Utilizing technology to increase sales gives you an advantage over competitors that do not keep up with modern trends. You can use various tools to sell online such as eCommerce platforms, CRM software, automated emails, and chatbots.
Implementing new technologies to your existing eCommerce business could be a game-changer. You may increase market share, improve customer service quality, and sell more products to each visitor. If you have not updated your processes for a while, then now is the time to upgrade and avoid being left behind.
Contents
Build a mobile app to raise brand awareness
Mobile apps are a great way to raise brand awareness and boost product sales directly from smartphone users. That’s because 66% of smartphone users utilize brand-specific mobile apps, which means it’s a practice that has caught on.
Building your own app gives you full control of how it will look and function. You can implement the features that contribute to brand building, such as a loyalty rewards program or a strongly linked theme to your brand.
Are you wondering how to make an app that your customer base will love? You could build the app yourself or outsource the project to a professional service. The latter is ideal if you want to have more focus on other business activities. These experts can create a custom app that helps you meet business goals and provide ongoing maintenance support.
Features of eCommerce platforms that boost sales
Are you using an eCommerce platform to sell online? If not, you’re at a disadvantage compared to competitors utilizing the sales-boosting features of eCommerce platforms. Here is a summary of the features you should be taking advantage of:
- Automation: Ecommerce requires many repetitive tasks in areas such as marketing, order fulfillment, customer service, and workflow management. Automating tasks reduces the workload on your employees, which allows them to focus on other revenue-generating activities. For example, automate following up on cart abandonment instances instead of getting an employee to do it manually.
- Analytics: Do you know what parts of your website are losing you money? Analytics has the answers you need to optimize your website to increase sales. For example, you can improve the conversion rate of landing pages based on A/B split testing. It enables you to sell online with optimized landing pages. Therefore, you are making the most of the money spent on traffic to bring in new customers.
- Up-selling & cross-selling: It costs 5 times more to attract new customers than to keep existing ones. Therefore, upselling and cross-selling are excellent strategies for generating extra sales without depleting your marketing budget. Ecommerce platforms come with features that provide personalized suggestions to capture extra sales.
The advantageous eCommerce features mentioned above are just the tip of the iceberg. There are many others that could be a game-changer for your business. Your competitors are likely to be using eCommerce platforms to operate their online operations, so you’ll need to follow suit to compete.
Use CRM software to personalize your customer communication
CRM software is a data-gathering machine that builds accurate and detailed customer histories. Therefore, when interacting with customers you can leverage the data to provide personalized help and product suggestions. It leads to more sales because you can provide product suggestions that match customer interests. Therefore, customers pay attention to suggestions instead of ignoring them.
Salespeople can use CRM data to see the number of interactions and their nature. For example, if a customer showed interest in a specific product category over the last year, then it makes sense to focus on selling from that category.
Harness the power of automated email marketing campaigns
Automation allows online stores to scale without sacrificing the conversion rate. Email marketing campaigns are perfect for automating marketing regardless of how many customers are subscribed to the list.
There are various types of automated emails that you should know about:
- Cart abandonment email: You’ll be surprised by the number of visitors that leave the cart before completing the buying process. Increase the chances of capturing sales by sending emails that nudge people back in the virtual shopping cart’s direction.
- Behavioral triggers: Send emails based on visitor behavior to increase the chances of capturing a sale. For example, let’s say that you own an office furniture store and from browsing data, your CRM software determines a visitor is interested in a corner office desk. It makes sense to send an automated email campaign where corner office desks are showcased to the recipient.
- Thank you email: Post-sale you can send a thank you email to show how grateful you are for choosing your store. The email is a suitable occasion to suggest more products they could buy that complements their purchase.
Keep in mind that personalized emails have 22.63% higher open rates. Therefore, you need to track customer data and utilize it in your automated email marketing campaign. It also leads to higher customer satisfaction because they receive emails that are not irrelevant.
Deploy chatbots to improve customer service
During the last few years, there has been an explosion in the use of chatbots in eCommerce stores. You may have noticed them in the bottom right-hand corner of online stores you’ve visited in the past. They can provide automated answers to commonly asked questions. The quick speed of answers means customers don’t have to wait around for a real person to connect. It decreases the chances of visitors getting frustrated and leaving your store.
However, you should provide visitors with an option to escalate the chat interaction with a real person if the chatbot is not providing the right answers. Giving visitors a choice helps them get the right info to make a buying decision.
Final thoughts
Updating your online store with current technological trends is a no-brainer. You must assume that competitors in your marketplace are taking advantage of the best software, tools, and strategies to fight for each sale. You need to keep up with the trends so you can compete on a level playing field.
You might be one of the first to spot technological trends and quickly implement them in your online store. It will give you an advantage and help increase your market share. The idea is to constantly evolve and adapt to tilt the odds of success in your favor.
