How to Get The First 20 Customers For Your Online Store?

All your customers are partners in your mission!

– Shep Hyken

Let me say it straightforwardly!

Your business will die. You will make no progress and no revenue. You won’t have money to pay your bills. You will fail to give salary to your employees, uncertainty will prevail, life will turn miserable, and you will begin to lose hope in your business. 

All this will happen if you don’t find customers.

And, that’s why customer service and experience expert, Shep Hyken, referred to customers as partners of your mission(business). The more such partners you connect, the better your business goes. 

However, 

Finding customers is challenging; especially when competitors leave no space for new businesses to sprout. It may take weeks and even months to get the chance to say “Thank you for shopping with us“.

So, where’s the hope? 

Well! The first hope is; no business is born with customers, they acquire them with the M-A-R-K-E-T-I-N-G. And, so will you. 

And the second hope is this A-R-T-I-C-L-E. 

Because I am going to build an amazing customer acquisition mechanism in this article; with a goal to get the first 20 customers for your newly launched WooCommerce store.  

I believe, if you could get one customer, you could get one thousand… and one hundred thousands. 

But, to avoid anyone referring to it as luck, I will help you acquire the first 20 customers because so many customers cannot be acquired just by mere chance.

Better Store Development For Better Customer Acquisition

This kind of situation never exists in a real eCommerce business. If it happens, then you must be dreaming

A real-life shopper navigates through online stores, searches products, re-searches products, discusses with friends and family, checks and rechecks websites, compares with other brands, and then the hope of making sales comes. 

PRNewswire confirms in research that 92% of first-time visitors simply don’t purchase. They visit, explore, judge your store and quit. 

They might even open up a map to see if you have a physical store, but still without ever making a purchase.

But, a very interesting thing happened in their store exploration, they built an opinion about your online store, and based on that list it in their mind; either they will buy from you or they will not.

So, I couldn’t let you be at risk. 

And therefore, before you go on finding online store customers, re-assure that your store is ready to welcome your new customers. 

Here are few store development essentials, to check for making the first impression, a long-lasting one for your new customer. 

1. SSL Ready

SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer.

Any online platform, whether an online store or a blogging website, where parties share sensitive information like credit and debit card details, email addresses, passwords, names, and addresses, etc., is susceptible to theft from the online channels. Therefore, all these data need to be encrypted.

SSL does it. 

It encrypts the customer’s valuable information and adds a security level. However, it’s helpful even if you are not engaged in sharing any important information, in several ways.

Its importance is advocated by Google. It helps in ranking the domain. 

SSL turns “HTTP” into “HTTPS”, where “s” stands for secure. Hence, first-time customers to your WooCommerce store feel more assured when shopping with you. 

Without SSL you will continuously lose online store customers. 

This article on why every eCommerce website needs an SSL certificate can give you a detailed insight on the needs and necessities of SSL for online stores. 

2. SEO Ready

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.

It involves a set of steps taken while presenting any online content such that it’s discoverable to search engines. So, SEO-optimized content has more chances of getting found than non-SEO-optimized content. 

Not just Google, but it works for your online store shoppers who are looking for specific products in your online store. 

For a WooCommerce store, you can implement top SEO trends [2021], to rank on SERPs, while SEO for WooCommerce stores, to improve your inner lining of WooCommerce stores.

Hence, SEO has the potential to find you a few of your first 20 online store customers by simply increasing the visibility for Google and potential buyers. 

3. Ready to Win User Hearts

We already know that 92% of first-time visitors don’t purchase anything, then what are they there for?

The answer is User Experience. 

Your online store customers first want to experience how it feels shopping in your store. And based on that, they judge your online store. 

A lot of factors combine to form user experience, sometimes, individuals have their personal taste, which could not be universalized.

But, in general, user experience involves ease in navigating pages, ease in finding products, mobile-friendliness of your store, clarity in product images, and of course the website loading speed. 

Payment methods are another big concern of shoppers. Therefore, ensure that all the payment gateways and checkout processes are safe and secure with all essential indications of security, clearly visible to buyers. 

Provide the cash on delivery payment method (if possible). 

Overall, be a healthy and complete store.

4. Refund Policy

Ask yourself, how does it feel when a purchased product that doesn’t meet your expectations, or has arrived damaged, and the seller refuses to refund it back or even exchange it?

It hurts. 

Money is lost, and anger fills in. Your rage demands revenge. And, you use all your media channels to warn everyone around you to stay away from that very store.

So, as a seller, you need to keep reminding yourself of the Hyken words; customers are partners. 

A refund policy is a need for every online store, as about one-third of online purchased products are returned, while 68% of shoppers check refund policy before heading for purchase. 

So, write a well-convincing return and refund policy for your WooCommerce store, that keeps a healthy relationship with your customers (business partners) and doesn’t hurt your revenue.

Pre-Marketing Action

Having a doorbell doesn’t fill your home with guests.

Even though your store is ready in all aspects to make an amazing first impression, to compel shoppers to come to your store, is a whole lot different and requires better effort.

Before making sales, let’s make a community and better understand the potential online store customers.

1. Social Media Communities

As a merchant, you need to be a part of your shopper’s community, and build an identity in those communities as a solution to those problems that your products or services are solving.

A lot of new store owners underestimate their shopper’s community and focus more on individual shoppers.

Your customers can be anywhere. But no matter where, they are always a part of some social community. So, instead of looking at them individually for making sales, the concept of pre-marketing targets building authority in those social communities. 

Don’t leave it on fate to meet your customer. 

Making communities on social media is now much easier than ever when building social connection was a matter of constant direct engagement to every individual at a different location. 

Facebook groups and Quora spaces are good examples of such social communities where you can invite members to join and participate to discuss one common idea or topic that is related to your working niche. 

These social communities should not be meant for selling, unless any of those community members connect back with a problem, expecting you to solve it. 

Other social media such as Twitter, Instagram and TikTok, and even one-to-one chatting apps, must be well used to keep regular and active engagement with followers and friends. 

And, last advice; don’t wait for product and business launch, start building your community NOW. 

2. Study Your Online Store Customer & Build Buyer’s Persona

How well you know your customer, decides how better you can sell them your product.

Customers are in variety — different age groups, demographics, gender, size, complexion, choices, and interests. 

What and how long can you remember these complex data?

And therefore, a buyer’s persona is the best, and most effective way to keep buyers under study. With this, you can best understand the buyer’s need, frequency, and time of their need, and a lot more. 

So, how can you build a buyer’s persona for your WooCommerce Customer?

1. Collect data (from potential and successful online store customer)
2. Build a template
3. And feed those data into the template

This is how a typical buyer’s persona looks. 

3. Build And Leverage Email Lists

Email is an ever-working marketing method, but the major challenge in email marketing is having a quality email list.

Who should you send emails to? And do they engage with those emails? Else you would be spamming?

Therefore, start building an email list of your own, from those potential customers that show interest when interacting in the communities you build. You can also run a special campaign informing the world about your new business launch; that is going to take place and encourage them to share their email for timely information.

Giveaways are another good way to build email lists.  

4. Competitor Analysis

If you are selling anything unique, which is an impossible recipe, then you have no competitors.

In any other case, all stores have competitors. And, even if there is any impossible recipe that only you own, then you must not worry about marketing at all, because buyers have no alternatives.

So, non-monopoly eCommerce business owners need to have a good insight of competitors. How are they performing, their major marketing method, and the demographics of their customer?

This article will help you in-depth with competitor analysis; Competitor Analysis and How to Do One?

A Small Remark

All these pre-marketing steps don’t directly make sales but they will give you a boost when you do marketing for sales. 

These steps are much like pulling arrows back more before the launch. 

Source: peaked.com

Also, make sure that these should be actively continued even after the launch and success of your online store. 

In the next section, we will begin finding customers for your online store for making sales. 

Marketing for Sales

We have done a hard preparation for store building as well as in community building. It is time to make sales and convert community members into customers using these built resources.  

1. Pre-order

The concept of pre-order is not easy to implement but I have included this because it is very effective if your product is in high demand or new in kind. 

Pre-order is a concept of taking orders in advance even before the product launch. Once the product is launched, these orders are fulfilled.

Source

With pre-order, it’s easy to understand the demand of that product, based on which you can manage the future stock.

It works very well for video games, new book releases from popular authors, music albums, etc.

Pre-order creates buzz among the social media influencers and other social communities, that increase search rankings, content production, which ultimately increase sales when the product is finally launched. 

Offers in the pre-order make it more trending among the communities. 

To implement pre-order, in your new WooCommerce store, you could use the WooCommerce Pre-order plugin and take the benefits of the pre-order concept. 

2. Make Your Initial Customer Feel Special in Some Way

With the efforts you did in pre-marketing, you have built a good stand among potential online store customers. 

Now, for turning potential customers into successful customers, you just need a little more push which could be done with some luring offers. 

Here is a list of some ways to make your initial customers:

• Special discount
• Buy one get one (BOGO)
• Attached gifts
• Cashback offers
• Surprise gifts
• Earn points for future rewards or purchase

Furthermore, you can have your own ways of making your initial customer feel special. 

3. Help Customer With Content

Content marketing is unquestionable! 

Google and users both like content that empowers the audience with knowledge and builds a strong bond between the brand and the readers. 

From the merchant’s point of view, content marketing offers a good way to stand out from the competitors and build a reputation as a brand. It provides merchants with opportunities to build email lists, create polls, increase subscribers, and boost traffic with organic ranking.

And, as a bonus, your community network that you have built during the pre-marketing, would be there as active readers of your content. 

How can you create great content for your brand?

1. Fix your niche boundary.
2. Build a team that involves content writers, SEO experts, graphic designers, editors, and marketers.
3. Build a process for content production.
4. Write great articles, publish, promote, and repeat.
5. Keep checking analytics and reframe the strategies accordingly.

4. Referral Marketing

Referral marketing is a pure implication of how your customer can turn into your business partners. This is the perfect example of Hyken words that we mentioned at the very beginning.

In referral marketing, you make an arrangement such that your buyers bring customers from their influence, and you reward them for it. 

This way, you get a new customer, while your customer(who referred) gets some rewards.

Read more: How to Use Referral Marketing to Boost Sales 

5. Create Videos That Engage

Videos are the visual content that captures customers’ dual senses – eyes and ears. And, as a result, video content has higher engagement and gives better outcomes. 

Source

With the rise in Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and many other video hosting platforms, there is a high demand for videos by customers. It builds confidence in them to take decisions, builds brand recognition, and overall helps to sell more and better. 

Creating videos could be a challenge, but promoting your video content wouldn’t be that hard. Your community and the email list that you have built in the pre-marketing process would be the base of all your content promotion. 

6. Paid Ads

Paid ads, extend your reach to customers where you can’t reach organically with ease. And, thus, paid ads must be on your marketing list. A lot of online platforms offer target ads that can potentially reach those users that are in need of your products. 

Some popular paid ads platform include:

1. Google Ads.
2. Facebook Ads.
3. Instagram Ads
4. Twitter Ads
5. YouTube Video Ads
6. Quora Ads
7. Other traditional ads.

Are you worried about how you would be doing these ads., without any prior knowledge?

Check these services for paid ads, discuss your paid marketing goals, and stay stress-free.  

After-Sale Essentials

Successful sale and the product delivery is not the end of a user’s shopping experience. There are several instances where customers still stay connected to the shop, and therefore, merchants too need to extend their hands for active support. 

Some of the ways by which merchants can leverage after-sale services and keep customers in touch are:

1. Leverage Loyalty Program

Loyal customers are loyal partners in your mission. 

A 5% rise in customer retention is a boost of 25% – 95% profit. 

Further, e-loyalty not just boosts sales, but has advantages in several other ways. 

Loyal customers are organic referrers, they give positive reviews on products and stores, they contribute to turning a new store into a brand, and most importantly, they are loyal to your store.

So, how can you build loyal partners? And what you give in return to your loyal customers for being loyal partners of your mission?

The answer is; through customer loyalty programs.

For WooCommerce store owners, it’s very easy to build loyalty programs using the Points and Rewards for WooCommerce plugin. Its free version is available too. 

You can read more about the plugin setup and feature: Points and Rewards full setup  

2. Accept Review

When a customer experiences something extreme, either good or bad, they need a medium to express it.

Accepting reviews on products and on the store is an excellent way of taking advantage of customer experience for the betterment of your eCommerce business.

Customers with bad shopping experience would share their pain, while good points as pleasure, which could be a good resource to improve your online store for next customers.

Furthermore, 56% of customers read at least 4 reviews before making a purchase. Imagine how would they act if there are no reviews around?

3. Return Facility

Since one-third of products are returned, therefore for 20 successful sales, you need about 30 shoppers.

But a good merchant knows — returning customers is not a permanent loss. 

Instead, a returning customer is an opportunity that can turn into a regular customer, a referral customer, and, later in the future, loyal customers. 

All this is possible, with a smooth and convincing return and RMA (Return Merchandise Authorization) policy that entertains all customers with a valid refund and exchange requests. 

With the refund policy you have already set, try to offer a very smooth refund and exchange process for every online store customer. 

For WooCommerce store owners, I highly recommend WooCommerce RMA for return refund and exchange plugin. Its lite version is also available for free.

You can read more about the plugin setup and feature: RMA full setup   

Conclusion

Finding customers isn’t that hard! Right?

After reading this article — Of course not. 

But don’t forget (as I have previously said); shoppers don’t turn customers in a single instance. You earn them bit-by-bit, throughout the mechanisms — the one we tried to develop in this article. 

First, your store has to be fit and fine for the first impression, then you need to become a part of your shoppers’ community (as we did in pre-marketing time), and then with a little more extra push, convert some of those community members into your online store customers. 

That’s how every customer; either the first or hundredth or the thousandth customer follows the track to your store for product purchase.

At last, congratulations on owning a new store. 

Stay connected with MakeWebBetter’s Blog, where we focus on making the eCommerce business better.

Good luck! Hope you always have a non-stop flow of customers.