With the world transitioning to digital transactions and the ease of purchasing goods and services online, business owners can reach a large audience looking for convenient and accessible retailers. However, the previous two years have taught us that nothing is certain.

According to current market data, retail e-commerce sales peaked in 2020 at 25.7% but fell to 6.5% in 2022. These sales accounted for approximately 19% of retail sales worldwide. Furthermore, growth was predicted to reach 9% by 2024, confirming “nothing is certain.”

You were eager to start your e-commerce business, but now that you’ve begun, your numbers are nothing to write home about. The reason is simple—-you just haven’t figured out what to do next, and that’s why you are here.

In this guide, we will break down the process of growing your e-commerce business into eight manageable steps, each of which will help you succeed in 2024 and beyond. From identifying your target audience to leveraging the power of social media, each step is intended to help you thrive in the competitive online environment. 

So, if you are ready to step up your e-commerce game and unlock the potential for unprecedented growth, let’s get started and look at the key strategies that will put you on the path to success.

1. Identify Your Target Audience

Identifying your target audience is essential for success in e-commerce. But who are they? Your target audience is the people you want to reach with your product or service. These individuals have the greatest potential to interact with your brand, become customers, and eventually help your business expand.

You must specifically determine the kinds of individuals who are most likely to consider purchasing your goods. After you realize this, adopt their way of thinking. Which products, in your opinion, would they most enjoy that you could easily source? After you have set up a production line for them, you can concentrate on marketing these perfect products for your target market. 

A comprehensive, data-driven, and perceptive understanding of your target market will also enable you to identify and adjust your product and service portfolios in response to the constantly changing online trends.

2. Encourage Repeat Business

Repeat business indicates a customer’s loyalty and satisfaction with a business or brand. Selling to a satisfied customer is far simpler than selling to a potential customer. Keep in mind the customers who have already expressed interest in your products. Customers will remain loyal if you provide exceptional customer service, premium products, and affordable prices. Some may even be nice enough to spread the word about your product/service, guiding more customers to your brand.

According to several studies, acquiring new customers is seven times more expensive than keeping current ones. You can increase your business profitability and reduce the cost of acquiring new customers by encouraging repeat purchases.

Creating a customer loyalty program is a great way to promote repeat business. As a bonus, loyalty programs increase the average sales transaction size. Start by collecting your customers’ contact details, giving them a special card or account number, and rewarding them when they make a predetermined number of purchases or spend a predetermined amount of money. 

3. Offer Upsells and Cross-Sells

The goal of both cross-sells and upsells is to increase the value of a sale. They also have the added benefit of strengthening your bond with a client and eventually promoting repeat business.

Upselling is a sales strategy in which a vendor attempts to persuade a buyer to purchase a more expensive or superior product or service than they had planned. Cross-selling occurs when a vendor encourages a customer to add a complementary product to their intended purchase. In cross-selling, a consumer may be offered a discount on a dog collar after ordering a bag of dog food, or they may be given the option to add a belt to match the pair of trousers they just bought.

Upselling and cross-selling raise average and total order values, generating income and profit at little additional cost. Maximizing order value is the secret to maximizing return on investment (ROI) on eCommerce store marketing expenditures.

These two strategies also demonstrate the breadth of your product line.

4. Provide Excellent Customer Service

In e-commerce, customer service assumes even greater significance, as it is essential for any business. The popularity of online shopping has made customers more dependent on the speed and ease of doing business online.

Customer satisfaction and loyalty are among the main effects of customer service in e-commerce. Customers who shop in person can rely on sales representatives to assist, advise, and resolve any issues quickly. However, when it comes to e-commerce, customers rely on customer service teams to respond to their inquiries, handle their worries, and fix any issues that may come up while they shop online.

Good or bad, your brand’s customer service can affect online reviews and word-of-mouth referrals. Customers easily share their experiences—both good and bad—with friends, family, and online communities. Positive feedback and recommendations from satisfied customers can help your business attract new customers and establish a solid reputation. However, a bad customer service encounter can spread fast through unfavorable reviews, deterring prospective buyers from interacting with your e-commerce brand.

Promoting a positive customer experience can set your brand apart from rivals and eventually propel growth and success in your online endeavors. Investing in a responsive and helpful customer service team can also help. 

5. Market to All Stages of the Buying Process

The marketing funnel model represents a customer’s relationship with a brand, from initial awareness to action. Many e-commerce companies lose out on conversions because they allocate an excessive amount of their marketing budget to just one or two stages of the sales funnel, neglecting the remaining stages. Based on your industry and the distinctive buying journey of your brand, the precise phases of a marketing funnel will differ, but the conventional stages are as follows:

• Awareness: When someone sees a product they might want to buy, they enter the awareness stage of the funnel. 
• Interest: After seeing the product or brand, the audience moves on to the next stage of interest, where they want to learn more.
• Desire: The buyer has researched and is nearly ready to purchase.
• Purchase: In this stage, the customer is prepared to purchase.
• Post-purchase: Following a purchase, the customer assesses whether or not it was the right choice.

Your e-commerce business will grow if your marketing approach focuses on every stage of the funnel. This is because you will be more likely to seize opportunities and attract devoted customers. When a customer discovers your brand during the awareness stage and uses the content on your website to complete a purchase, you have gained a great deal of trust from them.

However, the process is flexible. Customers complete the steps at their own pace, frequently out of order. Ideally, your marketing strategy should cover each of the five stages.

6. Remember That Most E-Commerce Businesses Can Operate Globally

Establishing a global presence for your brand is a calculated approach to expanding your business that requires patience. Even though customers typically choose the quickest shipping times and prefer to shop in their language, these markets remain accessible.

First, numerous e-commerce platforms allow you to have multilingual product descriptions by adding translation plugins or addons to their software. To go one step further, you can employ a qualified translator to work on your website to prevent translation errors and consider any relevant local cultural context. A translator can also offer more in-depth expertise on slang or everyday expressions that your company can use to expand its global reach. 

In addition to translating content into other languages, your online store needs to accept the currencies used in the countries you are targeting. If this option is not accessible, international customers may not purchase your product, even though they would like to.

7. Use Marketing Automation to Offer Special Discounts

While there are many ways to automate marketing, email marketing remains the top channel for customer retention. Email marketing automation encompasses customer segmentation and targeting based on online behavior and past purchases. 

An automated, customized email marketing campaign communicates with potential customers who have abandoned their shopping carts. By gently encouraging customers to finish their purchases, both parties can recover about 10% of lost revenue from abandoned carts.

Automate your workflow so that a website visitor will be reminded politely about the item they left in their cart after leaving it. You can improve email relevancy by including product-related content and automatically generating suggestions to encourage customers to return to the website and complete the purchase. 

Marketing automation can also identify special events in your customer’s life, such as birthdays, anniversaries, or holidays. Customized messages can be programmed to help you remember a memorable day. Take advantage of this. For example, on each customer’s birthday, you could send them a $10 off coupon code.

8. Incorporate Content and Influencer Marketing

Influencer and content marketing are two effective types of Internet advertising. Both require producing informative content that your target audience will find interesting.

Since content marketing drives visitors to your e-commerce website, it is regarded as an inbound marketing tactic. It provides a nice counterbalance to more conventional “outbound” marketing strategies, which aim to connect with customers where they are on social media and in their inboxes.

Strategic content marketing is the foundation of a modern SEO strategy. It drives search traffic to your website, allowing potential customers to learn about your offerings.

Influencer marketing is a social media marketing tactic through which brands can partner with prominent social media users for endorsements and promotions. Brands that use influencer marketing as a performance marketing channel often pay for influencer campaigns. Because it does not cost anything if it does not work, influencer marketing is an excellent approach for expanding your e-commerce company. A mix of both strategies will provide you with the best results.

 By embracing these strategies and continuously adapting to changing trends, e-commerce you can unlock the full potential of your e-commerce business, ensuring long-term success in an increasingly digital marketplace.

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