Essential Ecommerce Marketing Strategies

Ecommerce marketing strategies are proving to be an essential part of global trade. We cannot deny that there are new competitors emerging everyday. We know that ecommerce is generally considered to be an important part of modern trade and there is a race for the top stop of an industry that is worth trillions annually.

The process of building a brand online requires time and iteration. Especially if you're starting from scratch it's unlikely that you will perfect the system right away. A great start is having clear and high goals to work towards. In time the process will become clearer and success becomes a reality.

Marketing channels are a great starting point for evaluating ecommerce marketing strategies. They allow us to objectively look at our options and choose the ones that best fit our goals. We know that every channel has a specific purpose and unique qualities, some being more useful for our particular needs then others. Which channels we use is step one while how we optimize those channels is step two.

Example: 

• A website is highly customizable and ideal for larger amounts of information, making it easier to brand and describe your product. Websites are often considered main marketing channels.
• While social media is more tuned towards customer engagement and images, perhaps being more useful if you're focusing on user-generated content.
• And if you find that short form videos are more important for your brand then it might be advised to leverage TikTok.

We generally see digital marketers actively looking for ways to automate, speed up or optimize the channels that they select. Syndication is a popular method, where content like articles are repurposed across multiple channels for maximum reach. Whatever your strategy, activity and engagement are vital. 

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Core Ecommerce Marketing Channels

These are the main marketing channels used in ecommerce to promote products and drive sales. Each channel has its own unique properties and it is highly recommended to use as many as possible with your constraints. Using a mixed approach can help diversify your ecommerce marketing strategy and benefit from the cumulative effects of multiple channels.

• Ecommerce Website: Any ecommerce marketing strategy starts with a robust online presence. Websites are vital because they offer you complete control, and everything you need for shopping customers. Making the most out of your ecommerce website means making your store user-friendly, optimizing it for search engines (SEO) and ensuring a smooth experience on all devices. Additionally, integrating social media platforms and creating engaging content can further increase your reach. In ecommerce your website is often considered central to your marketing strategy and is number one on our list for a reason.
• Pay-per-Click Advertisement (PPC): PPC campaigns on platforms such as Google or Facebook, allow you to display targeted campaigns to relevant viewers. PPC ads circumvent the slow organic growth rate and can generate millions of impressions. In terms of speed, PPC is capable of doing what no other marketing channels can, create mass awareness. The main drawbacks are the high cost and sharp cut off point.
• Social Media Marketing: Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn have millions of active users. LinkedIn mostly welcomes professionals, business owners, and industry leaders and there are tools like Linked Helper that can help you automate most of your lead generation and outreach efforts. This makes these platforms an excellent opportunity to engage with target audiences, build brand awareness and drive traffic to your ecommerce store. It is possible to also utilize their paid ads functions for accelerated growth and reach. Social media isn’t designed primarily for ecommerce so it may be difficult to prove value, with the number of users being the main argument.
• Content Marketing: Content is a major focus for businesses that’s used to improve your web profile and build a reputation. Creating valuable blog posts, videos, and infographics can help attract and educate your target audience. The potential of content marketing is limitless, especially if you are skilled enough to create high quality materials. Content is also considered to have long-term intrinsic value that stems from skill and knowledge. Content can also be leveraged through syndication or as part of alternative marketing campaigns, making it repurposable. 
• Email Marketing: Targeted emails are uniquely effective as they are cost effective and support your goals. Email subscribers have expressed their willingness for communication when they subscribed and the intention makes them high potential leads.  Common strategies include lead nurturing, product promotion and repeat purchase strategies. The most effective way is to use email personalization and segmentation for more refined communication. Emails can be automated, cost little to utilize and have one of the highest conversion rates across all channels.

These marketing channels are what we considered “core” because they are consistent, scalable and directly reach customers. Employing these channels together is a stable way to build long term value at a steady pace.

Alternative Ecommerce Marketing Channels

While the following channels are not widely considered to be something you can deeply rely on for the long-term, they do present value as part of your overall ecommerce marketing strategy. It is common to see businesses build these channels to be used once in a while or to test their return rates. 

• Influencer Marketing: Influencers and industry experts often have a very concentrated audience making them ideal advocates. These influencers can promote your products through sponsored content and in turn drive highly targeted traffic to your ecommerce site.
• Affiliate Marketing: Affiliate partners can promote your product through their store or alternatives channels for that extra boost in traffic. It is common for affiliates to receive a commission on sales generated in a fair exchange between partners.
• Online Marketplaces: These marketplaces are very popular in ecommerce for their greater infrastructure and abundant traffic. There is a clear desire to shop whenever a shopper visits a product page, and these platforms generally have a strong verification process. There is less control over how you describe your product which may be a branding issue.
• Mobile & SMS Marketing: Mobile apps and sms marketing are two great tools we can incorporate into our ecommerce strategy to improve the user’s experience. Mobile shopping is a very strong industry which can be completed through a website fitted for mobile devices.

These are the ecommerce marketing channels that are considered central to digital marketing. There is no one winning formula with factors like your target audience, industry and overall goals playing a role. While each marketing channel has a purpose, finding the most effective medium will always take time and testing. It is worth noting that organic methods typically take more time to scale but often have more reliable value based results. While paid marketing channels are great for quick exposure, but are based on spending and have a sharp cut off.

Ecommerce Marketing Strategies

Ecommerce marketing strategies are about finding and engaging a target customer. The best approaches are repeatable and are refined overtime for maximum effect. The process takes time to perfect with multiple stages of reworking required. These strategies represent the greatest long-term potential which we can grow over longer periods of time. Much of ecommerce marketing strategy is about developing our skill and developing a higher level of understanding.

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): SEO is primarily concerned with organic traffic. The process involves optimizing your website and content for search engine result pages (SERPs). The goal is to improve the quality of the leads you generate for conversion opportunities and for ranking factors which will place you closer to page one. While organic traffic has the greatest potential, the process takes a substantial amount of time.

2. Personalization and Customer Engagement: The ecommerce industry is huge and a common mistake businesses make is often generalizing their brand to fit an overly broad segment. Providing a tailored experience to a match specific demand is considered an elevated experience. Utilizing customer data to offer personalized recommendations, targeted promotion and relevant content can improve customer perception. It is also highly advisable to employ interactive features such as; live support, social proof and loyalty rewards. A combination of these two elements can provide a deeper connection with your brand and improve your ecommerce marketing strategy.

3. Mobile Optimization: While it may seem like mobile optimization is something we can overlook, the rising prominence of mobile commerce tells a different story. Optimizing for mobile means; creating a responsive design, fast-loading pages, and a simplified checkout process. Investing into a dedicated mobile app is another way to enhance the user’s experience and retention potential. Following these adaptations can help you provide a seamless experience on mobile which could prove to be a major competitive advantage.

4. Omnichannel: Leveraging multiple marketing channels has been a popular approach until it was made dated by omni channel systems. Omnichannel is the process of turning all your contact points into sales points for seamless transitions. This resolves a practical conversion issue, bringing full functionality to all your marketing channels. Scaling your marketing channels with purchase processing has been the standard for a legitimate reason. The issue is rooted in the complications shoppers face when attempting to find your core payment system.

5. Streamlined Checkout: The checkout process should never be a complication. Any issues represented by your checkout process are presumably unnecessary and potentially damaging. Streamlining your checkout process is how we make it easy for customers of all types to move through your funnel. Simple ways to improve is reducing the number of steps required, enabling guest checkout and offering multiple payment options. These three practical solutions are a start to a simple process.

6. Social Proofing: Social proofing is an important step towards cultivating credibility. We can start by encouraging customer reviews, ratings and testimonials. These three options help to build trust in the quality of your product. While social proof may prove redundant for large well known brands, for brands in transitional periods credibility is vital. Displaying social proof prominently across your pages and leveraging user-generated content can resolve purchasing decisions and drive conversions.

7. Expanding Product Range and Market Reach: Constantly expanding product range and applying variations can fuel ecommerce growth. While exploring new markets and conducting research on emerging trends, can help identify consumer demand. Consider strategic partnerships, international markets and targeting niche segments in aims of diversifying your revenue streams.

8. Customer Retention and Loyalty: While acquiring new customers is important, retaining existing customers is equally crucial. Common strategies like rewards and exclusive offers create interest and cause for returning shoppers. Implementing loyalty programs has never been easier with countless apps available that accelerate the setup process. Excellent customer service is an important addition to your loyalty program that can improve the customer experience, and in turn improving your retention chances.

9. Continuous Optimization and Iteration: Ecommerce is a growth process with continuous effort required across all your channels. With shifting trends our objectives may change, requiring us to adapt. It is therefore important to keep track of performance indicators, conduct A/B testing and identify areas for improvements. Regularly adjusting product listings, website design, marketing campaigns and operational processes can result in competitive advantage.

While the ecommerce marketing strategies proposed above are more than sufficient to successfully produce sales, the list of options is nowhere near exhaustive. There are so many possibilities that you can try but many require extensive networking and budget. Establishing a fixed set of channels that you want to focus on is a great approach, while using secondary channels on occasion to meet shifting goals and objectives.

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Conclusion

Ultimately, ecommerce marketing strategy is an experienced based skill set. Once more complex systems like SEO are understood, all else is just a matter of time. By following this guide on ecommerce strategies you should have enough of an understanding to implement whatever project you take on with greater accuracy and scale your operations quicker.