Best E-Commerce Marketing Strategies

Those of you who are in the e-commerce business will agree to the fact that as your business starts growing you learn so much. You have gone through all the ups and downs. At times, you want to give up; it isn’t the bed of roses that you thought. Though with every step, you grow and learn something new. So, keep trying because there is no rule book or mantra for instant success. Here, I am sharing few of the strategies that I hope can help your business in some way. Good Luck!!

1. Content Marketing – We have heard this a hundred times, hear it once again. Content is King!! Content marketing mainly consists of SEO, blogs, photos, videos and almost everything. So, with the opening of your e-commerce store, have a blog too. Update it regularly. It can be weekly, daily, monthly or biweekly. With increase in content, the probability of more pages and keywords coming in the search engine’s index will automatically increase. When you launch your store, make a proper content plan, at least for a year. As the number of content increases, more people will connect to it. This helps in building a list of links naturally. 

2. Market Research and Analysis – Once you have planned to set up your business, identify your target audience. It is completely fine if you do not have a product but one should be aware about the people who could be the potential customers. Based on the target market, you will have a better idea regarding what could be the demand for your product. Demand is a very crucial factor. The whole motive behind all the efforts and time goes waste, if there aren’t a considerable amount of people willing to buy it.

For e.g. if you are selling everyday wear jewellery, your target would be women who are looking for light weight jewellery with a contemporary twist in design and that too in an affordable price.

If you are selling a shampoo for that makes hair silky and shiny, you very well know that there are customers who have dry and dull hair problems.

It is all about giving solution to a problem or fulfilling their want. Be very clear about what the target market wants before starting any other marketing technique because that is how you will make your customers keep coming back.

3. SEO – Link Building – There are several ways to build link. Through your content, manually, guest posting etc and these may have their pros and cons. You can also try by emailing the link of the content to the website owner, figuring out broken links to content which is very similar and through resource pages and relevant directories. Do remember not to overdo it.

4. PPC – Facebook Ads – They are cheaper than Google Adwords or other types of PPC. With the wide network of users and technology that helps them know about the interests, biodata and likes, Facebook Ads are targeted brilliantly. You can easily drive traffic to a Facebook page or some other website.

5. Email marketing – As soon as you have set up your store, start collecting emails. Email marketing is a great way to attain more customers. When you get someone’s email id that shows their consent in accepting content from you. The only problem is the fact that it isn’t easy to convince people to give you their email id. Your content should be fresh and interesting to make the readers glued to it and waiting for more. 

6. PPC – Google Adwords – By using Google Adwords, you can choose keywords that you want to highlight. That way people who might be looking for your product will, only they will be able to see your ad. This is a valuable way to drive the customers to your website or store. For e.g. if you are guitar seller and you use a related keyword, people who search for guitars only they will be able to see your ad. You can opt for the bid as per your choice. With a relevant website and a higher bid, the frequency and the ranking of the ad automatically increases. Thereby making Adwords so important and influential. The truth is, keywords aren’t the only means to search. Hence, one has to keep optimizing the ads. Through Adwords, one can test if things are running smooth or not and get you some sales too. It might cost you a little more though. One gets the scope to learn more about the market and customers. While you wait for things to take shape, you can interact with the customers as well.

7. On page optimization for SEO – Optimize your pages; this has to be the priority. Before you build any links, before you do any kind of off-page SEO, you need to make sure your pages are properly optimized. One can keep the following points in mind:
   1. The content should be long and explained in detail.
   2. Try to start the title with the keyword you are targeting and use the keyword in the first 100 words.
   3. Without sharing of your content, there is no use working hard on content.
   4. Use different keywords in the body of the page.
   5. Use multimedia – images, audio and videos.
   6. Make sure that the site loads really fast.
   7. To describe the product or page use urls that are SEO- friendly.

8. Link Building – Guest posting & Articles – When you write articles or blogs for another website is known as guest posting. It is a great way to add to your customer list is through guest posting. If done in the right manner, this can bring a huge traffic and you could see a boost in your search engine ranking as well. Just make sure that the website is related to your product or service. Try and utilize the places or platforms where you could find potential customers. Try and reach places where you could find people belonging to your target market. Thus making them aware of your presence. Always opt for websites that are authentic and reputed which has a huge list of regular visitors.

9. PPC – Product Listing Ads – PPC or product listing ads are the ads which show the actual image, price and a promotional message of the product. They have been recently introduced and showcase specific listings in your search results. Compared to traditional ones, these ads are cheaper and gets you more sales.

10. Social Media Profiles – With more and more people spending majority of their time on social media, there is no other way but to join it. One has to keep interacting with customers and promoting oneself on Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Twitter. Gone are the days when interaction was restricted only till the stores. These days with social media on a boom, one should mark their presence everywhere. Plan a content strategy. It is not enough to have people follow or like you. Keep sharing and positing content that will interest the customers.

11. Comparison Shopping Engines – These websites collect the information of the product which includes pricing, from participating retailers and display the information on a results page after the customer makes a search query. Thus, customers can better analyse the price of different retailers, options, service etc. The best part being the visitors of these websites, who are already in the mood to buy the product and are just looking for the best deal that they can get. At times, this strategy works and sometimes it doesn’t.

12. Pinterest – It is just not any other social media platform, it is way beyond that. The third most popular social networking site, the majority buys of a product come from pinterest as compared to other social media platforms. People share images on their boards. This is great for products where visuals matter a lot. for e.g clothes, jewellery etc. You can either share it with others or keep pinning stuff you like and have people share and follow these bulletin boards. You can also organise campaigns and contests to attract customers through pinterest.

13. Growth Hacking – It can be explained as a business position where through the amazing techniques and tricks in your business, you turn your customers into brand ambassadors. You can try this in ecommerce too. The more the buzz, the better for your business.

14. Product Reviews – If the motive lies in creating brand awareness about your product, you can definitely use product reviews. One can easily boost traffic through it. Though, once it is over, there won’t be much traffic. You can also ask experts or a blogger to write a review for you. Choose a website that has a good number of followers and a decent blog size. A good option for products that are low-cost.

15. Related industries – Here, we are talking about industries that are complementary to yours. Look for such industries and partner up with them. You could either be a part of their blogs and vice versa, post on each other’s social media profiles and not to forget sell your products too

16. Contests and Giveaways – You can also try organising interesting contests and giveaways. They offer you a great chance to get a lot of followers, subscribers and create awareness. Try and get in touch with blogs that are related to your niche and have a good following. You can approach blogs in your niche to see if they are willing to host giveaways. In this case, it’s always best to only target those blogs that have a decent following. They key to conduct a successful contest is by asking people to follow you on different social media platforms and sign up for your email list. Make sure that you have content ready for this huge number of people from the e-mail list and sign ups.        

17. Affiliate Marketing – A technique used by companies to sell their products by signing up companies or individuals to market their product for a commission. There are plenty of e-commerce giants like Flipkart, Amazon etc who have many affiliated interest specific websites. So, if you have really high margin on your products, you should definitely try this. You would then pay that website owner a commission, usually between 3-10% of the sale. The best part being, you don’t have to be a pro in it. Many service providers have their own software for this. Hence, you do not have to get into the nitty-gritty. You just have to provide them with the links for your websites and that’s it.

18. Forums and Q & A sites – One can utilize Forums and Q & A sites to targeted customers too. One should use these platforms to build authority and the trust of the customers. Once your successful in this, there is no more waiting. Take it easy while sharing links. Do not bombard people with several links at one go, unless your product actually solves the customer’s problem. Just to remind you, forums can be really time taking. Hence, venture into it, only if you can actually put in that much of time and efforts.  

19. Video Marketing – Being a giant search engine in itself, You Tube needs no introduction and not to forget it is owned by none other than Google. So, marketing your products on You Tube has to be done. You can videos that talk about your products, their benefits, reviews etc. Just ensure that the description and title is keyword optimized and share the link of your website. One can also check for the keywords related to your market which are being searched a lot.

Conclusion

We have shared so many strategies that you can use for your business. Start with the ones that suit you the most. This might take some time, effort and care. Thus, be very careful and go step-by-step. Though there is no magical formula but you can still have a good content strategy, Great social media presence, good PPC base and the best utilization of some of the other strategies to get that perfect winning combo!!