We’ve all been there. Browsing the web late at night, with the soft glow of our screens illuminating a hopeful face, while our mouse hovers over that ‘’buy now’’ button. Because if you buy now, you could have that awesome gadget at your doorstep tomorrow. That seems…too good to be true. In this guide, you’ll learn a holistic approach to ecommerce branding to improve trust, traffic, and transactions to maximize profits.
It’s just one of the doubts people have. Is the website safe for our sacred credit card details? Will the product look anything like the picture? Will they make a fuss if I need to return it?
Behind every ecommerce transaction lies a path: from traffic, to trust, to conversion. There’s a whole series involved in getting to that final click, and in this article, we’ll look at them from a fresh perspective. We’ll paint a holistic picture of how you can optimize your ecommerce branding for optimal trust, quality traffic and ultimately more transactions.
Cultivating trust with consumers – online
Let’s start with the most important element: trust. Cultivating trust with consumers online is a whole different ball game than in a brick-and-mortar store. There people can touch your products, can directly ask questions to staff and see what other people are experiencing. Online, it’s just them and their screens.
Let’s look at what the psychology behind consumers’ trust is, and how you can build it over time. In this guide, you’ll learn a holistic approach to ecommerce branding to improve trust, traffic, and transactions to maximize profits.
The psychological factors behind consumer’s trust: Holistic Approach to Ecommerce Branding
What is trust made up of? It doesn’t just pop up, it’s made up of a building block of elements. It can be a different composition for every customer, but these are some of the blocks they keep into account:
- Familiarity: recognizing a brand or having previous positive interactions with it
- Consistency: repeated positive experiences or consistent brand messages
- Transparency: clear information about products, services and business practices
- Social proof: reviews, testimonials and endorsements from other consumers or trusted figures
- Authenticity: genuine interactions, description communication and sincerity in brand messaging
- Security: assurance that data is protected and transparency in how it’s being used
- Accountability: brands taking responsibility for mistakes and making efforts to make it right
- Reliability: delivering on promises, be it delivery times or product quality – or anything in between
- Empathy: feeling that a brand understands their customers and cares about them, not just about money.
Empathy might not be the first thing e-commerce brands think of incorporating when building their webshop, but it is a crucial one and a great example of how you can take your online store to the next level.
Action points for building trust
No, there’s no guaranteed recipe for success, but you can certainly take some steps towards building trust. Do the following, with authenticity with holistic approach for ecommerce branding:
- Showcasing genuine customer reviews and testimonials: these are gold. They provide social proof that you deliver on promises. Go beyond anonymous written reviews on a landing page – ask customers to send in photos of them with the product, or leave video reviews.
- Transparent return and refund policies: make it clear, and don’t make the information hard to find. If customers know they can easily return an item, they’re more likely to buy it in the first place.
- High-quality product images and descriptions: what’s a product made of? Where was it manufactured? Be upfront about it – even if it’s not the best in class material.
- A reliable and empathetic customer service: build a customer service team that really wants to serve the customers, and is as kind as they are quick.
- Create a community and engage with it: you don’t just want to be sending information. Ultimately, people learn to trust you in interactions, not in one-way communications. A community adds an extra element of trust and humanity to your business.
- Proactively answer questions: don’t wait for people to raise concerns or ask questions. Host webinars, Q&A sessions and provide FAQ pages to take away any doubts.
Eliminate hurdles for completing transactions: Holistic approach to ecommerce branding
If people have made it as far as your payment page, don’t cut off the red carpet just yet. If anything, this is the place where you should delight them one last time, with effortless payments, crystal clear language and helpful suggestions.
Your UX and customer’s data protections is what paves the way to successful transactions. A seamless experience will prevent people from dropping out because of frustration or lack of trust. Here are some pointers to upgrade your UX at the most crucial point of all, keeping in mind your customer’s precious data – fraudsters are rampant.
Action points for boosting transactions
Without even looking at your product catalog – although great products are crucial – there are certainly ways you can sell more, simply by focusing on how you’re closing deals, aka processing transactions. Here are some top tips:
- Simplifying the checkout process: nobody likes filling out long forms or giving information that seems irrelevant to what they’re purchasing. Think about what you’re negotiating here: the delivery of a product. IS this really the place to ask consumers when their birthday is and how they found your website? Consider adding a Guest Checkout option: not everyone wants to make an account for every website they shop on.
- Implementing A/B testing to understand consumer preferences: small changes can make a big difference. Follow the feedback and conversion numbers that come from testing different pages.
- Incorporating a solid fraud prevention system: Keeping your customers safe also means keeping your own systems safe. Ecommerce fraudsters are very much alive and kicking, and could permanently damage your reputation. Luckily, you can take preventive measures. Check out SEON’s guide for a more detailed battle plan to keep your own systems and the trust of your customers intact.
- Offering multiple payment options: everyone has a different preference. If you’re a PayPal kinda gal, getting up from the couch to find your credit card in your purse might stop you from buying all together.
- Multiple delivery options: while we’re on the topic of choice, make sure people can get their items when and how suits them.
- Creating urgency with limited-time offers or low stock indicators: let people know if items are running low in stock or if they can get quicker delivery when ordering within a certain time frame. DO remember that trust remains crucial and you should deceive consumers with fake urgencies.
Paving the way for quality traffic to your ecommerce website
Traffic isn’t what it used to be. The digital highways (and dirt roads) are packed and people are coming and going from every direction with a holistic approach for ecommerce branding.
You should play a proactive role in where traffic is coming from, and be mindful of what traffic numbers mean. Yes, paid traffic can spike numbers, but organic growth is often more sustainable and often indicates genuine interest. The bottom line? Focus on a tactic that leads to traffic that converts.
Action points for increasing traffic
SEO, SEA, social media, screaming your web address from the top of your lungs: here are some real ways you can get more people to your website to build ecommerce trust traffic and transactions.
- Optimizing for search engines: this should be your top priority, so familiarize yourself with the basics of SEO. Find what works for your website and focus on that. Implement, reassess and test constantly.
- Leveraging social media platforms effectively: engage, don’t just broadcast. Eventually, people will find their way to your website.
- Engaging influencer partnerships and collaborations: whether it’s affiliate marketing or sponsored content – diversify your sources of traffic and be a team player.
- Retargeting ads to recapture interested consumers: if people have already made it to your website, reel them back in.
- Diversify your approach: don’t rely solely on one traffic source. Incorporate a mix of organic, paid, social, and referral strategies.
- Localization: all too often, brands don’t look at localization enough, even though it can increase traffic massively, and lead to higher conversion rates.
Branding with a holistic approach: what to keep in mind
These strategies and tips aren’t a salad bar to pick from – they’re all equally essential, and trust is at the center of it all. There’s a clear chain reaction:
- Trustworthy brands often benefit from word-of-mouth, driving organic traffic.
- Quality traffic increases the chances of successful transactions.
- The more great experiences and successful transactions people have, the more likely they are to come back.
It’s a cycle where each element feeds the other, creating a robust ecommerce system. So, look at your brand: how are you making use of this cycle?
Start by taking stock. Here’s how.
Trust is best built from the ground up, with other elements reinforcing your brand’s reputation. It all starts by finding out where your brand stands in terms of trust, traffic, and transactions. Protecting your website against fraud will help with building trust with your well-meaning customers.
- Dive into your data and analytics to find the traffic sources that are working well, and the ones that aren’t – and the ones that seem sketchy.
- Thoroughly test your UX and checkout pages to find any hiccups.
- Speak to your website visitors. Surveys, focus groups, on-page questionnaires – try to get in their heads to find out what they trust, what attracts them and what seals the deal for them to increase Ecommerce trust, traffic and transactions.
Adding the human factor to your ecommerce strategy
The bottom line? When perfecting your ecommerce branding strategy, don’t forget the human factor: earning the trust of the people you want to do business with. Approach selling to your target audience as if you were selling to someone individually – be open to having a conversation with them, be transparent, and have empathy.
