/U/Marketing

These numbers spell great news for homeware retailers because they clearly indicate that consumers will continue buying items for their homes. The question is, are you effectively attracting and converting these shoppers?

If you aren’t enthusiastically nodding your head to the question above, keep reading. In this post, we’ll take a closer look at the successful strategies of the world’s top homeware retailers.

Let’s dive in.

Put yourself in your customers’ homes… literally

One of the secrets to IKEA’s success as a homeware retailer is that they put research at heart of their operation. And this is a strategy that all retailers — whether they’re selling low cost or high-end merchandise — can learn from.

IKEA devotes tons of time and resources studying the cultures and habits of their target markets. For instance, Fortune reports that the company once did a study of 8,292 people in eight cities to learn more about their morning routines. Doing so enabled IKEA to figure out what stresses people out when getting ready for work and what keeps them from getting out the door during the morning rush.

IKEA gained valuable insights from their study and it helped them come up with a product called the Knapper, a full-length mirror that comes with a built-in rack and hooks for hanging clothes and jewelry. The product is meant to help people get ready faster by allowing them to put together their outfits the night before.

In addition, IKEA researchers often put themselves in the homes of their customers. They frequently do home visits and will even hire anthropologists to live in a volunteer’s home. (Talk about dedication.)

This strategy helped them see how people are using their products. For example, they learned that their customers in New York use sofas differently from people in Milan or Stockholm.

Having that cultural data helps IKEA set up local store displays and showrooms. As Fortune notes, “The rooms play an essential, if secret role, showing consumers how to fit Ikea pieces into their lives. Displays in Sendai, Japan, and Amsterdam could feature the same beds and cabinets, for example. But the Japanese version might incorporate tatami mats, and the Dutch room will have slanted ceilings, reflecting the local architecture. Beds in the U.S., meanwhile are covered with pillows.”

Takeaway

Intensive market research pays off. And while you don’t have to go through the lengths that IKEA did, we hope you can apply some of their strategies in your own market research.

You can, for example, try to learn more about the day-to-day habits of your customers and see if you can start buying or designing products that would make their lives easier.

If you have multiple locations, you can take a closer look at distinctions that each market has. Your customers in say, Australia could be using your products a bit differently from shoppers in America, which means you’ll have to market and present your products to appeal to different markets.

Humanize your products and the shopping experience

Furniture retailer West Elm managed to transform from a boring and unprofitable store chain to Williams-Sonoma’s fastest growing brand. It accomplished this by humanizing its products and stores.

Here are some of the steps the company took to turn things around.

BREATHE LIFE INTO MERCHANDISE

The first thing the West Elm president Jim Brett did when he took the reigns in 2010 was to revamp the company’s product lines. According to FastCompany, Brett got rid of their “spiritless” (i.e. dull) products and sourced merchandise with more personality and stories behind them.

He “remerchandised the stores and catalogs to convey a sense of creativity and discovery,” and invested more in handcrafted products.

See if you can do the same thing in your store. If sales are flat, it could be because your products aren’t vibrant or unique enough. Perhaps it’s time to spice things up by introducing exotic designers or sourcing from new artists.

BUILD COMMUNITIES AROUND YOUR STORES

Brett also transformed West Elm’s locations from mere “stores” to “community hubs,” by encouraging associates to forge genuine relationships with their customers.

Rather than just selling them stuff, for example, associates and consultants could recommend great restaurants or other establishments.

In addition, West Elm started running classes that encouraged locals to gather ‘round and learn new skills. These classes were non-salesy; instead of trying to subtly push people into buying products, West Elm focused on strengthening their local communities.

But the good thing is, despite their non-promotional nature, Brett told Fast Company that their classes still encouraged customers to “come back more frequently and spend more.”

SEND DESIGN CONSULTANTS TO PEOPLE’S HOMES

West Elm also launched a home-decorating service wherein a consultant would come to a customer’s home for free and help them pick out products—even if those items didn’t come from West Elm.

This may seem counter-intuitive, but it worked great for the company. It allowed them to build trust with their customers and helped them increase their social presence.

Takeaway

More than ever, customers want compelling shopping experiences. It’s not enough to push “stuff”, you need to offer unique in-store experiences that they can’t get in other channels (i.e. ecommerce, mobile) or shops.

One of the most effective ways to accomplish this is by humanizing your brand, products, and store. Start by personalizing how you interact with customers. Have your associates get to know them better and engage with them in richer ways. Another strategy is to introduce more interesting product lines — ones that are unique and come with stories. You can also build living, breathing communities around your stores through events, classes, and more.

In a nutshell, humanizing your brand boils down to one thing: don’t be a robot. Treat your customers like the unique, individuals that they are.

Implement an omnichannel strategy

One of the best examples of a homeware retailer doing omnichannel right is Crate and Barrel.

The company is aware that shoppers often switch from tablet to smartphone to desktop when browsing, so they’ve made it easier for users to switch from different channels when shopping on their site.

When users are logged into the Crate & Barrel site, the products that they’ve browsed are saved into their account, so they can easily switch devices and pick up where they left off.

The company also carries out the same seamless experience with their gift registry app. Users are able to create, manage, and monitor their gift registries from multiple channels, allowing them to easily stay on top of things no matter where they are or what device they’re using.

Takeaway

Customers are researching, shopping, and buying across multiple channels, which means you have to be present at every touchpoint.

This is especially true for retailers in the home furnishing space because such stores usually carry big ticket items that require plenty of research before arriving at a decision. It’s not uncommon for shoppers to move from one channel to the next (ecommerce, brick-and-mortar, mobile) and back when shopping around.

That’s why it’s incredibly important for you to be there for them across all those touchpoints and move them towards the right path to purchase.

Invigorate people’s senses and emotions

Homeware retailer PIRCH does an excellent job stimulating people’s senses. While other furniture and homegoods stores simply display their products, PIRCH goes several steps further to take the in-store experience to a whole new level. Some of the store’s strategies include:

HAVE LIVE FOOD DEMONSTRATIONS

As soon as you walk into a PIRCH store, a staff member immediately offers you a drink that you can enjoy while browsing the shop. Additionally, many PIRCH locations have professional chefs that prepare food and offer free cooking classes using the store’s merchandise. Doing so not only allows PIRCH to demonstrate their products, but it also engages customers and gets them to stick around.

USE FULLY-FUNCTIONAL APPLIANCES AND FIXTURES

Nearly everything that’s displayed in the store — including showerheads and fixtures — works. This allows guests to not only see or touch PIRCH’s products, but it enables shoppers to fully experience them. This strategy doesn’t just set PIRCH apart from online stores, it also differentiates the retailer from other homeware stores which showcase disconnected and “display only” fixtures.

ALLOW USERS TO TAKE ONLINE TOURS

PIRCH’s website does an amazing job showing off its offline stores. Most online retailers simply list their the address and contact info of their physical stores. Not PIRCH. In addition to providing basic store information (i.e. address, phone number, store hours), their website also lets users take a virtual tour so they can see what the inside of the store looks like.

EVOKE EMOTIONS THROUGH SIGNAGE

In his webinar about turning lookers into buyers, retail expert Bob Phibbs talked about the importance of tapping into the feelings of shoppers. “Many of us think that [shopping] is an analytical act, and it’s all about price…but there’s always going to be somebody cheaper. Ultimately, if you’re going to convert a looker into a buyer, it’s going to come down to a feeling.”

He mentioned PIRCH as an example of a retailer doing a great job at this. Check out their store display above, which features a sign reading “Remember the day you rode without training wheels?”. The display is compelling because it brings up feelings and memories in customers.

Many of us can remember how we felt when we rode without training wheels for the first time, and PIRCH cleverly taps into those feelings through their display.

Strive to do something similar in your business. Go beyond generic signage and marketing materials, and instead create something that can evoke powerful emotions in your customers. Doing so will grab their attention, make you more memorable, and even convince them to buy.

Takeaway

Stimulate people’s senses and emotions. Don’t just cater to their sense of sight and touch — figure out how to reinvigorate their sense of smell, sound, and taste.

And remember, shopping can be an emotional act, so evoking the right feelings in your customers can help improve their in-store experience.

Bottom line

While the examples in this post focused on retailers in home furnishing industry, the topics we talked about—market research, humanizing a brand, and omnichannel—apply to all types of stores. That’s why homeware store or not, we hope the pointers above gave you some inspiration on how you can take the customer experience to a while new level.

Marketing campaigns tend to be more effective once you’ve got an established audience that you’re marketing to, and a larger reach. The problem is, the only way to get that reach and audience is through effective marketing. If you get it wrong, you’ll be speaking in vacuum; If you get it right, your audience will grow, and you’ll have more people viewing your next campaign.

Like any problem that affects your business, you can’t address a problem with your marketing strategy unless you really understand it. The good news is that there are plenty of tools available to help you understand where your marketing is falling short—and you’re probably already using some of them.

This article breaks down three key marketing challenges retailers face, and suggests a few ways to fix the underlying problems.

1. No one can find my ecommerce website on Google

This problem is an easy one to diagnose by keyword searching on Google and finding that you’re not on the first page. It’s probably the number one complaint for online stores in their first year of marketing. You’re doing everything right, so why aren’t you on the first page of search results?

The first thing you should check is whether your site has been penalised by Google’s algorithms or by a manual webspam report. Visit Google Webmaster Tools to see if any action has been taken against your site—you can ask Google to reconsider your site once you’ve fixed it.

Once you’re happy that your site is not working against you, check if it’s working for you. Google recently changed its algorithm to prioritise mobile friendliness and performance, so you’ll want to make sure you’re using the right design and development principles to rank as high as you can. Again, Google has come to the rescue with a great new tool for testing your website’s mobile performance, which gives you specific tips for fixing your website.

If you haven’t been penalised and your website is optimised, then chances are, you’ve got big competition that’s been around longer than you have. They rank higher on Google because they’ve got years of content and traffic to back them up. Over time, you’ll build up content history and traffic and slowly work your way up the rankings, too. For now, you’ll just have to accept that the big guys outrank you—no short-term strategy is going to put your name higher on the page than theirs.

Except maybe Google AdWords.

Pay-per-click advertising is the only legitimate shortcut for getting your business on the first page of Google’s search results. You set up your ad, keywords, and target audience, and Google displays it alongside search results for a subset of matching searches each day. You get to choose your budget, and you only pay when you ad is working for you—when visitors click through.

Pay-per-click advertising is also available on Bing Ads.

2. No one clicks through from my email marketing campaigns

Your email newsletters take time to put together, so it’s always disappointing if you don’t see results. You’ve taken the right first step, by tracking your website traffic and recognising that your email newsletters aren’t getting clicks. Now you’ve just got to figure out why.

Google Analytics and other web traffic tools tell you where your traffic is coming from, so if you set them up just right, you can see how much of your store traffic is coming from email links. But that’s a lot of effort, and it won’t tell you anything about what’s happening to the emails that didn’t get opened. This is where the analytics tools built into your marketing software can help, by making it simple to track reads and clicks, and also telling you:

• which emails bounced
• how many subscribers opened the email
• who forwarded the email
• how many people unsubscribed
• Take a close look at the subject and content of emails that had higher open rates. How were they different from your other emails? This gives you valuable clues about the sort of content your subscribers want to read. They’ll click articles and links they find interesting and engaging, so give them more of what they want. If your email marketing software offers A/B testing, try sending subtly different versions of the same email to a subset of your list, to test out which subjects, headlines and images work best.

Have you divided your email marketing list into audience segments? Your repeat customers may want more information about the products they’ve bought, or upcoming sales, whereas your leads may prefer content that establishes your brand as a leader and helps get them across the line.

3. My social media posts are falling flat

The key to a good social media strategy is having a clear objective in mind. Are you trying to reach a larger audience? Do you want to build a community? Or are you wanting to communicate with your existing customers, to tell them about an upcoming special deal?

There’s no magic formula for social media (though some websites will try to tell you there is). Each platform has its own algorithm that controls who sees what you post, and the best way to keep being seen is to keep posting content and engaging with people who seem interested.

But social media takes time, and that’s something most business owners have a limited amount of. So it’s best to identify the platforms that are working for you, and focus your efforts there. Look at the metrics available within each social platform, and also at your website analytics. Which channels are leading to the highest conversions…and which aren’t working at all?

If there’s a channel that’s underperforming, try to figure out why. How are your competitors performing there? What can you learn about your audience’s needs? It might be as simple as using shorter headlines on Facebook, or regularly posting a new link in your Instagram bio. Alternatively, you might be able to extend your reach by collaborating with other businesses or partnering with an influencer.

If there’s no audience there for you, it might be time to move on and try a new channel. For example, if you’re selling lifestyle products for the over-50s, maybe Snapchat isn’t the best platform for you; maybe you should try Twitter, or just put more effort into your successful Facebook campaign.

Most social media platforms now have paid ads or sponsored posts for business listings. Like any advertising, these should be used as part of a well-planned campaign, so prepare a post that’s eye-catching, and aim your headline at a specific target audience. Or take it one step further with a video campaign on Instagram or YouTube. And make sure your ads link through to a landing page that’s designed to match the ad—you don’t want to scare your visitors off with a homepage that’s got too many options!

Marketing success won’t happen overnight. Savvy business owners need to give it time, regularly referring back to your analytics to see what’s working well, and what needs tweaking. But if you do your research and make a few changes based off my tips above, you’ll be well on your way to a successful marketing campaign.

It’s a long-tail approach that builds brand awareness, bringing in new leads so you can woo them to conversion. And it’s effective, too, with one study showing an average earned media value of $9.60 for every dollar of paid media spend. Sounds appealing, doesn’t it? Here’s what you need to know:

How does influencer marketing work?

Influencers have earned that title because they’ve managed to gain and keep the attention of large audiences. When an influencer posts interesting content that speaks positively and authentically about your brand, it generates interest from audiences you wouldn’t otherwise be able to reach. You’ll inherit some of your influencer’s fans and followers, which is why it’s so important to make sure your influencer really understands your brand and is connected to the right audience for your products. If you’re selling activewear, you’ll have more success if you pair with influencers specialising in fitness and wellness than with those in travel or photography.

How do I find the right influencer for my ecommerce store?

The right influencer is someone who:

• has a large, engaged audience that matches your target market
• publishes on the social media platforms you’re interested in using
• can reliably produce content that fits with your brand image
• understands what you want to achieve
• is easy to work with

A good place to start is right there on the social platforms you want to use. Influencers are already at work, publishing content for other businesses, and you can use that content to find them.

Start by searching for your competitors. Whose content are they resharing? Do any of those users have thousands of followers and lots of engagement? They should be considered influencers. What hashtags are your competitors and their influencers using? Who is posting prolific and engaging content with those hashtags?

Once you’ve got some influencers’ names in mind, you can narrow it down based on their previous work and their style or service offering. But I think it’s better to step beyond that platform and see what they offer. Do they have websites, describing their services? Are they offering single- or multi-platform marketing services? Is their audience massive and diverse? Or do they target a specific niche and, if so, how closely does it match your niche?

If you’d rather just search for influencers with certain skills, or even have influencers come to you with quotes, try influencer networks and marketplaces. Each has a different feature set:

• self service or fully managed
• free access, or pay per project or per month
• single platform (e.g. Whalar for Instagram), single media type (Applause for live streaming for Periscope and Facebook Live), or universal (Cycle, FameBit, and Tribe).

How many influencers do I need?

That depends on exactly what you’re trying to achieve and how many influencers you can afford. For a general campaign, you might choose a couple of massive influencers; if you’re marketing a particular product line, you might choose a few niche influences to narrow down your target audience.

When deciding whether or not to hire one more influencer, it can help to think about their incremental value-add. If you’re selling men’s apparel and you’ve already selected a couple of men’s fashion influencers, you’d probably only add a third if they had a very different audience you’d like access to, such as a different age group.

How do I work with influencers?

The key thing to remember here is that your influencers are social media experts and knows how to reach their audience in the most efficient and effective way. All you need to do is tell them exactly what you want to accomplish, when, and any constraints that apply; then let them run with it. Let’s break down how to get the best results:

1. Show them the big picture

Your influencers are more likely to hit the mark first go if they understand your big picture, so give them access to your content marketing calendar or plan. (But make sure they can’t access any Top Secret campaigns that should be off-limits.)

2. Let them do their job

Set boundaries for your influencers to work with. Make sure they know what’s off-limits, but beyond that, don’t tell them how to do their job. If you’ve got content ideas, offer them up as suggestions or examples, not instructions.

3. Pay fairly

Your influencers are creating original content, granting you the rights to use that content, and giving you access to their hard-won audience. That’s like three jobs in one! They also save you a lot of effort and free up time for you to focus on your customers, so keep all these things in mind when you’re working out rates. Most influencers are paid per post; high-profile influencers rarely accept products as payment for their services.

4. Reuse content

So long as your agreement allows it, you should be sharing content to multiple platforms. Use your own accounts if your influencer doesn’t access all the social platforms you want to use. You can even use the content in your email and print marketing collateral.

5. Check usage rights

Make sure your agreement outlines where, when, and how you can use the content without paying extra. Even viral content only lasts a few years, so there’s no point seeking exclusive rights beyond that window. If your influencer is using stock images, make sure they’re licensed appropriately for commercial use. You don’t want to get caught out on a copyright infringement.

As with any professional relationship, it’s a good idea to formalise your expectations with a written agreement or contract. In addition to affording legal protection in the unlikely occurrence of a dispute, a signed agreement ensures that both you and your influencer know exactly what you’re paying for, when it will be delivered, and how you’re allowed to use the content in future.

How do I know if influencer marketing is working?

• Influencer marketing success can be difficult to measure, but you should be looking for:
• engagement on your influencer’s posts.
• increased fans, followers, and likes on your own social media accounts
• increased website traffic from those platforms
• increased conversion rates, after time.
• If you’re not seeing these improvements, you might need to change your approach or work with a new influencer.

How can I get started?

Next time you’re on your favourite social media platform, start looking for influencers. Which pages or public profiles are talking about your competitors or using your favourite hashtags? How many followers have they got, and how engaged are they? Before you know it, you’ll be hunting down influencers for your ecommerce store and expanding your social reach.

When you hear business owners talking about collaboration, they’re usually describing the way their staff members work together to achieve their goals. But collaboration doesn’t need to be limited to the walls of your retail store any more than the act of selling does. If you’re looking for a way to amplify your marketing message and be heard more clearly above the noise, collaboration with other businesses might just be your best way forward.

In this post, I’ll discuss eight ways you can approach business-to-business (B2B) collaboration and how each strategy can help you grow.

1. Refer your customers to related businesses

Each time a customer buys something from your store, you probably think about what else they might be interested in buying. What other products might your customers like? What will they need to get the most out of their purchase? Sometimes, your own inventory won’t offer much chance to upsell, but you can still help your customer referring them to retailers and service providers that you trust. Keep a collection of business cards and brochures on hand at your point of sale (POS), or include a list of your trusted partners on your website and in transactional emails. In return, those businesses can refer their customers to you.

For example, if you’ve just sold some light fittings, your customers might need some hardware, or an electrician to finish the installation. Perhaps they’re renovating, and they’ll want to hire a painter or an interior decorator to help. Next time those referral partners hear someone is looking for light fittings, they’ll send them your way, boosting your sales.

2. Introduce your collaboration partners on social media

If you’ve got a well-defined target audience, it shouldn’t be too hard to identify other traditional retail and ecommerce stores that share your audience without directly competing with you. For example, if you sell toys and accessories for pets, your target audience is pet owners, so you could partner with one or several businesses selling pet food. Even though you’ve got the same audience, you probably don’t have the same social media fans and followers. So by introducing the pet food retailer in a social media post, you’re exposing your partners to a wider audience, and they can return the favour for you. Consider how often you’ll cross-post promotions or feature their services on your page—you might like to share something once a month, or every time you get another 1000 followers.

3. Publicly thank your business suppliers

Showing your appreciation is a good way to strengthen business relationships with your suppliers. I’m not talking about your wholesalers here, but about all the other businesses that help you run your business, such as:

• an accountant you’ve hired to prepare your financial statements
• a freelance graphic designer who perfected your online store’s branding
• the shopfitters who created your bricks-and-mortar presence.

A public acknowledgment of their skills and services, shared with your customers on your website or social media pages, will help boost their brand profile. In return, they can feature you in their case studies, and drive referral business to your website or social media pages.

4. Feature your clients in case studies

This approach is basically the reverse of the previous one—this time, you’re the vendor, and you’ll publish case studies featuring your happiest customers. The benefits of this approach are twofold. First, these case studies help your prospective customers place themselves in the picture by giving them someone to relate to. You’re effectively posting a super-sized testimonial on your ecommerce website, which can build trust for your site visitors and improve your search engine rankings. Second, your collaborators will receive genuine traffic from your case study, and they’ll return the favour by talking about your business to their customers, expanding your reach or sharing the case study with their own customers.

5. Split the cost of creating content

Anyone can create a tweet or share a news article on Facebook, but that won’t be enough to capture the attention of your future customers. To do that, you’ll need unique content with eye-catching images—usually taken by a professional during a costly photo shoot. You can improve your return on this digital marketing investment by partnering with like-minded businesses to feature your complementary products in use together. You’ll not only be able to share the cost of your photo shoot, but also benefit from the added exposure to their audience.

6. Take a tour—guest blogging

Guest blogging is a more subtle but highly effective way to drive more traffic to your online store. It works by establishing yourself as a thought leader in your industry. Readers will become curious about the brand behind the blog post, and want to find out more about what you offer. You can also invite high-profile bloggers to write for your blog. When they share their contribution on social networks, you’ll see the spike in traffic, but it may not convert to sales in the short term. This is definitely a top-of-funnel (TOFU) approach, but it can have a long term impact on your brand’s success.

7. Speak with a united voice

Partnering with similar businesses (and even competitors) is one of the strongest stances you can take when you want to steal the limelight from the big players. It works well if your partners offer the same products in different regions, especially when you’re trying to encourage customers into your bricks-and-mortar stores. If you’re going to talk this talk about buying local, though, you’d better walk the walk—there’s no point calling on customers to go with the little guy if you’re not willing to do it yourself, so make sure you’re already working with other local businesses. The downside of this strategy is obvious: when your campaign is successful, you’ll be sharing the spotlight with your direct competitors.

8. Show your community spirit

You don’t always need to partner with other commercial entities. Partnering with a social enterprise or community groups that aligns with your interest is a great way to boost your brand reputation and build a loyal audience. A sporting goods store could partner with the local football club, or a bespoke fashion retailer could work with graduates of the local fashion design school to create a unique range of products.

Choose your collaborators carefully

Each time you choose a partner, you’re ruling out their competitors, and you wouldn’t want too many partners anyway—that only dilutes your brand’s essence. Your brand has made a promise to your customers, and keeping that promise should be one of your highest priorities. So don’t partner with any businesses that don’t see eye to eye with you when it comes to the big issues, and be confident that you can trust in the people you’ll be working with.

Whichever approaches you decide to try, keep in mind that it’s only worth investing your time or cash if you’re seeing the returns. So it’s best to define your expectations at the start and agree on them with your collaborator, to avoid any conflicts down the road. With clear expectations and the right collaborators, you’ll be seeing new traffic in no time.

Email is one of the most effective conversion channels for ecommerce stores, and it’s one of the few channels you maintain full control over. So it’s vital for the success of online store to build a bigger email list of motivated subscribers—and we’re here to show you how, and why.

Email marketing offers benefits over social media marketing

It’s easy to get caught up in the instant gratification of likes and follows, and the promise of your next video going viral, but the honest truth is that social media marketing should only be one part of your well-balanced digital marketing strategy. Email marketing offers a return on investment of 3800% that social media marketing can’t compete with, because

• around 90% of email messages are delivered directly to the intended recipient’s inbox, whereas social media algorithms control which of your fans will see your posts in their news feeds
• most people check their email every day, and the average email opening rate is just shy of 25%—much higher than Facebook’s organic reach of 6% and Twitter’s engagement around 2%
• while customers favour social media for conversations with the brands they love, email is 40 times more effective than Twitter or Facebook at acquiring new customers through driving traffic to your site and converting it to sales.

But the most important benefit of building your own email list is that you own the list. When you send your email campaign, you’re directly communicating with your subscribers—the people who have signed up to say they want to hear from you. There’s no algorithm inserting itself as a middleman, affecting what your fans can see. It all comes down to what you’ve got to say and whether your customers want to read it. You’re also directly gathering information about what’s working and what’s not, so you can adjust your approach over time to boost your conversion rate.

Targeted messaging will maximise your email marketing ROI

Email marketing works best if you’re sending the right content to the right people. You don’t want to send a hard-sell to a happy customer who is already experiencing the benefits of your product, or to someone who lives in a country where they can’t buy it. Nor do you want to send a new lead the intimate details of maintaining your best-selling product—a product they haven’t yet decided to buy. The best way to avoid this is to create marketing segments—groups of email subscribers that share certain attributes and interests, and therefore represent a unique audience for your marketing email.

It makes sense to segment your list at the time when site visitors are signing up, but you also need to be wary of putting too many steps in the process, which can scare off your prospects. One way to work around this is to track which page the sign-up is coming from. If the user has just placed an order, add them to the customer list; otherwise, add them to a list of prospects. You could also send a welcome email with instructions for how to update their subscriptions to particular lists.

5 Steps to start email marketing for top conversion rates

1. Choose your weapon

First, you’ll want to select email marketing software that combines all the features you want into an easy-to-use bundle. Look for features like

• email list management including import, export and segmentation
• tracking the basics like open, click-through, forward, bounce and unsubscribe rates
• ability to measure conversion rates and ROI
• integration with your CRM, loyalty or ecommerce software
• user-managed subscription preferences
• custom branding and templates
• mobile-responsive design
• automation and scheduling.

Many platforms offer a free trial or free pricing tier, which lets you test out the interface and decide whether to sign up.

2. Add subscription forms

Next up, you need to give your website visitors easy ways to subscribe to your list. Add opt-in boxes on your landing pages, homepage, and sidebar that are impossible to miss. Consider using timed pop-ups to catch visitors who look like they’re on their way out, and add a signup form to the end of your online ordering process. The easier you make it to sign up, the more likely visitors are to take you up on your offer, so ask for the bare minimum: just an email address and an optional given name. You can also kickstart your signups by inviting past customers to join or asking new subscribers to invite their friends, but check the anti-spam regulations in your country before sending any unsolicited email.

3. Offer an incentive

Modern shoppers can be quite protective of their personal data, so it can help if you give them a small gift in return for their email address. The options are limited only by your creativity, but here are a few ideas to get you started:

• guides, checklists, or tip sheets
• templates or toolkits
• tutorials, webinars, or email courses
• ebooks
• voucher codes for free shipping or discounts on purchases.

When it comes to delivering on your promise, it’s usually best to send a download link as part of your welcome email. That way you’ll be able to confirm your new subscriber’s email address and track their downloads in one simple step.

4. Seize offline opportunities

Don’t forget that you can also tell people about your email list and invite them to subscribe when you’re out in the real world, anywhere you interact with prospective customers: at conferences, in your pop-up shop or market stall, or at networking events. Take a signup form on your mobile device or add a QR code to your business card so people can sign themselves up on the spot. You could even host a random prize draw for new subscribers who drop a business card in your barrel.

5. Send your first email

When it’s time to send your first campaign, keep your language and tone consistent with your website, and keep the email short enough that readers are likely to get to the end of the page. Include links to more in-depth information on your website, because the ultimate goal is to drive traffic to your ecommerce store. And personalise the subject line and contents of your email campaigns—subscribers are 26% more likely to open an email with a personalised subject line, up to 41% more likely to click through and 10% more likely to convert.

Keep your marketing engine running smoothly

Set up an editorial calendar so you can send out campaigns twice a month—the optimal frequency for getting a high open rate. Use your email marketing software’s tracking features (or third-party analytics) to watch open rates, bounce rates, forwarding rates, conversions and unsubscribe requests, and compare them to industry standards. Give your subscribers more of what they want so that, over time, you get a higher level of engagement.

It’s best to remove unresponsive subscribers from your list over time, so you get a clearer picture of how your email marketing strategy is performing. Many email marketing platforms can manage this for you, Of course, the best way to keep your email list manageable in the long term is to make it easy for subscribers to manage their own preferences, and remind them of how to do this in every single mailout.

Neto is a leading ecommerce platform designed to help your business grow across multiple channels. It offers a wide range of add-on integrations to digital marketing platforms, and inbuilt analytics to help you track your campaign success. Looking for more information on what to do with your email subscription list? We’ve got some ideas about lead nurturing to grow your online store, too.

When someone visits your ecommerce store, you’re trying to achieve the same result, only with copy (text) and images instead of a conversation. You’ve got less than one minute to grab their interest, reassure them they’ve come to the right place, and help them find what they’re looking for. And if you get it right, you’ll sell more products and boost your profits.

In this post, we share 8 tips to help you write web copy that sells like a sales pitch but feels like a real conversation.

1. Show your personality

The first thing that shines through in a real-life conversation is your personality, and you need to let that shine through online, too. Gone are the days of business websites that read like a formal letter—shoppers want to do business with real human beings, not faceless corporations. Every word and image you place on your website helps create the unique brand personality that sets a tone for your customers, giving them a clear image of who they’re dealing with and what they can expect from you. It’s a way to stand out from your competitors, who may sell similar products but are unlikely to have the same personality.

If you’re having trouble capturing what you want to say in your web copy, imagine you’re talking to someone. You can even video record yourself. When you play it back, you’ll immediately spot the words that belong in your copy: it’s the ones with infectious energy and enthusiasm that will excite your customers and leave them wanting more!

2. Aim for the right target audience

Some online stores invest in SEO strategies only to find that their higher search ranking and increased traffic don’t result in increased sales. Why? Because they’re not aiming for the right audience. Those visitors click through, but when they don’t find what they’re looking for, they leave. By writing copy with your target audience in mind, you’re more likely to attract genuinely interested customers who will have no doubt they’ve arrived in the right place—so you’re more likely to make a sale.

3. Start strong with a compelling headline

When a visitor hits any page on your site, the first words they’ll read are the ones in the headline, so make them count. Nothing deters an audience like a vague headline promising a boring article, so be specific and fun. Try playing with poetic devices like alliteration or rhyme to create a unique feel. And be careful not to over-exaggerate your claims—clickbait is a great way to lure traffic, but if your copy can’t deliver on your headline’s promise, it won’t do anything for your conversion rate.

4. Finish even stronger, with a clear call to action

Every time you write copy for your online store, whether it’s for the homepage, a product description, or even a blog post, you’re writing with a goal in mind. When readers get to the bottom of your page (or even sooner), you want them to take action. That action might be

• adding an item to their shopping cart or wishlist
• signing up for your email marketing list
• clicking through to read more in-depth information.

Don’t leave your prospective customers hanging! Use impossible-to-miss links and buttons with simple action words like “learn more” or “start now” to spell out exactly what they should do next.

5. Create highly targeted landing pages

Your different campaigns will focus on different products (or different benefits of the same product) and therefore appeal to different segments of your audience. By sending this traffic through to targeted landing pages instead of your home page, you make it easier for readers to find what they’re looking for, reducing a barrier to sales and increasing your conversion rate. Landing pages are also a prime opportunity to convert prospects to leads, by offering an incentive for visitors to sign up to your email marketing list.

6. Sell the dream with benefits, not just features

Online shoppers might think they’re just looking for a good deal, but they’re actually looking for something much bigger: a better life with greater popularity, prosperity, or pleasure. Your job is to write copy that helps them visualise this outcome. Instead of writing a detailed list of product features, describe the blissful benefits of those features in a way that appeals to customers’ emotions, like this: “Protect your toddler’s sensitive skin from harsh synthetics. Our fun fashion garments are made of unbleached, organic cotton, which is soft enough to sleep in and strong enough to stand up to the rigours of play.”

7. Speak in the same language

It’s easier to build a genuine connection with your customers if you’re speaking their language. And we don’t just mean website translations, either—although that’s a good option if you’ve got customers all over the world. We mean you should listen to how your customers talk about you, and adapt your language to suit, much as you’d adapt when speaking to different age groups or professions. Check out the language your customers use when reviewing or recommending your products in online stores and on social media, and incorporate the phrases that feel right. Not only will it help you rank higher in their searches, it will also help your content stand out from your competitors’, and make you feel more familiar to new prospects.

8. Proactively address any concerns

As customers browse your online store, there’s a good chance they’re not just thinking about why they should buy your products. They’re also thinking about why they shouldn’t buy now, worrying about other expenses and whether they could get a better deal elsewhere. Don’t let them get scared off! Boost their confidence by answering their most common questions about shipping and returns in your FAQs, and point visitors to your customer reviews where they’ll discover that their concerns are unwarranted.

Don’t stand still

The ecommerce stores with the highest conversion rates didn’t get there by chance—they figured out what worked and did more of it. You can do the same by starting with our eight tips and then tweaking your copy to perfection with A/B testing, which splits your incoming traffic between your current page (the “control’ version) and a variation. By regularly testing the performance of different headlines, descriptions and calls to action, you can be confident you’re writing copy that maximises your conversion rate.