Your Customers Are Online, But How Can You Find Them?

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If you want to run an ecommerce business, you need to know where your customers are. 

They’re online, of course. But the internet is a pretty big place – and there’s about 26 million active ecommerce stores within it. 

With that amount in mind, it’s probably already clear that you need to be as visible as possible. 

Because the most effective way to find your customers? To get them to come to you.

Understand Their Search Habits

Every single online shopper has them. You need to identify the search habits relevant to your market and the demographics you’re targeting within it. So, what do they want? It’s quite the loaded question to ask, so let’s break it down here.

Rather than think about the overarching wants your customers may have, think about the problems behind them. 

Whether they’re looking for information or a product, they’ve got an issue they want to resolve. Now you just need to pair the two together with the right keywords and phrases.

Understanding search habits helps you to focus on the top of your sales funnel, and not just the bottom. Anyone can think about how to convince a website user to go through the checkout. But in doing so, they forget the importance of attracting customers to this point. 

A smooth sales funnel requires recognition. As such, your brand needs to have some kind of recognizable image to begin with. That’s the basis of online visibility. You don’t just need to show up in the right place – you need to look like you belong there as well. 

When it comes to your sales funnel, focus on the initial point of contact any customer is likely to have with your company. And if you’re not sure where that might be, some AI sales automation software could highlight it for you. 

Once you’ve got the entry point, you’ll want to think about what brought the customer there to begin with. On the search engine, think about what they were searching for. On social media, think about what else they’re interacting with.

Try a Diverse Approach

Don’t just pin all your hopes on one platform. The search engine is where the majority of searches and clicks come from, but it’s not the only place someone can come across you. 

As we mentioned above, social media is another big player in your online visibility. Users interact with it in a similar way to Google – as they can search for brand accounts as much as they like – but queries don’t work in the same way. 

People need to know the exact (or nearly exact) name of who they want to find. Make this as obvious as possible on your profile. Signal back and forth by linking your website, secure a handle that makes sense, and use your brand image in the posts you make.

When your customers are online, you need to focus on your own visibility. Understand search habits and be diverse in your channels.