Do you want to know how to level up your eCommerce business and see your sales grow?
Digital marketing is the key.
A strategic and holistic digital marketing plan is crucial for any eCommerce website to be successful.
But, “build it and they will come”, right?
Nope. In the sea of online stores and marketing messages we are all exposed to on a daily basis, you need to be doing much more than simply having an online store. You need to be doing marketing and actively seeking out your customers, and you need to do it better than the competition.
So, can we just throw some ads together?
We can, but it is (and should be) a little more involved than that. A well-thought-out digital marketing strategy should, ideally, span multiple channels in order to better reach your audience where it will make the most impact.
Social media, search engines and email marketing (to name a few) should all be working together to carry a consistent and cohesive message, while following up with your potential customers to keep your brand front of mind.
Having a holistic and effective digital marketing strategy in place is what will get you the best ROI for your eCommerce website and will be what sets you apart from the competition.
Five Marketing Strategies For Online Stores
Here are some of powerful ways that owners of online stores can better market their website to increase sales and customer retention:
1 Build a Loyal Fanbase
Think about the brands and stores you regularly purchase from. How do they keep bringing you back? Some effective ways online stores can build their fanbase include:
- Providing early access to exclusive sales
- Discount incentives to join your email database
- Freebies or samples with purchases
- Loyalty points for ‘dollars off’ future purchases
- Fostering an online community via social networks.
2 Automation
There some excellent marketing automation tools out there that will help manage your customer database and build relationships with them, and all you have to do is set it up correctly in the first place. Some simple things you can automate to streamline your marketing and retention efforts include:
- Cart abandonment emails – you know those “Oops, did you forget something?” reminders? They actually work.
- Follow up with customers who recently purchased from you for a product review, or to offer them a discount on their next purchase.
- Let customers know that their wishlist items are on sale.
- Birthday offers – offer free shipping or a discounted item, such as a free tote bag with any purchase during your birthday month.
There are loads of options out there for savvy online stores.
3 Don’t Neglect Your Product Pages
Your product descriptions and images are an integral part of your online store’s success. There’s a certain art to doing quality product images and crafting product descriptions in a way that turns browsers into buyers and this is where many eCommerce stores unfortunately fall flat.
Dedicate time and resources to work on these and you’ll not only see greater engagement, but your efforts are likely to lead to better search engine rankings. This is especially true if you’ve got the stock-standard descriptions from supplier or brand websites, or worse, nothing at all.
4 Content Strategy
Continuing on with product descriptions, your website copy is something that will help get you sales. Are you speaking your customer’s language? How are you solving their problems? A great content strategy will help establish you as a thought-leader and authority in your industry. Some ideas to implement in your content strategy include:
- Product and brand comparisons
- How-to guides
- Video demonstrations
- Detailed product reviews
- Frequently Asked Questions
This list really goes on and on.
And to really foster that online community we mentioned above, you could also be encouraging your customers to create unique content for you too! Ask them to post a photo with their new purchase and tag you on Instagram or get them hashtagging a new promotion. It helps to incentivise this with a future discount.
5 Remarketing & Retargeting
Thanks to some pretty neat features within Google Ads and Facebook Ads, you can get some excellent returns from a remarketing or retargeting campaign.
In general terms, this involves showing an ad to a person that visited your online store but didn’t yet purchase. It’s a visual reminder that appears for a few weeks while this person is browsing the web, or Facebook / Instagram and acts as a prompt to return to your website and finalise their purchase.
A bonus here is that you can even display the particular product they were viewing to make it even more relevant to them.
Get Ahead Of Your Competition
There are plenty of ways you can market your eCommerce site to bring in more sales and greater profit. Much of this ties in with a calculated digital marketing strategy. You need a good plan, and you need to execute it well.
That’s where it pays to enlist a skilled marketing team to work alongside you, to help get you the maximum return on your investment.
Whether it’s SEO, marketing automation, Facebook and Google Ads, or an email marketing strategy, our experienced team can help craft a tailored marketing strategy that will see your online store skyrocket.
If you’d like to see more sales and better online earnings, call us on (07) 5531 3810, or send us an email.
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