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MenuWhat are the most successful lead magnets in e-commerce these days?
What do most successful e-commerce stores do to attract leads these days? Looking for more innovative methods beyond the simple pop-up "sign up for our newsletters to get a discount"
Answers
For my money, nothing beats good content marketing. it drives your SEO (if optimized and framed correctly), establishes your level of expertise and gives your site visitors many layers with which to interact with as well as helps ultimately with conversion (abandonment follow-ups, drip campaigns etc.) ultimately your conversion is only as good as your traffic is qualified, so content marketing helps on both sides of the funnel in terms of getting more/better leads and converting those leads once they hit your pages.
If you are ready to tap into the hidden potential of your website, read on to find out the different types of lead magnets and how to incorporate them into your strategies.
#1. Coupons
Coupons allow customers to access discounts on items. The great thing about coupons is that since visitors can see the value on them, they can immediately calculate how much they stand to gain. This is an immediate perceived value.
If for instance you are selling blenders for $100 each and you are offering 30% 0ff, visitors will make a mental calculation of the actual value they will gain in exchange for their contact information. What’s more, they might even spend the discounted amount on another item on your website. A cent saved, is a cent to be spent elsewhere.
It’s rare for consumers to ignore a coupon. People will often convince themselves to take discounts wherever they can find them, and that’s what makes them such good lead magnets.
2. Offer free shipping
Another way of offering discounts to customers. Like coupons, free shipping can create a pool of loyal customers for your store, as shipping costs is one expense that online shoppers would rather not incur. It serves no value and is often a stumbling block and a major factor to cart exits.
Remember to get your calculations right though, otherwise you’ll find yourself spending $6 to ship products that cost $2. Minimum order is a tactic used often and customers expect this kind of thing, so it’s not an unwelcome surprise.
gaiam-free-shipping-lead-magent-web-bar
Gaiam: Prominent banner on home page promoting a time bound free shipping for new subscribers on any purchase above a $75 threshold.
Forever21 : Free shipping offer with no minimum purchase to generate email subscribers.
Forever21: Free shipping offer with no minimum purchase to generate email subscribers.
Moo.com showing free shipping offer in a lightbox popup if you sign up for their email newsletter.
Moo.com: Promoting free shipping offer in a lightbox popup if you sign up for their email newsletter.
#3. Offer a product buying guide
Product buying guides help shoppers to narrow down the product choices available online. This is what makes them such perfect lead magnets because shoppers are attracted to material that helps to simplify things.
A product buying guide provide tips for finding that one product that will fit a customer’s budget and satisfy his or her needs. If for instance, you want to make it easier for a customer to find a computer that’s best suited for them, you could offer tips through a guide titled, “Tips for buying the right device for your needs”.
4. Offer daily deals
The beauty about an online shop is that you can give deals every day and on any product you want.
Sales deals are a commonly used tool, especially by large online stores, so the key to turning your sales deals into lead magnets is to make them enticing. This way, visitors will want to give you their contact information so that they can receive updates of your amazing daily deals.
The gist is getting them inside; there is something for everyone and the odds are on any one of these days, their interest will be piqued by something relevant to their wants & needs.
ebay_daily-deals-lead-magnet-side-bar
eBay: Daily deals lead magnet to increase email newsletter subscribers
amazon-daily-deals-lead-magnet-sidebar
Amazon: Daily deal promotion box to boost email subscribers.
#5. Give free samples
Who doesn’t like free stuff? Free samples are very effective lead magnets. Usually, visitors are unsure about buying a product if they can’t first sample it. Offer a free sample of your product where and when you can. This is particularly effective for a brand new product where you need to generate excitement and awareness.
For instance, if you are selling a deodorant that’s new in the market, customers will be hesitant to buy it without first trying it out. But if you provide test samples for free, more customers to will be interested in what you have to offer.
A benefit of this lead magnet is that you can get a lead’s physical address (to post the item) and usually a phone number in case of any delivery problems; the crux here is that it gives you another touch point for marketing.
enfamil-free-sample-lead-magnet-side-bar
Enfamil: Free sample and discount offer to increase email subscribers.
birch-box-free-sample-lead-magnet-popup
Birchbox: Incentivising paid subscription by promoting free product samples.
#6. Giveaway promotions
Giveaway promotions will prompt visitors to give you their contact information for the chance of them winning something of value. A giveaway promotion would read something like, “sign up for the chance of winning a laptop”.
Though visitors don’t know for sure that they’ll win, they will sign up as long as they know there is even a little chance they could get a giveaway. Ensure you make it easy to enter and watch the entrants flood in.
For your giveaways to work, you have to make them regular and make sure that the winners publicize the fact that they got the prize. Social proof of real life winners will generate repeat entrees.
The more regular your giveaways, the more encouraged your customers will be to stay tuned to your updates.
#7. Run contests
Contests differ from giveaways in a variety of ways:
Giveaways don’t require a visitor to purchase but contests do.
Contest participants win by taking part in challenges.
Some contents require a subscription fee.
The prizes that are up for grabs in contests are usually given after a draw.
You might wonder what would entice people to sign up, pay a subscription fee or buy a product in order to participate in a contest. The reason they’ll do all these things is because usually, the winnings are so big as compared to what they’ll have to spend.
bath-and-body-works-contest-lead-magnet
Bath & Body Works: Contest lead magnet to boost email subscriptions.
Bottom line
Having the contact information of potential customers is a powerful tool through which you can constantly market your products and make potential customers to eventually buy. Include the above lead magnets into your e-commerce site and you will get higher conversion rates. Even a .5% increase can result in massive revenues for high turnover businesses.
For further queries you can consult me.
Some of the best lead magnets that have worked well for me have been:
1. A resources list - for example, a list of useful tools and software in the ecommerce industry.
2. A free ebook on various subjects in ecommerce.
3. A checklist of things to do to start a business.
4. A curated list of various blog posts that a super useful for someone looking to learn about ecommerce.
5. A list of good product niche ideas refreshed every quarter.
As you can see the lists are endless. If you want to learn more about these strategies, feel free to visit my blog at Pezlogic.com.
I am also available for calls to discuss various strategies on ecommerce. Feel free to reach out to me through Clarity.fm.
Related Questions
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How can I make a small, profitable business on Wordpress?
It sounds like you have plenty of skills to get started now. There's no need to keep re-training in different areas when you have experience to get started today. My suggestion would be to pick a niche and try and become the go-to guy in that particular niche. Let's say, for example, you are interested in men's fashion. You have experience in creating Wordpress ecommerce sites. You could call up maybe 10-15 of the local businesses in that niche in your local city/state and offer to make their website and get them in on a set-up fee and then a monthly maintenance retainer. This approach would be lower stress (because it's something you're interested in) and also because you could create a methodical framework that you could apply to other businesses in that niche. That's just one idea. Second idea - create a course on WooCommerce development and put it on Udemy (or Coursera etc). Note down 10 of the biggest obstacles you've had to overcome when building sites for friends and family and then note down 10 of the most important considerations people should consider before people get started. Now you've got 20 video lessons for your course. Charge for the course on Udemy or use it as a marketing tool to get more b2b development work. Idea 3: Go make money on freelancer.com, peopleperhour etc. Perhaps you've tried this already? Skills like yours are in demand on those platforms. Idea 4: Take the things I noted in the second idea above, and turn it into a handbook. Sell that book via Amazon. Idea 5: Go on Tweetdeck. Create a column that searches for people who are using keywords like "Wordpress woocommerce issue" "Wordpress woocommerce help" "WordPress woocommerce problem". Give them your clairty.fm link and tell them you'd be happy to have 5 minute discussion to see if you could help them resolve their problem. Idea 6: Find 10 major theme development companies. Sign up to their help or support forums. Do a similar thing to what's noted above on Twitter and offer to have a quick call via clarity.fm to see if you could help. Idea 7: Go down the route of finding existing Wordpress/Woocommerce blogs. Write posts for them about specific WooCommerce issues, problem solving or project management tips. Do this with the aim of improving your inbound consulting gigs. Idea 8: Do the exact opposite of whatever those friends are telling you. Idea 9: With your skills you could easily start a dropshipping company. I won't go into all the details here but just start looking at sites like Clickbank or Product Hunt to get a feel for something you're interested in. Build your site and start dropshipping products. https://www.woothemes.com/2015/06/dropshipping-beginners-guide/ Wordpress consulting alone, yeah it's probably quite competitive, but that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of opportunities for revenue. I think you will be even more motivated, successful and less stressed if you pick a niche industry, product or service to focus on. Enjoy it!SC
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I want to start an ecommerce business that imports goods from India to sell in the U.S.. Where in the world do I start re: tax/legal implications.
TAX is US. For export paperwork (free tax delivery) is India. Use business location may in delaware for lower state taxML
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What's the best platform to build a e-bookstore?
I think a natural choice is large provides like Amazon. However, if you want to sell eBooks on your own and maintain all of the revenue, then WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads would make excellent options. Both software packages are WordPress plugins and they make it very easy to deploy an e-commerce store for digital goods. Both plugins have strong development teams behind them and they have a slew of independent freelancers who can offer assistance if needed. I've used WooCommerce myself for multiple years and we've deployed many WordPress websites that use it. It has hundreds of extensions you can add on to it for maximizing the potential.RG
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There is quite a bit of information available online about eCommerce conversions rates. According to a ton of sources, average visitor-to-sale conversion rates vary from 1-3%. This does not mean the Furniture conversions will be the same. The bigger problem is that visitor-to-sale conversions are not a good data point to use to measure or tune your eCommerce business. All business have some unique friction factors that will affect your final conversion rate. It's very important to understand each of these factors and how to overcome them. The best way to measure and optimize is to take a conversion funnel approach. Once you have defined your funnel you can optimize each conversion rate to better the total effect. For example: Top of the funnel: - All web site visitors, 100,000 / month First conversion: View a product page, 50% of all visitors Second Conversion: Add to Cart, 10% of people who view products Final Conversion: Complete Checkout, 80% of people who put items in a cart In this example we see that only 10% of people who actually view products put them in to a cart, but 80% of those people purchase. If you can figure out why visitors are not adding items to their cart and fix the issue to increase the conversion rate, revenue should increase significantly because of the high checkout rate. You can use free tools like Google Analytics to give you a wealth of information about your site visitor and their behavior or there are some great paid tools as well.DM
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How to turn a niche seasonal business into a all year round business?
Thanks for reaching out. Do you want to meet in person? I am in San Francisco/San Mateo location. Best, SeanSP
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