15 Ways to Improve Your eCommerce Marketing Strategy
What are the best ways to foster your eCommerce expansion? Here are 15 options you can try.
1. Update Photographs and Product Descriptions
The importance of product images and descriptions to an eCommerce store cannot be overstated. Studies suggest that shoppers are more likely to purchase a product online if they are able to visualize it. Product descriptions, on the other hand, provide customers with detailed information about the item and its features.
It stands to reason that updating photographs and product descriptions should be at the forefront of any eCommerce store’s business strategy.
For this reason, many eCommerce strategies invest time and resources into creating attractive visuals for their products as well as crafting informative descriptions. Not only does this enhance customer experience when browsing an online store, but it can also result in increased sales. Having accurate product images and descriptions will help build trust with customers, who may be wary of purchasing items from an unfamiliar website.
Building an effective email marketing list for marketing can be a powerful tool eCommerce strategy. ECommerce email marketing allows businesses to stay in contact with existing customers, as well as generate leads from prospective ones.
It is important to build an email list that is both comprehensive and up-to-date. Gaining access to customers’ emails through online forms or websites is one way to do this. Offering incentives such as discounts or coupons for subscribing can also be a great way to boost the size of the email list.
Once the list has been built, it is important to craft engaging content that will draw readers in and convert them into paying customers. This could include emails containing product reviews, new arrivals, special offers, and other relevant pieces of content.
Email newsletter management requires crafting compelling subject lines and calls-to-action can help ensure the recipients open and read the emails. Additionally, segmenting the list based on different criteria such as location or buying habits can provide more targeted messaging and better results.
3. Improve Your eCommerce Business Social Media Strategy
Social media marketing is an important part of any eCommerce strategy. It is an efficient way to acquire new customers, engage existing ones and build brand loyalty. Utilizing different platforms can provide a great opportunity to reach targeted audiences and drive sales.
In order to maximize the effectiveness of marketing on a social media platform, it is important to create content that resonates with the target audience. This can include videos, images, blog posts, infographics, and other forms of user-generated content. This type of content encourages engagement and interaction with potential customers which helps build relationships and brand loyalty.
4. Focus on Consistent and Unique Content
Creating content tailored to a potential customers and their needs builds trust between the customer and the brand. Consistent content creation that is unique to the company can help build brand recognition, which in turn leads to increased sales. The content should be relevant to the customer’s needs and interests, as well as reflect the brand’s values and mission statement.
By investing in consistent and unique content along with offering free or discounted shipping, businesses can increase their visibility among potential customers and gain greater market share. This will ensure that customers keep returning for more purchases and eventually become loyal supporters of the business.
5. Free (or Discounted) Shipping
Offering free shipping can be an effective way to improve your eCommerce strategy. It gives customers an incentive to shop with you and provides a sense of freedom from costly shipping fees. It can also help increase customer retention, as customers are more likely to return when they don’t have to worry about paying for shipping costs.
Free or discounted shipping can reduce shopping cart abandonment since customers won’t abandon their carts due to high shipping costs.
It is important to note that offering free or discounted shipping does not necessarily mean that you will be taking a financial loss. You may consider raising the price of your products slightly in order to account for the cost of shipping and still offer competitive prices on your products. You may also employ shipping integrations with multiple shippers in order to find the most cost-effective shipping method for each package.
6. Create a Loyalty Program
Creating a loyalty program for customers is an effective eCommerce strategy to improve customer experience and encourage customer retention. Loyalty programs provide incentives for customers to purchase more frequently, as well as rewards for their loyalty to the business. Customers are provided with exclusive offers or discounts that encourage them to come back again and again.
This not only creates customer loyalty, but it also helps to attract more customers by providing a tangible benefit.
A loyalty program can be tailored to meet the needs of any business, allowing them to create unique incentives based on customer behavior. Businesses can use this information to further customize offers and rewards, making it attractive for customers to return and shop with them.
7. Improve Shopping Cart Functionality
Improving eCommerce shopping cart functionality can be an effective way to reduce cart abandonment and increase conversions. It is important to ensure that the checkout page has a logical flow and is easy to navigate, with the appropriate fields for customers to enter their information correctly.
Another way to improve shopping cart functionality is by making sure that all elements are working properly, from load times to payment gateway integration. Any technical issues should be addressed quickly, as they can lead to customer frustration and abandonment. Additionally, businesses should make sure that any payment gateway options available are secure and reliable so that customers feel safe when entering their information.
Landing pages are essentially webpages that are specifically designed for a particular user action or visitor goal; they can effectively increase conversion rates when used correctly. Here are five ways to optimize landing pages for your eCommerce strategy:
- Design with Intent: Choose visuals, copy, and layout that are intended to guide visitors towards a desired action.
- User Experience: Make sure the page is easy to navigate with an intuitive flow and design.
- Pay-Per-Click: Pay for advertising space and implement PPC landing page best practices.
- Align with Messaging: Ensure that the message of your ad campaign aligns with the landing page content.
- Include a Call to Action: The landing page should give users an obvious way to take the desired action through calls-to-action (CTAs).
- Track Performance: Set up analytics tracking tools so that you can accurately measure performance metrics such as conversions, bounce rate, and click-throughs.
9. Increase Search Usability
Search has to go beyond a simple box that says "search our site." SEO efforts are necessary for ensuring that customers can easily find the products and services offered on a website. Search engine optimization (SEO) techniques include optimizing titles, descriptions, content, and images to appear in the top search results.
Providing customers with relevant information about products helps them decide whether to purchase or not. This can be done by creating product descriptions that are easy to read, informative, and contain the right keyword phrases.
An effective way to improve search usability is by offering helpful navigation tools such as breadcrumbs or a site map. This will enable customers to more quickly narrow down their choices and find the product they want.
Discounts are an essential tool for your online store to attract and retain customers. By offering discounts, eCommerce businesses can create a sense of urgency and motivate customers to take action.
In today's highly competitive online market, companies must innovate and offer discounts to remain competitive. Discounts can be used for lead generation, as well as to entice customers to purchase products or services through email campaigns or other promotional methods.
The most effective way to use discounts is by offering exclusive deals or promotions that incentivize customers to purchase products or services. Businesses should ensure that their discount offers are well-timed, relevant, and tailored toward the customer’s needs in order to maximize their effectiveness.
11. Implement User-Generated Content
User-generated content (UGC) can help drive customers further along the customer journey, while providing potential customers with valuable insights into the products and services offered by a business.
UGC is particularly useful when it comes to generating social proof; this is because potential customers are more likely to trust reviews and advice from other customers over the business itself. By sharing UGC on social media platforms, businesses can effectively reinforce the value of their products and services among their audience.
Another benefit of leveraging UGC in eCommerce marketing strategies is that it helps businesses connect with their existing customer base. Sharing content created by customers shows that businesses appreciate their contributions and encourages them to engage with the brand further.
12. Highlight New Products
An effective eCommerce strategy should also accommodate the highlighting of new products. Leveraging the latest releases or industry trends can be a great way to catch the attention of new customers and further engage your targeted audience.
It is important to ensure that any new product launches or updates are featured prominently on your homepage and other key pages throughout the eCommerce site. For example, consider creating a dedicated page to showcase all the new products that you offer. This allows potential customers to easily find what they are looking for and helps them discover items they may never have seen before.
13. Implement Advanced Product Filtering
Implementing advanced product filtering capabilities is vital to an eCommerce strategy. Advanced product filtering can help customers find what they need quickly and easily, thus increasing the likelihood of a sale.
Advanced product filters can include:
- Refinement by category or type of product
- Sorting by price, brand, color, or other attributes
- Faceted search which allows customers to narrow down results using multiple criteria simultaneously
- Filtering out irrelevant items that don’t meet customer needs
In addition to helping customers find what they need, advanced product filtering can also be used for marketing purposes. Companies can use it to direct customers to specific products or categories based on their interests and previous purchases.
14. Increase Payment Options
Offering more payment options is a surefire way to skyrocket the success of an eCommerce business. Customers expect convenience and flexibility when it comes to payment options. A successful eCommerce website should offer a variety of payment methods on a payment hub app, such as credit cards, debit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and other online payment systems. Offering these options will make online shopping easier and more secure for customers.
Offering multiple payment options with the help of a payment hub can help businesses stand out from the competition and increase their customer base significantly by appealing to a wider range of shoppers who have different needs and preferences when it comes to payments. With an increased number of customers come increased sales and revenues; thereby increasing the profitability of a business's eCommerce activities.
15. Build Advertising Strategies
This strategy is kind of a catch-all for advertising, but it has a lot of good advice for improving your marketing ad methods.
- Identify Your Target Market: It is important to identify and understand your target market before launching any marketing campaigns. By researching the demographics and interests of your target market, you can determine which type of advertising campaigns will be most effective in reaching them.
- Develop an Advertising Plan: Once you have identified your target audience, it is time to develop an advertising plan that outlines how you plan to reach them. This includes determining where you will advertise, what message or story you want to communicate, and what type of budget you need to allocate toward each campaign.
- Create Compelling Ads: To ensure that your ads are successful, it is important to create compelling content that resonates with your audience. This includes writing engaging copy and creating visuals that draw attention and encourage people to take action.
- Track Performance: Tracking the performance of your advertising campaigns is essential for understanding what works and what doesn’t work in order to continually optimize them over time. By monitoring metrics such as click-through rates and conversions, you can make informed decisions about how best to adjust your ad campaigns for maximum effectiveness.
Taking the time to develop effective advertising strategies will help ensure that your ecommerce website is successful in the long run. The key is to focus on creating consistent and unique content that resonates with the needs of your target audience and encourages them to take action.
How eCommerce Businesses Can Use These Strategies
Marketing is a key component of any growing eCommerce business. With the right strategies, businesses can reach potential customers and increase their online sales. It is important to stay up to date on the latest marketing trends and find ways to improve your current strategies.
ECommerce businesses are constantly evolving, so it is important for companies to keep up with the changing landscape of digital marketing by implementing effective strategies that drive traffic and increase sales. By using these 15 ways to improve your eCommerce marketing strategy, you can stay competitive in the ever-changing world of digital commerce and build a strong customer base that continues to grow over time.
Clarity Ventures wants to help you create the best business possible. Our eCommerce framework, CEF, can implement all of the tools you'll need to make the above strategies work.