before going into greater depth with each review in a neatly organised tab section alongside product description, spec, finance and delivery details: A reviews plugin like Yotpo is an easy and effective way to both collect and showcase high-quality reviews all over your site. Even using them to reduce cart abandonment by displaying reviews at checkout:
SEE ALSO: Online Reputation Management: How to Deal with Negative Customer Reviews
- Think sales over branding
Branding is an important retail marketing tool for businesses. Especially when it comes to your success over the long term. But it's also vital to note that this should not be considered more valuable than making sales right here and now. A new-age website with cool effects and colours is fine. Just make sure it's not at the expense of fundamental UX and conversion principles. For example: Too many stores prefer their branded colours on crucial CTA buttons (like ‘Add to Cart’). Yet all this does is make these elements blend in with everything else on screen. You want buttons and links like this to stand out from everything else, so they're explicitly easy to locate and use for customers. You can even take the time to A/B test different colours to find the right option for your site.
SEE ALSO: 6 Checkout UX Tricks to Boost Ecommerce Conversions
Retail marketing ideas final thoughts
These retail marketing ideas have been used to great effect by ecommerce sites of all sizes. So if you're looking for ways to drive traffic and conversions, these should be on your radar. The key to making any of them work is to test, adjust and test again. Whether you are just starting out and are looking to make an impression, or you want new ways to grow your business - these are some of the best ways to do it.
