Acquiring and retaining regular customers is the foundation of any successful business, but this process can often be more complex than originally intended, especially for new brands. It is necessary not only to find a niche, but also to find the most effective way to attract an audience. Below are 7 proven ways to create a customer base for e-commerce.
1. Identify your niche
As the e-commerce market continues to grow, competition is becoming fiercer. The global market is oversaturated with an abundance of brands in all industries. Before you enter it, you must determine your niche and unique points of sale.
Your niche should be extremely specific to your offers and strongly focused on the target audience.
Your niche must be extremely specific if you want to take a strong position in a crowded market. Do not waste time trying to sell to everyone. Instead, focus on tailoring your offerings to a specific audience. Find and satisfy their needs.
The unique benefits of your offer can help you find or create your own niche. To find them, you need to answer a number of questions. Why does someone choose your product among others? What sets your product or brand apart from the competition? What do you offer that which no one else has on the market? Answers to these questions will help you pinpoint your niche and identify the special qualities that distinguish your brand from everyone else.
2. Get to know your audience
Once you have identified your niche, it's time to research your target market. You should learn as much as possible about your audience. What are their values and interests, how to talk to them and how they think?
It is important to fully understand the buying patterns of this particular target market so that you can better identify sales opportunities and trends that you can use.
Creating characters can be extremely helpful when meeting your audience. Characters are imaginative ideas about the target business market. By creating 2-4 individual characters, companies can analyze how potential customers perceive the brand and how the brand can solve problems.
Knowing your target audience, you can choose the best way to establish contact with it. For example, conservative people pay more attention to banner advertising. If your target audience is younger, consider using email marketing.
3. Create a design for your brand
Now that you have identified your niche and know your target audience, it's time to start combining these ingredients to create attractive graphics that visually define your brand, including the logo.
If your customers know the features of your brand and enjoy the products you offer, they will contact you again and again.
Strong branding on your site can set the tone. The colors and fonts that you choose for your corporate identity are very important, because this is the first thing your customer sees when he visits your store.
Think about what you want to convey to your audience when you choose your colors. For example, blue can convey confidence, while green can convey a sense of peace.
When you think about the brand logo, you will want to create something unique so that your business can be easily identified.
Take the time to develop your brand standards. This will create a positive user experience that will make your customers permanent.
4. Creating brand awareness
Good brands contribute to the visual and emotional impact that attracts their audience. Your brand should initially attract customers and make them come back over time. Your corporate identity can be displayed in many ways. From the fonts and color scheme of the website to your mission statement, products and logo. Corporate identity should be unique and demonstrate the benefits of your company to potential customers.
Branding is more than just beautiful design. Brands are determined by several factors, including customer perception of business reputation, customer service and interaction with them, product offers, advertising strategies and other elements.
Where to begin?
Brand recognition is the degree to which a consumer is familiar with your company. You can start by researching your competitors. If you are starting a business selling a specific product, try searching the Internet for other companies that sell the same product. Try to research at least three competitors and determine what similar attributes they have and what makes them unique.
Please note: Do they all have similar website color schemes? What fonts do you prefer? At the research stage, write down what you think you should include in your corporate identity. What do you like from what your competitors have and what you do not like? This will help you create a unique corporate identity.
When you know what customers want, it’s easier to create messages that allow you to build a connection with them.
One of the most popular methods of increasing brand awareness is the use of custom content. Custom content refers to various forms of content created by a user, a follower of social networks, or a fan of a business or brand. It is usually provided free of charge.
5. Promotion of loyal customers
Encourage customer engagement and conversation about your brand, and make them feel important. This will increase customer loyalty. Of course, when you start a business, sales are the most important. However, effective branding will turn a one-time customer into a brand ambassador.
Personal recommendations have been important marketing tools from the start of commerce. Even today, 90% of consumers are more likely to buy a product from a brand that a friend has recommended.
Word of mouth marketing is not a new way of advertising. He has long been known. Some companies actively use it.
6. Social networks
Creating brand awareness is an important task for most enterprises. That's why they often use social media marketing because of the huge reach potential. Although using social media to increase brand awareness is not new, marketers are still struggling to keep the content resonant. Social networks are a great tool for people to get to know your business. Promotions, retweets, comments and mentions will help you build long-term relationships with your customers.
Social networks are ideal for competitions. Here you can ask users to share their proprietary hashtag.
Each social media channel is different. Content that resonates between major networks is also changing. This is important to consider if you use several different accounts. For each social network you should have a separate plan.
7. Communication with influential persons
You can use various social networks to increase brand awareness and increase audience reach. An online business can create a fan base of followers that can drive serious traffic and ultimately revenue to any e-commerce site!
However, do not forget about one effective way to increase the customer base. You must keep in touch with other influential individuals or companies. By creating collaborative content, you can increase your own audience.