Cost-effective Promotional Ideas to Drive more Conversions

You don’t close a sale, you open a relationship if you want to build a long-term, successful enterprise.

The battle over the clientele acquisition is increasing with every passing year. However, it is not just the saturation of the industry, but consumer-centric market that is adding insult to the injury. In the cut-throat competition, every e-retailer must have been in a situation where marketing creativity seems to sap away. In an era, where your prospective customers are empowered with awareness and technology, the conventional tactics of “spray and pray” might not always work.

If you are on the boat where most of your promotional strategies seem to be falling flat, then, at the drop of a hat, I would suggest you to stick to the basics of marketing. According to a report shared by Hubspot, almost 25% of marketers don’t know whether their efforts truly affect the outcome of a conversion. The best way to deal with such uncertainties is to take a step back and continually evaluate the 7 P’s of marketing. These 7 P’s are:

1. Product
2. Price
3. Place
4. Promotion
5. Packaging
6. Positioning
7. People

With close reference these inevitable aspects of marketing, the blog brings forth some of the the promotional ideas that can help you amp-up the sales of your eCommerce site.

Product

1. Instead of price-cut, consider offering product/service upgrade

The discounts and price-cuts might not always intrigue the customers as the options are ample. When every site is ready to offer the products at best-ever and competitive prices, you need to think out-of-the-box. Offering a product upgrade or any additional functionality at the same price can definitely help you find the much-required competitive edge. In case, you offer services, offering a $99 service at $70 can get you some instant conversions.

2. Bundled products/services

Offering packaged or bundled product/service another way to convert the value-oriented customers. Giving more at the same price to the customer can both encourage them to buy and clear your inventory.

3. Upsell and Cross-sell

Highlight the complementary products that the customers are more likely to need after the purchase of a particular item. Keep the customers engaged by showing off the product upgrades and their better versions.

4. Evaluate the product’s life-cycle

Knowing your product well is the very first thing that you need to consider before marketing it. Study the product well and determine when it is more likely to worn out. This is when you can go for a upsell. Contact your customers and offer them easy upgrade as well as product fixes.

Price

5. Bulk Buying

Point-of-Sale Discounts, that is amount-off or percent-off discount sometimes fail to get enough conversions for you. This is when you get into the shoes of your customers and think differently. The key is the convey better value at lower cost. Volume purchases is one form of price promotion that can trigger some purchase intentions. The BOGO, or buy-one-get-one-free, is always a hit amongst the online shoppers.

6. Special Event Pricing

Linking a price discount to a holiday or advertised sale day always makes the customers to flock and avail the temporary benefits. Offering price-cut fir a long time period may reduce the impact eventually. So, if you want to steal your competitors’ thunder, then, keep surprising your prospective customers. These special sales can help clear out old stock as well.

Place

7. Spot the place where your customers’ hangout online

Just creating an over-the-top promotion or marketing campaign is not enough. You need to showcase your offerings to the right audience base. Thus, figuring out where your target customer hangs out online is important. Social media advertisements is a must for the e-retailers. At the same time, finding out is which social media platform is popular among your customers is even more important. So, make sure that you are marketing your promotional ideas on the right platform.

8. Right offer at the right place

The basic mantra of marketing, “Providing the right product to the right person at the place.”, applies here to. Figure out the places from where you can redirect the customers back to your online store. Do not let the customers find the deadlock from where they can leave the site. For instance, offering coupon codes or discounts or related products on the order success page can help you boost customer retention. There are Better thank you page extensions available for platforms like Prestashop, Magento and others for incorporating such features at your site.

9. Place the deals at the right place

Even in your site, there are places where the customer engages more. Do a heatmap test of your site and find out those key areas. Display your promotional deals in the areas of the web pages that are attracting more attention of the store visitors. Discover the visitors’ scan pattern on your site and place the CTAs at the places that witness more user interaction.

Promotion

10. Personalized Promotions

94% of customers and marketing professionals said that personalization is extremely important when it comes to promotions. Not just this, even in email marketing, personalized subject line are 26% more likely to be opened. In addition, as per reports, over 78% of consumers will only engage offers if they have been personalized. The number speaks for themselves and now you what difference personalization can make in your marketing campaign.

11. Create a sense of urgency

With multiple online stores operating at an arm-distance, most of the users visit your site for window shopping. Thus, the chances of procrastination is higher. Creating a sense of urgency and motivate the store visitors to instantly come to a purchase decision. Flash sales with countdown timer showcases aesthetically pleasing call to action with an expiration date. So, if you have a Prestashop-based shopping site and are looking to add the flash sale option in your site, then, Knowband’s Prestashop Flash Sale module can help you out.

12. Gamified ways of giveaways

In the consumer-centric environment, a 10% discount might not intrigue the customers all the time. However, offering a huge discount may not be a feasible option all the time. Why not offer the same discount in an alluring way. Incorporating gamified interfaces that offers the conventional giveaways in a fun way is one of the options to reap result within budget. The spin and win exit popup extension for Prestashop, Magento, Magento 2, OpenCart, WooCommerce for the respective platforms incorporates a roulette-type addictive interface that can make the usual offering attractive for the online shoppers.

Packaging

13. Creative Packaging

Create packaging that adds new value. For instance, eco-friendly packaging is really attracting the attention of the new-age shoppers. Make sure that the packaging is more functional and the same is highlighted in the promotional deals.

Positioning

“Great communicators have an appreciation for positioning. They understand the people they’re trying to reach and what they can and can’t hear. They send their message in through an open door rather than trying to push it through a wall.” – John Kotter

Product positioning happens to be one of the key aspects when it comes to making the full use of your promotional deals. Here are some of the tips in this respect.

14. Value Proposition

Even though you have identified your customer base and are targeting the correct demographics, the possibility of customer retention and acquisition is not assured. Your potential customers can dismiss your product in a matter of moment if they don’t perceive any value. So, this holidays instead of just pushing on the discount factor, try to showcase the most valuable aspect of your product. Moreover, instead of just promising best-ever offers, look for ways to promise and deliver on that value.

15. Highlight the user-generated contents

Your competitors will be at their toes when it comes to offering discounts. In the competitive ecosystem, you need to find the edge. The user generated content, such as reviews, ratings, customer testimonial. When the shoppers compare cost online, it is the rating of the products that will motivate them to choose your product over others.

16. Create the Trust Factor

Offering warranty and guarantee can help you inspire confidence in buyers. You can highlights your integrity with it. Along with this, easy return policy boosts the chances of turning your store visitor into a paying customers. Offer free trial of your product. This is one of the ways to make the potential buyers can become more acquainted with it.

People

Customer/people are the king in the eCommerce industry. Hence, your promotional strategies should not just focus on the target, but on the people. Sales will happen automatically. Here’s how you can do it:

17. Offer Loyalty Points

Reward the loyalty of your existing customer and provide them with reasons to return back to your store. Prestashop Reward point module is one of the ways of doing this.

18. Make your customers your undercover marketers

Spreading the word-of-mouth with the help of your existing customers is the best way to promote your brand. Offer incentives in return of the referring your site to the customers. This will benefit both your brand as well as the customer. For the Prestashop store owners, this is easy as Prestashop Affiliate and Referral Addon can help you incorporate the functionality with making any code changes.

Over to you

Sometimes all you need is to stick to the basics in order to give your business a promotional boost. Thank to the technological advancements, you can now add innovation and take the conventional promotional ideas to new heights.