How to do online store marketing
Updated: 15th September 2022
Reading time: 7 min
Online sales enjoy unflagging popularity! More and more internet users are choosing to shop online. They can choose from the offers of countless shops - from global giants to craftsmen selling their own products.
The internet is a very competitive environment. Millions of marketing messages are fighting for customers' attention. How to stand out in the crowd and reach the largest possible audience with the offer? In this post, we will try to answer this question.
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Competition in the e-commerce industry in 2020
E-commerce is still developing dynamically. Until recently, experts predicted that the annual increase in the value of this market could be about 19%. However, prolonged quarantine can affect acceleration. Companies that have so far mainly dealt with traditional trade are focusing more and more on online activities.
An additional advantage in the case of the latter is usually a quick decision-making process that allows you to instantly adapt to market conditions.
Online Store Marketing
E-store marketing is a special type of marketing. To some extent, it resembles the promotion of a website. In both cases, similar tools can be used. These include Google ads, social media, blogging and more.
The goal is the difference. In the case of a standard website, it will usually be the gathering of as much traffic as possible. It is traffic that influences the price of the advertising space that the website owner can offer.
When it comes to an e-store, sales are the most important thing. High website traffic also matters, but only when users make a purchase. Store website, which traffic does not translate into a high profit from the products and services offered is simply ineffective.
How to build and verify a marketing strategy
There is no place for ill-considered actions in marketing. Most often they end up throwing money away. Therefore, before taking any actions, you need to plan them carefully, i.e. create a marketing strategy. It is a document that will contain your goals and the means you will pursue.
At first it may seem like a difficult task, but as you will see in a moment, it is doable. The work should be divided into several
1) Specify the shopping path
The shopping path is the path the customer must follow to make a purchase. For each persona created, prepare an outline of the steps they must take to make a purchase. Think about where the need to buy the product came from, how they learn about it, what makes them hit your offer and how their activity on the website looks like.
2) Set goals
Now you can proceed to goal setting. Create them according to the SMART concept, which means that they should be:
- specific,
- measurable,
- achievable,
- relevant,
- time-bound.
Examples of such goals are, amongst others, increasing sales by 20% during the year, or reducing the bounce rate by 4% during the month.
3) set the KPI
KPI key performance indicators, i.e. specific measures expressed in numbers. These include, among others, return on investment (ROI), the cost of acquiring one customer, the cost of a user clicking on an advertisement. To learn more about the indicators used to evaluate your campaign, see our article on online advertising.
5) Check the effectiveness of your actions
The verification of the marketing strategy should be based on an analysis of its results. The most important parameters are primarily:
- profit,
- sales volume,
- traffic on the website,
- bounce rate,
- customer satisfaction level,
- Average Order Value.
By analyzing the individual stages of the sales path, you'll see when users give up their purchase, and so what elements of it should be improved.
Internet marketing channels for online store marketing
You can use a wide arsenal of resources to promote your online store on the web. You can use most of them, at least to a limited extent, yourself. Below are the most important channels that will work for e-store marketing.
Positioning
Positioning is the action necessary for Google users to see your site after entering keywords related to your business in the search window. For example, if you run a window store in Warsaw, your customers will probably look for terms such as "PVC windows" or "windows Warsaw".
The higher your store is in the search results, the more users will come to your site. Practical everyone fights for the highest position in Google. Therefore, you can not neglect this area. You can find detailed information on how to position the site yourself, in the article in our Knowledge Base.
Content marketing
Content marketing is about delivering messages to recipients that are of value to them. Thanks to this approach, the advertising message is less aggressive in the eyes of its recipients. It helps to arouse interest in the brand, build trust, and create a positive image.
The basic content marketing activity useful in promoting an online store is running a blog. Thanks to it your site is positioned better in Google. Interesting articles will help you attract new users and present yourself as an expert.
Product Ads
This is content that appears above or to the right of the search results. They display specific products from your offer. If the user types in the search term "PVC window", they will see the specific model you offer along with its price and a link to your store.
Social media
Presence in social media is primarily about maintaining company profiles. Social media make it possible to establish a dialogue with users. This, in turn, translates into the opportunity to deeply know the recipients and adapt the communication and offer to their needs.
In addition to the profiles themselves, social media allows you to place paid ads. Their biggest advantage is the ability to reach a very specific group of recipients. You can take into account even such detailed variables as musical taste, culinary tastes or relationship status.
Allegro Ads
Allegro is one of the most popular shopping platforms in Poland. In addition to listing offers, you can buy ads. It's a good way to reach people who are interested in buying a product in a given category and get them to use your offer.
Ads can be displayed at all stages of the shopping path, you have 3 options to choose from: sponsored offers, graphic advertising and integration with external partners - Facebook and Google (in the latter case you will join the Google partner network).
E-mail marketing
Email marketing is an old but still effective method of reaching recipients. It helps to build a relationship with clients and make them come back to your site. This is a good channel to inform about new products, promotions, discounts and rebates.
Online Marketing Automation
"Manually" conducting marketing activities is practically impossible. Fortunately, you can find many tools that will help automate this process. They allow, among others, to create user databases and divide them into categories (for example, isolating people who have purchased multiple times or bought a product from a specific category). On this basis, it is possible to reach specific groups with a marketing message. The most popular tools for marketing automation include:
Salesmanago - enables creation of multi-channel strategies to reach customers;
Edrone - is primarily used to track the behavior of individual users on the store's website and assign them to the appropriate categories;
Hub Spot - one of the most popular e-commerce platforms in the world. Like Salesmanago, it helps reach users through many channels, such as social media, emails and blogs.
Horizontal portals
Horizontal portals are those that collect information from a specific field. Therefore, in-depth knowledge can be found in them. It's a great place for sponsored articles or buying out advertising space for stores that sell a product or service niche.
Dynamic remarketing
Dynamic remarketing is displaying ads for specific products to users who have visited your store. Thanks to it you will reach recipients with a precisely tailored message.
Dynamic remarketing is part of the Google Ads system. Its configuration is not very complicated, so it's definitely worth taking an interest in this option - it can be extremely effective.
YouTube
There are two ways to run your activities on YouTube. First of all, by running a channel where you can present content that is relevant to the interests of your target audience. In the case of an exemplary window store, they will be, for example, companies that help in choosing specific types of windows for the home, garage, outbuilding, etc. In this case, you'll use YouTube for content marketing.
You can also choose to place paid advertising on YouTube. They can be video content displayed before and during videos or static banner ads.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is not losing popularity. The most famous creators from YouTube, Instagram, or Tik-Tok can count several hundred thousand zlotys for cooperation. Fortunately, you'll also find many smaller players on the web who gather a small, but loyal audience around them.
You can establish cooperation with them at minimal costs. Some influencers also agree to barter cooperation - they will advertise your product or service in exchange for the opportunity to use your offer. Another option is to offer them commissions on purchases made by people who reach your store thanks to influencers.
How to increase sales in the online store - 10 tips
Increasing sales in an online store do not have to involve a lot of work. Sometimes a few simple changes are enough, and the profits will soar themselves. Here are some suggestions to help you improve your online store results.
Add Facebook login option
Many users are more likely to register in your store if instead of filling out the form they will be able to register in the store with one button. That is why it is worth adding the option to register and login via Facebook.
Place user reviews on the page
Opinions of people who made a purchase in your store increase its credibility. Positive user reviews created by users will help increase sales.
Show pop-ups to users abandoning shopping carts
Abandoned carts are the bane of many online stores, It is worth offering a discount to pop-ups by pop-ups - it will help reduce the number of unfinished transactions.
Give the choice of the delivery method
Some users prefer home delivery. Others prefer to use parcel machines. Still, others value mail services more than courier delivery. Therefore, you should be able to choose several delivery options.
Send personalized emails to people who have not completed the transaction
As we have already mentioned, there are many tools that allow you to track users' behavior on the site. Thanks to the data collected in this type of programs you can create messages in which you will focus on the needs of specific people who left the cart.
Offer discounts
Offer users who are on your mailing list discounts. This makes it easier for you to get them to buy again.
Up-sell
Up-selling involves increasing the value of the order by offering a product with better parameters, and thus a higher price. The customer wants to buy PVC windows? Maybe it is worth to offer him more expensive but more durable wooden frames?
Cross-sell
Cross-selling is offering products that complement those selected by the customer. For example, if you bought windows on your site, you can offer him a balcony door or a preparation for frame maintenance.
Pay attention to users of mobile devices
Although this may sound like a cliché these days, you can't forget about smartphone and tablet users. Surprisingly many e-stores are poorly adapted to mobile devices.
Create a PWA application
This is another way to please users of mobile devices. The PWA application is a website on the user's side is practically no different from a traditional phone application. Its creation, however, is much simpler - it does not require creating separate versions for individual operating systems. In WebWave, you can easily create a PWA app without coding.
Online store marketing Conclusions
An effective online store cannot go without good marketing. The competition in e-commerce is big, so reaching potential customers is not an easy task. However, you have many tools at your disposal to help you. The basis of actions should always be a carefully prepared plan, and its effectiveness should be verified on an ongoing basis.
If you want to create an e-store where you can easily present an offer, reach customers and introduce updates, use WebWave. Choose one of the ready store templates or start the project from a clean page. Good Luck!
Author: Monika Buchelt
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