Marketing e-stores to increase sales

Digital Marketing is a pivot to any online business. 

Every day, there are many new online shops. How will you know about them? Say, if one sells sustainable stationery, and there is a great demand for it too, but only if you knew it existed would you buy from them. Isn’t it? Without digital marketing, an e-store will manage minimum traction through word-of-mouth or online searches.

On the contrary, Digital Marketing Strategies comprising Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Content Marketing, Influencer Marketing, and Email Marketing will help your e-shop get a good ranking on the search engine, clicks on social media ads, and improve sales online. Thus, more brand awareness, more customers & loyalists, and positive brand building.

Chance on the idea – how many ads get clicked on Instagram or Facebook daily? If your product is innovative and helpful, and ad copy is appealing, you’ll make new customers, but how long can you run ads? A time will come when ad spending will decline and will require more investment for customer acquisition. Content Marketing through user-generated media, blogs, authentic reviews and ratings, and consistent SEO is necessary to keep up the marketing efforts.

Retaining an existing customer is less expensive than acquiring a new one. Focus on Customer’s Lifetime Value (CLV) and loyalty programs. Take advantage of customer comments or customer service issues. Online Reputation Management is a dedicated stream of marketing that works to keep the brand in a positive light, with the ‘customer is always right’ approach. Be prompt in addressing customer grievances online, supporting customer queries, and thanking customers for good reviews. Rewarding customers is yet another marketing practice to delight customers, making more customers through references or affiliate programs.

Digital Marketing & Marketing Automation Software

An outsourced digital marketing team, marketing automation software, a dedicated in-house experienced digital marketer, and a reasonable marketing budget to drive the marketing program is a dream for any new online e-shop. Unless investors are backing it up, in most cases which is not, the e-shops have to work on shoestring budgets to leverage marketing and promote their store.

Shopify Integrated Marketing Service offers content marketing, Facebook ads, SEO, emailers, and more. They have various tools for customers to run promotions and grow their businesses. WordPress All In One SEO plugin is one of the many plugins for marketers. It helps improve the SEO of the website. Digital Marketing Suite by Go Daddy has plenty of tools to enhance marketing. Social media marketing, emailers, paid posts, and more from a single dashboard.

Using free software for keyword searches, designing creatives, blog topics, and measurement is helpful. Use all resources effectively to reach potential clients and convert them into loyal customers.

How to promote your e-store?

Once you have set up an online shop, here are a few things you can do to build a user base:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Around the world, people search online for information on things they desire or need. They use keywords, short phrases, or long sentences to find suitable sources. Similarly, think like a customer and use keywords in the content of your website, on-page or off-page. Do keyword research on Google Keyword Planner to know the competitive keywords – most searched keywords. High-searched keywords are expensive for ads, so it is best to use them in SEO writing on owned properties or third-party sites.

Organically building traffic to your store may take a while and many rounds of experimentation. Still, it is the most preferred way. It is credible, unique content and rated by users as a place to go. SEO Best Practices is worth trying in the beginning months of the launch.

Referral Marketing

Reward customers for their loyalty by offering them incentives for referrals. You may provide your current customers with a referral code that they can use to refer a friend and receive 10% off on future purchases.

Referral marketing techniques have become one of the most cost-effective ways to increase your online business sales. QR code technology for referrals is trending online and offline.

Statistics state that 70% of shoppers come through reference. Only 15% of customers trusted social media content published and promoted by brands or businesses.

Email Marketing 

Once you have customers, keep the engagement going with them. Share the latest offerings, discounts, promotions, and informative blogs to keep them aware, hold their attention, request feedback, and bring them back to the store to buy more. Emailers bring a recall factor!

Emailers work best if they are well-planned for a target segment. Otherwise, it may just land in spam. Worst, a customer may unsubscribe from it. Keep an eye on the open rate, and bounce rate. Do AB testing and subject line checks before you roll out an emailer. Send only responsive emailers for all devices.

Influencer Marketing

User-generated media is far more credible than ads. Brand endorsements by users on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok are the new marketing mantras adopted by many brand managers. Popularly known as Influencer Marketing, it is cheaper than roping a celebrity for a brand campaign. Content is accepted, liked, and shared more than any brand post on social media. Influencer marketing grew to a massive 16.4 billion USD industry in 2022.

With influencer marketing, your e-store can attract a large potential customer base. Promoting your store when you work with influencers is more straightforward because they have a sizable fan base of followers who already trust their word. Product recommendations for a skincare brand coming from a skincare blogger make sense. It’s all about the right fitment & the dynamic content. Images, Text, Carousel, Swipe, Reels, the list goes on!

Social Media Marketing

Any form of marketing on social media, organic or paid, is social media marketing. There is a brand page where a brand publishes content and engages with its audience through this page.

A content calendar is critical to any social media marketing plan. Content formats, Content types, Content Categories, Visuals, Videos, etc., are laid out alongside social media platforms, posting dates, and timelines. The role of keywords, hashtags, Captions, and Call-To-Action is very prominent in every social media post.

If done consistently over time with an effective strategy, a brand page takes no time to become a popular place for engagement. Insights help you measure success on your social media platform. Keep a tab on it!

Push posts that are doing well so that outreach is much more extensive and relevant. Plug-in paid content with regular content posting from time to time. Launch a brand campaign by going paid.

Paid Promotion

Advertise your post on Google’s search engine as search ads or display ads. Here the key is your brand persona, target audience profile, quality score, keywords, and online sites where you want ads to run.

It can become expensive, but it helps lead generation and customer acquisition.

Your ads may appear on top of the search page or as images and text on the sidebar/web banners on the preferred sites. The tendency is to click on top ads or websites on Search Engine Result Pages (SERP).

There are a lot of controls and options to manage your Google ad campaign for your e-store. A specialist can help you save money and maximize leverage, whereas an apprentice may struggle to deliver.

Brand Partnerships

Another digital marketing technique to boost your e-store’s productivity is brand partnerships. When two complementary brands come together to aid marketing for each other, it generally is a win-win situation.

Find the right brand to partner with, like a footwear brand can synergize with fashion apparel to club content marketing efforts for greater visibility and sales.
Customer-centric approach

A customer-centric approach to your e-store and marketing initiatives goes a long way in brand building and reputation. The customer is always right!

• Selling products or services that deliver value.
• Selling products or services that are high-quality.
• Timely delivery & Tracking.
• Hassle-free order placing.
• Easy navigation of the store.
• Great user-experience
• Quick customer grievance redressal

Marketing is about identifying the customer and creating something of value for the customer. Digital Marketing brings customers to the products and services, drawing their interest in them to consider and buy. Once the customers become loyal, offering the best discounts and making them feel special.

Marketing is a continuous effort evolving through time. Influencer Marketing is the future!