Driving Conversion: Is Your Store Running on All Cylinders?

Part 2

Content That Sells

The Goods – Do your products measure up?

Consumers are becoming more product savvy every day, fueled in part by the Internet and its seemingly endless cache of detailed product information. Comparison shopping has become a new national pastime. Of course, depending on the type of product you sell, your customers’ level of “shopping around” will vary, but the point we’re getting at here is this: you must be competitive! You can do everything else right, but if you don’t offer the right product at the right price, visitors are likely to keep on clicking until they find it. So keep your offering fresh and study your competition. Put yourself in your target customer’s shoes and shop around. As objectively as you can, try to decide whether you would buy from yourstore.com. What is it about your store and your offer that makes the difference?

Product Presentation

In addition to having the “right” products, the way you display them can be just as important. If people aren’t engaged right from your home page, or from an individual product page they’ve landed on via the search engines, you could lose them. Your design needs to be professional in look and created with e-commerce in mind. Your colors, images and photographs need to show off your products in an original, visually attractive format – all the while conveying to customers that you’re a legitimate authority on the products you sell.

Product Images

Needless to say, shopping online limits customers in terms of being able to touch, feel, fiddle with or try on products – all activities that are traditionally part of the consuming process. And even though many people shop the brick and mortars before going online to find deals, you can’t assume they don’t still want to get a really good look at what you sell. So make sure to offer high quality images of your products with as many alternate views as possible. People are visual and research has proven that products with even a simple “zoom in” or “click to enlarge” option convert higher than those with one static view. Note: Remember to optimize your images to avoid bogging down your site's performance.

Product Descriptions

Creative and clearly written copy is key. You’re selling a product, so give people benefits they can relate to. Too many online stores offer little or no product description – at their peril. Few products sell themselves on looks alone, so, working in tandem with your high-quality, optimized product imagery, your product descriptions should be unique and give customers compelling reasons to buy.

Conversion-boosting Marketing Tactics

Most forms of marketing are all about persuading customers to visit your store, but what about marketing AFTER they’ve arrived? In addition to your site’s quality and aesthetics, here are a few proactive marketing tactics you can employ to give customers a few more reasons to buy, and then buy again. And again. And again…

Cross Sell!

Would you like fries with that? Yeah, we know – you don’t sell fast food – but if Skippy down at the local grease-atorium can master the time-honored sales tactic of cross-selling, so can, and should, you. Take the time to think about your products and which ones complement each other. Offering coffee to someone buying a coffee maker seems obvious, but e-tailers who fail to cross-promote related products are missing golden opportunities to increase orders and sales.

Offer Free Stuff

One surefire way to a consumer’s heart is by way of freebies. Start with free shipping, if it makes financial sense, and go from there. Buy one get one free, buy two of these, get one of these free, etc. Freebies are a great nudge to get customers over the conversion hump and provide your store yet another competitive edge. And another thing about free shipping: according to BizRate, free shipping w/conditions caused over 40% of shoppers to make a purchase. So if you’re not offering it, give it some hard thought.

Create Loyalty

Customer loyalty programs – special offers given to returning or registered customers – are an established retail strategy, and on the rise online. According to Jupiter Research's 2005 Customer Loyalty Report, only 24 percent of online retailers currently offer loyalty-based specials, but an additional 43% plan to add this as part of their marketing mix. The top three loyalty-boosting tactics, according to Jupiter, are exclusive offers and events, regular promotions, and premium customer service.

E-mail!

E-mail continues to be the number one reason people go online, ahead of search, shopping, games and other “published” activities. So your efforts to market to customers via e-mail will not be in vain. Some simple e-mail marketing strategies:

• Send a post-sale e-mail that grants your customer “exclusive access” to a special sale or specials page. They’ve bought from you once, so inviting them into this “special” area of your site and offering discounts on hot items or products related to their sale will go a long way in “re-converting” a customer.
• Send an email one or two weeks after a sale asking for feedback on the product(s). This will help you develop a relationship with your customers, as well as provide you invaluable consumer feedback on your products. Try sending a quick survey with a coupon as a reward for completing it.
• Send an email after purchase that invites customers to shop related items.
• Send an email alerting customers to sales on similar items.