【Online Store Success】4 Customer Acquisition Strategies from Top Merchants
As a new entrepreneur starting an online store, you may be unsure about the marketing techniques available. In this issue of the Mshop E-commerce Classroom, we will delve into two successful online entrepreneurial examples to analyze their four crucial customer acquisition strategies. We will reveal the secrets to their success, providing you with valuable inspiration to overcome the challenges of attracting customers and apply these strategies to your own business.
Strategy 1: Advertise Selected Attractive Products
Successful Online Store Case Study: Angelkids
Angelkids is a lifestyle goods shop located in Kwun Tong. With over 150,000 Facebook followers, their posts consistently receive dozens to hundreds of comments.
One of their successful strategies is selecting attractive products each month and focusing on online advertising. For example, they promoted a smartwatch endorsed by Jay Chou, available at only $199. This strategic selection of appealing products, combined with effective online advertising, helps Angelkids capture the interest of their target audience and drive sales.
Explanation of the Strategy:
In the general market, smartwatches typically cost around $500-600. However, by offering the smartwatch at a significantly lower price of $199 and leveraging the endorsement of popular celebrity Jay Chou, Angelkids successfully attracted a group of mothers who were willing to try out the product at such an affordable price.
Mshop suggests that businesses should focus on promoting a few attractive products in their advertisements to grab customers’ attention. Then, they can employ marketing techniques such as offering free shipping on orders above a certain amount, cross-selling related products, or implementing remarketing strategies to further encourage customers to make additional purchases. These techniques help maximize customer engagement and increase overall sales.
Common Errors:
Many businesses tend to emphasize the wide variety of products and their credibility when advertising. However, this approach may not be suitable for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as consumers are more concerned about the specific appeal of products.
Solutions from Mshop:
Mshop provides comprehensive online advertising tracking setups, including Facebook Pixel, Facebook Conversion, and Google Analytics 4. These tools enable you to precisely analyze the effectiveness of your advertisements, track potential customers, and easily enhance your conversion rates.
Strategy 2: Stimulate Customer Interaction Using Herd Mentality
Angelkids deliberately refrains from providing purchase links and price information in their Facebook posts. This strategy aims to attract customers to inquire through comments, allowing the store to provide shopping links and price details in response. By creating this interactive approach, Angelkids can engage directly with customers, build a sense of exclusivity, and generate interest and curiosity about their products and pricing.
Explanation of Strategy:
Indeed, Facebook’s algorithm takes into account the engagement rate of posts to determine their exposure level. This approach increases the likelihood of reaching a larger audience.Moreover, having a substantial number of comments can enhance the credibility of a business. It creates a “people buy, I buy” mentality among consumers, which can ultimately lead to higher conversion rates.
Common Errors:
Many businesses on Facebook tend to provide all the information directly in their posts, including content, price, and shopping links. However, this approach often results in a low number of comments, leading to decreased exposure rates and a declining reach on Facebook over time. Moreover, this method fails to achieve the desired “people buy, I buy” herd effect.
Solutions from Mshop
Mshop’s online store provides the Facebook post reply feature, which automatically likes and replies to customer comments. It also generates immediate purchase links, enabling consumers to place orders instantly. This effortless process enhances post engagement and reduces the need for manual intervention.
Strategy 3: Cross-Platform Selling to Increase Traffic
Successful Online Store Case Study: FineJapan
FineJapan, a Japanese company, used to focus solely on wholesale operations in Hong Kong. However, during the pandemic, they successfully transformed their business into retail and gained a significant number of loyal fans.
In addition to their own online store, FineJapan utilizes multiple channels to increase sales and drive traffic. These include:
Online Channels: KOL (Key Opinion Leader) promotions, their own e-commerce platform, HKTVMALL, YOHO, and wholesale distribution to various small and medium-sized enterprise online stores.
Offline Channels: Watsons and Yata Department Store.
Explanation of Strategy
By adopting this approach, FineJapan enables consumers to discover and purchase their various products through different channels. This allows them to maximize brand awareness and expand their reach to a wider audience.
Common Errors:
Many novice entrepreneurs believe that it’s better to work hard on their own rather than sharing profits with others. However, in reality, sharing profits with others not only significantly reduces marketing costs but also quickly enhances product visibility. Insufficient traffic is one of the most critical reasons for the failure of many online stores.
Solutions from Mshop
Mshop provides purchasing and inventory management features, allowing merchants to easily manage different warehouse products and handle platform sales and inventory. Additionally, Mshop also offers a wholesale function for online stores, enabling businesses to simultaneously manage retail and wholesale operations in one place, reducing manpower and improving operational efficiency.
Strategy 4: Soft Selling
FineJapan also utilizes soft selling techniques as part of their successful online store strategy. They frequently share blog articles related to health information, where they first provide practical health tips and information to attract readers. Towards the end of the articles, they subtly introduce product information that addresses the readers’ concerns, making them realize that the products can genuinely help them. This approach effectively achieves soft selling, where customers are more inclined to make a purchase based on the value and relevance of the products presented.
Explanation of Strategy
Soft selling has gradually become an essential sales technique in the current e-commerce landscape. Compared to aggressive direct product promotion, soft selling focuses on helping customers make informed purchasing decisions. By employing this sales approach, you can build a higher level of trust and cultivate a loyal customer base. In addition to blogging, you can also consider using live streaming or video content to showcase and explain your products, ensuring that you provide practical and valuable information to your customers.
Common Errors
Many people believe that lower prices will attract more consumers to purchase products. However, the best businesses are not necessarily the ones with the lowest prices. In fact, companies that provide the most emotional value to consumers often achieve the best performance. As long as the price difference is not significant, consumers typically prefer to choose merchants who offer more value.
Solutions from Mshop
In Mshop’s online store system, there is a built-in blog feature that goes beyond basic article writing capabilities. Merchants have the ability to customize the design of their blogs. Additionally, with a comprehensive SEO framework, merchants can engage in content marketing and improve their search engine rankings for free. This allows your online store to achieve higher visibility in search results.
Summary
To summarize, through analyzing two successful online store examples, businesses can try the following four strategies to attract new customers:
- Promote attractive products through advertising campaigns.
- Stimulate customer interaction using the concept of herd mentality.
- Expand sales across multiple platforms to increase traffic.
- Implement soft selling strategies.
We hope the above analysis and recommendations can inspire your e-commerce business and help you stand out in the competitive market.
Mshop
Online Store/ Mobile App/ POS System
If you are an online shop owner or a newbie interested in starting an online shop and have questions about the process or managing an online shop, feel free to schedule a consultation with Mshop, a professional online shop consulting service.
Mshop E-commerce platform provide comprehensive online shop management system, including online store systems, mobile apps, retail POS systems, Facebook Live, and more. It offers various features such as local payment methods, logistics, order management, inventory management, and membership management, assisting shop owners in handling daily operations. Customization services are also available to facilitate brand and business development. Looking for a more comprehensive online shop system? Contact the professional team at Mshop for an exceptional experience!
