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Successful e-commerce business has a constant stream of customers. This is where lead generation plays an essential role.
In this digital age, it is not surprising that starting a business is now close to hassle-free. But it also means that you have plenty of competition.
As such, you need a robust lead generation strategy for your online store. Because without it, you cannot expect your e-commerce business to thrive.
What is a Lead in E-commerce?
A sales lead is a person who is likely to become your customer. They are the people you should attract to your e-commerce site since they have the best chance to buy your products.
However, it is not just anyone and everyone. Because as the adage goes, “Marketing to everyone is marketing to anyone.” This also means that you should run targeted marketing campaigns.
It can be a blog post that incorporates keywords that your customers are likely to use. You can also run social media ads promoting your best-selling product. But instead of targeting every, it would be best to target your ads to people who have a similar profile from your existing customers.
9 E-commerce Lead Generation Strategies You can Try
If you are curious about how you can generate more leads on your e-commerce site, here are some tried and tested strategies to try:
Grow your opt-in email lists
One of the best ways to start e-commerce lead generation is by setting up an email list. One of the most effective ways that you can communicate and nurture your leads is through email marketing.
In fact, statistics show that people are still reading emails. Moreover, they enjoy receiving emails from businesses that they support.
So, why not email prospective customers a couple of times each week? This is an excellent way to keep those leads from coming in.
Moreover, getting emails is one way to reactivate dormant customers. This can be existing customers who have not bought from you in a while or abandoned their cart.
Do you know that these basket abandoners are still considered leads since they most likely flirted with your products? So, if you have their email address, you can help them push through with the purchase.
Stay on top of your SEO game
Think about how your prospective customers look for the products that they want online. In many cases, they start searching for the items they want on search engines such as Google.
With a solid SEO strategy, you can make your website rank better on search engines results.
By doing so, it makes it easy for prospective customers to find you. It also lets you focus your marketing budget on the people who are actively searching for your products.
Run pay-per-click campaigns
Sure, we’re sold out on the idea that SEO can help your online store drive leads. However, running paid online ads can do the same.
For one, you need to set the keywords you want to target per ad. If you are selling bamboo toothbrushes online, it only makes sense that your ads should target “bamboo toothbrush.” What happens then is that Google will push your ads to people who will use the search term.
But keyword research and optimization are just scratching the surface. You should also ensure that your ads have a high quality score. The higher your quality score (on a scale of 1-10), the higher the chance your ad will appear on the search results.
Come up with an SMS marketing strategy
SMS marketing gives you high engagement scores as well. That’s because most consumers these days are more switched on than ever. Do you know that the average person picks up their phone approximately 58 times a day?
Like with email, SMS lets you connect with your prospects when they’re primed to do so. From there, you can guide your leads through your sales funnel through seamless interactions.
Utilize cookies
According to a report, retargeting campaigns are earning approximately 77% more clicks than other ads. In addition, retargeted visitors have a 70% chance of converting.
To implement these kinds of retargeting campaigns with stellar results, you need cookies on your site.
Cookies collect and store data from a visitor’s session. This includes the items they might have clicked on or added to their cart if they didn’t check out. You can utilize this cookie data to retarget past visitors and show them personalized ads that feature the products they’ve viewed.
Similarly, you can also launch your remarketing campaigns on social media and other sites via Google AdWords.
Publish valuable content
One of the primary reasons people are browsing the internet is that they want to access information quickly. You can use valuable content to your advantage by looking up people who want to know more about your products and company, then create content around this.
But how will you figure out what your customers are looking for? Well, you can do so by checking out your competitors’ websites, checking forums, and using tools such as Answer the Public.
Once you’ve identified the common questions your customers ask, you can start producing valuable content. It can be a FAQ page, blog post, or a YouTube video.
More people will likely discover your site and purchase from you by creating great content that customers want to read.
Content shouldn’t be confined to articles, either. There are a wide variety of content formats in ebooks, infographics, podcasts, and videos. As long as there is a search demand out there, then the possibilities are endless.
You can transform a piece of content in various formats so that you can get your business in front of a lot of people.
Optimize for better conversion rate
The moment a user steps into your site, you need to convert them in some way. This might mean making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or any other action that might move them down your sales funnel.
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the process of increasing your conversion against your number of site visitors. And by “conversion,” we mean the number of people who take your desired action.
In an e-commerce business, this means increasing the number of sales you make for every 100 site visitors.
You can do this by testing design elements on your product page or streamlining your checkout process. The key here, though, is ensuring that your site visitors will have an excellent customer experience.
Leverage personalization
You can implement personalization in different stages of the buyer’s journey.
According to a survey, 50% prefer personalization in products that are related to their interests. So, make sure that your site triggers that functionality.
After they make a purchase, you can then send a follow-up email. Thank them for supporting your business, and then coax them to buy more from you. It can be in the form of a discount on their next purchase or upselling your other products.
Optimize for mobile leads too
Google’s research even showed that there’s a 35% increase in mobile searches for product reviews. This means that more and more people will start searching for products using their smartphones in the future. Hence, it would help if you have a mobile-responsive e-commerce site and ads targeting mobile searches.
As long as you have an effective lead generation strategy in place, your e-commerce business can attract new leads. As such, consider using the tips listed above and see how they can help increase your sales.