The ecommerce space is extremely competitive and crowded--in 2020 alone, ecommerce sales amounted to $4.28 trillion globally. 

Which begs the question: how can you stand out In this highly competitive environment where shoppers have so many different options?

The answer lies in having a customer-centric approach and being strategic about the tactics you use. 

From effective referral marketing to automating your sales cycle, here are some of the most powerful ways to drive growth for your ecommerce store:

1. Referral marketing

Referral marketing is a way to incentivize and encourage your customers to refer your brand to their network of people. You can choose to provide discount coupons, reward points, gift cards, or flat discounts on their next purchase as a reward for referrals. 

It works, too: 92% of consumers say they trust recommendations from friends and family more than other sources like ads. This means higher conversion rates for your store and increased revenue. 

For example, RhinoShield, a phone accessories retailer, was able to generate a conversion rate of 17.3% for their referred traffic with the help of Talkable’s powerful referral program software.
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How it helps growth:

A referral program captures existing high-quality customers and turns them into loyal shoppers for your brand. 

Not only that—referral marketing builds loyalty and increases brand awareness without spending a hefty amount on ads. In fact, referred customers have a low cost of acquisition and a 16 to 25% higher customer lifetime value, which means you’ll have higher profits per referred customer compared to customers who aren’t referred.

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2. Loyalty Marketing

Like referral marketing, loyalty marketing works by incentivizing your existing loyal customers to purchase from you again. By rewarding your customers for their loyalty, you make sure they keep coming back to you, instead of choosing a competitor. 

You can create a loyalty program by letting your customers collect points and redeem them to get specific benefits. For example, with 100 points, they can unlock an extra 10% discount or get a free gift worth $50. 

Beauty brand Blume gives customers the chance to collect BB points as part of their “Blumetopia” loyalty program. 

How it helps growth:

Loyalty programs directly impact your customer retention rate by increasing customer loyalty. According to research by Bain & Company, an increase of 5% in customer retention can increase your profits by more than 25%. More than that, existing customers are 60-70% more likely to purchase from you.

So, loyalty marketing can boost your ecommerce store by increasing brand loyalty and turning shoppers into brand ambassadors.

3. Personalized experiences

Shoppers today crave personalized experiences. According to a study,  44% of consumers are likely to become repeat customers when they receive a personalized shopping experience.

Make sure you use AI and data-driven technologies to provide unique personalized experiences to each individual shopper based on their past actions, purchase history, location, personal interests, and how they interact with your site.

Nomad sends personalized abandoned cart emails to lure shoppers back to the site. 

How it helps growth:

You can offer personalization in many forms like personalized product recommendations, relevant cart abandonment emails, and a personalized store homepage.

All of these will drive sales for your store, creating more loyal and repeat customers for your brand. 

4. Increase AOV with up-sells 

Based on the customer data you have, you can offer relevant up-sells and cross-sells to existing customers. It’ll increase the average order value (AOV) of every customer. 

For example, beauty brand Glossier up-sells to their customers by creating sets and offering a small discount:

How it helps growth:

According to a study by Marketing Metrics, you’re 14 times more likely to sell to an existing customer than to a new one. And the higher the average order spend of a customer, the more revenue you generate.  

5. Post-purchase nurturing

Nurturing customers is important if you want them to continue coming back to your store. Create email sequences for your existing customers, offer them holiday discounts, and product recommendations based on their purchase history. This will keep you front-of-mind and continue the customer relationship long after a buyer has made a purchase. 

Everlane continues to nurture post-purchase customers by sharing it’s latest product lines. 

How it helps growth: 

Customer loyalty is incredibly valuable in the ecommerce space. By creating a nurturing strategy, you’ll turn one-time shoppers into loyal customers. They’re more likely to buy from you again, choose you over competitors, and refer your brand to their friends and family. 

This will not only help your brand in the short-term, but it will also create an active customer base in the long run. You’ll have an email list ready to spread the word about a new product launch or an upcoming sale.

6. Highly-targeted ads

With ad costs going through the roof, it’s a waste of time and money to create ads that target a vague audience. This will only result in a diluted audience and unnecessary ad spend. 

To generate conversions and create new customers, you need to create hyper-personalized ads for a very specific audience base, by considering their interests, purchase behavior, demographics, and life stage. 

How it helps growth: 

Highly-targeted ads allow you to reach new customers and increase your brand awareness. By meeting them on the platforms they’re already hanging out on and speaking in their language, you can increase your conversion rate and decrease your customer acquisition cost.

7. Automate the sales cycle 

As a business owner, you can spend a lot of time trying to perfect the sales process manually. This is where automation comes in—it saves time for you and lets you focus on the more important aspects of your business. 

Build out email marketing sequences for every stage of the sales funnel to create a friction-free buying process. With the help of welcome emails, automated product recommendations, cart abandonment follow-ups, and post-purchase nurture series, you can automate the complete sales cycle. 

How it helps growth:

Having automation on your side means you’ll never miss an important email that can result in a new purchase. The automated email sequences with a customer-centric approach will help you stay front-of-mind of your customers.

Grow your ecommerce store 

After you implement these strategies, don’t forget to track and measure your success. Analytics help you understand what’s working (and what’s not working). Based on the results, you can tweak your strategies to increase profits for your store. Peel’s powerful dashboard gives you insights into growth metrics like customer retention rates, CAC, purchase frequency, and customer lifetime value so you can stay ahead of the game and quickly identify areas of improvement.