How to Attract Loyal Customers to Your Online Business

These days, anyone can create an online business.

However, if you can’t acquire new customers and encourage them to come back, you won't be able to expand your company or even get off the ground. Every entrepreneur should have a business plan — this will help you focus your energy on actions that will help your business grow. An essential part of your business plan should include tactics for attracting customers.

Here are five ways you can get started.

Improve Your Website

According to InternetReputation.com, you can lose 38 percent of your website visitors if you have an unattractive site design. Creating an intuitive, straightforward, and beautiful website can help you hold onto these potential customers. Take a hard look at your site. Is it cluttered with images or blocks of text? Is your checkout process glitchy? Do your links direct visitors to 404 errors? It’s crucial that customers can navigate through your online store effortlessly and find exactly what they’re looking for. Since 88 percent of online shoppers are unlikely to return to your site after a bad experience, it needs to be extremely user-friendly.

Write Targeted Content

In addition to the design of your website, pay attention to what’s written on it. As soon as visitors land on your site, they should know exactly what benefit you’re offering them and why they can’t find this anywhere else. This is called a unique selling proposition. So, decide what specific need your company fills and for which particular customer. Then, incorporate this into the header of your website. Check out this article by the National Association of Sales Professionals for some great examples of unique selling propositions.

The rest of the content on your site should follow suit. For example, a blog is a great tool for ranking your website higher on Google and driving traffic to your products. However, your blog content needs to be high quality, original, and extremely relevant to your target audience. A great blog will help you build a relationship with your audience and position your company as an authoritative voice in your particular niche.

Get Familiar with Social Media

Social media is also crucial for connecting with your audience and attracting customers to your business. Try to publish consistent, regular content to social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Pick sites that align with your business. For example, Instagram is an ideal choice if you have nice products to display, while Twitter is good if you're selling a service. Entrepreneur recommends creating a publishing schedule to prevent weeks from going by without new posts from your brand. Post authentic and engaging content that people will want to share. This will help your company reach a larger audience. Finally, engage with your audience by replying to comments —negative or positive— to show your customers that you care.

Learn About Email Marketing

Once you’ve attracted visitors to your site, you can hook them and keep them coming back with a solid email marketing strategy. Add an email sign-up box to your website and offer your visitors something beneficial in return, such as a discount code or a short eBook. Then, send out regular emails with useful information about promotions, special offers, events, and simple product information. Keep your marketing emails out of people’s junk folders by avoiding sales-y words like “free” or “buy now” in your subject line.

Prioritize Customer Service

When your customers are treated well, they will want to come back. They're also much more likely to recommend your company to others. Part of customer care means providing an easy-to-use contact form on your website, displaying telephone hotlines, and creating an informative FAQ page. You may even want to implement a live chat feature on your site so you can respond to customer questions immediately. When people have a bad experience, try to follow up on the problem and find a way to compensate them.

Remember, it will take a lot of hard work to find your first e-commerce customers. It can take even more work to keep them coming back. Fortunately, marketing your company and engaging with customers is much more affordable online than through traditional print advertising. Learn everything you can about e-commerce and continue to improve your customer acquisition methods until you find something that works for you.