8 Marketing Tactics (And Apps) That Turn Shoppers Into Buyers

As an online store owner, you're always looking for more traffic and sales. With so many ways of achieving these goals it can sometimes be difficult to determine the best place to start. Previously, we shared 13 actionable marketing tactics with you and today we have eight more.

In this post, we will showcase a variety of tactics that you can implement immediately, along with an app for each one. Everything from automated email marketing to implementing referral marketing campaigns effortlessly and a bunch in-between. 

Let's find out how to increase traffic and sales.

1. Build An Automated Email Marketing Campaign

When it comes to driving conversions, one channel continues to outperform all others: email. In fact, according to recent research, email has a return-on-investment of around 4,300%. If that's not enough to get you excited about email marketing, consider this: 

• 80% of people say they receive marketing messages alongside their personal emails on a daily basis.
• 70% of people make use of coupons or discounts they learn about from email.
• 60% of people say that receiving special offers is the top reason they subscribe to an email list from a business.

If you haven't taken the time to develop a email marketing campaign, you're almost certainly leaving money on the table.

App: Klaviyo
Klaviyo allows you to send beautiful newsletters and automated emails to segments of your list using their completely customizable templates. Want to automatically send a thank you coupon to loyal customers after their second purchase from your store? Klaviyo can do it. Want to send out automatic emails to anyone that hasn't purchased from your store in six months? Klaviyo can do that. The best part? Klaviyo will also automatically track all sales relating from your email campaigns, so you'll know exactly how well it's working.

2. Add An Email Popup

If you looked at the first tactic and tool and thought, "But I don't have anyone to email yet" then this next tactic and app is for you. You likely see them on your favorite blogs, they may even annoy you a bit, however, email popups have proven time and time again to increase you number of email subscribers with very little negative impact.

Adding an email collecting popup to your site can help you to build your email list so you can start using email marketing effectively to make more sales.

App: Pop-Up Window
Pop-Up Window is a simple, yet powerful app that will allow you to add a fully customizable popup to your site to capture customer emails.

3. Persistent Cart

Let's say someone comes to your store and after browsing around for a while, finds several products they want to buy. They add them to the cart but don't complete the purchase. Later when they get home they open their laptop only to find their cart is empty and they have to re-add all the items.

This can be a frustration for your customers and a source of lost sales for your business. In fact, the National Mail Order Association, found that nearly 35% of shoppers took more than 12 hours to complete their purchase, and 21% took greater than three days.

App: Persistent Cart
Persistent Cart is a simple and free app that will save all items in the cart when your customer is logged in. When they switch to a different computer or logout and log back into their account, all their previously added products will be right there, waiting for them to checkout.

4. Feature a Strong Call-To-Action

Call-to-Actions (CTAs) are a powerful tactic yet they're often overlooked. Theres nothing quite so simple and effective than pointing out the next logical step in a users journey towards conversion. The effect of adding CTAs in the right places really can make all the difference in generating leads.

A call-to-action can be any wording or graphic that provides an obvious link to the next clear action. This can be to highlight a sale or promo, or even just to subscribe to your newsletter. Regardless, a CTA should be obvious and simple, with one clear action you want your visitors to take.

App: Hello Bar
The popular Hello Bar is a simple notification bar for your store that allows you to easily feature and change a primary call-to-action. You can use Hello Bar to create a notification bar at the top of your store telling visitors about your new or featured products or use it to promote whatever you like. Easily update your call-to-action whenever you like without having to edit any code.

5. Run a Contest

A great contest can not only increase engagement from your current subscribers and customers, but it can also effectively help you reach new customers. In fact, BeardBrand was able to grow their social presence by 300% and doubled their email list in less than one week with a well thought out online contest.

App: Gleam

Gleam is a contest platform that help you run campaigns that help you grow your audience and engage with your community. Using Gleam, you can set up contests that allows your customers and visitors multiple entries based on pre-determined actions they take, like signing up to your newsletter, sharing the contest on their various social networks or following your brand on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

6. Encourage Referrals

Referral marketing, simply put, is word-of-mouth marketing from your customers and it’s one of the most powerful and influential forms of marketing there is. In fact, according to Nielsen, 92% of people trust recommendations from friends and family, over all other forms of marketing and 77% of consumers are more likely to buy a new product when learning about it from friends or family.

App: Forewards
Tap into the power of referral marketing with Forewards. This nifty little apps makes it easy to set up a automated referral campaign, encouraging your customers to share your store with their friends. Forewards even has pre-written the referral emails and will automatically A/B test them on autopilot to get the best possible conversion rate.

7. Introduce Live Chat

Studies suggest that 21% of online shoppers prefer live chat over other communication methods, like phone and social media, and of that 21%, 79% said they liked it because they could get answers to their questions immediately. That’s important because in the world of ecommerce, answering customers questions and handling objections before they leave your site, significantly increases your chances of making a sale.


App: Tidio Live Chat
Tidio is a simple and easy to use live chat widget for your store that will help you engage and connect better than ever with your visitors. With features like support for mobile devices, offline contact form and automatics replies, this app should meet the requirements of event the most demanding users.

8. Write Great Product Descriptions

Writing great product descriptions is an art. Not only is it an art, but it's extremely important for ecommerce businesses to have unique and compelling product descriptions not only to help sell the product, but product descriptions also help your search engine optimization. Unfortunately, most people tend to neglect this aspect of their store, opting to just write a few lines or even copying and pasting manufacturer descriptions.


App: Content Sumo
The Content Sumo app gives you access to an experienced team of professional writers, translators and proofreaders. Use Content Sumo to help you create unique and compelling product descriptions for each of your products. Content Sumo writers provide a quick turnaround and unique content using your predefined keywords.

There you have it. Eight tactics and eights apps to help you increase your conversions and sales for your online store. For more marketing tactics make sure to check out the "How To Sell Online" section of the Shopify blog and more more apps check out the Shopify App Store.

Tell us in the comments what tactics you have recently tried and how they worked for you.

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How Can I Get Customer Reviews for My Ecommerce Store?

Welcome to Ask Shopify, a series where ecommerce experts tackle real questions and challenges from store owners who are trying to launch, build, and scale their stores. We’re here to help with every aspect of your store, from marketing to HR to accounting.
Who’s we? We’re the ecommerce experts both inside and outside of Shopify. Between our team, who spend all day immersed in the world of ecommerce (and who sometimes run stores themselves!) our squad of Shopify Experts, and our amazing customers, we have access to world-class expertise—and now you do too. So let’s dig in and get to your questions, because they’re good ones.

Question:

What’s the best way to get customer reviews for my store? I’ve tried several approaches and none have stuck. What’s the best to ask for feedback, and how? I have happy customers and lots of repeat business, but my reviews and feedback don’t reflect it. I’ve had thousands of transactions and only 35 reviews or so over the years.

Answer:

Social proof, especially in the form of customer reviews, can be one of the strongest tools in your ecommerce sales toolbox. It’s understandable that you’re frustrated your happy customers aren’t sharing that happiness with others.

To help you build a plan to convert those happy customers into satisfied reviewers, we spoke to Matt Morris, Marketing Automation Manager here at Shopify. While he was clear email isn’t the only way to encourage your customers to leave reviews, it’s a useful channel to start with when you’re looking to solicit reviews from exactly the right people.

He also broke down the details of how to implement a review-generating strategy, so if you’ve tried email without much success before, this might be the fix you’re looking for.

Identify customers likely to leave reviews

Matt shared with us that a blanket approach to asking for feedback might not get you the results you’re looking for, and that to generate reviews, you should focus on customers who’ve recently (or consistently) had a positive experience with your business. They’re most likely to post a review in the first place.
If you’re wondering how to find who those customers are for your brand, Matt has segmentation advice that can help you target the people most likely to leave you reviews, and glowing ones at that.

“Have they bought more than one product from you? Have they reordered the same product multiple times? These are indicators that they're a loyal and happy customer who would be inclined to leave a positive review,” said Matt.

“Another data point you could look at is order value. People who spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on your site likely get a lot of value out of your products, and they’re an ideal customer to ask for a review versus a customer who bought a ten dollar product to try you out for the first time.”

Ask for customer reviews

Now that you’re building a profile of which customers might be poised to leave you great feedback online, it’s time to start asking them. This is where the power of email can help you make a solid impression, and increase your chances of getting reviews.

“The beauty of email is you can have a one to one, very personalized conversation with someone, but you can extrapolate that and have it at scale with dynamic content,” said Matt.

“When asking for reviews, I would lean more towards a plain text email, a format that looks and feels personal, instead of a template that's over-designed. Use a bit of personalization in the email, so details like addressing the customer by their first name, or maybe showcasing the product they’ve purchased as a reminder.”

Here’s a sample email Matt outlined that you can tweak to fit your brand and your products.

Hi CUSTOMER NAME,
I wanted to send you a quick note because I noticed you’ve bought PRODUCT NAME more than once. I hope you like it, and we’re always looking for feedback! Would you be open to sharing what you like about PRODUCT NAME with other customers by leaving a review? (<-- link to your product review page)
Thank you so much, and thanks for being a great customer! If there’s anything I can help you with please let me know.
YOUR NAME

The example above would great to send to a segment of customers who have purchased a specific product more than once. Additionally, you can use your email tool to identify people who haven’t opened or clicked on the email after a week or two, and resend it just to them with a new subject line.
As you send these emails to your list, keep track of which ones are generating meaningful results, and where you might want to make adjustments to your strategy, segmentation, or email copy.

Automate from there

Luckily, once you’ve found a winning formula for getting reviews via email, it’s something you can automate. However, Matt’s clear that automation should be your final step, not your first.

“Especially with email, I tend to work backwards. You start by identifying goals, which in this case is positive feedback. Then you can deliberately look for people who would be inclined to give you good feedback, but maybe haven’t done so because they haven’t been prompted. Once you find them, you look for similarities between these people, which in this case might be repeat buyers.”

“Now that you’ve figured out the right people to message, you can have your emails trigger automatically after someone places a second order, which means you can send your request for a review on autopilot at just the right time. That frees you up to continue monitoring results and optimizing the email content, as well as parsing the feedback customers send your way.”

If you’re fairly new to the world of email marketing, pairing this advice with the right tool might seem like a lot to take in. Luckily, there are a number of email marketing tools that can integrate with your Shopify store and help you implement this strategy, and Matt had some advice for people who are just getting started.

“For beginners, I’d recommend setting up a MailChimp account. The MailChimp app for Shopify will take all of your ecommerce data and purchase data and it'll push it into MailChimp. You can segment your list of contacts from there, and send emails to the right groups of customers.”

The same can be said for many of the email marketing apps on the Shopify app store, so you’re not limited to just one email platform. You could also look at:

• Klaviyo
• Smartrmail
• Omnisend

Start with email, then build

Sending personalized notes at scale to happy customers is a great place to start gathering reviews for your products, but that doesn’t mean you have to stop there. You can take what you’ve learned from your early results and expand to other platforms, especially ones you know your customers love.
For example, if your customers frequently Instagram your products with glowing captions, that could be a great place to source reviews in a more hands-on way. But as a first step, start with the scalable strategy that can connect you with your existing happy customers: email.



Have a burning question you want to Ask Shopify about your ecommerce business? Send it over to ask@shopify.com. We'd love to connect you with experts who can help!

About the Author

Desirae is a content creator at Shopify, and has zero chill when it comes to helping entrepreneurs grow their businesses.

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How to Open Nigeria Business PayPal account in Nigeria

For a long time, so many people want to receive and send money online from Nigeria most especially but we were not allowed to but now the story has changed. We Nigerians that do business online can now send, not only send but also recieve money online for anything they do via their paypal Naija Account.

Right sit tight and read how you can personally open your own Naija Paypal accout 

How to Open Nigeria Business PayPal account in Nigeria

 To open Nigerian PayPal business account that accept payment follow the instructions below:

1. Visit this particular link
2. Type in6 your Email address and click “Get Started” button

3. Fill the signup form accurately with authentic information
4. Scroll down to accept the agree to the User Agreement and Privacy Policy.
5. Click the “Agree and Continue” button
6. Supply your business information and click “Continue”

7. Provide information about yourself and click “Submit”

8. Provide more details about your organization ( a short questionnaire about tax return) and click “Continue”

9. Certify and submit your application -You are done.

10. Head up to your email address to confirm your email and follow other instructions.

Congratulations, you now have a Nigerian Business PayPal account. But That’s not all…
This Nigerian business PayPal account will not just accept PayPal like that o…
Whenever someone want to send money to you, the sender will see this error message in his/her paypal dashboard.

This recipient accepts PayPal payments only through their website. To complete this payment, please go to their website and follow their instructions, or email the recipient for instructions.

This is a very serious GBEGE to a lot of Nigerians especially those new ones on the internet. But read below for the solution to this problem.
This account only accept payment if you follow certain instructions. Follow the instructions below:

How to Accept Payment with Nigeria Business PayPal account.

I will update this part of the article later today. Kindly check back later…

Post your comments below.

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How Can I Find Time For My Business With A Full-Time Job?

Question

As I’m growing my business, I’m struggling with making time to study, watch videos, listen to experts, and read everything that's put out there by Shopify. I have a full-time gig where I have little leeway for personal “indulgences” like email. I'm out of the house early in the morning, get home just in time for dinner with my family, and I only get to my laptop around 9:30PM. Is there anything I can do to optimize the time I do have to spend on my business?

Answer

Building a business on the side of a full-time job comes with some great perks, like building skills and earning additional income, but an abundance of time in which to work on it isn’t one of them.
That said, it’s entirely possible to build a business in the time you have available, and creativity (and productivity!) thrives on constraints.
Here at Shopify, you can’t walk down a hallway without running into a colleague who runs their own business, so we have a big community of store owners rocking a full-time job who were more than happy to share how they make it work.

Planning is your friend

Since we know time is at a premium for you, one of the most important takeaways from the advice we gathered is that planning is going to be critical to your success.
Planning is a broad topic, so to narrow it down, this might include:

• Making a list of the different things you need to tackle and prioritizing them
• Mapping out your marketing funnels
• Choosing and setting up software to automate parts of your business

And while it can feel like you only have time to handle day-to-day tasks when you’re running your business in addition to your job, carving out time for these more strategic activities will end up freeing space in your calendar over the long term.

Automate, automate, automate

Almost as soon as I hit “send” on a message asking if anyone had advice on how to manage your store with a full-time job, notes singing the praises of different automation tools were rolling in. Beyond any other topic, this one wins the coveted Most Advised way to run a business with limited time.

“I use Kit to place ads in just a few seconds via chat. I can literally place an ad, send an email marketing campaign, and post to FB and IG while on my morning commute.”

Jenneviere Villegas
Growth
Pirate Happy Hour

Further Reading:

• 8 Ways Kit Can Help You Make Your First Sale
• 7 Bots to Help Automate Your Business (and Get More Done, Faster)
• 4 New Ways to Scale Your Business with Kit

“Non-paid social media has been amazing for me, even with a small following under 1k. Using a tool like Buffer has been instrumental in staying ahead of the game when planning things out and ensuring they are executed on time.”

Zac Alexander
Shopify Guru

Build processes that run without you

It sounds the same as automation, but doing a bit more upfront work to implement systems that run on autopilot is a way to step up your automation game. Beyond relying on tools to do the heavy lifting, there’s also some upfront strategy work involved—but once you’ve done it, it’ll continue to work for you without you ever having to think about it.

“Build retargeting campaigns for site visitors, buyers, and people who add items to their cart. This way, you’ve automated targeting these people to come back to the store and make a first purchase, check out their cart, or buy an upsell.

You can also build drip email campaigns. These become automated and get sent out based on time delays and user actions. This is a great way to focus on other things, and still know that your customers are getting valuable content and offers based on what they bought or what they showed interest in.”

Monica Cordon
Remote Guru

Separate planning and doing

If you only have an hour or two of focused work time, one of the best ways to optimize it is to plan out exactly what you’ll do before you sit down to work. That planning can be in your head, or done in the small breaks you can carve out during the day, so when you do sit down to work, you don’t waste any time figuring out what to tackle next.
Or, in Jen’s case, you know what you’ll be handling while you catch up on your newest Netflix obsession.

“On one of my breaks, I searched ‘digital patterns’ [Editor’s Note: Jen sells digital patterns on her store] and researched what keywords other stores used, so I can revamp all my products while I watch Netflix tonight and tomorrow.”

Jen Forbes
Shopify Guru
Atypical Stitches

Another way you can approach this is to brain-dump all of your ideas into one place, and sort through them and create priorities when you sit down to plan your week.

“I rely heavily on Trello to brain dump all my ideas, and then arrange these ideas by the “department” they belong in: marketing, storefront, supply chain, etc. Then I go in and set weekly goals using Trello and the ideas I’ve already got on my list.”

Sahil Chawla
Shopify Guru
Flux Socks

Block your tasks

Another way you can optimize the time you have available to work on your business is to plan it so you’re handling a lot of similar tasks all at once. It can save you time in a few ways: if you need to set up for a task, you’re only doing it once, and you also won’t need to switch out of the mindset required for that specific task.

“I spend a day or two to take about 20-30 unique pictures, which I then schedule and post on Instagram throughout the week.”

Joti Lalli
Oberlo Customer Success Manager
The Kundan Shop

Create separation

There’s something to be said for using your environment to help you get into the business zone. Whether it’s a dedicated workspace in your house, or a separate location entirely, paying attention to your physical space and how it impacts your productivity can help you make the most of the time you have available.

“I usually go work out of a coffee shop to differentiate what work I'm doing. For me, the coffee shop equals ‘this is side business time.’”

Liz Bertorelli
Brand Strategist
Bobo Academy

Find and use small pockets of time

Even in the busiest of calendars, there’s usually tiny pockets of time you can use to, if nothing else, think through what you’re working on and dealing with in your business. Whether it’s making notes during a public-transit commute, or making a mental to-do list while eating your lunch at work, optimizing those moments could help you find a bit more time in the day.

“I'm trying to hack to find more time in the day, which has been really key. When I'm commuting, it’s about 40 solid minutes on public transportation. During that time, I’ll do things like open up my notes app on my phone and start writing copy, or think about strategies to grow my Instagram following, or plan out my posts.”

Katie HudsonAffiliate Manager
LOKATE 

Outsource if at all possible

It’s not always possible to throw money at the problem, which is why this suggestion is our final one, not our first, but hiring expert help can make a big difference if your business can handle the cost. It doesn’t have to be a cost of thousands either—even a small budget can help take some time-consuming but simple tasks off your plate.

“Hiring VAs to do small tasks on sites like Fiverr and Upwork is an affordable way to get small, easy, time consuming things done like order fulfillment, social media scheduling, and product research.”

Monica Cordon
Remote Guru

Make time your ally

Finding the time to grow your business, not to mention keep it running in the first place, on top of a full-time job can be tough, but at the same time, it can also be hugely rewarding.
Balancing all of your work and your learning really comes down to prioritizing the highest impact activities, being intentional about what you’re doing and not doing right now, and asking for help where and when you need it. Hopefully these strategies can help you make the most of the time you do have for your business, and get the benefits of entrepreneurship without the pressure of making it your full-time gig (yet?).
And if you’ve found other strategies that help balance a business alongside a full time job? We’d love to hear about them in the comments.

About the Author

Desirae is a content creator at Shopify, and has zero chill when it comes to helping entrepreneurs grow their businesses.

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5 Creative Ways to Redesign Your Product Pages and Improve Conversions

The Baymard Institute recently published a study on product page layouts and designs, as well as content types and features. The study, which lasted for two years, found that 82% of websites still have severe UX issues. Yes, that’s a large number of websites. Even top retail websites like Amazon, Sephora, and Best Buy have a bad usability score, according to the study.
The good news for you is that you can leverage this information to get ahead of your competitors. You can beat them by redesigning your product pages to improve their usability, which will enhance customer experience.
In turn, this could also result in higher conversions. That’s why I’ve decided to put together some of the best ways for you to redesign your product pages for better usability:

#1: Display social proof in the form of customer-generated photos

People trust content from other consumers. That’s why user-generated content has been serving as effective social proof for many eCommerce retailers. However, most retailers are still using only text-based customer reviews. While these reviews still serve their purpose, you could take it up a notch and display customer-generated photos on your product pages instead.
Photos of your product being used or showcased by your customers help put your product in context. It serves as visual social proof that could significantly influence the purchase decision of prospective customers. Plus, you’re reducing the need for them to look around for customer photos to see how your product actually looks.
A study by Olapic has even found that one out of four respondents has been prompted to buy a product after seeing it in user-generated content.
Relatable or positive user-generated photos have increased the likelihood of buying a product for 56% of the study’s respondents. And out of all types of user-generated content, photos were the most appealing to 52% of respondents.

So I suggest you redesign your product pages in such a way that there’s room for relevant customer-generated photos. Ideally, you should be placing these photos below other important elements such as product image, title, description, CTA, etc. This is to ensure that there’s a smooth user-flow and the photos don’t distract shoppers from converting.
I recommend following the example of websites like Black Milk Clothing and assigning a unique hashtag for each product. You can display this hashtag on the product page and encourage shoppers to share photos of their purchases on Instagram for a chance to be featured. You’ll easily be able to collect relevant customer-generated images for each product page.

#2: Guide customer purchases using interactive elements

When you want to drive conversions, you naturally want your customers to quickly get from the product page to the checkout page and complete their purchases.
But even from the customer’s’ point of view, the quickest and easiest purchase journey enhances their experience. That’s why I recommend adding interactive elements that guide customers to your product or landing page.
Interactive elements can be an engaging way to educate your prospective customers about the product. Customers won’t have to look through huge blocks of text to learn what your product can do and how it can help them.
The product information can then guide their purchase decisions. And the smooth purchase journey will enhance their experience, possibly even compelling them to come back as return customers.
I really like Bellroy’s interactive wallet comparison tool. The tool lets you compare how a regular wallet and a Bellroy wallet look depending on the number of cards they hold inside. It also provides visual proof of how slim their wallets are, strengthening their value proposition.

In addition to this, Bellroy includes an interactive size comparison guide on each of their product pages. Shoppers can choose from different products such as a key, a passport, a phone, or a dollar bill. And they can compare the size of these items with the product they’re viewing. They can also move the product around to further view it in context.

When you’re adding interactive elements to your product pages, however, make sure you keep mobile shoppers in mind.
Mobile conversions are gradually increasing, with 31% of total purchases resulting from mobile sales in 2016. This goes to show the growing need for retailers to design their websites for mobile shoppers. So make sure that whatever interactive element you add to your product pages also works on mobile devices.

#3: Improve product filtering to enhance the customer experience

As mentioned earlier, you need to make sure that your page visitors can quickly complete their journey from the product page to the checkout page. Another improvement you can make to achieve this goal is with your product filters. This idea is to optimize your product filtering system in such a way that people find it even easier to find exactly what they’re looking for.
The filters would vary according to the niche of your eCommerce business. For clothing stores, for example, filters such as size, color, price range, brand, etc. are a must. In case you’re selling electronics, you’ll need to add filters such as features, price range, brand, color, condition, etc. And if you’re selling kids’ toys, you can have people filter their results based on kids’ age and type of toy (puzzle games, action figures, arts, and crafts, etc.).
Toys “R” Us, for instance, has tons of product categories that make it easier for shoppers to find what they need.

Even in the search result pages, they’ve added plenty of filters that further enhance the search experience. Shoppers can look for products based on category, price, color, size, age, brand, ratings, and more.

In addition to this, you need to remember a few things when redesigning your product filtering system:

• Include a button that clears all options so customers can start their search from scratch without having to delete each option. This will significantly reduce the time taken to find what they need and result in a quicker purchase journey.
• Make sure the product filter is in contrast with the rest of the page so that it stands out. And you should also opt for font size that’s large enough to read and easy on the eyes.
• Try testing different positions to see where you should place your product filter. You can either place it at the top sidebar or the left sidebar. What works for others may not necessarily work for you so it’s crucial to see which positioning your visitors are most responsive to.

#4: Improve the way you explain product features and functions

How you explain your product has a huge impact on how people feel about it. You may have gotten used to listing out the product characteristics and features as is. And even if you explain these features, you’ll mainly be talking about what the product can do as opposed to how people can benefit from it.
While this current method works well for you, you might want to review your strategy and improve on your explanation. Instead of simply writing out what the product does, you should start writing about how people can use the product and what they can achieve with it.
For instance, instead of only talking about how your earphones are waterproof, you can talk about how people can enjoy listening to music while indulging in their favorite water activities.
Here’s an excellent example I found on the JBL product page for their Splashproof Bluetooth Speakers. If you read it carefully, you’ll be able to see how they’ve written the product features in a way that would resonate with the readers and establish how they can benefit from it.

For example, the splashproof feature means users won’t have to worry about rain or spills. And instead of just saying that the product can be connected to other JBL Connect enabled speakers, they talk about how users can build their own ecosystem by doing exactly that. Additionally, they talk about how the materials used for making the product ensure that the speakers will outlast all of the user’s adventures. Enticing, isn’t it?

#5: Rewrite the product title and description for a bigger impact

One of the first things people are going to notice on your product page is the product name. So you need to make a good first impression here to ensure that people go through the rest of the page. The product name should be clear, direct, and relevant.
For example, Johnny Cupcakes uses the color and design as the product name in the following screenshot.

Your product description is easily the best section where you can get creative and play around a bit. It’s the section where you can provide all the essential details of your product and its features.
Depending on how well you write it, it’s also the section where you engage your visitors and create a desire to buy your product as well as winning the trust of potential customers.
So it’s one of the most important elements of your redesign project. Here are some best practices you should follow when improving your product description:
#1. Prioritize clarity – Use a voice and tone that your target audience can relate with and understand. For example, you can use a fun and casual tone when writing product descriptions for a target audience comprising of mostly teenagers or millennials. On the other hand, a more formal tone would be required to connect with a B2B audience.
I really like how Hot Topic writes their product descriptions in a way that speaks to their target audience. If you go through them, you’ll be able to see that they took the time to perfect each description.
The following screenshot shows the description for a Gryffindor cardigan. They’ve highlighted some of the characteristics of the Gryffindor house in addition to describing the product.

#2. Make the most of visuals – Use graphics to highlight some of the best features. If you want to make sure people don’t miss some of the product features, you can design original graphics or stickers that will clearly showcase these features.
For example, if your product is made from 100% recycled material and you’re targeting an eco-conscious audience, you might want to create a sticker that highlights the same.
Take a look at the following example from Pura Vida Bracelets. They’ve used stickers to highlight some of the most important features such as how the product has been handmade and how they support more than 150 artisans from around the world.

Or you could follow the example of Bose and accompany each feature description with a relevant visual. This can be an effective way to engage your page visitors and ensure that they read through all the important product features.
In the first screenshot, they’ve displayed a video of the product where the main highlight is the strap. This is relevant to the description, which talks about the portability of the product.

In the second screenshot, you can see a photo of the product being placed on top of a rock. And the accompanying description is about how the material holds up to dents and scratches. If you thoroughly read through the descriptions, you can also see that there’s clarity in the language they use (following the first best practice discussed here).
#3. Improve readability – Use bullet points to make lengthy descriptions more readable as opposed to having huge blocks of text. If there are lots of features that you need to explain in the description, break them up into bullet points so visitors can process the information more easily.
The Zoku Home product pages, for instance, have a short paragraph giving an overview of each product. The rest of the details such as product dimension and care instructions are listed in bullet points. This is much easier for visitors to scan through rather than having them read huge chunks of text.

Wrap up

These five creative tips should be able to help you in completely redesigning your product pages for better usability and conversions. The changes can be as simple as a rewrite of your product descriptions or you can opt for a more complex change by adding interactive elements.
Make sure you run a test on every change you make to see just how much your performance is improving. Got any questions about the tips I’ve given here? Let me know in the comments.


Guest author: Shane Barker is a digital marketing consultant who specializes in influencer marketing, product launches, sales funnels, targeted traffic, and website conversions. He has consulted with Fortune 500 companies, influencers with digital products, and a number of A-List celebrities. Follow him on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

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Designing The New Customer Experience: What Happens After Checkout?

Congratulations! You got someone to buy from you… Now what?
You can either:

a) Have a run of the mill purchase experience just like everyone else… or

b) Blow their freaking mind with how you pay attention to all the little details and make buying a fun, on brand experience.

Which do you think will impact the likelihood of earning a repeat purchase?
In the world of software development, paying attention to all the little details that happen immediately after a person buys is what’s known as the first-run customer experience.  How quickly can you get them acquainted with the software so they can see it's value?

In ecommerce, we need answer a similar question, “How do we get brand new buyers acquainted with our brand and excited about becoming a repeat customer?”
Addressing this early (even before you have customers) is a huge part of growing repeat revenue.
Like David Williams says in his article on decoding customer lifetime value, an average online store gets 43% of their revenue from repeat purchases.

Looking at the graph again, you see that the top companies - those on the far right - are getting around 75% of their revenue from repeat purchases.
In the “What Sets Top Performing Ecommerce Companies Apart?” article I published a few months ago, we can see that top performing companies are getting over 50% of their revenue from repeat customers within 3 years, with repeat revenue on an upward trend, so it’s not hard to imagine repeat revenue continuing to grow.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves; getting someone to buy a second time all starts with a new customer’s first-run experience. I'll show you how.

Step 1 - Customizing The “Thank You For Buying” Page

Immediately after a customer completes the checkout, what happens?

Do they see a page like this?

Now granted, there’s nothing inherently wrong with this page. It shows the product, it says “thank you” and it moves on with it’s day. But it could be better.
First, while the “Thank you for your purchase!” language is ok, it may not reflect your brand or encourage what you’d like your new customer to do next.

This can be remedied by navigating to the “Languages” section of your theme and clicking on the default language, then to the “Checkout & System” tab, and finally to the “Checkout thank you” section.



These very simple edits allow you to turn the default stock text into a branded experience that carries the momentum from purchase into the next step.


Taking this a bit deeper, there’s a whole section in the Shopify manual that shows you how you can further customize the thank you page, giving you the ability to insert valid html, scripts, liquid objects, and more within certain sections of the page. (Note: These alterations are not supported by Shopify Gurus, and you will need to monitor for updates we make to the cart.)
At a very basic level, though, you could do things like add videos or “recommended products” to the thank you area, and continue to build on the branded experience.

There is a lot more you can do, but this is a good place for you to get started. I highly recommend you check out the Shopify Manual to see what’s possible.
Related: The “Happy Ending” app makes customizing this page pretty easy.

Step 2 - Customizing the Order Confirmation Email

Next, your new customer is going to receive the order confirmation email.
Traditionally, these are pretty boring and not worth opening, right? Here’s what a stock confirmation email looks like:

The thing about a first-run experience though is that you want to keep new customer excited and confident about their purchase.
Quell any chance of having buyer’s remorse by further introducing them, and making them a part of your brand.
Email marketing app Emma shows just one way this can be done, by having a beautifully designed email along with a special offer for first time customers.

Tucker Schreiber wrote on the Shopify ecommerce blog about 5 different email receipt marketing tactics that are worth exploring and shares some very compelling research as to why you should not be overlooking this area of your marketing.
These include:

• Upsells
• Discount codes
• Promote social media accounts
• Collecting qualitative feedback
• Have customers share their purchase on social media

Even if all you’re doing in the order confirmation email is introducing your new buyer to your brand’s sense of humor and qualities, it can go a long way to getting people in the habit of opening your next message.
This is one by a luxury shoe company called Fluevog, which my wife loves, and while it doesn’t offer anything direct like upsells or discounts, and it's not even particularly visual, it does give you a glimpse of the brand’s humor.

(Read: Your shoes are being picked and packed by Elves. And even though it’ll take two weeks for you to get your order, that’s kind of a short time when you “think of it in terms of the history of the universe”)
The important about with the order confirmation emails, is that you are training your new customers to open or ignore your future emails.

Step 3 - The Shipping Confirmation Email

I don’t know about you, but when I look in my own inbox and see the words “Your order has shipped!” I get excited.
Not just a little excited either. Like, a 6 year old kid the day before Christmas excited.
For example, I recently ordered a bicycle from PureFixCycles.com, and once I received the shipping confirmation email, I would not shut up about my new bike for the next 7 days (Seriously, ask my wife.)

I imagine that a good portion of your customers feel the same way about receiving their order too, right?
Build on that. Give them a reason to continue to be excited about their purchase and looking forward to receiving it in the mail.

In Jimmy Daly’s “How to Send a Great Shipping Confirmation Email” he shares a couple of best practices for shipping emails:

• Lead with the good stuff (Your order’s been shipped!)
• Make it easy for your customer to track their order by linking to the tracking site
• Include expected delivery date
• Offer a coupon, flash sale, or some other call to action like refer a friend
• Alleviate anxiety by reminding them of customer service & return policies

This is also another great place to showcase your brand’s personality.
Going back to the Fluevog example from earlier, their shipping confirmation email tells a story about how the Fluevogian Elves found my products and sent it along to other interesting characters within the company, and the steps my package has taken just to get to my door.
It’s a fun little read which builds the anticipation of receiving the order in the mail.

There are an infinite number of things you can do with the shipping confirmation email, but the main thing to keep in mind is that you want to keep them excited that their order is on the way!

Step 4 - Create A Memorable Unboxing Experience

This is by far my biggest pet peeve when shopping with most retailers online.

For all of the investment that went into creating compelling product shots, fancy Facebook ads, and something that is visually interesting that gets me excited to buy it, why drop the ball when the product gets to my door?
For example, here is what a company I recently bought from uses for a Facebook ad:

Here’s what they show on the website:

Here’s what I got in the mail:

Needless to say, I was a little disappointed.
But this happens all the time. No matter what you order, it seems like it almost always comes in the same white or brown package. It cheapens the experience and it destroys the illusion when it matters most.  
It makes me feel silly for buying into the image the brand sold me. Now instead of being part of something, I bought another useless thing that will collect on a shelf or get sent to the thrift store in 6 months.
My colleague Richard wrote 2 articles you must read if you don’t want your customers to share my sentiment:

• Creating a Memorable and Sharable Unboxing Experience
• 5 Ways To Use Packaging Inserts to Increase Customer Loyalty and Revenue

Now, if you’re thinking to yourself, “Yeah, but custom packaging is too expensive” I want you to consider a few things...
First - there are 19.7 million results on Youtube.

That’s a lot of videos, and there’s a possibility that some of your customers like to shoot unboxing experiences, which of course, equates to free promotion for you.
Likewise, there are over 83,000 results on Instagram tagged #unboxing ...

And over 51.7 Million results in Google for the search term “Unboxing”

According to this article on CNN, the number of clips on Youtube with “unboxing” in the headline has increased by 871% since 2010 and in the year 2013, there was 2,370 days (or 6.5 years) worth of footage uploaded to the site dedicated to unboxing videos.
In one example, an unboxing video of chocolate eggs containing a small toy received over 35 million views in just 2 years time, meaning there is potential for a massive exposure, which brings to me to my next point…
Second - There are likely people with reach - in your market - who make these videos.
Given the nature of the content, it is viable to consider unboxers as a marketing channel.
There are over 2 million channels that have “unboxing” either in their channel’s title, or channel description, and that doesn’t even necessarily account for Youtubers who are dedicated to product reviews, tutorials, or recommendations.

So, if you’re saying “Custom packaging & inserts are expensive” I want you to think of these as a marketing and opportunity costs that can both reduce your overall cost per customer acquisition and work as a marketing distribution channel.
Your customer’s don’t live in a vacuum. The unboxing plays such a big role in word-of-mouth referrals, that it’s a detail that is worth investing in.

Step 5 - The Follow Up Email

Just because your new customer received their package doesn’t mean they’re not still excited about it.
Yet, this is one of the biggest missed opportunities I see time and time again. After they receive their order follow up with them and encourage them to take another action that gets them reinvested in the brand.
My friends over at Rejoiner share a spectacular in an article you should read immediately after this one titled “How Warby Parker Delivers Magical Moments Over Email”.
My favorite emails out of the bunch are those that acknowledges that the item is at your house and in your hands.

  

While this specific example is about determining which pair of glasses you’ll eventually buy, the beauty of acknowledging the item is in your customer’s hands is that you can also encourage your new customer to take another action.
Knowing that the product is in your customer’s hands makes a prompt like “Take a Photo & Share on Instagram” have that much more weight.

And because you’ve been maintaining the momentum of their initial excitement from the moment they clicked “Add to Cart” the likelihood of action is much greater.
Also, with an integration like FriendBuy or ReferralCandy you can incentivize sharing even further, rewarding new customers for referring friends from their social network.

Conclusion

Don’t underestimate the little details.
There are so many little fears, uncertainties and doubts that come from buying from a new company for the first time, that you’re in a prime position to exceed expectations and surprise the heck out of your new buyer.
Each of these little moments is a sweet “reward” for taking a chance with you, and it is a big part of what turns from “meh” buyers to evangelists that can’t wait to sing your praises and shout your name from the rooftops.

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About The Author

Tommy Walker is the Editor-in-Chief of the Shopify Plus blog. It is his goal to provide high-volume ecommerce stores with deeply researched, honest advice for growing their customer base, revenues and profits. Get more from Tommy on Twitter.

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