A duck walks into a shop, asks the shopkeeper for Chap Stick. ‘Shall I put that on your bill?’, asks the shopkeeper. ‘Yes, that would be a relief,’ replies the duck. I know, I know – that was a groan-inducing pun. But it ties into the topic of this post. The better you can target customers with custom shopping experiences that are effective, easy and even personalised, the easier it becomes to convert a sale into an ongoing relationship. Behavioural targeting helps build your sales pipeline and here’s how you can make the most of it:-
- Coordinate your activities across channels so that you can monitor what works with each customer segment, right from the beginning. This way you can build targeting into the whole process, from paid ads to your home page and not just at the product page stage.
- Run segment-specific campaigns; if you’re selling laptops, target students, professionals, designers and gamers with products whose specs are relevant to their needs.
- Make sure your product page includes suggestions for products that are relevant and co- related to the product being viewed. Include cross-sell items on your order confirmation page.
- Make the purchase cycle as short and simple as you can; try and make sure that there are no more than two clicks to a buy.
- Similarly, try and have a one-page checkout. Too many steps are likely to put the customers off.
- Show purchase history and use it to offer suggestions based on past purchasing patterns.
- Make sure you’re tracking and analyzing customer behavior so that you can keep refining the experience and offering more and more useful suggestions.
- Enable subscriptions across product categories to allow customers to have repeat purchases of products made at regular intervals.
There’s a great repeat market for various kinds of consumables and this helps you tap into that recurring business. The key to effective online selling is to track data, understand what it means and use that insight to keep making things easier and more targeted for your customers. Getting there requires a mix of tech and marketing skills – something like the mix here at i-Vista. You can e-mail us today to find out how we can help you get the most out of your online sales pipeline.