Most of the visitors who land on your website are not ready to buy, but they are interested in the products you offer. Customer cultivation activities Designed to be attached to this interest and help it grow into a desire to become a customer and partner. This kind of help, like the sunshine on fresh seedlings, has become more important than ever, because the growth of competitive products and social media entertainment can pull customers away at any time.
In 2021, high-quality potential customer development activities may be exactly what you need to overcome difficulties Increasing sales barriers.
What is a nurturing movement?
Nurturing activities It’s your customer-facing effort to provide potential customers with the information they need to make progress throughout the process Buyer journey. Your goal is to provide relevant information, usually before they request it, to help potential customers resolve their questions or concerns. Usually, it addresses the common pain points of your audience and introduces them to a wide range of solutions and your specific situation.
In some cases, you may show expertise or awareness of what the customer is going through at the time. Cultivation activities are very proactive and look for multiple ways to attract customers. Some of the more common options include:
The goal of e-commerce cultivation is “hypothesis”
In e-commerce, nurturing becomes even more important because You are now a window shopping experience. Visitors will not necessarily come to your store to buy, even if they add something to the shopping cart.They may be doing research to observe your Hidden fees and shipping costs, Or just pass the time to think about “what if”.
It is becoming more and more difficult to determine intent through traffic data alone. The nurturing activity hopes to solve their problems by giving these more passive audiences the opportunity to indulge in short “hypotheses” and possibly lock them in the desire to buy. The faint interest of daydreaming allows you to exchange email addresses or app notifications with newsletters or coupons.
Then, as you work hard to educate, inform, and solve problems, customers will be there to receive news about future events. Nurturing, rather than pure sales information, gives you time to share your daydreams. By targeting the “what if” feeling, you show your customers’ knowledge and make it easier for them to achieve this short-lived goal. This may be a sense of connection when you are far away, reducing problems in days of increased stress, or having the opportunity to experience new things.
The CNBC report linked above states that people add items to their shopping carts for various reasons. These are the targets that your nurturing activities can target.Thankfully, it also states Conversion rate Is rising.
Increased importance in 2021
After the initial devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic, most industries today look very different. Some departments have seen a new customer base, while others are struggling to maintain the baseline sales they need. And, in 2021, sales economics looks set to continue to drive uncertainty and risk. Customer development activities are becoming the best way to help companies respond to one of the most important expected changes: Increase customer acquisition costs across all channels.
Shopify has noticed some important trends that make advertising and media acquisition more difficult:
- Browsers are seeking to get rid of Third party cookies, There are more blocking available.
- One Apple iOS update It will make it more difficult to use targeted in-app advertising that relies on Facebook data.
- Customers are turning to some uncertain technologies, such as Voice business.
- Digital advertising is getting more and more expensive, and some are priced higher than pre-pandemic levels.
Customer development is critical in 2021 because it can help you renew your relationship and generate stable income. Dealing with it first can help you build a buffer so you can try new channels and techniques. Apply your nurturing activities to new customers in the buyer’s journey and customers who are still highly involved after placing an order.
3 best practices for 2021
1. Start with the welcome message
Nurturing activities need to be your Relationship with customers. Building this relationship means they need to understand who you are. The welcome message allows you to greet people, provide relevant information that makes you unique (you can personalize it by segmentation), and provide people with more ways to interact. Someone might want to follow you on social media so you can embed relevant content and spark interest with just one click.
You are fighting against some of the passivity and indifference of today’s consumers. Give them a reason to pay attention to who they are, their beliefs, or their interests.
2. Target everything you send
Segmentation should be a sign of your nurturing activities. It allows you to easily split groups based on their preferences and characteristics.Most companies will start Audience segment Based on the products they view, and the location, gender, age, and other elements you can determine.
The way to improve this in 2021 is to begin to incorporate an understanding of behavior patterns. Is there a customer base that only pays attention to the products on sale? Did some groups browse most of your products but only one market segment? Do your potential Instagram customers only focus on new and popular things?
Analyze the data for these patterns. Adjust marketing content for these specific groups and assign triggers based on behavior. For some behavior-based automation, you may need updated automation tools. However, finding these triggers can help you directly address new shopping habits.
If you click on an ad, the product is gone, but there are other things that caught your attention, what should you do? You spent 10 minutes on the page, added it to your shopping cart, and left. Soon after, you will receive an email with a quotation for the product, telling you to splurge or explain why it is more enjoyable than the first product. Isn’t it a compelling reason to take another look?
3. Leverage the customer support team
Today’s customer support team operates in most channels where your business operates, even beyond direct sales channels. They are on your social accounts, attached to your website, replying to emails, answering phone calls, etc. Every place you are is where your customer support team needs to take action.
This connection provides you with a wealth of customer data for you to mine, not just pure sales and interest data. Customer support has the opportunity to spot trends, gather more feedback, and understand customer concerns and interests. Cultivation activities should understand this information and update it regularly as the focus changes.
Allow direct input from customers to drive your sales information. Find out the “hypothesis” expressed by the customer. Cultivate this, and even if e-commerce keeps changing, you will be on the path to push people to get more sales through the customer journey.
About the Author
Jake Rheude is the marketing director Red Deer fulfilled, An e-commerce fulfillment warehouse born in e-commerce. He has many years of experience in e-commerce and business development. In his free time, Jake likes to read books about business and share his experience with others.