You need a robust eCommerce marketing strategy if you want to acquire new customers and increase your revenue. A targeted marketing strategy will enable you to attract the appropriate types of consumers and increase your revenue more efficiently.
There are so many marketing strategies that it can be difficult to know where to begin. This article will describe how to develop an eCommerce marketing strategy and provide some starting points.
How to Develop an eCommerce Marketing Strategy?
Many individuals are interested in learning about specific marketing strategies but fail to develop a comprehensive plan. This is erroneous, as the plan is what will enable your tactics to work together to produce long-term results.
Follow these four steps to develop an eCommerce marketing strategy:
1. Outline your goals
Before you can develop a marketing strategy, you must define your yearly objectives. The following are examples of marketing objectives:
- Increase website traffic
- Boost the number of repeat consumers
- Add a certain number of new customers each month
- Extend your product offerings
- Increase your total earnings
After identifying a broad one-year objective, you should strive to develop increasingly specific objectives. For example, if your objective is to acquire new customers, you might state that you wish to convert 100 new customers per month.
2. Identify your target market
After defining your objectives, it is essential to identify your target audience. You must identify your ideal consumer, as this will determine where you should concentrate your marketing efforts. If you skip this stage, you may overlook vital information regarding your target customers and the problems they face. Experts offering digital marketing can help you find the target audience.
If you already have an audience, sending a survey is the best method to get started. If you do not yet have an audience, define your ideal customer. Identify the following demographics when conducting an investigation on your target market:
- Age
- Gender
- Location
- Marital status
- Occupation
- Income
- Purchasing behavior
- Interests
- Social media preferences
3. Research your competitors
Identify your primary rivals and evaluate their current strengths and weaknesses. This analysis will assist you in identifying advantageous opportunities.
Examine the websites of your competitors and the products they sell. How comprehensive are the product descriptions? If they use a blog to advertise their business, how often do they post? If you sign up for an SEO tool such as Ahrefs, you can analyze the traffic of your competitors and determine its source.
Competitor research is an ongoing process; continue to monitor what your competitors are doing to remain abreast of evolving market trends. Subscribe to the publications of your competitors and follow them on social media. It is also a good idea to purchase some of your competitors’ products in order to observe their customer service.
4. Determine pricing and positioning
Today, it is very simple for consumers to compare prices, so it is crucial to give pricing considerable thought. You should now have a clearer idea of what your ideal customers are willing to spend money on and how much they are willing to pay for those items. You do not want your target market to perceive your products as being excessive.
Useful Article: Online Store Business: Things You Need to Know Before Launching
eCommerce Marketing Strategy Ideas
After completing the initial stages of developing your eCommerce marketing strategy, it is time to begin concentrating on the plan’s components. Here are seven suggestions to get you going:
Search engine optimization (SEO)
As the name suggests, search engine optimization (SEO) involves optimizing your website so that it ranks highly in search engines. An essential aspect of SEO is optimizing certain keywords so that your website ranks highly on search engines like Google. SEO is one of the best methods to increase your website’s organic traffic.
Many business owners don’t bother with SEO because it requires so much labor upfront. However, once your site ranks for certain high-traffic keywords, you will continue to generate a constant stream of free website traffic.
Utilizing an SEO tool for keyword research is the first stage. When searching for keywords, ensure they satisfy two fundamental criteria: The keywords should have a high search volume and enable your website to rank well in search engine results. If you select keywords with low search volumes, your return on investment will be minimal. However, if you choose keywords that are already extensively covered by more relevant sources, you will likely never appear on the first page of Google’s search results.
Once you have determined which keywords you are targeting, position them in the appropriate locations. Concentrate your SEO efforts on the following areas:
- Your website’s blog
- Your category pages
- Your online store’s product pages
Include keywords in the URL, title, image alt text, body, and meta descriptions for optimal results.
Content marketing
Content marketing entails generating and distributing various forms of content to your audience. Implementing a content marketing strategy is one of the most effective ways to communicate with customers and build a following that is engaged and loyal.
Before launching your content marketing efforts, you must determine the type of content you will produce. Here are some suggestions to get you going:
Blogging: Blogging is not extinct, but it has evolved significantly over time. You cannot simply publish a 500-word blog post without further consideration. You must create in-depth blog posts that address the issues your consumers are attempting to resolve. One of the benefits of blogging is that it is compatible with search engine optimization. Your blog posts will continue to benefit your business as long as they appear in search engine results.
Learn More: How to Start Free Blog for Attracting More Customers?
Videos: Consumers desire video content from brands they are considering purchasing. Beneficial video content can facilitate purchasing decisions, and the addition of videos to your communications can increase their open rates. There are numerous methods to incorporate videos into the content. You can create instructional videos, product demonstrations, and animations, among other things. Additionally, video can be readily repurposed across a variety of platforms. You could, for instance, use the video transcript to create a blog post or social media posts, or the audio to create a podcast episode.
Customer testimonials: Customers seek social substantiation from brands these days. They want to hear directly from your customers about how wonderful your products are, not from you. Therefore, consumer endorsements should play a central role in your content marketing strategy. You can create a landing page dedicated solely to positive customer testimonials, and you can occasionally include lengthy case studies on your blog.
Product guides: Product guides are an excellent method to convert customers who desire additional product information prior to purchase. Simply include a call to action at the conclusion of the post. Encourage customers to click to purchase a product or input their email address to subscribe to your newsletter, for instance.
Email marketing
Email is a crucial component of any marketing strategy, and an automated email campaign is one of the most effective methods to maintain a relationship with your audience and encourage people to purchase your products.
Email marketing must be approached with strategy and consideration. Creating a weekly newsletter for your subscribers is a smart first step. A newsletter is an excellent method for establishing rapport, disseminating beneficial content, and informing subscribers of current promotions.
Social media marketing
Increasingly, consumers are using social media to make purchases. Social media is not only a platform for sharing content, but also for converting followers into customers. The main social media platforms for eCommerce marketing are as follows:
- Facebook: There is a strong possibility that your target customers are on Facebook. This platform reaches a wide spectrum of demographics, as it has over 2,9 billion monthly active users. When you establish your Facebook business page, you can add a Shop tab to the page’s header. You can then feature a variety of products and make it simple for your followers to purchase them directly through Facebook. In addition, your Facebook business page will provide you with a wealth of data regarding your visitors and your most popular products.
- Instagram: Instagram offers eCommerce enterprises a tremendous opportunity. Instagram is a visual social media platform, so if you have an aptitude for taking stunning photographs, it may be the ideal marketing strategy for you. When you create a shoppable Instagram post, you can identify all of the featured products. When your followers click on a product image, they will be redirected to the product’s purchase page. This facilitates the selling of products on the platform.
- Pinterest: Another image-driven platform, Pinterest is an excellent choice for eCommerce brands. You will need to create a Pinterest corporate account to get started. This will grant you access to analytics and other features necessary for selling products on Pinterest. You can then begin constructing your pins and tagging the products displayed within each pin, and if you want to gain traction more quickly, you can pay to promote particular pins.
Influencer marketing
As consumers have grown weary of paid advertising, a growing number of businesses have transitioned to influencer marketing. This strategy entails forming a partnership with a niche-specific influencer with an established audience.
Your company can collaborate with an influencer to market your products to their audience. Typically, this is achieved via social media and other content marketing channels.
Influencer marketing is highly effective when executed correctly. This individual has already established credibility and trust with their audience, so their audience will be more likely to test your products. Influencer marketing is thus a valuable instrument for eCommerce companies.
User-generated content
User-generated content is a fantastic way to establish social proof for your business, as customers like to see that others who are similar to themselves are using and enjoying your products.
Paid advertising
Paid advertising is still one of the most effective marketing strategies despite its negative reputation. Google Ads and Facebook ads are the two finest online advertising strategies.
If Facebook and Instagram are already part of your social media strategy, you may want to include Facebook ads, which enable you to target users according to their demographics and interests. Facebook ads are an excellent method for reaching your target audience and introducing your product to a new audience of potential customers. You create an advertisement in the Facebook ads manager, and it will appear on both Facebook and Instagram.
Google Ads, on the other hand, targets specific keywords. Your ad will appear at the top of search engine results when a user queries a keyword or phrase. This is a fantastic method for targeting users who are looking for something related to your product.
Learn more about advanced tools for online sales
Effective eCommerce Marketing Requires Trial and Error
Developing an effective eCommerce marketing strategy takes time, and you may not succeed on the first attempt. The best method to begin is to select one strategy and test it to determine its efficacy. If this strategy is unsuccessful, you can move on to the next item on the list until you discover a business plan that works.