Year by year, the e-Commerce landscape has been seismically shifted by mobile devices. With mobile accounting to 66% of consumers’ time spent on online shopping, it is forecasted that revenue from mobile commerce will blow to an enormous proportion of $169.10 billion by 2017.
Armed with smartphones and tablets, the consumers’ power has become more prevalent to online retailers as they can easily control how they want to interact with online stores, what messages they want to be communicated with, as well as where and when they want to receive them. These inferences threaten many e-commerce stores to secure conversions on their shoppers through mobile devices.
And so, with the heterogeneity and complexity of the mobile market, how could e-commerce stores adapt rapidly to meet the demands of online shoppers? How could online stores satisfy their mobile shoppers and curtail their frustrations to drive more sales? If you want to maximize your revenue today, follow these exceptional mobile strategies for your sales supremacy.
1 – Be mobile-friendly! Optimize mobile web version
Sales can be elusive, especially if your online store is not designed for mobile web. It was reported that 88% of shoppers have experienced negative issues while shopping on their smartphones. It was also revealed that 30% are never coming back after a negative user experience.
Due to poor mobile user experience which is usually reflective of high bounces and short web sessions, you are losing up to 51% of traffic from mobile. Thus, it is essential that you invest into creating a responsive omnichannel web design, especially giving attention to optimize your mobile web.
Create a stress-free mobile web with these optimization practices:
Build a simple mobile checkout. 28% of shoppers are unsatisfied with the checkout process and so they don’t continue the purchase. Imagine that 28% of lost sales just because of your unfriendly checkout process. Do not make a complicated process especially on your checkout counter because your customers are already ready and willing to pay. Take for example how Zalora created just a 3-step process:
The above example is how Zalora creates a simple 3-step checkout process with a progress bar which lets user know where they are in the checkout process.
Create interest-grabbing CTA buttons that are likable and clickable on mobile web. Your CTA buttons help you generate conversions even more because it’s that one click that affirms the willingness of a shopper to buy. CTA buttons vary in style or size depending on your goal but there’s still 70% of small-medium businesses that forget to optimize CTA buttons on sites. Is it too big or is it too small? Where is the CTA hiding? The size, color, placement and especially the message of the text are essential ingredients to make a CTA button mobile-friendly.
How Sellmob app adds a fixed CTA bar that allow mobile shoppers to easily choose and add items to cart on mobile web.
2 – Be a fingertip away! Get instant response with SMS Marketing
Whenever mobile is concerned, the most cost effective and the simplest form of mobile marketing is always SMS or Text Messaging. And the good news is you will get faster response rate compared to email marketing as 90% of text messages are read in the first three minutes. This gives you an instant form to engage with mobile shoppers.
Moreover, SMS marketing produces higher response rate by 800% compared to email marketing. And higher responses translate to potentially higher chances sales. This is backed up by a study which has seen a double sales turnover after an SMS Marketing campaign has been launched.
Get reactions swiftly, steal these SMS Marketing ideas today:
Always include URLs to your call-to-actions. SMS messages that contained a URLs or hyperlinks has seen a high average click-through rate of 36%. The more click-throughs that you’re getting the better chances of people seeing your offers and ultimately, enticed in making a purchase. But, remember to use URL shorteners for sleeker links and maximized messages. Below is an example of how URL becomes your call-to-action:
Start an SMS loyalty subscription program by exclusive SMS special discounts or freebies. Like building email subscribers, you can also start your own SMS subscription list by offering them exclusive discounts or freebies which they can apply on their next purchases. Loyalty reward programs via SMS are preferred channel by 48% of consumers. This means that as your SMS subscribers increase, more and more people are receiving exclusive discounts and treats that will be activated on their next purchase. Here’s an illustrative example on how you can use SMS subscription as a sales advantage:
You can promote a special SMS keyword which customers can text for them to unlock a special discount code which can be applied on their next purchase.
An alternative channel for your customer support inquiries: Telemarketing services can be costly and if you want to bring your costs down on your customer support line, you can start an SMS customer channel which supports product purchase inquiries. Here’s a smart way on how to use SMS customer channel to increase your sales:
For example, a customer is having a hard time picking the right product, through an SMS customer support, they can text you on their concern and then you can reply by asking what their preferences are and then send them a URL of your curated list.
3 – Be always on the go! Transform your online store into a mobile shopping app
With the convenience of shopping right at their fingertips, 58% of smartphone owners use mobile apps for their everyday shopping activities. Consumers can browse, research and purchase their most sought after dresses, bags or shoes, whenever and wherever they want. Mobile apps are constant shopping companion.
So, if you still don’t have your own store’s mobile shopping app, now is the best time to leverage on the richness of mobile app shoppers to increase your sales. If creating an app seems complicated to you, do not despair as many tools help you transform your online store into an app without having to go through the tedious process.
Today’s the best time to head to Sellmob as heaps of online store owners use this sleek and powerful tool to build their own mobile app without a sweat. Now, that’s handy!
Optimize your mobile shopping app with these killer ideas:
Apply App Store Optimization (ASO). 60% of online shoppers reported to discover new apps via app store. And in order to increase your visibility in app stores, use ASO techniques to put your mobile shopping app on top of the app store results page. Thus, increasing your visibility in front of more potential customers translating to more purchases. So, head to App Store Optimization Best Practices to learn more ideas on how to rank higher in the app store’s results page.
Increase mobile app downloads. In order to maximize the chances of revenue from your mobile app, you need to increase first your mobile app downloads. And to ensure you get more mobile app users, arm yourself with these persuasive ways to invite shoppers to download your app.
4 – Be proactive! Send triggered push notifications to promote or re-engage.
Push notifications are popup messages sent on mobile devices through mobile apps. They can be sent anytime; app users don’t have to be in the app in order to receive push notifications. Thus, allowing mobile app publishers to use push notifications as a re-engagement strategy to dormant or inactive shoppers.
Shoppers who receive push notifications have high interaction rates with 30-60% open rate and as high as 10-40% conversion rate. With the use of push notifications, you can convert your opens and clicks into sales. The key, however, is to use them with the right timing and caution. If you send them too often, it can irritate your app users.
Engage with your shoppers with these persuasive push notifications:
Regularly notify shoppers of your new arrivals, hot collections or promotions. You can schedule your push notifications following your online store’s important events. For example, a sale can be naturally a scheduled push notification in order to promote or remind your customers of your upcoming site-wide sale.
Selashop sends push notification to promote new collections with Sellmob app.
Remind your shoppers that you miss them. Appeal to your customers’ emotion by letting them know that they haven’t visited your shopping app for a considerable period of time. This reminder pushes them to go to your app and purchase products again.
Rue La La sends push notification stating that they haven’t seen an app user for 30 days.
Cart abandonment push notifications. When a cart abandonment push notification is sent it is likely to for you to generate a 42% purchase rate. That seemingly lost 42% additional sale can still be recovered through push notification.
Above is a clever push notification from Meal Box which reminds a shopper that they’ve left something in their cart.
5 – Be scanned in an instant! Use QR codes to transmit promotional messages
QR is an abbreviation for Quick Response which got its name because of its functionality to quickly read information via a mobile device. QR code is a two-dimensional barcode, highly dependent on mobile devices, which serves variety of purposes. The reliance of QR codes on mobile devices is a good indication why you can maximize your sales from mobile by utilizing QR codes.
In e-commerce, QR codes can be formatted to direct a mobile device to your online store or to your digital contents which helps retailers to drive traffic as 120 QR scans per minute resulting to 4 million new users of QR codes. And that traffic could, in turn, drive revenue. A study also supported this by stating that using QR codes could potentially increase your revenue by 200%.
Interact quickly with these QR codes marketing ideas:
Always include QR codes on product primary or secondary packaging. The most common way to leverage on QR codes in driving sales is to put them on your product packaging. Usually, in order to entice your previous buyers is by giving them discounts via scanned QR codes.
Amazon puts QR codes on their secondary packaging which directs previous shoppers to the link of discounted deals
Scan-to-buy tags on printed promotional materials: Typically, if a customer already received their purchased items, your sales end there. However, when customers receive their bought products, this is a good time for you to upsell or cross-sell more merchandize to them. How? Aside from putting QR codes on the packaging, insert a printed material of similar products and assign a QR code on each item that they might be interested to. You can also include the discount or special offers that they will get if they purchase by scanning the QR code.
6 – Be omnipresent! Let location based mobile advertising do the work
In simplest sense, Location Based Advertising (LBA) lets you vary your marketing messages in accordance to where your targets are currently situated geographically. However, sophisticated LBA tools will let you tailor-fit your messaging based on weather, shopping locations, vicinity of family and friends, and even public or private transportation routes. The good thing about LBAs is that 53% of consumers will likely to respond to location-based advertisements. These responses from LBA messages potentially increase revenue with additional 5%.
The underlying principle of how LBA can help you increase sales is rooted on the fact that by knowing where your customers’ current location, you are getting the information of how they usually behave. And this behavior can be used to advertise products that could make sense to them. Does he frequently go to an area of sporting goods or clothing stores or nightlife clubs? Where your customers commonly go reflects so much about their preferences and interests.
Use location to your advantage with these LBA tactics:
Send geo-aware targeting ads. By the term itself, geo-aware advertising means that you let your target audience become aware of your similar products whenever they are close or within a particular location. For instance, if you have detected a shopper close to a strip of flower shops, you can send messages via text, email or push notifications that your online store has discounted deals of flowers today that they can conveniently buy online and send to their loved ones.
Create hyper-contextual targeting ads. This type of LBA focuses on sending contextual messages to a targeted group based on relevant information of the location such as current events. For example, today it is expected that weather will drop causing cooler temperatures throughout the week within the sub-urban areas. A clothing company that specializes on winter clothes could release ads to those in the sub-urban areas such as “Feeling the cold weather? Our furs and jackets will keep you warm. Purchase them online today.”
A hyper-contextual Instagram ad from Evapolar Club targeting tropical locations and areas with warm season
You have endless possibilities
Immediately after waking up, 62% of mobile users check their devices. Mobile has been deeply rooted into everyone’s everyday living. Mobile is, indeed, a lifestyle. It has become the most personal touchpoint available to online retailers to strengthen their customer relationship and increase their brand awareness with the hope of ultimately expanding sales growth.
And so, almost all online sellers and marketers find new ways to incorporate mobile in the overall marketing strategies. However, mobile shoppers have also been well-informed and empowered to receive highly personalized mobile shopping experience.
Hence, it is but ideal to create marketing messages that are relevant and highly targeted in order to penetrate your audience and convert them to paying customers. With our high-level selection of exceptional strategies that target the right audience at the right time at the right location, and with the right messages, your shoppers will grow exponentially and your sales will have endless possibilities.
The post How to Multiply Sales from Mobile: 6 Exceptional Mobile-Commerce Strategies appeared first on Beeketing Blog.