The challenges in promoting an eCommerce business successfully are numerous. Here’s a 10-point eCommerce promotion plan that will lead you through the smart and effective ways and best practices to boost your sales and marketing outcomes.

1. Combo packages and bundle offers
2. Giveaway contests and incentives
3. Cross-selling and up-selling strategies
4. Referral schemes and loyalty programs
5. Microtargeting your customers
6. Timed offers and discounts
7. Hyper engagement across channels
8. Shopping cart engagement
9. Live chat engagement
10. Customer reviews and testimonials

Here’s a free all-in-one eCommerce audit for your website. This covers eCommerce SEO analysis, UX and design review, marketing strategy consultation, and eCommerce content audit.

#1 – Combo packages and bundle offers

Bundling similar products together and offering them as an attractive package is one of the effective ways to boost eCommerce sales. Bundle offers help increase the average order size easily and act as an important promotional tactic for retailers. 

How does a bundle offer work?

→ Handpick a small cluster of closely associated products.

→ Assort and package those products as a bundle at a collective price. 

→ Ensure that the overall price is cheaper than the sum of individual prices.

Here are some insights for you to keep in mind:

• Include at least one of the high-margin products in the bundle to ensure profits.
• Give additional values and benefits in combo bundles compared to standalone purchases. 
• You may also choose to position one of the products in the bundle as complementary.

Here are some examples of bundle offers:

#2 Giveaway contests and incentives

Giving special offers and discounts is an attractive way to sell your products more. It gives an instant cost advantage to the buyers. There are a number of ways you can promote your products, offers, and discounts. Giveaway contests have emerged as the most interactive form of promoting a product. 

These contests allow you to attract your target audiences and grab their attention with curious and engaging elements. Contests are one of the most compelling forms of marketing that your audiences can’t ignore. They also provide you with a chance to show off your products to a wider audience base.

How do these contests work?

→ Choose the theme and objective of your contest.

→ Devise simple and easy-to-follow rules.

→ Ensure that they are interesting and fun at the same time.

→ Announce free giveaways for the winners.

You can also choose to select the winners based on the number of engagements or entries they contribute. 

#3 Cross-selling and up-selling strategies

Cross-selling is another significant way to increase the average order value and sales volume. You can offer interesting complementary products as add-ons to potential customers who are at the ready-to-purchase stage of their journey. At the first glance, cross-selling might sound similar to bundle offers but they are different. 

Bundle offers packaging two or more products together at a discounted price. Cross-selling is suggesting highly relevant and valuable products at the time of purchase. Bundle offers are all about reduced prices whereas cross-selling is about adding value to the purpose of purchase. 

For example, combining jogging shoes and socks together as a package is a classic example of how bundle offers work. In this scenario, you can suggest a distance-tracking smart band that helps to measure the number of miles run or calories shed. This is cross-selling and it’s done at the time of purchase. They are often recommended as ‘People who bought Product A also bought Product B’.

Up-selling is going one step further and engaging them in the post-purchase phase through channels like email marketing and social media.  

#4 Referral schemes and loyalty programs

This is an all-time eCommerce hack that not only helps to sell more products but also to gain more new customers. “Refer-a-friend and save big on your next order” is a brilliant and proven communication that increases customer retention as well as lifetime customer loyalty.

Here are the benefits of these loyalty programs:

→ They help to create brand awareness 

→ They drive traffic to the online store. 

→ They help you leverage the power of word-of-mouth marketing. 

Here’s what to keep in mind:

• Keep the referral scheme readily noticeable on your eCommerce website.
• Make use of your navigation bars, exit-intent pop-ups, or hello bars to promote your referral schemes. 
• Keep the referral terms and conditions simple so that your shoppers actually sign-up for it.

An example of a referral scheme

#5 Microtargeting your customers

Micro-targeting is all about segmenting your audiences into different behavior-based groups and offering the right promotions to the right individuals. Hyper-targeted customization reflects directly on the customer journey and entices them to take necessary actions. 

Here are some insights on how to leverage microtargeting as a marketing strategy:

• Examine your customer data granularly for appropriate segmentation.
• Try different parameters like  geographical locations, buying habits, etc, 
• Leverage past purchasing behavior data and spending patterns to finetune your customization. 

For example, you can launch special ‘4th of July’ offers for your US customers and recommend best-selling books and new arrivals for voracious readers based on their previous purchases. Seasonal offers work well when combined with geographic data.

#6 Timed offers and discounts

The role of urgency is crucial in marketing psychology. It helps to accelerate a customer’s purchase decision and urges them to buy the product instantly before they leave the store. Here are some best practices that help create urgency: 

• Provide timed coupons and discounts that have an expiry date.
• Run timers on the sale pages that clearly explain when the offer ends.
• Create urgency by specifying how many shoppers have availed of the offer in recent times.
• Another way to create urgency is to list out what the customers are missing out on if they are not availing of the offer.
• Using strikethroughs to indicate before and after prices is also a proven way that entices urgency.

Many brands and eCommerce companies of all sizes use urgency as one of their key sales pitches. Here is an example: 

#7 Hyper engagement across channels

Omnichannel marketing is the order of the day. Drive optimal attention to your sales promotions with email marketing and social media campaigns. These additional engagement activities will get your target audiences interested in your sales incentives and brand messages.

• Discover where your customers are more likely to spend time on social media and devise promotional strategies for those platforms.
• Identify industry influencers and leaders to do the talking for you.
• Leverage user-generated content to create awareness and authenticity for customers who are reluctant to make their first-time purchase. 

#8 Shopping cart engagement

According to recent research, it is studied that the average online cart abandonment rate is almost 70%. This refers to the potential buyers who add the items to the shopping carts but they don’t proceed to complete the purchase.

If you find an effective way to bring down this number, it will significantly improve your sales by a minimum of 15-20%. Wondering how to do that? Here are some tips:

• Automate abandoned cart recovery and trigger alerts about the products in the cart. 
• Adopt smart re-engagement strategies on the shopping cart page.
• Trigger emails and targeted remarketing ads to remind them of their products in the cart.
• Display timed pop-ups when they exit the cart without purchasing.

An example of triggering email offers for products in the abandoned cart:

#9 Live chat engagement

Today’s consumers expect products to be shipped as soon as possible. Likewise, they want their questions to be answered on the go instantly. When there is no handy customer service, they simply exit your site and go to the next. Today’s shoppers are empowered with abundant choices. 

A live chat widget on your eCommerce site helps you to meet your visitors’ desire for immediate response and resolutions. Besides being a direct channel for answering their questions, it also provides a way to engage window shoppers and convert them into your buyers.

#10 Customer reviews and testimonials

Social proof is important for a brand’s success. According to a recent survey, 93% of consumers make purchasing decisions only after reading reviews. 

Here are some insights on how to get as many reviews as possible and increase the credibility of your store. 

• Engage your buyers after purchasing the product through a simple, straightforward email asking for a review.
• Another effective and easy way is to use an interactive email that allows the buyers to review the product without having to go to the website. 
• Offer the reviewers some extra loyalty points for reviewing your product and customer service.
• Encourage reviews on all platforms of customers’ own choice and do not limit them with just your website. 
• Take advantage of surveys and easy rating fillers to help your customers submit reviews quickly.
• Google reviews help increase your SEO outcomes as well as credibility. 

Wrapping up

Guess what is the best ever strategy for your eCommerce promotions? Your satisfied customers are your free brand ambassadors who can do all the promoting for you. Make the best use of the above list of handpicked promotional strategies and formulate the roadmap for your eCommerce success.