More than an acquaintance, but not yet a friend. In many ways, this could apply to your customer base.
A lot of folks visit your ecommerce website and follow your social media pages, but rarely seal the deal. These are ‘warm’ customers.
So, how exactly do you turn a ‘warm’ customer into a hot buyer? As it turns out, there are several techniques to employ.
Let’s look at some ways to connect with warm ecommerce customers.
Connect with Followers on Social Media
Social media could be considered a ‘warm’ experience. You might have hundreds of friends online, but you rarely communicate with any of them directly. Similarly, consumers may follow dozens of brands online, but seldom convert. This isn’t to say social media is worthless. Rather, it’s to illustrate keeping customers warm is not enough.
You’ll need to strategise to move shoppers from warm to hot. You probably already post news about product launches, clearance sale updates, and coupon codes. These are good ideas. But have you ever considered running a contest?
You can encourage social media engagement and sales by inviting followers to post images using (or wearing) your products. In exchange, they’ll get free entry into a monthly contest offer for a £200 gift card.
You can even push social media followers to tag friends and family in these posts to expand the visibility of your ecommerce website. The idea is to post something that requires engagement. Because entrants need to already own your products, it encourages repeat visits and customer loyalty.
Encourage Impulse Buying
When it comes to warm customers, sometimes you have to bring them along for a while. It’s all about the long game, until they are sizzling. One of the ways to do this is encourage impulse buying.
Think about your Instagram feed. You spend a lot of time and effort keeping the design nice and pretty, including branding it with your logo—right?
If you don’t have one, platforms like Shopify offer tools to help you design a logo with no hassle.
But having an attractive profile and design are not enough. If you want hot customers, consider the ‘pressure cooker’ method. Start by posting images of an unreleased product. Tease it a little bit. Next, send the product to a number of your brand ambassadors. This will increase visibility for a product that no one is yet allowed to buy. In this way, you’ll build up pressure so that when you do open the item up to the public, it’s a hit!
Harness the Power of Email Marketing
For all its hype, social media delivers a lower ROI than email marketing. Surprised? It’s true. Over 90 percent of consumers check their email at least once a day. Better still, for every dollar sunk into email marketing, ecommerce stores see roughly £45 in return.
So, how do you turn email marketing into a conversion engine for warm customers?
Use it to recapture shoppers who’ve abandoned carts. When you identify an orphaned cart, a brief message reminding the customer of their pending purchase. Offer to help them through the process if necessary. Or, if they have questions, handle them over email. These kinds of strategies see a 30 percent success rate. This is considerable, given you may have lost those sales entirely. Sending coupon codes too will help nudge would-be buyers.
Another idea is to combine email marketing with data marketing. It’s likely that you have a few tools or add-ons from your ecommerce provider that allow you to track user behaviours. If a shopper checks out the same pair of white jeans on your website every day, but never buys, she could be waiting for the right opportunity. Tracking her behaviours, you can send her an email with a coupon code just for the jeans; Wait no more, get 15-percent off with this exclusive coupon code.
These tips will get you started n the right track for connecting with warm customers. But this is only a jumping off point, ideally you’ll also be inspired to come up with ideas of your own.
