Have an ecommerce business but don’t know how to market to reach new customers?
We know how it feels like—with so many tools online and ever-changing social media platforms, learning to market your ecommerce business is challenging.
Instead of hopping on every marketing strategy you can think of, we’ve narrowed it down to some of the most effective marketing strategies for ecommerce businesses.
Read on to learn about the top 11 marketing strategies you should adopt today.
Why you should market your ecommerce business online
Ever walked into a large mall filled with stores and just don’t know where to start? Well, that’s how consumers feel when they’re shopping online.
Competition is stiff in the ecommerce space and you’ll need to work hard to get your customer's attention online. That’s why it’s crucial to plan ecommerce marketing strategies.
There are two main types of ecommerce marketing activities—direct and indirect.
Direct marketing focuses on getting customers to buy your products, whereas indirect marketing aims for intangible benefits like customer loyalty and brand awareness.
Direct marketing vs Indirect marketing: which is more important?
Both types of marketing strategies are crucial.
Direct marketing brings in revenue for your business. You’ll be able to tell whether your marketing campaign is effective through the revenue it generates.
Although indirect marketing doesn’t bring in revenue immediately, it helps you foster better relationships with your customers. And in the long run, that’s going to pay off.
Brands that delight customers bring in 5.7 times more revenue than brands that don’t put in the effort to improve customer experience.
When you’re planning your marketing strategies, you’ll want to know what goals your marketing campaigns are meant to achieve.
Nail down your target audience to get sales
Before we dive into marketing strategies you should adopt, you’ll need to first be clear about your target audience.
If you’re a small business, it’s more strategic to sell to a targeted group. Picking a profitable niche can help you zoom in on a more defined target audience and market your business as a subject matter expert.
Already picked a niche? That’s awesome!
Now, you should start gathering key information about your target audience by understanding their:
- Demographics: Your target audience’s age range, gender, salary, and location
- Psychographics: Your audience’s interests, lifestyle, and opinions
Nailing down your audience’s demographics and psychographics helps you understand who you’re talking to.
It’ll help you create a clear, succinct message in all your campaigns, which effectively appeals to your target audience.
11 best marketing strategies for ecommerce businesses
1. Engage your audience with social media marketing
Social media marketing is one of the best ways to market your business online. Why? Because social media platforms are free. And they give you access to millions of users.
Here are some of the most popular social media platforms:
- YouTube
- TikTok
- Snapchat
- Telegram
Of all the social media platforms, Facebook has the most number of users (3 billion monthly users), followed by YouTube (1.9 billion monthly users) and then Instagram (1 billion monthly users).
Social media has become an integral part of our lives. That’s why marketing your brand on social media platforms will give your business lots of visibility.
Instead of jumping onto every social media platform, you’ll want to zoom in on one or two first and keep your efforts focused.
Not sure which platform to start with? Think about your target audience, their demographics, and psychographics.
Younger audiences tend to be on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat. Older audiences tend to be more active on Facebook.
Once you’ve picked your chosen platform, you’ll want to increase your organic reach by creating content that engages with them.
Not sure what to post online? Read this to get your creative juices flowing.
Visit our free social media resource page to get a deep dive into social media marketing.
2. Create hype by planning for events
Now that regulations have eased, you can make use of the opportunity and take part in events!
Pop-up stores and collaborations with cafes or other small businesses can be great to drive brand awareness. Customers are dying to get out and visit stores they’ve missed during the pandemic.
Taking part in events also helps to create hype for your business. Existing customers who love your products would love to come down to show their support and that can help you create more meaningful relationships with them!
Read this article to learn how this business makes use of special events to market itself.
3. Collaborate with other businesses
If taking part in events isn’t something you’re ready for, you can find other ways to collaborate with other businesses.
Look for other small businesses within your niche, or those who sell complementary products. You can team up with them to create an amazing product bundle that appeals to both your customer base.
Giveaways are one of the most popular collaboration strategies. Here’s how it works:
- Create a product bundle with your partner
- Tease the bundle on your social media channels
- Get interested customers to tag their friends and share your post on Instagram Stories
- Select 1 lucky winner to take home the Giveaway bundle for free!
- Giveaways are great at generating traffic to your social media page and they help to create brand awareness. Those who participated in your Giveaway could be paying customers in the future too!
While Giveaways help to generate hype, you’ll want to be careful about which businesses you choose to partner with. Read this guide to find out how to nail the best collabs!
4. Stay competitive by building a brand for your business
If you’re starting a business online, you’ll need to think beyond simply selling products and services.
You’ll need to think about building a brand.
With so many competitors in the ecommerce space, having a memorable brand will help you stand out against the competition.
Branding and marketing go hand in hand. And it doesn’t have to be expensive. You can use lots of free tools to help you create visual consistency on your website and social media channels.
On top of free tools, you’ll want to nail down your brand’s tone of voice as well. How do you want your customers to feel when they interact with you on social media? How do you want your copies and captions to sound?
Read this guide to learn how to find your brand’s unique voice.
5. Make use of marketplace marketing tools
If you happen to be on marketplace platforms like Lazada, Shopee, and Amazon, you’ll want to make use of their on-platform marketing tools.
The top benefit of selling on marketplaces is that you’ll get to access a pool of ready-to-shop customers. Marketplace platforms need customers to stay hooked on their platforms to remain profitable. That’s why they come up with marketing tools to help businesses reach more customers, especially during festive seasons.
Eventually, you might want to move out of a marketplace platform when your business starts to have a loyal customer base. Marketplaces tend to have policies that keep businesses from directly contacting their customers.
With your own website, you can build your own brand and foster a unique relationship with your customers.
Read this guide to find out how marketplaces compare against ecommerce websites.
6. Show social proof
Ever found yourself looking through reviews after reviews before finally deciding to buy a product?
That’s what customers are doing when they’re shopping with you.
Customers want to know unbiased opinions before making a purchase. And great reviews from other customers help build your business's reputation.
If your business is new, you can still find ways to show amazing social proof on social media. Send some free products to loved ones and get them to give you a review of your product.
You can get them to share it on Instagram and tag you so you can repost it in your highlights.
If you already have a ton of customer reviews, you can up your social proof game and start working with influencers!
Although influencers are paid or sponsored to give a review of your product, what they share about your business still matters. You can offer to give your product for free to influencers and let them know that they’re free to share their review if they love your product.
Read all about getting customer feedback and working with influencers to improve your business’s social proof!
7. Experiment with product photography and videography
Instagram and TikTok are fast becoming the top social media platforms.
These platforms popularized short captions and prioritized image and video content. If your target audience belongs to a younger age group, having great product photos and videos are crucial.
Taking great product shots helps you sell your products and services online because it adds visual appeal. Thanks to technology, you can nail amazing product shots for your business even if you’re not a professional photographer.
Apps like VSCO and Canva are great tools you can use to edit product photos and add visual appeal. With Canva, you can easily remove the background of your photos in just one click!
Read this article to find out how you can take amazing photos with just your smartphone.
8. Bring in sales with coupon codes and discounts
Everyone loves discounts and sales!
Creating promotions on your items helps to generate interest for your products and lowers risks for consumers when they make a purchase.
First time customers are more likely to make a purchase during a sale because they can try out your products at a lower cost.
If you want to clear stagnating stocks, you can consider creating a bundle discount instead of giving a percentage off on your items. Pair slow-moving stocks with popular goods so to make your products more enticing to customers. That way, customers who are drawn to the popular product get to enjoy more value out of their purchase.
Promo codes, discounts and product bundles are a form of direct marketing and their success is measured by the amount of revenue it generates for your online business.
Be sure to use the right tools to help you keep track of your campaigns and be strategic about when you should (or shouldn’t) launch a sale.
9. Use the right hashtags on social media platforms
Social media platforms help you get discovered by customers who are not in your immediate circle. But with so many brands online, it’s hard to stand out.
That’s why you’ll need a solid hashtag strategy.
Invest time into experimenting with different hashtags for each post and make sure that they are relevant to your niche. Hashtags help you get discovered by potential customers and generate engagement for your social media account.
Finding the right hashtags will require some trial and error. That’s why you need to make smart decisions when you’re experimenting.
Read this guide and start nailing the right hashtags straight away!
10. Jump on seasonal promotions
Ever found yourself waiting for the 11:11 or 12:12 sale just so you can get items on your wishlist for a cheaper price?
Customers love seasonal promotions and they’re getting better at pre-empting when the sale season is.
And that’s not a bad thing! In fact, it’s great that you get more opportunities to market your business online throughout the year.
Mark your calendar for upcoming festive seasons to launch sales on your website. From there, work backwards and create a marketing plan to tease your seasonal promotions on social media channels.
Besides the usual festive seasons, you can even create your own special events to set up seasonal promotions. Celebrate your business’s birthday or a milestone event to create hype!
11. Partner with bloggers and vloggers
We briefly talked about engaging with influencers on social media but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Besides Instagram/TikTok famous influencers, you might want to consider engaging influential bloggers in your niche.
Popular blogs get lots of traffic from the search engine each day and getting a mention of a referral link from them is invaluable.
To make the most out of your online marketing, be sure to look into food, fashion, or lifestyle bloggers that are relevant to your target market!
Ready to start marketing your product online?
Don’t just stop at social media marketing. Get a website to keep track of orders and improve overall customer experience.
Starting an online store with Cococart is super easy. It only takes a minute and you can start selling almost immediately. Sign up for an account now and see your marketing efforts pay off!
FAQ
Which social media platform should I use to market my business?
You should do market research on your ideal customer.
What’s their age group?
What are their interests?
Which platforms do they spend the most time scrolling through?
That will give you an idea of the platform you should first begin with.
How many social media platforms does my business need?
Large companies with many in-house staff can afford to be on all social media platforms. However, small businesses will need to be more focused and strategic on the platforms they spend their time on.
We recommend working on 1 or 2 platforms when you’re just starting out!
How do I create more engaging content for my customers?
You’ll need to experiment with different content formats (photos/ videos/ carousel posts) in the beginning. Based on the level of engagement you’re getting, you’ll get a sense of what your target market is interested in
Read this guide to get a more in-depth understanding on creating engaging social media content.
Why am I not getting traction on my social media platforms?
Social media algorithms are hard to predict. That said, there are some best practices you should follow to make the most out of your posts.
Firstly, make sure that you’re categorizing your posts with the correct hashtags. Secondly, you’ll want to be consistent with your posting times.
Make sure you engage with your followers when they leave you a comment or drop you a DM too!
Learn more about possible social media mistakes that might be hurting your business here.
Your Success is Our Success
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