Marketing Your E-Commerce Business the Right Way
Nowadays, the vast majority of businesses sell their products via online stores and applications. If this applies to you, but you are failing to attract the number of customers you had expected, you need to re-address your marketing strategy.
Where are you going wrong? What could you be doing better? Read on to discover how to market your e-store the right way.
Social Media
First and foremost, no business can ignore the power of social media in the current day and age. Social media can have a huge influence on your sales figures. The aim is to turn your consumers into brand advocates who promote your business for you.
You need to begin by thinking about what platforms you are going to use. Facebook is a must for the majority of businesses. However, you need to consider your target consumer base in line with the demographics of the users of the social media platform in question. For instance, Pinterest is made up of largely female users, so any male-orientated businesses are probably better off using a different platform.
When posting on social media, keep your promotional posts to a minimum. Only about 20% of your posts should be promotional. It is all about building up a relationship with your customers, not being in their face with your products.
Mailing Lists
Email marketing is one of the most powerful tools for businesses today. You will miss out on a ton of sales if you don’t use email marketing effectively.
This all begins with building a mailing list. If you have a website visitor, the best thing to capture, apart from a sale, of course, is their email address. Make it as tempting as possible for people to sign-up, for example, offer them a 10% discount if they sign-up to your newsletter.
Once you have a mailing list, you need to use it to full effect. Some ideas include:
- Mix up non-product and product content so that it does not feel too ‘salesy’
- Send out relevant articles from your blog
- Promote sales or offer discounts
- Promote upcoming or new products
Website Performance
When it comes to SEO, a lot of people have the tendency to assume that it is just about keywords and link building. While both are critical strategies, there is a lot more to search engine optimisation in the current day and age, including website performance.
If your website is slow to load, difficult to navigate, and generally frustrating, this will have a negative impact on the user’s experience, and this will then lower your search engine ranking.
You need to look for ways to boost the performance of your website, such as switching to a different hosting provider, if you are to market your company effectively online.
Content Marketing
Last but not least, we have content marketing. This is the process of creating blog articles, infographics, photos, videos, and any other type of content that appeals to your target audience. The purpose of this is to attract visitors to your website and to show your business as an expert in the industry.
So, how does content drive traffic to e-commerce applications and websites? Well, it is all to do with search engine optimisation. From developing innovative, interesting content to incorporating relevant keywords, it all drives your SEO strategy.
When putting together a content marketing plan, you need to carefully consider the way in which you are going to structure the posts. Some of the most effective options are as follows:
- Amusing posts – These are the most difficult types of posts, yet they are highly shareable.
- Relevant/topical posts – This is a great way to get people reading. Write something related to an event that has recently been in the news.
- Informative/’how to’ posts – Articles with advice or tips always work well.
- Lists – Quick reads that are filled with products, i.e. ‘top 10’ posts.
A final tip for great content… Never Stop!
The reason fresh content on ecommerce sites works so well, is that there’s always something for your audience to see. There should never be a dull moment when it comes to your content so be sure to refresh it daily. More than ever, customers want to be part of the businesses they love. Behind the scenes and ‘how this is made’ content is hugely popular because buyers want to know where their money is going.
So there you have it: the main aspects of marketing your ecommerce business today. If you follow everything that has been presented above, you can go a long way to achieving e-store marketing success.