We’re proud to be helping thousands of ecommerce business owners by giving the most digestible, battle-tested advice to be found online about succeeding with Google Ads.
So in this post, you’re going to learn why you should be looking for a winning customer rather than a winning product.
Yes, the dropshipping “gurus” teach you otherwise, but if you want to be successful in Ecommerce you need to learn how to win customers and keep them for life.
Listen to your Customers
Do you really know your customers? Have you any idea what their pain points are? How about their needs?
Listening to your customers is one of the most important things you need to do if you want to really succeed in your online business.
When you start listening to your customers and understand what they’re truly looking for in your product, you’ll become a better entrepreneur and you won’t have any problems growing a successful store.
Now, if you’re currently having problems with your Ecommerce store, take a step back and think about what you’re actually doing. Go back to your main objectives and reassess your marketing goals.
Your Ecommerce store is up, you have your products, you started running ads, BUT NO ONE IS BUYING! Or if you’re getting a few conversions, your customer acquisition costs are too high and you really have to work hard to convince your customers that your product is worth buying.
If this is what you’re seeing in your Google Ads account, then you definitely have a big problem here.
So how can you fix this? I’ve already mentioned that winning customers beats winning products. But where do you find winning customers?
Well, it’s simple because they are already there. They are already looking for your product. What you need to do is to listen to your customers (and target audience) and understand what they actually want.
1. Speak their language
I don’t mean English, German, or Spanish. I mean the language they use when talking about your product or a specific niche.
For example, some people, specifically the “millennials,” are obsessed with online games like World of Warcraft. When they play this game, they speak a whole different language using different lingos. They talk about skills, items, mage, noobs, and other game-related jargons.
Other people, on the other hand, enjoy gardening. And when they start talking about all the things they do in their garden, it’s like listening to a human being from a different era or planet. They talk about their tools, planting techniques, and different types of plants.
You see, these groups of people use completely different languages when they talk about a topic or niche they’re interested in. And if you’re targeting one of these groups, you need to understand what they’re talking about. You need to speak their language.
Your customers can tell if you don’t understand them. This is why you can’t just throw up a quick product page, run some basic ads, and call it a day.
Successful Ecommerce store owners are those who listen to what customers have to say. Then they come back with better products, better marketing strategies, and a better store that speaks directly to their customers.
2. Build your store for your specific customers
Most general stores struggle succeeding in this area. That is why I always recommend building a brand store and focusing on a solid niche where you can serve one group of people. This way, you can craft your website specifically for your target customers.
You want your customer to trust you and your store. So what better way to do this than building an Ecommerce website that clearly shows them how your product is going to help them.
A big problem with online stores is that there’s a big virtual wall between you and your customers. Even if you get live chat installed on your site, you can’t see them asking about your products and see what they’re thinking as they look at your products.
But building an Ecommerce store is not like winning the lottery where you just put up a website and hope for the best. You need to give it your all and create a website that speaks directly to your customers and one that has a product that solves their problems.
The chances of getting this right the first time, without doing any market research, are so low. So you need to find a way to communicate with these people, to get their feedback, and to find out their wants, needs, desires, goals and pains.
Your Winning Customers' Needs and Wants
Once you really understand your customers, you can craft an incredible website and product that strikes them right at their core. This is how you create a brand and a store that scales so easily because your customers tell all their friends about it.
You don’t need to spend nearly as much on ads because, once you get your product in front of your ideal customer, they’ll buy without hesitation.
This is the key to a successful ecommerce store, and the key to doing great business in general. Give your customers what they want, and solve their problems!
Now, how can you do this? Here are some techniques in identifying customers needs and wants:
1. Visit a local market
I recommend finding a place in real life, for example a local market, a mall, or anywhere you can talk to real people about your product.
2. Join clubs and organizations related to your niche
Go to a meetup about your product. If you are selling garden tools, you can join the gardeners club and talk to the members about their problems. You need to start somewhere in real life, so you can see who you’re talking to.
3. Know where your customers hang out online
Online forums, Facebook groups, websites, and Youtube channels—there are so many places online where your customers hang out and connect with other people with the same interests.
In these platforms, you can find people recommending products they like, providing reviews, and even discussing their pain points about a product.
So find where your customers are, and start getting amongst them. Learn from them, and get excited about the niche.
What if you have an Ecommerce store already? You can still apply the first three techniques above, but you can also do a few other things that will help you improve your store, your product, and even your ads.
4. Call or email current customers.
If you already had customers in your store and you were able to collect their contact information, you can email or call them and ask if you can interview them.
This might sound very daunting and you might be very comfortable asking your previous customers. However, there is an effective trick you can do to get your customers to agree to your request: give them an amazon gift card if you have to.
The 10-15 minutes you spend on the phone with them will be worth its weight in gold. Find out why they purchased, why they chose you over competitors, what problem you are solving, and dive deep into who they are too.
5. Get a live chat installed
Installing a live chat software, like Gorgias, allows you to have a great live chat function that integrates really well with Shopify.
This software also combines emails and Facebook messenger into one platform, so it’s easier to manage all your communication and messages with customers.
6. Add a phone number on your site
Most Ecommerce store owners find this scary. But trust me, this allows you to really hear their frustrations and the questions they ask.
7. Install a heatmap and tracking software
A heatmap and tracking software allows you to record and see people’s interaction with your website. One of the tools I highly recommend is Hotjar. The free version has everything you need to collect some basic but great data.
Winning Customers VS Winning Products
The gurus you see in Google and YouTube are teaching you to find winning dropshipping products. They teach you about arbitrage and sourcing products from AliExpress or Alibaba. While these methods sometimes work, they are not the best methods to succeed in the online selling industry.
There is a better way to win in Ecommerce: find winning customers.
The process and techniques might seem long and daunting, but your customers are going to be your source of inspiration for new products and where you can take your store.
You can’t just build an Ecommerce store and just sit back and watch the cash roll in. That’s the passive income dream and, over enough time, you’ll realize that you’ve fallen behind.
If you want to be at the top and find customers that you can keep for the lifetime of your business, you need to keep solving their problems and give them what they really want.
Want to get more Ecommerce tips and tutorials just like this? Subscribe to my YouTube Channel and learn more about growing your Ecommerce store. Or book a FREE Strategy call with Sam!
