Keep Customers Coming Back to Your Online Store: 5 Tips
The internet is flooded with online stores nowadays — it can be hard to compete, and keep great customers coming back to your store. But it’s vital for success. Figuring out how to keep people returning to you — and not your competitors — is something you should spend a decent amount of time on. To help, we’ve come up with five top tips. Check them out and start creating a loyal customer based today.
⦁ Create an Email Newsletter
One of the easiest ways to get customers back to your store is to regularly get their attention. Create entertaining and engaging emails that are useful to your audience — it’s important not to just push your products, but send out emails people want to open.
General advice says newsletter content should be 90% educational and 10% promotional. Don’t just add to the clutter of information out there — add something of value to your customer. Once you’ve got their attention, people are more likely to take notice of what’s available on your store.
⦁ Offer Regular Promotions or Offers
Everyone loves to get a good deal. Customers are increasingly promotion driven, as several studies have shown. In fact, 68% of consumers are more likely to be loyal to a brand that offers online coupons or promotion codes. It’s something people expect from time to time — to be offered something enticing from your online store.
But make sure you’re not giving them the same stuff repeatedly, as desensitisation occurs. Electric currents and signals to the brain get weaker when consumers are shown similar things again and again. The last thing you want is your customers switching off from deals.
⦁ Check Your Page Speed
If someone has a bad experience on your online store, they’ll get frustrated and you could potentially lose them as a customer. As this post explains, page “speed is particularly important for eCommerce stores, where buy-ready customers are impatient and want to find their items quickly.” Have you ever abandoned products in your online basket because you’ve just got fed of waiting? Yeah, it’s not a great experience.
Be sure to check out the speed tests from leading hosting companies and how yours compares — both on desktop and mobile versions of your site, as an increasing number of shoppers are choosing to browse with their smartphones. You don’t want to lose customers to the competition by overlooking technical elements you can fix or improve.
⦁ Answer All Queries & Reviews
Keeping in touch with your customers is important — even if they’ve got something negative to say. How you respond to negative reviews can influence other people’s decisions. If they see you’ve taken steps to resolve the issue, they are less likely to be influenced negatively.
You’ll also be appeasing the disgruntled customer. As The Huffington Post says, correcting mistakes is hugely important when it comes to building customer relationships. Most people just want to know you have a plan to get back on track — whether that’s sending out a replacement item or offering a quick refund. Don’t be a cliché; offer something of real value to the upset consumer. Make sure all your team know the plan of action too, and ensure the right people have the necessary authority to give out refunds and so on.
⦁ Refresh Your Stock
Last but certainly not least, you’ve got to have something new to offer them. Even the most loyal customers will get bored with the same old stock every time they return to your site. Keep up the appeal of your store by regularly updating your offerings.
New products also give you a reason to email customers, as it’s something to get excited about. Make the most of the opportunity by ‘leaking’ news about the offerings or products on social media. Teaser photos or small bits of information can create an aura of intrigue that builds interest — just think how great the leading tech companies are at doing this.
A Business Management graduate, Thomas is passionate about assisting smaller businesses launch marketing campaigns and has worked as a freelancer for a few years now.
In his spare time, he’s also working on entrepreneurial ideas of own. Watch this space.
Do you run an online store? ❤ Share your recommendations for building up a loyal customer base in the comment section below.
