With more than one million businesses across the globe, Shopify is undoubtedly the most popular eCommerce platform. Moreover, adjusting to this new normal in this pandemic has affected many retail businesses and they also tend to start searching for ways to start an online store. And there is only one solution that comes in our minds, i.e. Shopify Store.
However, creating an online store is the easy part but with so many already established stores and users, you need to think about the best way to get your product noticed in the first place. And once you've started to gather steam, how do you continue to grow?
Thus it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been selling online or you’re thinking of starting a new online business, there’re always ways to improve your business. And this article will help you in growing your Shopify business.
Free eBook: download the Shopify Guide to sell more through your Shopify Store.
This sounds too simplistic yet extremely powerful. If you want to make more money, sell more products. You should offer a wider range of products in order to attract more customers which results in more sales. But it doesn’t mean you sell everything like Amazon and Flipkart. What we want to say is you should offer more stuff to make more sales and engage more people.
One such example is of Adidas. Adi Dassler started Adidas on August 18, 1949 originally was a Shoe making company. But seventy years later, Adidas has made an impact not only on sports and athletes, but also on fashion, music, culture, sustainability, and beyond.
Just make sure that your product range is flexible also, everything you offer stays highly relevant to your brand. For example, if you start selling skincare products, you can organically sell hair care products, or makeup products since they appeal to the same kind of customers.
Email marketing is a digital marketing strategy based on sending emails and developing relationships with prospects and customers. An effective email marketing strategy converts prospects into customers, and turns first time buyers into recurring customers which leads to higher sales.
Facebook, Twitter or Instagram are only useful if you’re trying to target certain demographics. Google traffic is heavily loaded on SEO and if you don’t understand how it works, then you certainly don’t get benefits from it. Whereas, emails are forever. The great thing about having a strong email list is that once you’ve got one, you can message people anytime you want for existing products, new products, or for offers.
But your content should be good enough to grab the attention of whoever is going to read your emails. Otherwise there is no use of Email Marketing.
In the 3rd quarter of 2019, 81% of traffic and 71% of orders on Shopify stores are comingthroughmobiledevices. So,havinganeCommercewebsiteisagoodstartbuta website alone, even if it’s mobile-friendly, is just the tip of the iceberg. No matter what you’re selling or what industry you’re in, your Shopify store needs a mobile app.
Over the years, people’s style of searching and ordering has changed. Today, more than 70% of people use their smartphones for searching online. Also, viewing websites and comparing products on the web is a painful task. On the other side, mobile apps offer a personalized shopping experience.
So with Mobile App you can have unlimited product listings, push notifications, stunning and intuitive interface using best UI/UX, personalizations, real-time sync with your Shopify store, and whatnot!
How credible is your brand on social media? Do your customers trust you? Will your users purchase from your social media platforms? There should be a lot going into selling on social media. Facebook has over 2 billion monthly active users. As of January, 2020 there are nearly 1 billion monthly active users on Instagram and nearly 500 million daily active users.
Your brand has an endless opportunity to reach more distinct and curated audiences with social media. There are plenty of social media channels that you can use to sell your products but you need to choose the best one according to your target audience and your products.
Over the past few years, Shopify has added built-in social media like buy buttons that turn these platforms into selling channels. You can turn your followers into customers and find new shoppers, grow your brand’s audience, and build customer loyalty. You can promote and sell on multiple sales channels all from within Shopify.
As a business, the hard part is making shoppers aware of your products and offers. While there’s always marketing to be done on social media, email, and other channels, you can also consider tapping into eCommerce marketplaces to get your products out there. Listing your items on eBay, for example, gives you access to another 171 million shoppers, while Amazon is home to over 310 million active accounts of its own.
You can sell where people like to shop and can list products, reach new shoppers, and increase sales, all from Shopify. They offer a convenient, one-stop shopping experience to customers by making comparisons and checkouts easier for all. Shopify made this sync easy for all the sellers so you can centrally manage your inventory and orders across all your online sales channels.
Content Marketing is a type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts) that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services. It’s essential for you to know the value of content. As the ROI of content marketing has been found 8 times higher than that of traditional marketing.
Content is king, but as an e-commerce business, there are a few core types you should focus on. Specifically,
Video Content
64% of all users are more likely to buy after watching an online video of the product. You should create videos that, in one or another way, promote your company/brand, drive sales, raise awareness of your products/services or engage your audience.
Image Content
Like videos, images are the most common and important of your store’s marketing. The better the images you provide, higher the chances of your sales. You should post high quality images to grab your customers attention.
Product Description
Customers love to read product descriptions so does Google SEO. So you need to take care of both by providing high quality content in product description in an engaging manner which will not only improve your conversion rate, but also your SEO.
Reviews and Recommendations
Big brands make their revenues by recommending products to past customers. This is one of the best strategies as well as easy to implement.
You can do this in 2 ways:
On an average, 65% of sales come from previous customers and it means spending time retaining these customers is much more cost effective strategy than chasing new customers. Consistent communication is the key to retain customers.
Below mentioned are some of the effective steps to improve your customer retention.
Send regular emails to your customers for better engagement.
Surprise them on their birthdays/anniversaries (if you’ve their details) by handwritten notes or discounts for specific dates.
When your customers abandon the cart, send them reminders to complete their purchases or attract them by free shipping or some discount coupon.
One of the best ways is retargeting your customers. You can do the same by Google Ads or Facebook pixel.
Another way to grow lifetime order values across clients is to give them additional discounts after a client buys from you. Give them 10% off their next order, or give them 10% and a friend 10% (refer a friend).
Be as responsive as possible. Replying to the comments on your posts is a great way to create a community and boost engagement.
Replying to comments on your posts is a great way to boost engagement and create a sense of community. Your customers would love to hear back from you.
This one is closely linked to the above point because automated emails to the customers who left your store after adding things to cart is crucial to increase your customer retention. But this only works when the user is logged in and you know their email address though.
We all are busy people and sometimes get interrupted while making a purchase. Generally, users forget to come back and these sales might get lost. But if you send them a reminder just to complete their purchases. Or simply free shipping email or a discount coupon would make them complete the purchase.
Online paid advertising is a rewarding method for bringing in traffic to your website and rallying leads. Online paid advertising requires the purchase of ad spots to attract internet traffic to earn and own advertising. Some websites show up these featured ads and marketers or companies bid for keywords related to their services or products.
In 2016 alone, Facebook’s organic reach plummeted by 52%, and this trend is continuing into 2017. Taking the US as an example, 64.6% of people click on Google Ads when they are looking to buy an item online. And this encouraged many owners to buy traffic from Facebook or Google by SEO, paid ads or social media marketing. Many marketers believe that this is the top strategy to drive more traffic especially in eCommerce businesses.
Influencer marketing is a type of social media marketing that uses endorsements and product mentions from influencers-individuals who have a dedicated social following and are viewed as experts within their niche. It became one of the most popular forms of marketing in the last 4-5 years and is still going strong in 2020.
The main thing here is to identify influencers who’ve engaged audiences that represent your target market. You should sit down with your influencer of choice to figure out which option best fits your target audience.
Now that you know many possible ways to grow your Shopify Business, you’ve got no reason to wait. All of this pays off. So get up and try a few of them soon, if not all. All in all it takes hard work, patience and dedication to grow your eCommerce business but with great strategies and above tips, you can grow your Shopify Store to the next level.
It’s absolutely FREE!