As the ecommerce market has evolved, customers have become more and more aware of the companies attempts to fulfill their needs and make them happy. Nowadays, customers are not looking for a plain shopping experience because they buy with their heart and soul, and they want to be surprised. Considering these aspects and the competitive market, why don’t you take a step forward and adapt your business to the latest trends from the retail market?
Even though every business is different, with its audience and target, there are some tips you can personalize and apply on your ecommerce website to make it appealing and to stand out from the retail crowd. Don’t be just a drop in the ocean, but the bee’s knees in your industry.
Before doing any optimization experiments, there is one main aspect to set up: integrate a conversion rate optimization plan in your online marketing strategy.
#1. Focus on Micro Conversions
Sometimes, with the sole purpose of obtaining great results in a short period, we experiment too many activities on the same time and try to directly fulfill the biggest goal of your business. Even though you are 200% sure that everything is going as planned, somehow the results you’ve expected are not showing. That’s why working with small steps and objectives will prove to be a good way to plan your business: have in mind the business goal and design SMART objectives to build up your way to the big elephant.
Micro conversions represent one important step in transforming website’s visitors into paying customers. Before persuading them to place an order on your e-shop, try to connect and make a relationship with the target audience. The numbers speak for themselves: the average conversion rate worldwide is about 2% so most traffic doesn’t result in macro conversions.
A micro conversion is an action visitors do before they invest money in your ecommerce website and buy a product. Depending on the conversion rate optimization goals and what you want visitors to do, a micro conversion could be to:
- look at a specific page or product
- click on a Call-to-Action button
- use the search bar
- combine multiple search filters
- download a paper, PDF, guide or ebook
- subscribe to newsletter
- join an email list
- engage with the social media buttons
How to get micro conversions?
The main point of having micro conversions is to know as much as you can about the current traffic, create a personalized on-site experience and take visitors down a journey of their own choosing. In this way, they’ll be more willing to give you their email and start a connecting with them at a more personal level.
One way to get leads and investigate the customers behavior is to create a personalized pop-up survey. For example, if you own an electronics retail website, design an on-exit intent pop-up survey on the cart page to investigate why visitors leave without placing an order and ask for the email addresses.
Once the visitors give their email addresses, and you know their answers, start solving the problems you’ve found and interact with a personalized content strategy. Nurture the leads and transform them into loyal customers and raving fans of your business.
#2. Use Weather Segmentation
Everybody knows that weather influences our moods and it can trigger a certain state of mind. Marketers have started to acknowledge the importance of this insight on their business not long ago.
Nowadays, considering the evolution of mobile devices and diversification of communication channels, weather segmentation has become an even more efficient tactic to approach visitors. People have changed not only their shopping habits, but their entire lifestyle and weather affects which channels visitors use to prospect the market and to make purchases. When it’s cold or raining, people tend to spend more time indoors, surfing the internet, using their laptops and mobile devices. Therefore, it’s the perfect time to surprise visitors with the right message: “It’s time to jump into new cozy sweaters. 10% discount today!” – if you’re a fashion retailer.
Weather segmentation isn’t a stand alone feature and it can be combined with several other segmentation criteria to fully create a personalized experience. For example, with Marketizator, you can combine the visitor’s location with the weather conditions to create a pop-up banner for a travel agency:
#3. Use time pressure
Time pressure has become an increasingly feature in the ecommerce market and it is the ultimate trick to make people convert faster. Whether the conversion is a downloaded free ebook, a product purchase or just a click on a button, users will act on the spot if they know the offer is only temporary. Why? Because time pressure gives them exclusivity to a certain product or service. Knowing that a product is only available for two hours or that you have a 10 % discount if you place an order in the next day creates a feeling of urgency. Having the scarcity concept, as Robert Cialdini calls it, in mind and putting it into practice in the conversion rate optimization strategy is one way to increase the performance of your ecommerce website.
Why is time pressure such a great conversion trigger?
When it comes to rarity and time pressure, the actual thought of losing something motivates people to want it even more and have it as soon as possible. It’s as old as the hills that rare things, unique belongings are more valuable than mass objects everybody can buy from every corner shop. That’s why when visitors realize it could be their last chance to buy that special something, they tend to hurry and immediately make the decision to purchase it.
One way to use the scarcity effect in ecommerce is to emphasize how many people are looking at the same product in the same time. Create an A/B testing experiment and see the results for yourself. In the variation, simply add the text “{ONLINE} visitors are looking at this product” with the dynamic text replacement feature from Marketizator.
Combine time pressure and promotions for a great combo: give customers something extra if they order from your online store in a specific period. People love free stuff, and it’s a good way to spread the word about new products. Here’s one example that will make it understand how to use scarcity:
Wrapping it up
Include out of the box ideas in the conversion rate optimization plan and take actionable steps to provide a personalized on site experience for your visitors. Define attainable goals, drive up A/B testing experiments to see which version of your website brings more conversions, use web personalization to create dynamic pop-ups and investigate customers behavior with branching logic surveys. Combine them to get micro-conversions, persuade visitors through scarcity and customize their journey using weather segmentation.
You can use these techniques with Marketizator and have all the necessary features under the same roof. Create a forever free account and see the results for yourself.
About Author: Ioana Lupec, Sailin' ship @Marketizator. Ioana plays the role of the content marketing specialist, but she’s also experimenting with inbound marketing and conversion rate optimization. You can find Ioana on Twitter.
Feature image curtsey of Mattie Lynch
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