As an online seller, you want to reach out to as many customers with your eCommerce website. You also want to drive conversions and make more sales. The point is you want to increase your revenue and make money online. As enticing as it sounds, it requires a lot of marketing efforts to maximize your reach. That’s when you need to know the best eCommerce marketing practices.
Marketing takes your business efforts to the next level. It highlights your business in front of the customer. Moreover, it makes you gain visibility in the market. After all, how will your customers purchase from you if they don’t know about your brand?
Why Marketing for Your Online Business?
Statistics suggest that the eCommerce industry is growing at an unprecedented rate. It accounts for more than $3.5 trillion in sales worldwide. Moreover, with the change in the market situation due to the pandemic, eCommerce is only expected to grow faster than ever. More people are drawn to purchasing online than visiting a physical store.
While this sounds like good news to online businesses, it is also creating a lot of competition in the market. Today, we don’t just have Amazon and Flipkart. Instead, a thousand small and medium sellers reach out to thier customers through different online platforms. The question is, how will you be able to stand out and appeal to your customers amidst the market competition?
eCommerce marketing practices have a solution to this problem. With companies competing with each other like never before, you have to stay at par with the market trends. This is because people are used to the superior customer experience as that of Amazon.
Growing Your Business in 2020
Fast deliveries, lucrative discounts, more payment options, among others, are some of the elements of best eCommerce marketing practices in 2020. However, with the entire COVID-19 pandemic scenario, newer trends are dominating the market. The businesses that are leveraging these are the ones experiencing huge profits and maximizing their sales.
On the other hand, organizations following their same od traditional model of sales are neglected by the customers, without even a realization. The point is, you have to go the extra mile to create an impact on your customer.
However, don’t expect that every visitor that you gain from your marketing efforts will turn into a loyal customer. A lot of times, it might also depend on the audience you’re targeting. For example, you might be selling scarves and running a campaign for your business, saying something like ‘wardrobe ideas.’ When a customer lands on your page, they might come to get style tips instead of purchasing your product.
Therefore, you have to be careful about the marketing message and the audience you’re targeting.
But don’t worry, if you can’t figure out where to get started! Here are the top 11 eCommerce marketing practices that you can use for your online business-
Powerful eCommerce Marketing Practices to Maximize Your Business Profits
Based on your customer’s journey, we are dividing these marketing practices into three categories-
- Top of the funnel
- Middle of the funnel
- Bottom of the funnel
Now, let’s take a look at each one of these closely-
Top of the Funnel eCommerce Marketing Practices
The top of the funnel is that part of your marketing funnel, where you introduce your brand to your customers. Even though they might seem interested, they don’t make any interactions. For example, a top of the funnel customer would land on your website or a visitor to your store.
Moreover, the precise definition depends on a lot of other factors. But, you need to understand that the top of the funnel customers come to know about your brand for the first time. For this reason, it requires a lot of effort to convince them to purchase your brand.
Take a look at the following marketing strategies to bring your top of the funnel customers down the funnel.
Run a Contest
A contest can be one of the best eCommerce marketing practices for your customers. This is primarily at the top of the funnel since it draws everyone’s attention to your brand.
For example, you can create an Independence day quiz on social media. In this, you ask your customers to answer a question correctly. In return for this, you announce a lucky draw with a prize as a cash voucher for INR 5000.
While customers love freebies, they won’t mind participating in your quiz. Moreover, the more people participate in your quiz, the more your brand will get highlighted on social media platforms.
Running a contest or a quiz can also be an excellent strategy to capture your customers’ data and run a targeted campaign on it. For example, when customers answer your question, prompt them to leave their ids to reach out to them if they win.
Offer Guides
Offering guides is yet another effective eCommerce marketing practices. As you provide guides to your customers, you ask them for thier valuable information. For example, since the season of festivities is just a month away, you can start building a gift guide for your customers.
For example, create a guide that says, ‘Top Gift Inspirations for Diwali 2020′. Alternatively, to catch your prospects’ attention, you can also add price bound sections to your guide. For example, ‘Top gifts under INR 500’, ‘Best family gifts under INR 350’, and more.
You can run these kinds of campaigns on social media and email marketing channels if you have a database. Spice it up by making a chunk of the content available for free and requesting an email if to download the rest.
Prompt for Empty Carts
When visitors land on your websites, many of them leave without making a purchase. And if you’re in eCommerce, you probably know that nothing hurts more than an abandoned cart.
This can happen due to many reasons. The customer might not be relevant to your business or landed on a page that has not ben optimized. In such cases, the customer might leave without making a purchase.
Create a pop-up for such customers and make sure that you don’t let them leave without your last say. Present them with offers such as an additional 20 percent off on their first purchase. Alternatively, you can show them some of your best deals and best selling products.
Create Content
Content for the top of the funnel customers can have a long impact on your brand. It is one of the best eCommerce marketing practices that can push your top of the funnel customers into loyal buyers.
For example, creating ebooks and writing blogs targeted at your brand’s awareness is a thing you must do. Whether it is an industry trend or something new happening, try to participate in it, and create a buzz with your content.
Remember that people will only listen to you if you have something valuable. For example, if there’s a GST change, talk about how it would affect small businesses and their growth opportunities.
Similarly, you can also try your hand at video content. With video makers available online, it’s easier than ever to create a video.
Middle of the Funnel eCommerce Marketing Practices
These are the users that engage with your business but haven’t made a purchase yet. Alternatively, this means that these customers are int hat stage of your sales funnel where they have taken a step towards your business. It is now up to you to go ahead and capture them with nurturing.
Try to understand your customers’ pain points at this stage and offer your business as a solution to them. Take a look at some of the eCommerce marketing practices below-
Promotional Emails
Sending promotional emails to your prospects can be one of the best ecommerce marketing practices for your business. Since you already have a base of customers who seem interested in your business, you can lure them with promotional emails.
For example, share an email with ane exclusive discount coupon for your customer. This will help them purchase a product they might be eyeing because it is now available at a lower price. Alternatively, this also sends across a message about how valuable the customer is in the business’s eyes.
Lucrative Discounts
Lucrative prices surround the entire idea of eCommerce. You must have seen companies providing unbelievable discounts to their customers. Therefore, apart from the convenience of getting stuff delivered at their homes, it is the price that excites the customers.
By offering great deals in different forms, you can compel a customer who is just interacting with your business to purchase. For example, offer a flash sale with INR 500 off on your best selling products. Moreover, try and make this offer time-bound, so that the customers understand the urgency and make a purchase.
Product Recommendations
Recommending products to your customers is also a great eCommerce marketing practice. Let’s say that a customer looks at your product page and then leaves it without making a purchase. You can dig down this information from your analytics.
Make recommendations to your customers about such products since they already have thier eye on them. Maybe offer a discount on such products, which will reinforce the customer’s decision to purchase it.
Drip Emails
Drip emails are emails that go to your customer from time to time, depending upon their journey to your store. If you have the data of your customers, segment them into similar personas. After this, send them campaigns that apply to them.
For example, if your customer did not make a purchase within five days of registering on your website, send them an email that says you miss them. If it’s been one month, you can maybe send them a shopping coupon, etc. Similarly, if they abandoned a cart, remind them that they missed buying a product on your store, and you have lowered your prices for them.
Bottom of the Funnel eCommerce Marketing Practices
Bottom of the funnel si the last stage of your sales funnels. It comprises of those customers that are absolutely ready to become first time buyers. Alternatively, in many cases, these might also be customers who are returning to your store for purchase.
This stage requires a little push and a hassle-free process to make purchasing from you look easy and convenient. Take a look at some of the eCommerce marketing practices below-
User-Generated Content
There is nothing that beats user-generated content. The point is that customers love to read content from other users. Be it an incident shared about your business, online reviews, or the way your customer service responded to a user’s problem.
Capitalize on this fact and share user-generated content to lure your customers. It might be someone who is thinking of buying your products but wants to reinforce the decision. Alternatively, it might also be someone who shopped once but did not come back for a second purchase.
Send such customers with a list of your best selling products. Highlight how other customers have liked it. Moreover, make sure that you attach a social proof besides your words. For example, attach the ratings or testimonials to a particular product as you send it as a suggestion to your customer over email.
Steal Deals
Send your customers deals they can’t simply refuse. For example, if your customer hasn’t been back on your store, send them a deal saying they are being offered an exclusive subscription to your elite club.
Alternatively, give them a sense of exclusivity in your business. Reward programs work best in the sense since you have given your customers some additional points to come back and make a purchase from you. This forms an excellent ecommerce marketing practice.
Fast Selling Products
One of the best eCommerce marketing practices is to share your fast selling products with your customer to lure them. For example, send them an SMS saying that their other customers are eyeing thier favorite coats. Or you can say that your favorite product has only five pieces left.
Whichever tone you plan to adopt, make sure that it successfully creates a sense of urgency. While shopping online, you might have observed that sellers often display the remaining stock under a product, especially if its a single digit!
Such practices create FOMO and make you not miss out on something you want.
Conclusion
Selling online can be an excellent experience for you. However, to cut through the market competition, you might be required to adopt eCommerce marketing practices. Be sure to step into your customers’ footsteps. Moreover, focus on creating an experience with an impactful and responsible shipping service. One such logistics platform that helps you ship your orders at the lowest costs at lightning-fast speeds is Dash101.
Let us know in the comments below if any eCommerce marketing practice worked for your business!
