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Shopify marketingWhy Facebook Ads Don't Convert Customers to Your Shopify StoreWith Facebook ads, you can reach your target customers rather quickly and send them to your Shopify store. You may notice, however, that these customers are not converting into leads. But why?
Here are the top four reasons why your Facebook ads may not be working for your business.
You're not targeting the right audience
Facebook ads manager allows you to target your audience based on demographics and interests and their actions. The first step in Facebook advertising is to learn how to target your audience as accurately as possible.
In some cases, you can target a specific audience right off the bat, like if you need to target men of a certain age, in a particular location, with a specific interest. But sometimes, Facebook's targeting doesn't cut it, and you have to get more creative.
For example, if your customers are football coaches and you need to single them out from other people interested in football because if you don't, you'll get a negative ROI on your ad budget. In that case, you may want to add another step into your funnel, like content marketing, that will help you identify and retarget your exact audience. You can target football fans with very cheap ads that promote content relevant only for football coaches and not for fans. Then, you can retarget the people who clicked your ads, knowing that they are coaches.
Your ads target customers at the wrong stage of the journey
Facebook advertising allows you to target people based on where they are in the customer journey. This means that you can advertise to those who do not know who you are (the awareness stage), customers who need more info before they buy (consideration), and those who are ready to buy from you (conversion).
When you create a Facebook campaign, make sure that the value proposition is very relevant and appealing to customers based on the stage they are at in their journey.
Your ads and landing pages aren't aligned
Always look at your advertising as a whole process and not as separate steps. Customers want to know the brand they buy from and even feel there is a relationship between them.
When customers click on an ad from a certain eCommerce brand that includes a value proposition, design, and information about the product they're interested in, they expect to go to a page that maintains the same theme and speaks about the same product. If you send the customer to a store with a different name, design, or value proposition than the one in the ad, they will not trust you.
Therefore, creating a seamless flow between your ads and your Shopify store's landing is crucial in converting sales.
You are using the wrong type of campaign
Most Shopify marketers use conversion campaigns by default. But as we mentioned before, you should make sure that your marketing activity matches your target audience and their stage in the customer journey.
Define a clear objective for your campaign, and don't necessarily choose conversion. Facebook built their ads manager to help you nurture customers throughout their journey, from awareness to consideration and conversion. You need to identify the stage your target audience is in and choose a campaign objective accordingly.
Shopify marketingHow to Craft Irresistible Customer Win-Back EmailsHave you ever bought a product online, for example, weight loss tablets, and months after purchasing the product, you get an email introducing another weight loss product? This is called a win-back marketing email.
You can expect to start getting win-back emails after you've made a purchase, engaged with the company through emails, and visited the website before going completely dormant or inactive.
A win-back email is automated and is set up within your email marketing platform with the main aim of reaching out to customers who are no longer engaging with your company. These are customers who have spent money with you, which means that, if your product is good, chances are they will spend money with you again.
When Are Win-Back Emails Applicable?
Win-back emails are aimed at customers who are inactive. But what exactly do we mean by "inactive?" It is a broad term, making it difficult to pinpoint where it starts and ends.
Let's look at some scenarios to illustrate when it's appropriate to send win-back emails:
Scenario 1:
Jack's Online Tools believes inactive customers are those who haven't engaged with the company in any way for six months. Many e-commerce companies define "inactive" as no activity for six months. This is different for every company and also depends on the type of products you sell and the industry you are in.
Scenario 2:
Annabel's Leather Shoes is coming out with a new line of gorgeous winter shoes. Since winter is approaching fast and they are changing their featured products, Annabel's decides to send win-back emails to all clients who have been inactive for four months or longer.
Scenario 3
Heath's Health Foods notices that it has stock that is not selling—and the sell-by date is looming. After organizing their Shopify products, the team decides to discount this stock considerably and use product bundles to attract customers. Since it is such a good deal, they send win-back emails to all clients that have been inactive—even for years.
How to Write Compelling Customer Win-Back Emails
If you want to win back your inactive clients, you will need to create win-back emails that stop them dead in their tracks.
Here are ten suggestions on how to create compelling content to catch attention like never before:
Write a subject line that will catch them like a deer in the headlights.
This is not easy to do, but you'll get the hang of it after a while. Analytics will be able to tell you which subject lines are more effective. This will help you craft better subject lines whenever you send emails.Keep it simple.
Get straight to the point: no fluff, no jargon, and no fancy lingo. Only include straightforward details that can be absorbed in a matter of seconds. Let them know you are still open for business.
It is good practice to remind your clients that you are still there, you are still selling great products, and you are missing their contributions! Offer them better-than-incredible discounts.
Everyone loves a good deal. Don't underestimate the power of a special offer. Plus, many Shopify apps for special discounts make adding discounts to your products very simple.Remind your customer why you are successfully still in business.
Explain to your customers how you and your products can add value to their lives. If they can't see it, you need to tell them about it!Tell them what they are missing out on.
You can also tell them what they are going to lose if they don't buy your products and become an active customer again. Add a call-to-action.
Give customers something to do and make it engaging. It needs to stimulate their purchasing frame of mind and motivate them to shop.Ask for feedback.
It's always good to find out what your clients think of your products and services. Feedback generates essential leads that you can use to win your clients over.Send a series of emails.
If your customers enjoy your first email, they will likely read all the emails in the series. So make sure the first one is a showstopper.Offer them a last chance.
This can signify their last chance to take advantage of a special deal, their last chance to buy a particular product at a specific price, or their last chance to have their say. You get the idea!
The Importance of Sending Win-Back Emails
There's a lot of research suggesting that it costs a business owner a lot less to retain a customer than to acquire new ones. Win-back emails should form part of your retention strategy so that you don't lose inactive customers unnecessarily—ultimately increasing your customer lifetime value.
Like after-purchase email campaigns, win-back emails don't cost much—if anything. But they can successfully draw back customers who, in turn, can give your bottom line an extra boost. It is a golden opportunity, fresh for the taking. Don't let it pass you by.
Shopify marketingReduce Shopping Cart Abandonment Rates on Your Shopify StoreThere are different techniques to reduce shopping cart abandonment depending on the type of store you run. In this post, I'll explain which tactics apply to low volume / high margin product businesses, and which to high volume / low margin product businesses.
These are not the only tactics of course, but my goal is to provide you with some mental model for how you could also think about it.
Reduce Cart Abandonment in Low Volume and High Margin Shopify Stores
Low volume and high margin stores may include furniture, bikes, electronics, auto parts, mattresses, fashion, art, or B2B wholesale / industrial machines, just to name a few.
You need to focus on 1 on 1 conversations to close these sales. You'll see most content on the internet will try to convince you of using automated email series, or exit-popups, and Facebook re-targeting (which are all great and you should employ those as well) but please don't forget about a 1 on 1 conversation.
If you're selling a $2,000 machine or a $250 pair of pants, chances are a customer wants to speak with someone from your business before making this purchase. ESPECIALLY if you're a small business or a business with a lesser-known brand name.
Note: big brands can get away without having 1 on 1 conversations even for their highest margin products because their brand has established trust. Customers know what to expect from brands like Gymshark, Samsung, Logitech, etc.
This is why we built the Shop Phone Shopify app. Our data has shown that customers are 5x more likely to make a purchase after abandoning their checkout (dropping their basket without paying) if someone personally contacts them. In our store, we saw order recovery go from 10% to 55% when we started calling and texting customers and asking to offer pre-sale support.
Additionally, and even more impressive, we saw abandoned checkout customers who recovered, are much more likely to become our best customers over time. In one of our merchant stores, we even saw that number to be 8 out of their top 10 highest lifetime value customers to be abandoned checkouts customers who were contacted over the phone, and then who became best customers over the next 12 months.
Increasing conversion rates
As for increasing conversion rates, there is also the idea of giving your customers a 3rd action choice for "maybe" customers. Right now, customers will either click BUY if they're a "yes" customer. Or they will click CLOSE if they are a "no" customer. But for "maybe" customers there is no MAYBE button.
You can think about creative ways to create this kind of button, such as a "request callback" or "remind me later" or something to this extent. This way you create a super simple and easy way for customers to leave their phone numbers and/or email addresses so you have those leads generated and can use follow up tactics to recover their sales later.
It's also just a great way to create better engagement on your website - for example, "call me back" buttons can create a massive trust for your business if you do in fact call those customers back immediately.
Reduce Cart Abandonment in High Volume and Low Margin Shopify Stores
High volume and low margins Shopify stores may include smaller items like clothing, phone cases, basic electronic accessories like cables, linens, combs, toothbrushes, general-purpose items, etc.
If you're in a high volume and low margin business you need to rely more on automated tactics, like abandoned checkout recovery emails, or social re-marketing through re-target only Facebook ads.
The reason you should rely more on automation tactics and email is that these products are low margin, so spending too much of your 1 on 1 time to recover these products will be a waste of valuable time. You can still use Shop Phone if you have low volume, or you can use Shop Phone by increasing your alert threshold (so you're alerted for abandoned checkouts over $X, or some amount that's high for your store average).
But mostly you should rely on automation, like running retargeting ads on Facebook, if you can afford it. But put a limit on how much you're willing to pay per impression because you don't want Facebook eating away at your profit margin.
Retargeting ads can be profitable if you sell subscription products or if your store has a high retention rate where you can earn back the ad spend over time.
You can also try browser push alert companies like PushOwl, assuming customers give you permissions and subscribe to your push alerts before they started building their cart and proceeding to your Shopify store's checkout pages.
I hope this post was helpful.
Shopify marketingFollow These Simple Email Marketing Guidelines for Success!Email marketing is an effective form of digital direct marketing. It may sound like a mouthful but really is an effective way of catching the attention of both new and inactive clients—if you implement the core elements of a successful email marketing campaign.
Email Marketing Best Practices
So, you've collected emails for email marketing and you're ready to start sending out emails, but you aren't 100% sure that your email has what it takes to get optimal reach. Here are some of the best practice guidelines. You can use this as a checklist to see if you are on track:
Know your audience: Before you can even start compiling your marketing emails, you need to know who you're talking to. Who is your target audience and what do they want most? Your marketing emails need to give them what they want, and if they don't know what they want, you can steer them in the right direction!Personalize: By personalizing your email, even if it's a template you've edited, you're trying to connect with your audience.Segment your mailing lists: This will help you to optimize personalization.Automate: Set triggers to release emails at certain points in the customer journey.Use double opt-in email sign-ups: This will help you maintain high-quality mailing lists.Send a welcome email to new subscribers: Setting up and sending automatic welcome emails to new clients is the perfect opportunity to initiate engagement.Frequency is critical: You can't send too many emails and you will miss the bus if you take too long to send emails. Timing is a strategy—it all depends on your products, your line of business, and your industry.Hot subject lines: Always use catchy, clever subject lines. Then test them to see what works best. Over time you will know exactly how to draw your customers in.Write engaging copy: Keep it punchy, short, and to the point. Condense your copy into digestible bites and your customers will read it.Impactful designs: Your emails must look professionally designed to show your customers that you're a professional business.Make your emails interactive: Add links to tools, articles, special deals, or anything that may keep customers engaged.Integrate your emails with social media: To prompt customers to explore your other channels.Design your emails for mobile: Many people read their emails on their phones.Include a call to action: Every email should have a purpose. The call to action is a response to the purpose.Analyze metrics: This is done to improve on your emails over time.
Common Email Marketing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
Now that you know what you need to do, have you considered what you need to avoid? Here are some common mistakes that e-commerce business owners make:
Make personalization mistakes.Overcomplicate the design of the email, use low-resolution pictures, and allow spelling errors to slip through the cracks.Include incorrect or broken links.Use too much jargon and complex language.Market products that look nothing like the pictures in the marketing email or that are out of stock.Send emails that are inappropriate to the customer or spam their customers with unnecessary emails.Use bought contact lists.Don't allow readers to reply to their emails or include contact details that are unresponsive.Don't honor promises made in the marketing email.
This list is not exhaustive. In your journey to developing the most effective marketing emails, you will learn what your customers like and what they don't like. You may struggle in the beginning but over time your skills will evolve and grow.
If you are serious about avoiding the common mistakes mentioned above, you could put together an organic checklist that you can go through every time you're about to send out a marketing email. As you learn from your analytics, you can add more checks to your list. This is also an effective way of making sure both you and your staff members are always on the same page.
Conclusion
In marketing, consistency is very important for building an identifiable brand that stands out from the crowd. It builds a brand that can be trusted, which increases your customer loyalty and retention, which increases your bottom line. It's an ongoing cycle that cannot be underestimated.
Shopify marketingCore Elements of Successful Email Marketing CampaignsThe world is changing every day. Technology is keeping business owners on their toes. The sentiment is to keep up or be left behind. One way to do this is to get on top of your game with email marketing campaigns. Once you have collected emails for email marketing, the benefits of these campaigns are endless.
So, let's get right down to the nitty-gritty and look at six of the most important guidelines for email marketing success:
Tip 1: Have a Clear Objective
How does it benefit your campaign?
Each email must have a clear purpose and a clear call to action. Even if you're using templates, you must edit the templates for your purpose. There's no point in sending out emails that haven't been planned and executed within a full marketing strategy, and as part of an ongoing campaign.
How do you know it is working?
Customer response is measurable. If your customer response is high then the emails carried their message over clearly. If you don't get any response, you know it's time to go back to the drawing board.
Tip 2: Make Sure You Offer Value
How does it benefit your campaign?
Emails that offer your customers value will be noticed and read. It's pointless sending out some well-written copy with beautiful visuals if there's nothing in it for your customer. Always ask yourself: why should my customer bother reading this email? What is in it for them?
How do you know it is working?
Again, you'll see it in the way your clients interact with your email. Are they clicking on the links you provide to get more information? Are they taking you up on the special deals you are offering them? Analytics will help you with this as well.
Tip 3: Always Include an Opt-in
How does it benefit your campaign?
It shows that your company is doing everything above board. It's illegal to send emails out to bought contact lists. Not only that, you will be sending emails to people who might not have engaged with you before. You're likely to frustrate them more than anything else. Opt-ins make sure you're only sending your emails to people who want to receive them.
How do you know it is working?
By reaching a captive audience, you're ensuring your contact lists are high quality and have a high response rate. If you don't have opt-ins you could send emails to 5,000 contacts and get no response.
Tip 4: Segment Your Lists
How does it benefit your campaign?
Segmentation is a very useful strategy. It takes your customer details and segments them into groups so that you can personalize your marketing campaigns even more. The more you personalize your emails, the better the response.
How do you know it is working?
Your response rates will increase. It's that simple!
Tip 5: Make Sure Your Emails Are Mobile-Friendly
How does it benefit your campaign?
In this crazy world, we're always on the run. People often work from their mobile phones while traveling. This is the perfect opportunity for them to read your emails, so ensure your emails can be opened properly on a smart phone.
How do you know it is working?
Analytics will be able to tell you which platform your customers are using to interact with your marketing emails.
Tip 6: Make Sure You Have No Errors in Your Content
How does it benefit your campaign?
Errors in your content will make your emails look slap-dash and unprofessional, especially if you send emails to all your customers at once. So it goes without saying that error-free content will preserve your brand consistency. Many companies make use of professional copywriters and designers to produce their emails. If you have the budget for this, it's a great way of putting your best foot forward for your customer. If you're compiling these emails yourself, get colleagues to check them, and double-check them again to ensure there are no errors.
How do you know it is working?
It's difficult to pinpoint how you can tell if your error-free content is benefiting your campaign. The bottom line is that if your business is growing and conversions are rolling in, then your email content is spot on! Just make sure you develop and produce your emails within a well-thought-out marketing strategy for optimum results!