What Is Ecommerce Marketing and How Does It Work?
The actions that move prospects through the conversion funnel are referred to as eCommerce marketing. The following are some of the benefits of eCommerce marketing:
Increasing the number of people who know about your e-commerce store
Increasing foot traffic to the store
Increasing the number of paying clients through converting visitors.
Documenting an eCommerce Marketing Plan in 5 Easy Steps Document your E-commerce marketing plan before beginning to construct an eCommerce marketing strategy, as it will serve as a guide for executing the strategy.
1: Establish Your Store’s Goals and Objectives
If you’re a complete novice, start by establishing goals for your new E-commerce store — lookup conversion benchmarks for your niche/industry and set goals and targets accordingly. Setting big goals without considering what’s working in the sector now could lead to disappointment when you look back on the results later. Existing businesses should assess their present performance and compare it to industry benchmarks. Setting goals as the mean of present performance and industry standards is the best approach to go if performance is below industry norms. If your performance meets or surpasses expectations, you might establish greater objectives based on your marketing budget.
2: Evaluate Your Target Market and Competitors
Do you know who your ideal customers are? If so, what are their demographic, regional, and psychographic traits, as well as their interests and purchasing power? Gather all of this data to develop a number of buyer personas. Knowing who your ideal consumers are will assist you in determining the best conversion funnel for your business. Keep an eye on competitor activity at the same time to see what is working for them. Are they spending a lot of money on Facebook advertisements or on YouTube videos? Use this data to determine the most effective methods for launching your e-commerce marketing campaign.
3: Determine the Marketing Strategies and Tactics
What activities can assist you in achieving your marketing objectives and goals? Knowing this can help you choose the right marketing channels, as well as the right techniques and methods, to ensure that you meet your sales goals. If you’re a B2C e-commerce shop with lofty sales goals, you may need to spend a lot of money on social media ads to reach your target demographic. If you’ve created a conversion funnel, it’ll be simple to figure out which marketing channels will yield the best results at each level. In the awareness stage, for example, SEO will be critical, whereas email marketing will keep your leads engaged throughout the interest and want stage.
4: Create a Martech Stack
A martech stack is a collection of programmes that are specifically designed for marketing purposes.
Identify the marketing channels you need to be on and select tools and software that make it easy to automate and manage marketing efforts on different channels to establish a martech stack for your store. To make your martech stack more resilient, look for products that offer a wide range of functions. A Marketing Automation Platform (MAP) and a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application, for example, will aid in the development of the foundation for your marketing activities, in addition to the e-commerce platform.
You won’t need to invest in separate email marketing or social media management tools if you choose a full-featured MAP. In the next section, we’ll look at the numerous marketing channels and e-commerce solutions that are recommended for each category.
Developing an ECommerce Marketing Plan It takes a lot of energy to run an e-commerce store. There are numerous jobs to be completed at any given time, and automation is a must. Diagram of the Steps to Developing Your E-Commerce Marketing Strategy We’ll look at nine e-commerce marketing tactics in this part to assist you to achieve your objectives.
- SEM (Search Engine Marketing) (SEO)
You’ll need a solid SEO plan to rank organically on search engine result pages (SERP). Here are some things to think about in order to help your store rank higher in search engines:
Make your website user-friendly on mobile devices.
Improve the speed with which the page loads (Google PageSpeed Insights).
Conduct an SEO audit (Ubersuggest)
Conduct extensive keyword research to determine the keywords you want to rank for (Google Keyword Planner).
All product, category, and blog entries and pages should be listed. Match target keywords and keyword phrases to each post and page, and strategically insert them in on-page elements like the title, URL, header tags, text, alt text, anchor link, and so on.
Create a Google My Business profile to improve your local SEO strategy.
Errors in technical SEO, such as duplicate pages, should be corrected. If necessary, seek the assistance of an SEO specialist.
Set up Google Search Console on your website.
Other SEO Tools to Consider
SEMrush
Keyword Explorer by Moz
Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
- Content Promotion
In this section, we’ll go through the concept of on-page SEO in more detail. For e-commerce websites, content marketing extends beyond the traditional definition to include product, category, and cart pages. Copywriting is an important part of eCommerce marketing because it helps to increase conversions. Let’s take a look at some of the numerous ways where content marketing can be used:
Headline, product description, high-resolution photos, and demo videos are all found on product pages.
Create valuable and informative information for your prospects and customers in the form of a blog section. Blog entries, downloadable content, infographics, checklists, and other such items are examples.
For e-commerce stores, there is a lot of room for rich media storytelling. Create content using videos, podcasts, or other interactive media.
The Best Content Marketing Software
Feedly
Buzzsumo
Google Trends is a tool that allows you to see what
Grammarly
Uberflip
- E-mail Promotion If you use email marketing correctly, you may drastically increase your conversion rates. Regardless of how many headlines proclaiming that email is dead pop up every now and then, email continues to play a significant role in eCommerce marketing. Smart marketing methods can help you increase your list-building efforts. Get people to join up for your email list by luring them with downloadable information or strategically placing lead generating tools on your website, for example (header bars, pop-ups, etc.). You can start the proper email sequence after they join up for your list or enter their email address at checkout. Here are some email examples that you can send:
To new subscribers, a welcome sequence (drip email campaign) is sent.
Order confirmation, receipts/invoices, shipment, delivery confirmation, and returns/exchange emails are all examples of transactional emails that keep buyers up to date on their purchases.
Promotional emails are sent out from time to time to encourage upselling and cross-selling opportunities.
The Best Email Marketing Software
Mailchimp
ConvertKit
ActiveCampaign
GetResponse
- Marketing on Social Media
One of the industries that benefit greatly from social media is e-commerce. The reason for this is that while reading through social media, users’ intentions aren’t always clear, and product adverts aren’t necessarily regarded as intrusive. Social media is also perfect for e-commerce since it is a visual medium that allows individuals to be persuaded through images and videos. Aside from making extensive use of social ads to reach your target audience, the advent of social commerce platforms like Instagram Shopping will make your e-commerce marketing efforts easier in the future. Best Social Media Apps
HootSuite
Sprout Social is a company that specialises in social media marketing
AdEspresso
Buffer
Paid Promotion Your e-commerce store earnings becomes a function of the money you spend on ads once you’ve peaked your reach through organic means. That’s why practically every successful online company spends a significant amount of money on paid advertisements (search ads, social media ads, native ads, and so on) that target each stage of the buyer’s journey. Here’s how you can get started with paid advertising:
To target the awareness stage, invest in search ads and Google Shopping ads.
Remarketing ads are used to target customers who visited your site but did not complete a transaction.
Lookalike audience ads might help you reach a larger audience.
6. Influencer Marketing
People who they trust have an influence on them. Users are more likely to trust a celebrity or a speciality expert than a brand, which is why e-commerce companies are investing in influencer marketing. Influencer marketing entails working with celebrities or users who have a large fan base to act as brand ambassadors. You provide them with the content parameters so that they don’t come across as too aggressive regarding your stuff. You evaluate their performance when they post the content on their social media sites.
Influencer Marketing’s Best Tools
Followerwonk
Kred
HypeAuditor
- Optimization of Conversion Rates (CRO) For any e-commerce store, the conversion rate is likely the most significant indicator. It is the conversion rate of visitors per hundred visitors. Here are four techniques to boost your e-commerce store’s conversion rate:
Recommendation Engine: Recommendation engines enhance the buying experience for visitors by proposing products based on their previous purchases and browsing activity on the website.
Cart Abandonment Software: Cart abandonment software delivers reminder emails to customers who left the website without completing the transaction. This feature is included in several e-commerce platforms, such as BigCommerce.
Exit-intent pop-ups, opt-in forms, and social proof notifications are just a few of the tools that may assist you guide customers along the conversion funnel.
The Best CRO Tools
Sumo
OptinMonster
TrustPulse
- Customer Support & Service
Online retailers may experience logistical issues, resulting in unhappy clients who are concerned about their orders. E-commerce stores must have a quick customer service department in place to deal with this successfully. Customers should be able to reach out to you by phone, email, or live chat. E-commerce companies must experiment with conversational AI in addition to traditional mediums so that they can connect with customers in real-time via digital assistants, messenger applications, and chatbots. Customer Service and Support Tools at Their Finest
Zendesk
Freshdesk
Intercom
- Analytical Marketing
Testing various sections of your website is an important part of CRO. Furthermore, keeping track of shop performance allows you to assess the impact of these modifications. Having analytics tools in place will assist you in keeping track of all of these factors. Visits, conversions, page views, bounce rate, and other quantitative data are measured using quantitative analytics tools. A qualitative analytics tool, on the other hand, uses heatmaps, user session recordings, and funnel visualisation to execute A/B testing and assess the website’s qualitative performance. The Best Marketing Analytics Software
Google Analytics is a tool that allows you to track
Hotjar
Optimizely
Crazy Egg is a term used to describe a
Kissmetrics
Conclusion
With all of these techniques heaped on top of each other, e-commerce marketing may appear difficult. However, building a market stack that automates monotonous operations so that store owners and marketers can focus on developing their brand is critical to successful implementation.
