The pandemic has given eCommerce stores an unparalleled boost and forced many businesses to digitize. With many companies going online, it can be strategically challenging to compete. First, you select an eCommerce platform or construct & manage your eCommerce store. Then, you implement digital marketing strategies to keep the store striving and revenue flowing.
E-commerce marketing strategies are not simply developing a marketing plan. Instead, it’s devising a system to regularly customize your strategy to advertise, improve customer experience, increase brand awareness, maximize revenue, and establish a long-term relationship with your consumers.
This article will guide you to market and grow your eCommerce store (website). Following are a few tested methods and concepts SMCSE uses to help its clients. You can use these practical techniques to turn your store – belonging to any industry – into a profitable eCommerce venture.
1. Make An Outstanding eCommerce Website (Store)
Your marketing activities lead your potential buyers onto your website. To successfully convert a potential buyer into a life-long customer, you have to hold your customer’s interest after they click on your store. Your website should be compelling enough to sell without any additional support needed to make the sale.
A thoughtful and compelling website is optimized with a user-friendly layout, straightforward navigation, and engaging design elements that push the customer to press the call to action. Make your eCommerce store simple for the customers to find what they are looking for!
Creating landing pages for different geographical locations, keeping product pages less crowded, adding a contact page with all of your key information, and using an easy-to-read typeface, are a few ways to make your eCommerce store a worthwhile experience for your customer.
SMCSE’s PRO TIP:
Do not use more than 2-3 fonts on your website, and test the color of your call-to-action (Buttons). You will be surprised to see that some colors generate more revenue than others!
2. Optimize your eCommerce Store for SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the effort to increase your website’s ranking on search engines. Websites are optimized for search engines using keywords, backlinks, meta descriptions, meta tags, titles, alt-text, and more!
SEO is (mainly) an organic means to invite your customers onto your website. By ranking your website on keywords that your customers use to search for the products in your industry, you increase the chance of online conversions & sales.
SMCSE’s PRO TIP:
Structure your website to boost SEO. A well-structured website makes crawling and indexing your content more accessible to a search engine. Also, keep URLs short and use H1, H2, and H3 headers throughout website copy.
3. Optimize Your Store for Mobile
There were 4.66 billion active internet users globally in January 2021. 92.6 percent (4.32 billion) of them used mobile devices to access the internet. Most people make online purchases using smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices.
As a result, your chances of converting your target audiences into paying consumers increase when you optimize your eCommerce website for mobile usage.
SMCSE’s PRO TIPs:
- Make your eCommerce store responsive.
- Make the layout clear with legible text.
- Use small-size (<100 Kbs) images for quick loading.
- Avoid pop-ups on mobile. If you must use them, make the close option very visible.
- Divide your content into manageable chunks that are fully displayed on an average screen frame.
4. Utilize Email Marketing
Email marketing is a powerful tool for promoting products in a personalized manner. Select an email marketing solution (e.g. Mailchimp). Develop your email list organically and send updates, offers, newsletters, and promotions to your subscribers. Eighty-three percent of consumers are happy to provide personal information to get a more personalized experience.
You can automate a few emails, such as:
- Welcome Email:
A simple welcome email that introduces subscribers to your eCommerce store and shares the benefits of their subscription.
- Thank you Emails:
Customers are likely to check their email after making a purchase. Use the opportunity to share any new offer your store is running.
- Birthday Email:
Wish your customers/subscribers a Happy Birthday. You can offer a promotion to them on their special day. Mailchimp allows you to send Birthday wishes automatically.
- Emails About Abandoned Shopping Carts:
Never underestimate the power of cart abandonment emails. Customers are pushed into the thought process of reviewing the products again. Setting up an offer or loop of cart abandonment emails can help you increase conversions considerably.
Similarly, you can send promotional emails in the form of announcements, surveys, offers, and newsletters. Promotional emails should include your website and product links to drive visitors (who are in the mid-bottom of the funnel to your website.
SMCSE’s PRO TIP:
In promotional emails, make audience groups and segments. You can create segments based on buying behavior (say, how recently someone made a purchase), location, the language they speak, and more! Sending relevant emails to each segment increases the odds of conversions and minimizes the chances of spam and abuse rate.
5. PPC (Google) Advertising
Pay-Per-Click (PPC), Google Ads, advertising is a practical approach to getting quick results. PPC campaigns bring your eCommerce store in front of the potential customers’ eyes soon after they’re launched.
Broadly, there are two types of PPC campaigns. The first is the campaign to showcase your products when a potential buyer searches for them. These campaigns mainly use keywords in search, smart, call, store front, or shopping ads.
The second type showcases your products to potential buyers when they may or may not be searching for products, such as display, performance max, and video ads. You can ensure that specifically relevant or potentially interested viewers of the online content see your eCommerce store ad. You can also choose to run ads at suitable places online.
SMCSE’s PRO TIP:
Use precise and clear headlines (long & short) and display images in your ads. It’s better to utilize product images on white background with a clear headline than to use a lofty product image that confuses the viewer about the leading product in the picture.
6. Leverage Social Media Platforms
Creating a social media presence and developing & connecting with your community (followers) is an excellent way to increase brand engagement, drive conversions and maintain brand loyalty.
Social media allows organic and paid means to reach new people. Hashtags (organic) and Ads (paid) on various social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter can increase awareness of your eCommerce store.
SMCSE PRO TIP:
Organic social media marketing is successful when your social media content is valuable to customers. Make sure to maintain a consistent tone and persona for your business on all social media platforms you use to build credibility.
Conclusion
To increase the effectiveness of your eCommerce marketing in 2022, use some of the tools mentioned above. Also, don’t forget to try and explore fresh ways to promote your eCommerce store online!
If you need customized eCommerce, digital marketing & branding solutions for your online business, contact our experts today!
