As a new San Angelo e-commerce entrepreneur, securing your first customers is usually at the top of your mind. Fortunately, getting the ball rolling is simpler than you may expect. Similarly, turning those first shoppers into loyal customers isn’t tricky if you use the right strategies. Here’s how to do it.
Design an Appealing, Easy-to-Navigate Site
Before you worry about marketing or customer engagement, you need to focus on the basics. One critical element is an appealing, easy-to-navigate site, ensuring you’re offering the optimal customer experience (CX).
Begin by looking at the visual elements. Balance visual elements like images, videos, and text with whitespace, ensuring the content has room to breathe. Also, autoplay videos if you want your page to be accessible. Autoplaying audio is also risky, as it may cause sound-sensitive shoppers to leave your store.
Using an online picture resizer is wise, too. You can instantly adjust your images to fit your needs before uploading them to the site. Plus, smaller images may help pages load faster, with boosts CX.
When it comes to navigation, logical flow and simplicity are your allies. While you don’t necessarily need to follow the three-click rule, intuitiveness and streamlined processes are essential.
Finally, make sure your site is mobile-friendly. If you’re debating between adaptive vs. responsive designs, each has benefits and drawbacks. Responsive design is more versatile and faster to set up but doesn’t always yield the best result. Adaptive designs give you additional control but are more time-intensive to create. Consider your priorities and use those as a guide when choosing your approach.
Make Your Social Media Posts Shoppable
Social media is an excellent way to show off your products, particularly on visual platforms like Instagram. However, if you only have a store link on your profile page, there’s a chance you’re missing out on some potential business.
If you want to make the most of your posts, make sure that they’re shoppable. That way, customers can complete purchases without leaving their main feed.
For Instagram, you do need a Facebook catalog to add shopping features. With that in place, you can add shoppable tags to your posts, allowing customers to start the purchase process with a single tap.
Go After Guest Posts from Well-Known Figures
When most businesses focus on guest posts, they look for places where they can publish blogs as guest posters to generate traffic. While that’s certainly a solid strategy, flipping that script can actually work in your favor.
By reaching out to potential guest posters with audiences that align with your target market, you can get fresh content for your site while tapping into their audience. Plus, you can cross-advertise the post with the guest poster on social media, creating a new avenue for traffic building.
Sponsor Blog Giveaways
A giveaway is a classic option for drumming up interest. If your e-commerce store is focused on products you’ve created, then sponsoring a giveaway on another blog could be a smart move.
The product review with a giveaway approach is a solid option. Essentially, you’ll provide a blogger that covers your niche (and connects with your target audience) one of your products for free in exchange for a review post on their site. Then, you give them a second one to give away to their readers.
While it isn’t always true if you’re providing free products, you may need to offer the blogger a payment for a sponsored blog post. However, it may be money worth spending. The benefits of these giveaways go beyond getting the word out about your store. You can also work with the blogger to ensure the giveaway entry methods align with your needs and theirs. For instance, you could make following you on social media or signing up for your sales emails a requirement.
If you need help with any of this, our friends at SethLife, among other members at San Angelo Studios, would love to help! Reach out to us!