Many people assume that once their Shopify store is live, they need only to kick back and wait for the customers and cash to roll in. While the power of Shopify’s platform is mighty, it’s up to you to get your store noticed and turn browsers into buyers.

Need more sales on Shopify? We recommend two routes. Route #1 involves promoting your Shopify store to stay at the forefront of people’s minds (i.e., paid ads, SEO, social media, etc.). Route #2 calls for optimizing your Shopify store by making necessary adjustments to create a positive shopping experience.

Both plans are effective on their own, but combining the two yields far better results – growing your customer base and increasing your sales. This is why we’ve created this strategy guide to drive more  sales on Shopify.

Table of Contents:

• How to Drive Traffic to Your Shopify Store
• How to Increase Sales on Shopify
• Why Am I Not Getting Sales on Shopify?
• How to Get Your First Sale on Shopify
• Your Shopify Store Will Never Be the Same

How to Drive Traffic to Your Shopify Store (7 Strategies)

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It’s no secret that the number of customers shopping online is increasing, year after year.

Looking to take advantage of the 27.9% expected growth of eCommerce sales over the next few years? Then you need to figure out how to drive more customers to your Shopify store. You can’t afford to go through the painstaking process of building your store and your brand — then have no visitors.

So how do you bring customers in and keep them coming back? We’ve got 7 Shopify marketing strategies that’ll bring in customers and sales.

1. SEO

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) entails using specific techniques to boost your Shopify store’s rank on Google. This is done by optimizing your store for a keyword phrase or phrases that your customers search.

SEO is about optimizing your site to rank for search queries that your ideal customer is looking for. This strategy is vital for the longevity of your Shopify store. Why? Because ranking organically in search brings you highly relevant traffic that’s likely to convert — time and time again.

Many Shopify stores rank high for dozens (sometimes hundreds or thousands) of search terms, which leads to search traffic that comes through every time someone does a Google search related to the company’s name or a specific product.

One of the top companies utilizing SEO and making a killing from it is Optimum Nutrition. They rank high for many keywords related to supplement products. For instance, if you type in “gold standard 100 whey,” one of the most popular protein powders globally, you’ll see they rank #1 (even higher than Amazon).

That little keyword phrase alone generates anywhere from 1,000 to 10,000 searches a month. That’s an insane amount of potential customers shopping for that specific product and landing on their website every month!

2. Content Marketing

Content marketing is the process of strategically publishing informational content to attract and retain customers. Your published content should pack a punch when it comes to relevance and value for your customers and prospects.

You can increase your Shopify store’s traffic and sales by creating fresh, relevant content that provides value. Then your content can be shared across all your social media platforms for promotion. For example, a cosmetic Shopify store could use Facebook to promote their blog post about which lipsticks look good with certain outfits.

The key to successful content marketing is to create great content and promote it on your social media platforms like Instagram or Twitter.

Provide valuable info that’ll continually be shared amongst your followers. Setting up a blog on your site is a great way to share content with potential customers and grow your audience. They get to know and love your brand, which leads to buying your products.

Biolite is an outstanding example of a Shopify store employing content marketing. Not only do they publish helpful monthly content to share with their readers, but their content strategy has amassed a Facebook following of over 80k+ potential customers. Imagine how many sales you’d get on Shopify with that many potential customers looking at your content.

The best part about implementing a content strategy is that it works beautifully with SEO. By producing content regularly and targeting search terms that your customers use often, your Shopify shop will steadily grow as more readers share your content — leading to more customers checking out your store.

3. Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is a strategy to create brand awareness, build customer connections, and gain exposure for your store on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and other social networks. Used in conjunction with content marketing, social media marketing is an integral step in the journey of growing a customer base for your Shopify stores.

Social media can help you drive more sales for your Shopify store by providing an authentic connection to your potential customers. This is especially true if your shop’s demographic consists of heavy users of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok. Through these channels, you have the opportunity to connect with current followers & prospective ones.

Mossy Oak, a hunting and camo apparel store, uses Facebook as one of its primary sources for sharing content and converting content ingesters (readers) into customers. By posting relevant product recommendations, Mossy Oak amasses $25 million annually!

There are many platforms and networks out there, but which one do you choose? Below are the best social media platforms for marketing your Shopify store (plus some ideas):

• Facebook and Instagram — Start a Facebook page for your store and offer giveaways to people who like you on Facebook. Create an Instagram account and post pictures of your products.

• Pinterest — You can create boards and pins with links to your products or your store’s pages. The more boards and pins you make, the wider variety of content you’ll have to share with different audiences and attract higher numbers of visitors.

• Twitter — Twitter is great for sharing coupons and giving away products.

• TikTok — Use TikTok to connect with your ideal customers and create excitement about your products by producing short videos announcing sales or promoting your Shopify store.  

4. How to Use Email Marketing to Get Shopify Store Sales

Email marketing is the process of using emails to gain regular customers by building relationships. This often is done through a series of emails that subscribers opt-in for and continues throughout the customer’s buying cycle to avoid customer abandonment at all stages.

One Shopify store utilizing email marketing is Sock Drawer, a subscription box Shopify store. Every page on their site allows prospective customers to sign up for discounts & promotional offers by email.

Email marketing can help increase your sales on Shopify, but if you want massive success, the cold hard truth is fewer and fewer customers are opening emails. That’s why this next strategy is one of the most effective.

5. How to Drive More Sales on Shopify With SMS Marketing

SMS Marketing delivers marketing messages to leads or customers via text messaging. It’s a highly effective method of providing offers, promotions, or discounts to your customers in an engaging, timely manner.

Today, most customers use their phones for at least an hour a day and according to Techjury, 98% is the average SMS open rate .That’s a massive number of potential buyers you’re missing out on!

This proves that customers are more likely to open a text message from an SMS campaign than an email. Higher open rates mean more eyes on your message and more customers whipping out their credit cards to shop at your Shopify store.

A cool part about SMS marketing? Your customers won’t even need a smartphone to receive text messages.If they have a non-smart mobile phone (think Motorola Razr or Nokia 225), they can still receive your SMS messages.

SMS marketing opens up a whole new avenue for you to reach out to potential customers. One example of a Shopify store using SMS marketing to create massive growth and catapult their sales is Strength of Seduction.

Strength of Seduction is a couples’ home fitness program that uses SMS marketing to grow its business through individual customer connections. They utilize SMS to create customer relationships, roll out promotions, and share social media content. Their response rate increased by 36% using SMS, which helped them scale their business to over $100,000 in only 6 months. Strength of Seduction’s founder & CEO, Daniel DiPiazza, knows that owning the customer relationship is imperative to success. And SuperPhone has given them the tools to do just that.

Also, by utilizing SMS marketing, you can reach your customers throughout the day far more often than email marketing ever could. Unlike email marketing, which requires your customers to log into their email to check for messages, 91% of all U.S. citizens have their mobile devices within reach 24/7 (Morgan Stanley).

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So when your customers receive an SMS from you, they won’t need to open up a new application. Your message will be the first thing they see on their mobile device.

6. How to Advertise Your Shopify Store Using Paid Search

Paid search advertising is one of the most common, and practical strategies you can use to advertise your Shopify store. Paid search ads can drive customers directly to your storefront and increase revenue relatively fast by using targeted ads.

By using paid search advertising, you’ll reach highly qualified shoppers that may be much closer to conversion than those landing on your site from other channels like Facebook or SEO.

One of the biggest paid search successes in eCommerce is Williams Sonoma. Through Google Ads alone, they see a 51% increase in sales year-over-year.

Here are a few paid search advertising options:

• Google Ads — Google offers businesses of all sizes the chance to sell their products or services through text ads showing sponsored listings on Google. It’s an excellent platform for Shopify store owners just getting their feet wet in the pool of advertising.

• Facebook and Instagram Ads — Both are fantastic for targeting customers based on location, age, gender, and interests.

• Bing Ads — This is an excellent platform for those who want to reach people in different countries not covered by Google. They can all help when targeting niche markets because it’s less crowded than Google.

The key here is knowing which platform best suits your needs as well as what features each one offers.

7. Use Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is the process of using online personalities or experts in a relevant industry to promote your brand with their social media audience. Influencers are people seen as having power or prestige on social media. They make careers out of interacting with their followers to talk about things they love, which makes them perfect partners.

Many shop owners choose to use influencer marketing to promote their products without having to spend a lot. Influencer marketing can be beneficial in several ways:

• A significant benefit of using niche influencers is they’re often part of groups or communities where their followers actively engage in topics relevant to your shop.

• You can pay an influencer a one-time fee or create ongoing campaigns with them to promote your store and specific products to their large following.

• You can also ask influencers to promote your store in exchange for a discount to their followers.

To use influencer marketing successfully, it’s essential when choosing an influencer that you confirm they’ve got a significant, relevant, and engaged following. This ensures your influencer marketing strategy for your Shopify store is effective.

A great example of an eCommerce store that used influencer marketing to boost its sales is Casper. They’re an online mattress company that teamed up with 20 dog influencers from all over America to promote Casper products made exclusively for dogs. Casper was able to reach out to over 17.2 million relevant shoppers and double their ROI!

How to Optimize Your Shopify Store for More Sales

The best way to drive sales on Shopify is by optimizing your store. You’ll need to:

• Improve your shop’s conversion rate.
• Build trust and credibility.
• Cross-sell and upsell.
• Create a rock-solid loyalty program.

Increase Your Conversion Rate on Shopify

Conversion rates are the total number of purchases divided by the total number of sessions on your Shopify store. It’s a major KPI you need to know.

If your conversion rate is not where you need it to be, it’s time to improve your store.

You won’t know what areas you need to improve without data about how many visitors your site receives and what they’re doing when they’re on your site. Fortunately, Shopify Admin provides plenty of data to put you in the know.

(Google Analytics is another great tool, which we’ll dive into in another section.)

Research how your visitors respond to different areas of your site and make changes to streamline and simplify their experience. You’ll see your conversion rate increase once you make those changes.

How & Why You Should Optimize Your Store for Mobile Devices

With smartphone and tablet usage increasing in recent years, more consumers are purchasing products online using their devices, so mobile optimization is a no-brainer. So how can you optimize your store for mobile to drive more sales on Shopify?

Optimize Your Product Pages

Your product pages are one of the most crucial conversion areas on your site. You can increase conversion rates by avoiding common mistakes and following best practices to ensure it’s easy for shoppers to buy from you.

Here are a few tips you can follow to optimize your product pages to drive more sales on Shopify. (Remember to check all of the following things on mobile):

• Have clear “Add To Cart” buttons in the most visible location of your page, so customers know how and where to purchase.

• Use high-quality images that accurately portray what customers will receive in their purchases.

• Use short, descriptive product titles relevant to your customers and include commonly searched keywords.

• Optimize your Shopify store’s product copy to focus on the benefits your customer will reap vs. simply explaining product features.

• Highlight your special offers and promotions, so customers are more likely to buy from you. For example: Buy this product now and get 25% off!

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Track Customer Interaction With Google Analytics + Tag Manager

Monitoring customer interaction is foundational for any business because it helps to identify potential customers’ needs, how frequently they buy from your store, and where they’re coming from. Using Google Analytics and Tag Manager will help you attain these things

Google Analytics and Tag Manager are the 2 of the most common tools Shopify store owners use to track customer activity. Both tools will provide you with valuable information, such as audience demographics & high-performing marketing channels that’ll help boost conversion rates in your store.

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Use a Live Chat System for Instant Customer Support

A Live chat system gives customers 24/7 access to customer support or sales reps.

With Shopify’s new integration, customers on the go will be able to engage in conversations even while offline or browsing your store from their mobile device. One of the most recommended live chat plugins you can use is Tidio. Adding Tidio to your store takes under 30 seconds.

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Ensure Your Shopify Store’s Checkout Is Simple

The most obvious yet most effective conversion tool you can use? A simple checkout process is essential for any eCommerce site. When you make it easy for your customer to find what they want and buy it without hassle, they’re much more likely to purchase again in the future.

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Gain Trust by Establishing Credibility

For your Shopify sales to go up, you must create a sense of trust with your customers.

Here are 3 ways to build trust with your shop visitors:

• Post good reviews from previous buyers to make new customers feel confident purchasing from you to create a sense of trust. To get reviews, be proactive and ask for one when a customer completes an order.

• Another option is to include video testimonials on your site that provide feedback about what customers liked about your product. Video testimonials are among the best conversion rate boosters because, unlike text-based reviews, video testimonials feel more personal and authentic.

• Lastly, you should have an easy-to-understand, and easy-to-find return policy stated clearly on your site. With a rock-solid return policy, you’ll decrease customer skepticism and encourage confidence in purchasing from you.

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Cross-Sell or Upsell Without Scaring Away Customers

A simple trick to cross-sell without scaring away customers is to capitalize on what they’re already thinking about purchasing. For example, suppose a customer is looking at your shop page for an iPhone. You could point them towards accessories to complement their purchase, such as a phone case or screen protector.

If this doesn’t work for your shop, try suggesting related items on that same shop page so they don’t have to search for those items. The suggested items are just that, suggestions, and it’s easy for them to choose to purchase or say no and move on without feeling pressured.

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Offer Customers to Become Part of Your Loyalty Program

Creating a loyalty program that’ll incentivize customers to shop often is a great way to increase sales. One of the first things you can do is offer your customers an incentive for signing up to be a part of your loyalty program. For example, if they sign up, they get $25 off their purchase in addition to future rewards after accumulating enough points.

Offering your customers the opportunity to shop often and get rewarded for their purchases is an excellent way to increase profits and nurture customer loyalty. By offering incentives, you’ll see higher customer engagement on social media. This leads to increased exposure of your store — which means better conversion rates.

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How to Re-Engage Customers

As a Shopify store owner, you’ve spent time, money, and effort to find your customers.

Don’t just let them go. Whether they’ve left your shop for good or just gone on too long of a break, it doesn’t make sense to ignore the potential of re-engaging those past customers with SMS marketing. This is especially significant considering it costs 6 to 7 times more to win a new customer versus re-engage an existing one.

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Why Am I Not Getting Sales on Shopify?

The most common reasons why Shopify store owners aren’t getting sales to come down to a few factors. Customers either can’t quickly find the product they need, you’re targeting the wrong market, or your product might be too expensive.

Your Customer Can’t Find What They Need

For a successful online store, your product categories need to be well organized and labeled. Make sure you offer an in-depth shop section that displays the best products and most popular items from around your store. Put thought into your customer’s shopping experience and make it easy to find what they want.

You’re Targeting the Wrong Audience

This is one of the biggest reasons most new Shopify store owners just can’t get their sales going. First, you’ve got to know your target audience and market — otherwise, sales will be non-existent.

There’s no easy answer here. However, to improve your sales, you should be as specific as possible about your target audience’s age, location, and interests.

Your Product Might Be Too Expensive

Sometimes the most straightforward solutions are what you need to get results. And sometimes, the reality is your product may just be too expensive. If this is the case, then it’s time to adjust the pricing.

This is where testing your price marginally and collecting data is beneficial in getting some cash flow happening in your shop. For example, if you have a $100 product and it’s not selling as often as you’d like, try lowering the price by a few dollars (while still staying profitable, of course).

How to Get Your First Sale on Shopify

Are you a new store owner wondering how to make your first sale on Shopify? Here are a few tips so you can hear cha-ching:

• Contact your local Shopify community. This is a fantastic resource for help and advice from other shop owners who can share their own experience getting their first sale on Shopify.

• Offer free shipping or discounts at the beginning of your store’s life cycle so you can get some initial orders coming through the sales pipeline.

• Target the most relevant keywords for your store’s SEO to make sure you rank highly for those key phrases.

• Engage with potential customers via social media channels like Facebook and Twitter or chatbots. This is a great way to get some early sales!

• Most importantly, make sure your product offers a significant value proposition regarding price, quality, or other features.

Say Hello to Your New Sales Machine

Are you ready to increase your customer engagement?

SuperPhone is a powerful SMS messaging platform that helps Shopify store owners communicate with their customers in new and creative ways. You can chat 1-on-1 with your customers or send automated messages to increase engagement without hassle. Plus, you’ll have access to advanced analytics, so you’ll know precisely how successful your SMS marketing efforts are. It’s easy to use, affordable, and scalable for any Shopify store size.