Guest Post: Top 10 E-Commerce Marketing Strategies for Your Business
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Before we jump on the top e-commerce marketing strategies, let's understand e-commerce in general.
With the advent of technology, the world is going digital. More people are using online shops to cater to their daily needs, and this is causing e-commerce growth to outpace brick and mortar shops. There is competition in every business, and the e-commerce realm is no different.
To fight this competition and survive in this cutthroat world of e-commerce, marketing strategies are vital. Sound e-commerce marketing strategies can provide a competitive edge to make your e-commerce business successful. E-commerce marketing strategies are a bit different from conventional marketing strategies, but the goals are similar.
Let's try to understand what e-commerce marketing strategies are.
What Are E-commerce Marketing Strategies?
E-commerce marketing strategies are roadmaps or plans which are used to grow an e-commerce business. Like other marketing strategies, e-commerce marketing strategies need to be adjusted and altered as per the market volatility.
The e-commerce strategies can have various aims like:
Creating awareness
Establishing your brand
Promoting products and services
Increasing customer retention
Attracting more traffic to your digital shop
Increasing conversion rate and profit
Building customer loyalty and trust
But why do you need to get serious about your e-commerce marketing strategies in 2022?
The pandemic took a toll on the retail industry. But while other types of retail suffered, the sales in e-commerce surged. As a result, many new players are entering the e-commerce domain. Making elaborate and effective e-commerce marketing strategies amid this high competition has become more challenging.
Here are some key points that can help you formulate the best marketing e-commerce strategy for your business.
10 High-Performing E-commerce Marketing Strategies for Your Digital Business
In the last decade, the e-commerce domain has shown unprecedented growth. And in the coming years, retail e-commerce sales worldwide are expected to cross 7,000 billion U.S. Dollars.
(Image Source: Statista)
With this trend, strong and practical e-commerce marketing strategies to tap into this boundless digital world are more crucial than ever.
1. Effective and Efficient E-commerce Website
First and foremost, make your e-commerce store effective and efficient.
E-commerce websites are the first place where potential customers interact with your business. It is extremely important to make this interaction smooth and memorable.
Some key points to keep in mind are:
Easy to Use or User Friendly - The e-commerce website should be designed to be easy to access and navigate. You should make sure that customers don't experience complications while surfing your website.
Clear and Attractive - Your web pages should be clear and appealing to the eye. Choose a feel-good color scheme that makes the customers want to spend more time on the site.
Optimized layout - The layout should be clean and concise for the customers to easily find whatever they are looking for.
Feedback and reviews - Add feedback and product reviews by existing customers to build trust with your potential customers.
Add AI chatbot functionality to avoid missing out on any potential leads. There are several ready-to-implement AI chatbot platforms in the market that you can use for your website.
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
One of the most important elements of e-commerce marketing strategies is to optimize your website for search engines. Search engines like Google and Bing use algorithms to provide the best and most relevant search results to their users. E-commerce websites need to be optimized so that potential buyers and customers can land on your page when they search for the products you are selling.
For SEO, keywords are the game-changers. Analyze the right keywords that people use while searching for products that you sell. Avoid stuffing your web pages with keywords to get more hits. It makes your content less readable. Optimal use of keywords for image SEO is also important.
3. Content Marketing
It is rightly said that “Content is the King.”
While formulating e-commerce marketing strategies, content marketing plays a pivotal role. Blogging and guest posting is the most popular technique of content marketing. Consider asking professional bloggers to write relevant and meaningful blogs to promote your products.
People have infinite questions, and many times they seek answers from search engines and blogs. Educative and relevant content helps you improve your ranking on search engines and drive more traffic to your website.
4. Marketing via Email
For sound e-commerce marketing strategies, email marketing is vital. You can stay in touch with your existing customers and also get new customers via email interaction.
Emails can be used for:
Generating brand loyalty
Retargeting or upselling existing customers
Creating awareness
Providing solutions to customers’ and prospects’ problems
Generating curiosity among potential customers and making them want to learn more about your products and business
For a successful email marketing strategy, you need an abundance of leads you can reach out to.
Lead generation for a particular area or of a particular category needs suitable lead generation software. You can choose among the following software:
Hubspot (Primarily for sales lead generation)
OptinMonster and WPForms (Online form builders and pop-up forms software)
Unbounce, Leadpages, Instapage (Landing page builders)
Nimble (CRM software)
Mailchimp (Email marketing automation tools)
Prospect.io and Norbert (Prospecting and outreach tools)
ReferralCandy and Impact (Managing loyalty programs and affiliate programs)
5. Marketing on Social Platforms
Social media platforms have become an indispensable part of most people’s lives. Hence, effective e-commerce marketing strategies must include social media marketing.
Social media platforms can make a huge difference when it comes to brand awareness. Posting informative, humorous, creative content or some pictures and videos on social media platforms can get you the much-needed customer attention. A well-made video can be very effective because people love watching videos. It’s one of the reasons video-based platforms like YouTube and TikTok are widely popular.
Creating video content can be a bit hectic. But with the right tools or using ready-made templates like premiere pro transitions templates, creating videos gets easier. Moreover, you can use analytics tools to target customers based on their interests, preferences, likes, and dislikes. On platforms like Facebook, Quora, etc., you can create communities or discussion forums for promoting your products and building trust in your brand.
6. Ads on Facebook and Instagram
For comprehensive e-commerce marketing strategies, running ads on Facebook and Instagram can be very fruitful. On these platforms, you can target customers based on various factors like age, sex, interests, location, etc.
Social media marketing can do wonders for creating awareness and demand. Facebook and Instagram let you target an audience based on their activities on social media. For example, if someone likes pages about travel and destinations or shows interest in the same, they can be targeted for products related to travel.
7. Marketing With the Help of Influencers
These days many people follow social media influencers and make purchasing decisions based on their recommendations. These influencers are modern-day celebrities who are liked and trusted by millions.
Using influencer marketing in your e-commerce marketing strategy can improve sales, create brand awareness, and increase your brand’s credibility. Based on your target market, you can choose a relevant social media influencer who can promote your products.
It can be a bit expensive to use this technique as some influencers, based on the number of followers, charge huge amounts for endorsement or promotions. Kim Kardashian, for instance, reportedly gets a hefty paycheck for endorsing any product. But if you're not planning to spend a fortune on this, many influencers (including nano and micro-influencers) with enough following can serve the purpose within your budget.
Ensure the influencer’s niche and content is relevant to your e-commerce business.
8. Pay Per Click Promotion
The big difference between SEO and SEM/PPC is that the prior is free, and the latter is paid.
You can pay search engines like Google to show your website ad if a consumer searches for a specific keyword. PPC is basically paying search engines to show your ads to people who search for specific keywords.
Sounds too good to be true, right?
Search engines use a bidding system, and you pay only when a user clicks or takes desired action on your ad, hence the name Pay Per Click. For PPC, you need to do a thorough analysis to choose the right keywords and manage your marketing budget.
9. Push Notifications
Push notifications help you stay in touch with customers.
Push notifications on mobile apps or websites can keep your customers engaged. These pop-up messages can catch the attention of a potential customer, who might not be thinking about buying a product and make them want to make the purchase.
10. Retargeting Potential Customers
It is possible that some potential customers didn’t take the decision to buy while in your e-commerce store. Retargeting can bring life to these dead leads and convert them into sales.
You can use analytics tools to identify visitors to your website and retarget them via different techniques, such as display ads.
Many platforms like Facebook and Google provide provisions to target such leads again in the same marketing campaign or a different one.
Ready to Practice these E-Commerce Marketing Strategies?
This ever-increasing competition in the e-commerce domain poses a big challenge to all businesses. Sound e-commerce marketing strategies can provide a competitive edge to your business and help you sail through these cold waters.
Use all these points to devise brilliant e-commerce marketing strategies for your business. Some of these might not be a good fit for your business while others may be a perfect fit. Don’t make hasty decisions, consider what’s right for the nature of your business. Effectual e-commerce marketing strategies will make all the difference in your business. So, go for it!
About the Author
Gaurav Sharma is the founder and CEO of Attrock, a results-driven digital marketing company. Grew an agency from 5-figure to 7-figure revenue in just two years | 10X leads | 2.8X conversions | 300K organic monthly traffic. He also contributes to top publications like HuffPost, Adweek, Business 2 Community, TechCrunch, and more.
Social Accounts: Twitter, LinkedIn & Instagram
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