If you’ve had your e-commerce business for a while, you may think it’s time to expand your market. This step in an entrepreneur’s career may take months to a year of planning. You must consider many factors to ensure your store doesn’t get lost in the sea of other online stores. What do you offer that others don’t? How can you market to your audience to appear as their best choice?
While it may be challenging, your business can reach new heights with creative planning, reflection, and analysis. Here are a few tips for expanding your e-commerce business to help you on your journey.
Re-Identify Your Target Audience
There’s nothing wrong with stepping back and re-evaluating your business. Now is the perfect time to review numbers, see what is or isn’t working, and gain opportunities to expand your market. You should re-identify your audience to achieve an accurate business analysis.
When you started your business, you may have appealed to younger adults. Now that your audience is older, how can you market to them? What are their needs? Retargeting your audience helps encourage purchases among broader customers. This process could mean updating personalized advertising or adding automated features to your website.
Don’t Be Afraid To Expand
Another tip to remember when expanding your e-commerce business is to take chances. You took an opportunity to open your online store; why not consider growing your business beyond your country? Shipping internationally can be intimidating, especially during the peak shipping season. However, with detailed planning, a skilled 3PL team, and attractive packaging, you can create a customer base in various across the globe.
Market To Every Stage of the Online Buying Experience
As an entrepreneur, it’s easy to think that people will flock straight to your site after all your marketing attempts. However, realistically, you know that’s not how things work. Put yourself in the buyer’s shoes. Do you flock to every store after seeing an advertisement? Consider doing the following to help you market to all stages of the buying experience:
- Improve your brand recognition
- Boost your brand’s SEO (search engine optimization)
- Expand your inventory by offering what others don’t
- Offer discounts for first-time buyers (improve purchase experience)
- Enhance the post-purchase experience (clarify communications, provide shipping information)
Work on Perfecting Your Customer Service
Customer service will make or break your business. Perfecting your customer service and asking for feedback will greatly improve your satisfaction ratings. Clearly communicate with your customers, offer them discounts, and solve mishaps quickly to build a loyal audience. Interacting with your customers through an online business can be challenging, but expanding your customer support and social media teams will help develop social connections and familiarity, which will also help brand recognition.
