Starting any business website can be difficult. From technical to administrative concerns, there is so much to do that it is overwhelming at times.
Some of the below strategies we suggest can help you to have an effective marketing strategy.
Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.
While things might look hopeless from the outset. You can use several basic strategies to increase the number of customers. Gain more traffic and ultimately more sales for your website.
This article will outline marketing strategies you can apply to improve your E-commerce site. You can use all or apply one method at a time.
Let us start with essential marketing strategies you can apply to your eCommerce store. They will form the foundation of your eCommerce processes, and while they do take time to yield results, your operations can benefit from them in the long-run.
This might seem obvious, but before you can successfully market your Ecommerce site, you must know your brand.
Branding is how you express who your business is for and what it is about. Think of branding as your overall approach to reaching your target audience.
Each of these elements is vital to understanding who you are as a brand.
Though there are plenty of buzzwords going around the digital sphere, none of them can stand up to the majesty of Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
An essential part of marketing, you should emphasize SEO for eCommerce. This means that all your product pages, posts, and keywords are optimized according to keywords related to your niche.
While we are on the subject of keyword research, we would like to point out that while there are paid tools like Ahrefs (All-in-one SEO toolset), there are also free keyword research tools like Ubersuggest as well.
Last, your eCommerce platform must be tailored to facilitate SEO processes.
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A useful tool for local businesses with local customers is Google My Business.
When potential customers see a businesses profile, and it is accompanied by a good review or finds the listing at the top of their list, the business gains credibility and people will be more willing to trust the business.
Also, when people in the same area as a company perform a search on Google for a product or service the company provides, the company will appear in the top searches.
A second essential step of creating a successful eCommerce store is to include reviews. The main goal of this is that it builds trust and authority for whatever you're selling. If you're selling a quality assured product but have not included the option of reviews, then you're seriously missing out.
Studies show that 88% of buyers follow reviews before they make a purchase. This is why you can not afford to add reviews to your store.
If you're using WooCommerce, then there are plenty of review plugins that you can use to integrate a review functionality.
Just be wary of "Fake Review Websites", they can negatively impact your site's reputation.
Ecommerce can benefit significantly from "Content Marketing". Blogging, infographics, video content, and images are an excellent way to capture consumers attention and entice them to purchase.
Perhaps the best part about content marketing is that it is free of charge if you choose to create content yourself. Again, whatever content you display to users, make sure that it is optimized for more exposure for search engines.
You might be asking: What kind of topics should you write about? Well, you can write just about anything while staying within your niche. Do not limit yourself to the "Product Catalog" best practices. But also focus on trends, tips, white papers, tutorials, and more.
White papers are great examples of marketing collateral that exhibits your authority over a chosen market. They can be long form content intended to educate the target audience, that delve deeper into industry trends, issues, and policies and explain its causes, implications, and benefits.
Lastly, always focus on long-tail and question-based keywords. It can prove very beneficial since these types of keywords are what users search for more often than not.
An integral part of marketing your eCommerce store is guest posting. It's a win-win situation in which you write guest articles for a website and, in return, get a link back to your website.
One of the greatest benefits of guest posting is that it allows you to enter an already established Online Community. It will let you connect with new groups of people, which done right will benefit you.
Ideally, you should guest post on website's relevant to your business's niche and those with whom you want to maintain a good relationship.
If you are considering starting up your eCommerce business, chances are you have thought about using social media for marketing purposes.
It is a powerful tool that lets you display your products and services to a wide-range of people from all across the globe. With the help of sharing, likes, and comments, you can utilize the social media algorithm to aid your business.
The question is, which social media platform should you select for your business? This it depends on the kind of business you have. You should ideally have at least a Facebook page, Twitter account, and maybe be on Instagram.
In today's market, you can even sell products through social media. Because of this, you should focus on improving your customer ecommerce experience on social media to avoid the risk of low reviews and abandoned carts.
More than 400 million people view blogs every month. Top marketers say blogging is their top inbound marketing priority?.
Blogging is not only entertaining, but it can be one of the most effective marketing strategies for exposure and branding. Your blog is a place to show potential clients and the search engines that you are an authority in your area and can be relied on for information and assistance.
You can add a call-to-action option to your blogs, so visitors can subscribe to your blog and receive emails. This is a nice way to collect leads and make offers to potential customers by getting their information.
Make sure your blog content is SEO-optimized so that people can discover it on search engines like Google.
The thought-leaders of the industry can be used as an important marketing tool for your eCommerce business. Now, you would have to invest in those influencers to get the right returns.
To utilize this strategy to your advantage, you need to reach out to key influencer's within your niche. Ideally, it would help if you focused on connecting with Micro-influencers instead of influencers with billions of likes.
The trade-off for promoting your products and services can be anything from getting some free products to giving them promotional payments.
One of the oldest yet most effective methods of gaining more customers is email marketing.
As a marketing tool, it is highly effective in its application. Through good copy-writing, clear and visually appealing design, you can gain more readership for your content and more sales for your business.
For email marketing, the first thing you would need is an emailing list. There are plenty of methods you can collect emails. Once you have built a good enough emailing list, you can reach out to your customers with discount offers, product announcements, and more.
Contrary to popular opinion, email marketing has always been a significant marketing source for all types of businesses. The key to creating the right email is personalization. Make sure that the emails you send out are optimized for the user to the best possible degree. The more you personalize, the more valued users feel.
Include personalization in your emails where possible. Add usernames to the email subject line, or send automatically customized recommendations based on past purchases with segmented email lists.
In the preceding section, we talked about the importance of social media marketing. Let us elaborate on that point by showcasing the importance of using Instagram as an extension of your business.
You can create shoppable posts on Instagram and then connect them with your website. If the product is appealing, people are more likely to click on it and purchase it from your store. Regardless of whether you're just starting or have an established business, you shouldn't miss out on this critical marketing channel.
In this post, we discussed the essential eCommerce marketing strategies. While there are more complex strategies like Google, Facebook, and Instagram Ads which you can use if you have the budget, we feel that these strategies will put you well in place towards going to the more advanced tactics.
