In this post you’ll learn how to build a successful e-commerce sales funnel for your online store using external traffic.
The basic steps of almost any sales funnel are awareness, consideration, conversion. The customer has to be aware of their problem/need, consider your product, and eventually convert (buy your product).
Most e-commerce sellers don’t have a customized listing funnel in place. Those who do often make mistakes, which result in their funnel being less effective than the default sales funnel of a basic listing.
Are you making this crucial mistake?
There is a common mistake sellers make when it comes to external traffic. This mistake is to drive traffic straight to your product listing.
You should never drive traffic straight to your product listing. Why? If you are selling on mazon, nNo matter which traffic source you use, it won’t be nearly as targeted as Amazon’s internal traffic.
By sending unqualified, untargeted traffic straight to your listing you’ll run into two problems:
1) Low sales
Most of the people you drive to your listing won’t be ready to buy your product at full price immediately. Unlike people who are browsing Amazon, they might not be interested in buying right now.
The result will be that your external traffic campaign won’t be a big success. You’ll end up spending quite a lot of money on ads, without seeing much return.
2) Low conversion rates
Low sales translate to low conversion rates. Average conversion rates on Amazon are 74% for Prime customers, and approximately 13% for regular customers.
Everywhere else online, conversion rates are on average between 2-3%. This means that untargeted external traffic is likely to lower your overall conversion rates.
Why capturing emails is more important than sales
The key to a successful external traffic campaign is to understand that, in the short-term, capturing emails is more important than profits.
Why is it so important to capture emails?
Emails (or any other actionable contact info) allow you to:
- Build your own launch list. This will allow you to distinguish yourself from low-quality giveaway sites. Next time you want to get an Amazon product off the ground, simply email your list with a discount offer.
- Send weekly or monthly email newsletters. This allows you to build a long-term relationship with your prospects and customers.
- Drive sales with the push of a button. Running a special offer? Simply send an email and you’ll be able to drive extra sales.
- Build a brand. If you capture a customer’s email before they buy on Amazon, you can send them to your e-commerce site in the future. (This is fully compliant with Amazon’s terms.)
- Retarget customers on Facebook. By capturing emails, you can create retargeting audiences of customers on Facebook.
How to capture emails using landing pages
The key to capturing your customer’s emails is to collect them before they purchase on Amazon.
Here’s how it works: You want to drive external traffic to a landing page, instead of straight to Amazon.
Crafting a compelling offer for your Amazon sales funnel
“Why would anyone give away their email on a landing page?” you may be asking.
It’s simple. Give people a compelling reason, and they’ll be more than happy to part with their email address. There are two common types of lead magnets that work well for Amazon sellers.
1) Give away a discount
The easiest way to get people to give you their email address is to give them a big discount. (The best way to do this is to set up single-use promo codes, which protect your inventory.)
This method is highly effective for a number of reasons:
- You’ll be able to build an email list.
- The people who click-through to your Amazon listing will almost certainly buy, increasing your conversion rates.
- You’ll get a lot more sales. This results in a higher Best Sellers Rank (BSR) and overall higher Amazon rankings.
- Just be aware that big discounts will make purchases ineligible for verified reviews. So if you’re trying to get more reviews for your product, either keep the discount at less than 30%, or use another method for lead capture.
2) Give away educational content such as an e-book
Selling a cocktail shaker? Why not give away a 30-page e-book full of amazing cocktail recipes. Once you get someone to give you their email in exchange for an e-book, you can build a long-term relationship with them, and eventually entice them to buy.
Which method should you use?
Go for the discount option if:
- You can afford to give discounts.
- You want to boost your Amazon rankings.
- You want to build a targeted customer list.
Go for the e-book option if:
- You can’t afford to give away discounted units.
- Your product already ranks highly.
- You want to reach out for product reviews.
