Companies all over the world are realizing that digital platforms need to be part of their sales strategies now that online shopping has almost reached $27 trillion in sales.
To stand out from the other businesses in this highly competitive industry, you will need a well-thought-out e-commerce marketing plan that is tailored to the specific traits of your ideal customer. We put together this easy-to-understand guide to the best eCommerce marketing strategies for 2023 and beyond to help new eCommerce businesses reach their full potential and reach their goals.
What Is Online Shopping Marketing?
eCommerce marketing is the process of getting people to buy goods or services that are sold online. That covers the whole customer experience, from getting people to notice the brand to earning their trust and making the sale.
There is no one “best” way to do e-commerce marketing because there are many ways to do it. If you want to be successful as an eCommerce seller, you need to learn about your customers and change how you do business to fit their habits and preferences. It’s important to go into a situation with an open mind and be ready to change your plan as you learn more.
How does marketing for an online store work?
Online stores have a lot of ways to increase sales and brand recognition. Some common and well-known ways to reach this goal are through content marketing and keeping profiles on different social media sites. Some of them aren’t as important, like A/B testing and SEO plugins.
Every person who runs an online retail business thinks about more than one way to improve their chances of being successful. Keeping up with new and developing technologies is a great way to do this, and a partnership marketing platform may help you keep track of the results of your efforts to reach this goal.
Retailers who do business online should also think about marketing plans that go beyond their website. Most of these look at how a website works, but there are a few that don’t have anything to do with it but are still helpful.
Why is it important to market online stores?
Ecommerce marketing is important because businesses need to sell themselves, whether they do it in person or online. This is true for both direct and indirect marketing. Every business has to let people who might buy from them know that they exist and give them something that might help them. You can find many examples of marketing proposals on the internet, which may help you come up with your own.
In today’s market, people who buy things online have access to a lot of information. They can look at a lot of websites and products at the same time. They can check customer reviews to see if they are honest about what you have to offer. Personalization is one thing that can change the traditional shopping experience in a subtle way. In the worst case, this could make people not want to do business with your company at all.
Because of this, businesses need to set themselves apart from the competition. E-commerce marketing strategies make this possible, either by highlighting important selling points or by making the buying process as smooth as possible. In either case, this lets more products be sold online.
eCommerce Marketing Types
Here are some different ways to market online stores:
Email Marketing
Email marketing is the process of sending promotional emails to people who might be interested in what you have to offer. Even though email may not be the most exciting way to market, it is still one of the best ways to get people to buy things online. Research has shown that spending just one dollar on email marketing can bring in an amazing forty dollars in sales.
SMS Marketing
SMS marketing is sending text messages to clients and people who might become clients. SMS marketing is often used by businesses that sell things online to:
- There are discounts and sales promotions
- Cross-selling and upselling are two ways to make money.
- Carts that were forgotten Customer service
This helps online stores interact better with their customers, raise brand awareness, and make more sales.
Ads that you pay for
Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns involve paying a website like Facebook or Google to send people to your website. When someone clicks on your ad, as the name suggests, you will be charged a certain amount.
During a PPC campaign, you can put in a bid for different types of traffic. For example, you can divide your bids based on where the user is or what device they are using. People can also be retargeted with PPC campaigns based on things they’ve done, like visiting your website or leaving an item in their shopping cart.
SEO stands for search engine optimization.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of making a website, blog, or online store more visible in Google and other well-known search engine results. About 30% of all website traffic comes from online searches, and the ability of a new e-commerce brand to attract organic search traffic may make or break it.
This is not a pay-per-click (PPC) marketing campaign, and sponsored visitors are not used. Instead, SEO tries to make your website rank higher when people search for terms that are related to your business or products. In the picture below, you can see some of the most important parts of a good SEO plan.
Social media is a big part of our daily lives, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that it’s becoming a key marketing channel for many different kinds of businesses. On social media, brands use a wide range of campaigns to promote their goods.
Social media marketing can be very helpful for digital marketers in a number of important ways. The first benefit that stands out is, of course, more exposure. If you only promote your business through your website and email newsletter, you’re missing out on a big group of people on social media who might be interested in what you sell.
Marketing with influencers
As an online merchant, it can be hard to get new customers and build trust. Influencer advertising is a type of social media marketing in which companies pay influential people to talk about their products so that they can reach more people.
While you keep working on your campaigns through email, SMS, social media, and other channels, you can get more traffic by working with an influencer who fits with the style and image of your brand. Because influencers usually charge based on results rather than impressions, you won’t waste money on projects that don’t get the results you want.
Marketing for affiliates
Affiliate marketing in e-commerce is when a business or person asks a third-party company or person to promote their goods or services on their own website. Affiliates get paid a commission when a customer makes a purchase after being brought to the site by an affiliate.
Affiliates often use content marketing, paid advertising, affiliate email marketing, and other methods to get people to your product’s landing pages that they’ve made. Affiliate marketing is a great way to build your eCommerce marketing strategy, and statistics show that affiliates are responsible for 16% of all sales made through online retailers.
The best way for online stores to increase sales and make money from the kinds of marketing strategies we’re talking about here is to become a vendor with a competitive affiliate program.
Marketing with content
Content marketing is all about making interesting blog posts, how-to guides, and videos.
SEO and content marketing work well together. When both operations are working well, you’ll be able to bring people to your site through search results and get them to come back for your interesting content.
This blog post about cleaning your phone’s screen was written by Pela Case, a company that sells accessories for mobile devices. Customers who go to their website to read the article will have the chance to buy something or at least learn about the Pela brand so they will remember it the next time they need a phone case.
Before you start writing blog posts, think about the most important, timely, and other kinds of content. A content marketing calendar could help you make sure you don’t forget the most important topics for your audience.
Marketing Plans for eCommerce
Here are the best ways to market online stores:
Start an email list.
By adding people to your contact list, you can stay in touch with a growing group of highly interested leads.
Of course, getting people to give you their contact information and sign up for your newsletter is easier said than done. To set up an email list successfully, you need two important things:
- A strong email got the pictures
- Unique and Valuable piece of Content
- Cross-sell and up-sell your items.
When a lead shows interest in a certain product, you can upsell by suggesting more features or a more expensive product line. For example, if you go into an Apple Store and ask for an iPhone 13, the employees will try to get you to buy the more expensive iPhone 13 Pro instead.
Cross-selling, on the other hand, means suggesting similar or related items that a customer might also be interested in. When you look at a product page on Amazon, you will see a list of related products based on the item you are looking at.
Campaigns to get carts back
Adding a product to the basket is a key step in making a sale, but almost 70% of online shopping carts are left empty without a purchase. Even if only a small number of carts that were left behind were found, sales could go up by a lot.
An average cart abandonment sequence has two or three warnings that are meant to make the person think twice before leaving your website. Don’t forget that you could send them as automatic SMS reminders or as emails to people whose carts were left behind.
Campaign for a Customer Loyalty Program
Programs that give rewards to repeat customers are an easy way to keep first-time customers interested and get them to buy again.
Also, loyalty programs can show that you care about your customers’ experiences, which can help you get closer to your audience. Several companies are now giving customers more control over the benefits they get from their loyalty programs so that they can be more flexible and tailored to their needs.
Help with live chat
Users don’t want to waste time waiting for a fix when something goes wrong with a website, app, product, or service. The longer they wait for you, the more likely they are to just leave your site and go somewhere else to find what they want.
Modern live chat systems also let you send messages to your site visitors to get them involved. For example, you could make a message that shows up on product pages and asks customers to sign up for your email list in exchange for a discount on the product they’re looking at.
Communication with each customer individually
No matter what kind of campaign you’re running, trying to personalize your message can help you get better results. Putting the recipient’s name on something is the easiest way to make it unique.
For effective personalization, you also need a strict way to divide your audience into groups.
Tracking your competitors
Even though your strategies will always be unique, you can still use ideas from other local businesses. Investigating their methods in depth can help you figure out your strengths and weaknesses and put you in a position to attract users away from their sites.
Summing Up
Every year, eCommerce makes more money, but this trend also makes more sellers want to join the market, which makes eCommerce marketing even more crowded. Without the above strategies, you might find it hard to make the most of your marketing budget and build the kind of online presence you want.
We can’t tell you how to build your brand, but we can say that these eCommerce marketing strategies and approaches have helped merchants in a wide range of industries run very successful campaigns. Start putting some of these ideas into action right now to start moving your business in the right direction and getting the most out of your digital marketing.