14 Marketing Tactics To Drive Sales And Apps to Execute Them

Shopify's Ecommerce blog has always been an excellent source of useful, actionable information for online retailers. When we encountered Dan Wang's 13 actionable marketing tactics, we simply had to apply our infographic treatment to it. Enjoy!

UPDATE: Now also available on Slideshare!

14 Marketing Tactics To Drive Online Sales and Apps to Execute them

TACTIC 1

IMPROVE STORE DESIGN

• Poor design drives customers away
• Get feedback from friends with a good sense of design
• Try working with tried – and – test themes from established platforms.

Shopify

Shopify offers users over 100 free and premium themes. They’re customizable, too!

TACTIC 2

MAKE AN EXIT OFFER

• Even well – designed stores can lose customers if prices seem too high.
• Offer discounts or free shipping to your customers before they leave to persuade them to buy from your store.

Exit Offers

Exit Offers makes a special offer pop-up when customers are about to leave your site. You can track success rates and even A/B test different messages.

TACTIC 3

USE EMAIL PRUDENTLY

• Email may be your best channel in online marketing.
• It drives traffic to your store, supplements content marketing and outperforms both Twitter and Facebook for generating sales.

• 80% receive marketing messages with personal emails!

• 70% use coupons or discounts from their email!

• 60% say offers are why they subscribe!

Emma

Emma gives you the ability to conduct better marketing campaigns by targeting your customers with the right message based on purchase history.

TACTIC 4

KEEP IN TOUCH OFTEN

• It’s good practice to keep your customer informed about the status of their order.
• Send out regular newsletters with deals and discounts to keep your customers interested.

AVERAGE 50% OPEN RATE FOR WELCOME EMAILS

Email Pirate

Email Pirate allows you to create a fully-customizable opt – in window that pops up to encourage your visitors to subscribe to your emails. It also gives you the ability to track user behavior so that you can segment your customers based on their behavior prior to opting in.

TACTIC 5

OPTIMIZE AD – SPENDING

• Be sure to vary your keywords to see what works best for your business.
• It helps for shop owners to try out slight variations on keywords to find a good niche for your business.

Propel Ad

Propel Ad lets you find people on Facebook who are similar to your past customers, and then target them with ads for your product.

TACTIC 6

LEVERAGE SOCIAL PROOF

• Customers are more likely to purchase from a site if it has product reviews and ratings.

Product Reviews

Product Reviews is a free app designed by Shopify that offers an easy way to add reviews to your store. It’s fully – customizable and includes theme – adaptive design.

TACTIC 7

ANTICIPATE FUTURE SALES

List items as out – of – stock (with good photography and appropriate text) to see which products your customers most want to buy.

Out of Stock

Out of Stock allows you to take orders in advance, shipping your products to your customers once they’re ready.

TACTIC 8

UP – SELL PRODUCTS

Make your upsells related to the original product and be sensitive to the price range of your customers.

UPSELLING IS 20x MORE EFFECTIVE THAN CROSS – SELLING ONLINE

Product UpSell

The Product UpSell app gives you the ability to offer a different product during checkout based on the contents of the shopping cart of your customers. Integrate it with your store to sell one or many higher – margin products.

TACTIC 9

REDUCE CART ABANDONMENT

• Abandoned carts mean that your sales are only a fraction of what they could be.
• An small recovery campaign can entice your customer to return to their cart.

2 IN 3 SHOPPING CARTS ARE ABANDONED BEFORE THEY ARE CHECKED OUT

Abandon Aid

Abandon Aid lets you send a note to a customer who abandons their cart to remind them of their order and to ask them to complete it. It’s simple and automatic. No need for manual triggers.

TACTIC 10

WISHLIST REMINDERS

• A Wishlist Reminder Email nudges the customer to take the final step and make the purchase.
• Send an email to the customer to let them know that an item on the wishlist will be soon sold out, or it is on sale.

Wishlist + Reminder

Wishlist + Reminder allows you to customize the look and feel of the wishlists on your site, then send emails out to people to remind them that there’s something in your store that they like.

TACTIC 11

INCLUDE A GIFTING SECTION

• Exchanging gifts has been the interpersonal glue of human society for thousands of years.
• Selling gift sets can yield higher profit margins, especially when you have a variety of selections for your customer to choose from.

$1 OUT OF $10 SPENT ARE ON GIFTS IN SHOPS

Gift Reggie

Gift Reggie is one of the first white label gift registry and wishlist solutions on sale it takes on the look and feel of your store’s design, giving you a complete brand experience.

TACTIC 12

LAUNCH A FACEBOOK STORE

• Facebook is the biggest social media platform in the world, making it a great source of traffic.
• Merchants can sell directly to Facebook users when they set up a store

AN AVERAGE OF 85% OF ORDERS COME FROM FACEBOOK

Facebook Store

Facebook Store is an app developed by Shopify that lets you showcase and sell products directly on your Facebook Page. Customers can share their favorite products with their friends.

TACTIC 13

ENGAGE WITH INSTAGRAM

• Engage your audience by running contests
• Reveal ‘’behind – the – scenes’’ work
• Use pictures of your customers with your products to earn social proof.

25% MORE ENGAGEMENT THAN OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS

Instagration

Instagration is an excellent tool for increasing Instagram engagement. It integrates with your online store, and gives you the ability to moderate the instagram pictures of your customers and display them in different formats.

TACTIC 14

PROMOTING WORD – OF – MOUTH

• Word – of – mouth has massive impact, because consumers trust friends and family more than marketers.
• Build a bigger audience by finding power influencers who already have your target audience’s attention.

50% OF PURCHASE DECISIONS ARE INFLUENCED BY WORD – OF – MOUTH

92% TRUST RECOMMENDATIONS FROM FRIENDS AND FAMILY MORE THAN ADS

ReferralCandy

ReferralCandy is a referral marketing tool that gets you more customers by incentivizing referrals. Think of it as word – of – mouth marketing on steroids.

(Here's the 2-minute setup guide to create your own referral program for your store!)

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Incentivizing word-of-mouth is one of the best ways to scale your customer acquisition efforts. Visit ReferralCandy.com to learn how you can do that simply and effectively!