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eCommerce Tips

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How to Build the Most Effective Personalization Strategy for Your eCommerce

March 20, 2022 By Joe Rawlinson

Ecommerce personalization is the process of tailoring a customer’s online shopping experience to their individual preferences. This can be done by collecting data about the customer’s browsing history, purchase history, contact information, and then using that data to create a profile for the customer.

Once the profile is created, the ecommerce platform can use it to personalize the customer’s experience by displaying different content, recommendations, and prices depending on their individual preferences.

The Benefits of eCommerce Personalization

When it comes to eCommerce, personalization is key.

With the right customization, you can create a unique and tailored shopping experience for each and every customer. This not only makes them feel special but also encourages them to keep coming back to your store.

But what are the specific benefits of eCommerce personalization? Here are just a few:

Increased Engagement and Loyalty

When customers feel like they’re being taken into account, they’re more likely to stay engaged with your store.

Personalized content keeps them interested and makes them more likely to return in the future.

The best digital strategy should foster customer loyalty. Customers who have a positive personal experience are more likely to become loyal advocates for your brand.

Greater Customer Satisfaction

A personalized shopping experience is more satisfying for customers. They feel like they’re being treated as individuals rather than just another number in a crowd. This can lead to increased spending and longer customer lifetime values.

Improved Conversion Rates

Studies have shown that personalization can lead to increased conversion rates. In fact, in some instances, these rates were actually doubled.

When customers feel like they’re getting something special, they’re more likely to complete a purchase.

More Targeted Advertising

By tracking customer data and using it to personalize ads, you can target your audience more effectively. This means that you’ll be able to reach more of the right people with your advertising, which can lead to increased revenue.

Greater Customer Engagement

Ultimately, the goal of eCommerce personalization is to create a more engaging experience for customers.

By providing a personalized shopping experience, you’re encouraging customers to interact with your store on a deeper level. This can lead to increased brand awareness and loyalty in the long run.

How to Use Ecommerce Personalization

There are a number of ways that businesses can use ecommerce personalization.

The most common way is to personalize the content that is displayed on the website. This can be done by displaying different products or recommendations to different customers or by using the customer’s profile to personalize the tone of the content.

For instance, if your business is creating and selling custom hoodies in collaboration with https://printify.com/custom-hoodies/, you can advertise different hoodies on the front page with the option to let interested people explore even more.

Businesses can also use personalization to customize the pricing for different customers. This can be done by displaying different prices to different customers based on their location, purchase history, or contact information.

Businesses can also offer discounts to customers who have a history of buying from them at one point in the past.

Finally, businesses can use personalization to send different customers personalized messages. This can be done by collecting data about the customer’s contact information, purchase history, or browsing history and then using it to create a profile for the customer.

Once the profile is created, the business can use it to send the customer personalized messages with recommendations, discounts, or special offers.

The Steps You Need to Take

But how do you go about creating an effective personalization strategy? Whether you are going to get the services of one of the best eCommerce SEO companies, or do it all by yourself, you should still take the following steps into consideration.

Define your goals

Before you can personalize your content, you first need to define your goals. What do you hope to achieve with personalization? More web traffic? Higher conversion rates? Increased customer loyalty? Once you know your objectives, you can tailor your strategy accordingly.

Know your audience

It’s not enough to know your goals; you also need to understand your audience. Who are they? What do they want? What are their needs and desires? What is in style and what isn’t? Only by understanding your target market can you create content that resonates with them.

Collect data

In order to personalize your content, you need data. This data can come from a variety of sources, including customer surveys, website analytics, and social media. Collect as much data as you can so you can get a complete picture of your audience.

Use segmentation

Once you have your data, it’s time to start segmenting it. Segmentation allows you to group your customers based on factors such as demographics, interests, and behavior. This makes it easier to target them with relevant content.

Create personalized content

Now that you have your data, it’s time to create your content. Start by addressing each segment of your audience individually, and use their unique needs and desires to create personalized messaging.

Test and measure

Like any other marketing strategy, personalization requires testing and measurement to ensure that it’s effective. Try different combinations of content and targeting methods to see what works best for your audience. Then use analytics to track the results and make tweaks as necessary.

Keep it fresh

One of the dangers of personalization is that it can quickly become stale if not done correctly. To avoid this, be sure to regularly update your content and target new segments of your audience. Keep things fresh and you’ll keep your customers engaged.

Personalization Insights

There are three types of personalization insights:

  • Demographic
  • Behavioral
  • Contextual

Demographic insights are based on information about a customer’s age, gender, location, or other characteristics.

Behavioral insights come from understanding how customers behave – what they click on, what they buy, and so on.

Contextual insights are based on the current situation, such as what type of device a customer is using or what time of day it is.

All three types of insights are important for businesses to understand in order to personalize their marketing messages. Each type provides different information that can be used to create a more tailored experience for customers.

For example, if a business knows that a customer is male, aged 18-24, and located in the United States, they can use this information to target him with ads for products that are popular among young men in the US.

If a business knows that a customer has clicked on a lot of articles about cars, they might send her an ad for a car dealership. And if a business knows that it is 9 pm on a Friday night, they might send a customer a special offer for drinks at a local bar.

All businesses should aim to collect as much demographic, behavioral, and contextual data as possible in order to create the most personalized experiences for their customers.

Personalization is becoming increasingly important as customers grow tired of generic marketing messages.

By using insights from all three types of data, businesses can create experiences that are relevant and interesting to each individual customer.

How to Collect Data for Ecommerce Personalization

There are a number of ways that businesses can collect data for ecommerce personalization. The most common way is to collect data about the customer’s browsing history. This can be done by tracking the items that the customer clicks on and adding them to a profile.

Businesses can also collect data about the customer’s purchase history by tracking the items that the customer buys and adding them to their profile.

Another way to collect data is to ask the customer for their contact information. This can be done by collecting the customer’s name, email address, or phone number. businesses can also collect data about the customer’s location.

Finally, businesses can collect data about the customer’s gender and age. You can either ask the customer to provide this information or by using data from social media accounts.

eCommerce Personalization and Other Marketing Campaigns

eCommerce personalization can complement other marketing campaigns by targeting specific customers with relevant offers.

For example, if a customer has recently visited a site but hasn’t made a purchase, eCommerce personalization can target that customer with an offer for a discount on their next purchase.

Personalized offers like this are more likely to be accepted by customers than generic offers, so they can be an effective way to increase sales.

It can also be used to target customers who have already made a purchase.

For example, a retailer might use eCommerce personalization to recommend similar products to customers who have bought a particular item. This can help to increase the likelihood of customers making further purchases, and it can also help to increase the average size of each purchase.

Conclusion

It’s not enough to know who your customers are, you need to understand how their brains work. We hope that this article convinces you of the importance and the benefits of personalization strategies in eCommerce.

The strategies shared in this article should give you a good start on what it takes to build the most effective personalization strategy for your ecommerce site.

Remember to recognize your target audience, gather as much information as possible, and implement it using the tips above.

Author Bio

Travis Dillard is a business consultant and an organizational psychologist based in Arlington, Texas. Passionate about marketing, social networks, and business in general. In his spare time, he writes a lot about new business strategies and digital marketing for SEO Turnover.

How to Optimize Your Website (Explained Using a Real Example)

May 18, 2020 By Joe Rawlinson

How to Optimize Your Website

Optimizing your website is easier said than done. A lot of business owners are under the impression that all it involves is simply creating a visually-appealing site and then sitting back and waiting for results.

No matter how great the design of your website is, you can’t just spend an hour on it and be done. Optimizing your website is an ongoing process that you need to stay on top of.

When you effectively optimize your website, you can:

  • Cater your website to your unique audience
  • Increase organic traffic
  • Capitalize on existing traffic
  • Fulfill and exceed your audience’s expectations

Above all, optimizing your website is incredibly helpful when it comes to increasing your conversion rate. You can have thousands of clients visit your website every day. But, without optimizing it to give them a superior user experience, they’ll take their business elsewhere.

Optimizing a website is an intricate task. It takes a lot of trial and error to achieve optimal results. Instead of starting from scratch, we’ll cover exactly how we would optimize a real website.

The website we’ll be looking at today is called Dad’s Guide to Twins. This site is a great resource that offers tips to fathers who are raising twins. While the information is detailed and helpful, the website itself could benefit greatly from proper optimization. Check out exactly what we would do to increase conversions on this site. In this case, conversions aren’t sales but rather email signups for a newsletter.

Perform Keyword Research

Dad’s Guide to Twins is a very informative site that has a conversational style to it. As a parent himself, author Joe Rawlinson offers his advice to new fathers. However, his site could benefit from significant keyword research. It needs to implement the proper balance of keyword usage and everyday conversation all while avoiding keyword stuffing.

Below, we looked up the phrase “parenting twins” on a free keyword research tool called Keywordtool.io. By searching this simple phrase, we were able to find several popular long-tail keyword phrases like “parenting school age twins” and “twins parenting alone.” While some of the results are relevant to Dad’s Guide to Twins, others like “parenting twins meme” can be left out.

As a website owner, you can follow similar steps to optimize your website. Start with a broad keyword that relates to your website. For instance, if you sell pool cleaning supplies, start with a phrase like “pool cleaning products.” From there, whatever keyword research tool you use will suggest other keywords that you can filter through. Keep an eye out for long-tail keywords that will attract your ideal audience. As you create more pages for your website, repeat these steps over and over again to keep up with trending keywords.

Produce Longer Content

While some website owners may think short content is the way to go, this isn’t usually the case. According to Medium.com, the most engaging content pieces are those that take seven minutes to read. The average person can read around 1,000 words in three-and-a-half minutes. With this in mind, most informational pieces on a website should reach upwards of around 2,000 words.

Dad’s Guide to Twins has mainly shorter-form content pieces, especially in the “Twin Pregnancy Week by Week” category. To get readers more engaged, he can build on all of these pieces and create longer content going forward.

Similarly, you can build lengthier content pieces on your website. However, avoid falling into the trap of filling them with fluff. Rather, you need to make sure you are offering something of value to your website’s visitors. Google will love the additional information that you are providing and your chances of ranking higher on the SERP will increase.

There is no one ideal length for every niche. To get an idea of how long your content pieces should be, do a quick Google search for your primary keyword. Take a look at the top results: what is the average length of those pages? Try to make all of your pages around this length.

Perform A/B Split Testing

To improve the overall user experience on Dad’s Guide to Twins, we would perform A/B split testing. In our experience and through reading over our Convertica client reviews, we’ve learned how important it is to test different versions of website pages against one another. This way, we can determine which versions will generate the most conversions. Some specific website changes that Dad’s Guide to Twins can consider include:

  • Simplifying and reordering the navigation bar
  • Incorporate more custom illustrations to reinforce the brand
  • Use animation and motion (with intent)
  • Changing text links to CTA buttons

While Dad’s Guide to Twins does incorporate some CTA buttons, there are quite a few text links that don’t have quite the same effect:

Now that you’ve seen how we would’ve optimized a website, you should have a better idea of where to start with your own. Keep an open mind throughout the process so that you can offer your potential and existing customers the best experience possible. Watch your conversions skyrocket from there!

 

About the Author
Kurt Philip is the founder & CEO of Convertica where he ensures the company remains at the forefront of CRO technology by constantly testing and developing strategies with his team. In his spare time, Kurt is a keen cyclist and doesn’t let a day go by without some time on his bike.

Actionable & Effective Ways to Increase Your E-Commerce Sales

May 29, 2019 By Joe Rawlinson

Effective Ways to Increase Your E-Commerce Sales

E-commerce is the fastest growing retail channel and is expected to become surpass grocery retail by 2022.

Shopping habits have changed drastically over the past decade, and today, people are comfortable buying almost anything online because of just how convenient, affordable, and safe it has become.

But while there are certainly plenty of opportunities for those that want to start an e-commerce business, success isn’t a given.

Many online stores struggle with attracting new customers and growing their revenue, and that mostly has to do with the fact that their entire e-commerce business model isn’t optimized to achieve growth and satisfy the increasing demand of their target audience.

But what can be done?

Well, in this article, we’ll explore a few actionable ways that can help you to increase e-commerce sales and gain an advantage over your competitors.

Revamp Your Email Marketing Strategy

Making a sale on your first interaction with a prospective client is challenging – even if someone is actively looking for the products that you’re selling, there’s no guarantee that they’ll come back to your site after the initial visit and won’t just buy from the competition.

That’s where an effective email marketing strategy can be so powerful.

It allows you to capture your site’s visitors onto an email list and engage with them multiple times, dramatically increasing your chances of converting them into customers.

But although most e-commerce business owners understand the potential benefits of email marketing, few of them actually know how to use it effectively and get the most of what it has to offer.

Email marketing can account for as much as 23% of your sales and provides the best ROI, but many online sellers focus on generating more traffic to their site, which doesn’t produce nearly the same results.

But how can you improve your sales using email marketing?

Well, the first step is having a way to capture leads at a better rate.

You need to create a compelling opt-in form, incentivizing people to join your list with exclusive deals, special bonuses, or valuable information that can improve their experience with your product.

If you want, you could even consider creating separate landing pages or pop-up opt-in forms that get seen by all of your visitors so that you can convert a higher percentage of your visitors.

Some e-commerce sellers have even found success by using YouTube end screen templates to create call-to-actions, asking people to subscribe or to join a list.

Next, you must look at the emails themselves and plan them out in a way that engages your subscribers at the right time.

For instance, sending abandoned cart emails has been proven to be extremely effective in helping you drive your sales up – many people get distracted and aren’t able to complete their purchase even though they intended to buy.

Another thing you must figure out how to reward your subscribers for joining your list.

An easy and effective approach is to offer them exclusive deals, but if you want to take it to another level, you should provide personalized deals based on their shopping habits and past behaviors – this will not only make your list more valuable to them but will also help you improve your email open rate and achieve better conversion numbers.

Optimize Your Checkout Process

Having a smooth and simple checkout process is one of the quickest ways to give a boost to your conversion numbers and overall sales.

You’d be surprised at how many people will decide that buying from you is not worth the hassle if they have to jump through hoops to make the purchase.

A simple yet very effective way to simplify your checkout is to remove the need for the buyer to register.

Sure, it would be nice to have every buyer sign up, but the truth is, it isn’t at all necessary, and many potential buyers may not be willing to put in the effort to fill out all of the forms.

Instead, you should offer an option to “Buy as Guest” alongside the option to register – while a lot of the information that they input, such as their personal data or address, will be similar, they won’t have to confirm any emails, which removes steps from the process.

Another crucial aspect is having a range of payment methods and including those that are the most popular with your audience.

Having the option to pay by card is a given, but you should also look for e-commerce solutions that allow adding PayPal, Stripe, Payoneer, and any other of the more popular options that you think your target audience would prefer.

Finally, try to make the process as simple as possible by reducing the number of steps and only requiring the essential information, since, as we already discussed, it’s better to make a sale with less information than to lose that customer forever.

Use Upselling & Cross-Selling

One of the main reasons why Amazon now controls half of the U.S. e-commerce market is its ability to cross-sell and upsell to its customers.

If you ever shopped on their site, you probably noticed how well they place similar offers, related products, and potential upgrades that you may want to consider for all of the items that they have on sale.

And the truth is, these suggestions are usually quite helpful – whether it’s an electronics item that improves the use of the main product, or a related book that helps to expand on a subject, these suggestions aren’t just a sales tool, they actually provide the visitor with a better shopping experience.

Today, there are numerous product recommendation solutions for e-commerce that can help you group products according to their categories and types, but you should make sure that you think through the strategy that you’ll be using and keep analyzing your audience to see what they respond to best.

Taking a more proactive approach is also necessary – you could even consider including exclusive bundle deals for buying a few products at once, or a special discount if a person decides to upgrade.

Improve Your Customer Support

Customer support is an integral part of succeeding with e-commerce.

No matter how smooth your shipping fulfillment process or how well-optimized your website, bad customer experiences are bound to happen, and the way that you are able to deal with them will define how successful your online business can become.

Unfortunately, customer support is where a lot of online stores fall short – they feel like it requires too much resources and opt for the lazy approach of dealing with complaints via email and taking days to respond to issues.

The good news for you is that if you can develop a customer support system that can match or exceed your audience’s expectations, you can develop a reputation in your marketplace and start attracting customers straight from your competition.

But how to make your customer support the best in your niche?

Well, you might be surprised to learn that if you implement a few key aspects, the entire process doesn’t have to be complicated nor expensive.

First off, you will need a dedicated staff or person to handle customer complaints, depending on the number of daily orders that you receive. Trying to do it on your own or putting the responsibility on someone who has other tasks as well is guaranteed to result in poor experiences for your customers, as providing excellent support requires a full commitment from the person managing it.

Next, you must ensure that you are available on more than one platform – people may reach out to you not only on your site, but also through social media, or even on review sites, so you need to monitor activity and respond promptly if you don’t want to receive an avalanche of negative reviews.

Finally, when dealing with customers, you need to be able to actually help them – this means that whoever is responsible for solving issues must have a good understanding of how to quickly address various situations and have the resources to look up or share with the customer.

You should consider using knowledge base software for establishing a resource base for all of the most common issues and questions so that your support staff can reference it or even share a link with the person that they are helping.

4 Content Marketing Tips Ecommerce Businesses Should Use in 2019

December 18, 2018 By Joe Rawlinson

Content marketing for ecommerce businesses

Content marketing is not merely effective today. Its efficiency is growing with every passing year, according to statistics. People today devour massive amounts of content daily, so providing them with the top-quality stuff is the way to set yourself apart from the competition.

In 2019, you will need to focus on complex long-form content, experiment with formats, and pay more attention to your distribution channels and commitment.

You need to step out of your “˜comfort zone’ as an ecommerce brand and become a source of valuable and helpful content, not only product catalogs.

Top 4 Tips to Boost Your Ecommerce Content Marketing Strategy in 2019

1. Make long-form content your priority

You need to create different types of content in different formats to make your strategy most efficient. However, as data from BuzzSumo says, long-form content generates a better response from the audience. This means that it usually gets more shares and it more often pops up on the first pages of Google Search.

Usually, posts with 2,000 words or more are considered long-form. It’s imperative that you make these pieces valuable to your readers as this will not only increase the social impact of the post. Detailed and informative articles will help you establish yourself as an authority in your niche.

You can also repurpose this content more easily, which will enhance your marketing strategy overall. This is most important for small businesses as such an approach is more cost-efficient.

2. Make your emails better but fewer

According to HubSpot, 78% of consumers unsubscribe from ecommerce emails because brands send them out too often.

However, this doesn’t change the fact that email marketing has one of the highest ROI.

Therefore, in 2019 you need to develop a strategy that will work for a modern buyer, who is busy, easily annoyed, and highly demanding. If you don’t have a well-defined strategic plan already, read this beginner’s email marketing guide for Ecommerce brands. Then focus on creating a list of content types that will be most valuable to your customers. Those must include:

  • Articles/videos/graphics that help customers derive more value from their purchases.
  • Special discounts and unique offers available to email subscribers only (be sure to highlight that notification and add it to the email subject line).
  • Short surveys about products, customer satisfaction, and wishes of your loyal customers.
  • Product presentations.

Emails have the best click-through rate when they have an attention-grabbing subject line and arrive between 10 and 11 in the morning. Design and schedule yours accordingly. And remember to stick to no more than 3 emails a week.

3. Go omnichannel

According to research, businesses that use an omnichannel marketing strategy have a 91% better customer retention rate. This is an advantage an ecommerce business cannot afford to miss. Therefore, you need to plan your next year’s strategy in the same way.

The goal is to deliver equally high-quality service as well as cohesive design through all your channels. You should use a variety of marketing automation solutions to make omnichannel maintenance possible. However, don’t forget that you also need to adapt your content to fit each individual channel.

4. Develop more multimedia content

While well-written informative articles still rock, now is the time of videos and podcasts. These are the formats you should invest more in for 2019. To maximize the efficiency of your content, pair up multimedia with a text, as this will allow you to also get better SEO.

Note that this type of content must be of high quality, so you’ll need to use professional tools for its development. However, as live streaming is on the rise today as well, you should use this format to help your buyers develop an emotional connection to your brand. This will enhance their loyalty.

What are your content plans fo the coming year? Let us know in the comments below.

About the Author:
Tim Gordon – My interests range from business management to traditional folk culture and adventurous traveling. I always stay open to new ideas and expertise to make my writings handy and captivating for you.

6 Things That Will Help Your Ecommerce Website Reach Relevant Traffic

June 27, 2018 By Joe Rawlinson

Improve relevant traffic to your ecommerce website

For ecommerce websites, the essential thing is to attract as much relevant traffic as possible. Of course, you need to have a well-designed website, offer quality products, add various incentives, discounts, content, etc. but all of these things are easy compared to driving quality traffic.

On top of that, all of these things won’t matter if there are no interested people visiting your site and seeing what products and discounts you are offering. This is why we have created this list of 6 things that can help you drive traffic that has interest in what your ecommerce store has to offer.

1.   Competitiveness in products and prices

When running an ecommerce store, chances are that you will have a few competitors. The nature of this kind of business allows many entrepreneurs to start something on their own and the market is fairly saturated. On top of that, you are competing with everyone on the Internet. This is why you need to be competitive with your products and prices.

Look to deliver similar or better quality products at similar or lower prices. You can use competitive pricing analysis software to boost profits by quickly learning more about your competitors, their products, and their prices and adjust yours to provide better offers to your customers and increase sales.

2.   Social media presence

Social media has become a vital part of any business online. These platforms are perfect settings for promoting your store and products while attracting more website visitors. By building your audiences on social media and engaging them, you will have the potential to build a strong presence that will be noticed.

Share updates about your store, new products, discounts, special services, and get the word out about your store. This is how more people will learn about your business and potentially buy something from you. Additionally, you can create ad campaigns on networks such as Facebook and reach wider audiences with a small investment.

3.   Work on SEO

Search engine optimization is the practice of optimizing your website in various ways to increase your search results page rankings. With a good SEO strategy for your website, you can rank for good keywords that people interested in what you have to offer search, which will lead them to your website.

SEO is the best practice for increasing organic traffic, and organic traffic carries the most value. Although SEO takes a lot of time to rank your site high in searches, once you get there it can sustain your business for a long time without having to invest in any other form of marketing. Learn about B2B SEO tips, tricks and tools, and do this on your own, step by step.

4.   PPC (Pay Per Click)

PPC ads are those sponsored search results you see when you look for something using your search engine. PPC is a paid marketing method where you can instantly climb to the top of the search rankings for certain keywords while ignoring your current SEO quality. PPC ads can also be video ads on sites, banner ads, social media ads, and so on.

These campaigns are set up very quickly and can instantly bring you lots of valuable traffic if done properly. It can be used to boost sales when you need it the most and get some long-term customers. However, it can cost a lot and backfire if done badly.

5.   CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

A CRM solution can help you gain valuable information about all of your online customers and manage relationships with them effectively. This is very important in modern business, especially in ecommerce where you need to provide great customer experience to be competitive, as explained in this article.

A CRM solution allows you to monitor all customer communications through all channels and always be there to respond to them, store information about them, analyze this information to improve marketing and sales and create better customer relationships overall.

In the online world, where there is no face-to-face communication, you need to care about your customers and tend to their needs.

6.   Branding tactics

Since the competition is fierce in ecommerce, it can be difficult to attract customers. To swim out of the sea of similar stores, you need to brand your business and offer something unique. You need to build trust around your brand and let everyone know you are serious.

This includes creating your own brand voice, sharing your story, creating branded content, implementing designs that represent your brand, and reward your customers for taking actions on your website. This is how people will remember your store and come back to it again, as well as recommending it to their friends.

Work on all of these things simultaneously to boost your traffic or prioritize them one by one to make the most out of these options.

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