How to Market an Ecommerce Website?
Creating an ecommerce website is perhaps one of the best investments you can make today. However, one thing that many ecommerce business owners struggle with is marketing their website. Obviously, without a proper marketing strategy, finding and attracting new customers to your website will be almost impossible, as a result of which your ecommerce business will eventually fail. And, engaging customers is not always easy. You cannot just succeed with your persistence, but what you also need is different effective marketing strategies.
So, to help you with attracting customers, here are some ideas on how to market an ecommerce website:
Optimize Your Website
Once your ecommerce store is launched, it is important that you optimize it for ease of use as well as SEO. Test the language, layout, and other similar aspects of your website, to make sure that customers find it simple and easy to check out. Also, make sure that page load times are not too slow that they could drive away customers. Just remember, online customers are known to be the most impatient; therefore, an additional wait time of even a second can be the difference between them making a purchase and abandoning their shopping cart.
Know Your Customer Demographic
It is an undeniable fact that most marketers go with general marketing strategies like email marketing, content marketing and social media marketing simply because industry experts recommend it. If you do not know your customer demographic (in simple words, where your customers are looking), none of the strategies you use will be successful. Therefore, start by learning about your customer demographic; for instance, if yours is an online jewelry store, most of your customer base is likely to be active on platforms like Pinterest, which means that should be your primary area of focus while marketing an ecommerce website. Google analytics is great way to get in-depth information of your demographics to better assist in marketing efforts.
Use Social Media
Social media marketing, like most of you would be aware, is a great strategy to engage buyers. But, you need to be consistent with this marketing technique. What this means is that you need to post regularly on social media platforms in order to reach customers.
When it comes to marketing an ecommerce website on social media, using all available platforms is not the effective technique. Rather, you should focus on those channels that are constantly used by your buyers, which can be known by using various data-driven tools, including Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
Another important point to remember pertinent to social media marketing is the 80-20 rule. Your social media pages should have 80% industry-related trends and news that are informative and useful to your customers, and 20% marketing your ecommerce website and products.
Form Partnerships
Network with the well-known players in your industry to create a buzz around your ecommerce website. Reach out to bloggers to see if they would like to review your products, services, or your website in general in a blog post. You can also work with other brands to offer package services. Talk to social media influencers in your industry and have them talk about your store and offerings.
These are just a few ways to form partnerships. Do your research to find more such ways to market an ecommerce website, and you will have lot more opportunities to reach customers directly. All these techniques will help drive more number of targeted visitors to your ecommerce website. And if you are not sure where to start, you can always use a marketing software to help you find and connect with influencers and bloggers in your industry.
Email Marketing
Using email promotions, otherwise known as email marketing, is one of the easiest and simplest ways to attract buyers. This marketing technique involves the use of promotions that are exclusively catered to the specific needs of customers.
When sending emails to customers, make sure the content is relevant and useful. For instance, if you are looking to convert a visitor into your customer, send them an email with a discount code for first-time buyers. On the other hand, for your returning customers, you could send a reminder of your new promotion or sale, or the introduction of a new product brand, etc.
Don’t Forget Mobile Optimization
Let’s face it, people today use their mobile devices more than they use their computers and laptops for shopping, for varied reasons, convenience being on top. To make sure that your marketing strategy succeeds, you need to make sure that your ecommerce website in optimized for mobile use (even better if you have an app). Whatever it is that you choose, mobile-optimized website or app, make sure that it is user-friendly.
Obviously, there are just a few ways in the sea of marketing to market an ecommerce website. Stay up-to-date with the changing marketing techniques and trends and keep updating your marketing strategy to make your ecommerce website successful.