Atlantic Online Digital Marketing Blog
"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."
Shelley Bellefontaine • Apr 15, 2021
How To Boost E-Commerce Sales in 7 Steps
Converting website visitors into paying and repeat customers is the goal of e-commerce, but getting there isn’t always easy. In fact, studies estimate the average e-commerce conversion rate is just 2-3%. Sounds gloomy, I know, given all the effort that we go through to build e-commerce websites, and the promotions to get it seen! But, there are things we can do. Follow this simple checklist to optimize your e-commerce website experience, and turn more of your existing website traffic into sales.
1. Attention-grabbing photos (and video, too)
Photography needs to do the job of making the shopper feel like they can (almost) touch your product. And the more photos, the better. Include multiple angles of the product standing alone, with people using it, and a shot of the packaging. A short video is great for showing how a product moves, works or how it should be installed.
2. Powerful product descriptions
Your product copy should be short and hard-working. Use a mix of action words and sensory words to paint a clear picture of specific product features and benefits. This is also the place to have a little fun if that fits with your brand voice. And don’t forget to spellcheck your text.
3. A clear call to action (CTA)
If you don’t ask a customer to buy from you, chances are they won’t. An effective CTA is short and clear, such as Add to Cart or Checkout, and they work best on coloured buttons. Your Checkout button is like a cash register, so don’t make shoppers look for how to give you their money.
4. Reviews and testimonials
Product reviews are powerful persuasion tools. A good review can answer a nagging question in the consumer’s mind and give them the confidence to buy from your business. Testimonials, although more effort to obtain because they require outreach, are worthwhile, detailed accounts of the customer experience with your product or service. If you’re able to get media or industry experts to review your products, these are worth featuring prominently.
5. Free shipping
With free shipping the norm these days, it’s easy to assume that it’s the only way to go. And while free shipping can increase conversion rates on e-commerce websites, it can seriously eat into your profit margin. Shipping carriers can increase their prices, too, further cutting your profits. Many merchants choose to increase product prices to maintain the same margin, but there is another approach. Free shipping minimums are a great compromise that incentivizes customers to increase their order value while offsetting your shipping costs.
6. Sales, deals, promo codes, and coupons
Satisfy the deal hunter in everyone by offering special promotions and discounts. A designated Sale section on your website navigation clearly tells shoppers where to go for the best savings. Ramp up the sense of urgency by using time-limited coupon codes or bundling high-demand products with sellout potential.
7. A straightforward return policy
Offering a reasonable return policy is an important part of your e-commerce business strategy. If your policy is too generous, it may be abused. If it’s not flexible enough, customers may choose to buy elsewhere. Post your policy and clearly outline terms for returns, refunds, and exchanges to give shoppers the confidence to place their trust in your business. Ensure returns are handled professionally, and you’ll continue to build customer loyalty for future purchases.
Ready to take your e-commerce business to the next level? AtlanticOnline.ca can help promote your business online. Find out more by calling 1-902-717-8496 for a free consultation with one of our eCommerce Account Consultants.
2023: The Year To Market Your Business Like Never Before
How to Choose a Web Design Agency?
There are plenty of exciting ways to grow your business! More people are using email and social media than ever before, and the result is plenty of new opportunities for leaders and marketing teams across all industries. One aspect of marketing you may be neglecting is your mobile strategy. Over 3.5 billion people own mobile devices globally, which means you’re leaving a lot of money on the table if you’re not doing everything possible to reach smartphone users. If you need more context, consider this; the average person spends 3.3 hours on their smartphone every single day. You can maximize sales and conversions by looking for opportunities to put your business front and center while your target audience uses their phones. The thing is, mobile users have slightly different behaviors and interests when compared to their desktop counterparts. Our goal today is to reveal four effective mobile marketing strategies you can use to help your brand thrive following the new year. Emphasis Personalization In 2021 and 2022, we learned that consumers love personalized experiences. Business owners quickly figured out that catering to their audience’s needs is a great way to generate more sales. You can see personalization aspects across all of the major marketing platforms today, including social media, email, and on-site. Nailing personalization will help you get more mobile conversions in 2021. People are interested in engaging with companies that offer products that help with specific pain points or cater to individual goals. The best way to make this strategy work for you is to understand the customer personas that visit your site. Personas are generalized personality type profiles that define your target audience. For instance, a sporting goods store would have personas for football fans and separate profiles for people interested in basketball. Because your products or services offer multiple solutions, you need to consider these factors when offering personalized content or promotions to smartphone visitors. Using a mobile-responsive design ensures that their experience is personalized to their interests and their device. Leverage the Power of Voice Search Another trend expected to impact mobile sales specifically is voice search. Consumers use smart speakers like Amazon’s Alexa to search the internet, but mobile phones play an equally important role. Android and Apple-powered smartphones have a voice assistant that smartphone users can use to ask questions, browse the website, and make purchases. We know that more people are using their devices to place orders too. A surprising 22% of people using smart speakers, including their mobile phones, used their devices to buy a product. You can improve your voice search visibility by including new keywords throughout your content. The truth is, people rarely speak the way they type. When you’re creating blog posts, use a conversational tone, and include some of these new words throughout your content. Now, when someone is searching for your chosen keywords, there’s a chance your site could pop up in their results. Due to this exposure, they could go to your website and become a subscriber or customer. Mobile users are likely to follow their voice-activated device’s suggestion, so getting this part of your mobile marketing strategy right is essential. Simplify Processes and Empower Users Next, let’s talk about your website’s design and choices you can make to empower users. The people interacting with your brand want a smooth and seamless experience across all platforms. Smoothing out your edges and using each marketing platform to your advantage will help you dramatically boost your mobile conversion rate. For instance, you may want to consider adding a customer support feature to your largest social media accounts. A whopping 63% of people expect customer support options through social media. If a smartphone user is thinking about becoming a customer, not having an additional support option could be a deal-breaker. Your objective is to make things as simple as possible for visitors discovering your company and those interested in the products or services offered on-site. So, improving your page loading times and reducing clutter on your website will ensure that mobile and desktop users alike can find exactly what they need. It’s also a good idea to simplify the big moments in the buying process. For example, fine-tuning your checkout page ensures that more customers stick around and complete their order. As a result, you’ll see fewer abandoned carts and an improved customer retention rate. This part of the process will evolve in phases. Take your time and slowly improve navigation, design, and function availability across all platforms, and you’ll see more mobile engagement. Shift to Visual Content We’ve also noticed a drastic shift in the way people consume content. Mobile users are a big fan of visual content like images and videos. Both of these types of media see more engagement when compared to simple text posts. There’s an additional engagement level that people get from experiencing others doing things instead of writing about them. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in; there are plenty of ways to mix up your content for mobile users. If you’re looking for a new way to generate more mobile leads for your email list, consider creating an infographic lead magnet. Lead magnets are essentially pieces of content that users can get in exchange for their email addresses. An infographic is a visual piece of content that displays interesting points and facts for people to read. Creating a lead magnet with a nice piece of visual content will encourage mobile users to subscribe, which opens the door to future engagement opportunities. Video content is also extremely helpful in helping brands grow their mobile audience. In fact, video content alone is 50x more likely to drive organic traffic than text-only posts! Think about unique videos you can make that focus on your products or industry as a whole. You can make an opinion piece, guide, tutorial, or even spend some time chatting with your followers. People love video content, and that trend will not change in 2021. Final Thoughts As you can glean from this article, trends will continue to grow. As more people get comfortable using mobile devices, expect to see a continued increase in shoppers. We think that there will be an increased demand for these strategies as brands continue adapting to their customers’ needs.
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Shelley Bellefontaine, Digital Marketing Architect, is CEO/Founder of AtlanticOnline.ca, a full-service marketing firm operating at the intersection of marketing and digital media. We provide a host of digital marketing solutions including website design, eCommerce storefront websites, content marketing, email marketing, SEO/ SEM, social media marketing, lead generation as well as marketing strategy, branding, and a variety of other marketing programs to mid-sized businesses and nonprofits.
To learn how AtlanticOnline.ca can help your business or organziation grow online, contact us for an enlightening discussion.
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2023: The Year To Market Your Business Like Never Before
How to Choose a Web Design Agency?
There are plenty of exciting ways to grow your business! More people are using email and social media than ever before, and the result is plenty of new opportunities for leaders and marketing teams across all industries. One aspect of marketing you may be neglecting is your mobile strategy. Over 3.5 billion people own mobile devices globally, which means you’re leaving a lot of money on the table if you’re not doing everything possible to reach smartphone users. If you need more context, consider this; the average person spends 3.3 hours on their smartphone every single day. You can maximize sales and conversions by looking for opportunities to put your business front and center while your target audience uses their phones. The thing is, mobile users have slightly different behaviors and interests when compared to their desktop counterparts. Our goal today is to reveal four effective mobile marketing strategies you can use to help your brand thrive following the new year. Emphasis Personalization In 2021 and 2022, we learned that consumers love personalized experiences. Business owners quickly figured out that catering to their audience’s needs is a great way to generate more sales. You can see personalization aspects across all of the major marketing platforms today, including social media, email, and on-site. Nailing personalization will help you get more mobile conversions in 2021. People are interested in engaging with companies that offer products that help with specific pain points or cater to individual goals. The best way to make this strategy work for you is to understand the customer personas that visit your site. Personas are generalized personality type profiles that define your target audience. For instance, a sporting goods store would have personas for football fans and separate profiles for people interested in basketball. Because your products or services offer multiple solutions, you need to consider these factors when offering personalized content or promotions to smartphone visitors. Using a mobile-responsive design ensures that their experience is personalized to their interests and their device. Leverage the Power of Voice Search Another trend expected to impact mobile sales specifically is voice search. Consumers use smart speakers like Amazon’s Alexa to search the internet, but mobile phones play an equally important role. Android and Apple-powered smartphones have a voice assistant that smartphone users can use to ask questions, browse the website, and make purchases. We know that more people are using their devices to place orders too. A surprising 22% of people using smart speakers, including their mobile phones, used their devices to buy a product. You can improve your voice search visibility by including new keywords throughout your content. The truth is, people rarely speak the way they type. When you’re creating blog posts, use a conversational tone, and include some of these new words throughout your content. Now, when someone is searching for your chosen keywords, there’s a chance your site could pop up in their results. Due to this exposure, they could go to your website and become a subscriber or customer. Mobile users are likely to follow their voice-activated device’s suggestion, so getting this part of your mobile marketing strategy right is essential. Simplify Processes and Empower Users Next, let’s talk about your website’s design and choices you can make to empower users. The people interacting with your brand want a smooth and seamless experience across all platforms. Smoothing out your edges and using each marketing platform to your advantage will help you dramatically boost your mobile conversion rate. For instance, you may want to consider adding a customer support feature to your largest social media accounts. A whopping 63% of people expect customer support options through social media. If a smartphone user is thinking about becoming a customer, not having an additional support option could be a deal-breaker. Your objective is to make things as simple as possible for visitors discovering your company and those interested in the products or services offered on-site. So, improving your page loading times and reducing clutter on your website will ensure that mobile and desktop users alike can find exactly what they need. It’s also a good idea to simplify the big moments in the buying process. For example, fine-tuning your checkout page ensures that more customers stick around and complete their order. As a result, you’ll see fewer abandoned carts and an improved customer retention rate. This part of the process will evolve in phases. Take your time and slowly improve navigation, design, and function availability across all platforms, and you’ll see more mobile engagement. Shift to Visual Content We’ve also noticed a drastic shift in the way people consume content. Mobile users are a big fan of visual content like images and videos. Both of these types of media see more engagement when compared to simple text posts. There’s an additional engagement level that people get from experiencing others doing things instead of writing about them. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in; there are plenty of ways to mix up your content for mobile users. If you’re looking for a new way to generate more mobile leads for your email list, consider creating an infographic lead magnet. Lead magnets are essentially pieces of content that users can get in exchange for their email addresses. An infographic is a visual piece of content that displays interesting points and facts for people to read. Creating a lead magnet with a nice piece of visual content will encourage mobile users to subscribe, which opens the door to future engagement opportunities. Video content is also extremely helpful in helping brands grow their mobile audience. In fact, video content alone is 50x more likely to drive organic traffic than text-only posts! Think about unique videos you can make that focus on your products or industry as a whole. You can make an opinion piece, guide, tutorial, or even spend some time chatting with your followers. People love video content, and that trend will not change in 2021. Final Thoughts As you can glean from this article, trends will continue to grow. As more people get comfortable using mobile devices, expect to see a continued increase in shoppers. We think that there will be an increased demand for these strategies as brands continue adapting to their customers’ needs.
Social media is a powerhouse in the marketing world; both effective and reasonably priced. Since the eruption of digital marketing in the past 10 years, companies shift more of their marketing budget to social media and using the community built across social media platforms to engage people and beat their competition. Today, we’ll share some super simple social media marketing tips you need to kickstart your marketing online this winter and beat the heck out of your competition. How social media delivers ROI When you think about organic social media marketing, what we call owned and earned social media, ROI originates not from advertising, but from building a community of connections interested in your brand and its products. Beyond just creating a large following, you must achieve engagement for your social media marketing efforts to pay off. When your community engages with a post, through liking, commenting, sharing, ReTweeting, etc, the message reaches your community’s connections to amplify your messaging. Check out the image below to see how you can reach a massive audience by engaging average users. Starting with a respectable 2 million connections and assuming each connection has an average number of network connections (ie. Friends, followers), which is 388 Friends, on average, per user, you quickly reach 1.2 billion users or nearly half of Facebook’s number of active users (2.7 billion). When you consider that users consider posts shared or liked (or ReTweeted, Re-Pinned, etc), more trustworthy, acting as virtual word-of-mouth, you see the effect of this engagement offers not only more reach but, likely, more conversion, social media marketing is one of your best friends. User-generated content User-generated content, or UGC, goes beyond engagement with your brand to reflect posts generated by your community. This UGC offers all the advantages of engagement shown earlier in this post, along with other valuable outcomes including the fact that UGC reduces the strain on your staff to produce content, UGC provides unique value by answering questions and providing tips for using your products, and, maybe most importantly, a strong group of brand advocates (or ambassadors) is available to provide assistance to users around the clock, something you can’t do easily alone. The value of influencers Now, extend the analogy above to consider users with well above average numbers of followers. We call these social media influencers and there’s an entire marketing strategy built on getting social media influencers to engage with your content, bringing your brand to the attention of their huge numbers of connections, while tacitly endorsing your brand. Super simple social media marketing tips Now that we’re all on the same page regarding how social media marketing creates value for your business, let’s discuss our simple social media marketing tips to help you boost market performance and slam the competition. Create engagement After our discussion above, I hope you agree that the most important thing you must do when marketing using social media is to engage with your followers. Engagement doesn’t just happen and, if you attack social media marketing the same way you approach traditional marketing, you’ll fail to generate engagement, and your efforts will fail. The cornerstone to engagement on social media is crafting great content to share. But, instead of blasting promotional content, even if you use coupons or other valuable elements for users, you must generate a conversation with your community, not talk at them. Social media looks more like a backyard BBQ with friends than a commercial; at least if you expect success. So, don’t talk about yourself all the time. Listen and celebrate your community. That means recognizing the efforts of your community. So, if a member answers another user’s question, thank them. If a user shares a great story about your brand, offer them something for their efforts, such as a coupon for a free cookie if you’re a bakery. And, above all, listen for questions or concerns and address these posts as quickly as possible. Consider the platforms you use As you can see from our discussion on engagement, social media marketing takes TIME. Don’t expect to actively participate in every social platform out there unless you have a large staff dedicated to social media. Only choose a few platforms to ensure you dedicate sufficient time to each one. As a small company, when you start out using social media for your brand it is a good idea to keep the platforms down to a maximum of 3 as you learn the ropes. For example, if you are a food brand you might choose Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter in those first few months as you pull in new customers. The social media platforms you choose for your company largely depend on your target market. Consider the graphic below, as well as others you can find online to see which platforms match your target market.
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There are plenty of exciting ways to grow your business! More people are using email and social media than ever before, and the result is plenty of new opportunities for leaders and marketing teams across all industries. One aspect of marketing you may be neglecting is your mobile strategy. Over 3.5 billion people own mobile devices globally, which means you’re leaving a lot of money on the table if you’re not doing everything possible to reach smartphone users. If you need more context, consider this; the average person spends 3.3 hours on their smartphone every single day. You can maximize sales and conversions by looking for opportunities to put your business front and center while your target audience uses their phones. The thing is, mobile users have slightly different behaviors and interests when compared to their desktop counterparts. Our goal today is to reveal four effective mobile marketing strategies you can use to help your brand thrive following the new year. Emphasis Personalization In 2021 and 2022, we learned that consumers love personalized experiences. Business owners quickly figured out that catering to their audience’s needs is a great way to generate more sales. You can see personalization aspects across all of the major marketing platforms today, including social media, email, and on-site. Nailing personalization will help you get more mobile conversions in 2021. People are interested in engaging with companies that offer products that help with specific pain points or cater to individual goals. The best way to make this strategy work for you is to understand the customer personas that visit your site. Personas are generalized personality type profiles that define your target audience. For instance, a sporting goods store would have personas for football fans and separate profiles for people interested in basketball. Because your products or services offer multiple solutions, you need to consider these factors when offering personalized content or promotions to smartphone visitors. Using a mobile-responsive design ensures that their experience is personalized to their interests and their device. Leverage the Power of Voice Search Another trend expected to impact mobile sales specifically is voice search. Consumers use smart speakers like Amazon’s Alexa to search the internet, but mobile phones play an equally important role. Android and Apple-powered smartphones have a voice assistant that smartphone users can use to ask questions, browse the website, and make purchases. We know that more people are using their devices to place orders too. A surprising 22% of people using smart speakers, including their mobile phones, used their devices to buy a product. You can improve your voice search visibility by including new keywords throughout your content. The truth is, people rarely speak the way they type. When you’re creating blog posts, use a conversational tone, and include some of these new words throughout your content. Now, when someone is searching for your chosen keywords, there’s a chance your site could pop up in their results. Due to this exposure, they could go to your website and become a subscriber or customer. Mobile users are likely to follow their voice-activated device’s suggestion, so getting this part of your mobile marketing strategy right is essential. Simplify Processes and Empower Users Next, let’s talk about your website’s design and choices you can make to empower users. The people interacting with your brand want a smooth and seamless experience across all platforms. Smoothing out your edges and using each marketing platform to your advantage will help you dramatically boost your mobile conversion rate. For instance, you may want to consider adding a customer support feature to your largest social media accounts. A whopping 63% of people expect customer support options through social media. If a smartphone user is thinking about becoming a customer, not having an additional support option could be a deal-breaker. Your objective is to make things as simple as possible for visitors discovering your company and those interested in the products or services offered on-site. So, improving your page loading times and reducing clutter on your website will ensure that mobile and desktop users alike can find exactly what they need. It’s also a good idea to simplify the big moments in the buying process. For example, fine-tuning your checkout page ensures that more customers stick around and complete their order. As a result, you’ll see fewer abandoned carts and an improved customer retention rate. This part of the process will evolve in phases. Take your time and slowly improve navigation, design, and function availability across all platforms, and you’ll see more mobile engagement. Shift to Visual Content We’ve also noticed a drastic shift in the way people consume content. Mobile users are a big fan of visual content like images and videos. Both of these types of media see more engagement when compared to simple text posts. There’s an additional engagement level that people get from experiencing others doing things instead of writing about them. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in; there are plenty of ways to mix up your content for mobile users. If you’re looking for a new way to generate more mobile leads for your email list, consider creating an infographic lead magnet. Lead magnets are essentially pieces of content that users can get in exchange for their email addresses. An infographic is a visual piece of content that displays interesting points and facts for people to read. Creating a lead magnet with a nice piece of visual content will encourage mobile users to subscribe, which opens the door to future engagement opportunities. Video content is also extremely helpful in helping brands grow their mobile audience. In fact, video content alone is 50x more likely to drive organic traffic than text-only posts! Think about unique videos you can make that focus on your products or industry as a whole. You can make an opinion piece, guide, tutorial, or even spend some time chatting with your followers. People love video content, and that trend will not change in 2021. Final Thoughts As you can glean from this article, trends will continue to grow. As more people get comfortable using mobile devices, expect to see a continued increase in shoppers. We think that there will be an increased demand for these strategies as brands continue adapting to their customers’ needs.
In a nutshell, dropshipping is the best business model for entrepreneurs who are looking to set up a business with low investment. For many business owners, launching a Shopify dropshipping store is a great way to get into e-commerce. We know that spending money and time on managing stock is a deal-breaker. Therefore, maintaining an e-commerce store that involves a dropshipping business model can be a great choice, as you’ll never need to maintain an inventory . In this way, you will be free to focus your resources and time on growing your online business and making more sales. Dropshipping gives you a flexible way of doing business and it is supported by the majority of e-commerce platforms including Shopify. What is Dropshipping? Dropshipping is a business model in which e-commerce entrepreneurs sell their products without carrying a physical inventory. Whenever a store owner receives an order from a buyer, he/she simply contacts the supplier, who will directly ship the product to the buyer’s door. There are also many apps like Oberlo which allow you to add products from different suppliers to your online store to fuel your product offering. Dropshipping is one of the great business models for new e-commerce entrepreneurs. It is quite easy to set up and manage an online store, and it does not require any large amount of investment. You can also run your dropshipping business in your free time or as a side business. You don’t need to exit your job to start an online store. Furthermore, there are many dropshipping strategies you can use to drive more traffic to your store. What is Shopify? Shopify is one of the leading platforms which enables entrepreneurs to make up their own online stores - and it's our favourite!! It is simple and easy to start a store on Shopify, especially a Shopify dropshipping store. And, while most people are positioned to build their own online store, many people call on us to help with the tech pieces, and the overall sales funnel strategy involving outreach, fullfillment and managing the post-sales relationshop. Additionally, Shopify gives you access to the wealth of a variety of apps and Shopify themes that are available on their website. Why use Shopify? Shopify is the most famous e-commerce platform in the world, more than half a million entrepreneurs are already using Shopify to grow their business. While working with Shopify it is more likely to get higher sales because it gives you more features that will make you succeed as an online entrepreneur. Furthermore, if you are looking for extra features that are not available on Shopify, you can find an app from the Shopify app store to fulfill your needs. Another huge requirement for Shopify is trust, many entrepreneurs are searching for an online platform that will stay even on shopping holidays, and this is what the Shopify is offering exactly. In a nutshell, dropshipping is the best business model for entrepreneurs who are looking to set up a business with low investment and Shopify is the simplest and easiest platform for running a dropshipping business. Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our email at: shelleyb@atlanticonline.ca
Helping you navigate the sea of digital since 1999 | © 2024 Atlantic Online Fairlead Marketing Inc. | All Rights Reserved | Privacy