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7 Killer Promotion Ideas for Your Ecommerce Store

The eCommerce industry is getting more and more competitive in nature with each passing day. Every eCommerce business owner is trying to maximize their sales and conversions so that they can steer ahead of their competitors. Some get through and succeed but there are still some fighting the war to increase their sales and generate massive revenue. Firing arrows in the air won’t work because you need proper planning and promotional strategies in place.

Many eCommerce businesses incorporate tactics to get traffic from social media, search engine marketing, or paid advertising. But as you grow, at some point you would hit the ceiling. To get the ceiling out of the picture you need to come up with more aggressive promotional ideas for your eCommerce store. These ideas will sustain your growth trajectory high.

 

Below we have prepared some killer tactics and promotion ideas for your eCommerce store.

1. Flash Sales are Good to GO

Many of the eCommerce industry leaders like Amazon use the flash sale to create a sense of urgency. Also, it helps to create FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) in your potential buyers. Flash sales psychologically influence the buyers to purchase as soon as possible. Through this tactic, you will meet your goals of clearing stock or create hype for the new product launch. As per one research, 56% of businesses agree that flash sales work better than any other promotional sales.

For best results, go to your analytics and find what days of the week are busiest. Out of those days, at what time most people purchase from your store. Calculate and run flash sales on those specific days and times of the day. The period of the flash sale should be shorter ranging between two to three hours. Because of the shorter the period the more benefits you can reap out of it.

Also, the quality of your flash sales greatly depends upon the audience you want to target and the products you want to sell. There are vast differences between targeting new and existing audiences.

 

2. Contests and Giveaways are the ways to Go

The contest is one mind-numbingly brilliant way to increase the visibility of your brand. You can leverage the most engaging form of marketing to your benefits by capturing the attention of your customers. The best place to run contests and giveaways are social media networks. They give you a large audience to target and provide you the opportunity to showcase your product lists.

For the best result, you can partner up with other brands in your niche to maximize your reach.  Come up with ideas like naming the product that is about to launch, captioning the photo or posting a photo/video with the product are some examples for running a contest. But be careful and specify the rules of participation to your followers.

This type of marketing tactic comes handy when you have established a social network with a large audience. And the best results are guaranteed if you have a new product to launch. This will create hype in your audience for your brand. Also, people who lost contests will be more interested to get their hands on your product. So, all in all, it is a great promotional idea for your eCommerce store.

 

3. Cross-sell or Up-sell Items with Great Ease

Cross-selling or Up-selling is another way for you to have high order value and boost your revenue. Cross-sells means offering a product that goes along with the existing product your customers are about to purchase. For example, offering a case or lenses along with the camera. These items go with the camera when someone wants to purchase it. Up-selling means recommending another great product when the item your customers are looking to buy is out of stock.

Also, you can cross-sell items exclusively or complementarily. Complementary cross-sell means items that easily pair up with product customer is interested in. A mobile phone is incomplete without its cover. Whereas exclusive cross-sell means that an item only available if you purchase a specific product. For example, an exclusive handsfree get along with a mobile phone of a specific brand.

The thing about this exclusive cross-sell is that it entices customers to buy because they have something unique and exclusive item which is not available anywhere else. All this is great and requires more effort and personalization to succeed.

 

4. Free Shipping is still a Classic Stroke

One survey found that 80% of the customers would buy from Amazon only if provided with free shipping. This is because no one likes to pay an additional charge for items they purchase online. But free shipping means an extra cost that you would have to bear. However, you need to do some thinking to make it profitable.

You can offer free shipping to those who shop for more than the amount you have fixed for free shipping. Doing so will entice people to buy more so that they get free shipping. You can also add the shipping cost to your products. Or have a membership program that people want to opt into and as a benefit, they get to buy products with free shipping.

Also, consider things like shipping place and packaging cost. Offer free shipping to only those places where the shipping cost is affordable to you. Pick the right kind of package box for the right kind of product. It can reduce the shipping charge to the minimum. All these things still work even in 2020. Because people usually want a product at a low cost or free. And it can increase your conversion rate majorly.

 

5. Put Up All the Social Proof on Your Website

Social proof works like a charm. The most effective form of social proof is rating and reviews. One survey by podium says that reviews influence 93% of the consumers during their buyer’s journey. Also, many consumers want to know the experiences of others before making a purchase. And people are ready to pay more if they feel assured to have great experience of the product after reading satisfying reviews.

But the tough part is getting people to write a review. To entice people to write reviews, notify them with email, SMS or push notification. But the best way to do so is by offering them coupons or discounts on their next purchase if they write reviews. Also, you can ask them to review on the social media platforms, so that you can repost them on your account and website as well. This way you can gather and put up all the social proof, which considerably can affect the conversion of your store positively.

 

6. Start Loyalty Program for Your Loyal Customers

Loyalty programs are cost-effective when it comes to targeting only your existing customers. Because acquiring a new customer base could cost you as high as five-times than targeting your existing customers. With a loyalty program, you can improve your relations with your loyal customers. And you can entice them to purchase more repeatedly. Also, you can gather valuable information about your customers so that you can target them more effectively.

However, the whole program needs proper planning and a lot more effort for deciding what goes into the program and what does not. Make it easy for them to join, and once they do communicate with them regularly, offer groundbreaking deals that you do not offer to the other customers.

Your loyalty program should engage your customers and keep them happy throughout their loyalty period. This means you have to recruit an employee full-time who can take care of this thing. But it will be all worth it once you see benefits.

 

7. Start Selling on Multiple Platforms

By multiple platforms, we mean selling on different networks like Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms. These platforms offer you eCommerce like functions which you can use to sell products. Social media is growing day by day and tapping into the power these platforms hold will outperform every other platform. Many e-merchants are only selling on social media platforms.

Therefore, it is necessary for you to get close to your potential customers and sell products. If you really want to expand your business, then think about building a presence on social media networks. Your customers can directly communicate with you on social media and you can solve their queries and complaints within a short amount of time. And these platforms make it easy for you to sell on them. Even there are tools you can integrate that helps you to ease the task and boost sales and conversions from these platforms.

 

Wrapping UP

The competition is getting fierce and your competitors are getting more and more advance. Starting and sustaining the eCommerce store in the era of social media is a tough task for any eCommerce owner. But some tactics help you grow and remove any ceiling in the way of your online store’s success, and these 7 killer promotional ideas for your eCommerce store are the best ones we have compiled for you. If you still have any doubts, then consult an eCommerce expert. An expert in eCommerce will help you with best practices that you should implement right away to get ahead in this fierce competition.

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