We’re starting to hear more and more terms like “growth hacking” in the ecommerce industry, and I for one don’t really care for it. As any seasoned veteran of ecommerce will tell you, you need sustainable, long term marketing plans in place – not short term “growth hacks”. There’s the old analogy of the tortoise and the hare – that “slow and steady wins the race”, and the same is true in business, particularly ecommerce.
This article is aimed at any small business owner in the ecommerce sector – whether you’re just starting out, or you’re looking for more effective ways to market your ecommerce site. You can waste thousands of dollars every month paying an agency to look after your marketing for you, but there really is no need. The marketing techniques I’ll discuss in this article can all be done by yourself.
Search engine optimization is a must, not only for e-commerce sites, but for all websites. The more optimized your site is, the better chance you will have to rank high, which means more traffic and more sales.
This can be one of the best ways to ensure your site’s success. Unfortunately, there are plenty of different elements to optimizing for search engines. If you aim to go it alone, it may take you some time and effort to learn the ins and outs of it all, but the sooner you get started, the faster you will be able to get your site optimized.
Blogging has become an effective way to market online because of how cost efficient it is and how appealing they can be to our target audiences. If your e-commerce site sells a specific type of item, then you can easily create a blog regarding your niche and then attract people to your blog.
Once visitors get to the blog, tell them more about the products you are selling, and you will be able to convert some of them over to becoming customers. This strategy has worked for thousands of businesses, so it is a very viable option.
- Use Promotions to Attract Consumers
Promotions have always been a big part of marketing any new business. Even before the internet was crawling with ecommerce sites, new businesses would always have opening sales, or some type of promotion to help attract people.
Social media sites will be huge assets in establishing your online presence, because the potential is limitless. There are billions of people using these sites and your business can get in on a part of the action.
If you kick off a social media campaign, you could see dramatic results in a short amount of time. Social media marketing is also popular because it doesn’t have to cost you anything, although having a budget can make things much easier.
- Get Your Products Reviewed
Another great way to increase visibility is to find bloggers who write reviews about products. Contact them and ask them if they are willing to write a review about the products on your own website.
This is a strategy that many businesses avoid, but it can be very effective. If you want to prove that your products are great, then give some away and ask for open feedback. If the products are truly great, then users will spread the word via word of mouth and possibly online reviews.
PPC is a very general term – it stands for pay per click. There are lots of different components involved in PPC, from search network advertising to retargeting, through to Google Product Listing Ads (PLAs). PPC has come a long way over the last few years, and it’s a really good way to advertise an ecommerce website in a sustainable, profitable manner. You’ll hear plenty of naysayers exclaiming that “PPC isn’t profitable” – but it can be for most people. You can’t simply throw a campaign online and hope for it to make lots of money from day one, if you could do that then everyone would be at it. With PPC you have to make a commitment to testing and bettering your campaigns on an on-going basis. Only when you make this commitment will you really start to reap the rewards that PPC has to offer.
I’ve heard people reciting ridiculous claims including “PR is the new SEO”. PR basically involves generating a buzz around your brand or website, this is typically done via getting your website in newspapers, on the TV, on popular niche blogs and so on. In some niches PR is a great way of building a reputation – it’s a great way to market to your target audience.
I could quite easily have titled this section “offline advertising” – but I decided that would have been a bit too vague. Instead I’ve decided to hone in on radio advertising. It’s very effective indeed, especially on smaller, local radio stations. Sometimes a short ad slot can cost sub $200, whilst your ad will reach thousands of listeners.
A really easy way to market your ecommerce website without spending a lot of money is to sell on multiple channels. Take advantage of platforms like the Amazon marketplace and eBay – include a business card or promotional flyer with the items you despatch. Include a discount code on that flyer and watch in amazement as buyers buy directly from you in the future. There are hundreds of reasons why multichannel selling is absolutely essential for ecommerce businesses – the fact you can poach customers from these big marketplaces has to be one of the main reasons.
- Submit to DMOZ and other free niche directories
The Open Directory Project or DMOZ is one of the best free links you can receive. Every new site (e-commerce or other) should submit their site to DMOZ upon launch. Due to the incredibly large amount of entries, it may take a while (months) for your site to be included. Be patient, high quality sites are often included. If you operate as a micro site or an affiliate site – well then try your luck somewhere else.
Blogging is a great way to engage your audience, establish yourself as an authority in your industry, network, and build quality backlinks. Use a free platform like Blogger or WordPress and you can have a company blog started in less than 30 minutes. You can also pay to have the blog hosted on your domain – either way, it’s up to you.
- Create social bookmarking accounts and start bookmarking your most important pages
Social bookmarking is a great way to gain traffic and backlinks. While the links are not as authoritative as other sources, they will get your site indexed quicker and they are a great starting point for any e-commerce site that has just launched. The major players are Reddit, Digg, Delicious, Folkd, Fark, Diigo, Slashdot, & StumbleUpon. Wists, Kadooble, Fancy, & Nuji are also great social shopping sites that allow you to bookmark your products and gain traffic/backlinks. There are thousands more sites for social bookmarking, but unless you have an unlimited amount of time and resources to dedicate to this – I suggest you stick with the big ones and actively participate. It’s better to have a few social bookmarking accounts that carry weight, than hundreds that are neglected.
Email blasts and newsletters are a great way to spread the word about sales, promotions, and company news. Many hosted ecommerce providers offer email marketing capabilities within their solutions. And for those who don’t have hosted ecommerce sites, there are many solutions for email marketing that will enable you to create email marketing campaigns from customer databases. These campaigns can be used in conjunction with other forms of marketing and provide a useful opportunity to share information with prospects and
nurture relationships with existing customers.
Content marketing is a hot new marketing buzz word for something that every business should have already been doing – sharing information with customers. Content includes your product descriptions, other content on site pages, images, social media channels, videos, blogs, articles, testimonials, reviews, and more. The more compelling information that you can provide your customers, the more likely they’ll buy from you. Yes, it’s really that simple!
- Write Articles for Individual Sites
This is my favorite technique for marketing an online store. The strategy involves approaching sites individually and offering them a unique article on a topic you’re an expert in. You can cherry-pick sites with lots of PageRank link juice and, when done tactfully, you can include a handful of links to your site in the article. The site gets unique, helpful content for its visitors, and you get some SEO love.
- Guest Post on Industry Blogs
Guest posting takes a similar approach to the strategy above, but focuses on the blogosphere. The great thing about bloggers is that they are ALWAYS looking for quality content. Convince the blogger you have something valuable to say that’s of interest to his or her audience, and you can include a few tasteful links in your post.
If your niche has a number of active forums like
buxoff forums, they can be a great place to engage with your target customers. When getting involved, it’s crucial to remember the #1 rule of marketing: nobody cares about your business! If you use forums as an advertising venue, you’re going to meet with some serious backlash and likely hurt your brand’s reputation. Instead, view the forums as a way to establish your expertise by helping others and answering questions. Once you establish yourself in the community, place a tactful signature link to your site.
- Answer Questions on Q&A Sites
Like answering questions in industry forums, providing insightful answers on Q&A sites such as Quora andYahoo! Answers can help establish you as an expert. If your answers are helpful enough, you’ll see a number of people click through to your site.
- Publish your product deals and coupons in Buxoff
Get some good and exclusive deals and coupons on your and publish it in Buxoff.com, this has been one of the best ways to market your store for free and the best part about this platform is that they maintain a separate place only for the newly launched stores. In this way your store gets more popularity among the crowd.
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