Introduction
Now that your eCommerce store is in place, you also know what to sell and who your target audience is; you are probably stuck on reaching those customers and letting them know about your online brand. With heavy competition in the eCommerce space and customer behaviours changing towards convenience, safety, and personalization, you need to understand these trends and plan your marketing approach accordingly.
What is the marketing strategy for eCommerce?
SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It is an analysis with strategic planning to help businesses unravel their external opportunities and internal risks.
You have tried various approaches to attract, acquire, and retain customers through advertising, promotions, and offers for your offline store. Similarly, it is important to create awareness about your online brand, drive customers to your online store, and convert them to sales.
Deciding on the right strategy and customising it to your needs is an essential aspect of the whole endeavour. The strategy would guide you through measuring your goals against relevant metrics, including click-through rates, search engine rankings, conversion rates, and the like. Your marketing strategy for your brick-and-mortar store will not apply to the online store, as they are entirely different.
The strategy for one eCommerce store may not work for another. So, it is essential to have a plan specific to your store by considering aspects including the type of products you sell, the potential customer base, their purchase patterns, and their online buying behaviours. Having the right strategy ensures your marketing ROI is high.
How to arrive at your eCommerce marketing strategy?
To start with, list down your goals for the online store in terms of:
- Brand visibility
- App downloads
- Website traffic
- Monthly order count
- Average cart value
Look back at the marketing approaches you tried for your offline store and list the successes/failures. Make sure to include those learnings into your online strategy. For instance, you may have observed that a customer using online/credit card payment modes may prefer specific products from your store over others. Such insights could give you the product cataloguing strategy for your online store.
Tools for eCommerce marketing
Depending on your goals for the eCommerce store, you can make use of the following tools to achieve your marketing targets.
- Marketing features in eCommerce website / mobile app
- SEO
- Social media
- User-generated content
Before you start…
Before you jump start your marketing strategy execution, make sure you have taken care of these:
1. Assign a dedicated resource for your online business — Handling the online business requires dedicated focus and effort to reap its benefits. As the business owner, it may not be possible for you to be attending to it all day long. So, it’s a good practice to have a person dedicated to this. Assume that person to be an additional staff who will take care of your new business vertical. You can guide this person on inventory management, pricing, offer strategies and get it done. You will soon realise that it is worth the investment.
2. Optimize your website for SEO — You can reach out to a website developer for this in case your site is not already optimised. It is like keeping your physical store in order before inviting customers to shop.
3. Curate your product catalogue for online — Remember that the shopping behaviorr online is vastly different from buying in-store. Shoppers mostly use their mobile phones these days, and it is nearly impossible to browse your entire catalogue. So, make sure that your online catalogue displays categories/products that you think your customers are most likely to look for. You can keep changing it as you gather more data on customer preferences as they start using it.
4. Delivery is the key — The most important portion of any online purchase for a customer is the last-mile delivery. It is very similar to how the delivery person of platforms like Swiggy/Zomato makes or breaks the dining experience. Your customers are also looking for a pleasant order delivery experience.
5. SEO tools setup — It is essential to measure your online marketing activity and ensure the investment is well spent. To this end, set up analytics tools like Google Analytics, Facebook insights and get familiar with how to read the data from these.
The execution
Now that you are all set with your strategy and pre-requisites let’s execute the plan.
Marketing features in eCommerce website / mobile app
our eCommerce platform will come built-in with many features to help you with your marketing activities. These are the most effective ways of reaching out to your customers and eliciting sales. Let’s look into what are those:
Push Notifications
These are like notifications that we receive from various apps like WhatsApp and Banking apps. Ecommerce platforms allow you to compose messages that can be sent to your customers. Such messages can be around offers, discounts, new product launches, or app updates. Push notifications are cost-effective as you don’t have to pay additionally for this. The only catch is that your customer should have the notifications enabled for your app on the mobile device.
Banners
These are other free-to-use methods that come with your eCommerce solution. You can use them on your eCommerce websites and your app. You can design nice looking banners to inform customers about things like push notifications.
WhatsApp/SMS
eCommerce platforms these days offer default integration with messaging tools like SMS and WhatsApp. These are precious means of engaging with customers as users are more likely to read these and respond. You can also gather information on abandoned carts and reach out to those customers with relevant information and offers.
Customer Segmentation
Personalisation is the key today, and customers demand it. Gone are the days of generic offers/ discounts catering to all customers. Customers expect to be given personalised treatment. To address this, businesses can group customers into various segments depending on numerous factors like frequent buyers, high volume buyers, specific product buyers etc. Once segmented, you can run schemes to attract them and notify those customers of products of interest. This leads to high customer engagement and converts your customers into repeat audiences.
Analytics
In-app analytics are a treasure of information, as they provide you with insights into your customer behavior, product/SKU level preferences, and frequently ordered items. Such information will be helpful to you in deciding the price, inventory, and offers.
Email marketing
Another powerful yet less used tool is the email marketing channel. Emails directly reach your customers’ inboxes and can help nurture leads and bring in more sales.
Emails help in different ways- they can help introduce your brand, inform customers about new products, provide information on eCommerce trends, or share news about your events/activities. Another commonly used purpose is to inform customers about discounts and offers. The point to be careful with is the email’s subject and the frequency of the email. The subject must be catchy to your customers, so they open it. Sending frequent emails could also lead them to be moved to spam. Make sure that you have an updated email list before sending that email.
SEO
SEO or search engine optimisation means letting your potential customers know that you exist and be shown on search pages when looking for information relating to you. Most of us Google for products/ stores before making any purchase. Similarly, your customers also look for online options to buy things they need.
But it is not easy to be ranked high on search pages. It needs consistent effort and quality content to ensure that your website/app ranks high in searches. To achieve this, you need to be aware of the keywords you’re your customers are using to search for businesses like yours. Tools like Google keyword planner help understand these keywords, and you can optimise your site accordingly.
SOCIAL MEDIA
There is little need to explain the importance of social media in any marketing strategy. Social media is the single most important space that you must target if you are to inform, engage, and attract customers.
User engagement can be likes, shares, or comments. Various social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have made it easy for eCommerce businesses to grow their online presence. For example, Instagram allows links for posts and stories that, when clicked on, lead your customers directly to your product or catalogue page. This considerably increases the chances of the sale happening. Facebook also has a feature that allows businesses to upload their product catalogue and promote them to targeted users.
Keep in mind that social media platforms are visual mediums. To fully use their capabilities, you must also promote your content in visually appealing formats, including photos, videos, and infographics.
USER-GENERATED CONTENT
One of the trusted sources of information for users looking for information online is peer reviews. So, you must deliver an excellent customer experience and get feedback and testimonials from customers. You can post these on your website and social media platforms, increasing your credibility.
If possible, try to get video testimonials which will further add to the authenticity. Drive more likes, shares, and re-tweets to spread the news to a broader audience organically. Your customers speaking highly about your products and service is the best form of marketing.
The Bottom line
ECommerce as a choice of purchasing has been there for long. The phenomenon was already occurring, and the recent pandemic has only accelerated the adoption. The customers and the businesses benefit from eCommerce. While customers can shop conveniently, safely, and at any time, businesses benefit from being able to reach a wider audience.
With the explosion of major corporates into the eCommerce business, retailers need to adopt technology and benefit from it. But the space is already crowded, and it requires a diligent marketing approach to stand out from the competition.
Click here to download your copy of the eCommerce marketing checklist.