Launching your eCommerce store is simply not enough for your business. For shoppers to start knocking at the doors of your e-store, they need to get to know that your store exists. This is where eCommerce marketing comes to the rescue.
Ecommerce marketing consists of promotional activities that guide online shoppers to the doorsteps of your online store and through the conversion funnel.
In simpler terms, eCommerce marketing is the practice of pulling top-of-funnel traffic to convert into sales and customers.
Before we go deeper into the discussion, there is a need to note that there are many ways you can market your eCommerce store.
You can choose to go the paid route and run your business ads or lean on organic or free marketing methods.
Paid Marketing
These days there are only two open platforms you can depend on for paid eCommerce marketing. Facebook and Google both provide you with a huge database of shoppers you can target and try to sell to.
Free Marketing
For free marketing, there are also a lot of profitable steps you take in your eCommerce marketing journey.
You can improve and work on the SEO of your site by crafting relevant content that can pull great traffic to your website.
I feel strongly that in eCommerce, a successful marketing plan will embrace the combination of the two and a standalone strategy might bear no fruits.
What are the most effective marketing strategies for eCommerce marketing?
The competition for online sales has grown from strength to fierce in the last few years. Now if you are searching for a Smartphone you will get results for every brand ranging from USD 50 to 100 especially when the smart Phone prices are lower, the competition rises.
So how do you get your product to shine and stand out in a sea of competition? In the current market scenario, you need an effective eCommerce marketing strategy that not only shows your product to the users searching for it but also to those who are not.
By trying out a combination of paid and unpaid advertising methods such as Facebook, SEO, Google Ads, email marketing, and social selling, you can streamline a strategy that works for your business.
The target is to find the perfect mix which will convert the most visitors. It is important to find a working strategy because of the changing and increasingly fierce competitive marketing environment.
This could mean the difference between day & night for many businesses. Now Let’s look at some of the tried and true eCommerce marketing strategies that have worked for other companies.
#1. Retargeting
If you have ever booked a hotel or bought a plane ticket online, you must have noticed similar offers following you around shortly after you on your social networks and other pages you visit, even if you didn’t buy the ticket or if you are already back from the trip.
You may think it’s only a coincidence, oh no! that is a carefully planned marketing targeted at you.
So what exactly happened? Congratulations already, you have just experienced retargeting for yourself. You have been retargeted by a company you patronized or a company you are close to patronizing.
Wait for a second, isn’t this what we used to call remarketing? What is the difference? For many people, these two concepts are the same. You can see how people use them synonymously to talk about the same thing in many posts online.
Nevertheless, the truth is that there are some differences between these two. Remarketing is a more expansive concept than retargeting.
Remarketing can be used to talk about any strategy utilized to get a customer back into your sales funnel.
In a few words, we could say that retargeting is a form of remarketing. Retargeting is an online marketing strategy that involves having a new impact on users who previously interacted with your site by sending them ads. It is a highly profitable eCommerce marketing strategy.
#2. Leverage Content Marketing
With the entire world lunging toward online customer experiences, eCommerce content marketing can give you the edge to beat or stay at par with your competitors.
It is one of the most cost-effective means of generating brand loyalty while improving online sales in the process.
When brands with online stores invest in online marketing, they tend to hierarchize paid advertising and social media for fast paybacks.
However, when you dig deeper into the metrics that drive real marketing ROI throughout the sales funnel, they all point to content marketing.
Content marketing for eCommerce websites delivers a key advantage when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO). You should be utilizing this strategy if you are not already.
#3. Search Engine Optimization
You have spent months, perhaps even years, building your eCommerce store, and still, you have no reasonable traffic?
Sometimes, the people you target don’t know what they are searching for when they come online.
They will surely appreciate the way you anticipated their intent in search if you happen to sell that product.
But the reality is, you have to optimize your eCommerce site for SEO to target the right buyers.
Getting more traffic is top of mind for any eCommerce entrepreneur, so the thought of leveraging eCommerce SEO has probably crossed your mind once or twice, now is the time to start.
#4. Social Media Marketing
Social media and eCommerce are a perfect match made in heaven, the marriage between these two has been walking marketers down the aisle of success forever. And for a good reason, more and more online users shop online and utilize social media to research brands.
Outrank your competitor with the combined power of these two great tools. Social media marketing can help marketers build engaged audiences where their customers and target audience interact the most.
Or, it can be a labor-intensive obligation that spreads you thin, resulting in a drain on time and money rather than the asset you have seen it become for many established brands.
The difference is having a social media marketing strategy that keeps your actions focused, along with a process that allows you to implement without taking too much attention away from running your business.
But starting from scratch can be a demoralizing task, especially with so many different platforms to build a presence on and the commitment that comes with it.
#5. Leverage Affiliate Marketing
Even if you are not yet harvesting the rewards of affiliate marketing, you have surely heard of it. That’s because, agreeing with Forbes, the category is now responsible for more than 15% of e-commerce sales, that’s huge, putting it on par with email marketing and ahead of both social marketing and display advertising as a driver of eCommerce transactions.
Ecommerce affiliate networks link online publishers with affiliate programs that enable them to promote eCommerce-related offers.
Ecommerce affiliate programs can be a beneficial niche in mobile affiliate marketing with high payouts, specifically as they promote the latest popular websites, gadgets, and online offers to mobile consumers.
#6. Improve website’s search visibility
You should put an ocean of sweat into improving your website’s search visibility. Yes, I am looking at the health of your ranking in the search engine.
Consistently publishing high-quality web content is still king in the SEO world, you should have that at the back of your mind at all times.
Thorough content marketing boosts the visibility of the most important pages that participate in the sale process.
While on these, do not forget about on-site SEO optimization (H1, alt-tags, relevant keywords, and everything in between).
#7. Use social signals.
Websites have very powerful opportunities to define how effective content marketing strategy is. Website is the reception ground where prospects convert into loyal customers.
Therefore, different conversion rate optimization efforts should become your daily routine. Various social signals or so-called social proof, are the conversion rate optimization (CRO) tactic that enhances your credibility in the eyes of prospects.
For example, you can display the latest conversions like opt-ins or sales. Or feature how many visitors your website or a specific page currently has. Or show visitors any updates you wish them to see.
All these website notifications based on your website analytics can be executed automatically with the help of social proof platforms like crowdy.ai.
#8. Build an Email Marketing Strategy
Running an online business is difficult. And, without an email marketing strategy for eCommerce customers, it can be hopeless to build the meaningful relationships you need to grow your brand.
Email marketing helps you connect with new customers and turn existing customers into raving fans.
#9. Put the focus on customer service
Good customer service can be a challenge for your eCommerce website because of the lack of face-to-face contact, but it’s just as crucial as in any customer-facing business.
While eCommerce sites can be exceedingly convenient, they may fall short in certain areas. Most noteworthy is the inability to provide the same personal customer service you would find in a brick-and-mortar store.
Every single interaction with your company impacts the prospects’ opinion of your brand. So, a brand-centered customer service strategy across multiple platforms and channels is an important element of achieving success with online marketing.
#10. Try out Google Ads.
Utilizing Google Ads for search engine marketing offers you an opportunity to bid on keywords so that you can show up first on search engine results pages.
Getting the highly competitive “top spot” is what search engine optimization is all about, however, a heads-up, Google Ads will still show up first.
Search engine marketing (SEM) is a great way to advertise your site because it doesn’t require any design and can be very effective in pulling new traffic.
You will get results in real-time and can modify your campaign strategies based on performance as you go.
#11. Partner with complementary brands.
Businesses often partner with other businesses — ones that are either within their industry or that target the same consumer segments, to collaborate on various projects that can allow both to improve brand affinity, extend their reach, and offer better services.
Also known as co-branding, there are various reasons companies choose to engage in complementary partnerships.
Within the tech niche, for example, companies can form a relationship with other organizations to develop software and tools that cater to similar audiences and could integrate.
Instead of treating each other as competitors, companies in this situation can create complementary partnerships to either:
#1.Build a new, joint product together
#2. Cross-promote their products
When a business pools its resources with complementary businesses, everyone reaps the rewards.
#12. Referral Marketing
When consumers solicit their friends, family members, and colleagues to buy from you, that is a referral. This may happen naturally if they really enjoy your product or service, but you can ensure that it happens more regularly through a referral program.
Simply request your customers to refer others in exchange for something of value to them (e.g. discount, money, free gift, anything) that you can offer to either your new customer, your current customer, or both.
Benefits of Ecommerce Marketing
Both customers and businesses can enjoy a great amount of convenience when they leverage eCommerce marketing, the benefits are many but in this article, I sum them up in four points:
#1. Easy and fast
Nowadays shoppers don’t have to go to physical stores for shopping, they just do it wherever with a few clicks using their PCs or mobile phones.
The display of eCommerce marketing platforms becomes more and more clarified so everyone can shop online whether they are tech-savvy or not.
#2. 24/7 shopping time
While traditional shopping limits your shopping time in each store’s opening and closing time, eCommerce marketing does not.
With eCommerce marketing, you can shop at any time even in the early morning or at midnight, as long as you find it convenient.
On the other hand, business owners can provide 24/7 customer support service easier with eCommerce than with brick-and-mortar stores.
#3. Easier WOM
Shopping within an online platform makes it easier for customers to read reviews or ratings of eCommerce stores before purchasing items.
Business owners can operate Word-of-mouth marketing (or WOM marketing) campaigns more simply.
#4. Global reach
Both customers and store owners can close the wide gap between them, thanks to the limitless power of eCommerce marketing.
Customers can visit and purchase oversea products regardless of their locations and businesses may expand their target customers across many countries.
Summarily, the convenience of eCommerce lies in ease, time, and money-saving, that’s why it has greatly become a dynamic trend.
Conclusion
If you are still on the fence about launching your eCommerce marketing, you may ask yourself why eCommerce is getting so much attention around the world and why brands are fiercely paying to gain an online presence.
I am certain the sincere answers you give will be the only push you need to buy your business a profitable online presence with the tested and trusted strategies outlined in this guide,
