Marketing Strategies for your online business
The world online is getting bigger, faster than ever and doesn’t look like it is in any mood to slow down. If you thought you have to fight hard for your customer’s attention, despite all the marketing tips for your online store, you have to brace yourself for the challenges that lay ahead.
It is time to wrap your head around what is out there. The good news is that as overwhelming as the various ecommerce marketing strategies might sound, you have to focus on only a handful. The idea is to pick the ones that work for your online business. Here are a few of the tried and tested marketing strategies for ecommerce and a few out-of-the-box marketing techniques for your online store to get you started.
Don’t underestimate the power of content that might not lead to direct sales.
It might be a good strategy to make your site the “go to” place for advice related to your products. For example, if you have a travel website, have blogs, videos, photographs of popular tourist spots. A Lonely Planet of sorts.
Make yourself the place where customers come for advise. To help yourself do better, put yourself in the customer’s shoes, ask and address questions that you’d like answered. Such free content has the immense potential of going viral.
Blogging helps. It leads to more traffic and is considered as one of the best ecommerce marketing strategies by many experts. It is known to get many more leads and results sales too.
Optimize your site for mobile.
Just a couple days ago, Google has changed its algorithm for search on phones to give preference to sites that are mobile friendly. In its first quarter results, Facebook has generated 73% of its revenue from its advertisements on mobile with a whopping 87% of its active users visiting the network from their handsets. These are just a couple of indicators that you are already lagging behind if your online store is not easily accessible on mobile, if not in the form of an app.
Even so, it is not too late. Get it going with a simple mobile site to begin with and then you can make it feature rich slowly and steadily.
Offer free trials and/or discounts/deals.
Who doesn’t like a freebie? A free trial or a deal ropes the customer in and keeps her there. That aside, a free trial gives the user a chance to see if he really likes what he is going to buy. Its like taking your customer in confidence and building upon it.
Use social media to interact with your customers.
While advertising on social media hasn’t worked for many a brand, interacting with followers on social media has only brought dividends. These platforms can be optimally used to address customer service issues. This has a two-pronged benefit in the form of saving on have a customer service center at your disposal.
Also use social media to cross-promote deals. For example embedding YouTube videos on FB/twitter/site/blog. Talking about your twitter campaign on your Facebook page and so on.
Make sure you make it easier for users to find you using appropriate tags, etc.
Donate products for review.
This is connected to using social media to your advantage. Consider approaching influencers in your niche to talk about you. If done right, this can work charms. If you can get them to review products you offer by donating it to them, it will pay off very soon – if they like it, of course!
Create an affiliate network.
It isn’t easy to approach the long-end of the tail to get as many affiliates on board. But once you have it under your belt, you will see the sales trickling in. Offering the affiliates a small percentage of your revenue won’t pinch when the quantities increase. It is worth a try because it doesn’t really cost much. You share revenue only if you have it. Setting up the backend, might be a bit of an effort and a pinch to the pocket, but if it takes off, you have an additional distribution channel.
Don’t be afraid of the oft-dreaded Search Engine Optimization.
It is difficult. Indeed. The algorithms used by search engines to produce relevant results are complex and they are constantly evolving. But, the complexity is a boon in itself. It is best not to get yourself too entangled in trying to ace the system.
Instead, stay honest to your products. Which means, don’t go overboard in trying to plug your entire site with one word or creating artificial backlinks and so on. Instead ask for backlinks from say related manufacturers.
Sure, you could try your hand at advertising with the search engines, but depending on your product/service, you might find varying results.
It is time for trial and error and funnelling it down to the best ecommerce marketing strategies that work for you. You know your business best, so first try a combination of two or three marketing tips for online stores from the above. Get a hang of what they are doing for you in a few months and then add, delete, edit. Don’t forget, marketing is a dynamic effort, so ‘rinse and repeat’ is a must.
