5 of the Best eCommerce Marketing Strategies to Explode Your Sales
It’s a popular question.
What’s the best eCommerce marketing strategy? Which one should I be using for my eCommerce store? Which one will work for me?
It’s asked all the time:
Whether an eCommerce marketing strategy works for you depends on your context. It depends on your industry, what you sell, what your potential customers are used to, and in some cases, what regulations prevent you from marketing in a certain manner.
But, despite the “uncertainty”, all is not lost.
While it is true that you’ll have to experiment to find the right marketing strategy, there are certain strategies that are “timeless”.
These are strategies that have been proven to work for many eCommerce companies in the past and will continue to work foreseeably in the future.
These are the eCommerce marketing strategies I will be going through in this post.
Ready?
Let’s move on.
1. Content Marketing
No matter whether you’re ooh-ing over the latest BuzzFeed post, laughing at a GIF you found on Twitter, or seriously contemplating about your life after a mindblowing personal development article, the Internet IS content.
This means to market on the Internet, you’ll need content.
But, what exactly is content marketing?
Content marketing is the process of creating online material (e.g blog posts, videos, infographics, GIFs, images, etc.) that attracts your target audience. It is not used for selling directly, but as a way to educate potential customers about your product(s), develop thought leadership, and raise awareness about your brand.
Many eCommerce companies have succeeded in content marketing
However, content marketing doesn’t just mean writing in-depth blog posts. As previously mentioned, content marketing is any online material meant for education.
That means videos are part of the mix too.
How To Apply It To Your Business
One of the biggest reasons content marketing works so well as an eCommerce marketing strategy is because Google loves content. In fact, content is one of the three biggest ranking factors.
That means producing content allows you to rank in Google, which in turn can send you traffic on autopilot.
2. Referral Marketing
One of the most powerful (yet underrated) eCommerce marketing strategies is referral marketing (also known as word-of-mouth marketing).
The reason is simple – we’re all social creatures, and we love sharing our experiences with our family and friends. It benefits us too – we help each other avoid bad experiences, and encourage each other to support places that provide an excellent experience.
That also means, whether you like or not, people are going to share about you with their friends. Wouldn’t you prefer that sharing be something positive about your brand and product?
Referral marketing is when you deliberately influence the process of word-of-mouth, whether it is encouraging more sharing, or positioning the sharing to be positive.
Referral marketing is the secret weapon of many eCommerce companies.
How To Apply It To Your Business
The fastest and easiest way to kickstart your referral marketing is to set up a referral program. If you have the resources (like Uber or Dropbox), you can hire a developer to custom design a referral program for your store.
This allows you to have full control over your referral program, but it may be tedious and resource-intensive.
The alternative is to install a referral program app, like ReferralCandy. A referral app allows you to get started quickly, as everything is (almost) done-for-you.
No matter which solution you choose, there are several components of a referral program you must get right in order to ensure that this eCommerce marketing strategy will work for you.
3. Email Marketing
Who still reads emails?
Everyone.
Despite the popularity of social media and chat apps, email still remains the #1 communication channel for many. 91% of consumers check their email on a daily basis.
That means email can be your most profitable channel. The stats suggest so too.
Email marketing has found to have an ROI of 3800%. The average order value of email marketing is 3X higher than social media.
According to Convince and Convert’s research, people spend 138% more when marketed via email (as compared to those who don’t.)
4. Instagram Marketing
Did you know?
65% of Instagram users use their feed to look for online shopping inspiration, while also looking to discover new brands. These are users who are looking for stores like you to purchase from!
This also means that if you do not have a solid Instagram presence, you’re missing out on tons of sales.
5. Facebook Ads
Despite the troubles facing Mr. Zuckerberg, Facebook still remains one of the most powerful advertising platforms available to marketers.
There is no other ad platform with this level of targeting. You can choose to 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 but did not make a purchase.
How To Apply It To Your Business
There is no “best” way of running Facebook ads. The best method is dependent on a variety of factors (e.g your industry, your audience, your offer, etc.)
The “best ads” are often discovered through pure experimentation.
The first step to setting up a successful Facebook ad campaign is to decide which product(s) you want to sell. This is your “offer”. As discussed in the email marketing segment, your “offer” helps your audience answer the question, “what’s in it for me?”
Simplicity = sales.
Final Thoughts on eCommerce Marketing
There is no such thing as a universal “best strategy”.
However, there are timeless strategies that have been proven to work by many eCommerce stores before you.
Run through the list of strategies I’ve suggested, decide on one, and test it out.
If it works, double down on it. If it doesn’t try another.
You will eventually discover the best eCommerce marketing strategies that will work for your store.
Please contact us or shoot us an email at [email protected] with questions on how we can help or any concerns you may have.
www.aleadamedia.com
