Are you looking to grow your eCommerce business? You’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’ll cover 13 marketing strategies and tips that can help you boost your online sales. From SEO and email marketing to landing pages and influencer marketing, there’s a lot of work involved with running an eCommerce store. But don’t worry: We’re here to make it easier!
The world of eCommerce marketing strategies is endless
There are many marketing strategies and tactics to consider when growing an eCommerce business. It can be overwhelming to figure out where to start, but the best place is with your existing customers and your data.
Getting started with eCommerce marketing for small businesses can seem like a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be.
Follow these marketing strategies and tips as you begin developing your eCommerce marketing plan:
1. Use Google Analytics and Google Data Studio in your marketing strategy
You can use Google Analytics, a free tool from Google, to track and analyze traffic on your website. It provides you with in-depth data about your website traffic and performance.
Google Analytics 4 or GA4 has been released and will take over the existing platform in July 2023. This next generation of Analytics differs from the existing Google Analytics because it uses event-based data instead of session-based and is designed for the future of measurement. GA4 collects both website and app data to better understand the customer journey.
For those wanting to take their analysis to the next level you can also use Google Data Studio to create interactive reports and visualizations based on the information in your Google Analytics account. This will help you see how users interact with specific pages or products on your site.
2. Optimize your website and your mobile shopping experience
Your website should be mobile-responsive, meaning that it’s optimized for users on all devices (desktop, laptop, tablet and smartphone). This is important because over half of web browsing takes place on mobile devices.
The best way to ensure this is by using a responsive design template in your eCommerce platform. And while you’re at it, ensure that the images on your website load quickly so that users don’t get frustrated waiting for them to load before they can make their purchases.
3. Put product reviews and testimonials front and center on your website
As a small business owner, your product or service is central to your success. You’ve spent countless hours working on the best way to make or develop your offering and market it. So including product reviews in your marketing strategy will give you that extra credibility with new website visitors.
The next step is to let website visitors know how awesome your products or services are!
There’s no better way to do that than by getting customer reviews for your offering. When customers read positive feedback from others who have purchased a product or service, they feel confident in making their own purchase as well.
You can add reviews of your product or service to your website by including a link in the footer or side bar on every page of the site. There are also some great review plugins you can use that integrate with Google reviews such as Yotpo.
4. Write product descriptions that sell
Your product descriptions should be engaging. They should encourage your visitors to go deeper into your site, rather than being a simple catalog of products. Include information about product features and benefits. If you have customer ratings and reviews, as per tip 3 include them as well.
5. Invest in technical SEO (also known as onsite SEO)
There are many onsite SEO best practices for small businesses to include in their marketing strategy, but here are the ones that we’ve found most effective:
- Have a good site architecture, including clear navigation and internal links.
- Make sure your pages load quickly and have a fast page speed.
- Use the correct HTML tags on your site, including title tags and meta descriptions.
- Use Google Search Console to identify any errors relating to your Core Web Vital metrics to improve your organic ranking on Google
- Write quality content for your blog that people want to read and share with others; don’t just fill it with fluff to have more words on a page!
6. Get the most out of email marketing with personalization, segmentation and automation
Email marketing can be a powerful marketing strategy for small businesses, especially since it’s relatively easy to set up and manage. Even though you might be sending out emails regularly, you might not be getting the most out of your email campaigns.
Email marketing automation tools such as ActiveCampaign, Klaviyo and SmartrMail offer advanced features that make segmentation easier than ever before: You can create different types of segments based on specific criteria (e.g., purchase history), then use those segments to target specific customers with certain types of content at different points in their customer journey (e.g., announce new products).
7. Have an effective social and digital content marketing strategy
An effective social and digital content marketing strategy can be the difference between continually buying sales (ie. through advertising) or driving sustainable growth through organic channels.
An effective social and digital content plan requires defining what the goals are for each channel, developing performance metrics (such as time spent or calls to action clicked), analyzing how well these goals were met, making adjustments where necessary, re-evaluating after enough time has passed and then repeating the process until you’ve hit on an approach that works for you.
Be consistent with posting times and frequency on each channel – but don’t spam! Posting in bulk won’t necessarily give you more exposure or engagement than posting less frequently but more thoughtfully curated updates; it’s better to put out fewer posts at regular intervals rather than being active all the time just because you feel like it (or worse still, using automation tools).
8. Embrace a video marketing strategy
You may have heard that video is the fastest-growing form of content online and that it’s the most effective way to engage your audience. In order to make videos work for you, you are best to have them in your marketing strategy and consider the following tips:
- A purpose behind your video content (what are you trying to achieve?)
- A target audience in mind who will benefit from what you’re offering them (what do they care about?)
- The best platform(s) for those audiences where they spend their time online (YouTube? TikTok? Instagram?)
- Similarly to point 7, measure, analyze and implement continuous improvement.
9. A/B test your ad copy and creative
A/B testing is a process of comparing two versions of a web page, ad or other marketing material to see which performs better. A/B testing can help you improve your marketing campaigns and increase the likelihood that your ads or content will be clicked on. So definite include testing as a part of your digital marketing strategy.
For example, let’s say you want to boost sales for one product. You could create two different images: one with a smiling model in front of a blue background and one with an image of the product on white background. You then display these images on Facebook with different copy about what makes this product great (for example, “easy to use” vs “great quality”). The version that performs best gets displayed more often in the future until you find out which variation works best for driving sales through Facebook ads. You can also use dynamic ads to do the testing for you.
10. Use social proof (like content from real customers) in ads and emails to build brand trust and encourage sales
Social proof is a powerful sales tool that can be used to build trust and encourage customers to take action. Social proof can take the form of testimonials, product reviews or case studies.
You can use social proof in your ads to show potential customers that other people have had positive experiences with your brand. This will increase their confidence in you and help them feel comfortable buying from you.
It’s also useful for encouraging sales at the point-of-sale—like when someone visits your store or website for the first time, as well as after they make a purchase (with email marketing).
11. Test and optimize your landing pages
You can’t optimize what you don’t measure. Measure the performance of your current landing pages with tools like Google Analytics, or by using a heatmap tool which will show you where users are clicking on the page and which parts they find most interesting.
Optimize your landing pages based on this data to get more conversions from them. You may find that some sections of your page need to be made more prominent, or that others need re-writing for clarity and relevance with the original promotion or communication message.
12. Leverage remarketing in your marketing strategy
Remarketing campaigns are a great way to reach people who have visited your website, but haven’t made a purchase.
You can target those who visited specific pages on your website or completed certain actions. For example, if someone visits the product page for a specific item and then leaves without making a purchase, you can create an ad that will show them ads related to that item when they visit other websites online.
13. Micro and nano influencers, and partnerships
Micro and nano influencers are more likely to engage with your brand than traditional influencers because they’re more accessible, so definitely worth including them in your marketing strategy. They’re also likely to share their experiences with you, which can lead to long-term customers.
Finding micro influencers is easier now than ever before; use tools like BuzzSumo, Traackr and Ninja Outreach for help finding relevant content creators in any niche or industry. Once you’ve identified them, reach out about a brand collaboration where both parties benefit from each other’s audience base.
Conclusion
Developing your eCommerce marketing strategy for your small business might seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. With the right marketing strategy and tools in place, you can make your eCommerce store a success. Consider these 13 strategies and tips as starting points for an effective marketing strategy.
“Learn more about your customers”: This is one of the most important marketing strategies because it will help you understand what your target audience wants from your products or services. It’s also a great way to identify new potential buyers among those who already know about your business—and even current customers will surprise you with their willingness to buy more, so having an offer that people can continue to buy from you will help take your business to the next level.
