Looking to generate more sales for your Shopify store? We spoke to Rainy City Marketing CEO Rebecca Worsley, A Shopify Agency that specialises in design & conversion rate optimisation with an impressive portfolio of clients.
Increase Your Shopify Sales
So you've set up your store, and now you're waiting for the millions of enthusiastic shoppers to pour in and hand over their hard-earned cash.
Except, the reality is it seldom works like this.
In this interview, Rebecca covers everything from design to conversion rate optimisation (CRO) as well as leveraging paid ads to drive sales.
Let's dive right in.
Q: Rebecca, your agency specialises in Shopify design & development. What makes Shopify a better option than other e-commerce platforms such as WooCommerce, Magento, etc?
When I went to the Shopify Unite conference in June 2019, they revealed that 820,000 merchants are now using the Shopify platform for their brands - I’m sure that number is much higher now!
When talking to potential clients, they’re always surprised to know that huge brands such as Nestle, Pepsi, Unilever, Budweiser, Tesla Motors, and Red Bull are all on Shopify.
Shopify provides the tools to create a really inviting storefront with endless possibilities for design and development. We find the control and options for HTML and CSS unparalleled and it’s what keeps us in business and our clients happy!
An example of Rainy City Marketing's stunning Shopify websites
87% of merchants use Shopify’s apps and there are currently over 2,400 available. The three most-used apps are Privy, SEO Image Optimizer and Free Shipping Bar.
More than 80% of merchants using Shopify take advantage of the apps on offer to help them grow. These without question make it quick and easy for merchants to achieve amazing things in their stores!
Q: Let's say you've designed a beautiful new store for a client. As we both know, the challenges then come with generating sales. What are the next logical steps to achieve this in the most efficient manner?
Great question! I’ve actually had built and sold brands myself back in the day, our most successful doing $175,000 in sales in month 2 after launch with zero online presence.
By far the most important thing is to get your messaging and positioning nailed. If you can use your customer’s language back on them, and find out what they care about the most, you instantly connect with them.
The best way to do this is to survey at least 25 of your customers with a 5-question survey asking things like "What is the number 1 most important thing to you when purchasing [Product]?", "What is the number one fear you have when purchasing from a company who sells [Product]?".
If you are a new brand and don’t have any customers to survey, try and get some responses from friends and family or run some Facebook ads to your target audience.
Another great thing to do is trawl through Amazon reviews for products similar to yours and save the responses and then paste all of this data into wordcounter.net and look for the most commonly used words and phrases.
This can be put in your product and ad copy and makes a huge difference between just talking about the ‘functional benefits’ of your product.
Once you have this nailed - and from personal experience - the best way to then generate sales for most products is by using Facebook/Instagram ads with a solid strategy with great creatives, customer support and messaging.
Q: What are your most recommended tools for Shopify store owners to grow their company and manage their business?
With regards to growing the company and managing the business, without a doubt the core tools I’d recommend are Trello, Slack, Google Docs, Dropbox and some reliable, talented VA’s from Upwork or Onlinejobs.ph to focus on time-consuming tasks so the brand owner can work ‘on’ the business.
Q: Do you have any advice for store owners looking to improve their current conversion rate? How would you approach this, if so?
This is something we work on a lot and can get very in-depth on, but to give my top 5 ways to increase conversion rate I would say;
- Keep the experience simple. Keep on-brand with a simple, mobile optimised and appealing design with the correct messaging. Don’t overdo it with long home pages, tonnes of information and images. Users form their opinion in two-tenths of a second, so keeping things simple (thus helping increase load speed) is essential.
- Show off coupon codes and offers. There are a whole host of apps that can showcase any limited-time offers, discounts or important seasonal promotions you may be running which can increase conversions and AOV.
- Add testimonials and social proof. Apps like Yotpo do a fantastic job of automatically collecting and leveraging reviews and ratings. Nothing persuades someone to trust your brand more than seeing regular reviews from regular customers.
- Add a shoppable Instagram feed. Shoppable Instagram feeds are a great way to show off and leverage user-generated content which is proving to be a huge factor in influencing what people purchase.
- Use high-quality product photography. High-quality product images are key to letting your customers see what you are offering and form a core part of the purchasing process. Clear product photography coupled with lifestyle shots is a perfect combo and If you can also embed a video, this helps massively!
Q: Lastly, how can somebody contact you if they'd like to enlist your services?
I’m always happy to connect with ecommerce store owners. They can contact me through my main website: www.rainycitymarketing.com
Looking to improve your Shopify store? See the Rainy City Marketing portfolio here.
Connect with Rebecca Worsley on LinkedIn here.
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