The world of e-commerce has been consistently and rapidly evolving since its inception, and the rate of change has only increased over the past few years. As more consumers turned to the Web for their shopping needs during the Covid-19 pandemic, brick-and-mortar retailers scrambled to boost their online efforts and retain market share. Now that physical locations have reopened their doors to the public, businesses are trying to balance digital and offline marketing strategies to ensure healthy growth in both areas.
Brands that can creatively integrate the latest e-commerce trends into their outreach and operations may find it easier to adapt their user experience and offerings to better meet their customers’ needs. Here, 16 members of Forbes Agency Council share ways to leverage e-commerce trends that should be on every marketing professional’s radar at the moment.
Forbes Agency Council members share ways to leverage e-commerce trends every marketer should know about.
1. Build A Community
Currently, e-commerce has been turned on its head for many sellers. The peaks of Covid buying are over, inflation and the economy are leading to a downturn in sales, and targeting continues to increase in difficulty. One of the most critical steps is building a community. It is easier to target and convert someone who has a relationship with your brand than a top-of-funnel prospect. – John Oates, JPO Digital
2. Make Engagement Easy For Customers
Web3 is interactive, so customers expect to be able to engage and interact with a brand when they are spending money with the brand. They want to feel empowered to easily return products, to read and engage with other customers’ content, and to leave reviews, both positive and negative. They expect the brand to engage with them, too, especially if they need help with the product or service once they buy. – Nancy Marshall, Marshall Communications
3. Manage Accurate Inventories Across The Organization
E-commerce systems still are not fully multichannel. True multichannel e-commerce requires accurate inventories across the organization, from main warehouses to local distribution centers, all the way down to the inventory in brick-and-mortar stores. Online customers must see all inventory and not see an out-of-stock status when there is inventory available somewhere. DIY ordering requires excellent order management. – Jim Caruso, M1PR, Inc. d/b/a MediaFirst PR – Atlanta
4. Create Content To Inspire And Inform Hybrid Shoppers
E-commerce is a hybrid experience. Many are now returning to shopping in-store post-pandemic, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t researching and comparing prices online first or vice versa. Create content that inspires shoppers and place it in contextually relevant publishing environments to reach those who are already researching. Include sales and promotions in your headlines for maximum engagement. – Lon Otremba, Bidtellect
Forbes Agency Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies.
5. Structure Deals With Creators Of Socially Native UGC
TikTok ads are super effective right now. Leverage user-generated content and keep it native to the platform. Reach out to content creators in the niche you are working on and structure a deal with them to create your videos. Remember, stories sell. So when you’re looking for the right creator, their ability to tell stories and keep the viewer’s attention is what’s most important. – Callum Roche, Roche Marketing Group
6. Take Advantage Of Multi-Touch Attribution
From a performance marketing perspective, the future of e-commerce lies with sites that can take advantage of multi-touch attribution and various modeling techniques. These will provide greater insight into your efforts, giving you a competitive edge in this constantly evolving marketplace. – Yan Zhang, XYZ Advantage
7. Create A Truly Mobile-Friendly Experience
One of the most important trends right now is the shift to mobile shopping. This means it’s even more important now to focus on creating a mobile-friendly shopping experience, having a website that is optimized for mobile devices and making sure that all marketing materials (such as email campaigns) are designed for people who use their phones to shop. – Katie Schibler Conn, KSA Marketing
8. Manage The Cost Of Scaling By Leveraging UGC
For the online scaling of e-commerce companies, UGC is currently an absolute game changer for us—especially when user-generated videos are inspired by the way TikTok videos are created. For us, this is currently performing above average across all platforms. In addition, the creation of UGC is much cheaper than professional content productions. – Markus Hetzenegger, NYBA Media GmbH
9. Use Intent Monitoring Data
The e-commerce landscape is more competitive now than ever. Knowing who’s in-market for your solutions can be a valuable competitive edge. That’s why we recommend brands use intent monitoring data, which provides insight into who to target, where your prospects are in the buying cycle and when to reach them. Powered in part by artificial intelligence, it boosts organic visibility, ROI and landing page conversions. – Paula Chiocchi, Outward Media, Inc.
10. Create An Additional Touch Point With SMS
While it is not one of the newest tactics, SMS has been growing in terms of usage among many brands. SMS is a wonderful way of creating an additional touch point with your customer. My advice is to choose an email marketing provider that offers SMS as an uptick service so that you can easily keep all of your earned info in one place. – Christopher Tompkins, The Go! Agency
11. Create A Heat Map Of Your User Experience
One of the most important trends has got to be looking at the ways people interact with sites and how they use them. Some of the heat mapping out there is critical to making sure that users of your UX understand what to do and how to do it. – Jon James, Ignited Results
12. Scale Up E-Commerce SEO Strategies
Since the ad world was shaken up by privacy concerns, advertising has simply gotten more expensive and less targeted. Many e-commerce brands we work with, investors we’ve spoken to and other e-commerce entrepreneurs have been focusing more on scaling up e-commerce SEO strategies as a way to balance out the rising advertising costs. – Tony Adam, Visible Factors
13. Extend The Reach Of Social Commerce Through Influencer Programming
Social commerce is certainly the big thing these days in e-commerce. A great way to extend the reach of that is through influencer programming. Influencer content is already known for its effectiveness in top-of-funnel marketing. By adding shoppable elements to that content, you can extend the effectiveness of it further down the funnel and harness the immediate nature of online shopping. – Danielle Wiley, Sway Group
14. Implement An Effective Loyalty Program
With inflation on every consumer’s radar, an effective loyalty program is critical to attracting and retaining customers. This also significantly enhances the overall omnichannel customer experience. The key is to invest in the right relationship-marketing partner to integrate the program seamlessly within the e-commerce mix. – Azadeh Williams, AZK Media
15. Keep An Eye On Headless Commerce
E-commerce marketers should keep an eye on headless commerce, a system architecture that separates the front end and back end of an online store. Uncoupling the front end and back end eliminates any design or development constraints that would prevent you from selling on third-party channels such as Amazon or Instagram. This allows you to customize your sales funnels and meet your customers where they shop. – Adam Binder, Creative Click Media
16. Provide Buyers With A Delivery Time
With shipping as a key element of the sales process, all marketers need to impress upon their companies the importance of putting in a delivery time. You are competing against online stores that promise to deliver by specific days or even blocks of time. So at the very least, you need to have a date by which the product will be delivered, along with automatic tracking. – Peter Boyd, PaperStreet Web Design
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