8 Ways to Strengthen Your eCommerce Marketing Strategy and Sales

BI Intelligence (Business Insider’s premium research service) predicts U.S. consumers will spend $632 billion online in 2020. Forrester Research has predicted the Internet of Things (IoT) will become “the backbone” of a growing customer value, as companies strive to connect with customers, grow their brands, and personalize the customer experience.

Ecommerce is not easy – it takes hard work and time. But can be a powerful component to every marketing plan. While marketing goals vary from business to business, marketing goals can be measured and viewed on a concrete timeline. There are also dozens of strategies which can provide a clear and structured marketing path to follow that should be considered when looking to increase visibility and valuable user traffic to your online shop.

Here, we discuss a few strategies that we believe to be the most critical for a successful eCommerce marketing plan.

Many proven strategies and winning approaches exist to help businesses gain market intelligence, so they can come from a position of strength and therefore, succeed.  Market research is such a critical component of a strong marketing plan. It is both an organized effort and systematic approach to gather and interpret information about a company’s target audience and markets.

There is no guess work with market research. Research discovers what customers want and need, and can provide valuable insights about the audience behavior once on your site. Market Research helps business owners determine the most effective way to launch new products or services and to make decisions about the company’s fundamental needs for how to positioning, what product are working and what are not, pricing, promotion – and ultimately how to manage their brand reputation.

Keywords help you pinpoint your in-demand products, services and competitive landscape. There are different types of keywords. Product keywords, market defining keywords, high- traffic and low-volume keywords for starters. These shape Search Marketing strategies and become the cornerstone of all content.

Content marketing is changing. What used to work, no longer works – and new trends like UX Writing is growing everyday and highly used with top companies such as Google, Amazon and YouTube. Today’s content is about doing things differently with original content that is always something that can be shared. It’s about telling compelling stories, integrating videos, audio and photography, informative, being transparent and building partnerships – to suggest a few different approaches.

Social media cannot be overlooked.

According to Statista, the number of worldwide social media users reached 2.34 billion and is expected to grow to some 2.95 billion by 2020. On a global level, user engagement continues to grow and the world every day is connecting more and more around the globe.

Although social media can be tough for eCommerce companies because it is often difficult to figure out which platforms work best in certain markets, there is a simple solution. It’s like investing in the stock market. Diversify and test to determine what performs best. Then adapt. But realize, in today’s digital age, business reputations live and die by their social media standing and social media must be used to advertise, to increase your online presence and to deliver high-quality customer service. Consumers expect it.

When you are promoting and selling products and services online, photos matter. In fact, it can determine whether someone makes or doesn’t make the purchase. In brick-and-mortar stores, customer can engage all five senses. Online, they can only engage one sense – sight. So, show them the products and demonstrate the value of the services you provide.

This is true not just for your websites, but for all of your content, be it blogs, social media, etc. Pack photos into all your content to make it stronger and more compelling. People, by nature, are more likely to click on links and read through content if it includes photos.

By developing a strong eCommerce photography strategy will create a better User Experience (UX).

(Read 5 Reasons to Invest in Professional Photography for your Website)

Email marketing is the bedrock of effective eCommerce marketing strategies. It is still one of the best methods for influencing your customers to buy more and build brand loyalty by providing multiple and repeated customer touch points.

Smart email marketing not only drives revenue, but it is also a relatively low-cost, high-reward solution to growing your business.

It doesn’t matter how great a website is if users can’t find their way around it and quickly, painlessly accomplish what they want to do. Therefore, navigation is the cornerstone of usability. UX design success hinges on a deep understanding and balancing of the project ‘s context and business goals, user needs and behaviors and compelling content, as well as seven additional aspects for the ultimate User Experience.

For more information about UX Design, read The Value of User Experience Design (Does it make that big of a Difference?)

Ecommerce is complex and subject to many market specific variables. To maintain the integrity of an eCommerce website, testing is crucial for success. Without it, eCommerce is running blind. Testing helps prevent and reduce errors, adds value to customers’ online experiences, decreases shopping cart abandonment, simplifies checkout processes and ensures optimum site performance, load times, data security and site responsiveness on other devices such as tablets and smartphones among other things.

WebRealSimple understands eCommerce marketing and how to closely align your business goals, budget and overall customer experience. We specialize in developing high-quality eComm sites for platforms including WooCommerce, Magento 1 and Magento 2, Shopify, social media and Google Merchant and work with you to develop a strong marketing plan to ensure the right solution for your business.

If your website is not producing the sales you want, please contact us today for a complimentary consultation.