An Ultimate Guide to Ecommerce Marketing

Brick and Mortar seems like something from an altogether different era. An entire generation has been raised post-2000 who have purchased most of their items online and continue shopping from e-commerce websites.

What is Ecommerce?

Any transaction done over the internet, whether it’s the exchange of goods and services or monetary transactions is considered Electronic Commerce or E-commerce.

While Amazon, Namshi, etc. can be considered more traditional e-commerce, crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter, GoFundMe, etc. are also considered to be part of the e-commerce ecosystem as the funds are collected online.

A person subscribing to Netflix or purchasing e-newspaper, a brand collaborating with internet influencers or outsourcing work to specialists via Upwork or Fiverr, all of this encompasses under e-commerce.

Ecommerce Marketing

E-commerce marketing creates a conversion funnel to acquire new customers and retain existing ones, digitally.

By generating awareness, understanding where the audience is and what are their interests, businesses can increase their conversions.

We have laid out a detailed e-commerce marketing trends that will help gain traction towards your online store.

In this guide, we will discuss the platforms, content type, and tools you will require to scale your online store.

Digital Marketing Strategy:

• Target Audience:

One of the key elements of e-commerce marketing is to understand who is your audience and where they are.

Targeting will help you not only reach the right audience but also optimize your digital ad campaigns which will improve the conversion rates.

With nearly 2 billion people on social media, it becomes difficult to reach everyone and you may burn your budget.

One of the ways to avoid this is to create a buyer persona that will help you define your actual target audience.

The buyer persona is an assumed personality of your intended target audience. Factors like Age, Income, Profession, Hobbies, Habits, Lifestyle needs can be assumed while creating a persona.

Social Media Ads:

After defining your target audience, you have to push ads onto the platform. If you are a Business-to-Consumer (B2C) store – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest could be effective whereas if you are in Business-to-Business (B2B), LinkedIn would be the most appropriate platform.

Google Search and Display ads can work for both the industries as they are based on the intent of the user’s keyword search.

Each social media platform has its own set of different targeting and budgeting options which should be carefully studied before proceeding to run ads.

Do keep in mind that these platforms keep on adding or altering features on a timely basis so it is crucial for you to keep up with them.

Email Marketing:

One of the oldest forms of electronic communication, email marketing still is a quite effective tool as you can reach thousands of people.

But email marketing will only be effective if you have the intended audience in your database i.e. email ids of people who have willingly subscribed to your newsletter or on your website. 

You can collect this information by running ads on social media and asking them to sign up on the landing page or from the existing customers who have already purchased from your website or app previously.

Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Sendinblue are some of the software to automate your email marketing

Website/App Optimization:

All your marketing activities will fail if the website or app isn’t optimized for the user journey. Which page does the user land on?

Where does the user first click? Is the website optimized for mobile? Does the page load quickly? Is there a way a user can purchase items without logging in or creating an account?

These types of questions should be framed and answered before creating an app or the website.

Nowadays, Most of the online shopping happens on mobile, therefore, it becomes crucial to optimizing your website for a mobile interface to ensure a smooth user journey. 

Remarketing Campaigns:

There could be some users who are interested to purchase from your online store. They may have added the product to the cart or reached the final page of processing payment and then, they left your online store.

These audience members can be retargeted. They had the intent to purchase from you but for some reason, they may not.

By tracking the user i.e. which was the last page they visited and what activity they performed on your store using Google Analytics, you can track these customers.

If you are a new online store and looking to increase brand awareness, retargeting is as it keeps users aware of your product, even if they had visited your website just once or twice. 

E-commerce Tools:

• Ecommerce Platforms

Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, etc. are some of the e-commerce platforms which you can use to easily set up your website and start selling your products.

These platforms have the ability to integrate a system which allows you to upload product and prices and with your website.

These platforms can also help you to add a payment gateway that will enable users to complete transactions from the website.

The main advantage of these platforms or plugins is that they optimize the entire website look and organize the way products are uploaded on it.

It also comes with features such as add to cart and payment gateway integrations which improve the overall user experience of the website or app.

• CRM Software:

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is a must-have for an e-commerce business.

A CRM software helps to record the customer purchase history, store customer information, and help create a funnel about the customer purchase journey.

CRM can also help to personalize the overall marketing strategy. Once you know at which stage the customer is, you can send reminder emails.

Abandon Cart or First Time Purchaser, you know the customer journey and therefore personalize your marketing efforts towards those leads, thanks to the CRM software.

Content Ideas:

• Video Marketing: 

Video is the most consistently engaged form of content, across various platforms. Nearly 64% of consumers say that they make a purchase decision after watching a video.

What makes video content so engaging is that not only it is visually appealing, but also, you have the creative freedom to produce the content using the way you want and create interests in the product or services you are selling.

Video marketing can be divided into two main formats – short-form content (1—sec secs) and long-form content (above 1 min).

Though short-form content like Tiktok & Instagram reels are great for engagement and caters to an audience who like quick and concise content.

Long-form content like IGTV and Youtube are great for brand experiences and catering to specific interest areas – like makeup tutorial or interviews. 

• Stories:

Stories are an amazing way to interact with your audience and customers. Since stories stay for 24 hours on your profile and then disappear, they have a real-time engagement value with the audience. 

Instagram has made stories feature even more interesting by adding various engagement stickers such as sliders, quizzes, countdowns, and so on.

• Blogs: 

In order to increase organic traffic to your online store, written content plays a huge role.

Blog writing can help you do that, even for an e-commerce business. You can also repurpose your video content into blog content and vice versa.

• User-Generated Content (UGC):

UGC is one of the most powerful content strategies to promote your product among users.

UGC allows a brand to directly interact with the user and enables the user to generate content on behalf of the brand.

Hope this guide helps you take your e-commerce business to new heights!