From potential new clients or existing ones, eCommerce business owners usually take three different approaches (in terms of primary audiences) while promoting and marketing their businesses.
- Past clients: people who are familiar with the quality of your products and have shopped at your store before
- Uniqueness: People who are looking for a product that only you manufacture
- Future Clients: Clients who would be interested in purchasing your products if they knew more about your business
Although this three-pronged approach is a traditional way to promote your business, it can help you save time and money by allowing you to budget your resources in the stream wherein they are most required. There are multiple methods to market to each person falling into the three categories mentioned above. Let’s take a look at a few of them:
→ Building up your email list (reaching more clients virtually)
Even in a clothing business, it’s vital to have a substantial emailing strategy and acquire a list of varied clients for virtual marketing and promotional offers. It is crucial for business owners to accumulate as many client emails as possible to maintain a customer connection outside of the work environment. Using email lists to interact with consumers would allow first-hand offer exploration, loyalty discounts, access to new products before everyone else, and exclusive consumer products. Email lists can also be used to communicate information regarding in-person shopping experiences such as pop-up stores, events, or product-launch ceremonies. Emailing is one of the most efficient marketing methods through simple communication tasks. An easy way of collecting client contact information is through a dropbox on your website. Asking customers to sign up using their email addresses for exclusive offers, discounts or promotions, access to products, new content, and newsletters is a way of continuing a steady flow of communication with your consumers.
→ Building up a social media presence
With social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok growing, you would probably want to utilize every opportunity to raise your digital media presence with these apps. Increasing businesses’ social media presence allows clients to connect with companies personally and potentially even see behind the scene actions of product developments. Not only does this allow for the formation of deeper connections, but it also allows consumers of all ages (such as gen x, gen z, and millennials) to come across your products, which would allow you to expand your business market. Creating social media posts, videos, and community engagement opportunities is a great way to leverage social media to ensure that your business thrives under all circumstances. It can also help you reach larger audiences through relevant hashtags and influential celebrity partnerships, which help advertise your products.
→ Search engine optimization (SEO)
SEO encloses multiple things, and attempting to optimize them all, may lead you down frantic wormholes. The most efficient method to avoid falling down this rabbit hole is to put yourself in the consumer’s mind. Think from their perspective and consider how your audience communicates about your products and what else they may want to know about it. As an eCommerce business owner, you may also want to pay close attention to content that you put out on your web pages. This content may refer to product titles and descriptions, blogs or articles, product images, or any other product-related content you may have (such as tutorials). Meta tags are an excellent resource for search engines in websites that allow customers to use keywords about the product to find precisely what they may be looking for. You should also ensure that your consumers can access all the materials on the webpage regardless of location or language (include a translation tool to overcome the language barrier – doing so will attract clients from all over the world)
→ Make the best of Google Ads
Although some people find pop-up Google ads extremely annoying, statistics indicate that these ads bring a substantial new clientele group to your company. For example, a company called “Alphabets” attracted nearly 80% of its consumers through Google Ads and has since made a revenue of $147 billion (yes, BILLION) through these ads. Using Google ads for your business allows search engines to showcase your eCommerce platform as a “top result”, enabling you to gain a larger audience. In the past, search engine marketing has proven to be one of the most efficient and unique ways to advertise your website, as it nearly requires no design and proves to get results in real-time. Using such ads also allows you to adjust your campaign or your advertisements according to new and upcoming trends or as you may require.
→ Partner with complementary brands.
Finally, as mentioned in the Social Media portion of this blog, partnering or collaborating with similar companies in your field would allow you to attract their clients as well as your own. Creating partnerships with such brands would be a great way of cross-promoting. The actual method you may use to cross-brand or Partner with these businesses may vary. However, the easiest way is to collaborate on blogs, podcasts, or even social media platforms. Having the word of your collaboration reach social media platforms would allow your and your partner’s company to complete each other in a way (they may sell products you have not introduced to your business yet, and vice-versa). Depending on the time of the year and the season, you may also want to consider co-branded gifts to clients of both businesses, such as end-off-year bouquets or promotional offers which impact both you and your partner.
Now let’s look at the best way to market some of the most prominent domains in the e-commerce business industry.
a) Fashion Stores
→ There are a few things an individual might want to keep in mind while attempting to promote their Fashion eCommerce website. Firstly, as a fashion eComm business owner, you want to create a brand image. Creating a brand image is vital if you wish to stay unique from the businesses. For this, you can use a unique business logo, a capturing theme, high-quality product images, and attractive website design to create your fantastic brand image. This way, customers shall automatically incline to your brand, creating more brand awareness. Next, as a fashion eComm business owner, you should create a tagline so you can be unique from your competitors. You could use the tagline to connect with your visitors and customers emotionally. The motto you use should be relevant to your business and allow customers to connect to your brand so that they remain loyal under any circumstances.
b) Healthcare and medical equipment
→ Given the current pandemic, the healthcare and medical equipment business is booming. Since the world has gone entirely virtual, the medical e-commerce industry is probably the best investment you can make today. The best technique to promote your e-commerce medical and health equipment business is to build a personal online connection with doctors and physicians through social media networks or platforms about your medical equipment business. Communicating with your clients gives you the unique ability to respond to queries, respond to remarks, and handle any problems. Your buyers will enjoy immediate replies, and even if they’re not instantly keen to purchase a product, they will remember these interactions when they are willing to buy from your store and require a product. Constant interactions between businesses and customers also help build a loyal customer base and credibility for your eComm medical equipment business.
→ Grocery Stores
Everyone requires groceries to survive. With the world moving closer and closer to an entirely virtual/online environment, grocery store owners should consider moving towards an eComm grocery store. One of the most important things to do while beginning a grocery eComm store is SEO. To make your customer’s journey through SEO more convenient, you should ensure that your website is up to speed. Slow website speed leads to a poor user experience, and in the past, stats have shown users can become impatient. 40% of estimated shop owners drop a website that takes more than three seconds to load. Another thing online grocery store owners can do to promote their business is to use social media platforms to encourage sales, store promotions, and deals. Lastly, consider adding a virtual assistant or 24/7 customer assistance to your website.
Some clients may ask questions, comment on things, or even report problems upon seeing the posts on your social media platform pages. Having consistent customer service would allow for your business to utilize this opportunity,
You can use this as an opportunity to answer and address inquiries and concerns.
Following these methods to promote and market your eCommerce business will definitely make your business thrive.
