Every visitor to your site will not buy something, the bonus is on you to create opportunities for future purchases, otherwise, you lose them completely.
Many visitors troop into your site hoping to find something valuable, and the number decreases as they navigate, forming a narrow end.
According to a study by Ofcom, people spend 24 hours a week online. With such long hours, one would think that consumers have a lot of time to spare. Surprisingly, the attention span of the average online user is just about eight seconds.
So much is happening online, and consumers are bent on getting a piece of all the action. Research by Statista shows that 75.6% of online retail orders are abandoned halfway. They jump out the window if they are not motivated to stay on your site.
The above data suffices to say that e-commerce sites are either not using a sales funnel or not doing it right. Let us look at ways you can create an effective sales funnel on your e-commerce site.
1. Generate targeted traffic
Traffic is the breath of ecommerce sites. New visitors do not drop onto your site from the sky. The majority of them find your business somewhere before coming through.
How you attract visitors affects their actions, or lack thereof, on your site. There must be a correlation between what brings them in and what you offer. Clickbait is harmful to your sales funnel.
If your ad says you sell the best organic beauty products, and the products on your site are different, visitors will not get past the wide part of the funnel.
Businesses have different traffic sources. Pay close attention to where your traffic is coming from and channel your resources in that area.
Some of the ways to generate targeted traffic include:
i. Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing is a content-oriented marketing strategy that helps you pander to consumers' needs by providing useful content.
Inbound marketing can generate leads in your sales funnel by combining various techniques, such as content marketing, SEO, and blogging.
ii. Paid traffic
Paid traffic is the use of paid third-party services to put your products and/or services in the eyes of targeted prospects to generate leads for your business.
To get the best results, identify your ideal customers and choose the right paid traffic medium to reach them.
iii. Social Media presence
With over 3.196 billion users on social media in 2018, you can have your own share of targeted traffic from the lot by moving your social traffic into your sales funnel.
2. Offer support
Creating a great site and filling it up with assorted products is not enough for customers to make purchases.
Econsultancy’s Connecting with Consumers report reveals that 83% of online shoppers need support to successfully make a purchase.
Imagine walking to a physical store, and not knowing where to find a particular product you are looking for.
After searching for a while and finding no one in sight to help you out, what do you do? You will most likely walk away and check elsewhere. The same scenario plays out online; the only difference is the environment.
Customers with unresolved concerns about their purchase on your site will abandon their cart if they do not get help immediately.
No matter how simplified your site seems, people will always need clarification, from simple questions about colors to more serious ones about safety measures.
Some ways to provide customer support include:
i. Live chat:
Live chat puts you right there to attend to visitors in real time. In a report by Vtldesign, 38% of online users state that they completed their purchase due to the support they got via live chat. This makes a lot of success as live chat gives visitors your full attention.
ii. Self-service
Online users are more tech-savvy than ever. It is okay to want to help them, but sometimes, visitors would rather sort themselves out.
Provide a frequently asked questions (FAQ) page and searchable knowledge base so visitors can get support immediately.
3. Create a flow
In real life, people do not disclose very personal information to strangers. They take some time to get to know them before engaging individually. The same dynamic plays out in online buying.
Online users rarely log onto a site for the first time and start typing their credit card details immediately.
They want to engage with your site and develop some familiarity before parting with their money.
Do not be eager to snatch money from visitors. Obviously, that is your end goal, but you need to warm your way up to it, otherwise, you lose them completely.
Create a flow that takes visitors from one phase to another in order to get them comfortable.
Some of the ways to create a flow include:
i. Use a detailed landing page
Do not just tell visitors to “Buy Now,” provide information about what you want them to buy and why they should buy it.
Create visible tags for specific information, so visitors can click right away and get the information they need.
4. Showcase value in lead conversions
A visitor qualifies as a lead when they provide their contact. “Nobody likes being sold to. They like to buy, but not being sold to.” That is a rule in Marketing 101.
Basically, people want to buy things, but they do not want you to sell them. You really cannot blame anyone. Competition is so fierce today that marketing is like a tug-of-war.
Only the strongest brands survive. When two elephants fight, the ground suffers. The consumer suffers from the antics of dogged marketing, and is resisting to save themselves.
How do you break the circle?
Offer value. No one resists the benefits of the value provided. Rather than see visitors as cows you want to milk dry, see them as people with needs that must be met.
Some of the ways to showcase value in lead conversions include:
i. Use social proof
Showing evidence of value offered is a good way to convince visitors of your competence in meeting their needs.
What are people saying about your products? Display testimonials of real people who have used your products.
ii. Use reviews
Reviews are unbiased and contain all the details of products. They serve as a guide to people who might want to try them out.
If your products are good, they will get good reviews. Put them up to further convince visitors about the value you offer.
iii. Use lead magnets
Since you already know that the majority of first-time visitors will not buy from you, it's a good idea to collect their contact information for further correspondence.
Gone are the days when people were excited about filling email opt-in forms. When you create an irresistible lead magnet, they will be more than willing to drop their emails.
5. Nurture Leads
Kudos for getting your visitor’s contact, but that is not the end of your sales funnel. Bringing them in to make purchases ticks off your sales goal.
Lead nurturing is about building a relationship with site visitors. As a report by Salesforce Pardot revealed, nurtured leads have more potential than non-nurtured ones.
Communication creates familiarity. Visitors are more likely to pay attention to what you are saying when they hear from you over some time.
Some of the ways to nurture leads include:
i. Email reminder
Did a visitor abandon their cart halfway through? An email reminder is a good way to remind them about their pending purchase.
Draft an excellent sales copy to highlight the uses of the product(s) in question and their benefit to them.
ii. Retargeting Ads
Retargeting is another tool for nurturing leads. There are several reasons why visitors do not make purchases upon visiting a site. Perhaps the timing was not right or the need was not pressing at the time.
Using third-party services to showcase ads of products they have viewed on their social media triggers them to return to your site and complete their orders.
Conclusion:
Visitors to your site are potential customers, and the sales funnel prevents them from falling short of that. Think of them as travellers. Even after embarking on a journey, they may choose to reach the final destination or make a U-turn.
If the journey is worthwhile, they will not only stay put but also be eager to relive the experience.
Sawaram Suthar (Sam) is a Founding Director at Middleware. He has extensive experience in marketing, team building and operations. He is often seen working on various GTM practices and implementing the best ones to generate more demand. He has also founded a digital marketing blog - TheNextScoop.