To say that ecommerce changed the landscape of how goods are marketed and sold would be an understatement. Today, you will find more online links talking about ecommerce tips than you will find links about malls. It’s a fact.
Since the introduction of the world wide web, there has been no shortage of articles stressing how useful it has made our lives. But there were few companies who envisioned a world where commerce (which up until now was reserved for brick and mortar stores) on the internet would rule how products moved. These companies, *cough Amazon cough* have constantly seen growth in double digits.
The importance of ecommerce is not highlighted enough in the fact that it contributes a little over 1 million products sold every day. The high point is the fact that ever since ecommerce was initiated as a trade channel, commerce itself has seen a 24% increase from what the market was prior to this “way of life.”
While at first, we wanted to dedicate a blog to just ecommerce tips and why business owners need to have an online shop…
But after looking deeper, we realized how there already is so much information out there on why doing this is important.
We thus decided to take some time and also include our experiences and what we know works for our clients.
Now for top 25 ecommerce tips that you need to promote your online store – shared with you plain and simple.
When researching about ecommerce tips that will help grow your online shop, business owners often get stuck with nicely collated and presented information that they may not even need to know or don’t have the means to execute them. Let alone seeing impressive results. You’ll be shocked at what you’re going to find in this blog post about ecommerce tips. Let’s jump right to it.
Ecommerce Tips (#1): Website Design
Everything you do to market your brand online will use your website as a hub. Your very own online showroom, if you will. From discovery to completing a purchase. It will all be done on or through your website. It’s the single most important element that will make or break your business.
So, make the design as user-friendly as possible.
To give it to you simply, think about the problem that your business is trying to solve for consumers. Now think of how they would find a solution to their problem on your website.
Is it easy? It should be.
For example, for a restaurant website, this equates to having an easy to read menu and one click option of online ordering. And sprinkled with social proof of how people love your place.
There some really good web designers who understand the landscape of ecommerce and what it takes to design a website that will make for a delightful user experience.
If you like this tip then continue on and work your way down to our 25th tip.
Ecommerce Tips (#2): Think about Mobile First
An estimated 71% of users are active on mobile. Meaning all moves from a simple search to placing an order is already being conducted through a mobile device.
A research study recently predicted that by the year 2020, 35% of all ecommerce sales will be through a mobile phone. That’s a strong insight. In fact, Google, too, has released a study that more than 50% of all searches on Google are performed on a mobile device.
These numbers will continue to increase, without a doubt. Which is why Google is now a mobile first index search engine. Meaning all businesses who want to stay ahead in search rankings, need to have a website that is designed efficiently for mobile screens.
Think about it.
With the world moving more and more mobile where things that used to take days to complete, can now be done with a click of a few buttons. All without having to leave the comfort of your home.
It’s inevitable that the dominance of mobile marketing will increase over time.
So much is the power of having a mobile first approach, that Google itself gives you free tools to analyze how your website is performing on mobile and what you can do to improve the user experience on mobile.
Sure, you need experienced ecommerce pros to implement a sound strategy for your business in the long run. But these tools can certainly help you get started.
Ecommerce Tips (#3): Social Media Selling
First came the internet that made things simple for us. Allowing consumers to more easily discover brands, transact, and do business with them.
Then came social media channels which let users express their thoughts and discuss topics. And brands took notice.
With more and more of your target audience frequenting social channels, social media is now an essential way for your brand to communicate with your potential customers. This gives rise to social media as a channel of selling for brands. Not just directly but also in an interactive way.
We find this as one of the most effective ecommerce tips for brands to sell online. Shoppable posts and page shops help market your brands on channels where users are communicating with each other. Having a strong social media strategy can work wonders for the growth of your online shop.
Ecommerce Tips (#4): Social Listening
Social listening works perfectly as an extension of social selling. As we discussed earlier, social media has become an important part of a customer’s journey. Even more when it comes to sharing reviews and comments after they have purchased/used a particular product.
Social media channels have now given customers the ability to vent their opinions without any repercussions. This has become like a challenge of sorts for business owners, though. To always stay alert and track users that are talking about their brands, so that they can take timely action.
It has also given a tremendous opportunity for brands to engage with their audience in a meaningful way through discussion panels and/or comments and sell their products online.
There are many brands who respond and engage with consumers. But it’s how you engage that truly matters. Here’s an example of one business that did it so well, it just sums it all up.
A passenger on a Jet Blue flight tweeted about the episode of his first tweet onboard. What did Jet Airways do? Not only did they respond to his tweet wishing him well but they did so within 6 minutes of his tweet. If that’s not the perfect example of social listening and engagement, we don’t know what it.
Another JetBlue passenger tweeted about an amazing welcome she got when landing at her destination. JetBlue went above and beyond to make a customer feel special. And they knew just how to do that from social listening.
Ecommerce Tips (#5): Native Ads
In the spirit of ecommerce tips, native advertising is another great way to promote your online store by placing ads on a website in a native raw form. So that it looks like a part of the website’s content.
These types of ads don’t seem as pushy and can nicely promote your ecommerce store. The best thing is you can buy into a publisher or websites native inventory based on keywords that are present on a particular web page.
So, for example, if you want to promote your online store that sells hiking shoes, you can sprinkle native ads on websites that have content related to hiking. Imagine the positive impact this can have on your ecommerce sales.
Ecommerce Tips (#6): Lookalike audiences on Facebook
This is another impactful ecommerce tip that we suggest to many of our clients. It is a great way to promote an existing online store. Where we create custom audiences on Facebook that consists of your page fans, users who have bought from you before or visited your website.
Next, we use those audiences to find users that have similar demographics and purchasing behaviors. These are called lookalike audiences and it is a great way to promote your online store without paying to market to people who may not fit your target audience profile.
Ecommerce Tips (#7): Google Shopping Ads
This one’s right out of our tactical ecommerce arsenal. Google paid campaigns are a great way to reach high intent users when it comes showing people ads based on what they are searching for.
For example, if people are searching for “best vacuum cleaner for pet hair”, then Google does a good job of first showing them ads of where they can buy vacuum cleaners to solve their problem. Sure, it takes a lot of bidding and algorithm pleasing, but that’s where the gist of Google Ads lie.
Taking a cue from Amazon, Google quickly realized that more and more people are searching for direct product recommendations on Google and expect to see the best products available at any given time. This made them introduce Google Shopping Ads.
They pop right on top of the results page when you are searching for a particular product. Google pulls up the best list of top products from ecommerce stores and shows it to the user. Every time.
This is why brands take Google Shopping Ads seriously and have a dedicated campaign to promote their online store.
Ecommerce Tips (#8): Retargeting
It is difficult to drive through the possibilities of ecommerce and not mention retargeting. It’s one of the most underestimated ecommerce tips out there. Retargeting is a way of targeting an earlier user of your product with promotional reminders.
You can retarget users who have not yet purchased from you but have visited your website. Or you can target people who have made a purchase that indicates they might like another product you offer.
Using impactful marketing tactics, our team can retarget users who have interacted with you before. Whether it is on social media or on your website.
There are many ways to do this: display banner ads, Google ads or emails to name a few.
Ecommerce Tips (#9): A/B Testing Ads and Landing Pages
Promoting an online store can be a daunting task if you don’t really know what kind of content will be effective for your potential audience. What content will make them purchase a product from you?
Your work doesn’t just stop at creating beautiful ecommerce driven website styles or creating an effective social media ad campaign for your ecommerce store.
You need to constantly evolve the end user experience by testing different landing pages, ads, and even emails!
Only by doing so will you find the best combination of communication messages that work best for your target audience.
Ecommerce Tips (#10): Product Placements
Much like advertisers place products in iconic movie scenes, your ecommerce business too can subtly place products on content that your audience is interested in.
Using keyword targeting, we help clients to promote their shops not only through paid search campaigns but also by targeting keywords in content articles across the web. For example, We recently helped a hiking equipment company promote its ecommerce shop on blogs that discuss outdoor adventures and are frequented by avid outdoorsmen. It was a great way of using keyword and content targeting effectively.
Ecommerce Tips (#11): Have an SEO Strategy
With the rise of digital commerce, ecommerce gave birth to many online only giants like Amazon. And with it boosted confidence of such web only services to run their own ecommerce shops online without any physical locations.
The nature of this business model has made it important for these businesses to have great visibility online. If you want to survive in today’s competitive digital landscape, there is hardly any room for error. Let alone an absence of an SEO for your ecommerce store.
From using popular keywords in your website pages to updating your meta tags and headers to stay relevant. It is extremely important to have a complete SEO strategy to stay ahead of competition.
Ecommerce Tips (#12): Email Marketing & Automated campaigns
The advancements of digital tools and email marketing software have made it possible to segment your target audience and even automate email campaigns towards them. One such tactic we highly recommend to clients is remarketing their ecommerce shops to users who have left the online website cart without purchasing a product.
Retargeting such user segments with an automated email is a useful tactic that helps increase conversions. It is interesting to see how many email marketing software automate this task for you so that you don’t have to worry about missing out on this lucrative segment.
Let’s have a quick chat to see how your ecommerce business can benefit from automated email marketing.
Ecommerce Tips (#13): Use of Newsletters
Newsletters are much like your monthly magazine subscriptions. Only that it’s online and delivered straight to your inbox. It gives you a chance to connect with your target audience while still promoting your ecommerce store.
We love helping business owners design the perfect newsletters for their business that helps them make a connection with their target audience and at the same time lets them promote their ecommerce stores.
Newsletters can be made of many content types. Depending on your communication objective, this can range from industry tips to promotional deals. All of which attracts more traffic to your online store. Newsletters form an important chapter in our book of ecommerce tips that every business needs to use.
Ecommerce Tips (#14): Content Strategy
Content can be the one thing that can make or break your online business. After all your consumers are looking for a great user experience when they come to your website. A consistent content strategy based on each channel can amplify what users find when they visit your website.
How-to blog articles and quick user testimonial videos are just some of the tricks that are effective ecommerce tactics to increase traffic to your store.
Our dedicated team sits with new clients to understand their business model and target audience. We strongly believe that only after understanding the value that a business creates, one can define a content strategy that is consistent to a business model.
Ecommerce Tips (#15): Blog Posts
Blogging is sure a great way for ecommerce businesses to share valuable information with their target audience. Information that will add value to their experience and tell them something they don’t already know.
Brands use blogging to assert their position as a market thought leader. When it comes to ecommerce, we have found it rather interesting to see how effective “how-to articles” can be.
For this type of business model where there is no physical interaction between the consumers and the sellers, additional product info is always encouraged. Other than housing popular keywords, how to blogs can demonstrate the use of a product and elevate end user experience.
Ecommerce Tips (#16): Influencer Marketing
This rather is a new tactic that businesses use to market their products online. Influencers are professionals in an industry who are in their fields. This could be celebrities, artists, athletes, stylists and so on. They have a mob of loyal followers on social media and often times go viral with their content. With a great influencer marketing strategy, brands can leverage the popular of a said influencer and partner with these pros to promote the ecommerce store or its product. This is one of the most effective ecommerce tips and can be leveraged through a range of different tactics. Talk to our influencer marketing experts to learn more how you can leverage this marketing for your ecommerce business.
Ecommerce Tips (#17): Leverage newer tools like podcasts
With a continuously growing digital marketplace, newer technologies make yesterday’s technology obsolete. So it’s time to look ahead to the new innovation. Podcasts are one of those innovations. They are audio files that are live streamed which a user can listen to by downloading or subscribing to the cast.
This particularly became a popular channel due to the world becoming more mobile in the early 21st century. Brands now have an opportunity to connect with their potential customers while they are traveling or are mobile. S
mart devices have made it possible for users to listen to a cast instantaneously. Leveraging such newer marketing tactics can help your business stay ahead of the competition and promote your ecommerce store at the same time.
Ecommerce Tips (#18): Using Testimonials & Reviews
90% of online shoppers make their purchase decisions based on product reviews. It is no surprise that ecommerce giants like eBay and Amazon have given great focus to reviews on their product pages.
Think of the last time you bought a product online. Chances are you, yourself, were influenced by an online review in some way. Our next ecommerce tip talks about just that. Using customer testimonials and reviews is a great way to promote your ecommerce products.
It generates a lot of trust in your online shop and is definitely something that potential users would want to see before they make a purchase decision. We have helped brands take advantage of this factual tactic in the form of short blogs and have even created short videos to improve end user experience once they visit a brand’s site.
Ecommerce Tips (#19): Use of FAQs
Browse any popular website and you will find one thing in common: they all have a section dedicated to Frequently Asked Questions.
It is important to note the limited element of physical interactions when it comes to ecommerce shops. This online only transaction has eliminated interactions that consumers can have with a store owner before purchasing.
It is hence useful to include a section pre-answering popular questions that a user might have around the products. This is a popular way to retain traffic at an ecommerce store and make sure you are sharing enough information with your users before they make a purchase decision.
Ecommerce Tips (#20): Create urgency with offers
If you have been to concerts or events, you would have seen how the event organizers create an urgency by promoting early bird discounts. Similarly, ecommerce stores can benefit from time sensitive discounts too. They are a great way to capture an interested audience.
Sure, you don’t want to look too salesy by just promoting discounts on your social media feed. But a well timed offer can help you boost sale. We help clients strategize their discounts by creating funnel based digital campaigns. We have found it extremely beneficial when these discounts create a sense of urgency rather than a run of the mill promotion.
Ecommerce Tips (#21): Have a good shipping and return policy
Having a fair return policy for your ecommerce products is a must. Especially looking at the competition in today’s marketplace. Same goes for a competitive shipping policy on all your products. This has become more of a given but having good policies can promote your ecommerce business and encourage users to give your business a try.
A great example of this is Walmart’s free shipping policy. Walmart, to break Amazon’s market hold in ecommerce, started offering free shipping after you meet a minimum criteria.
Ecommerce Tips (#22): More payment options & Easy checkout process
When the term ecommerce was coined and transactions started, there was just one payment player in the game – Visa. And it took their servers anywhere between 7-14 minutes to let a customer check out.
Now, with many more players, payment technologies have changed and this process is cut short to merely a few seconds. Easy check out is a great indicator of end user experience and like your shipping policy, a game changer.
Ecommerce Tips (#23): Make it easy for them to contact you with clear CTAs
We live in a world where information is shared freely and is often expected. Users today want to take their time to purchase a product and at the same time want an option to contact the shop owner almost promptly. Few brands do this right, but the ones that do are the ultimate winners in the ecommerce game.
Ecommerce Tips (#24): Have loyalty and referral programs in place
Probably you already know this but just for the record, let us say it out loud. It’s easier to retain a customer than to acquire a new one.
A recent ecommerce study stamped this fact by stating that more than 50% of your existing customers are willing to try out your other products. A percentage that drops to just 12% when it comes to new customers.
It is quite a bit cheaper to retain the old ones too. Therefore, we advise that businesses don’t miss including some sort of loyalty program in their business model. And when it comes to ecommerce tips that help promote your online store, this one takes the center stage for sure.
Ecommerce Tips (#25): Amazon Ads
Google might have the advertising industry in awe with its popular search engine. But when it comes to product searches, Amazon should not be forgotten. More than 60% of product searches start on Amazon and this number is steadily increasing.
This is the main reason why we have recommended Amazon Advertising to clients in recent times. Other than having a shop on Amazon, placing ads on this platform is a great way for ecommerce businesses to promote their online store. And like Google, Amazon too has a pay per click model. Meaning you only pay when your product ad is clicked by a user.
Through this blog post, we wanted to document some of the most important ecommerce tips that you can use to promote and grow your online store. As with other marketing channels, tools and technologies keep evolving. They need constant review and optimization. That’s where our dedicated team of ecommerce experts can help you grow. Contact us today to get started on an ecommerce marketing plan for your store!
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