How to Make Your Ecommerce Site an Engagement Factory!

There are so many ecommerce websites littering the internet these days that there’s not much to differentiate one from the other. But what sets the best ecommerce sites apart into their own category?

Great user engagement

When you love a website you also shop at, it’s difficult to stop coming back; so great user engagement can be an essential part of customer retention.

Great user engagement can also increase general traffic to your ecommerce site, social media engagement, and even your conversion rates: all affecting your bottom line.

So, without too much preamble, here are a few tips to help turn your site into an engagement factory.

Basic Ecommerce Engagement

• Do you have regular promotions?

Start doing them, and always accompany them with big, popping graphics! Research shows that the best promotion to offer clients is free shipping.

Also, ensure that you’re the cheapest or that sale items are always easy to find from the homepage. Wix ecommerce websites often make promotions easy and painless to run.

• Syndicate your product catalog…

…and ensure that it’s formatted properly. This way it can be added quickly to many shopping engines.

While shopping engines often incur a small monthly fee, it ensures that your products (and website) can be found in far more places.

It’s also a good incentive to be better about mixing content with product selections.

• Be critical of your site speed

Because of large catalogs and heavy visitation, ecommerce sites often have some of the worst server loading times.

Keep an eye on your site’s speed 24/7, and address any issues as promptly as possible. If your site is slow, more visitors will drop off… and may not come back.

• Is your ecommerce site responsive?

As much as 60% of traffic these days can be from mobile, and no one enjoys having to get an app just to access a website.

If your site isn’t responsive, write that off as lost clients… or work to get responsive.

Stepping Up Your Engagement Game

• Utilize exit pop up strategies

A good number of the best ecommerce sites launch a pop-up when visitors choose to abandon the website which offers special promotions or offer different incentives to help close sales and convert clients. If you’re not certain how to begin using an exit pop up, consider checking out ExitIntent.io.

• Use a social strategy which increases engagement

A good way to do this is to have a social sweepstakes, where clients send photos or leave messages on your ecommerce site’s social media pages for an entry to win big prizes or in return for discount codes. This not only gives a small bump to your SEO and visibility – it is fun for clients and makes you more memorable!

• Capture emails with a subscription pop up

All the best ecommerce websites have multiple areas which can capture email addresses (Houzz.com is a great example), but pop ups are by far the most successful. Make it graphic and always offer something special in return for the email address, such as access to special sales or product information.

• Use a stellar email drip campaign

It’s not enough just to send a simple text email; get great, html rich, visual emails with personalized call-outs. These should be responsive, just like your website, and utilize detailed analytics.

If you’re not doing this, you could be missing out on a massive percentage on return customers. Play around with email subject lines as well, as there are plenty of tips and tricks to help ensure maximum readership.

• Utilize a referral campaign

In most cases, this is simply a thank you email to clients which offers them a deal for referring other individuals who then in turn become clients.

Some websites, such as bonobos.com, report generating as much as 25% of their ecommerce revenue online from referral programs.

• Do everything to get a testimonial

Testimonials – and lots of them – help legitimize your website to new visitors and can dramatically increase your potential lead capture. Do whatever you can to leverage customer reviews of your product or site, and display collected testimonials visibly.

• Email reminders to avoid shopping cart abandonment

Shopping cart abandonment is a common problem that all ecommerce sites struggle with, and there are a few ways to handle this. For starters, allow clients to check out without making an account on your website. Otherwise, email reminders to individuals who have dropped off your website at the cart.

Site usability really does make a difference. Make sure shopping with you is a pleasure, and add these enhancements to increase your market share.

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Gail Gardner

Small Business Marketing Strategist at GrowMap

Gail Gardner is the founder of GrowMap.com. She is a Small Business Marketing Strategist she mentors small businesses, bloggers, and freelancers. After 23 years in the field with IBM and 5.5 years managing AdWords accounts, her focus shifted to small business marketing strategy. GrowMap.com is listed by Cision as a Top 100 Site for Marketers and has received three Small Business Influencer Awards from Small Business Trends. Named by D&B a Top 50 SMB Influencer on Twitter, you can follow Gail @GrowMap and on LinkedIn.

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