E-commerce Marketing: Top 10 Tips To Guide You

With every growing business in 2019, there will be a point where e-commerce is a strategy that needs to be considered in your marketing strategy. As this field is fairly broad in what it encompasses, we have put together a list of 10 tips worth thinking about when planning your business’ e-commerce strategy. 

1. Create a content marketing strategy

Content is the king of e-commerce and digital marketing generally. Therefore, the content you offer your audience should be well thought out. It’s important to know who your audience is, so you can tailor content to their preferences and engage with them in the right way. All of this takes planning what type of content you will deliver, whether that be visual content, such as videos or written content, like blog posts, or a combination of both.  Ensure to revisit this strategy on a regular basis to track and assess how your content production and delivery is going.

2. Delivery offer tactics 

When conducting your pricing plan for products on your online store, free delivery is something we urge you to use. It serves as an incentive to customers as they feel like they are getting a bargain. It’s a simple technique, where all you have to do is incorporate the delivery costs into the product price you advertise to your consumers, even if it means slightly increasing the price of the product- customers will still be enticed hen they see FREE DELIVERY. However, in the case that you do choose to opt-in for charging delivery – £5 should be the threshold limit. Also, there is evidence to show that using £3.99 figures as opposed to a whole unit figure of £4 attracts more consumers psychologically. Any delivery above £5 can deter people from purchasing from you.

3. Generate an Automated Email Marketing Campaign

Email Marketing still remains one of the best ways to influence your customers and persuade them to buy more. Include information in your emails to your consumers, so it is a mix of helpful information but also a tool encouraging them to buy more from you. It will show that it’s not just about sales for you, but also creating a rapport. 

4. Spread out your Social Media Platforms

For e-commerce companies, initially, it may be trial and error to dictate what social media platform works best for reaching your audience. It is best to start with branching out broadly across a range of platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest etc. Then, after a while, evaluate how each one is doing and eliminate the ones that aren’t working so well and keep the ones that are making you the most profit.

5. Personal Factor

Marketing mainly started out solely focusing on selling the product. However, today there is an enhanced element of personalisation included in many marketing strategies to engage with customers on an emotional level. Putting a face to your brand is one way of doing this as it creates relatability. Addressing emails with people’s names on it is also another path you could take. From the smallest to the more in-depth details, personalisation helps to create a bond between the brand and the customer.

6. Contextual Marketing

Take advantage of current affairs and events as a gateway to market your brand. Timely content is a great way to engage with your audience. For example, creating a post or story relating about a national day on that day is very present and in sync with time, meaning your audience will be aware and feel up to date with your content. 

7. Make Original Content

Your brand is unique and the content you produce should reflect that. Using stock photos all the time reduces the chances of your business standing out. Regular original content such as a podcast connects with your audience and lets them know you are directly connecting with them and not through a third party. 

8. Loyalty Programmes

This is another key way of building rapport with your audience. It shows that you acknowledge and appreciate them as a valued consumer. It’s a win-win tactic as you coax customers to spend a little more money with you and they are rewarded for doing so. 

9. Automate your Social Networks 

Using CMS such as Hootsuite to schedule your social media posts creates more free time for you to complete other tasks.  You may still need to moderate comments, but nonetheless you will still have much more free time than if you were to manually upload posts.

10. Reach out to customers in their native tongues

As the legendary Nelson Mandela said ‘If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.’. You want to be able to reach as many people as possible to offer your services to. Therefore, incorporating a variety of languages throughout your platforms is a great way to connect with a larger audience. Most e-commerce platforms, such as WordPress e-commerce themes and WooCommerce templates provide translation settings. 

We hope these tips prove helpful on your e-commerce journey. Feel free to share on social media and help others too!