The ongoing global coronavirus pandemic has led to a huge increase in e-tail traffic. Indeed, retail ecommerce traffic worldwide jumped from 16.07 billion visits in January 2020 to almost 22 billion visits in June 2020, as COVID-19 lockdown measures took effect in nations across the globe.
Such numbers went beyond even previous years’ ‘holiday season’ peaks – although that wasn’t exactly a surprise, given the numbers of people sheltering at home to help slow the spread of the virus. Major restrictions on people’s lives – including the enforced closure of many ‘non-essential’ stores – led to consumers turning ‘en masse’ to Internet retail to buy even their everyday items.
But with this situation leading so many consumers to visit ecommerce sites like yours for possibly the first time, you’ll have a challenge on your hands: not so much to capture customers in the first place, but instead to keep hold of them once high-street stores start to reopen.
So, here are just a few ways to shift your marketing efforts to encourage first-time customers to continually return to your site.
4 great ways to retain your e-tail store’s customers
- Referral benefits
To minimise the cost of acquiring new customers, while enticing first-time customers to stay with you, why not embrace word-of-mouth advertising by implementing a referral benefits scheme? By doing so, you will be encouraging your existing online shoppers to stay in a relationship with your brand, at the same time as potentially bringing in new business.
- Account registration
Encouraging customers to register for an account on your site doesn’t have to be ‘in your face’ and off-putting, as is often assumed. In fact, it can be more effective to prompt registration after the checkout process, so that it doesn’t interrupt customers paying for their goods.
- ‘Subscribe and save’ options
‘Subscribe and save’ plans for your products can save consumers a lot of money in the long run, so it can be a tempting offer. From a business perspective, this is also a great way to ‘lock in’ future purchases from a customer.
- Follow-up correspondence
Once a customer has made their first purchase with you, this is the perfect opportunity to follow up with the customer, whether to request reviews or feedback, or provide tutorials and advice. By doing so, you will be able to personalise the consumer experience, helping to convince them to keep coming back to you.
To find out more about our digital marketing and website design services and expertise here at Piranha Designs, get in touch with the team for your free, no-obligation discussion on your project.
