One Fatal Flaw in Your Ecommerce Marketing

You just launched your online store and are anxious to bring visitors to your store. Visitors = Sales, right? With so many options to drive traffic to your store and no real benefit for ad sellers to teach you the insider secrets of ecommerce marketing, it can be easy to market in a less-than-effective manner, which will cost you dearly!

I have worked in the Ecommerce industry for over 10 years, and have had the pleasure to work with some large marketing budgets and stellar IT departments. One of the biggest reasons I went into business for myself was because many of these companies do not implement this important traffic-driving concept. I was so surprised at how much advertising dollars they would just throw away!

So what is the most efficient ecommerce marketing approach you can take in driving traffic to your online store?

Drive traffic with the intent to generate leads, not direct sales.

Confused?

Look at this example:

Scenario 1:

Let’s say you agree to spend $0.60 per click on a keyword that directs customers to your bestselling product.

Your potential customer clicks the ad while they are researching your product. They land on your page and learn if they are interested or not. 9 times out of 10, they will not purchase on the first visit. Now they are gone and you are out $0.60. Hopefully they will be back!

Scenario 2:

You agree to spend $0.60 per click on a keyword that directs customers to a highly optimized landing page offering a free “something” such as a discount for signing up for your online catalog which sells the product(s) they are looking for. They sign up and continue to research the product they want.

They have not bought anything from you today, but you’ve collected something just as valuable (if not more) – their email address! You have just gained an ongoing connection with that future customer. This allows you to build your brand awareness and a relationship with your customers by sending them valuable content and promotions. When the time is right to buy, they will think of you … not just once, but over and over. Well worth the $0.60!

Now you may be thinking that the lead generation link in Scenario 2 will not convert 100% and you will lose some ad dollars there as well. That may be true, but your conversion rate on offering a free “something” in return for an email will be significantly higher than a direct purchase conversion rate.

To put it in perspective, my direct buy conversions ranked in the 3% rate. When I switched my method to my catalog signups, my Adwords conversion rate was as high as 39%. (That made my cost-per-click rate drop way down as well.)

In the course of an ad campaign the lead generating approach can significantly lower your ad expenses, create a growing list of potential customers and increase your brand awareness. This will improve your online business’s gross profit.

With an online store and ad retailers contacting you from all directions you can now feel more confident in your ecommerce marketing strategy if you know you are collecting leads for an ongoing relationship versus a one-and-done sale.

Have you had luck with the lead generation approach for your online store? Please let me know in the comments below!

Thanks for reading,

-Tracy

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