What are some online marketing strategies for ecommerce websites one can follow?
It is a very popular question asked all the time.
But the thing with online marketing strategies for ecommerce websites, is there is no such thing as the best strategy.
What may work for you may not work for others, is solely dependent on one’s product, services, industry, customers you are targeting and various other factors.
You have to do a lot of tests and trials to find out the best strategy that will work for your business.
But there are definitely some online marketing strategies for ecommerce websites that are timeless and have been proven to work for many E-commerce businesses.
In this article, we are going to discuss the 5 evergreen online marketing strategies for ecommerce websites.
- Content marketing:
Whatever you consume on the internet, whether it is a blog post, Tweet, Instagram post, or a youtube video, it’s just all content.
But what exactly is content marketing?
Content marketing is creating content related to your business in such a way that it attracts your potential audience.
It may not all be just aimed at just selling your products and services but educating them about why your product and service is needed in their life.
There are many famous e-commerce companies that are creating content in the form of blog posts day in and day out.
Not just small 500 words articles but in-depth articles about their customer’s pain point.
However, not all content marketing is about in-depth blogs. It can be anything from a tweet to an Instagram post.
The reason that content marketing works is because it is the biggest ranking factor when it comes to search engines such as Google and Youtube.
Better ranking means more visitors and more visitors mean more customers, as simple as that.
Now whenever you are producing any content of any kind, remember using keywords as much as possible.
Keywords are the words or phrases that your clients are looking for when they search for anything related to your products or services over the internet.
You can use various free and paid tools to find keywords related to your business. The best and most reliable tool still being Google Keywords planner.
Whenever you are working on content always keep SEO in the back of your mind.
Once you are done with creating good content, you can send that content to your customers using email marketing, social media posting, or even by using paid advertisement platforms.
Content marketing has to be the major online marketing strategies for ecommerce websites.
You can watch this video if you want to write good blog post for your ecommerce business.
- Referral Marketing:
One of the most powerful yet underrated means of marketing is referral marketing or popularly known as word of mouth marketing.
The reason is very simple, we are social creatures and like sharing with our friends and family whatever we find useful.
This means whether you like it or not, people are going to talk about you. Therefore it would be better that you make sure that they talk as much good about you as possible.
That is referral marketing for you.
Referral marketing is the secret weapon of many e-commerce companies.
Now the question is how do you apply it to your business?
First thing is that you have to figure out your incentives.
This is very important as this will be the primary reason why your customers will share anything related to your business.
Once you did the right incentive, almost half the battle is won.
Think about Uber, Paypal or Google pay for that matter.
One of the biggest reasons for their success is the incitive that they provided upon app installation and referral.
Don’t need to worry if your business is small and doesn’t involve app installations.
If you selling something that people use frequently, then a discount coupon code goes far. If you are selling something that people use once, you can figure out some cash incentives.
Once you’ve figured out the incentive, you need to start promoting your referral program because if you do not promote it, nobody will know about it.
Do all you can to promote your referral program, so that people know about it.
- Email Marketing:
Isn’t email marketing dead.
Absolutely not.
Despite the popularity of social media and chatbots, email still to this date remains the number one source of communication channel for any business.
Email marketing has found to have an ROI of 300% much more than any other media.
You can send all sorts of emails to your customers from educational to promotional.
The possibilities are endless.
Now the question is how do you apply it to your business?
There are two main parts of email marketing
- Building your list
- Sending the right mails.
The next question is how to build the list.
To begin with, you need to answer this one question using your customer’s shoes that is, “what’s in it for me?”
The second thing you need is a lead magnet. A lead magnet is basically a bribe that you give to your clients in exchange for their contact information.
Now once you have to figure out all these you just have to find out the best way to show it to your visitors.
If your prospects find the lead magnet attractive, they’ll give you their email details which you can use to upsell or cross-sell your products.
Now what kind of emails you can send?
You can send welcome mail, nurture your prospects using email nurture series, cart abandonment mail, email receipts etc.
Once you setup the email automation, you can then play around with various emails.
4. Instagram marketing:
65% of people on Instagram look into their feed for shopping inspiration.
This means that if you do not have a solid Instagram presence, you are missing out on a lot.
Instagram is useful when you are selling products that are highly visual in nature.
Despite a lot of misconceptions, Instagram is not set it and forget it kind of platform.
To do well in Instagram, you need to focus on 3 major things:
- Create quality content
- Get more followers
- Engage with your audience
Since it is a visual medium, images are the foundation of your Instagram account.
There are 2 ways you can do Instagram marketing for your E-commerce business.
- Run a giveaway
- Get influencers to promote your product and services
And just like any other social medium, you have to engage as much as you can with your followers.
5. Facebook Ads:
Despite the audience’s shift in other platforms, Facebook still remains the best advertising platform to date.
There is no other platform that offers this detailed targeting.
You can target your ads based on location, age, language, education, life events, interests, behaviors, and so on.
You can even add a Facebook pixel on your website, and retarget people who have visited your website and did not purchase.
There is no one good way of running Facebook ads. The best method is dependent on a variety of factors and the “best ads” are often discovered through pure experimentation.
The way to set up a good Facebook Ad campaign is to decide what product you want to sell, who do you want to sell it to and what’s the best way to target them.
Run multiple ads with different variations so you can find the best-converting ones for your business.
Then, rinse and repeat. Keep testing to find the best ad, and keep refreshing your ads so your audience doesn’t develop ad blindness.
Conclusion:
There is no such thing as the best strategy.
Work through a lot of strategies mentioned in the article. Figure out what works for you the best.
And if you want me to help you with your e-commerce business, you can mail me at alokbadatia84@gmail.com.
