How to Increase Online User Engagement in ecommerce
How to Increase Online User Engagement in ecommerce
Achieving high levers of user engagement for your eCommerce store isn’t always easy. We’re living in a world where new online stores are emerging on a constant basis, driven by the easy accessibility of site building tools, and low-cost business models like dropshipping.
With so many options available to them, customers are constantly distracted, looking for the best value, and the ultimate customer experience. For business leaders, this means the only way to stay ahead of the curve is to implement the right user engagement strategy.
According to PWC, 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great user experience, so investing in engagement is also investing in your bottom line.
The question is, where do you get started?
Designing Your own User Engagement Strategy
In today’s competitive business world, it’s not enough to simply have a great product or serviced on offer. You also need to be constantly investing in new ways to boost online user engagement. If you can strengthen the relationship you have with your customers, you can:
- Save money on customer acquisition, by turning existing employees into advocates.
- Increase your conversion rates and the average order value of your customer.
- Reduce cost per acquisition for new customers.
Here are some great ways to boost your average engagement rate.
Step 1: Provide More Personalized Experiences
71% of customers say they feel frustrated when a shopping experience is impersonal. Every customer who arrives on your ecommerce websites wants to feel like you understand them and their unique needs. Creating a personalized experience for your customer is how you increase your chances of conversion and keep customers coming back for more.
The easiest way to personalize customer experiences today, is to leverage the right technology. Solutions like the Dialogue app can personalize the customer experience by generating content specific to your customer’s interest throughout their ecommerce journey.
You can place personalized content at every touchpoint with your customer, from the homepage (in a personalized dynamic banner) to the checkout page (with unique recommended products). Personalization shows your customer you understand them and makes your content more appealing.
Step 2: Leverage Live Chat
Delivering an engaging and valuable experience for your target audience means making sure you’re on-hand to offer support and provide guidance throughout the ecommerce journey. While you can use apps to dynamically suggest products to your customers to improve user engagement, you can also strengthen relationships even further through live chat.
Around 79% of customers say they prefer live chat to other forms of company communication because it provides them with immediate support when they need it most. Live chat can also be an excellent addition to your engagement rate formula because it allows you to engage users proactively, asking if they have any questions about a product, or need support during a purchase.
With analytics, you can even use your live chat technology to learn more about your customers and their preferences. AI solutions can help scan your conversations for trends in customer queries. If you don’t have the personnel on hand to manage live chat, you can always consider experimenting with chatbots instead. These automated solutions can still offer instant access to information for customers who need help moving to the checkout.
Step 3: Strengthen your Social Media Strategy
While ecommerce is an extremely convenient tool for today’s consumers, it does have some limitations. For instance, you’re not going to have the impact of a customer happening across your store on a walk and engaging in some window shopping.
However, with the right social media presence, you can still interact with your customers during their day-to-day life and keep your brand top-of-mind. Social media channels like Instagram and Facebook give you another way to connect with your customers wherever you are.
The right social strategy also has another benefit for your user engagement plan – it helps you to interact with your audience. Through things like social media competitions, influencer campaigns and question-and-answer sessions, you can speak to your audience and learn more about them.
Contests which ask customers to share images of them using your products also give you an excellent source of authentic user generated content to leverage in later engagement campaigns.
Step 4: Try a Loyalty Program
According to statistics, there were around 16.7 million US customers involved in loyalty programs at the beginning of 2021. Loyalty programs are one of the best ways to increase online user engagement, by giving your audience a reason to keep coming back and interacting with your brand.
With a loyalty program, you can reward your customers every time they share something on social media, make a purchase, or refer someone to your company. The right rewards act as an incentive to keep the engagement between your company and consumers going strong.
The key to success with a loyalty program, is choosing a reward scheme that makes sense for your customers. For instance, you might offer points every time your customer completes an action (like making a purchase) or give people a discount every time they spend a certain amount in your store.
A little experimentation should give you an insight into what kind of strategy will work best.
Step 5: Experiment with New Ideas
Finally, as the ecommerce marketplace grows increasingly competitive, companies are looking for new and improved ways to connect with their audience through the latest disruptive technology. Everything from dynamic advertisements and email campaigns custom-made to suit your audience, to AI-enhanced advertising campaigns are on the rise.
We’re even seeing an increase in the number of companies experimenting with extended reality to boost user engagement. According to recent surveys, around 40% of shoppers would be more likely to shop with brands if they allowed them to test products through AR first.
In the age of digital transformation, it’s definitely worth looking into new technology solutions as and when they arise.
Increase your User Engagement
Customer engagement, or user engagement is the term used to refer to the relationship your customer builds to your brand. There are various customer engagement metrics you can measure for your ecommerce store, including link clicks, pages views per session, and conversions.
Make sure you stay ahead of the competition with the right user engagement strategy.
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