How can I retain customers and engage them with my brand? What is the right SEO strategy to boost my online operation? What are some tips and tricks for retaining online grocery customers? How does brand loyalty influence consumer behaviour? Who shops online on the ecommerce platform? How can we gain those people’s attention? After all, what are the best customer retention strategies?
Those are some of the most pressing questions for ecommerce business owners. The impact of trust factors on customer loyalty in B2C and B2B ecommerce businesses can turn very positive if you play your cards right.. Or better said, your digital marketing strategies properly. While website quality and ease of use have a positive significant impact on online customer satisfaction and online customer trust, consumerism of this day and age has brought ever higher pretenses from online businesses.
Somewhere between the effort to find new customers and the challenge of keeping the already-existing ones close, we come below with a few ideas on how to get the shoppers’ attention, introduce them to what the business has to offer and make them stay.
Ecommerce, loyalty, trust
According to The Internet World Stats, there are over 5 billion internet users worldwide, which raises the bar for internet penetration at a rate of 65.5% in the first quarter of 2021. Looking at this piece of information with an eye for ecommerce strategy, all internet users automatically become potential customers of online businesses. However, the bigger the pool of people who have access to online shopping, the more will opt for it, and even more will raise an eyebrow if something along their path to purchase goes wrong.
Customer satisfaction has been defined as an evaluation of the perceived discrepancy between prior expectations and the actual performance of the product. Also, it is directly correlated with a business’s digital marketing strategy, which means that what you advertise for should match exactly your offer.
The good news is that although people have a tremendous amount of options to choose from, they tend to come back to what they already know. So try to make a good first impression for the customer and you might be all set with the returning customer rate.
Commerce, conversationally
Compared to 2015, the current online business environment has been changed by COVID-19. According to Statista, global ecommerce sales almost tripled from $1.5 trillion USD in 2015 to $4.28 trillion USD in 2020. The ecommerce share of total global retail sales jumped from 13.6% in 2019 to 18% in 2020, and is expected to exceed 20% by 2022. This fast acceleration raises new consumer needs and calls for new ecommerce channels.
One such strategy is conversational commerce, which is basic to have an ecommerce through messaging channels: Real-time conversation happening between brands and customers in messaging apps. With it, businesses are able to value the client as an individual, treating them as if they had just walked inside a physical store. It is a very important tool for digital marketing as a way to build relationships with customers even if they are not right in front of you and also to improve customer service, which has an essential role in keeping customers close.
Quality, but also quantity
Another key tool for customer retention is website quality, which should be examined in accordance with the quality of content, structure, navigation, and functionality. Content refers to the information shown on the website, which should be engaging, relevant and appropriate for the customer – it should give them what they’re looking for. Know your audience and apply that knowledge to every single detail of your front-end.
Structure and navigation include the organization’s information on the site and the instructions that help users move through sections in a quick and easy way. This could refer to an intelligent and customizable search engine or live shopping experience.
The better the user experience, the more likely it is for the customer to come back. Quality is essential but quantity is also important. Delivering a flawless product page is not everything: you have to couple it with cross-selling and up-selling. Content-wise, the shopper is always happy to see a well-over product page built following the best SEO practices, fast-loading with high-quality detailed photographs, clear and accurate information.
All in on emailing
The point is not necessarily to have 100 shoppers make a one time purchase, but rather to have 20 shoppers come back and make more than one purchase. This way, you have 400 orders instead of 100.
But to get the attention of those 20 shoppers, you have to put the heart and soul of the brand into it. Repeatedly. For such cases, email marketing can be a powerful tool to keep your customers engaged and invested in your brand.
Whether it is a birthday card, a code for a special sales vault, a 10% subscription discount or the monthly newsletter, a great way to leverage email marketing is to use it to send valuable, relevant content to your users. If you want to go the extra mile, instead of being promotional, you can curate links of content that might resonate with your users as a part of the newsletter.
While it can be a powerful tool for keeping customers close and engaged, it may generate the opposite effect if used in the wrong way. Spamming emails and high frequency can upset customers and lead to the least desired result—losing them along the way.
Pages that tell stories
Last but not least, the core idea of the brand should be showcased through a story. And a good one for that matter. Whether the online business is built around a sustainable luxury chocolate brand or a grocery marketplace, prepare a strong narrative to represent its main beliefs and customers will stay loyal to it if they share the same ambitions or values in several places.
To wrap up all of the above, there are indeed some basic to-dos that customers need to see and online retailers must provide. Chatbots coupled with quality in every aspect of your website sounds like a great plan. Also, throw in some live shopping experience, a powerful search engine and you are good to go. And don’t forget: Social media is your ally in this case. Send an email, post it on Instagram and share the news on Twitter. Let the world see it and the customers will come to you. Now that’s an ecommerce strategy!
