E-commerce portals and online stores want to increase their traffic and, in turn, conversions. However, even after you set the fundamental strategies, it may still be challenging and confusing to decide which marketing approaches you to have to try. There is plenty of advice from everywhere.
This is why we try to put together some of the effective marketing strategies and tools for e-com marketing. These ideas may help the e-com marketers to identify and implement the best strategies for them. These ideas cover a gamut from the customer’s direct acquisition to generate repeated traffic from loyal customers.
After identifying the best few for you, try to implement one at a time for the next several weeks and keep a close track of the results. At the end of the trial period, take the stats and figure out which all tactics worked best for you to drive in more traffic, reengage existing customers, and drive in more sales.
E-commerce marketing
E-commerce marketing uses various promotional tactics to drive in more traffic to online stores, convert the traffic into potential customers, and retain them over time. The best marketing strategies for e-com stores are made of some featured marketing tactics to build customer loyalty, brand awareness and increase sales.
Here are some of the top time-tested e-commerce marketing strategies.
1- Upselling
Upselling is not a new thing. We have heard about various versions of the same. It is the approach of selling a little extra than what the customer originally considering. For many e-com businesses, upselling is more effective in increasing revenue than getting more customers. Sometimes the existing customers may not be aware of it when a premium product is made available, or they may need a push to upgrade to a package that suits their needs. While upselling, always ensure that the upsell products are related to the original products customers are considering. Also, as Flosum suggests, it will be ideal to have a clear understanding of your customer budget to upsell related products to be within it.
2- Instagram integration
You know about social media marketing, and with more than 500 million active users, Instagram is now the leading social apps for marketing brands to connect with influencers and customers. If you can take some compelling photos or can play with hashtags creatively, post those at the right time to the right audience to find ways to reach the needy. The key to success here is to master organic Instagram promotions and the art of building an audience. To engage with a potential audience, you may also run some contests and activities on Instagram. For e-com marketing, you can also add your product images to Instagram stories by providing a direct purchase path.
3- Revising abandoned carts
It is a harsh truth; you lose money each time someone abandons their cart by choosing items without finishing the purchase. As per a study, about 69% of shopping carts get abandoned at some point in the purchasing journey. So, it is ideal for addressing these hesitations as some of the shoppers who can be reminded about their unfinished purchase may further pursue it later. You also have the option to persuade this further by offering free shipping or promotional discount.
An effective e-commerce model is to try reducing the abandoned carts frequently through an email campaign for recovery by convincing your visitors to revisit their carts and complete the purchase. Creative marketers use some quirky subject lines and add-on product suggestions for bringing the customers back to the cart and proceeding with the purchase.
4- Launch FB store
Facebook had undergone many changes lately, but it has always remained a successful social media platform for marketing and e-commerce. Facebook now has many straightforward options for e-com marketing as Facebook store and Marketplace etc. You can integrate your Shopify store direct to the Facebook store with all the inventories without any additional effort. This will further give you a wider and more popular reach to a huge client base. You may look at some of the most successful Facebook stores like Valery Brennan or Fiercely for some inspiration to plan yours.
5- Get more email subscribers.
Being one of the oldest digital marketing techniques, email marketing can still offer you the best return on investment by being an effective channel for e-com marketing. Offering many flexible options at your disposal, email marketing can help boost sales and generate repeat customers’ traffic. As of late, about 17% of the digital marketing spent happens to be on mail marketing; however, it contributes to about 25% of the revenue for many leading brands, as per a study conducted by Forrester.
As we know, email can offer direct and intimate interaction with the recipient. Mails are considered to be more personal and one-to-one, so people tend to be more proactive of the mails they view on their inbox rather than the common social feeds. Also, email can give the marketers more room for personalizing the message, which cannot be done on social media posts. To start with mail marketing, you may prepare and send mail newsletters, blogs, and other mail capture efforts to gather as many subscribers as you can and build your genuine mailing list.
6- Let the customer find what they need easily
Whatever you sell online, if you have a poorly designed e-cart, there is no point in doing all the marketing campaigns from where the potential customers land on your compromised e-store. Ensure that your store features a clear value proposition, easy-to-read font, perfect navigation, and custom search options. You may get inspiration from the leading e-com sites and the standard practices they follow for the same.
Even though you adopt the best e-com marketing strategies in your e-com businesses, you must have an excellent customer support system to facilitate after-sales services. There is no better marketing approach than getting your customers themselves as your brand ambassadors to spread the word about your product or service quality and support.
