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Drive sales on autopilot with ecommerce-focused features
See FeaturesShopify is a great platform for anyone looking to set up an online store. However, just like in physical retail shops, having a great-looking store and amazing products won’t make you successful unless you get potential customers to walk through your door and buy from you. That’s why learning how to get sales on Shopify is arguably as important as having quality products at good prices.
This guide can help you both in the short term, by driving traffic to your online store, and over the long term by teaching you how to get return customers. But first, let’s look at a few things you might need to address.
Why don’t you get sales in your Shopify store?
It’s tough to see visitors stop by your store and then leave again without making a purchase. Here are a few of the main reasons why it happens:
- Poorly-designed website: Slow loading times, hard-to-find menus, typos, and an unprofessional appearance are all red flags from a customer perspective. The easiest way to fix this is to find a theme from your ecommerce platform that is intuitive, looks attractive, and has good user reviews.
- Unattractive and low-quality images: High-quality images make your store look professional and give a great first impression. Provide high-definition product photos with a variety of angles and real-life examples so shoppers can make informed decisions.
- Lack of social proof: Shoppers feel more secure when they see social proof. Reviews, social media posts, product unboxings, and other public interactions with your brand prove that others are happily buying from you and enjoying your products.
- Lack of detail in product descriptions: Avoid dull, generic descriptions of your products. Instead, use storytelling techniques that appeal to emotions. Conjure images of how the product might feel, sound, and smell in the customers’ hands.
- Unattentive customer service: A physical store always has an attendant on hand to answer questions and help customers make their choices. Adding a live chat feature is the best option for small ecommerce businesses, allowing you to respond quickly and efficiently to any issues customers might have.
- Poorly defined target audience: The internet is a really big place, and aimlessly shooting your message across won’t help you reach too many potential buyers. You need a specific target to aim at, and this means that you’ll have to do your research and define exactly who your target customer is.
- Lack of value proposition: Odds are that others are also selling what you’re selling, which makes it essential to find various ways to set yourself apart from your competitors. Special discounts, unique features, and loyalty benefits are ways to get potential customers to choose you.
10 ways how to get sales on Shopify
Discovering how to get sales on Shopify is a journey, and you’ll constantly need to revise your strategy along the way. The good news is that you can begin with these 10 steps:
- Make use of email marketing
- Optimize your product descriptions and images
- Use targeted popups
- Build social proof
- Run targeted promotions
- Reach out to influencers
- Leverage blog content for SEO
- Offer loyalty programs
- Customize your checkout pages
- Take inspiration from other Shopify stores
1. Make use of email marketing
Email continues to be one of the most effective ways of building a strong customer base. It allows you to personalize your communication with existing and potential customers by showcasing your products and offers right in their inboxes.
Below, are three effective email marketing practices to boost your sales on Shopify:
Provide a clear benefit for someone joining your email list
Many people are weary of having yet another company clogging their inboxes with promotional emails every week. You’ll have to incentivize signups by providing a benefit, usually in the form of a gift voucher or store discount. Promote this on your website, on social media, during in-person events, and wherever you think that people who are interested in what you have for sale may see it.
Segment your target audience
Segmenting your audience essentially means separating them into smaller categories based on common characteristics. Doing this can help you market the right product to a specific segment of your email list, ultimately driving sales on Shopify. After determining your segmenting criteria, you can collect data on your email subscribers via forms and surveys. You can then use Omnisend’s segmentation features to send personalized emails to your audience.
Track your success
Once your email marketing campaigns are up and running, make sure you constantly monitor your results and try to find new ways to make your approach more effective. Look at open and click rates and conversion rates. This should let you know if you need to find new ways of getting people to open your email or to get those who open it to make an actual purchase.
Kerrits, a company that designs horse riding apparel for women and children, managed to raise its revenue-per-email by a spectacular 50% with Omnisend’s segmentation features. It used Omnsend to target its messaging to the right audience, which significantly boosted its email performance.
2. Optimize your product descriptions and images
A big disadvantage of online stores compared to brick-and-mortar shops is that customers can’t touch the products and hold them in their hands. First of all, this means that you need to rely on high-quality pictures of all your products.
Showcasing all the aspects of your products helps the customer know what they’re buying and enhances your store’s credibility. You also need multiple pictures from different angles and perspectives. Images of people using your products can be particularly effective.
A picture speaks a thousand words… but not when it comes to sales. Online, there’s no store salesperson to describe products and answer customer questions, so your product descriptions need to be clear, to the point, and highly persuasive. Products rarely “sell themselves,” no matter how good they are. You have to showcase them with both images and words.
3. Use targeted popups
Popups can be a powerful marketing tool when implemented correctly. The exact ways in which you can target potential customers using popups vary based on what you’re selling. Omnisend has a wide range of popup templates that you can use for each situation. Common examples of targeted popups are:
- Email list invite: As mentioned earlier, building a strong email list can do wonders for your online business and increase sales on Shopify. You can get people to sign up by creating a dedicated popup in which you invite them to join your email list in exchange for a reward, such as a discount, free shipping, or a free product on their first order.
- Exit intent popup: It’s a shame to get someone to visit your Shopify store only to see them walk away empty-handed. An exit popup can get customers to make a purchase by offering extra value just before they leave your site.
4. Build social proof
The best brand ambassadors for your Shopify online store are those who bought and used your products. Having positive user reviews, testimonials, unboxing clips, social media mentions, and other forms of online feedback can add an essential layer of credibility to your online business. We’re social creatures, and we tend to value the opinions of other members of our communities, even if we don’t know them personally.
As with every other aspect of your online sales journey, getting people to talk about your products doesn’t always happen organically. Sometimes, you need to nudge things a little by finding ways to persuade satisfied customers to share their opinion on you and your products. You can do that by pointing them to various review platforms, such as Google, Facebook, or Amazon, which can help drive more sales on Shopify.
5. Run targeted promotions
Personalizing your promotions based on their target audience can boost their effectiveness. Some examples of targeted promotions are:
- Discounts: One of the most common and universally effective promotions is offering your products at discounted prices. You can, for instance, combine multiple steps on this list and include a discount promotion targeted at those who visit your website and attempt to leave without buying anything through an exit popup.
- Seasonal offers: You can promote the products that are in high demand at a given time. For example, you can target users who previously bought children’s items by promoting notebooks and pencils a few weeks before school starts in late summer.
- Bundle deals: If someone is about to buy a product for your website, you can try promoting other items that would complement their purchase. For instance, someone who is about to order a guitar will probably also need guitar picks, a strap, spare strings, and other related products.
6. Reach out to influencers
Having a public figure use your products can be a wonderful way to raise brand awareness. Not only do they have a large media following, but the people who follow them usually trust their judgment. Once you’ve found an influencer that fits your brand, you can use the content they generate outside of social media, too, adding it to your newsletter, automated emails, and more.
Think carefully about your target audience and brand image when searching for the right influencer. Your first priority should be finding someone with an audience that’s naturally interested in what you have to offer.
If you have a younger audience, TikTok and Instagram might be the best platforms for you. If you have a very specific niche, such as selling fishing gear, then look to YouTube channels or popular magazines in the fishing world.
7. Leverage blog content for SEO
Having a blog can work wonders for your SEO. Constantly posting well-written and relevant content can position your website as a trusted source for answering customers’ questions on specific issues.
Imagine you’re running an online auto parts store and constantly posting blogs with straightforward guides to various DIY car repair jobs. If the content is accurate, well-written, and easy to follow, people will be using your blog posts to guide them on how to make minor car repairs. This will drive additional traffic to your website, and many visitors will also be looking to buy auto parts.
The first step to accomplishing this is realizing what your target audience wants to know. Discover the most relevant keywords in your field and either start creating relevant content on those topics or hire a content writer to do it for you. Make sure you regularly add content and that your website is optimized for mobile devices.
8. Offer loyalty programs
Having repeat customers can do wonders for your bottom line. Not only are they easier to sell to because they already know and trust you, but they also spend more by coming back to you.
This makes them an integral part of your long-term success. Having repeat customers is also a powerful marketing tool, as they’ll probably talk about you with friends, colleagues, and family members.
Loyal customers must be rewarded. This can come in various forms, such as a points system that gives them rewards when they hit certain milestones. Your goal should be to create a win-win situation, in which you keep a customer loyal and they get more than they paid for. Luckily, there are plenty of sources to inspire you when building your loyalty programs.
9. Customize your checkout pages
High cart abandonment rates can be really frustrating for online store owners. You’ve managed to grab a potential customer’s attention, got them to visit your website, and made them interested enough to actually put some products in their shopping cart, only to see them walk away without spending a dime. A big reason for this is if your online store doesn’t have an attractive and easy-to-use checkout page.
Many online buying decisions are spur-of-the-moment types of situations. That doesn’t mean the customer will necessarily regret their decision later on. Still, given enough time, they may decide that they don’t need your products right away or that they may find something better elsewhere. Learn how to customize your Shopify checkout page so that the customer will easily go through the whole process in as little time as possible.
10. Take inspiration from other Shopify stores
The best people to learn from are those who’ve done it all before. There are almost five million Shopify stores operating today, giving you plenty of sources of inspiration. Look up the most successful Shopify stores in your niche and analyze every aspect of their websites, from basic design to how they engage with their target audience, market their products, and incentivize loyal customers.
Be thorough and look for every little detail that helps them differentiate themselves from their competitors. Take note of the images they use, their theme’s menu interfaces, their checkout processes, and more to see what can be implemented in your own store. Not only will you learn valuable Shopify best practices, but you’ll be inspired to design and create a Shopify store that’s as beautiful and user-friendly as you can make it.
How to get sales on Shopify: Wrap up
Whether you’re new to the game or a seasoned pro, every ecommerce retailer wants to know how to get more sales on Shopify. Luckily, there are many tips and techniques that you can implement right now to increase your Shopify sales. All it takes are the right ecommerce automation tools and a little work.
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