In other words, product reviews can help you as a company in many ways. They can help you earn the trust of new customers, create better products or services, get solid social proof, and increase conversions.

However, it can be challenging to get product reviews from clients. Here are six ways to get more of those from customers.

1. Offer Incentives to Write Reviews

Some customers believe writing reviews is time-consuming. Therefore, it will help to offer incentives to get product reviews. These incentives can come in different ways: coupons, discounts, free shipping, loyalty points, sweepstakes, early access to sales, and free products. Incentives are an effective way of appreciating your customers for giving feedback.

Source: Hubspot

That’s an excellent example of how you should write your email to encourage a customer to leave reviews. Make sure you encourage your clients to leave honest reviews. Consumers nowadays can see whether or not the reviews they read are organic. Besides, negative reviews can help you as much as positive reviews. They can serve as your guidelines on how to improve your products or services and, in turn, satisfy customers.

2. Run Contests

Contests can help you get product reviews from clients. People are naturally drawn to contests because they are fun and yield something of value in return for them.

You can run a contest for a trip, tickets to a concert, movie, sporting event, gym membership, restaurant gift cards, giveaways, and an appliance.

Source: therealshowbbq

Here’s an example of how to run a contest for reviews. The Holy Grail Steak Co. asked customers to comment on why their dads deserved the prize of over $1,400 of steak and burgers. The contest was run at an appropriate time, too, just in time for Father’s Day.

Note that customers can leave reviews in different ways, including videos or online testimonials. It will be best to choose one for your contest for efficiency. If you decide to use product videos, set a time limit. Also, have a deadline for customers sending the review. This way, your team can have ample time to examine each and determine the winner.

3. Send Post-Purchase Emails

Post-purchase emails have proven to be effective in generating reviews.  After your customers make a purchase, it is vital to send a follow-up email to ask them about their experience. 

Send this email a few days after the purchase. That will give the customer ample time to use the product and generate insights. It will also ensure the customer remembers every detail about the product to share with other potential customers.

Here’s a sample post-purchase email sent by Asos for generating feedback. One look and the email recipient knows the email seeks to generate product reviews. The email doesn’t waste the recipient’s time beating around the bush.

All your email needs are a thank you statement and a call-to-action. Avoid filling the content with promotional elements. 

Besides, you need to personalize the email. Use the customer’s name a couple of times in the email. If possible, include their purchase info, too, so they’ll remember the product you’re referring to.

Use a relevant and brief subject line as well. A client should know what your email is about before opening. Personalizing the subject line can also increase the chances of a client responding to the email. Moreover, know the best time to send post-purchase emails.

Getting emails from customers through your ecommerce platform is easier as customers will have to provide them during registration to purchase the product. If you have a physical location, you can also collect emails for sending these emails through your employees at the point of purchase or checkout. You can also run a referral program where their email addresses would be required for registration. 

You can automate your sending of post-purchase emails. You don’t need to spend hours writing to every client. 

4. Use the Right Review and Rating Platform

It is helpful to display positive reviews on your website or design them for social media. However, in addition to a company’s website, customers also visit third-party platforms for more information. If customers find good reviews about you on these reliable platforms, they may end up purchasing from you. 

However, with numerous review and rating platforms available in the market, you need to choose the right one for you. 

The first factor to consider is the nature of your business. Some review and rating platforms are best for B2C companies, while others are great for B2B companies. Moreover, if you want your reviews to reach the right people, use niche sites. For example, if you sell cars, use a platform that provides reviews about cars or dealerships. The same goes for real estate, fashion, food, etc. 

You can also determine the right third-party review platform for you by asking your customers how they found your brand in the first place. You can ask this during the registration process on your online platform or at checkout in your physical location. That helps you know where you should ensure you have reviews to increase the chances of other people finding your brand.

In addition, customers rarely trust reviews from platforms they don’t know about. Thus, you need to use reputable platforms.

Source: Business Spundit

These sites have a good reputation for offering reliable reviews. Some review platforms allow reviewers to write both pros and cons. Do not be afraid to use them, especially if you are sure your products or services are top-notch. 

In addition, choose a site that’s within your budget. Luckily, most review and rating platforms charge reasonable fees. Some are even free. 

Trustpilot, for example, allows businesses to create a free account to respond to reviews given to them. You can upgrade your profile page and invite customers to create more customer reviews if you get the paid plan. 

Loox, on the other hand, offers a 14-day free trial that allows you to connect it to your Shopify account and use product reviews from the platform on your product descriptions. After the 14 days, you need to pick a plan, with the cheapest at around $10. The basic plan allows you to send 100 post-purchase emails to customers to generate customer feedback.

Furthermore, your chosen site will use your reviews to give you a rating. 

5. Use Product Sampling Programs

A study showed that 73% of customers would buy a product after trying it. As a result, product sampling programs help businesses increase their sales. In addition to this, they can help you get product reviews. That will help you know what needs to be improved in the product before launching it to a broader audience.

However, note that getting the reviews themselves is not guaranteed. You’d still need to send emails to encourage the customers to write the reviews after using your product. Ensure, again, that you send the email a few days after a client receives the sample. 

So how do you decide the customers to receive the product? You can make an open call and ask which ones are willing to try the free samples. You can also automatically include free product samples in purchases that clients make. Make sure you get their emails beforehand to follow up on their feedback. 

Product sampling programs can help you generate the feedback you need. Besides, they’re perfect for audience building, too. People love getting free items. They are likely to remember a brand that gave them something they did not have to pay for.

6. Optimize The Review Forms for Mobile

Mobile optimization is a crucial aspect of a business. Not everyone receives and opens your emails on a desktop. If customers can’t access your content via a mobile device, you may be locking out some clients.

                                                Source: Campaign Monitor                                                                                  

How is that relevant to generating product reviews?

Mobile optimization means you need to ensure that the things you use to get your reviews are mobile-friendly. For instance, the platforms you choose should display survey options without the user having to scroll left or right.  

Furthermore, consider including a QR code using dynamic QR code generator in your physical materials like packaging or receipts. Encourage customers to scan these codes with their mobile phones to access the review form and leave their feedback.

In Closing

Product reviews are beneficial to businesses. They are the first things potential customers check to determine whether they want to purchase something from a business. In other words, if you have good reviews, you increase your chances of conversions, among other things. 

These tips can help you gather product reviews without difficulties. Offer incentives, run contests and send post-purchase emails. Use the right review platform and product sampling programs, and optimize your review forms for mobile.

You don’t have to implement all these strategies at once. Use a trial-and-error method to see which ones work the best for your business. Don’t forget to ensure your products and services are always top-notch. That’s the only way to ensure your customers will always leave you good reviews.

Good luck!

The post 6 Ways to Get More Product Reviews from Your Customers appeared first on ColibriWP Blog.

Voice search has rapidly gained popularity as a search tool for people to browse the internet. The introduction of voice-activated search tools like Alexa, Google Voice Search, and Siri enable people to search by speaking instead of typing. Many smartphone users prefer the convenience of voice searches over typing on a smaller device. Voice searches are also a safer way of multitasking while driving, exercising, or working.

Over 30% of search queries on Google are voice searches, and this number is rising every year. Hence, optimizing your WordPress site for voice search is critical. Whether your goal is to answer questions, build a community, or sell your products, you’re missing out on organic traffic if your website doesn’t feature in the voice search results pages. Let’s change that. 

Let’s look at six ways to optimize your WordPress site to rank higher on voice searches. 

1. Use long-tail keywords

For a start, we need to understand that voice search fundamentally differs from typed search queries. Voice searches are more conversational because speech is more casual than typed search intent. Hence, instead of focusing on short keywords, ensure that your content is rich with long-tail keywords.

Let’s say someone wants to do a voice search for a pair of red running shoes. Hence, “best red sneakers” would be ideal for typed search intent. For voice searches, though, you need to add long-tail keywords like “best red shoes for running.” Established brands would add their name to the long-tail keyword. If you were Nike, you’d use the keyword “best red Nike shoes for running.” 

Long-tail keywords have a dual benefit. They help you rank higher in voice searches and have a much lower monthly search volume (MSV) than shorter keywords. Hence, they are cheaper and easier to rank for than the shorter keywords. Another benefit is that they are more focused and drill down to the searcher’s actual intent. These searches also have a higher conversion rate. 

To rank on voice searches, ensure that your WordPress site is optimized for long-tail keyword searches by enriching your content with these keywords. Make sure you use them in both headings and the text content. For instance, change “best vacuum cleaners” as a heading to the “best vacuum cleaners under $400” or “best alternatives to Dyson vacuum cleaners” Notice how you can use your competitor’s brand recognition to attract more voice searches. 

You can use free tools such as Ubersuggest to do your keyword research.

2. Improve your site speed

How fast your page loads affects WordPress site performance. According to Portent, a one-second lag in your page load speed can lower your conversion rate by 4.42%. A slower page speed also means you are losing traffic to sites that are 0.01 seconds faster than yours. 

Keep in mind that thousands of websites are trying to rank for the same keywords you’re using. Hence, every millisecond counts in how the search engines rank your site. These are some steps you should take to speed up your page load time:

• Use a Content Delivery Network: This is a geographically distributed group of servers that work together and ensure that the searcher gets a uniform loading speed irrespective of their location. 
• Compress your images. Large images and long videos increase the load time for your pages.
• Reduce the number of files on your webpage. Every file in your webpage code will add to the number of HTTP requests. The more HTTP requests on your page, the slower your page will load.
• Check your page load speeds. Use a tool like Google PageSpeed or GTmetrix to check your page load speed and gather insights on how to improve it. You can also use these tools to check how you stack up against your competition.

Here’s an analysis of the Tesla website using GTmetrix:

The slow page load time impairs your visitor’s user experience. It lowers your search ranking. WordPress sites that load faster are more likely to rank higher on SERPs.

3. Use structured data

Structured data or schema provides the search engine bots context to the content on your website. It enables Google to know the difference between a set of random numbers and a telephone number. Structured data works like a nametag for each part of your content. According to Backlinko, 36.4% of voice search result pages used schema markup, making it an effective way of boosting traffic from voice searches. 

Notice how the structured data or schema markup in these Google results when I type “Shang chi” tells the customer everything they want to know about the event, in this case, the movie Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Included in the schema are show timings, the genre, a snippet on the movie, and viewer ratings.  

You can use schema markups to identify different types of content on your website, including:

• Events
• Products
• People
• Reviews
• Articles

 Use the WordPress plugin Schema Pro to add proper JSON-LD schema markups to your onsite content automatically. JSON-LD schema stands for Javascript Object Notation for Linked Objects. With this annotation style, you can implement schema by directly pasting in the <head> or <body> tag of any webpage.  Because you can place it right into the <head> tag, it is considered the easiest way to implement schema.  

4. Craft easy to read content

The next step for optimizing for voice search is to write better content. Since we’re trying to rank for voice searches, ensure that the content on your website and blogs are written in a slightly casual and conversational tone. The goal is to write conversational content that directly addresses the user’s core search intent. 

For instance, you can look at this article as a long answer to the simple query, “How do I optimize my WordPress website for voice search?” There’s a reason this article is of a certain length and written in a conversational style. This style makes it easier for users to connect with the content. It’s friendly and human, and the search engines pick up on this. 

Another way to optimize for voice search is to create pillar pages or high-level pages that broadly cover a topic and then branch off with links to in-depth articles about specific subtopics. Here are some additional tips for writing engaging and easy-to-read content: 

• Ensure that the grammar is correct and cohesive by using a tool like Grammarly.
• Use a conversational tone that is relevant to your target audience. 
• Avoid long paragraphs. Slice big ideas into smaller independent paragraphs or bullet points.
• Use visuals like pictures, infographics, and videos that help in increasing engagement. 
• Have someone else edit and proofread your content.

Apply these points to make your content an engaging read. That applies to all your pages, including the landing page, product pages, and blog posts. 

5. Add question phrases

Since voice searches follow a specific pattern, they feature more long-tail keywords and tend to come in question form. Let’s say you’re helping your teenager with a biology project, are you more likely to do a voice search for “mitochondria,” or will you ask a question like, “What are mitochondria?”

The personal assistant on your phone will even read out the snippets from websites. If you’re writing a blog, let the headings ask a question and use the body below the heading to answer the question. When you combine these question phrases with structured data, there are chances that the SERP may feature a part of your blog or website with a highlighted snippet, along with a picture from that page. 

6. Focus on Google My Business Page

Voice search users frequently do local searches, like “restaurant near me” or “dentist near me.” Hence, your business needs to rank on these local searches. If it doesn’t appear on Google Maps, you may as well be nonexistent. Google ranks your business in local search results based on proximity and relevance. To increase footfalls to your physical establishment and traffic to your website, ensure that your contact details appear in SERPs. 

Your Google My Business page is a critical part of your online visibility. Think of it as a listing in a phone book containing your address and contact details, business hours, and website, except that your Google My Business page contains much more data that is relevant to the user. 

Google My Business marks your establishment’s location on a Google Map, enabling users to find you and work out the travel time. Another benefit is that your customers can directly leave reviews on your Google My Business page. The higher the star rating of your establishment, the higher it may rank on Google searches.

Here are some tips on optimizing your Google My Business page for a voice search:

• Be exact while filling your relevant business category on the page. If your business is a restaurant, ensure that you indicate this on your page.
• Add other subcategories that are also relevant to your business. If your restaurant serves pasta, add “pasta” to your subcategories.
• Include your WordPress website URL and contact numbers on your page. That will enable the user to visit your website or call you with another voice command. 
• Stay connected with your leads by running email campaigns to encourage your leads to give your Google My Business page a review. 

Google gives you free ad credit after setting up your Google My Business account, which you can use to run PPC campaigns.

Wrapping up

Voice searches are quickly becoming a part of our everyday lives. From finding information on local business to news, trivia, and ecommerce, voice search finds a wide range of uses. The number of people using it is increasing daily.

Therefore, it becomes critical to rank your business for these voice searches so you can attract relevant audiences to your website. Use the six tips in this article to optimize your WordPress website, and you’ll see results. 

Good luck!

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The post How to Optimize Your WordPress Website for Voice Search appeared first on ColibriWP Blog.

In fact, up to 42 percent of millennial-owned businesses have their own apps to increase sales or provide an alternative app store (you can add it nicely to the Choose the best app store section) for customers to access tools and services.

If you’re considering a mobile app for your business, it’s never been easier. Mobile apps are massive revenue generators and the barrier to entry is low, but there’s a difference between launching an app and launching a successful app.

The average cost of app development is $6,453, but it can go as high as $150,000 with more complexity. Wherever your app falls on that spectrum, the money and resources you dedicated to developing your app are going to waste if you don’t put effort and thought into the launch.

Then, after launch, you need to put work into making your app compelling enough that people keep coming back and engaging with it. Find out how to launch and grow your app to retain users for long-term revenue.

Perform Market Research

Roughly 1,800,000 apps are available in the Apple App Store, and that doesn’t include the exclusive apps available on Google, Windows, or Android app stores.

So, that means you have a lot of competition. Before you launch your app, you must conduct thorough market research to ensure your app is different from your competitors. It’s crucial to know what apps are leading the market in your niche, how they can improve, and what you can do differently to stand out.

Primary research is research you conduct yourself or through someone hired to do it. Typically, primary research involves the source, such as customers in the ideal market. Here are some examples of primary research:

• Interviews
• Surveys
• Focus groups
• Questionnaires
• Visits to competitors

Secondary research is research that’s been conducted and published by someone else, such as a government agency, other businesses, or trade associations. This research is more affordable and quicker to obtain than primary research. Here are some examples of secondary research:

• Surveys published in trade journals and industry publications
• Studies from government agencies
• Large-scale market research conducted by private companies, which may be paid

Depending on your budget, you may want to conduct primary research for potential users, then work on secondary research to gain deeper insights. Look at reviews on app pages in the app stores and check reviews on blogs and articles to see what real users think.

Measure Your Success

You want your app to be successful, but what does success look like? You must have measurable goals around your launch to decide if your efforts are working. Consider metrics like your active install rate, your app ratings, your average rating, and the revenue generated.

To provide some benchmarks, free mobile apps tend to have a higher install rate in the first month, which is usually around 50 percent. After that, it tends to drop to around 30 percent. The average store rating is 3 to 4 out of 5 possible stars.

For example, an app like Zutobi, with 48k ratings above 4, signals trust to potential users.

Consider Offering Multiple Versions of the App

One platform isn’t enough. If you were planning on offering your app on iOS or Android only, you’re missing out a huge potential market.

Cross-platform development is the best option for more reach, but it’s also more cost-effective. Instead of developing one app and expanding in the future, you can include cross-platform versions in the initial development process.

By employing a cross-platform framework, you can generate an app that reaches followers across numerous end devices and app stores. You can use frameworks like React Native, NativeScript, Flutter, Codename One, Xamarin, BeeWare, and RubyMotion, depending on the programming language.

These tools allow you to create an app with a single tech stack that works seamlessly on multiple platforms and devices, such as iOS and Android. Some examples of apps created with cross-platform development include Alaska Airlines, Instagram, Pinterest, Skype, and Google, all of which offer the same experience regardless of the operating system. 

Leverage Social Media

Before the launch, generate excitement and interest in your app with posts and early sign-ups. You can use your social media accounts to showcase the stages of app development and discuss features with your followers, which may give you insights into what you can change or improve.

When your app launches, make sure you change the link in the social media pages to direct followers to the app store download. 

For example, when Zutobi created the driver’s ed app, it used social media to build anticipation with sneak peeks and feature highlights for the upcoming app. The posts contained a link to the landing page, then when the app launched, the link went directly to the app download page in the Google Play Store. Followers were already excited about the app, so Zutobi made it simple to find and download the app after its launch. 

Create Content

You should have a full content strategy around your app launch.

Create blog posts, articles, tutorials, and video how-to content to show your customers how to use the app and get the most out of its features. You can promote your content on social media, your blog, press releases, and email blasts.

You can also create inspirational content, with the purpose of creating awareness around an issue. This is how the folks at Strava approach content marketing. Strava is a popular mobile app for tracking activity from workouts. They talk about uncovering your inner athlete, on how to go beyond boundaries, across their blog and Youtube, where they have 50k+ subscribers. They empower the app users to do more for their health.

Provide a Demo

What’s better than content that discusses how to use your app? A demo that shows it off. Many programs are available to help beginners create a demo video and screen captures. In the video, explain what the app does and how it can be beneficial in the real world.

Think of your short demo video as a way to tell everyone how you’re different than your competitors. Slack has an excellent app demo video that runs through all its features and highlights the real-world benefits of the communication platform. The look, tone, and style of the video align with the brand and provide tons of value to users.

The folks at RunKeeper kept it simple. You do not need lots of resources to create something similar.

Create a Dedicated Page

Create a page on your website that has information, demos, feature lists, and other content about your upcoming mobile app. This page is valuable before the launch since it gives customers an idea of what they can expect from the app and gets them excited. some businesses choose to skip this part, and focus solely only on their Google Play presence. I would advise against this.

Some apps require a little explanation. If you think this is necessary for yours, direct users to a dedicated landing page with information about the app. For example, if you offer drivers practice tests for different states, you could explain the options and advantages on the landing page.

Include a sign-up page that allows customers to subscribe to a download alert email when your app goes to market.

Forest has a well-designed dedicated app page with links to the app in both the Apple App Store and Google Play, key features, reviews, and a pop-up for the company’s other product app, SleepTown. 

PandaDoc is a good example of a launch signup page. It includes all the information the user needs, as well as buttons for early invitation, signup, and to share to social media. 

Choose the Best App Store

Though you’re creating cross-platform apps in the development process, for the initial launch, you want to focus on one app store. By narrowing the focus at the start, you can attract the highest concentration of users and ratings.

When you first launch, you’ll be making a lot of improvements, changes, and upgrades to your app. If you only have it in one store, you can streamline those updates as they roll out. When you’ve ironed out all the kinks, you can open the app to other platforms and stores.

If you’re not sure which app store is the best option, do some audience testing to see which one has most of your audience. The most common stores are the Apple App Store and the Android Market.

Use App Store Optimization

App store optimization (ASO) is similar to search engine optimization (SEO). ASO helps you achieve a high ranking for your app in the store search results, so you can get more downloads and users.

The principal idea is the same as SEO, but you must employ different strategies to achieve it. The best practices for ASO include optimizing your app with relevant keywords, which may be different for app stores. For example, Google uses keywords from the description, while Apple has fields for keywords.

Another excellent strategy is to include screenshots that show how your users can make the most of your app. Do this both on your app store page and early on in the user journey. For example, we include screenshots of the course material in our practice exams to show student drivers how our drivers’ app can help them learn, which in turn leads to better engagement.

Pitch Your App

One of the best ways to get the word out about your app is by sharing your pitch with tech, mobile, and industry bloggers and publications. You can use a lot of the content you already have, such as your video demo, written tutorials, and features lists to get them interested. Also, be prepared to offer a free download for the journalists, so they can learn the interface and experience the benefits. In addition to exposure, having journalists use your app gives you more insights into bugs, lags, and other UX problems.

Remember to pitch early and often. Don’t wait until right before the launch – start pitching weeks in advance to give them time to experiment with the app and craft an engaging store. Publications also plan content well in advance, so you’re giving them time to fit you into the schedule.

Use Paid Advertising

If you have content, SEO, and exposure through digital PR, you can complement these efforts with paid advertising leading up to the launch. Consider posting app ads on Google, Facebook, and other social media to generate buzz and interest. You can use paid, targeted ads to drive users to the app page, which has a download alert signup.

For example, here you have some Google search ads from sports apps. This means that they have set up for these ads to appear for certain searches in the Google search engine. These ads showed up for the query: “Running app download”.

The next ad is showing up inside actual apps. You could run such campaigns as well while targeting the audience you need. eToro is a mobile app that gives its users access to the cryptocurrency market, community, stats, and updates 24/7.

Leverage Influencers

Influencer marketing is hot right now, and will likely grow as consumers embrace more raw and honest forms of advertising. Social media influencers, bloggers, and content creators can generate buzz for your app early in the launch process, ensuring that you have as much exposure as possible in the weeks leading up to it.

Choose influencers that work best for your audience or ones who will personally benefit from what you have to offer. Consider sending personalized email outreach campaigns to build relationships and get them invested in your app.

Here’s an example template:

Subject: What do you think?

Hi [first name],

My name is [name] from [company] and I’m a huge fan of your work in [industry] and how passionate you are about [relevant content].

I’m reaching out to let you know about an app I think your audience may like. We’re about X months/weeks from launch and I’d be curious to see what you think. I can provide early access for you to review the app, plus a few special invites to give to your audience.

Let’s set up time to chat!

[name]

With this approach, you’ve offered an incentive for the influencer to try out your app, plus a giveaway for their audience to drum up more anticipation.

Consider an Invite-Only Beta Mode

Before your app goes live, offer a beta version that can alert you to bugs and problems. If you made this invite-only, you can create an impression of exclusivity to generate interest and get feedback from a small group of people. You can fix small issues with UX before rolling out your app to the whole audience, which should help your reviews and first impression.

If you offer an invite-only, exclusive beta version, feel free to ask for an honest review of your app in exchange. Most people are happy to leave reviews and share their experiences with others.

Put Download Links All Over

Getting ready to launch? Great! Make sure you put download links all over the place, including your website’s homepage, blog, marketing email, and social media accounts. You can also add a mobile tab to your Facebook page to make it easy for your followers.

Plan a Launch Party

Launch parties don’t have to be lavish affairs – you can have an intimate digital launch party through a Zoom meeting or webinar that includes only tech journalists, early adopters, influencers, and the like.

Along with the invite, offer special discounts or incentives to your audience and give them details to download the app. You can also ask for reviews in exchange.

Monitor Feedback

Your work isn’t close to over after the launch. App success is about more than just downloads – you must have engagement from your customers to improve your rankings and get more future downloads.

Encourage customers to post reviews on the store and share their experiences. Apps with great reviews, and reviews in general, get higher rankings. In addition, reviews tell you where you can improve for future updates and give you a chance to improve the user experience.

If you come across negative reviews, be sure to connect with the customer and tell them how you’re working to fix the problems. Don’t get too hung up on negative reviews, however. Focus on the problems that many people seem to have and things you can change.

Publish an Update Log

Transparency matters to consumers, and one of the best ways to approach transparency with your mobile app is to showcase updates and changes to features that occurred over time. An update log will attach to your app store pages, so customers can see how you’ve improved the app based on feedback. You should also include an update log on your website.

Consider Integrations

Many smartphone users have dozens of apps on their phones, ranging from the practical, like mobile banking and credit apps, to lifestyle apps like social media and gaming. Some of these apps integrate with each other, such as Pinterest and Facebook.

App integration makes the experience more convenient for users, which increases retention. Integrations aren’t appropriate for all apps, but see if you have opportunities to integrate to provide a better experience for your customers.

Keep a Log of Wishlist Features

If you know you have future plans for the app, but you won’t get to them immediately, keep a log of wishlist features. You can also publish this on the app store page and ensure customers can see it, so they know you’re listening.

Be sure to include wishlist features and features that are coming soon, which should be focused on new features that will be implemented in upcoming updates. You can include a field that allows people to submit feedback and requests for new features.

Customers will be excited to see what features are coming and will continue to monitor the log, so you’ve increased your retention rates and customer loyalty with one small effort.

These tips should help you launch your app quickly and painlessly. You have the initial development process, content and marketing strategy, and app updates and progress covered, so you can keep customers coming back for more. Are you ready to create your own app this year? 

The post How to Launch and Grow an App appeared first on ColibriWP Blog.

Like any other holiday, Valentine’s Day is an excellent opportunity for brands to increase sales and make existing clients buy again. This year the total spending is expected to reach $22 billion in the US alone. So, you need to get the most out of this romantic holiday for your business.

However, Valentine’s Day is difficult for marketers because it is quite a delicate topic, and you need to be careful with all of your marketing tactics. Not every marketing idea works in eCommerce. 

Valentines’ Day Marketing Statistics

So, if you are planning the Valentine’s Day marketing campaign this year, it can be helpful to look at some statistics.

• During this holiday, the most active category is people from 35 to 44 years during this holiday. On average, they spend $300 on their best halves.
• 50% of all marriage proposals happen on Valentine’s Day.
• Single men spend $71 on average, and single women spend $40 on average during this holiday.
• 34% of people prefer eating out on this holiday.
• 51% of people will congratulate their loved ones on this Day.

Keeping that in mind, consider the following marketing strategies to give your business a tremendous boost this time of the year. No fluff, no assumptions – just proven tips based on the examples of real-life brands. 

10 Winning Valentine’s Day Marketing Tips For Your Business

Creating Valentine’s Day buzz is about understanding your audience and finding a good way to engage customers with your relatable content. There are a variety of marketing strategies you can use to delight, surprise, and increase sales during this holiday.

1. Target last-minute shoppers

According to this research, most people don’t plan to shop a week or less before the holiday. Instead, they prefer buying gifts till the last minute. So, part of your Valentine’s Day marketing strategy is apparel to last-minute shoppers. 

The best way to do it is to combine a scarcity-driven copy with a countdown timer. The key is to do that without making people feel guilty. You can offer to get their gifts in time by Valentine’s Day. 

Another way to capture last-minute shoppers is by offering digital gift certificates or print at home. For example, Curioos recommends electronic gift cards with a discount as a great option on Valentine’s Day. Here is how they engaged last-minute buyers without breaking the bank:

2. Run Valentine’s Day Sale

There is no doubt that the best way to attract customers to your online store is to launch a Valentine’s Data sale and other promotions. So, offering compelling discounts is vital for a successful sales campaign. 

To promote your products, ensure to combine your sales popups with promotional emails. Fortunately, different email marketing tools like MailChimp run your professional marketing campaigns. 

Remember to consider free shipping along with your Valentine’s Day deals. You can also provide your loyal customers with exclusive discounts by using a unique code for shopping. For example, Kate Spade adds a personal touch to its email by calling out subscribers as “hey valentine” and giving an extra 10% off its sale styles to show some love for them:

To strengthen your sale, you can also offer free gift-wrapping as an additional benefit to save shoppers from trouble.

3. Offer Gift Guides

Buying gifts for many people, whether the best half or a friend, can be challenging, especially if you want to present something extraordinary. Proving your shoppers with gift guides can help them make better buying decisions and offer your products excellent gift ideas.

You can offer gift guides in different forms, such as emails, landing pages, social media posts, or popups. For example, Wendell August Forge, a prominent merchant, display a wide range of Valentine’s Day gifts linking from their homepage:

Another great idea is collaborating with other local businesses to create a great community gift guide that includes products from each store. That will help everyone attract new customers.

To create fantastic Valentine’s Day gift guides, VistaCreate (ex-Crello) is an excellent fit for your needs. It includes many unique templates for this occasion. 

4. Promote Self-Love

Everyone knows that Valentine’s Day is not just for couples. You can buy gifts for anyone special in your life, even if you don’t have romantic relationships with yourself. For example, it can be your friend, colleague, family, or teacher. 

According to a survey, 14% of women buy flowers for themselves on Valentine’s Day. Therefore, you can significantly increase your audience by promoting self-love to those who don’t have relationships. As a result, anyone can purchase a gift for themselves.

5. Create a Limited Edition Product

This strategy isn’t for any business, and especially it’s not for last-minute shoppers. Creating an exclusive product on Valentine’s Day This approach can perform miracles. People with FOMO can help you generate sales.

It’s a great and safe way to tie this holiday to your products without making people buy them. For example, Dior promotes its limited-edition Valentine’s Day collection, including Rouge Dior lipstick, eye palette, and perfect couture cushion:

6. Showcase Customer Photos

Valentine’s Day is a great chance to engage with your customers. Creating a consistent user-generated content (UGC) marketing campaign will encourage customers to share photos using a specific hashtag or contest. Then you can share their photos on your website or social media as social proof. 

UGG allows customers to feel that your brand is authentic and they are a part of your brand’s community by showing their photos. In addition, you can use their social reach for this holiday by getting customers involved in your activity. 

For example, people can participate in an Instagram contest, use Snapchat geofilters, or stream on Facebook Live. Here is the example from Dunkin’ leveraging UGG on different channels on this special day:

7. Produce Heartwarming Video Content

Valentine’s season can be the biggest revenue generator for many online businesses like dating platforms and flower delivery. So planning a video marketing strategy is essential to spread the positive vibes of the season and show customers some love. 

You can make lovely video e-cards or personalized videos to show appreciation and friendship with your audience. Another video idea is to create “behind the scenes” videos. For example, if you are in a food-related niche, you can produce educational or tutorial videos. Make sure to keep them short, sweet, and evoke emotions. 

To create original videos for your audience, you can get started with InVideo. It is an easy video editor with 5K professional templates, filters, music library, and transitions. In addition, with its unique voiceover feature, videos can sound realistic. Furthermore, you can use Videvo’s green screen footage without royalty to enhance the visual appeal of your videos.

8. Launch Thematic Email Marketing Campaigns

Start sending out Valentine Day’s-themed emails and show some love this say. Many eCommerce businesses use this approach to thank their subscribers and offer their products for a better price. 

Before launching your email campaign, ensure to create an eye-catching subject line and copy to make your customers engaged with your brand. Try to schedule your emails before Valentine’s Day to keep your products on the brink of customers’ minds. 

Through email marketing, you can give exclusive offers for loyalty program members. For example, you can offer double points for purchases or a gift with purchase on Valentine’s Day. 

Your loyal customers will feel appreciated and satisfied with exclusivity and urgency on this special day. For example, Tarte Cosmetics evokes curiosity by promoting its rewards program with this secret email:

9. Run the Classic “2-for-1” Promotion

This promotion is a classic for valid reasons. Valentine’s Day is about couples that want to get a great deal for two. So, for example, it can sound like “Buy one, get one free.” That is excellent for businesses that sell physical products. But you should be more creative to promote your special deals.

Ensure to provide a great deal and thematic visuals. If you are looking for some inspiration, you can find more Valentine’s Day image collections on Depositphotos. Try to choose images that are emotional, and that send out authentic vibes. 

10. Create Love Themed Polls and Fun Tests

Social media is a great place to show your creativity behind your brand and attract more new customers. The best way to do it is to conduct different fin tests and themed polls. 

Try to keep people engaged with your polls, like choosing “the worst Valentine’s Day gift” or “What is the best gift for you on this special day.” Ask people to give their reactions to such kind of social activity.

You can also create different tests related to your business to catch the customers’ attention. The main idea is to do it for fun and engagement without any marketing purpose. For example, BuzzFeed published a great post last year with Valentine’s Day opinions through polls: 

Wrapping up

Valentine’s Day is a great niche opportunity for brands and merchants to increase sales and attract new customers during this romantic holiday. You will create a love-filled campaign for your business and people with the right marketing strategies. Take these marketing tips as a good starting point for an uptick in sales. 

The post 10 Best Valentine’s Day Marketing Strategies to Get More Sales appeared first on ColibriWP Blog.

“I was quite good at writing essays in school. What else could I need?” Realities quickly dampen the ardor of future great authors – turns out, simply putting words together is not enough. 

In this article, you’ll find a few recommendations for aspiring website copywriters: how to create a good headline, build an outstanding landing page, and a few other tips to consider.

Let’s start with the basics.

Know your target audience

All of us are sometimes guilty of writing long and complex sentences. It’s the same with those who sometimes enter sparse or otherwise pompous words (see what we did there?).

The adage about knowing your audience is true for all writers and copywriters are no exception. Even if you write for a large audience, remember that not everyone can be a master of words like you are.

If you’re trying to sell something, the surest way to lose that sale is to confuse or distract your “victim.” Do you really want them to go away because you’re not clear? Make the copy simple and effective.

Do Not Reinvent the Wheel

Copywriting is not about creating a market that doesn’t exist. Your words alone can’t do it all at once. These wheels are the “needs” and “wants.” 

People will buy what they need or want. Writing a copy for the latter is really not that difficult. Now when it comes to the “needs,” you have to understand that they can’t be created by a copy. The things people need already have their market – your job is to “ignite the flame.”

Headline Copywriting

A headline is one of the key details in copywriting and marketing. Even the best material will not bring the desired result if your audience simply skips them.

So how do you write a perfect headline?

The headline’s main task is to select your target audience right, i.e. attract the attention of those people you really need and encourage them to take the next step. It does not necessarily have to be a purchase, in fact. You just have to “push” them into the sales funnel.

So the trick is to figure out what concerns someone who just found out about your product or compares you to your competitors. Learn what is important to someone who has already made up their mind and what is missing for the final step. There have to be different headlines and content for all groups – you need to be clear on who you offer and what. 

Now about that perfect headline. Their job is to grab attention and motivate the reader to scroll further, reading into the block material. Such headings help navigation and divide the page into sections.

Here are the three components of a good headline:

• Clarity;
• Conciseness;
• Focus on a single benefit.

Clarity of mind 

As we read our news feeds, our heads are often full of various thoughts. Thus, it’s essential to grab your target audience’s (TA) attention either with a picture, color, or meaning (headline). Top solutions for this purpose are sentences like “How do you do this or that?”, “Why isn’t it working?” and, of course, numbers, e.g. “10 ways…”. Words like “templates,” “examples,” “tips,” “recommendations,” and “step-by-step instructions” work well, too. This basically due to the fact that most people are lazy – they want everything to be set and ready for them to take.

Now using the first step solely will get you an incomprehensible audience. With “hooks and magnets,” you risk gathering a crowd of teenagers, web surfers, and procrastinators. This scheme works as long as you only need low-quality traffic and nothing else. Otherwise, proceed to the next step.

Grabbing attention 

Tell your site visitors something that will determine whether they need it or not. Speak their language, use professional slang, acronyms, etc. You can also highlight it with small niche realities or put simply it straightforward like this: 

“For all you lovely ladies tired of constantly dying your gray hair.”

Engaging Your Target Audience 

Finish them off with pain, a dream, or an interest! This is where you need to figure out the very pain or dream of your TA. That is, first tell them “how,” then “who,” and only then “how to get it.” Pain is responsible for items of special need (health, wealth), and dreams are for items of simple desire (a new TV, dress, etc.). Remember to add something you can’t fit into the headline in your lead paragraph – it can be used to clarify the need of your TA or the audience itself.

The most common headline formulas are: 

• Desirable phenomena or dreams (e.g. weight loss); 
• Undesirable phenomena or fears (why isn’t smth working?); 
• Comparisons, problems, client pain; 
• Loud words (e.g. “only now,” “we can help you,” etc.).

Getting back to explosive content growth, most people today are simply browsing headlines. This means you have quite limited space to draw their attention to the rest of your presentation. Make full use of the keywords mentioned earlier and create a powerful offer. Compare these two headlines, for example:

• “Access Any Media Stream with This Simple Tool;”
• “Brand X VPN Can Help You Unblock Geo-Targeted Content.”

Admittedly, the first line is a bit clicky and doesn’t fit all brands. However, the difference lies in the different emotions each example can evoke. Think carefully about what emotions you want your headline to trigger. The content (and the design) of the headline has a big impact on clickability. 

What’s a good headline for a landing page, you ask? Here are a few tips:

• Provides clear essence of your offer;
• Is short, readable, and straightforward;
• Offers a solution to the problem;
• Continues the idea of the ad (or a different initial resource);
• May contain a question or moderate joke.

Try different options!

Ask people 

After brainstorming, you and your team (or one copywriter) may come up with 10-20 or even more headline options that all look promising. Clearly, you have to test them, but how do you test 20 options? Multitest them – and you’ll have to wait forever for statistical significance. While putting two of them to a split-test will generate too many options. 

What you should do here is gather a focus group, relevant to your TA, and evaluate the response to all options to reduce them to an acceptable number (3-5), which will be easier to test.

Writing Copy for Landing Pages that Convert

If you see that despite the beautiful appearance and advantageous offer the page does not sell, this is a sure sign of illiterate/unworkable copywriting. Words mean a lot here, and it often takes a long time to polish the text on the page. It’s not always a matter of literacy – the main problem is usually irrelevance, i.e., the mismatch between the text and expectations of your TA. This is like communicating in different languages. You can speak the most exquisite and sensual compliments to your object of sympathy, but if you speak different languages, she/he will never appreciate it.

Misunderstanding between two parties typically leads to frustration and negative outcomes. Your site visitors should be able to receive information in the most capacious form. Because in a competitive environment, they will not really try hard to get thoughtful and look deep for answers to their questions on your landing page.

If you are not sure of the effectiveness of your landing page text, then pointing out these simple mistakes can help increase conversions.

1. Not enough information to make a decision

How many times have you come across situations when a landing page offers a service without specifying the price? Or, for example, represents an event without telling the location of it?

What were your actions then? Chances are you just leave the site and continue browsing search results.

If you’re selling something on your capture page, ensure your main information blocks are loud and clear. Don’t forget that people are more likely to decide in favor of a particular service when they understand what awaits them after clicking the “Buy” button.

Take a look at this landing page from Planable.

It has a headline that clearly states the topic of the landing page. The purpose is clear: you can download the ebook if you fill in your email address and your company name.

Beneath the fold, you have a list of the chapters in the ebook, with descriptions. At the bottom of the landing page you have reviews of “the manifesto”, and the author’s bio. You can see that no questions are left unanswered. The message is clear, and social proof is being used in a smart way with the purpose of increasing the chance for conversions.

2. Incorrect wording

It often happens that when writing text, every word in it seems to be clear and understandable. However this is an inside look – from the visitor’s side, the situation can be quite different. “Simple and accessible” can often turn out to be “ornate and confusing.”

To keep your text as straightforward as possible, you need to minimize what you’re selling. One landing page should offer one service. The more services, the more likely it will all get confusing.

If your landing page visitors must think for even a minute about what to expect – the sale may not take place.

Keep in mind, not all landing pages have to make the sale either.  For example, you may have a landing page that asks visitors to join a webinar you’re hosting.  While the end result isn’t a sale if they join, you could use that webinar to move them further along in the purchasing funnel. 

Potential customers become real when you provide a sense of trust and security for them. Set one goal and optimize your text content to achieve it – don’t require subscription, application, purchase, or participating in crowdfunding all at once.

3. Text content doesn’t meet the target audience

This is probably one of the most common mistakes. We’ve talked about it briefly above, now it’s time to elaborate on it. Your offer must necessarily be relevant to the traffic. 

Relevancy is a prerequisite for success. Imagine that you met someone really nice online, went to the meeting looking all fabulous and neat just to face a different person. This person may also look beautiful, but you know that a good relationship never begins with deception. Now if your customers will not find what they were looking for on your site, even a high-quality service will not fix the impression.

It’s not just a matter of text, but optimization. Keep an eye on queries used by people to get on your landing page – they should match your page content.

An honesty policy is the best way to build a long and productive relationship with your audience.

This means that if your target is made of Chief Technical Officers, that are really busy and want answers fast and not “marketing fluff”, your copy should relate to that. 

4. Text overflowing with faceless clichés

The worst thing you can have on your landing page is the text that doesn’t engage. Even if you formally adhere to what is written above, an abundance of clichés like “lowest prices,” “customer focus,” and “highly qualified professionals” simply kills your text.

You have to work not only on the content itself but also on the form. Learn how to “speak” to your customers in the same language. You can also contact an expert who will help you choose the right words, based on market research.

Look at the capture page in perspective – not statics. Slight changes during testing can often make a dramatic difference and increase conversion rates.

Landing Page Copywriting Myths

All converting elements should be at the top of the page

Now, this tendency is quite common in marketing. There is a belief that site visitors won’t scroll down or search for the information or lead form on it. This is partly due to the myth of proper content length. 

However, according to our experience, if users are sufficiently motivated, they will scroll down to the end of the page, read all the information material, fill out even a long lead form, and look for a CTA button.

Convincing and relevant textual content is one of the most important factors in increasing user motivation and converting them into leads and customers.

First, determine how much information you need to motivate your average visitor to take conversion actions. Split (A/B) testing can help you with this. Then, based on the data you get, start the process of optimizing your landing page. Often the length does not greatly influence its effectiveness.

Often times the length of a landing page is correlated to the pricing of the product/service being offered. And it totally makes sense. If you’re offering an ebook, a report, in exchange for an email address, landing pages can get pretty short. 

If we look at the landing pages CXL is using, you’ll see they are pretty lengthy. And that’s because they’re promoting advanced marketing and analytics courses. And details are a must. People need to understand what they’re paying for. It’s in their best interest to get into the details and scroll down. Wouldn’t you do the same?

If you guarantee privacy, the conversion rate increases

Of course, everyone has information they don’t really want to share (credit card numbers, phone numbers, address, etc.). The thing is, after sharing this information, people hate being disturbed by pushy and upselling company representatives.

Even if you guarantee complete confidentiality of the requested information, be careful when creating your privacy policy. One little word can scare away a lot of users who might not even read to the end of your offer or lead form.

Someone else’s design will also increase my conversion rate

Reviewing your competitors’ landing pages (especially, if they’re successful) is very helpful, that’s 100% true. This should help you develop your own branding design. 

However, if your offer is located on a competitor’s successfully copied landing page, it doesn’t mean that you will have the same success.

There are so many various factors that all have to match each other like pieces of a puzzle to make your landing page successful. This includes the design, content, type of value proposition, incoming traffic, user experience, and much more. If you do want to copy someone else’s layout, you have to at least run split tests and optimize it for your product.
Or to make your site seem more unique, then it is better to create from scratch with the desired design, to involve specialists in this matter. 

One landing page is quite enough

Large business corporations have a lot of landing pages for a reason. If you think that one is enough, you risk losing your traffic, customers, and money right out from under your nose.

A truly successful business is based on multiple split tests, standalone landing pages for each offer, and traffic sources. Each new landing page contributes to a higher conversion rate for the entire project.

Creating a landing page is not the end of the long road to success. After all, you need them to deliver revenue and continuously convert more customers. 

Conversion rates aren’t the only metric for determining landing page performance. It’s more complicated than that. You also need to know how many leads on average become your real customers, as well as the average purchase value, your profit margin, and don’t forget about ROI and CPL.

Once you examine all the parameters, you may find out that a low conversion rate landing page has quite a few leads turning into sales.

Conversion rate means nothing, especially if you have nothing to compare it to. It’s much more important to know how well your experts are turning leads into profitable customers.

One last thing. Every time you have doubts, ask yourself. The more questions you formulate, the easier you will answer them. And don’t see what you do as a mistake – action is always better because it generates experience, and procrastination never yields results.

Landing Page Tips

Value Proposition

A value proposition is a succinct and specific phrase that reveals unique and appealing features of your product or service. It’s a concentrated gist that helps your readers match their problem with your solution.

• Use simple words that a kid can understand;
• Skip insignificant details;
• Choose words that people will associate with the product. (If you have a flower delivery service, you should keep it that way in your text. In addition to clarity, it’s also for SEO);
• Tell people who your product/service is designed for. (For example, you can use the following formula: {Perfect} [would suit startups / travelers / honeymooners].

Features and advantages

After convincing your customers that you understand their problem, tell them why your solution will work. In this part of the landing page, write about your product’s key features and advantages.

Do not confuse them.

• What value does the customer get from using your product? (Advantage).

• What part of your product helps the customer get that value? (Feature).

The conventional wisdom is that it’s better to tell your customers about the advantages (e.g., making life easier for the busy ones) rather than about its functional features (e.g., your server power). However, sometimes a functional feature speaks for itself and is an advantage on its own (e.g., a unique training program). There are no rules per se, just try to separate the main from the secondary.

Product showcase

What does the main screen of the app look like? What does the user of the product look like? How can the service be used in real life? 

You don’t even have to write accompanying text to the image. Support one or two key benefits from the previous block.

Step-by-step guide

Even the simplest product or service needs to be broken down into 3-4 simple steps. Some companies skip this, believing that an intelligent user will be annoyed by excessive details. This is totally wrong. Typically your site visitors never have enough time to get to the bottom of it. Thus, they will appreciate it if you explain everything in the fastest and simplest way.

Facts

People love facts. When scanning the text, the brain itself clings to the numbers and unwittingly fixes them. Add an info block with 2-3 large numbers in the second part of your landing page. When writing the text, use any data that helps form an opinion about you as a product, specialist, or company. This will draw attention to the block and increase credibility.

Buttons

You can’t talk about conversion rates without creating a single button on your landing page. Some studies compare buttons on websites to closed doors in an unfamiliar room. Therefore, it’s essential to put attractive buttons so that your readers will want to click on them without getting stressed out of surprise.

Social relevance

Your customers know about the advantages and disadvantages better than you do, so potential consumers believe other people’s reviews just as much as they believe your words. Take a few hours to collect visual feedback. You can write a line or two yourself and send it to a loyal customer for approval.

The biggest threat here is that the feedback may sound fake. 

To avoid this, ask your customers to talk about their personal experiences in detail, noting not only the pros but also the cons of the product.

Final screen (aka Thank You Page)

Your landing page should end with a strong CTA and a tool for your site visitors to take the first step toward what they want. This can be a button or a contact form.

In this example, the landing page that was offering a free guide has a thank you page that is offering a promo code.

Do not limit yourself to a single text version on the Thank You page – write several of them and test to see what works best for conversion rates.

You can try to make them share your landing page offer, or to ask them to follow up on social media….there are tons of options.

Other Tips

Stay Positive

This doesn’t apply to you personally (although this helps, too) but to positive terms in your text. Even if you can’t always do this throughout the entire text, at least try to avoid using negative terms when writing.

The key difference in positive and negative wording is to better illuminate even bad circumstances. Positive wording is much easier to digest, often more direct, and works more expressively. 

Here are a few examples:

• Negative wording: “If you don’t buy Product X, you will experience constant pain.“
• Positive wording: “Enjoy the pain-free experience with Product X.“

Read your text out loud

Once you’ve created your perfect masterpiece, read it out loud. What looks good on paper and sounds great in your head may not sound so good to your ears. Simply put, we sometimes write stupid things, and reading out loud makes them more obvious.

It’s easy to forget that words we write on paper are read by real people. Thus, ensure your text always has a positive effect on your TA.

Conclusion

Copywriting is a combination of art and science. Knowing the latter behind writing effective text is the core, and tricks at the top are your art. One is unsustainable without the other.

Remember the rules, and you will be able to instinctively create effective copies at the speed that will shock others. If you’re still having problems, find out what’s affecting you.

Think about the most recent purchases you made because of advertising and reflect on them. If it worked for you, then the copywriter did the right thing… Right?

The post Website Copywriting Principles: No Loose Ends appeared first on ColibriWP Blog.

Although both are quite similar in many aspects, there are crucial differences that every marketer must know.

Video marketing can greatly benefit both types of businesses.

But the video marketing template that suits the former will be of little use to the latter and vice versa.

Regardless of the similarities, to ace the marketing game, marketers have to tailor the strategy and customize the campaign according to the business, target audience, goals, and offerings.

Whether you’re producing the videos in-house or hiring a video editing company, understanding the difference between B2C and B2B will be of great benefit.

It’ll help you decide how exactly video marketing can be used to benefit a specific business type.

Let’s get started.

B2B and B2C Video Marketing: The Key Differences

A clear understanding of the business type and customers is the first true step any video content marketing professional can take. This vital knowledge can prevent problems down the line.

Who are the direct beneficiaries of your offerings (products and services)?

In B2B, you’re selling the product or service directly to a corporation, retailer, manufacturer, distributor, or anyone that’s not the end consumer.

Then again, businesses that directly deal or sell to the consumer will fall under the B2C category.

The following are the areas where both business types differ:

Content Strategy

In B2C, you’re at liberty to go the extra mile in attracting the consumer’s attention using entertaining content.

The main idea of B2C video marketing is engagement which can be achieved through light-hearted and fun content.

We aren’t in any way suggesting that B2B video content is less engaging. For example, Instagram reels for business aim to blend fun content with branding.

Videos in B2B marketing often focus on the company, its product/service, the benefits, etc.

In B2B video marketing, the focus, to a greater degree, is on the products, benefits, and financial aspects.

Ultimately, the video content strategy must depend on what the audience wants to see.

Bear in mind, in B2b, the audience isn’t your average Joe or Jane. He or she is representing a business.

Their decision might impact others too. Hence, they are quite clear about what they want from the product.

Your content strategy must focus on those points and the video content must effectively deliver the message.

Content Quality

No effort should be spared in making the best videos for your business. Use the best production equipment and online video editors such as Clipchamp.

Both audiences deserve the best videos in terms of content and messaging.

That said; target your B2B audience with professionally-produced videos. In most cases, your target audience in B2B video marketing is a company.

Companies expect a high degree of professionalism from the people they deal with.

The B2B videos must be well-produced with top-notch talent, audio, visuals, etc.

Moreover, in B2B, high-quality video content signifies capability and capacity to deliver.

You’ll lose your audience’s trust if the videos aren’t professional.

In B2C, you can get away with content that is authentic but not great in production quality.

Remember: video marketing is a powerful way to increase brand awareness.

Hosting Platforms

Some 10-12 years back, only a few video-hosting platforms satisfied the needs of all businesses.

Times have changed. Now there are niche platforms with a dedicated user base for both types of businesses.

Although there is some amount of overlapping, we see brands opt for specific hosting platforms depending on their target audience.

For example, Vimeo, SlideShare, and Linkedin are ideal places to host B2B video content. Entrepreneurs and professionals spend a considerable amount of their time on these platforms.

Then again, for B2C content, videos that directly target the consumers, social platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook are the obvious choices.

These platforms provide features that help in giving maximum exposure to the video content.

Both business types can host videos on these platforms and embed videos on other websites to expand the reach.

B2B and B2C Video Marketing: The Areas of Convergence

Though the focus of this article is on the differences, a brief look at the similarities is equally enlightening.

These areas of convergence between B2C and B2B will help you understand the subtle differences better.

Furthermore, understanding both the differences and similarities will lead to a better video marketing strategy.

Here are a few similarities.  

Creativity Is Paramount

Video marketing isn’t the privilege of the few with big budgets. Regardless of the size of the company, it’s possible to grow your business with video content.

It has become the most common marketing medium, as prevalent but more popular than text and image content.

Billions of videos are uploaded every day and 82% of web traffic will flock towards video content.

In such a scenario, nothing except the most creative and best quality video would stand out and attract attention.

Run of the mill content with nothing unique to offer will make your video no different from the others. Soon, your videos will be lost in the crowd.

Video content in both businesses needs to be of the best quality to boost customer engagement.

Educate the Audience

Every customer, be it a corporation or regular person, prefer products or services that offer the best value for money.

Of course, they are interested in knowing what the product can do for them and how it will help their lives.

Both B2B and B2C videos keep the customers interested in the video and product by educating the audience.

Even if they can’t produce quality explainer videos in-house, they can choose any of the top explainer video companies in their area.

Both businesses highlight the benefits and the many ways the product or service solves the customer’s problems.

Earn Their Trust

Most video marketing campaigns flop because they fail to convince the audience about their ability to deliver on promises.

In both B2B and B2C, one of the goals of video marketing is to build trust.

It doesn’t matter, if the video is promoting a product/service that’s worth a few dollars or millions of dollars, the idea is to convince them that you can give them what they need.

Final Thoughts

Whether it’s B2B or B2C, video content is the best content type today.

It can be used with the best marketing tools to create awareness, educate customers, generate leads, and drive more sales.

Each of these marketing goals plays a vital role in the success of a business.

To do things right, one needs to understand the subtle differences between the two types of businesses.

This article sheds light on both the differences and similarities.

The post The Difference between B2B and B2C Video Marketing appeared first on ColibriWP Blog.

With such an impressive number of active websites on the internet, the competition is tough. The tried and tested method to cut through all competition is to brand your website to stand out in cyberspace.

Branding has evolved a lot over the years. Even today, people think that your colors, tagline, or the way you communicate represent your brand. This has changed! These are very important, but they are just a tiny piece of this puzzle called branding.

Who has the ultimate power over your brand? Your stakeholders: clients, employees, partners, etc.

Why so? If all that you communicate isn’t consistent with your behavior, it’s all for nothing. People can’t be fooled that easily, and they’ll definitely sanction promises that aren’t delivered. Social media has empowered everyone by giving us a voice. And brands are walking now on thin ice.

As Marty Neumeier puts it  “a brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or organization.”

Now, today we’re going to talk about visual identity (one of the many branding tools out there), and how to build it inside your WordPress site. So follow me!

Branding on WordPress: Getting Started

In ways more than one, branding is the most exciting and creative part of the process of building your website. WordPress makes this process more thrilling with a host of features, themes, and settings that will make your website look professional in an instant.

To get a head start on all your competitors, use WordPress’ exciting features to kickstart your success.

1. Choose an attractive theme

An alluring theme is the first element that catches the eye of a viewer. WordPress offers a vast variety of themes that are compatible with many different types of websites, be it crisp and efficient looking ones, colorful and preppy looking ones and so forth.

There are several themes available on the free version of WordPress and in case you are comfortable with shelling out a few bucks, the paid version has exclusive themes available for use.

Once you choose a suitable theme, you can move forward and edit and customize your website as per your requirements.

Everything including the fonts, graphics, and color palette you choose will cement a visual identity that will stay in the minds of viewers and customers. This means it becomes even more important to stay true to the brand personality and make sure your website echoes the same.

Here’s how you can install a WordPress theme.

2. Include a unique logo

A logo is not just an extra visual element. A logo that is well-designed, attractive, can be memorable.

As a newcomer in the digital landscape, questions like “how to make a logo” are bound to confuse you. Here is a quick primer to choose the perfect logo for your website. You can also use an online logo maker software for this job.

The most common way is to hire a professional, but you could very well design a logo yourself. With a working knowledge of an illustrator like Photoshop or Canva– making a logo is an easy task. Even without any background in design, you could trust an online logo maker to do your job.

Certain guidelines are important to keep in mind while crafting a logo that will be synonymous with your brand. This includes making sure the logo is neat and creative, it resonates with the brand, and is generated ethically without any plagiarism.

A logo is a key element in enhancing the brand image in the minds of viewers and arousing curiosity in the minds of potential customers. Only making the perfect logo is not all, to complement and enhance the visual impact of your logo – choose a complementary theme, pay attention to its placement, and avoid clutter around it. Additionally, creating a favicon can prove to be a make or break step. Simply use your logo as your favicon for maximum brand reach and retention.

Uploading and placement of your logo and creation of a favicon are steps that may seem complicated but are made simple with WordPress’ user-friendly interface. From your dashboard, go to Appearance – Customizer. Now, depending on the theme you’re using, the submenu may differ.

In my example, I’m using the Mesmerize theme. All I have to do is head over “General settings” and identify the “Site identity” submenu. In here you can also change your website’s title.

3. Choose a global color scheme and typography

Now that your logo is done it’s time to figure out the colors you want to identify with. This can take a while, there are so many combinations out there, that it can get overwhelming. but, in order to start, you definitely need to know your product/service and your audience.

Let’s say you sell electronics in Indonesia, make sure to avoid green if possible…

Did you notice that most of the fast-food brands out there use red and orange in their logos and other visuals? It’s because red speaks to people’s appetites, it’s making them hungry.

Green goes with fresh food, eco, bio, environmental topics.

And the list can go on.

What does this mean for you? Do your research! Take your time, don’t hurry this. Dig a bit into the psychology of color, to understand the relationship between emotions and colors. You need to make an informed decision when choosing your brand’s colors. They will affect your website design, social media visuals, and much more.

How can you change the global colors for your WordPress site? It depends on your theme or builder. Free plans are usually a bit limited, oftentimes paid ones let you do any change you want. Usually, you can make the changes inside Appearance-> Customizer.

Going back to my previous example with the Mesmerize theme, inside “General settings” I have” Colors” and “Typography”.

You’ll now have the option to add any color you want.

Moving on to typography, there are some rules you need to stand by:

• Don’t use more than 3 different fonts, else, your website will look unstructured and unprofessional.
• Don’t go over the board with your font choice, it’s a trap! Unless your website has something to do with a very creative line of business, you’d better stick to standard system fonts. You wouldn’t want the reader to be more interested in the font than in the actual content.
• Use fonts with distinguishable letters.
• To ensure readability ensure a line-height of 30% more than the character height.
• Careful with the contrast between the text and its background!

4. Tell the world about yourself

Let us pause for a bit and come back to you. Design and logo aside, the star of your website is your personality and creative talent. Without an interesting personality to shine through, an attractive-looking website can only do so little for a brand. This truism holds for all kinds of websites – personal blog, business, online stores, and more. To keep a person gravitating to your website, to convert a viewer into a customer, add relevant pages that tell viewers more about you.

Think of a crisp and concise ‘About me’ page that details your journey as a blogger, business person, fashion enthusiast, or baker. Talk about your motivations, your passions, your dreams – all in a few words to not bore your visitor. Information like this is necessary to make sure your visitors feel an emotional connection with your venture and your services.

In a succinct ‘About blog name/business name’ familiarize your visitors with the core values of your venture, vision and mission statements, awards and recognitions, services, and other necessary details.

In case you happen to run a business that is looking for clients, adding a ‘Testimonials’ page can prove to be fruitful. Displaying real-life testimonials from your previous and current clients or both is a smart way of establishing a reputation in the minds of your potential customers. It makes visitors feel that your services are reliable, praiseworthy, and worth a try.

Finally, the most necessary yet often ignored page is the ‘Reach out/Contact me’ page. Simply putting out your social media handles is not enough. An email ID and contact/telephone number are crucial even in the 21st century. In case you feel uncomfortable in putting out sensitive information like this, install and use one of the many contact form plugins available on the internet.

Wrap up

Branding your WordPress site is a process that may test your patience at times but it is the thin line between success and failure that must keep you working. The aim is to build a brand identity that is salient and resonates with people. This can be achieved by executing 3 simple steps: choosing an appropriate theme, incorporating a logo, and publishing relevant information about yourself and your venture. With WordPress’ exciting roster of features, themes, and plugins you can create and customize a unique website that will stun your audience.

The post WordPress Branding: Prepare Your Website for Success appeared first on ColibriWP Blog.

Raul Galera, Partner Manager at ReferralCandy, will provide some great referral program examples that will inspire you to tackle a new marketing channel for your own business. 

Let’s hear him out!

Retaining customers is important, but how about making them active advocates for your business?

Referral programs have helped several leading businesses grow by leveraging their biggest assets: their customers. The programs are designed to encourage customers to invite their friends, family members, and acquaintances to make a purchase from your business.

But this would only be possible if the customers are satisfied with you and think your products are good enough before recommending it to others.

In this article, we’ll help you understand how to build an attractive referral marketing program by examining some of the best examples carried out by other companies.

Excited? Let’s get started!

Tesla

Real-life Tony Stark and Tesla founder, Elon Musk, had a tough task ahead of him when creating a referral program for Tesla Motors.

The brand itself is forward-thinking and futurist – something they had to incorporate in their referral program as seamlessly as possible. It also meant they had to branch away from the traditional product discount reward for that out-of-the-box value associated with Tesla and Musk himself.

Which is exactly what they did.

Tesla’s referral program gave the referrer the chance to obtain an invite to tour Tesla’s factory and attend their grand opening party. They could also purchase a Founder Series Model X, which wasn’t available to the public, and the first owner who achieved ten orders in Asia, North America, and Europe would receive a free model X SVU.

As for the referee, every Tesla owner could give friends up to ten US$1000 discounts.

Since 2019, Tesla has again switched their referral program to make it tantalizing enough for their current customers.

The new program allows successful referrers to earn 1000 miles of free supercharging when anyone purchases a new Tesla car using their referral code. There’s also a chance to win a Model Y every month or Roadster supercar every quarter based on the number of successful referrals they have.

Result:

After their second referral program, Tesla was making a return multiple in excess of 42x, and every dollar spent towards their referral program. In fact, nearly 25% of their sales in Q4 2015 came from the referral program.

Key Takeaways:

Tesla was successful in leveraging their customers’ satisfaction in its favor. The company used tiered rewards to drive repeat referrals, which was incredibly smart to score more customers.

Plus, offering the clearly valuable rewards further tempted owners to refer Tesla cars to their networks.

Uber

Uber is a brand that needs no introduction. While several people already use the app daily, with their effective referral program in place, the company was able to attract even more people to use their service.

Uber offers two separate referral programs, which worked together perfectly well to help them maximize their revenue.

Every user is allotted their personal referral code after signing up for Uber. The company ensures complete transparency about the list of people users have referred and the status of those referrals on the earning tab of the app.

Their program is pretty straightforward too.

The referee must create an account using the referral code of the referrer. When the former uses the code, both the parties will get their next Uber trip free.

Result:

The double-sided referral program of Uber resulted in a 12x ROI, which is a milestone in itself.

Key Takeaways:

Uber used incentives that resulted in a mutually beneficial relationship between the referrer and referee. This made it more likely for both parties to act since they liked the offered benefit.

This is a clear example of making a referral program that benefits both the involved parties could be useful in bringing in more business.

Dropbox

You’ll find Dropbox’s name on most articles discussing good referral programs, and this is no exception.

Dropbox’s referral program was created to benefit their current customers, allowing them to earn more space in their Dropbox account by inviting friends to join the cloud-sharing service. This is enticing because otherwise, the subscribers would have had to pay for additional storage. So if they want to avoid this cost, they simply have to get their friends on the platform.

Customers on the Dropbox Basic plan could earn 500MB per referral, with the potential of going up to 16GB for the referrer. Plus and Professional plan subscribers would be rewarded 1GB per referral with a cap of 32GB.

All the subscribers needed to get these benefits is a personal referral code – and friends and family that will use it.

Result:

Dropbox’s referral program helped them grow their customer base from 100,000 to 4,000,000 users in just 15 months.

Guys, that’s about 30% growth for every consecutive month!

Key Takeaways:

Dropbox offered a freemium model to its customers. And the fact that customers wanted to sustain their Premium plan worked wonders in helping the company achieve its primary goals.

Koodo Mobile

Koodo Mobile has one of the most successful referral programs, which makes sense considering the wireless provider has been awarded the highest customer satisfaction rate by JD Power and Associates thrice in a row.

The company quickly realized that acquiring new customers through traditional means was proving to be an expensive affair for them. In their bid to bring in new customers at a lower cost, they came up with a referral program that appealed to current customers and prospects alike.

The referral program awarded the referrer $25 off on their tab, while the referee was rewarded with $25 off on their first bill.

Result:

As one would expect, Koodo Mobile successfully reduced its customer acquisition cost by 167% and scored more than 10x ROI in 2019.

Key Takeaways:

Koodo Mobile successfully tempted their customers to enroll for a single sign-on and worked on their program design, giving it a fun and bright branding to make them more appealing and friendly to their clientele.

In fact, the company made referrals an integral part of their marketing strategy and ended up launching campaigns across Canada to make it available in different languages to maximize engagement and accessibility.

Airbnb

If you know anything about referral marketing, you may have already heard about Airbnb‘s referral marketing campaign.

If not, you’re looking in the wrong places.

To think that Airbnb started when the founders rented out an air mattress in their living room makes their glorious growth even more impressive, which is also how we’ll describe their referral program.

The company offers a two-way incentive program to users. According to the rules, the referral will become eligible to get US$18 per qualifying stay, along with US$10 per qualifying experience. The referee can earn up to US$46 account credit as well.

Result:

Airbnb is a referral program that helps increase their bookings by over 25%, and after they changed their program a bit, the referral has increased by more than 300%!

Key Takeaways:

One of the things that Airbnb did right was ensuring that their customers were having a good experience when staying in their property. The other thing that they did right was correctly leveraging their users’ desire to help.

Airbnb used A/B testing to understand how they could position the reward from their referral program as a gift to a friend, which, in turn, helped them get better results as opposed to positioning the reward as a prize for the user themselves.

Evernote

Evernote is an underdog company that took the world by storm. They’re primarily a note-taking app that, since their launch in 2008, has managed to acquire more than 100 million users globally and record a US$1 billion valuation – all of this with a US$0 budget for user acquisition.

What worked for the company was its excellent product that their customers loved.

Evernote users were more than happy to do word-of-mouth publicity on behalf of the company because of their satisfactory experience, and of course, a great referral program, which eventually took the company to the heights of success with zero additional expense.

Users earned 10 points for their first three referrals, making them eligible for three months of Premium or 3GB of additional monthly upload. Also, whenever a referred friend ended up purchasing the Premium plan, the referrer would earn additional 5 points.

The referee would win a free month of Premium if they used a referral code.

Results:

Currently, Evernote has 220 million users, but 13% of their first 100 million were referrals by other users.

Key Takeaways:

Evernote had many things going for it: a great product, an amazing freemium model, and a simple, easy-to-use interface. Their referral program is also very straightforward, which encouraged customers to keep making referrals if they wanted to sustain their free trial of Premium.

Cut Your Costs Through Referral Marketing

Referral marketing and word-of-mouth publicity is a traditional marketing tactic that has been tried and tested over time (and again!) and always proved helpful for businesses.

You might have already worked out strategies to reduce customer churn and get more repeat business. But having a good referral plan in place could also be very useful to help you scale your business, acquire more customers, and earn more revenue.

If you’re just starting out with your referral marketing campaign, make sure you incorporate all the key takeaways from our above-listed programs. After all, there’s a reason why they’re so successful.

The post Best Referral Program Examples to Double Your Customer Base appeared first on ColibriWP Blog.

That’s where video marketing comes in handy. According to the stats, including a well-thought video on your landing page can increase conversion rates by more than 80%.  What’s more, 76% of marketers claimed that video helped them increase sales effectively.conver

Now the question is, how video marketing helps marketers improve their WordPress conversion rates? In other words, what makes it so effective?

Why Do Your WordPress Conversion Rates Matter?

Before we get into the nitty-gritty, it’s crucial to understand why your WordPress conversion rates matter in the first place. 

When it comes to digital marketing strategy, conversion rates play the most important role. At the end of the day, we all want long-term customers. All our marketing efforts: content, emails, paid ads, and so on, are meant to acquire and convert visitors. 

Put it simply; the conversion rate is the metric used to determine your business profitability. It gives you a solid grasp of the total number of unique visitors who’ve become subscribers, users, or customers. With this metric, it’d be much easier for you to understand how well your overall marketing is performing.

How Videos Boost Your Conversion Rates?

The great thing about online video is that most internet users vastly prefer watching over reading. At least 72% of potential customers rely on videos like explainer videos and product demos to learn more about products instead of reading bulky-text on user manuals.

So, it should come as no surprise that this type of content can attract more visitors and turn them into customers, which leads to increased conversion rates. Let’s see how a well-crafted video can do it: 

#1. Catch Audience Attention Faster

In a world where your visitors or potential customers are constantly bombarded by tons of impersonal content, seeing moving images with audios can be somewhat meaningful. That’s why online video can be more compelling than any other content, such as plain-text blog posts. Moreover, videos can also boost your website visibility. A study from Forrester Research shows that a website with video is 53 times more likely to appear on Google page. It makes it easier for your target customers to find you.

By creating good video ads, you are increasing your chances of getting noticed on social media, one of the most powerful marketing tools. A video ad might get easier in front of your audience than an image ad. Make sure to make it enticing, and catchy from the very beginning.

#2. Increase Audience Retention

Audience retention is now more important than ever. Since people’s attention spans are getting shorter and shorter, it’s crucial to provide them with easy-to-digest content, making them easier to retain the information. 

With the combination of engaging visual and intriguing narration, videos do a great job of breaking down complex topics into digestible, smaller chunks. So, it should come as no surprise that viewers can digest at least 95% of the message if they absorb it through videos.

Increasing audience retention means that you offer visitors to understand more about your brand easily. This translates into gradually warming them up to buying via a conversion funnel.

#3. Make Audiences Stay Longer on a Page

A well-crafted marketing video will not only help you to grab visitors’ attention but also hold it. This way, you can convince them to stay longer on your website, allowing them to get even more closer to your brand.

Of those with videos on-site, 80% of marketers say video has increased dwell time. What’s more, a visitor who watches a video on a website tends to stay six times longer than standard sessions. 

The longer your visitors stay on your website, the more engaged they’ll be, and the higher the chance for them to convert.

#4. Boost Audience Trust

Customers only make a purchase from a brand that they trust. When you gain customers’ trust, you will not only improve your conversion rate, but you will also be the number one brand for them.

Thus, video marketing allows you to educate and inform your audience about your brand in such a compelling, enjoyable way. All of these qualities can then help build trust.

Some marketing videos, like testimonial videos, Q&A videos, and behind-the-scenes videos, can be an ideal tool for you to make your potential customers trust your brand. 

Now, it’s obvious why more than  64% of consumers are most likely to make a purchase after watching an online video about brands.

#5. Incredibly Shareable

It only takes a few clicks for a video to spread like wildfire. Other than your website or landing pages, you can share the videos with your social networks and other digital channels. This, in turn, will higher your chances of reaching a broader audience.

And do you know what happens when you appeal to more audiences? The more possibilities you have to turn them into your customers!

Videos are shared 1200% more times than links and text combined on social media. From this massive number, you can bet a social video share can increase your conversions over time.

Video Marketing Tips

Of course, not all videos can increase your conversion rates, only those engaging ones. The poorly-performing videos can be more hindering to your business than profiting.

We have some quick tips for you:

• Keep It Short and Fruitful. The ideal length for marketing videos is 2 minutes. Long videos can only make your visitors bored. So, you need to be straightforward and to the point from the get-go.
• Make It Accessible for Mobile Users. Since more than 72% of internet users will access the web via their hand-held devices by 2025, you need to make sure that the videos that you place on your website can be played through mobile devices.
• Include Clear CTA. Your visitors can be so confused about what they need to do or where they should go to purchase your brand. That’s why it’s crucial to include a clear, obvious CTA to convince them to perform your desired actions.
• Create an Eye-Catching Thumbnail. A catchy thumbnail can tempt a visitor to click on the video and stay on your website longer, making it that much more likely that they will convert.

Takeaways

Almost every business with a WordPress website—no matter how small or big the company is. And as a marketer or business owner, your goal is to convert those visitors into lifelong customers. In this situation, video marketing made conversion easy.

Videos are in high demand among today’s distracted audience. It provides an easy-to-digest, short content that they can consume while sipping their morning coffee. Therefore, it’s not that surprising if videos have quickly become a must-have marketing tool for savvy marketers that are determined to skyrocket their conversion rate. 

If you haven’t added videos to your WordPress website, now is the time to tap into the bandwagon and reap the conversion rate you deserve!

The post How Can Video Marketing Boost Your WordPress Conversion Rates appeared first on ColibriWP Blog.

What is a shopping cart? 

The word shopping cart or cart simply refers to a trolly or basket on wheels in which the customers store the items they select for buying while visiting a marketplace. In the context of a website, it means the feature that records the selected items for purchase by a store visitor until the conversion process takes place. 

What is shopping cart abandonment?

Shopping cart abandonment means a customer keeps adding items to his cart but never completes the conversion process. It is one of the most talked-about issues in the world of eCommerce, whether you use WordPress or not, and one of the most crucial factors that contribute to lost sales.  

Why is it important to reduce shopping cart abandonment rates? 

Shopping cart abandonment is inversely proportional to the conversion rate. Reduced cart abandonment directly leads to increased sales and more profit. It also makes it clear that your website is functioning well. If people are leaving, it clearly indicates that there is some problem which you need to fix. If you don’t take any corrective action right away, it may lead to some more crucial issues. So, fixing the shopping cart abandonment is very important for the sake of your survival in the competitive market.  

TIP: it’s more expensive to attract new customers than converting or retaining the prospects that you already have.

Which are the main reasons behind cart abandonment?

According to a Baymard study, it seems that the main reasons for cart abandonment are:

• the extra costs that show up during the checkout process
• while checking out users are required to create an account
• the checkout process is too long or complicated
• there wasn’t total cost transparency
• delivery was slow

Source: https://baymard.com/lists/cart-abandonment-rate

So, first things first: ask yourself if your checkout process checks some of the top reasons for cart abandonment and try to make fixes.

What to do with abandoned shopping carts? 

Everyone wants to get a lost opportunity back. If you can bring back the customers and convince them to purchase the items they abandoned, what else can be better? It is undoubtedly a challenge worth taking. And the good news is that it is not very difficult. There are tons of easy ways that you can try. 

You need to find out what is stopping the customers from converting and then address the issue. There are many tools available in the market for this purpose. You can use session recordings, heatmaps, polls, or surveys to know about the problems or inconveniences your customers are facing while making a purchase on your site. Once you know the root cause, taking a corrective measure is the matter of a few clicks.  

Suggestions given by industry experts 

Catch the customers before they leave 

The best way to fix the issue of cart abandonment is to stop the customers before they leave. Most of the time people don’t convert because they face some technical problems while completing the transaction process. Many times they don’t understand how to proceed. You can use live chats to address the issues your customers are facing. You can use the best in the class graphic designs for engaging your visitors. If you can guide them through the process, the rate of cart abandonment will start decreasing in a few days. 

You could also use simple WooCommerce plugins like IconicWP, which work with any WordPress theme to add upsells and cross-sells to the WooCommerce cart and increase sales in your store.

Bring back the lost customers with abandoned cart email 

Abandoned cart emails are personalized mails sent to the abandoned customers that carry remainder messages. Craft your message with a touching emotional appeal. Add appealing images along with CTAs. Through email, you can also directly address the issue your customers faced and inform them that the issue is resolved. But, there is a disadvantage of this tool. You can target only the people who have provided their email ids.   

Retarget the abandoned carts through remarketing ads 

Remarketing through targeting ads is one of the most powerful tools for abandoned cart recovery. It lets you deliver personalized ad content to lost customers. Show persuasive images with emotional taglines or messages and add a CTA  to your ad. It works better if you can give a discount or another exciting offer. 

You can place the ads on Youtube, Facebook, or any other social media platform. If your ads are appealing, your customers will feel an urge to come back and buy the abandoned products.

Retargeting is done through display ads. Your ads get matched to the content of your business or to your consumer’s interests. Display ads can appear across a network of more than two million sites & apps, reaching 90% of the people on the internet.

Show push notifications 

Push notifications are device-specific opt-ins. They can be used as a very powerful tool for remarketing to send personalized push notifications to abandoned customers after regular intervals. It gives a really exciting result if you can design your notification effectively. Add eye-catching photographs and give some offers like discounts or gift vouchers to encourage impulsive purchases. 

Use exit intent pop-ups 

An exit intent pop-up is a pop-up that appears when a customer is about to leave. An exit intent pop up with a sense of urgency often gives unexpected results. Design the pop-up nicely, use eye-catching images, and communicate some value through your messages. You can give some offer and say that the offer is valid for only a few days. It may encourage customers to buy.     

Send personalized social media messages 

Personalized social media messages hit the most sensitive touchpoints. The added advantage of using social media messaging systems is it saves money as it is an unpaid tool. A nicely crafted message with touching images of the abandoned items may excite the costumes to go for purchase. The Facebook bot is a popular tool for messaging and remarketing. You can use it to get your lost opportunity back. 

How can HumCommerce help you with cart abandonment? 

HumCommerce is an all-in-one WordPress tool for visitors’ behavior analysis and conversion rate optimization. It analyzes the traffic of your website and prepares a report of the issues that stops the users from converting. The advanced session recording features let you find out exactly where and on which page a visitor left your site and take corrective actions to reduce your shopping cart abandonment rate. 

The specialty of HumCommerce is, it lets you play the visitors’ recording at many different speeds as per your needs. You can monitor individual session recordings thoroughly. The plugin lets you track every single action taken by your visitors on your site. It helps you to identify the most performing pages and locate what is distracting the viewers. This gives you an idea about which element works best for your target audiences. If you can redesign your site as per the preferences of your potential customers, it is highly likely that you will get more visitors, and the conversion rate will increase. 

The plugin allows you to jump to some specific pages directly and skip some pages. You can also pause the paying of the season recording for some time if you need. It saves you time and gives you a chance to study some selected sessions as per your requirements. There are features to fix the broken links and change the user interface to fix the issue of cart abandonment. 

A step-by-step guide to using HumCommerce to analyze cart abandonment

• Install and activate the free WooCommerce plugin, you can download it from the official website of the plugin.
•  Accept the terms and conditions
• Now hit  the “Click to complete set up” button 
• The process of visitors recording will start automatically 
• After 24 – 48 hours, you will receive a notification mail from the HumCommerce team saying the data is ready for view 
• Access the data directly from your WordPress dashboard 
• Get 20 session recordings with issues daily
• You will receive email alerts every day about the previous day’s recording 
• The alert is sent to your registered email id, you can change it anytime if you need 
• HumCommerce stores data for the last 7 days in your database. You can access them any time 
• Until you deactivate the plugin, the process will keep continuing 
• Fix the issues that are highlighted by the plugin and see the rate of cart abandonment decreasing in a few days 

Get HumCommerce Now

Conclusion 

You can not fix the issue of cart abandonment for your WordPress online store completely. This is a harsh reality. Some people will leave your site for various reasons. You can not satisfy every single customer as everyone’s choice is different. You can just reduce the rate using tools like HumCommerce.

If you found the article useful, please share it on Twitter and Facebook. Leave your comments in the comments section below. We really look forward to your feedback. If you need any further information, please feel free to reach out to us. We will get back to you as soon as possible. 

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