Learn how to attract new customers to your online store
One of the most challenging bits of being an eCommerce business is attracting new customers to your online store. Between trying to dominate the search engines and building a decent organic traffic flow, eCommerce ventures can often be confused about what it is that needs to be actually done.
If you consider yourself to be one of those ventures; don’t worry! In this blog, we share 15 tips that will help you attract new customers to your online store. Just by implementing these into your strategy, you will see your customer base grow right before your eyes.
So, without further ado, let’s get right into these tips!
Contents
- Why is Attracting New Customers Important
- 15 Tips of Attracting New Customers
- Conclusion
Why is Attracting New Customers Important?
Most businesses are focused on retaining customers and honestly, we get it. It is very important to keep your existing customer base happy as they can literally make or break your business. However, attracting new customers for your online shop is also important, and that too for a lot of reasons.
For starters, adding new customers to your existing list could mean an increase in sales, which would lead to better revenue. Not only that, but businesses that are struggling to heighten brand awareness for their business will also benefit from new customers.
New customers can also enable you to make brand improvements, as they give you a better idea of where you stand as a business. They will also urge you to be more competitive and constantly outsmart your competitors, which is a great way to make sure that you emerge as a leader.
15 Tips of Attracting New Customers
Now that we have an idea of why exactly it is important for businesses to attract new customers, let’s take a look at some tips that can help you bring an influx of new customers and clients to your online shop!
1) Start utilising social media
Don’t tell us that you didn’t see this one coming! Although social media is a great way to communicate with people, it has also become a holy grail for all things business – to the point that if you are not utilising social media to push your business forward, you are making a huge mistake.
But we are sure you already know that, so let’s just move on to discussing how exactly social media can help you bring in new customers. The truth is that social media is a powerful sales tool; it will help you build loyalty and trust through conversation, which can help you attract new shoppers.
Not only that, but social media forms a dynamic environment that allows you to try different marketing methods, and hence allows you to reach out to people in the best ways possible. So, if you haven’t already, now is the time you start perceiving social media as a way to bring in more business and get to using it to your benefit!
2) Make SEO your top priority
Here’s the thing; as much as we wish things were different and we didn’t HAVE to work hard to build our presence on the internet, that’s just not the case. If you want to actually create a place for yourself on search engines and ultimately, on the internet in general, you have to take your SEO game up a notch.
And as simple as it is to just say that, actually perfecting search engine optimisation is a difficult job. However, if you actually work hard and start focusing on it, you will see that SEO actually pays off. If you are ranking for the right search terms, you don’t even have to worry about reaching out to your customers – you will simply show up on their screens the second they type that keyword.
When it comes to improving your SEO, our advice is to get to really know your buyers, publish relevant and authoritative content, and make sure it is updated regularly. Just doing these things will allow you to improve your search engine optimisation strategy, which can then be used to improve your standing on the internet in general.
3) Don’t underestimate the power of going local
Just because you are an online business doesn’t mean that you can’t provide an experiential, in-person taste of your brand to potential customers. Engaging with locals and people in your target areas personally is a great way to lead them to your website and other channels.
The best thing about this particular method of attracting new customers is that you don’t need an actual physical store to give way to this. There are many other ways you can do this. For example, you can participate in local markets, pop up shops, trade shows, and craft fairs. If you provide shoppers with a seamless, branded experience in these places, you will basically be giving them a reason to shop with you online as well.
To take this up a level, you can offer discounts to your in-person shoppers that will incentivise shopping with you online, and will hence guide the customers towards your online store. In actuality, there are so many ways you can make this work for you, so we advise you get creative and really figure out what exactly it would be that calls out to your customers the most.
4) List your business on review sites
We don’t know about you, but we cannot even think about purchasing things before checking the reviews. And there are many customers out there who would agree with us! Unless they are paid, reviews are quite possibly the most authentic opinion of a brand and its products, which is why the majority of customers actively seek reviews before a purchase.
This doesn’t mean that you should get out and start faking your reviews. Instead, list your business on review aggregator sites. These sites consolidate reviews on businesses from multiple people and basically provide vital information on a brand. Doing well on these sites will really boost your traffic, and potential shoppers will know exactly what is waiting for them if they become your customers!
If you have a physical store and are only just starting out online, what you can do is ask your brick-and-mortar shoppers to leave a review on sites like Google and Yelp. This way, anyone who is looking to shop with you will know that you are an authentic brand, and will make it easier for them to decide to shop with you.
5) Incentivise shopping with rewards, discounts, and other promotions
Who doesn’t love rewards and discounts? Rewards and discounts, as well as any other promotion deals such as the infamous Buy One Get One Free package are usually very attractive to customers, and adding these to your strategy will only help you get in more business.
Whether it is percentage discounts, limited time sales, free shipping thresholds, or product bundles; when they are marketed currently, these promotions can really tell your customers that you offer amazing deals, which will encourage them to shop with you and interact with your brand in other ways as well.
When it comes to announcing these deals, you can again utilise the power of social media. So, along with using your own channels to promote your deals and special packages, you can also advertise within specific groups and attract a bigger audience in that way.
6) Focus on the aesthetics
When it comes to your online shop, aesthetics matter more than you think. After all, your website cements your online identity, and if it isn’t pleasing to the eyes, chances are that it will not be considered a good enough channel to invest in.
Therefore, we recommend you to really stay in the loop with top website trends and themes, and make sure you are taking these into regard when figuring out your own web design tactics. Everything from the typography of your website to the layout and structure of all the elements adds up to the user experience you are providing, which is important in terms of attracting new customers.
However, that is not enough. In this area, the more unique and creative you are, the more you can catch the customer’s eye and make them realise how different you are and overall better than other brands. So, in this area, try being more artistic and just doing more in general, and you will see how well it pays off in the end.
7) Try influencer marketing
Influencer marketing is a great way to attract new customers. In today’s day and age, people really value authentic opinions and influencer marketing is very effective in this regard. Influencers have a connection with their followers and fan-base, and this connection can be tapped into in order to sell your products. For this reason, we definitely recommend influencer marketing as a way of reaching out to new people and bigger audiences.
There are many other benefits of influencer marketing as well. You get increased brand awareness, your social media following, gain credibility, and get new content without putting in the effort. Influencer marketing really makes everything easier for you as a business, and each of the benefits it actually provides leads right back to you getting new customers – so it is a win-win situation.
The only thing to keep in mind is that you should choose the right influencers for your brand. Make sure that their audience can be your audience too. For example, if you are a clothing brand for kids, you would want to go for “mommy influencers” as opposed to, say, fitness influencers! Just ensure that the influencer of your choice aligns with the message you want to give your customers.
8) Ensure top-notch web functionality
If you visit a website and it is taking too long to load, what will you do? You will shut it down and look for an alternative, right? Well, this is why it is completely important for you to ensure top-notch web functionality. Your website load time should be lightning fast if you want visitors to turn into customers.
But we get it – it is easier said than done. Sometimes, website defects and errors are beyond your control and you just can’t avoid them! But what you can do is stay in touch with your website at all times so that any problems that do show up can be acknowledged on time and tackled correctly before they cause more trouble.
Keeping a close check on the functionality of your website can really help you improve the overall conversion rate you are hitting, and hence this is one of the most important ways you can attract new customers.
9) Optimise your store for mobile use
Online shopping and stores are no longer all about desktop – it is all about mobile these days! In Q2 of 2022, mobile devices made up almost 59% of the web traffic, which means that many people out there like shopping for things from their mobiles. Therefore, you need to optimise the entire shopping experience you provide for mobile functioning.
There are a few things you will need to do. Firstly, when it comes to your web design, go for a mobile-first approach. This would make your website design easy to work well on phones, since most of your customers will be browsing it from there. Secondly, you need to make sure that you are avoiding any unnecessary clutter that will bloat up your website and lead it to lag on the mobile experience.
Oh, and make sure that you keep in touch with how your website looks on the website regularly, as this will allow you to make any required adjustments on time!
10) Master Google Ads
Google Ads can obviously help you – so you should not hesitate from focusing on them if needed. Mastering Google Ads to get new customers, however, requires time and effort and not all businesses will get it right on the first try.
However, there are countless resources available on the internet that will help you not only learn everything about Google Ads, but also understand how it can be leveraged to grow your audience base.
The three main principles of Google Ads are relevance, control, and results; as long as you are focused on these three elements and are trying your best to incorporate these into your strategy, you will see that Google Ads is a brilliant sales tool and can help you attract customers that will actually interact with your business and eventually may even become a solid part of your customer base.
11) Run email marketing campaigns
With the help of email marketing, you can create personalised content that will actually attract more buyers. The good thing about email marketing is that it doesn’t require a lot of money or investment. All you have to do is be creative with your campaign, and you are likely to do wonders.
With the help of a nicely written newsletter or similar email marketing campaigns, you can increase leads and generate more traffic to your website. All of this could potentially lead to more customers, which is precisely what every business wants!
12) Understand that video content is the future
In order to reach out to more people, you need to make content that could go viral. Going viral should be at least one of your goals, because it brings unparalleled traffic to your business. And thanks to updated algorithms on almost every social media channel, video format is the best kind of format for your content.
The most video content you put out, the better chances you have for reaching out to a wider audience. Be creative with your videos, make relevant content, and make sure you are actually resonating with your customers – which can be easily done if you understand your audience and do your research!
13) Keep in touch with competitors.
eCommerce can be a ruthless place; the amount of competition you consistently have to deal with is unreal. However, the only way you can stay on top of this is by staying in touch with your competitors the entire time. You need to keep an eye on their every move, and then try your best to out smart them.
Remember, every customer that doesn’t do business with you may end up doing it with a competitor they consider to be a better fit, so you really need to put in the effort and make sure that at least as far as you are concerned, you are not giving them the opportunity to do any of that and are providing your customers with the absolute best to begin with.
14) Take your audience’s interests in regard
This one seems a little obvious, but you really do have a better chance of attracting your new customers if you are already impressing the customers you have. This is because there is nothing better than word-of-mouth, and when your customers say good things about you, they will end up encouraging others to also do business with you.
So, you should make sure that you really take your audience’s interests in regards. This can be done by getting feedback from them on your services, and making sure that it actually translates in the customer experience you provide.
15) Craft the perfect customer experience
The perfect customer experience will help you get more people onboard. But this is not just about the right sales and marketing techniques. In fact, the perfect customer experience has more to do with your logistics and the back end processes of your business than anything else.
Therefore, in order to achieve the perfect, most seamless customer experience, you have to focus on the fulfilment processes you have in place; which you can do with the help of an eCommerce fulfilment software like Canary7.
The Final Take
So, what are you waiting for? Note these 15 tips down, and get on with bringing more customers to your online shop today! Remember – as long as you are putting in the right amount of work and are consistent with your efforts, there is nothing that you can’t achieve. So, even if you feel like your online shop has a lot of work that needs to be done, as long as you are willing to put in that work, you are definitely on the right track.
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