If you haven’t started thinking about the holidays yet, it’s time. While your loyal customers and current database are a great resource to tap into for holiday sales, it never hurts to add to that list. So let’s talk about how to get more customers now, so you can be prepared to have a stellar holiday season.

Tips for How to Get More Customers

Start connecting

Before anyone can buy from your brand, they have to engage with it first. Connecting with your audience also helps build brand loyalty and affinity. It’s time to look across the entire customer journey and find new opportunities for engaging with buyers.

Do some research on your customers and your target audience to find out where they are spending their time. What social media platforms are they on, what marketplaces do they shop on, what competitors are they engaging with?

Running ads on social media is a great place to start with getting in front of new shoppers. 78% of American consumers say they have discovered new products on Facebook. Your audience is out there and looking. They won’t mind one bit when your ad pops up with exactly the product they need. If you aren’t sure where to get started with social ads, ask us for help.

Another way to engage? Try a pop-up on your homepage. Offer shoppers a discount if they sign up for your email list, and watch those new email addresses roll in. I know what you may be thinking, “pop-ups are annoying.” However, they are effective. And so many eCommerce sites use this tactic these days, consumers are used to it.

Help them find your store

It’s too much to hope that new customers will just stumble across your website. Aside from running ads to reach people, you also need to employ some SEO.

SEO, or search engine optimization, is how you get more customers to find you on Google and other search engines. It helps bring your website up in the ranks, so your store and your products reach consumers sooner when they are searching for something you’ve got. Stats show that unless you’re showing up on the first page (or largely the first three results), you won’t receive as much click love. 

SEO covers a wide range of tactics, but some of the basics are targeting the right keywords in your website content, making sure your site speed, security and mobile-friendliness are tip-top, and creating a clean and logical website page structure.

Maximize the mobile experience

Mobile eCommerce continues to grow. Whether or not most of your sales come from desktop traffic, consumers will be searching and finding you on their mobile devices. Most importantly, if you aren’t optimized for mobile, your competitors will be, and that means lost sales. Not to mention, customers expect a seamless experience across all devices.

Not sure if your website is mobile-friendly? Google has a handy (and free) tool that can tell you. The good news is, if you are using an eCommerce platform like BigCommerce or Shopify, mobile-friendliness is natively built-in already.

Upgrade your pics

Just like Bumble, photos are basically everything. You have got to have absolutely killer product photography, otherwise all your other efforts are wasted. Physical stores already have the advantage over online stores of consumers being able to actually see and feel the products in person. Great photography is the number one important thing to bridging that gap. 

But you don’t have to go spending all your money on it. A quality cell phone camera, tripod, sweep and good lighting can work wonders. 

Share your brand story

Yep, I said it. Brand story is one of those buzzy terms right now, but it’s true. Consumers care what your brand is all about. It’s how you get more customers to connect with you, beyond just your awesome products. Share the story of why you got started, or talk about your internal give back initiatives. 

Let people in on your purpose and mission. Hopefully this isn’t news to you, but, you don’t just sell products. You solve problems. Someone out there has a need that your products fill. So tell them about it.

Build now to be busy later

Now’s the time to be building up those email lists and getting on new shopper’s radars before the holiday shopping frenzy begins. You don’t have to try and tackle all of these strategies at once, but hopefully now you have an idea of how to get more customers. So get started making some improvements and bringing in new shoppers