The Weekly Newspaper of Inglewood
Herald Publications - El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 69, No. 14 - April 2, 2020
Inglewood Business Owners
Are Giving Back to the Community
Kishore, a 7eleven owner in our community, donated masks and gloves to our first responders. The City of Inglewood is appreciative to all their wonderful business owners and donations which help our community. Photo City of Inglewood.
How Small Businesses Can Boost Online Sales
(BPT) - With over 30 million small businesses
in the U.S., it’s tough to stand out
from the crowd. Successful small businesses
turn first-time customers into repeat business,
especially building online momentum and
growing sales.
How can you achieve this? Marketing.
Finding effective, easy-to-execute marketing
strategies can boost your business by helping
you engage your customers while attracting
new ones. Here are some proven ideas to
help your business thrive:
Engage first-time customers
Show new shoppers that they matter. Send
welcome emails and recommend products to
complement what they bought. Offer special
deals to keep them coming back.
Utilize Positive Customer Reviews
Did you know over 60% of consumers
read reviews before buying? Reviews can
include ratings, testimonials, photos, videos
and more.
Treat reviews as marketing gold, sharing
them with customers and prospects to build
trust and increase sales. You can generate and
integrate them into your website, on social
media and other marketing efforts.
Turn Shopping Carts Into
Opportunities
Let’s face it, plenty of potential customers
add items to their online shopping carts and
never check out. While these “abandoned
carts” seem challenging, they’re an opportunity.
An effective way to convert abandoned
carts into sales is by drawing on the power of
customer reviews. Adii Pienaar, vice president
of commerce product strategy for the email
marketing platform CM Commerce, says
small businesses can change their fortunes
with this approach.
“Our most successful small business
customers don’t just send a reminder email
to shoppers about items left in their carts,”
said Pienaar. “They take it a step further and
include positive reviews and ratings about
that product with the follow-up, knowing
how much importance buyers place on others’
experiences. By featuring personalized
product reviews for abandoned cart items,
there can be a recovery rate of 5-10%.”
Spark Interest
with Special Offers
Entice new and returning business by offering
discounts, encouraging shoppers to
give your business a try.
Also, if you don’t have one already, create
a loyalty program for frequent shoppers, or
a referral special for those inviting friends
to your website or social media.
Personalization Matters
Shoppers don’t want mass emails treating
them like just another number. Small
businesses that tailor emails based on each
customer’s shopping experiences and interests
are far more successful in driving sales.
Creating customized content may sound
complex, but it all comes down to how you
organize your customer list. For example,
segment your customers by which products
they’ve purchased, then use this information
to inform them how to best use their products
or remind them when it’s time to re-order.
Personalization really pays off when you
incorporate dynamic content - information
that changes based on a person’s interests
- in promotional emails. Use a customer’s
previous purchases and shopping interests to
generate ideas on products to complement
items they already bought. For example,
recommend a similar flavor of cupcakes to
ones they ordered before.
Get Started
These proven marketing approaches can
springboard your business to success. But,
how do you get started?
Marketing has greatly evolved, with many
new, easy-to-use tools. You don’t need to be
a marketing expert, technical whiz or creative
designer to use them.
For example, CM Commerce is an email
marketing platform designed for small
ecommerce businesses. It can easily create
professional email campaigns to enhance and
grow your business.
To help small business owners, CM Commerce
features pre-built email marketing
recipes for everything from welcome emails
and newsletters to abandoned cart reminders
and more. Business owners can follow these
guidelines and put their email marketing plans
in place with a single click.
“I always recommend small business owners
invest in email marketing,” said Pienaar.
“It’s a cost-effective way to establish your
brand and regularly reach your customers and
prospects. Most importantly, email marketing
has the potential for huge returns and can
truly make your business stand out.”
For more tips and ideas to grow your business,
visit The Marketing Resources Hub. •
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