Pro Marketing Techniques For Your eCommerce Store

Ecommerce is the most significant trend of our time. Besides fully eCommerce entities, more and more physical stores have their online versions up and running. Customers are enjoying the digital experience of online shopping and seem to like it.

 

According to Statista, the number of online buyers worldwide was expected to be 2.14 billion worldwide in 2021, up from 1.66 billion in 2016. A WordPress forum blog says the number of eCommerce sites is estimated between 12 million and 24 million. Still, less than one million of these sites generate revenue of $1000 per year.

 

Competition and Growth Challenges for eCommerce Businesses

 

How should eCommerce businesses deal with the competition? Better, how should a new online business ensure visibility, traffic, traction, and growth?

 

This post will try to answer these questions for the pros in the business – digital marketing for eCommerce. It will discuss some of the most effective marketing techniques to boost your E-commerce business and achieve the next level of success. These techniques have proved effective and successful, and pros will vouch for them.

 

However, individual businesses need calibration and customization that experienced eCommerce developers can perform with accuracy and finesse. Companies can find such developers from the list of top eCommerce developers, such as the top eCommerce development companies.

 

Here we go:

 

Creative and Original Content with Personality

 

Digital medium works through content. An eCommerce platform is exactly what it says through its content. It can represent anything that's not noted on its site. If it's so, how it is said, whether or not it's original and creative, also matters. With these considerations in the backdrop, the case for high-quality and well-curated content becomes paramount. Nothing can substitute informative, impactful, and engaging content on an eCommerce site. It will impact all KPIs for eCommerce businesses.

 

So what should you write?

 

From basic information in Home, About Us, Shipping, and Return Policies to catalogs with product descriptions, the content needs to be planned as if it is the king or the key element on a site that's singularly responsible for driving traffic and motivating customers to purchase. 

 

The content should not be excessive or too casual, to be sure! But, on the other hand, it shouldn't be too crispy or full of facts, figures, or statistics unless these are the demands of your niche.

 

Well, you need a balance between all these elements, but the essential message of this discussion is that your content should be fresh, lively, and useful. It should remain so for as long as you want the content to be there on your site.

 

Writing such copies needs planning and time, besides, of course, consummate research and writing skills. It can also take time. Any compromise in the content will impact the overall result and potentially harm the business prospects.

 

So nothing less than the best possible content for your eCommerce site is the only thing acceptable here! It should be original, creative, and with a personality of its own!

 

Content Marketing

 

All the great content might fail to produce results if you cannot market it well. We've just talked about the content you should have on your eCommerce site. Now, the next step in giving your eCommerce site a boost is content marketing. It delivers the content where the audiences are – inboxes, social media, and third-party sites.

 

To promote an online store, a company should populate these platforms with fresh and valuable marketing content. It will require planning and deft handling of the pieces written or videos created. A content calendar should be created, and the content delivery should be timed to make the most of different time zones.

 

There are marketing automation products in the market to help automate these tasks. For example, Magento has it. Hubspot, Salesforce, and MailChimp offer large-scale content creation and deployment solutions and many other marketing automation solutions. It's good to work with experienced eCommerce developers as they can guide you on these crucial matters.

 

Social Media Marketing

 

As part of content marketing, social media marketing is a systematic approach to tapping social media's potential. Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, and Twitter have 2.9 billion, 2 billion, 830 million, and 450 million members.

 

What makes these numbers all the more phenomenal is that most people these days spend a considerable amount of time on social media. So an eCommerce marketing team can't lose the opportunity that exists here. 

 

Social media may look easy to post your messages and videos. But doing it to promote a brand and tap the opportunities that exist there, a complete social media marketing ecosystem exists. It is divided into three clear categories:

 

Social media marketing management: It lets you automate the scheduling and delivery of content across different platforms. Essential tools in this category include MeetEdgar, IFTTT, and Buffer. In addition, several agencies in this category, such as Quuu, also help with content creation.    

 

Social media monitoring helps you monitor your brand across different social media platforms. Wherever your brand is mentioned on social media, it brings to your notice. Some popular tools in this category include Awario, Mention, and Brandwatch. 

 

Social media advertising: With billions of people available on social media, it has become one of the most important advertising platforms. All social media platforms offer advertising opportunities. For example, Facebook ads are supposed to be very effective for all kinds of advertising, including hyperlocal advertising. Facebook earned over $115 billion through advertisements in 2021. 

 

Let your digital marketing team prepare a sound strategy for social media marketing, as it can play a significant role in eCommerce marketing.

 

SEO for Ecommerce

 

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a time-tested method to increase organic traffic and leads. Rich and valuable content that features trendy keywords of your niche, straightforward website navigability, error-free technical detailing, site structure, and excellent user experience are ways to achieve higher SEO standards. In addition, the reliability of the content demonstrated by backlinks is another important aspect of today's SEO practices.

 

SEO is crucial because it is a reliable method to increase traffic and conversion. Various SEO methods are reasonably well-known, and many of them, such as content, alt text, link building, and more, are not technical, and anyone with some experience can do it. Nevertheless, SEO is one of the primary ways an eCommerce company can cost-effectively reach audiences. As far as reaching customers is concerned, SEO's only competitor is paid advertising.

 

While SEO is free, PPC is the next level in an eCommerce website's outreach and is a paid campaign. Like SEO, a PPC campaign uses keywords in its ad copy to be found on search engine results pages (SERPs). In addition, the ad copy has the hook in the form of an offer and a link to a landing page, where more details about the proposal are available.

 

PPC is another cost-effective way of promoting an eCommerce business. But the ad copy and landing page must be prepared by expert PPC professionals who can perform keyword research, find appropriate keywords for your niche, and use them deftly in the ad copy. In addition, ensuring the overall offering is attractive enough to provide the visitor clicks the ad and reaches the landing page where the conversion is likely.

 

While SEO may take time to produce results, PPC can work instantly and help eCommerce businesses get a headstart.

 

Mobile Responsiveness

 

According to available statistics, 56% of online sales were done through mobile devices. In addition, online traffic to eCommerce was 2.47 times higher on mobile devices than on desktops.

 

In 2022, 6.6 billion users are expected to use smartphones, while 85% of the world's population will have smartphones by 2023. Given this, an eCommerce site needs to be better optimized for smartphones.

 

It's an area of experienced eCommerce developers to create a website responsive to all devices. But unfortunately, any shortcomings in user experience can increase the bounce rate.

 

Targeting mobile users with ads and offers is another way to maximize an online store's business prospects. Geo-targeting allows the marketer to send marketing content to mobile users who enter the geo-fenced area with their smartphone's Bluetooth. 

 

The point is that buyers access online stores more through smartphones than other devices. So, eCommerce marketers need to focus their initiatives on smartphones. 

 

Upselling and Cross-selling

 

Acquiring new customers is both time-taking and expensive. Upselling and cross-selling lets eCommerce sites make the most of the existing customers on the site. Upselling is when a customer is shown and nudged to buy a higher-end version of the product the customer is currently considering or has checked out in the last visit to the site. 

 

Cross-selling is when the site shows related products to the customer's current consideration. In both these marketing techniques, the order value of an existing customer is maximized. Now, these techniques are mainstream eCommerce marketing techniques.

 

Experienced eCommerce developers will know these techniques and develop the site with programs that will automatically populate the customer's page with upselling and cross-selling recommendations. It will undoubtedly boost your E-commerce business.

 

Various eCommerce platforms have ready-to-use extensions for this purpose. But let your site developer recommend the right way to do it.

 

Reduce Abandoned Carts

 

It happens so often that the customers visit an eCommerce site and put things in their carts, but they abandon the cart just when they are about to checkout. According to a study by Baymard Institute, the average cart abandonment rate will be 68.8% in 2022. The top 3 reasons for this are as follows:

 

• Extra cost shipping, tax, and fees are too high
• The site wanted the customer to create an account  
• Delivery was too slow

 

ECommerce businesses need to improve their performance around the checkout time. That's one thing they must do. Perhaps, free shipping or a flat discount on the billed amount can do the trick.

 

Second, a follow-up email to persuade the customers to return to their carts and finish their shopping should be sent. It can be automated through marketing automation software that an eCommerce site uses. For example, Magneto has this facility in its software solution for eCommerce sites. 

 

Email Marketing

 

Although we featured email marketing at the end of our list of eCommerce marketing techniques for pros, in reality, it's one of the first things that a marketer would do. 

 

Most eCommerce sites have a sign-up option on their home pages for email newsletters. It's one kind of email marketing where the eCommerce business sends messages about new arrivals, offers, and other updates to their customers and subscribers. 

 

Statistics show that $1 spent on email marketing brought $36 in returns in 2021. For eCommerce, the return is the highest at $45.

 

There are at least 4 types of email marketing campaigns:

 

1. Email Newsletters
2. Acquisition Emails
3. Retention Emails
4. Promotional Emails

 

Almost all marketing automation companies offer email marketing packages with examples and ready templates to write, schedule, and send hyper-personalized emails to every subscriber on your database. Ecommerce companies can benefit significantly from this. 

 

One often overlooked marketing technique for eCommerce is the use of QR Codes within retail strategies. Retailers can benefit from QR Codes by providing a seamless bridge between physical and digital customer engagement. For example, they can increase app downloads, connect customers to social media, or even streamline returns in brick-and-mortar stores. Implementing innovative QR code usage can enhance customer experience and drive sales.

 

Wrapping up

 

Besides consumers' interest, eCommerce is also receiving a boost because building an eCommerce site is much easier these days, thanks to the availability of experienced eCommerce developers in all significant eCommerce development markets.

 

Global eCommerce retail sales closed in on the $5 trillion mark in 2021, of which $3.56 trillion of online retail sales came from smartphone users. Online retail sales are estimated to grow 50% by 2025.

 

So, while the trend of eCommerce is growing, serious businesses still have plenty of room to enter the space and establish their presence. But once an online company has positioned itself in a niche where the business volume is high and sales and profits are significant, there will be competition.

 

The marketing tips provided in this post should help you meet the competition and grow your business on a sound footing!