Twelve Tried and Tested Techniques to Increase eCommerce Lead Generation in 2022

What is eCommerce Lead Generation?

Simply put, an e-commerce lead is someone who shows interest in your products or services and takes some action. eCommerce lead generation is the process of convincing customers to act and give their contact information, such as email address or telephone number.

You can think of eCommerce lead generation simply as any action that “warms up” potential customers to make a sale. You can consider anyone who is reaching out to you sales team, clicking on your ads, subscribing or adding your products to their online shopping cart as eCommerce leads.

How do you identify the best eCommerce leads?

It is not a good idea to shoot in the dark. You need to know who your target audience is if you want to maximize your marketing budget and ad spending. You should not stop there. It is important to develop a buyer persona.

A Buyer Persona is a semi-realistic profile that describes a potential customer. It includes personal details, hobbies and interests as well as income sources, geographic, behavioral, and psychological demographics. The buyer persona will give you an idea of the average customer.

Marketers can build a buyer persona using insights from all departments, from operations to customer-facing.

Here’s an example of a buyer persona.

There are many segments that you can use to create buyer personas. Your campaigns will perform better and convert more customers if you target specific people. With your accounting program, you’ll be able to attract more customers. You will also see increased profits.

Tip: Use Hubspot’s free buyer persona tool for a detailed picture of your ideal customer

12 tried and tested eCommerce lead generation strategies

Now that we have a buyer persona in place, let’s move on to the best eCommerce lead generation strategies you can use today.

1. Search Engine Ranking

Okay, so this one may seem obvious. It’s a powerful tool for eCommerce lead generation and deserves a place on this list.

Think about the last time that you bought something. Which place did you go first? It’s likely that it was Google, your trusted friend.

Search engine optimization is a way to appear in search results when potential customers are searching for similar products or services. These eCommerce leads are of high quality, and they’re willing to buy your products.

This post is not about a complete eCommerce SEO strategy. This amazing guide by Eric, ReConvert’s cofounder, will cover everything you need in less than 10 minutes.

2. Make a personalized experience

Instapage reports that 74% of customers are frustrated by website content that isn’t personalized. What does personalized experience mean? Check out Trade Coffee’s short quiz to help you find the right coffee subscription for you.

This is the core message. Customers don’t all want the same thing, so it isn’t wise to send them the same marketing messages. Personalized marketing allows you to tailor your ads, retargeting email, notifications and offers to each customer.

A sophisticated recommendation engine is a must for any eCommerce website. This will allow visitors to shop faster and more efficiently, which in turn will result in them spending more.

Recommendations engines not only help in providing tailored experiences, but also increase conversions for your upselling or cross-selling campaign.

3. Boomerang One-Time Visitors Back

Remarketing is a powerful tool to reach bounced-off visitors. ReadyCloud shows that retargeting campaigns get 77% more clicks per visit than other ads. Retargeted visitors also have a 70% chance to convert into customers. To implement retargeting campaigns in your online store, you will need cookies.

Cookies store small amounts of information about a visitor’s session. This is especially useful for marketing purposes. This information includes items clicked or added to their shopping cart. These cookie data are used to retarget visitors and show them personalized ads featuring products they have viewed.

Here’s an example: I was served this ad by Allbirds after visiting their website.

You can do a lot more with remarketing ads. For example, you could offer discounts to customers who have already visited your store.

Remarketing campaigns can be launched on social media and other platforms via Google AdWords. To comply with all international laws, you must have a cookie policy on your site.

Tip: Check out Facebook’s dynamic retargeting tool for more information about getting shoppers to return to your store to buy.

4. Run PPC Ads

SEO is the best strategy for long-term eCommerce lead generation. Paid ads, however, are a powerful lead-generating tool you shouldn’t miss. PPC ads on platforms such as Google Ads are a powerful way to reach your target audience.

PPC is useful when your keywords are clear in intent and highly dominated by others. You can place ads with your keywords in the copy, or CTA to draw prospects.

If you are a seller of sports clothing, you might display an advertisement in search results for “men’s running jackets”, if the keyword is highly competitive.

Here you’ll need to determine the amount you want to pay per click on your eCommerce website. This is cost-effective because you only pay the amount that your ad clicks.

To get more leads from PPC campaigns, ensure your campaign includes the following:

• Unique ad copy that includes a USP or CTA.
• Insert targeted keywords
• Add your business name and the name of the product
• Negative keywords can be used to create big and powerful results

Tip: Check out Google Skillshop for tips on how to run PPC campaigns free of charge

5. Write Long-Form Inbound Marketing Content

An eCommerce company can generate leads through long-form inbound marketing campaigns such as blogs.

Customers can first gain information about your eCommerce store, including its products. Your website will be more popular if you provide detailed information about your products via blogs and catalogs.

These blogs can also be used as marketing collateral. These blogs can be broken up and used in social media posts for Instagram and twitter. These blogs may also offer guest-posting opportunities. In exchange for links from other businesses, you will get a wider reach on the internet.

The third benefit, and the most important, is that blogs can help you rank higher in search engines.

Buzzsumo is a tool that allows you to search for content that might be of interest to your audience. To find keywords that can be used in your content, use Keyword.io or Google Trends.

These are some tips to help you improve your inbound marketing strategy.

1. Create a Buyers Guide on the different product categories you offer.
2. Your customer can create a free course to help them achieve their goals
3. To entice visitors to your blog, use a lead magnet or pop-up

Tip – ReConvert has a guide for blogging for eCommerce. This guide will show you how to create powerful blog posts that have a positive effect on your revenue.

6. Install Lead Magnets

Blogs are not the only format of content that can help you with lead generation. Lead magnets can also be used to aid your eCommerce business.

These are valuable resources such as whitepapers and ebooks, guides, templates, and so forth. These are restricted resources. To gain access, readers must enter their personal information such as email address and phone number.

People are cautious about giving out their contact information to businesses. Make sure your lead magnet resource provides enough actionable value.

These are just a few more examples of lead magnets.

• Check out this list of tools and resources
• Market Reports
• Webinars
• Free trials or discount coupons
• Quizzes
• A series of videos

Pro Tip A lead magnet that is effective should be:

• Find the solution to a real problem
• Customer pain points
• Get actionable insights
• Simple to read, such as a PDF checklist

7. Social Media

Social media is a powerful marketing tool for B2C eCommerce companies. Social media is the best way to interact with customers and show them what your brand stands for.

Some social media platforms offer powerful advertising options. Facebook allows you to run ads that drive traffic to specific pages on your website. To reach the right audience, you can also make use of their targeted targeting options.

These filters include basic demographic information such as age, location, sex and gender, but also more detailed options like hobbies, education and past actions. These targeting options allow you to target the right audience for your ads.

Tip: A social media giveaway can help you generate interest in your business and lead generation.

8. Email marketing

You should try multiple times to convince your visitors to purchase from your website. Many visitors will give their email addresses to receive a discount or other incentive.

You can keep in touch with your leads through email marketing and encourage them to buy – by offering discounts, for example. You can also notify subscribers of new products, inform them about upcoming sales and share any information that they may find interesting.

You can also create hyper-personalized campaigns to send specific messages to your subscribers based upon their purchase history or personal information (see above). ).

You can, for example, send an email to them with a link to complete the transaction.

9. Use pop-ups

Pop-ups are a great way to get new leads from your website visitors. Pop-ups can be timed well to offer a discount code and encourage visitors to sign up for email leads (and sometimes customers). This pop-up is by Bliss

You’ll notice that they offer 20% to browsers for their first Bliss purchase. If you are thinking of buying, this is a very attractive offer. Consider how you can offer an incentive to encourage shoppers to buy right away.

Pop-ups convert at a very low percentage (around 3%), but they are quick and easy to set up. This means that for every 100 people who visit your store, you will get three qualified leads. This is a great return on investment for less than an hour of work.

Tip:Some customers are tired of annoying pop-ups. Pop-ups should not cover more than a portion of your screen and be easy to close. This will avoid annoying people.

10. Offer 24/7 customer service

They don’t shop during work hours. People prefer to shop during their leisure time. Your lead generation will skyrocket if you can provide customer support while they shop.

How do you do it? You can’t do this by not having an available workforce around the clock.

Technology can be used to meet this need. Tools like AI-driven chatbots and knowledge resource tools can be used to provide automated assistance to your visitors 24 hours a day.

These tools allow customers to get answers to their most frequently asked questions as well as insight into your products, services and offers. These tools allow you to be present even when you’re not there, increasing your lead generation by 2X.

Pro Tip Convert leads right away with a live chat widget for your eCommerce store. An app such as EasyCall allows you to answer your questions instantly, give advice, and close sales right away.

11. Make your presence known on YouTube

A Youtube channel is a great investment for eCommerce businesses, especially D2C ones. Youtube’s algorithm requires that you post consistent content over a longer period of time to gain a larger audience. However, you have SEO options that can help you get more views.

BeardBrand is a men’s grooming company that has amassed over 1.8 million subscribers through great YouTube content.

Youtube can be a powerful lead-generator for your online store in the long term.

These are some Youtube marketing strategies you can use to promote your online store:

• Collaborate and create content for your channel or theirs by working with influencers.
• Your products are tested by influencers who will then make it into video
• Tell us about the behind-the scenes stories of your business, and how it got started.

12. Deals and discounts

Since time immemorial, this is the most efficient and effective way to generate leads. It works every time. This is not just about the anchoring effect. Discounts and offers can be extremely elaborate and rewarding.

These are some of the most creative ways to offer discounts or deals

• Cashback is an incentive to purchase for your next purchase.
• Receive special offers for your first purchase
• Refer a friend.
• Offers can be made for festivals and special days.

Tip: Avoid overdoing it with discounts or offers. These are great short-term revenue boosts. But, if you use them too often, customers may begin to see your brand as cheap and put off buying products at full price.

Start with eCommerce Lead Generation Today

Every merchant should think about eCommerce lead generation. Start with these strategies and find the ones that work for you. You can only find the best way to do eCommerce. You can experiment with different lead generation strategies. You’ll eventually find the best lead generation strategies that fill your pipeline, and increase your profits.

Author Bio

Narayani Pandya, a passionate digital marketing professional with previous experience in customer service and sales, is a great example of what Narayani Pandya can do. When she isn’t working, she enjoys a cup of tea and a walk on the grass.