While you were brainstorming ideas for your ecommerce business, you likely had high hopes of generating exciting sales numbers. Now that your website is up and running, however, its traffic and conversion stats may keep you up at night.
Driving targeted traffic to your ecommerce website and converting those leads are significant challenges for many new ecommerce businesses. These challenges can be overcome with the right marketing strategies and a bit of hard work.
Turning your attention to website promotion is the next step toward running a successful ecommerce website. Unfortunately, there is not a turnkey strategy that’s well suited for all situations involving ecommerce advertising.
You’ll instead need to experiment to find the right combination of methods that work well for you to get customers for your ecommerce business.
To help inspire you, here are 15 great marketing options for promoting your online store!
1. Improve your email marketing strategy
Email marketing continues to be a leading method for connecting with your ecommerce customers regularly. Building an email list organically through an opt-in campaign and other meaningful efforts will create an engaged audience.
This is generally more advantageous than buying an email list and spamming people who have not requested your information.
You can end up devoting a serious amount of time to building your email list. For this reason, you definitely don’t want to have a large portion of your audience opting out of receiving messages!
As part of your site’s email marketing strategy, create a calendar of planned content to better organize and manage your newsletter efforts.
Some of this content will announce promotions and tout new products or features. Other marketing content may cover related tips, news stories, and other information that’s relevant and interesting to your target customers.
2. Boost your SEO efforts
Search engine optimization (SEO) now encompasses numerous strategies and techniques with the primary goal in mind of making websites easy for search engines to discover.
Furthermore, SEO helps search engines to understand what your website is about so that it’s indexed properly. Selecting relevant keywords to use that are meaningful to your target audience is essential, but this is only the beginning of an effective SEO strategy.
For example, everything from alt attributes to meta descriptions and more should be properly optimized on your site. Search engine algorithms play a major role in organic traffic generation, but algorithms change frequently.
Because of this, you should remain well informed about the most current strategies and techniques. This enables you to update your approach promptly as needed and before your traffic volume and quality suffer.
3. Incorporate social media
Between Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and other platforms, the opportunity to connect directly with your target audience on social media is substantial.
In fact, taking advantage of social media is pretty much a requirement for any strong ecommerce digital marketing strategy!
To make the most of your efforts, identify the platforms where your target audience is most likely to be active. Then, consider if the platform is ideal for your ecommerce marketing needs.
Keep in mind that you can use social media platforms at no cost. However, paid advertising methods are also available with all platforms.
These could potentially reach more people or help you to target the right people more productively. Running a few strategic campaigns will help you to identify which social media marketing methods are the most cost-effective options.
4. Build relationships with bloggers and influencers
Popular bloggers and influencers have built a significant, loyal following. By establishing and leveraging relationships with the right bloggers and influencers, you can tap into the incredible power they wield to help generate store sales.
Understanding your target audience and which bloggers and influencers they probably follow is the first step when you want to use this marketing plan.
A strategic way to build relationships with bloggers and influencers is to follow their online presence. Comment, like, and share their information so that you get their attention. When they do the same for you, reach out directly to thank them.
5. Start a podcast
Okay, so maybe the idea of launching a podcast isn’t the first thing that comes to your mind when it comes to promoting your business. However, it can actually be a pretty powerful strategy to include in your ecommerce marketing checklist!
A podcast provides a unique way for you to connect with your ecommerce audience and increase your base of loyal customers. Depending on the niche that your ecommerce business focuses on, your podcast may position you as a leader or expert in your field.
The podcast should add value to your customers’ lives or should otherwise be entertaining. You understandably may be inclined to make use of your podcast to promote your products, but it shouldn’t be an extended commercial.
You can casually work in tidbits about promotions or offer incentives for listeners to visit your online store. However, the majority of the content should cover relevant or related news, events, and power players in your industry.
Although this may be a less direct form of marketing, it can nevertheless be very effective!
6. Try Google Ads
A primary goal of SEO is to garner a top spot on search results for the keywords that you target. However, even if your online store takes the first spot for organic results, paid ads will sit higher on the page.
The best way to determine if a Google Ads campaign is effective for your ecommerce business is to test the waters.
Strategically choose a few keywords to target. Then, determine your budget for this part of your marketing strategy.
Google Ads uses a bidding system, so you must focus on relevant words that your competitors are unlikely to target and that are affordable for your budget. When shoppers search for keywords related to your products, your site can then appear in the search results.
As is the case with other paid advertising methods, proceed slowly so that you can analyze your results thoroughly.
7. Create product videos
If you aren’t currently using videos in your content marketing campaign, you’re missing out on an amazing opportunity to capture your audience’s attention!
Video content can be incredibly powerful because it can incorporate music, sound effects, recognizable voices, visual images that stir emotions, and more.
Product videos might demonstrate features in action, display how the product solves a problem, or display personal reviews from authentic customers.
Quality videos can have a wide reach when they’re placed strategically online. Placement possibilities include on your own ecommerce website, on Google My Business, on social media platforms, and even in your email newsletters.
8. Use Google Shopping
Google Ads aren’t the only option you have to get your business front and center on the search engine results page (SERP) with your marketing efforts!
With Google Shopping, you can create both free and paid listings. When consumers search for keywords related to your products on Google, your listings can appear for them on the Shopping tab as well as on the SERP above the search ads and organic results.
What’s particularly advantageous about Google Shopping ads is that they feature photos of your products, which helps your business to stand out when people are searching for an item to buy.
9. Participate in forums and events online
While the internet is an increasingly crowded place, it presents businesses with more opportunities than ever before to connect with customers, influencers, and related brands.
Through online forums, chat groups, and other online meetups, you can communicate directly with your ecommerce site’s target audience. At the same time, you can drop tidbits about products, sales, and other exciting pieces of information.
In addition to chat-style forums, you can participate in various online events to boost your marketing efforts.
If you attend the event of a relevant brand, ensure that your business name and link are on all of the content that you post. Engage through chats and questions so that your presence is visible to other attendees.
An alternative to attending an event is to host your own. This will, of course, likely require more money, time, and planning on your part. However, you can design the event with your exact target customer in mind.
10. Start a blog
Blogging serves multiple beneficial purposes, so it naturally has a role in your online marketing strategy, regardless of your niche. Blog posts add fresh, relevant content to your website.
This can have a profound benefit on SEO. When blog posts are optimized with well-chosen keywords, the impact on search engine results gets an extra boost.
Blog posts should always be written with your reader in mind, but they can simultaneously deliver benefits to your business. For example, some blog posts may establish you as a leader in your field.
At the same time, the content may be used to improve the user experience on your site.
Blog posts can answer frequently asked questions, offer helpful tips, show off special product features, and announce promotions. In addition, they can even showcase humanitarian or environmental causes that your business supports.
While accomplishing these tasks, your blog posts can be marketed via your email list and through your social media platforms. By doing so, you may increase the number of loyal customers who opt to receive your material or who follow your ecommerce business on social media.
11. Form partnerships with brands that complement yours
You likely already know who your store’s primary competitors are, but are you familiar with its complementary brands? These are stores or brands that appeal to the same target audience and offer different products or services.
Through a partnership with a complementary brand, you can combine your marketing efforts with theirs. This allows you to collectively reach out to both of your audiences and expand your reach to increase sales.
A partnership with a complementary brand also enables you to cross promote. This may involve assembling a gift guide, sponsoring a podcast together, offering discounts on the other brand’s products selectively, and more.
The best partnerships will benefit both businesses and may improve your return on investment on marketing activities.
12. Encourage customers to review products
As a consumer yourself, you probably understand the incredible power of both positive and negative product or store reviews. Many online consumers rely on reviews to form a buying decision when they are unfamiliar with a product, brand, or store.
How many positive reviews can your potential customers find on your website or on independent websites?
One of the most effective ways to get reviews is to ask for them. Of course, you cannot request product reviews until after your customers have made their purchase and have had time to test it out.
Reach out to your customers strategically a few days after the product delivery date and ask them to leave a review of their experience shopping with your business.
To generate more interest, consider offering a promotion or discount in exchange for reviews. For example, you can offer a modest discount on the customer’s next purchase or entry into a special contest that you’re running.
It is impossible to please all of your customers, so you can expect at least a few negative comments after you start to make some sales. New customers will pay attention to how you handle grievances, so always try to turn any potential lemons into lemonade.
To do so, you must monitor all comments and reviews regularly. Post a response to address the negative comments professionally.
13. Hold contests or giveaways
Contests and giveaways are fun ways to engage your customers. At the same time, they can generate a buzz that expands the reach of your campaigns. An effective contest or giveaway is an excellent way to build your customer email distribution list as well.
Your giveaway may initially involve a relatively affordable freebie or a new product that you want to generate a buzz about. To maintain a cost-effective approach, the value of the promotion item should never exceed the anticipated value that your business will receive from running the contest.
14. Use ad retargeting
Many of the visitors that you worked so hard to attract to your website will click away without making a purchase. Ad retargeting is an effective marketing strategy to stay in touch with those visitors.
Through an ad retargeting campaign, a cookie will be placed on a visitor’s device. This cookie enables targeted ads featuring your merchandise to display on the device when the visitor browses for related items.
As you design these ads, keep in mind that direct and specific ads often perform best. For example, the ad may display a product that the visitor engaged with or abandoned in the shopping cart.
15. Offer free samples
As a new ecommerce business, your customers may feel apprehensive about trying your products. So, how can you overcome this obstacle?
Offering free samples can be an excellent method for obtaining product reviews, and it can help you to build your opt-in email list.
You can also combine free samples with other promotions. This might involve a discount on a future purchase if the customer leaves a review on their own social media platform.
While free samples work well for startups, they’re also great for raising awareness and obtaining feedback about any future products that your site introduces.
Samples do not need to be the full-sized version of your product. They can instead be a teaser of what can be expected with a full purchase.
Conclusion
Launching an ecommerce business is only the first step toward running a successful, profitable business. Your new business relies on targeted traffic and an increasing number of loyal customers.
As you explore the many promotional options for your ecommerce business, consider testing the waters with one or two marketing strategies at a time. By doing so, you can gauge the effectiveness of each method.
You’ll soon discover what appeals most to your target audience and therefore what works best for your online store!
Which of the marketing strategies mentioned above are you most looking forward to trying for your business? If you’ve already got an online store, are there any other methods not listed that have done wonders for your website?
Let us know in the comments below!
