Are you a new eCommerce store owner? Are you having trouble seeing the amount of traction you’d like or meeting sales goals each month? Your underwhelming numbers can be directly related to your marketing strategies and techniques.
Take a look at several of the best marketing techniques that can be used to help you see success in your eCommerce store. Keep reading for the information you need to help your store reach the ever-illusive success.
Set Long-Term Goals
You probably already have a few short-term goals in mind, whether they include increasing brand recognition and traffic, meeting certain sales numbers, or simply being able to earn passive income.
However, you should consider what your long-term goals are for your eCommerce website. Do you aim to keep it, growing it as large as you can? Or do you aim to sell your business through a website broker after you’ve made enough money to retire?
Answering these questions can help you decide how large you want to grow your business and the best tactics to reach those goals within your preferred timeframe. Let’s say you wanted to sell your business; you’d need to figure out what your strongest assets are and create a strategic exit.
If you have no plans to sell your business, then you will need to look at how it can continue to grow and generate income for you over the next several decades.
Either way, knowing your ultimate long-term goals will help you decide how to proceed with your business and may give you some insight as to which marketing strategies you should implement.
Social Media for Marketing
You are probably already familiar with how Facebook and Instagram can be used to help increase brand awareness and recognition. However, these two platforms aren’t the only ones you should be paying attention to.
Yes, you absolutely should be posting new content frequently and at regular intervals. Yes, you should also be engaging with your followers by liking and replying to their comments. However, if you forget about LinkedIn as a powerhouse for social media networking, your marketing strategy could be completely failing.
LinkedIn is meant to be a professional networking platform that helps users learn about their industries, find jobs, and connect with people who work within the same sector. You should treat LinkedIn similarly to Facebook and Instagram, engaging with your followers, and posting new content. Unlike those two platforms, though, it is perfectly acceptable to message people within your network about business, even if you don’t know them directly.
To effectively reach out to everyone who might be interested in your business, consider using LinkedIn bulk messaging to help you build and nurture those relationships. This makes it far easier to reach out to the masses while still leaving a message that feels personalized and friendly.
Build Your Email List
Email marketing is far from being outdated – it can actually be more effective than social media marketing when done correctly. Here’s the problem, though – you must build your email list.
To build your email list, you may have to create a landing page that asks for a user’s email in exchange for a free shipping code or discount promo. This code doesn’t have to cost your business a whole lot of money, but it will help entice users to give you their information.
As your email list grows, you can segment and personalize the emails you send out to help ensure that your email blasts are being opened and not sent directly to spam. This can be difficult to do on your own, which is why it is usually a good idea to hire a company to do this for you. The best email marketing services can help design a plan that is specific to your business and your customers, which will help you see increases in sales numbers.
Email marketing services have years of experience doing exactly this, which means they can help design emails that are eye-catching and help users return to your site for purchases. Apart from email marketing, there are other various fields which can be automated. Here are some tools to help you on Linkedin: 8 Best LinkedIn Automation Tools (2021)
Cross Promotion to Reach New Leads
Cross-promotion is a way of two brands teaming up to ‘share’ their leads and help their users discover new content or products. Generally, this isn’t done with two competing companies, but instead, companies that offer complementary goods/services.
Think of a McDonald’s commercial: steaming french fries, a cheeseburger, and a large glass of Coca-Cola. While they are definitely different companies, Coca-Cola cross-promotes with McDonald’s to reach their buyers.
This type of cross-promotion can be done on a much smaller scale by teaming up with other companies that relate to your niche. Cross email marketing is a great way to do this: if you sell tennis balls, you might consider working with someone who sells tennis rackets or court shoes.
In the end, both companies win and double or triple their reach while never stepping on the other’s toes.
Finding Your Marketing Mix
Unfortunately, there is no guaranteed way to find the perfect marketing mix on your first attempt. To find what works for your business, take parts of each of these tips as well as any other marketing strategies that you may be using. Combine them. Tweak them. Replace one with another and compare numbers.
As you begin to try different combinations of strategies, you will find that some techniques work better, some work less, and some give you no return. Your marketing process should be ever-changing and always evolving as customers’ needs do the same.
Upon finding the ‘perfect’ marketing solution, don’t rest on your laurels; keep an eye out for upcoming trends and how you may be able to get ahead of what your customers need/want. It takes effort, but if you can be a step ahead, your eCommerce store should always be able to turn a profit.