What is E-commerce Marketing Strategy?
Marketing has always been an important element in every business and successful brand for them to succeed in promoting their products and positioning them in the market. Nowadays, tools like the Internet and social media platforms have gained a lot of importance in terms of promoting and selling any type of service. That’s why it is so important to have a strong and solid e-commerce marketing strategy if your goal is to gain more audience and expand your business.
An e-commerce marketing strategy, in simple words, refers to the process of gaining traffic and awareness for an online business, product, or service and converting new visitors into loyal customers. Through diverse marketing strategies, a business will be able to ensure a strong and solid brand positioning, attracting a larger customer base and creating brand loyalty while maintaining the interest of existing customers in your products.
Every business needs to have a general idea about what are the basic requirements of an e-commerce brand strategy to be successful. If you are still unsure about how to do it in a proper way or have questions about it then you came to the right place. We invite you to keep reading, as we are going to give you some tips and information on what to do to have a higher impact on brand awareness and online posting.
How to Create an E-Commerce Marketing Strategy
Now that we have explained the importance of having a strong branding strategy for e-commerce, you may be wondering how to do it or where to start. We know it can be a little overwhelming, especially if you are unfamiliar with the topic. That is why we will help you with the basics of what you need to know if you decide to enter the e-commerce world. Here is a list of things you may want to take into consideration if you are planning on creating an E-commerce Marketing Strategy:
1: Produce original content for your website and social media. This means uploading and creating high-quality and original content. By doing this, you will be able to capture the interest of your customers, leading them to interact with your content and maintain their curiosity. Original content is a perfect way to:
- Make a statement
- Leave a mark on the user’s mind
- Come up with compelling ideas
- Build customer loyalty and interest in your products and services
2: Optimize your e-commerce website. It is important to test your website’s layout, language, and aesthetics to receive a better response from online users. When a potential customer visits your website, make sure that the functionality is simple and easy to understand. This way, they will feel inclined to purchase your products. Take some inspiration from other marketing channels and successful ecommerce brands for you to have a better idea about what you need and want for your own website.
3: Think about your content for your website and social media. Information like your online store´s product content will be fundamental in increasing the chances of new and existing customers buying your products. Prioritize your best-selling items and write attractive descriptions for them. This is a digital marketing strategy that will help you to see better results in your online sales throughout your website and their promotion on social media.
The Do’s and Don’ts
You now have some knowledge on how to start your e-commerce marketing strategy, it’s time to move on to another important subject, how to do it in a proper way. There are some do’s and don’ts you may want to review when starting an e-commerce marketing strategy. Here are some examples and a few tips that may help you to have a better idea:
Do’s
Understand social media advertising
Most brands need to have a social media strategy based on customers´ needs and their awareness of their products. For example, Instagram and Facebook are excellent platforms to reach out to customers who are still getting to know your services.
Find out what’s trending with your customers
Some e-commerce marketing strategies often revolve around the direction a brand wants to take. It is important for your audience to see that you are paying attention and not just repeating the same old lines, this will also be helpful to create an emotional connection between your company and your online users.
Don’ts
Stick to the same publishers
Although Facebook and Google are vital tools and the preferred platforms to connect with clients, it does not mean that you cannot expand your services to other publisher websites. Since the pandemic started, most customers have turned their attention to online shopping, leading to the implementation of different publisher sites where businesses can offer and sell their products.
Ignore the essentials
This is a common mistake when it comes to e-commerce strategies because the basics are often overlooked. It is crucial to keep your website and social media up to date, with current information and plenty of planned and written content for potential clients. This way, your company will be in the spotlight for new customers.
So far we´ve been talking about all the basics that you are going to need in order to start your ecommerce branding strategy in a strong way, now it’s time to go deeper into the subject and figure out what to do after starting with your marketing strategy.
Understanding the Needs of Your E-commerce Strategy
To create a functional and comprehensive ecommerce branding strategy, it is important to identify and understand the weak points and areas where you can improve your strategy in order to achieve better results and higher engagement from both existing and new customers. Factors such as market research, product orientation, inventory supply, visual identity, chain product line, customer loyalty, improving customer service, and product viability are aspects to consider for a better strategy.
On top of understanding the weak points and areas of improvement, it is also essential to consider how you plan to source your products and the practicality of your approach in the future. Determine if your service will be relevant year-round or if it is seasonal in nature. The way you introduce your services to customers also plays a crucial role in understanding the needs of your e-commerce strategy, and at the same time, creating the emotional connection you want them to have with your brand or product. The more you contemplate these aspects, the better the response is going to be from your audience and customers. This will also lead to a better understanding of what your strategy requires, making it easier for you to identify areas for improvement or ways to make your products more attractive.
Types of E-commerce Marketing
As mentioned earlier, there are many ways to improve your e-commerce strategy. Each type of e-commerce marketing method follows a specific approach. If you are unfamiliar with the different types of e-commerce marketing communications and strategies and how they work here is a brief explanation of each:
Email Marketing
Email marketing is a highly effective way to reach out to customers and a great example of being connected with your clients. It is important to consider the content of your emails and recipients. To maximize the effectiveness of email marketing, provide useful information tailored to specific customers, and offer valuable promotions.
SMS Marketing
SMS marketing is effective when you need to contact your clients and customers in real-time with important updates. Messages sent via SMS should be concise and clear, such as offering a discount or reminding them about an important event or purchase.
PPC Advertising
PPC Advertising is an online advertising strategy used by businesses and brands to promote their online store and products through PPC ads. This type of e-commerce marketing is particularly useful for generating sales as it targets potential customers who are ready to buy. PPC ads can be displayed on social media networks, websites, and search engines.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
SEO is a fundamental method to improve an e-commerce website traffic. It involves optimizing the website with your brand elements to make it more visible on search engine result pages, leading to increased traffic. From optimizing product descriptions to creating a comprehensive web store product page, these are a few examples of how to increase interactions with an SEO method.
Content Marketing
Having a strong e-commerce content marketing strategy can attract positive results for your products and services, encourage interaction with online users, and achieve many other objectives you may have. The goal of content marketing is to create and promote original content that keeps the audience informed and engaged about your services.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a process in which publishers earn a commission by promoting another advertiser´s or retailer´s products and services through an affiliate link. The objective is to increase sales and create a win-win outcome for both the affiliate and the merchant.
Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing is a powerful tool that allows you to communicate with your target market, customers, and industry in a personal and public manner, and in some cases, it is also a resource when it comes to engaging users with your brand as well. It is particularly useful for generating interaction, driving traffic to your website, and expanding your customer base.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is used when a brand or company collaborates with online influencers to market their products or services. One of the main advantages is gaining access to an already engaged audience and expanding the reach of your offerings to new audiences.
Behavioral Marketing
The main purpose of behavioral marketing is to gather all your customer data in order to communicate with them in a more effective way. To have a better outcome with behavioral marketing, we encourage you to use some marketing techniques like having dynamic website content. By doing this, each campaign you launch on your website and social media will deliver more value and build even deeper relationships with your clients and online audience.
Cloud Marketing
Cloud marketing is a very popular ecommerce strategy, and is used mostly by companies to promote themselves and set up their online businesses. By using a local server or computer-based data, cloud marketing manages and processes all the information of the company to upload it and make it available online.
Marketing Buzz
Basically, marketing buzz is a viral marketing procedure, the goal is to expose a message from a campaign for people and audiences to talk about it. The main objective is to generate conversation related to your brand or a specific product.
Mobile Marketing
Mobile marketing strategy is the way you reach out to new customers and audiences while they are using their mobile devices. Normally it is seen as a multichannel strategy that you can apply to your website, mobile app, and more.
By understanding these types of e-commerce marketing, you can choose the approaches that align with your goals and target market to create a comprehensive strategy.
Setting an appropriate E-Commerce Marketing Strategy
As you may have noticed throughout this article, there are several factors to consider when planning and designing an effective e-commerce marketing strategy. From selecting the products and services to understanding your target audience and creating compelling content, creating unique selling propositions, building brand recognition, and having a goal and vision for your business about what you want to achieve in the long-term, as well as prioritizing your sales, products, and services based on your sales objectives.
Join forces with us!
Creating an e-commerce marketing strategy is crucial for promoting and getting the brand recognition that your brand or company deserves. With the right structure and knowledge, you will witness significant growth in sales and audience engagement, and some other key benefits that you will be able to see along the way. If you still have doubts about developing an accurate e-commerce branding strategy, contact us and let us create a customized strategy that aligns with your brand identity and needs. Rest assured that you will receive the best services for your ecommerce branding strategy.