In the last decade, customer choice burst in almost all sectors of the selling industry. From food to devices, clothing to cars, travel to pharmaceuticals, etc., people are drowning in the diversity of options. This variety has changed the business processes and clients’ attitudes. The customers are far educated about the products and services due to the internet and social media evolvement. As a result, they desire to be reached in a more personalized way. In other words, customer experience is “the new black” and can not be underestimated in today’s world.
For every company growing in the above-mentioned stream comes a phase that requires the implementation of more effective strategies to increase sales. Hence, if you are running a small or mid-sized business and worry about how to boost sales on your website, it is time to take a look at the quality of your customer engagement practices and marketing activities.
7 Ways to Increase Customer Engagement on Your Website
Customer engagement is a list of activities that encourage an individual to interact with a brand and become loyal towards it. Let’s discuss the crucial ways on how to drive your customer engagement initiatives:
- Improve User Experience
Efficient client engagement is difficult to imagine without a great UX (user experience). Yet, it is not just about your website look. There are several factors to consider while improving UX. For instance, an online store should include a detailed search option, so a user can easily navigate to a desired page. Search is faster than navigation, more intuitive, and offers useful insights about your customers’ behaviors and demands. In other words, it is a handy assistant to boost sales on your website since the tool can help your most valuable visitors – those who have a clear intent to buy. The efficient search box shouldn’t depend on location, device, browser, etc., so you can take the following suggestions to create the great UX search tool:
- use the universal symbol of search;
- place the search box where the users want to see it. Usually, it is situated at the top center or the top left of the page;
- include the search box on every page of your website;
- exploit the auto-suggestion functionality;
- provide the advanced search option including using various filters;
- consider adding the voice search.
Check out a great example of the search option provided by Discogs.com that includes some of the above-mentioned features:
- Avoid Cart Abandonment
While talking about e-commerce websites, one of the main issues that the merchants often face is cart abandonment. In many cases, visitors leave a website without making a purchase because of a difficult user interface. To reduce the cart abandonment rate, it is important to make easy check-out choices with a variety of payment options. Also, you can provide website visitors with the possibility to buy a product or service without registration. And don’t forget to reach out to the clients who abandoned carts via email. It can remind customers to come back and make a purchase, as well as increase user satisfaction and loyalty.
- Speed Up Your Website
The research indicates that if e-commerce businesses sell $100,000 per day, they can potentially lose $2.5 million a year because of a one-second website page delay. The red flags and reasons behind the loss can range from low Google rankings and sales KPIs to poor customer engagement. So, in case you notice any problems with website performance, the tools like web.dev, GTmetrix, etc. can help you determine the issues by entering your website URL. They offer you a speed report with page load time, analyzed bottlenecks, and optimization recommendations.
When you decide to improve your site speed, there are a number of ways to make the website work faster. Among the most popular ones are the following:
- select the efficient hosting with quick support, high security and fast connection;
- compress files and images;
- reduce URL redirects;
- minimize a number of plugins;
- configure a Content Delivery Network (CDN);
- obtain and manage the cashing of your web server.
- Leverage Social Media
Nowadays, social media is one of the most powerful marketing channels. According to stats, 45% of the population worldwide (around 3.5 billion individuals) are using social media today, and this number is only growing. It helps to spread the word about your website fast and easily. You can inform users and existing customers about promotions, and company developments, deliver brand messaging, etc. The vital key to social media is to be active, offer relevant, updated information, and build a tribe of people who are engaged with your brand.
Social media marketing helps you leverage different content such as text, videos, images, and so on to engage more followers. For example, millennials and Gen Xers are more likely to be interested in images and videos. With text-based content, you can target the baby boomers. Also, it is suggested to include social share buttons on the website. The social icons help you ask the customers to like your page, follow you on social media, or share the content with friends and family.
- Benefit from User-Generated Content
Positive user-generated content (UGC) is one of the most powerful tools in social media marketing. The visuals of customers using your products or services, as well as online reviews posted by real people, are just a few examples of user-generated content that can help you increase customer engagement. Bazaarvoice proves that UGC has a big impact on the buying decisions of the customers. Since creating the user-generated content strategy helps to engage more customers and increase ROI, it is recommended to generate UGC in the following ways:
- right after the consumer makes a purchase. For example, encourage clients to take action during their highest point of delight immediately after they bought your product or service. So, ask for a review or other types of feedback that can generate the guaranteed social proof.
- through visual testimonials. Use customer-posted pictures and videos that are valuable marketing assets. Ask your customers for the visual testimonial at the second stage of delight right after they receive the product or service.
- gamify customer experience. Make content sharing via social networks rewarding and fun. Offer the discount codes, coupons, loyalty points, etc. to generate interest in your clients. In this case, you can build long-term relationships through repeat purchases from your business.
- Optimize Mobile Capabilities
Since Google shifted its algorithm towards a mobile-first strategy, a number of sales have been conducted via mobile devices. According to statistics, 62% of companies increased their sales by designing responsive mobile platforms for their websites. Most of your website users or current clients use smartphones, which means customer engagement with your website is waiting to happen. Since it’s obvious that the future is mobile, it is almost imperative to have a mobile-friendly website, develop an app that will help to communicate with your business, and finally engage the prospects with text messaging.
- Use Live Chat
One of the great ways to drive customer engagement and collect personal data is to implement live chat into your business strategy. The tool is a cost-effective method to attract the website visitors and convert them into loyal customers by providing a personalized customer experience. A number of users prefer to communicate with support reps via live chat instead of waiting to talk on a phone or writing the emails.
Live chat is essential to be able to reach your business in real-time and across multiple channels. Moreover, it is important to be able to resolve users’ problems on the go wherever your support team is. The right live chat software that will also provide mobile apps is the best option here. Since there is a wide range of live chat tools floating on the web, your responsibility is to select the one that suits your business requirements and satisfy customers’ needs.
Final Thoughts
Efficient customer engagement can take you a long way. So, stop waiting for your clients to engage with you. Take the above-mentioned hints on how to boost sales on your website and devise the innovative ideas to reach out to the customers and interact with them. The individuals remember the websites with effective and personalized client experience, so they usually return to these sites for surfing more information or making a purchase. By improving the quality of customer engagement, you can not only enhance the website traffic but also increase your sales and overall revenue.
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