There is no surprise that all ambitious entrepreneurs that already have established brick-and-mortar businesses want to expand their operations online and start an e-commerce business.
The e-commerce industry has become huge during the previous year thanks to the unfortunate viral outbreak. However, the growth is still going strong and no one can really determine when it will stop.
With that in mind, business owners who are looking to grow and earn even more revenue find establishing an e-commerce business a natural thing to do.
However, a good product or service is useless if no one knows about it. Keep reading to learn more about proven marketing tactics that will work wonders for your growth once you decide to start your e-commerce business.
Harness the power of Instagram
Image by Thomas Ulrich from Pixabay
Instagram is the most popular image-sharing social media platform in the world. It is used in all parts of the world and it has millions of users and businesses that post visual content regularly.
Instagram is used by both big brands and small businesses, which means that your e-commerce business should take advantage of Instagram too.
For starters, you could integrate Instagram photos into your e-commerce website. For instance, installing a widget on your home page to display photos taken by customers using your products is a smart idea.
When visitors click on one of the photos, a pop-window should appear that showcases the products within the photo accompanied by a link to the product page. There is no need to worry about the widget since you can create it on your own or find a widget of that kind on WordPress as a plugin.
Another great way to market your business is if you find Instagram influencers and work with them. They are popular individuals that have a large number of followers on the platform. Reach out to them and schedule a meeting or a video meeting to arrange the terms and conditions of your joint business venture.
Keep in mind that not all influencers request monetary remuneration. Instead, some would like to have your product for free and some less-popular individuals won’t even ask to keep your product.
However, less-prominent influencers have smaller fan bases, so make sure to remember when reaching out to one of them.
Email marketing is still relevant
Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay
Both online business owners and traditional (brick-and-mortar) store owners know how important it is to have a good email marketing strategy in place.
First, try to gather as many email addresses as you can — customers, prospective customers, people interested in your events, and so on. Then you’ll be able to send an email to all of those people letting them know that they can visit your store online and purchase your products.
On top of that, consider offering a promotion to the contacts on your email list. Think about giving a referral discount to encourage customers to share your e-commerce website with friends.
Email marketing still provides a decent ROI, so do your best to keep collecting email addresses on your website. Some businesses use pop-ups to ask users to enter their email addresses in return for a small promotion or even a discount or free shipping.
Finally, keep a steady flow of communication with the people from your email list. Engage in a regular email interaction and include promotions, new content, product releases, and other news that can encourage customers to visit your website.
Your landing page is important
Every e-commerce business has a place for its visitors to go to once they enter the website. An online business owner can’t create an interactive experience for visitors without a good landing page. The goal of any landing page is to entice a certain type of action that should benefit the business.
But how should you create your landing pages? What are some of the landing page best practices that can be useful for your e-commerce website?
To start it off, you should know that there are a few different kinds of landing pages. These are created according to the type of action a business wants its visitors to take.
The two main types include:
- Click-through landing pages. These pages aim to get the user to click through to additional pages, as the name implies.
- Lead generation landing pages. These pages are usually used to capture certain customer information such as name, email address, and contact information, which the business then uses at a later date to send further promotional details or product offers.
Your next landing page needs to be carefully designed since its purpose is to make a visitor click or do something that would benefit your company. Bear in mind that landing pages could make a difference between a visitor that leaves a webshop right away and one that clicks on an offer and purchases something within a day.
Reap the rewards of PPC advertising
PPC ads are pay-per-click ads where a user pays for each click that their ad receives. Marketers can measure if PPC ad campaigns are efficient and cost-effective by comparing the ad cost to the amount of traffic and sales generated by the ad.
The most popular type of PPC is search engine advertising, or more precisely, Google Ads (formerly known as Google AdWords). Google Ads enable businesses to create ads that appear on Google’s search engine and it places them using an auction process.
It is possible to bid on a keyword, and ads are chosen based on bid amounts and the ad’s quality score. Google also offers a good analytics tool that can be used to measure and track customer activity and campaign success.
Have a go with the good old blog
Having a blog where you can post regularly can significantly improve your content marketing game. Businesses of all industries already have blogs that are meant to provide customers with valuable content. Manage to do that yourself and you will build trust and deeper relationships with customers.
Promotion through blogging is ongoing, as content can be posted and shared on social media and drive traffic through search engines. If you are unsure about the topics, you could gather the questions customers often ask your customer service agents.
Create posts that provide answers to these problems so that buyers can continually go back to them when they encounter new problems in the future.
Additionally, when brainstorming topic ideas, consider the lifestyle of your typical customers:
- In what way do they engage with your product on a daily basis?
- What do they like about it?
- How does it solve their pain points?
- Is there a better way to use your products?
Produce articles that offer interesting insights into how things work at your company, write tutorials, and make sure to create something that they will find both fun and useful.
Are you ready to bring in new customers?
Once you embark on your e-commerce journey, you will realize that having an online business is not a plug-and-play thing. To really succeed and grow, you need to be consistent and patient.
Go through these tips again and make sure you take notes. Integrate as much as you can into your next marketing strategy and you will see that it will pay off.
