Using your website as a glorified business card wastes enormous income-generating opportunities in today’s global marketing system. As a business owner, it’s critical for you to build a user-friendly, mobile-friendly and personalized website that delivers custom content to different types of customers and stakeholders while optimizing on-page and off-page strategies to attract visitors to your site and brick-and-mortar store. Once you’ve accomplished these goals, it’s relatively simple to monetize your site for e-commerce sales, so it makes little sense to waste this opportunity. You’ve got to do the heavy lifting just to appear as a reliable business, so you might as well increase your sales with e-commerce marketing, lead generation, wholesale and/or retail sales and other income-generating efforts.
Software Applications Increase Sales Dramatically
Today’s software–especially when fully integrated into your sales platform–automates many processes that make it possible to develop a holistic profile of each website visitor. Regardless of whether you sell retail, wholesale or through marketplace applications, e-commerce applications can increase sales by expanding your market into other areas such as retail sales for wholesalers, etc. You can figure out who your core customer is, what drivers convert visitors at the highest rate and which products best complement a customer’s ordering history.
Big data has become increasingly critical in modern marketing, and your e-commerce website can serve as a multi-channel platform for wholesale and retail sales, lead generation, marketplace sales and custom orders. You can even incorporate a product configurator into your website so that customers can design custom products based on their needs.
Reduce Churn Rates While Increasing Sales Frequency and Average Order Value
The more detailed your information, the higher your conversion rates will be. Conversions might mean direct catalog sales, requests for further information, in-person sales calls, signing up for a newsletter or scheduling an appointment. Detailed information–as required by e-commerce sales–helps to reduce churn rates and cart abandonment. The more accurate and relevant your content and displays are for customers, the more often they’ll order. Orders will also increase in size when you automate suggestions for upselling, accessories, upgrades, etc.
Generating Sales Through Custom Content
Custom content not only strengthens your search engine optimization but also provides better experiences for customers. Content varies depending on whether you’re targeting a household consumer, wholesale buyer, upscale designer or bargain-hunting local resident who’s looking for a cheap meal.
Managing Product Catalogs Based On Customer Needs
Regardless of whether you’re advertising for your brick-and-mortar store or online sales, customers today demand rich product information, customized catalogs-within-catalogs to simplify searches and special catalogs for sales on multiple branded sites such as Amazon and eBay. Catalog management provides details, extra information, custom search filters and specialized information from manufacturers and suppliers to satisfy demanding website users. The more complete the information, the more sales you can get from self-service ordering applications.
Today’s shoppers will willingly place orders for all types of goods and services–including local products–on their mobile phones. That’s why it’s so critical to provide 360-degree product profiles. Managing catalogs proactively can generate astonishing increases in sales, better quality sales leads and greater self-service options for automated ordering. The right catalog management strategy offers these signature benefits:
- Expand product assortment.
- Make upselling and cross-selling suggestions based on each customer’s buying behavior.
- Work more closely with suppliers to expand product descriptions, find new products and offer complementary accessories.
- Bring content to life with reviews, testimonials, photo galleries and how-to videos.
- Offer special pricing tiers for preferred customers or larger orders with high values.
- Brand key products by creating custom holiday catalogs, subject catalogs (such as remodeling a home) and manufacturer catalogs-within-catalogs.
Build Your Company’s Reputation
A well-designed, user-friendly ecommerce website makes it easy for customers to get answers to their questions, consult third-party business associates (such as shippers, supply chain details, etc.) and automate their orders. You can use your website to post customer testimonials, reviews, Q&As, photo galleries and videos to brand products and the company and strengthen the company’s reputation among customers and industry experts.
Integrate Social Media
You can increase sales dramatically by targeting specific types of customers through social media platforms. For example, if you’re selling business products, you can create a LinkedIn page to market to prime candidates for your company’s products. Campaigns and contests help to build your company’s reputation and engage your audience. You can tap into user-generated content by showing pictures of your customers using products, posting Instagram photos, launching a Facebook store and developing home pages for other social platforms.
Build a Detailed Email List
Your automated and integrated website makes it easy to generate detailed lists for emails, newsletters, white papers and custom marketing messages. You can send an incentive to customers on their birthdays, promote online and in-store sales, notify customers of new products, book tables for your restaurant and much more.
So while it’s critical to build a well-designed, easy-to-navigate and user-friendly website to serve as your company’s digital signature… it makes sound financial sense to use these resources to generate increased sales, which ensures that the costs of development pay for themselves.
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