If you want to attract new customers and increase your sales, you need a solid e-commerce marketing strategy. A targeted marketing strategy will help you attract the right customers and increase your income more effectively.
With so many marketing strategies out there, it can be hard to know where to start. This article explains how to develop an eCommerce marketing strategy and provides some ideas to get you started.
How to develop an e-commerce marketing strategy
Many people want to know more about individual marketing methods, but they cannot come up with a comprehensive plan. This is wrong because the plan allows your tactics to work together to produce results over time.
Follow these four steps to develop an e-commerce marketing strategy:
1. Define your goals.
Before developing a marketing strategy, you need to define your goals for the year. Here are some examples of marketing objectives:
- Increase traffic to your website
- Increase the number of repeat customers
- Add a certain number of new customers each month
- Development of production lines
- Increase your total sales
Once you have set a general goal for the year, try to make your goals more specific. For example, if your goal is to get new customers, you might say you want to convert 100 new customers every month.
2. Choose your target market.
Once you've determined your goals, it's time to define your target market. You need to know who your ideal customer is, as this will determine where you should focus your marketing efforts. If you skip this step, you may miss important information about your target customers and the problems they face.
If you already have an audience, the best place to start is by submitting a survey. If you don't yet have an audience, start by identifying your ideal customer. When researching your target market, identify the following demographics:
- old man
- SEX
- Accommodation
- Civil Status
- a job
- Sign in
- buying behavior
- interest
- Social media settings
3. Research your competitors.
Next, identify your main competitors and note their strengths and weaknesses. This analysis will help you find ways to gain an advantage.
Study your competitors' locations and the types of products they sell. How detailed are their product descriptions? Do they blog to promote their business and if so, how often do they blog? By signing up with an SEO tool like Ahrefs, you can analyze your competitors' traffic and see where it's coming from.
Competitive research is an ongoing process. Keep an eye on what your competitors are doing to stay abreast of changing market trends. Subscribe to your competitors' newsletters and follow them on social media. It's also a good idea to buy some of your competitors' products to see what the customer experience is like.
4. Price and positioning.
It is very easy for consumers today to compare prices, so it is important to think about prices. Now that you know your ideal customers, you should have a better idea of what they are willing to spend on and how much they are willing to pay for it. You don't want your target customers to think that your products are too expensive.
Ecommerce Marketing Strategy Ideas
Now that you've taken the first steps in developing your ecommerce marketing strategy, it's time to focus on the components of your plan. Here are seven ideas to get you started:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
As the term suggests, SEO is about optimizing your website to rank well in search engines. SEO has many aspects, but the important part is optimizing for specific keywords so that your website ranks high on search engines like Google. Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the best ways to increase organic traffic to your website.
Many business owners don't want to worry about SEO because it requires a lot of work up front. But once your site starts ranking for some high-traffic keywords, you'll continue to drive a steady stream of organic traffic to your site.
The first step is to do keyword research with an SEO tool. When researching keywords, make sure they meet two main criteria: Keywords must have high search volume and help your site rank well in search engine results. If you choose keywords with low search volume, the return will be minimal. But if you choose keywords that are already widely considered in more relevant sources, chances are you won't make it to the first page of Google results.
Once you know which keywords to target, make sure you put them in the right places. Focus your SEO efforts on these three areas:
- your blog
- Your category pages
- Your eCommerce product pages
For best results, include keywords in the URL, title, image alt text, body, and meta descriptions.
When developing your SEO strategy, focus on keywords with low competition to give you the best chance of ranking for those search terms. A keyword research tool can tell you how competitive your search terms are.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is about creating different forms of content and sharing that content with your audience. Implementing a content marketing strategy is one of the best ways to engage with customers and build an engaged and loyal following.
Before you start content marketing, you need to decide what type of content you want to create. Here are some ideas to get you started:
- Blogging: No, blogging is not dead, but it has evolved a lot over the years. You can't just put a 500 word blog post on your website and be done with it. You need to create deep messages that address the problems your customers are trying to solve. One of the benefits of blogging is that it comes with SEO. Your blog posts will benefit your business for years to come as they will continue to appear in search results.
- Video: Consumers increasingly want video content from the brands they want to buy from. Informative video content can be helpful in making purchase decisions, and adding video to emails can increase open rates. There are many ways to use video in your content. For example, you can create explainer videos, product demonstrations or animations. In addition, you can easily reuse videos across all platforms. For example, you can use a video script to create a blog or social media post, or use audio to create a podcast episode.
- Customer Feedback: Today's customers are looking for social proof from brands. It's not enough to tell them how great your products are - they want to hear from your customers. For this reason, customer testimonials should be an important part of your content marketing strategy. You can create a separate landing page dedicated exclusively to positive customer testimonials and occasionally include in-depth case studies on your blog.
- Product Guides: Product guides are a great way to attract customers who want to know more about your products before making a purchase. Just be sure to include a call to action at the end of your post. For example, encourage customers to click on a product to buy it or enter their email address to sign up for your newsletter.
E-Marketing
Email plays an important role in any marketing strategy, and an automated email campaign is one of the best ways to stay in touch with your audience and encourage people to buy from you.
You need to take a strategic and thoughtful approach to email marketing. The best place to start is by creating a weekly newsletter for your subscribers. Newsletters are a great way to build relationships, share useful content, and let subscribers know about current promotions.
Marketing in social networks
Consumers are increasingly buying through social networks. Social media is not only a place to share content, but also a way to convert followers into customers. Here are the best social media platforms for eCommerce marketing:
- Facebook: Your target customers are likely on Facebook. With over 2.9 billion monthly active users, this platform reaches a wide audience. When you set up your Facebook business page, you can create a Shop tab at the top of the page. From there, you can list all kinds of products and get your followers to buy directly through Facebook. In addition, your Facebook business page gives you a lot of information about your visitors and most popular posts.
- Instagram: Instagram opens up huge opportunities for e-commerce businesses. Instagram is a visual social media platform. So if you have a knack for taking great pictures, this might be the strategy for you. When creating a shoppable Instagram post, you can tag any product in the photo. When your followers click on the product in the image, they will be redirected to purchase the product. This simplifies the process of selling goods on the platform.
- Pinterest: Another image-centric platform, Pinterest is a great choice for e-commerce brands. To get started, you need to create a Pinterest business account. This gives you access to the analytics and other features you need to sell items on Pinterest. From there, you can start creating your own pins and tag the products that appear on each pin. If you want to get positions faster, you can pay to upgrade some pins.
influencer marketing
When customers grew tired of paid advertising, many companies turned to influencer marketing. This strategy involves partnering with an influencer who has a strong following in a country.
Your business can work with an influencer to promote your products to their audience. This is usually done through social media and other content marketing channels.
Influencer marketing can be very effective when done right. This person has already established a relationship of trust and credibility with their audience, which makes them more willing to try your products. This makes influencer marketing a valuable tool for e-commerce brands.
It's tempting to seek out influencers with large audiences, but brands are increasingly partnering with micro-influencers who have smaller audiences but higher retention rates. Find a small influencer in your industry who might be a good fit for your product or service.
User Generated Content
User-generated content is a great way to create social proof for your business because customers love to see other people using and enjoying your products.
There are many ways to create UGC, and technically a product review is UGC. But a good example of UGC is what Warby Parker has done with the hashtag #WarbyHomeTryOn: customers can try five frames and show the results on social media by tagging their photos.
Paid ads
Paid advertising is often frowned upon, but it remains one of the most effective marketing strategies. The two best online advertising strategies are Google Ads and Facebook Ads.
If you already use Facebook and Instagram as part of your social media strategy, you may want to integrate Facebook advertising, which will allow you to target users based on demographics and interests. Facebook advertising is a great way to reach your target audience and introduce your product to a new audience of potential customers. You set up your ad in the Facebook Ads Manager and it will appear on both Facebook and Instagram.
In comparison, Google Ads works by targeting specific keywords. When a user searches for a keyword or phrase, your ad appears at the top of the search results. It's a great way to target users who are looking for something specific to your product.
Effective e-commerce marketing requires trial and error
Building a solid e-commerce marketing strategy takes time, and you may not get it right the first time. The best way to get started is to pick a strategy and test it to see if it works well for you. If this strategy fails, you can move on to the next item on the list until you find a plan that works for your business.
