To view the podcast page to listen or watch this content please visit https://www.catherinelangman.com/episode-123/
So, yesterday my eldest son Aidan asked me a question which I’m sure is a familiar one to anyone who is striving towards a big goal. As you all know, my kids are all swimmers. Aidan probably takes it more seriously than my other two. His goal is to make it to the olympics – which is no small goal. But he’s not the champion swimmer who is out there winning every race at every meet. If anything, he has to work harder at it than my other two. And he’s OK with that – he always says that he may not win on talent but he will out-work everyone else. And he’s also pretty analytical and strategic about it too. He’s always getting me to video his races and then he analyses every part of the race to work out his weak spots, and then takes ideas to his coach to work on them until he’s mastered them.
But anyway, back to his question yesterday. He asked me – Mum, have you ever experienced feeling as though you’re just not progressing? Or he may have said ‘progressing fast enough’.
Hands up who of you feel like that when it comes to growing your business or generating sales in your online store? Or maybe this year some of you have seen month-to-month that sales plateau or even go backwards at times? To be honest, that’s very normal – we all have ups and downs in our sales cycle, and there are also always going to be external factors that we can’t control that also influence our results.
That being said, though. If you’re not experiencing the results you want, should you just accept it?
When things aren’t going to plan, there are 3 ways I see people react:
- They pull the reigns in, stop investing time or money on marketing or advertising, and literally bunker down and wait for it all to pass.
- They keep doing what they’ve always done and just accept that the results aren’t what they once were. Or
- They look to find new and different ways to grow their business.
Personally I’m never happy to just accept what comes my way – I always want to have new and creative ideas to keep growing (I’m like that in most areas of my life, not just business. Probably drives my hubby nuts sometimes!)
Unfortunately, all businesses go through periods of time when their sales slow down or decline.
I remember that feeling.
Sometimes it was just a crap time of year for sales. Like, February and school holidays were always horrible for me in terms of sales in my online store.
Sometimes sales would dip because I’d run out of stock, or sold out of most popular products.
And of course, sometimes it was because times were just tough. Like I’ve mentioned in past podcast episodes, I managed to grow my business through the 2008 GFC, but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t sometimes really tough. Just like times right now are also really challenging.
But the journey from here to success is never a smooth, upward line. If it was that easy, everyone would be doing it, right?
So here’s what we’re going to do in today’s episode. I’m going to share 7 different strategies you can employ that are free or low-cost, to help you promote your online store and generate more revenue in your business.
1. Optimise your most popular product pages for SEO
When it comes to free marketing strategies, you really can’t go past SEO. SEO meaning – search engine optimization. In a nutshell, this is about making some simple tweaks to your website content to make it more attractive to Google.
Earlier this year I did two podcast episodes with Karen, the SEO queen from my agency team. And she shared some absolute gold in terms of quick SEO wins as well as how to come up with a 12 month content plan. If you want to look these up, they’re episodes 110 and 113. So go to catherinelangman.com/episode-110 or catherinelangman.com/episode-113
But sometimes it can feel a little overwhelming about where to start and how to get the fastest return on your effort.
So here’s my suggestion: if you need to be selling more right now, start with optimising your most popular product pages.
There are two parts to this though: firstly, you want to work on optimising the SEO side. For this, you need to first work out which product page or pages to work on. If you don’t know which products are your highest converting, dive into your Shopify analytics and see what you sell the most of. You can also look into Google Analytics at the Landing Pages section to find which is your highest converting page.
Next you need to work out what keywords you want to optimise for – what terms have the highest search volume but also some possibility for success. For instance, don’t go for a term that has a gazillion searches per month and an insanely high level of competition. Really high-level keywords might fall into this category. For instance, I wouldn’t try and optimise for the term ‘swimwear’, because it’d be virtually impossible to rank for that, and to be honest it’s so broad in terms of who the customer is, you’re not likely to attract the right person.
So really what you need to do is to use a tool like Ubersuggest or SEMRush and work out what search terms will be best for your most popular product pages. And then go back and listen to my episodes with Karen and follow her instructions for what tweaks and changes to make to things like image file names, product titles, meta descriptions and so on, so that your product page becomes more visible and attractive to google.
The second part to this is: optimise your most popular product pages for conversions. This is not the same as optimising for SEO.
You want to make sure your product pages have the right information and layout and usability to increase the conversion rate on those pages.
For instance, make sure the hero image is an attractive styled product shot, cropped square, and then you have a handful of alternative product views in the image grid.
The product name, short description, price, variants if you have any, and add to cart buttons need to be easily visible without scrolling.
Then you want to have tabs underneath the add to cart button so that all the other relevant information is easy to read and doesn’t take up too much space. You might have detailed product description or specs, a how-to-use description or video, and shipping & delivery information. If you have any common perceived risks about buying your products, you’ll also need to find a way to overcome those here. For me when I had my modern cloth nappy brand, we offered a money back guarantee. For many clothing brands, a ‘will this fit’ tab making sure size charts and information about the way an item fits can be super helpful.
Then you want to have social proof below that – ie your customer reviews.
By optimising for SEO you’ll get more traffic to your best seller product pages, and by optimising for conversions you’ll convert more of those visitors into paying customers. Win win!
2. Create a sales landing page for collections & bundles
In a similar vein to optimising your product pages, it is worth the effort to work on collection and bundle pages. Again, the view is to get more free organic search traffic, but it’s also about increasing conversion rates and also increasing your average order value.
So you will also want to start by working out which collection is your biggest seller, and same with your bundles. Then doing some keyword research in a similar way to what I was describing before.
Optimising the page for SEO will follow a similar process as well, so you can refer back to Karen’s SEO episodes for those instructions.
But to optimise these landing pages for sales conversions, you really need to think of these as almost a mini-home page in terms of the content and layout.
Think in terms of ‘AIDSA’ – Attention, Interest, Desire, Social Proof, Action.
We want an eye-catching hero image to capture people’s attention fast. Then we need a catchy headline that hooks their interest. With the image and headline – think about the benefits and end result that customers want to experience and find a way to hook into that with your headline.
To increase Desire, you need a short description under your headline that really gets your customers salivating.
Let me give you an example for a herbal Sleep remedy.
Headline could be, ‘A Better Night’s Sleep’
Sub-heading could be: ‘91% of customers report lower stress levels and deeper sleep’
Short description could be: Turn off racing thoughts and middle of the night stressouts. Experience deeply restorative deep sleep instead.
And then you want a call to action button ‘Shop Now’ or ‘Shop Sleep Solution’ or something like that.
Then we need the social proof element. For a really high converting landing page, the ultimate would be to have a great customer testimonial video here. But short of that, include some great written testimonials, preferably with some images.
Then you want to show your products some more. This would be ‘add to cart’ style so customers can shop from this page.
Then you can go into a little bit of detail – depending on what you sell of course, but if there’s some ‘how to’ or some particular information about your products that help customers to feel confident making a purchase decision, add that in here. I like to use a two-column format with short text snippets on one side and image on the other, to make it easy to read.
And then you might have some benefit icons you like to highlight as well, which I’d include towards the bottom of the page.
3. Add an up-sell or cross-sell app
My very first job was at Maccas in the drive through. Of course, we were all trained on sales tactics like upselling from the regular size to the large, as well as the memorable line ‘would you like fries with that’ which is a cross-sell.
These are strategies that I’ve described in a recent podcast too where I broke down True Protein’s incredibly successful End of Financial Year Sale. You’ll find this at catherinelangman.com/episode-129.
So why do we cross-sell and up-sell?
Basically – these are both ways to increase the average order value. You’re either trying to get the customer to buy more of the same or you’re offering something else that is complementary and that many customers like to purchase together. Obviously if you can make more money per transaction using either or both of these strategies, then you are gonna be better off.
You can fairly simply put this one into practice, for example Reconvert or Bold Upsell.
4. Segment your email list
It should come as no surprise to any of you who have listened to my podcasts for some time or worked with me in any of my programs.
When it comes to the most effective in terms of results as well as cost-effective marketing strategies around, you can’t go past email.
Here are three emails you can get out to your audience fairly quickly and be pretty confident you’ll make money:
- Create a segment of lapsed customers. You’ll need to have an inkling of how frequently your customers might typically buy. If you’re selling birthday cakes then once a year might be normal. But if you’re selling protein shakes then monthly is probably more likely.
Then you want to come up with the best offer you can do on something that your customers usually love. This is called a re-engagement campaign.
You don’t just send out an offer and leave it at that though. Think of this as literally re-introducing yourself to someone who may have forgotten about you. This means introducing the brand and your brand promise, sharing the amazing offer and how they can get it, what benefits would the customer experience, some social proof and also an expiry on the offer so that there’s a bit of scarcity.
I would be spreading this information across 3 emails, perhaps over a week. - Create a segment of 1-time customers over a recent period, say in the last 3 months. Again, though, you’ll need some idea of how frequently customers normally shop. Let me suggest something in between my last two suggestions – say you sell skincare that normally is replenished every 3 months. I would create a segment of customers who have bought once within the last 2-6 months.
Then, think about the cross-selling and up-selling strategies we talked about for your website. You can do the same in email as well.
Again, I would treat this as a 3-part email sequence with an enticing offer that is designed to attract your one-time customer back for a repeat purchase. Use the same content strategies in those 3 emails as I just described: introduce the offer and showcase benefits; showcase social proof and reiterate the offer in the second email; emphasise scarcity in the third email. - Create a segment of your most frequent or high-value customers, perhaps over the last 12 months. These are your best customers so you want to make sure you love on them from time to time! You could send them a VIP gift coupon, or you might be able to come up with something extra special just for them.
5. List build faster
Because email marketing does have the highest ROI of any marketing channel, it should go without saying that you want to focus on growing that email list as efficiently as possible.
One tactic that’s working super well right now is the Wheelio spinning wheel app. Yes this can be executed in a really tacky way, but it can also be done in an attractive, value-add way that doesn’t cheapen your brand at all.
For example, you can change the incentives up so they’re not all discounts.
We’ve got this in place with a few clients and have seen their list growth explode – growing at more than 4x their usual rate. So the conversion rate of visitor to subscriber increases rapidly. But not only that, the conversion rate from subscriber to buyer appears to increase as well.
Part of this requires reviewing your automated New Subscriber email flow to make sure that the emails are being opened and clicked on and leading to purchases. So you’ll want to make sure you look at your email stats to ensure that your emails are converting.
But the success of a tactic like Wheelio I think also comes down to the gamified nature of the app. The customer is interacting with the app and playing the game, which is tactical and fun, and that seems to increase conversions as well. Which is pretty cool.
6. Run a social media giveaway
I almost wasn’t going to include this in this episode. Because I see far too many people doing giveaways on instagram and they do it with very little strategic forethought.
Usually I see brands doing a giveaway just in return for people following them on IG and maybe a like or a comment or a share on the giveaway.
Yes this sort of promo might give you a boost in engagement and maybe followers as well. But if that’s all you get, then it’s not giving you much return on effort.
What you really want to do is to run a giveaway in a way that builds your email list as well, preferably with potential customers who are somewhat engaged with your brand and have fallen in love with your products – at least a little bit.
This is a distinction from what I call ‘freeple’ who just sign up to win some free shit and don’t really care what it is. People like that aren’t your ideal customers, so you don’t really want them following you or signing up to your list. They’re probably never going to be your customers anyway.
So the idea with a giveaway done well, is that you get the social engagement for sure, but you also require a little effort. You want them to be on your website, checking out your stuff and falling in love with it.
So that when they don’t win, they’ll be receptive to a great offer to buy it anyway.
Which means, sending out some emails after the giveaway has ended and drumming up some sales that way.
I did a podcast a while back on this strategy, which you can find at catherinelangman.com/episode-17
You can also get some extra oomph into a giveaway by using a gamification tool like Convo.bot, or by collaborating with another brand or with an influencer to spread the word.
7. Video, video, video!
Last but not least – and perhaps I should have put this first… Right now, video is Queen when it comes to content. Video content is getting the most reach, engagement and conversions by a very very long shot.
I know that doing video can feel really challenging. Especially if you’re an introvert like me. (But hey – look at me now! I’m creating video content all the time now that’s because the reason I do what I do – my impact goal – is far more motivating to me than my fear of making a fool of myself on video!)
That being said though – jumping on Live video, whether that’s on Instagram or another platform – is not the only type of video you can produce.
You can do product demos, collect ‘unboxing’ videos and testimonial videos from customers, you could reach out to industry experts or content creators in your niche, you can even create animated gifs using still images and illustrations. I’d say that the product demos – your own and any created by customers or content creators – along with any user generated content from your customers are currently the most influential.
To quickly help make it easier for you to jump on video and shoot one yourself, perhaps you demo’ing your product, here’s a script format for you to follow:
You should begin by answering these two questions with a short 2-paragraph story:
- Start by describing your customer’s “average day”
- Describe how your product CHANGES their average day.
For example,
‘I think I can guess how you’re feeling right now. Your baby is fussy and only sleeps if you’re walking around and holding him. You’re absolutely exhausted, running on empty, and you’re feeling very anxious that something is wrong with your baby.
Imagine if a simple change to your baby’s nursery setup could provide the same soothing effect as you cradling him? Imagine if he could confidently settle and sleep all on his own? Imagine how you would feel, knowing your baby was happy, calm and settled?’
Then, you need to tell your readers and Facebook fans what ACTION you want them to take next and write it in a short call to action that begins with “Click here to…”
Alrighty then! That was a bit of a mammoth episode today. I would LOVE to hear from you – either DM me @cathlangman on Instagram or Facebook, or jump into my Rockstar Facebook group, and tell me which of these is your favourite and which ones you will implement this month!
As always, whenever you work on some new marketing strategies in your business, you must keep track of your results. And by ‘keep track of’ I mean – write them down. You want to track whether your metrics like unique visitors, conversion rate and average order value go up, down or stay the same. Ideally they all go up of course!
Anyway, let me know what you think.
If you’ve enjoyed this episode, I’d absolutely love it if you’d share it with one or two of your business besties. Especially if you know they’re looking to grow their eCommerce business this year. It’s super easy to share – just click on the icon next to the podcast on whichever platform you listen to it on, copy the share link and then send it in a message to your friends.
Lastly, if you’re keen for some more in-depth help and support with this stuff, please just give us a shout! We offer courses, coaching and done-for-you-services to suit every stage in business, whether you need help to learn and implement these things or you’d like to outsource to our team. Just head over to productpreneurmarketing.com and you can book in for a free strategy session.