9 Marketing Strategies to Boost Your eCommerce Site
When it comes to eCommerce, there’s more to growing sales than offering quality products and delivering outstanding customer service. One key piece of the puzzle for driving conversion is marketing. While you don’t have to be a marketing guru to create meaningful relationships with your audience, there are a few tactics you should employ to keep new business rolling in – and, to entice existing customers to keep coming back. Here are 9 marketing strategies you can use to make marketing work in your favor.
1. Leverage Social Media
If you don’t already have a social media presence, it’s time to start building one. Channels such as Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and Snapchat give you a powerful opportunity to interact with your target audience. From promotions and giveaways to using the platforms for distributing shareable content, there is no limit to the ways you can use social media to your advantage.
2. Entice with Videos
Four times as many customers would prefer to watch videos about products than read about them based on the video marketing statistics. Could people who are interested in your product or service benefit from an instructional video? Consider creating how-to clips or explanatory videos about what your products entail to hold the attention of website visitors, social media followers, and email recipients.
3. Write Valuable Blog Posts
Like videos, blog posts with valuable content can pique the interest of your audience. Just be sure to keep blog topics related to your niche. To drive engagement, try to provide the reader with information they don’t already know. The goal is to leave them feeling as if they’ll learn something new by reading your post.
4. Create Share-Worthy Graphics
Infographics are liked and shared three times as often as any other type of content. The good news is that inforgraphics can be utilized by virtually every type of retailer. All it takes to create one of these compelling data-driven images is a little bit of research and a good graphic artist. Simply showcase and cite the statistics that would be most interesting to your audience, choose a reputable artist to depict them in an eye-catching presentation, then share it across all of your marketing channels.
5. Empower Your Site Using SEO
SEO is daunting for anyone who is unfamiliar with it. While best practices seem to change constantly, the general concept remains fairly simple. To grow your business’s visibility in search engine results, optimize your online content to include the keywords or keyword phrases your target audience would use to find you online.
6. Design a Wow-worthy Landing Page
Landing pages are standalone pages that serve distinct purposes. Most often, traffic is directed to them through links in your content shared via social media, blog posts, emails, and any other channels you use. These pages allow you to make a special offer in exchange for contact information. By taking the time to create an attractive page with well-written, persuasive copy, you’ll boost your odds of expanding your contact list.
7. Invest in Affiliate Programs
Affiliate programs are unique arrangements through which online merchants pay affiliate sites a commission to send them traffic. The affiliates post links to the merchant’s site on their own site, in exchange for an agreed upon commission. If you’re able to identify willing partners who post content relevant to your target audience, this is can be an effective and low-risk means of driving traffic to your site.
8. Build Your Sales Funnel
The lead generation funnel is the quintessential map used to attract customers. At the top of the funnel (the widest point), you have the general awareness phase, in which you attract the broadest number of people through accessible content. Bringing leads down through your funnel all the way to conversion requires some trial and error, but many sellers use a combination of tactics such as upsells and down sells to drive revenue.
9. Explore Advertising
The digital age has opened up countless opportunities for advertising. Podcasts are just one avenue to pursue, with 60 million homes in the U.S. playing them regularly. Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook retargeting are some other options to consider. If your marketing budget allows for it, deploy campaigns through multiple channels at different times, testing to find out which delivers the best results.
While these are some of the more powerful marketing strategies available to eCommerce retailers, there are many more worth trying. Best practices are always evolving as consumer needs and preferences change, so be sure you’re always refining your strategy and using up-to-date tactics to engage with your audience.
