Ecommerce wars are raging. Obviously, we’ve long since passed the day when a company wanting to sell online had to worry about the technicalities of website creation and transaction security. Ecommerce platforms have that covered.

The real battleground is generating awareness, inspiring purchases, capturing leads, and stealing the hearts of customers — all to increase word of mouth marketing.

What’s an ecommerce company to do? In this post, we’ll zoom into 5 tactics that have proven to increase engagement on social media channels and win over online shoppers.

Ask for user-generated content (UGC)

People trust their family, friends—and even unknown peers who have come before them—more than they trust brands. We could get into data-rich proof statements, but don’t need to.

Simply ask yourself: Do you…

• Read product reviews?
• Look at images and watch videos about products you’re considering?
• Read customer stories?

A customer satisfied or excited enough to invest the time in posting a review, image, video, story or any form of homegrown content tells a more convincing story than a brand-generated ad ever could.

Here are some tips to help you maximize your mileage with

UGC collection efforts:

• Create a unique hashtag for promotions involving UGC to make it simple to discover.
• Create a sample video or photo to announce your contest.
• Secure legal rights when making plans to post user-generated content on your website.
• Display your UGC in posts, on webpages, and social media channels.

Offer coupons and discounts

Contests are judged. Giveaways introduce an element of chance.

There’s no doubt both forms of the promotion offer tremendous pulling power for ecommerce companies, but they don’t necessarily offer instant gratification.

Actually, ShortStack does make it simple to reward contestants with discounts, yet also, empowers you to flat-out give potential buyers coupons in exchange for their email address.

Coupons have consistently been a powerful tool in the retail promotion trick stack. The ecommerce model just makes them more powerful, easier to deliver, and easier to redeem.

You can offer coupons particularly for product purchases, yet can likewise marry coupons with offers to receive useful downloadable content and newsletters.

Send Instagrammers to your store

Obviously, Instagram attracts millions of social media enthusiasts who love sharing images and videos. Instagram state that 30% of its 800,000,000 users have purchased something they found on Instagram.

• More than 60% of Instagram users say they find out about products and services on the platform

Ecommerce companies should strive not only to build a prominent Instagram presence but also to encourage users to visit their online stores.

Create quizzes

Your ecommerce store can provide insights and advice to help buyers make more informed decisions. And you can make it fun and interactive with quizzes.

Your quiz walks the customer through a series of inquiries and delivers suggestions based on the answers—as a helpful sales rep would do.

While your quiz enables prospects and customers to decide their priorities and preferences, it additionally encourages you to gather valuable data, which may drive sales at the moment, or later, when the data is utilized to personalize subsequent communications.

Support a charity—or several

Toms, the world-renowned shoe company, tells its customers, “Every purchase has a purpose.” The ecommerce giant has built a reputation for improving lives and giving back. Their customers support the mission and everyone wins.

You might consider creating a program to rally support for your brand and the greater good in a similar fashion.

Mix and match, socialize and sell

We’ll leave you with a 7-pack of thoughts you might use to further leverage the 5 ecommerce promotion ideas presented above.

• Mix and match—Use these tricks in combination where it makes sense. For example: Create a quiz about a “big day.”
• Ask for less—Make your promotions easy to enter and try not to ask too much of participants in your forms. Remember, more fields = lower conversion. For example, you probably do not need to collect phone numbers.
• Put your user-generated content to work—When generating content is a part of your promotions, apply the best (or all) of what you collect in various ways: email, online galleries, product pages, ads, and of course, in social media updates.
• Make it easy to share (and find)—Use the available tools and options to enable participants to share their entries or notices about your promotions. For many promotions, you can build-in incentives to share via social. Also, give your promotions unique #Hashtags to build community and track all the action.
• Use popups (and other notices)—Your options for calling attention to your promotions on your website are many. Consider dedicating some of the tricks of the trade such as popups, sticky bars (page toppers), slide-ins, and so forth.
• Gather feedback and analytics—Reference your analytics during your promotion and after to learn the tactics that did or didn’t help you achieve your marketing objectives. You might also survey customers or simply ask for feedback.
• Experiment—Consider your ecommerce promotions (and everything you do in the digital realm) an ongoing learning experience. Try different approaches to become a master of promotions.

Want to ask a question or suggest a topic for a future #onlinepromotion? Tweet on @BuilderFly to let us know!