Converting your e-commerce website’s initial leads into customers is one thing. Persuading them to become loyal customers is another thing.

But while you are spending a lot of time and effort on directing specific targets to your website, it would be better off to sometimes focus on customers whom you have already persuaded once.

Targeting old customers is easy. Since they have already purchased or availed your service, they have gained some level of trust in your brand. This is called the Post-Purchase Conversion and it has a number of benefits. Did you know that –

• Acquiring new customers is seven times more expensive than retaining the already existing ones
• An increase in retention rates by 5% can give you 25%-95% increased profits
• The probability of a sale from new customers is only 5-20%% compared to existing customers which then increases to 60 – 80%.

All these data help to draw out a clear picture of the benefits of retaining old customers. But the next question that turns out to be pretty common among many is  – how to convert lead customers into regular customers? Here are some tips that can help you out in such case –

#1 – Alleviate Your Customer’s Post-Purchase Fear

It is important to alleviate your customer’s post-purchase fear if you are planning to convert them. All it will take is a little bit of some thought and some action to show your customers that you understand their fears and are doing what you can to overcome their features.

The first thing that you can do is send out a confirmation email with the purchase details and the next step to follow.

Let’s take the example of how an e-commerce business can address some of the common customer issues and try to alleviate the customer’s post-purchase fear.

Now what kind of issues can be addressed? Well generally, when people purchasing online get usually concerned with things like –

• Order confirmation
• Delivery time
• Dispatch time

Amazon uses simple email follow-ups that are to the point, short and addresses only the key needs of the purchaser.

#2 – Target Your Cross-Sell Campaigns

A cross-sell promotion can do amazing things to your business. But what if they appear to be a veiled attempt to grab more money? You will not be able to catch your target audience.

Targeting your cross-sell campaigns can help you to solicit your customers based on their interest and activities. Meaning that you solicit customers based on their most searches and frequently purchased items.

In addition, you can also inform customers about the add-ons or additional products associated with the ones already purchased by the customer. You can help customers be more informative by helping them research what other goods could be of interest to customers.

While this can elevate chances of customer conversion, too much promotion can turn your persuasion irrelevant.

About 35% of Amazon’s revenue is acquired by just linking their customer search to related products. So how do you begin your cross-sell promotional campaign the right way?

• Take the next step by focusing on the value
• Make relevant recommendation that is related to your initial conversion
• Try adding an incentive that will sweeten your deal

#3 –Highlight Your Product Usage and Best Practices

Not all customers are well informative and there are some who might not be familiar with the technical details and in-depth information.

By giving them a hands-on experience. Paying money for something that one does not know how to use can turn out to be a real pain post purchase. This, in turn, could result in the customer returning back your product. Now that is not a good thing for your brand impression, is it? How do you convince or persuade them to purchase your product?

Show how your product can be used. Build a positive image around your brand. This will not just help you educate your customers but also increase your product referral. When people get to understand how your product can be used, then the number of returns is also reduced.

The best example of targeted cross-sell promotion is by providing you a guide to your product purchase. You could build out your targeted cross-sell promotion by talking about the most important features. In case if your product is very complicated to explain. Then you could use a drib cross-sell promotion strategy. You could use three to four cross-sell promotion strategies to showcase your product use, features, etc.

#4 – Research a little bit about Your Audience

Great marketing comes from good research. You need to know exactly what your customers are looking for in order to help them out.

Some of the great places online from where you can begin your customer research is by doing keyword research, review mining and computer analysis.

Do not get too much detailed when you are trying to persuade your customers. Point out only the things that you know would be customer centric.

There are certain tactics that you just need to give out for free. For example, if you have an interesting guide that you know will help your customers then simply provide it to them for free. But at a cost and that is, asking them to sign up. A good questionnaire could be a good opportunity at this point for gathering all your customer information. Next time, your customers would be keener to look into your next request.

#5 – Encourage Them to Talk About Their Purchase Socially

The social media is a great place to share, promote and even for referrals. And it could be immensely useful for your business. You can make it socially easy for your customers to talk about their latest purchases or products that they might be interested in. You can also encourage them to becomes brand advocates that you know would be of immense value for your brand trying to reach out beyond.

Conclusion

The above tips are very easy and simple to follow and you are sure going to enjoy trying them out. Just keep in mind that you need to build a positive brand image. That means bring in positive brand experience about your product. This will help customers to not just feel confident when they are buying something but also help you improve your retail communication. Try them out and watch your e-commerce sales growing positive and soaring high.

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