To have an eCommerce business means that you have to deal with everything that it involves, including lead generation. Lead generation tactics for eCommerce are different from lead generation for other business models. Most online stores don’t have their warehouses and sales teams but, what they do have are shipping process automation and checkout pages.
The process evolved over the years, and in eCommerce, the main goal became to gain the attention of people that have purchasing power. (You don’t have to chase the buyer anymore because the buyer chases you.) Capturing the attention of buyers can be a demanding and expensive task.
Thankfully, there are a few cost-effective tactics that can help you bring quality leads to your online store. In this post, we’re going to see eight different practical lead generation tactics you can implement immediately in your marketing strategy.
In eCommerce, there’s nothing worse than optimizing for the wrong type of customers. Knowing who buys, or who will buy your products is pivotal in helping you maximize your advertising ROI and lead generation success.
There are lots of ways to define your target audience. You can research people but, the best way to determine your ideal customers is to establish the following information about them:
The primary purpose of these questions is to understand your prospects and nurture them more proficiently. After you’ve identified your target customer, it’s time to define the customer’s journey.
HBR defines customer journey as:
“a diagram that illustrates the steps your customer(s) go through in engaging with your company, whether it is a product, an online experience, retail experience, or a service, or any combination.”
The data that you’ve already gathered about your target customers can help you figure out their journey. Here’s how:
It’s vital to know how users interact with your eCommerce site. Check whether they’re first-time visitors, returning visitors, or buyers. See if you can spot common trends in their behavior, especially page events and sections that make them leave the site and not convert at all.
A comprehensive history of users’ sessions can help you develop ideas on how to map out the customer journey.
Even people that are ready to buy the product must go through several touchpoints with your brand to make the purchase. As a result, it is vital to adapt to the users’ experience on each platform.
For example, people may find your online store via referral. Or, they may encounter your tweet and your Instagram post. Then, they click the link to see more. To map out a customer journey, it’s crucial to understand why the users jump from one platform to another before they buy from you.
Before people decide to buy from your online store, they’ll want you to form a relationship with them. That means that you need to have a grasp on customer psychology as well as being able to provide value at each stage of the customer’s journey.
Only after you’ve mapped your target customer’s journey, you can develop content that will help you acquire more leads and customers. An efficient content marketing strategy will pull targeted traffic to your eCommerce website. As a result, you’ll get more leads, boost your conversion rate, grow your social media accounts, and increase your sales.
Some of the main types that you can use to attract visitors to your eCommerce site are:
Let’s assume that users already browse through your online store and put some products in their cart. But, for some reason, the users click the ‘X’ on their browser tab and leave your page without buying anything. To prevent this from happening, you might want to use exit intent popups.
The exit intent popup appears prior to the moment when the user is about to close the site. It’s an affordable lead generation tool that reminds the users that there are some offers that they might consider if they decide to leave the current page.
The best ways to use exit intent popups for lead generation on your website are:
Most people that visit your eCommerce website are new users that may never come back. However, you can do something that will bring these users back by building an email subscriber list that will help you gain and maintain traffic on the website that you’ve worked hard to achieve.
You can use email marketing to drive recurring traffic by giving users a motive to return with discounts, useful content, brand new products, etc.
To grow your email list, the subscription process must be unobtrusive. To do this successfully, you’ll need to use opt-in forms on all the right places on your site, such as:
Furthermore, growing your email list requires three essential ingredients:
Each subscriber will not become your customer. If you sell products from different groups, you likely have subscribers with different interests. For this reason, you’ll have to segment your email list by:
Email marketing can be an excellent source of leads for every eCommerce business. Start growing your email list and providing recurring offers and value to visitors so you can convert them into customers.
A lead magnet is a useful and valuable offer that entices customers and motivates them to leave their contact information such as email, phone number or social media account info. This information can later be used to create an ongoing relationship with the users.
The best types of lead magnets that you can incorporate into your eCommerce site are:
eCommerce landing pages can play a crucial role in bringing traffic to your site and generating more leads. That’s why your website’s landing page experience should be as pleasant and as effortless as possible for users.
A well-designed landing page will promote more leads, more conversions, more sales, and ultimately, more profit. Here are four tips that can help you optimize landing pages to drive more conversions to your online store:
In eCommerce, just like in every other online business, it’s crucial to convert visitors into customers. If you have a physical store, it is a lot easier to turn people into buyers by greeting them at the door, offering them expert advice on a particular product, tips on style, etc.
But in the online world, it’s a lot harder to provide customers with a personal touch. One way to make their online experience more personal is to use live chat software to deliver timely communication with website visitors.
To effectively use a live chat for your online store, first, you’ll have to discover the hours/time of day that brings the most traffic to your website. You’ll have to experiment with the chatting times and frequency.
Also, you must take note of the chats. See what visitors are asking. Do they want to learn more about the product, or something different? Whatever it might be, you should keep track of the chats to find out what your customers expect or need.
The most cost-effective ways to use live chat to convert more leads into customers are:
Content marketing is a powerful and cost-effective lead generation tactic. It helps you build brand awareness as well as generate and convert more leads for your online store. Here are the three significant benefits of content marketing for online stores:
To increase the effectiveness of your content:
So far, you’ve probably realized that lead generation for an eCommerce business is different from other business models out there. To receive the email address from a potential buyer means that you’re only a couple of steps away from turning him/her into a customer.
Alter the tactics mentioned above to capitalize on that short sales cycle. You can offer deals at any stage of the buyer’s journey, such as when a visitor first arrives on your website or when he/she wants to abandon the shopping cart. More targeted deals can lead to more sales, customer loyalty, acquisition, and conversions.
Remember that lead generation for eCommerce requires work, dedication, and focus. Use the tips provided in the article, not just because they’re cost-effective, but because you can grow your business and increase the number of customers. Lead generation is an investment, so it is imperative to be persistent and concentrate on your efforts if you want to continue to generate more leads for your online store.
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