Tuesday 7 April 2015

5 Ideas For Expanding Your Customer Database- eCommerce Extensions That Helps

Is your business losing customers?

Do you fail to understand your customer’s needs? 

Ecommerce has made continued progress in several areas with a steady growth. In the world of increased mobility and always-connected capabilities, retailers are dealing with smart shoppers who even while standing in the store’s aisle research about competitive offerings. The only aim should be to convert a first time visitor into a repeat customer. This can be achieved if you store all your communications with your customers in a single place. Having this information to hand will help you create a better relationship with your customer, which in turn will lead to more sales and happier customers. Besides, you will be able to understand what your customers are looking for? What do they expect and what efforts can you put in to meet their expectations. Online businesses, these days run on up-to-date information that simplifies the task of-

Processing communications  

Direct marketing 

Keep your customers up-to-date with the latest information  

This blog shares the top 5 ideas that can help maximize your customer database.  

1. Addition of Email newsletter sign-up- The vast majority of customers make online shopping decisions right after acquiring information from a website. This is where a sign up box to receive your email newsletter is vital. You want to offer website visitors something in exchange for their name and email. Email newsletter can be sent together with a link that leads back to the website where users can read or purchase the product or service they just read about. Newsletters and email marketing are today’s booming internet marketing strategies. 

Get every new customer to complete a form either at your website or automatically capture their details and populate your database of contacts.

Let your customers and visitors know about your Email program and how it can benefit them.

Ask your customers if they would like to sign-up for your newsletter after they make a purchase. Provide a quick and easy sign-up form that will provide them with savings and free information.

2. Promote your business on social media- Does your site currently encourage visitors to create a user account and sign up? If not, then why? It is one of the most powerful ways to turn hits into leads and leads into sales. Having to type details into site again and again is quite irritating for users. We know how users feel. So, here is the solution. There is a now a way information can be linked from one site to another with just a single click. eCommerce businesses have been utilizing this concept by allowing a user to connect via their social media pages and register quickly.

With social login, registration rates are known to increase by about 80-90%. According to a report by Forrester, approximately 25% of online shoppers abandon their shopping cart at the checkout page if they need to fill lengthy registration forms. Social logins reduces the time spent on registration as it fetches required information. The whole point of social networking sites is to increase your customer base, therefore integrating quick social media login options is preferred as it increases conversion rate by 18-20% and can quickly build a loyal customer base for your business.

3. Add a Coupon Feature- Coupons are attractive way of encouraging sales. If you are using one of the biggest open source eCommerce platforms like (Magento, Opencart and Prestashop), you should start using coupon feature to fetch your customer’s information. Coupon marketing is a highly measurable technique, because you simply have to see how many coupons were used or redeemed to gauge the success of your offer. If you want all of your customers to take advantage of great sales and discounts, you need to implement this idea on your store. Scratch coupon plugin for Magento and Prestashop stores available at www.knowband.com, allows you to turn visitors into customers by just entering their email id. Make coupons a part of your direct email marketing campaign to expand customer database.

4. Give your Customers a Reason to Subscribe- Every eCommerce business aims at selling. Practically seen, there are ‘n’ number of reasons to communicate with your customers. Here are some examples customers want to hear from you- updates regarding existing products, sales offer, special festive offers, price drop on specific product, new products in line and so on. Customers will sign-in only if they have a reason. So, try giving them interesting reasons.

Having an eCommerce store online gives you the opportunity to ask for email addresses as and when they make a purchase. You need to ensure that you send a verification mail to customers once you get them into your system so that they have a chance to opt-in.

5. Sending Abandoned Cart Email- Abandoned cart mails not only helps to reduce cart abandonment issues but also they provide store owners with contact information for customers who are logged in to their account. This information can be further used to contact customers, thereby increasing customer base. Magento Abandoned Cart extension is a perfect solution that allows you to create highly targeted custom emails to fit in your business needs. Using this extension, store owners can create custom email templates to be sent to customers increasing revenue, converting visitors and building huge customer base.

Marketing is important for every online business and with the below given Magento and Prestashop modules, you will be able to effectively grow your business by expanding customer database. Get your marketing started off soon by installing the following modules today!!

Prestashop Scratch Coupon- To know more, click here

Magento Auto Subscribe- Available at just $79.99, this extension of Magento allows an eCommerce store admin to send newsletters to customers who have registered to receive them. For more information, go to www.knowband.com

Some other plugins that can help you maximizing your reach within your audience are Prestashop Price Alert, Magento Abandoned CartPrestashop Scratch coupon etc.

If you consider these points, you will definitely be one step closer to have a database of happy and repeated customers.