Now is the perfect time to plan your sales targets and marketing budget for the year ahead. In order to achieve those goals, you need to create new strategies and campaigns to optimize your store. Since this will most likely involve PPC ads to drive traffic to your site, conversion rate optimization is key.
1. Analyze and See What Works
Many people skip this step — and that’s why they’re not able to achieve optimal results.
During the holiday season, your traffic increases tremendously, which makes it a great opportunity to analyze your customer behavior. Reviewing this data can help you draw conclusions about what’s working and what isn’t. Answer questions like:
- What were your top products?
- Were there any errors or 404’s on your site?
- Which landing page performed the best?
- Which offer worked best?
Taking time to analyze your site’s performance allows you to better customize it and optimize it so it fits your customers’ needs.
2. Use Dynamic Product Recommendations
While you may already be displaying product recommendations on your homepage, and maybe on your product pages and cart pages as well, personalizing those recommendations make all the difference.
It’s much more effective when you display products based on your visitors’ browsing or purchasing history. By recommending the right product at the right time, you can easily convert visitors into buyers. Instead of just showing best-selling products and seasonal offers, display items based on visitor interest: “Products recommended just for you.”
You can take this strategy to the next level by displaying pop-ups with intelligent product recommendations. This makes it more likely that your visitors will pause for a minute and consider the items offered.
3. Give Your Abandoning Visitors a Second Chance
Pop-ups can be very effective in combating cart abandonment — if they’re used correctly.
When you’re presenting a message to your visitors in order to stop abandonment, it’s important to use segmentation and provide a relevant experience for each segment.
You should also differentiate between cold and hot prospects to provide a better customer experience. Hot prospects are visitors who are ready to buy, while cold prospects are not quite there yet. They might not have the funds needed or they simply aren’t interested enough to complete their purchase.
You can capture cold prospects with a pop-up that allows them to sign up for your email list. Then, you can market to them later. Whereas with hot prospects, your pop-up can push directly for purchase, and you can create a sense of urgency by offering a discount along with a countdown timer.
4. Don’t Forget About ‘The New Email Marketing’
A healthy email list is a must-have for communicating with your customers — but in 2018, it won’t be enough.
Stay one step ahead of your competitors and use Facebook Messenger to connect with your customers in addition to your email list.
Currently, only a few companies use Messenger, however, it’s a super effective two-way communication channel that lets you reach out to customers and allows them to reach out to you when they have a question. In addition, you can achieve 80 to 90%+ open rates with Messenger.
So, how do you get people to subscribe to your Messenger list?
Offer the same incentives you would use to get an email address, for example, free shipping or 10% off. Once you’re in contact, make sure to keep messages relevant and personalized — Messenger is more intimate than email, and the way you communicate there should reflect that.
5. Take Advantage of User-Generated Content
After the holidays, shoppers have serious ad fatigue. They may even be blind to the discounts and offers on your site. One way to get their attention is with user-generated content, or the photos and reviews from your happy customers.
When potential buyers see how others are using your products, or wearing the clothes and accessories you sell, they will be more likely to buy those items. For maximum impact, integrate customer content into your personalized pop-ups by showing star ratings and reviews alongside recommended products to create social proof.
You probably collected a ton of UGC over the holiday sales, but if you’re looking for more, you can always run a social media photo contest, or incentivize past customers to leave reviews with coupons or loyalty points.
Conclusion
The new year is a great opportunity for eCommerce stores to improve their websites and implement new tactics to attract and retain more customers. Give the 5 strategies I shared a try to maximize your conversions in 2018.
