In a recent study by HubSpot, 69% of marketers said their main priority is to convert their contacts or leads into customers, 54% said theirs is to grow their website traffic, and 44% said theirs is to increase the revenue derived from existing customers.
While the eCommerce landscape has become a competitive one, regardless of that, great conversions are backed by a solid sales funnel. Some reasons why you should work on increasing E-Commerce sales funnels are;
- reduce shopping cart abandonment,
- improve customer satisfaction,
- increase average order value, and lastly
- enhance customer lifetime value.
In this article, we discuss 6 tips to increase E-Commerce sales funnels for eCommerce business, but before that let’s recap the buyer journey.
In eCommerce the buyer journey (typically) has four stages;
Step 1: Awareness
At this stage, buyers are generally aware of a problem or need that they have, but they are not yet aware of a specific solution. They are likely researching to learn more about their problem or need and determine what potential solutions are available.
Brands nudge the target audience and let them know about the brand.
For example, they may do this through Google ads, marketing campaigns, social media, or search engine optimization (SEO).
Step 2: Consideration
At this stage, buyers are well-aware of not only their problems or needs but also potential solutions. They are now taking into account several options and assessing which one is the best fit for their needs.
That’s when brands need to provide buyers with comprehensive information about their products or service, such as features, benefits, and prices through product or landing pages, and ultimately let them know how they stand out.
Step 3: Purchase decision
At this stage, buyers have narrowed down their options and are ready to decide which product or service to purchase.
Brands need to provide a smooth and easy purchase process. They may also offer discounts or other incentives to close the deal.
Step 4: Retention and loyalty
At this stage, buyers have made the purchase, and are actively using the product.
Now, brands need to assure that the buyers are delighted with their purchase and plan to use the product in the future.
That’s when brands need to offer excellent customer service, quality supplemental products, exclusive deals, loyalty programs, or continued marketing efforts to turn them into raving fans.
Read More – UGC For E-Commerce (Complete Guide)
Goodbye, high bounce rates
To build a solid sales funnel and landing pages, you need a tool that does the job well. According to the Markin blog, 570,000 sites use at least one sales funnel-building technology.
Landing pages play a huge part in funnel building and can make the ultimate difference between a sale and a bounce. If your landing page is confusing or doesn’t match the customer’s expectations, they are likely to click away and never come back.
It is worth investing in a sales funnel and a landing page builder to create high-converting product pages, and more.
While Leadpages is a good tool to create powerful landing pages, it’s best to look into Leadpages alternatives for small businesses — the reason being;
- It has limited flexibility and customization options,
- Its UX can be buggy making it less intuitive, and
- It misses advanced features like granular testing.
6 techniques to increase e-commerce sales funnels;
1. Optimize landing pages
Landing page optimization (LPO) is a metric relating to e-commerce conversion rate optimization — which aims to improve the performance of a website’s landing page. Its goal is to increase the number of visitors who take the desired action on the landing page. For example, fill out a form or make a purchase.
While there are many reasons to optimize product pages, the two most common reasons are: to improve conversion rates and search engine rankings.
An eCommerce product page should be designed to showcase a product and encourage a user to add it to their cart. Here are the top 3 tips;
- Use persuasive product descriptions and CTAs. Product descriptions should be clear, concise, and persuasive. Use strong calls to action to encourage visitors to buy your products. Additionally, use a multi-language eCommerce solution to ensure a seamless shopping experience for customers worldwide.
- Use high-quality product images. Use high-quality product images to show off your products in their best light. Use image alt text to help improve your products’ search engine optimization.
- Targeted product recommendations. Recommend products to visitors based on their previous interactions with your site. For example, if a visitor has viewed a product page but has not added the product to their cart, you could show that product in a “Recommended for You” section on other pages of your site.
- Conduct A/B testing. Test different versions of your product pages to see which version performs better. Try different headlines, images, videos, calls to action, and discounts to see what boosts your sale the most.
2. Offer a lead magnet
Lead magnets are like freebies that you offer in exchange for an email address.
You can offer a lead magnet in the form of eBooks, PDF guides, podcasts, cheat sheets, templates, and mini-courses. Here are some lead magnet best practices;
- Make them relevant and easy to consume. For example, a report on upcoming trends.
- Ensure it adds value quickly and is actionable. For example, if your audience is skincare enthusiasts, send them a personalized skincare routine for AM/PM.
- Focus on one idea at a time. Don’t let your lead magnet be about a bazillion things, keep it close to the product you wish for them to buy.
3. Exit-intent pop-ups
Exit-intent pop-ups are designed to capture a visitor’s attention when they are about to leave a website.
They are typically used to offer a discount or promote a special offer to persuade the visitor to stay on the site. Tips to create scroll-stopping exit-intent pop-ups;
- Use strong images and headlines to grab attention
- Keep the offer clear, concise, and relevant
- Use an irresistible call-to-action, and make the pop-up easy to close
- Set the pop-up to display when the visitor is about to leave the site
- Target specific pages or visitor segments
4. Leverage social proof
Within social psychology, social proof is defined as “the occurrence of an observable behavior that is implied to reflect approval of that same behavior”.
Social proof is a type of conformity and is thought to occur when people believe that the majority of others approve of their behavior and therefore see it as more normative. Using social proof in your E-Commerce sales funnels can improve conversions and get more people to take the desired action.
- Show it off. For example, if you have user-generated content, you can use it in your shoppable galleries. Tagshop helps you to connect content with commerce easily, allowing you to capitalize on your brand’s social proof. You can collect social content in simple ways, turn it shoppable and integrate it into product, category and other selling pages of your eCommrece store.
- Use testimonials, reviews, and ratings from happy customers in your marketing materials. If you have a lot of customer reviews and ratings, you can highlight this social proof on your sales page to give potential customers an idea of what others think of your product. It’s a great tactic to use if you have a large number of positive reviews.
- Use FOMO to create a sense of urgency, and encourage people to take action now. This is often called the “fear of missing out” or FOMO.
- Certification badges on product pages and mentions from experts or thought leaders in your industry can add more credibility to your brand, and ultimately have a positive impact on your sales funnel.
5. Run contests and giveaways
If you’re not using contests and giveaways to improve your sales funnel, you’re missing out on a great opportunity.
By offering prizes that appeal to your target audience, you can encourage more people to enter your sales funnel and increase your chances of making a sale.
Best practices to conduct contests and giveaways for eCommerce;
- Promote the contest or giveaway on your social media channels, or run ads, if needed.
- Make sure the prize is relevant to your target audience, and engage more users by asking people to tag others.
- Use an email capture form to collect entry information.
- Choose a winner at random to add legitimacy to the contest.
- Ship the prize to the winner as soon as possible.
- Take the opportunity to upsell the winner on other products or services.
- Ask the winner to create a video that you can promote for future contests and giveaways.
6. Encourage users during checkout
Checkout is the final stage of an online shopping transaction, where the customer enters their payment information to complete the purchase. That’s the time to ensure that your user gets the best experience, while also increasing sales.
If you want to increase your sales funnel, you can nudge the buyers during checkout. Here are some tried and tested methods to do this;
1. Add a progress bar to display the buyer how far he/she has come in the checkout process.
2. Take advantage of suggestive text to motivate visitors to add extra items to their cart. For example, you could say “You might also like” or”this goes well with that” and then show a picture of them together.
3. Offer an additional discount for completing the checkout process, especially if they are buying an extra product as per your recommendation. This will encourage them further to not abandon the cart.
4. Offer a smooth checkout process by offering a variety of payment options and being clear about what information is needed.
5. Thank visitors for completing the checkout process with a message or coupon code for their next purchase.
Read More – 7 Ecommerce Tools To Grow Your Business In 2023
Nurture customers better by improving the sales funnel.
Improving the E-Commerce sales funnels is the key to improving conversion rates. To recap, we included tips like;
- Investing in a landing page builder, and sales funnel builder,
- Split testing to try and improve your conversion rate,
- Using lead magnets and gathering emails
- Deploying exit-intent pop-ups to increase sales
- Leverage social proof and FOMO to enhance sales
- Conducting giveaways and contests to attract potential customer
- Incentivizing the buyer during the checkout process by giving special discounts, and upselling.
Conclusion
Your potential customers will go through these six techniques in their buyer’s journey regardless of what you sell.
Some people will move quickly through the stages, while others will take months, if not years, to persuade.
The key in this scenario is to understand how your consumers are progressing through your e-commerce sales funnel and then use that acquired knowledge to optimize each stage for higher conversions.
