How to attract customers to your WooCommerce store

Increase your reach and entice the customers you want to shop at your eCommerce store

The  eCommerce sector has continued to grow in 2023, despite increasing pressures on spending slowing UK retail sales in recent months. Although consumers are still looking online for the best deals, brands hoping to stand out in the market need to offer something more.

Recent research into online shoppers’ behaviour highlights the importance of maintaining a consistent, evolving dialogue with your customers. This means paying attention to their needs, providing personalised experiences, and identifying then improving any areas of frustration.

In this blog post, we’ll cover everything you need to know to attract new customers to your WooCommerce store and amplify your brand’s reach. We’ll look at:

Before you start expanding your brand’s reach, it’s important to get your foundations right. This starts with gaining a clear picture of your existing customer base, and using that data as the basis for your decision making across the following areas:

• User experience (UX)
• Search engine optimisation (SEO)
• Pay-per-click (PPC)
• Analytics

UX: Seamless digital experiences

Shifting global economic conditions in key markets has led to a change in consumer expectations. According to recent research by Adobe, half of global consumers (50%) expect better experiences from brands during challenging economic conditions.

Brands that achieve the optimal balance of profitability, corporate responsibility and customer experience – with customer experience ranking as the number one priority – are most likely to retain the loyalty of their customer base during difficult economic times.

Factors to consider when optimising your website’s user experience are:

1. Clear navigation, easy-to-use search function and accurate product information
2. Responsive, fast-loading design across multiple devices
3. Offering flexible payment and delivery options with a secure checkout process
4. Accessible design that can be engaged with by customers with different needs

SEO: Reaching a wider audience

Once you’ve optimised your site’s user experience, the next step is making sure potential customers can find you. SEO is one of the best ways to attract customers to your WooCommerce store.

Getting your SEO strategy right will increase your overall visibility and ensure your content reaches the audiences who need it most.

A 2020 report found that organic search traffic accounts for about a third of overall traffic to eCommerce sites.

Your SEO strategy should consider the following areas:

• Website speed and performance 
• Up-to-date, relevant and useful content
• Internal and external links
• Appropriate use of key words
• Metadata, image descriptions and alt text
• Website code
• Accessibility and usability

PPC: Targeting your advertising 

PPC advertising offers a high degree of ad targeting, enabling you to reach the audiences that your message is most likely to resonate with.

Leverage your website analytics and user data to understand your existing customer base, and identify potential new ones. And revisit your user personas and check you are speaking to the right audience in the right way.

Use this information to create ad campaigns targeted at the demographics who are most likely to resonate with your products or services.

Analytics: Knowing your customers

Using data effectively can help you to understand your customers better and deliver what they want through your website.

Having the right analytics tools configured on your website will give you greater visibility over your data, which you can then use to inform your decision-making.

There are many tools available on the market, but the right setup for you will depend on your business needs, and the metrics you measure your goals against.

Attracting new customers to your WooCommerce store is easier if your brand stands out from the competition. Here are some ideas for you to explore:

• Promotions and incentives
• Competitions and collaborations
• Cross-platform, marketplaces and social commerce
• Creative campaigns and experiential marketing
• Company values that resonate
• Striving for innovation

Promotions and incentives

Offering limited-time promotions, deals or discounts on selected products can be a great way to attract new customers. 

As well as attracting new customers, rewarding loyal customers with members-only benefits or targeted offers can provide a powerful incentive for them to keep shopping with your brand.

A recent survey by Marigold on consumer loyalty programme preferences found that 30% of UK consumers would like to be offered exclusive or early access to products.

By harnessing insights gained through user data such as purchase history, search history and saved wishlists, you can tailor your offers according to each user’s individual needs.

Competitions and collaborations 

Competitions and collaborations with other established brands or influencers are a good way to draw new customers into your sales funnel.

By aligning yourself with a brand whose consumer base overlaps with yours, you gain mutual benefits. You can share customer insights and cross-promote your products to new audiences.

Cross-platform, marketplaces and social commerce 

Online shoppers today want the ability to buy wherever, however and whenever they want to. Therefore, businesses in the eCommerce sector need a strong digital presence with checkout options across multiple channels to succeed. 

Tapping into the significant reach of social media platforms and online marketplaces increases your brand visibility.

Integrating your website’s inventory and checkout process into platforms like Instagram, Facebook, eBay, Etsy, and Amazon creates a frictionless experience for both your business and your customers. You eliminate unnecessary steps or repetition in the checkout and ordering process. 

The launch of TikTok Shop earlier this year is also a strong indicator of how quickly the platform is emerging as a powerful driver of sales.

Over half of its users say they use the platform as inspiration for future purchases, and a third of users are predicted to make purchases via the app in 2023. With one billion global monthly active users worldwide, that’s a significant forecast.

Creative campaigns and experiential marketing

Many brands that stand out today benefit from organic, user-generated content. You can encourage this, harnessing the power of community by striving to create memorable customer experiences that go beyond the purchase process.

Consider creative campaigns for unique giveaways, and live events or pop-up stores to curate special, shared experiences. If your business is primarily or exclusively selling online, there’s a novelty and scarcity associated with physical touchpoints with your business and products.

These physical touchpoints also provide opportunities for consumers to engage and connect more deeply with your brand, leading to increased loyalty and satisfaction.

Company values that resonate 

Consumers are increasingly seeking out brands that align with their personal values. In fact, an enormous 82% of consumers want companies to prioritise social responsibility above profit. That’s according to the annual Social Media Trends Report for 2023 by consumer intelligence and analytics platform Talkwalker, in partnership with Khoros.

These findings are echoed by recent research into European markets which found that across Europe, nearly 70% of shoppers either agree or strongly agree that retailers should be ecologically sustainable.

If your brand prides itself on ethical and sustainable practices, this needs to be reflected on your website. You could:

• Share your company values and ethos prominently on your website and in your marketing
• Minimise your site’s carbon footprint
• Offer charitable donations through a secure checkout provider

These are all ways to resonate with customers and ensure that your website aligns with your values. 

Striving for innovation

Keeping up with the latest technology and innovations in your sector can give you a competitive edge in the eCommerce market, so you can attract more customers to your WooCommerce store.

Explore advancements in artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality, and payments. Innovation in these areas can help you create intuitive customer experiences and streamline your business processes. 

Leveraging your website analytics and user data will enable you to gain a clear understanding of your customers: their needs, their frustrations and their patterns of behaviour.

Use these insights to deliver a more seamless, personalised experience that will benefit your profit margins by supporting several key areas of sales, such as:

• Customer acquisition
• Customer retention
• Email flows to re-engage potential customers

Customer acquisition

Harnessing insights gained through your website’s user data can help you acquire new customers. Deeper insights into your customers, their needs and their spending habits, enables you to cater your offering and drive better results from your investment in marketing and advertising campaigns.

This means you can successfully attract customers to your WooCommerce store and make better use of your budgets.

Studying how your users interact with your WooCommerce store and identifying trends and patterns in their behaviour will enable you to personalise your marketing according to what you know will resonate with them.

Web re-targeting is an effective tactic, and you can combine this with the pink suitcase theory. Use eye-catching products in ads to capture attention and encourage consumers to browse your eCommerce shop.

Think of it as putting your pink suitcase in the shop window. It attracts customers through the door. If they purchase something else (let’s say a more practical and less colourful suitcase) it was by advertising your pink suitcase that you hooked the customer in the first place.

Customer retention

As new competitors enter the eCommerce market, consumers have more choice than ever. At the same time, loyal customers are essential to your business’ longevity. Despite this, research suggests that only 18% of companies focus on customer retention.

Re-marketing to your existing customer base is cost-effective, and it’s a more profitable approach. Existing customers are 50% more likely to buy new products than new customers are, so it’s easier to sell your new products and services to existing customers compared with people start of their journey with your brand.

Customer experience is a key factor in driving loyalty. And you can use social media, email and text to stay front-of-mind.

WooCommerce case study: The Career Portal

Career education course providers, The Career Portal, wanted a digital partner to help optimise their WooCommerce store over time. 

We helped them to evolve their existing WooCommerce websites, The Medic Portal and The Lawyer Portal, in line with the unique needs of their users.

These sites also required robust and secure infrastructure that could withstand traffic from millions of users, particularly during peak periods. We focused on improving overall site performance, incorporating leaner code to optimise loading times.

The Career Portal have packages, events and courses that will suit their customers at different points in their journey working towards healthcare and legal occupations. This gives them to opportunity to re-engage their customers with timely offers and campaigns.

We also enhanced search functionalities to simplify the process for customers to find relevant information, for instance to help them prepare for a specific exam.

Email flows to re-engage potential customers

Data can help you re-engage customers who leave your website while still considering a purchase.

WooCommerce research suggests that the average abandoned cart rate ranges from 55-80% across different industries. The research also found that sending a follow-up email can recover at least 30% of these sales.

Integrating your WooCommerce store with a CRM platform such as Salesforce allows you to automate and track communications so you can test and refine your approach based on what your audience responds best to.

The continued growth of eCommerce combined with rapid advances in technology have led to higher expectations for retailers to provide faster, more convenient user experiences. Our top advice to continue to attract customers to WooCommerce store is to stay committed to studying consumer behavioural patterns over time.

Not only will these insights help you improve reach and connect with new customers, or re-engage existing ones, but it will also help you forecast demand, adjust your inventory according to changing needs, and deliver increased personalisation.

Remember to:

1. Get your foundations right
2. Stand out from the competition
3. Harness the power of data