So, you have finally set up that top-notch eCommerce store that you have been dreaming about for so long? At one point you almost gave up. There were so many things that needed to be done, right? But now it’s online, so, where do you go from there? How do you get the word out to the right kind of audience? Hi, my name is Francisco, and I am the owner of Planet Marketing, a digital marketing agency. My company specializes in Google Ads, Facebook Ads and Remarketing. In this article, I am going to give you 10 effective ways that you can use to promote your eCommerce store. This post has the following major headings;
- Challenges facing eCommerce businesses in today’s operating environment.
- 10 effective ways to promote your eCommerce store.
Challenges Facing eCommerce Stores
Ecommerce businesses face a number of challenges when it comes to effective marketing. It’s important for you to understand them if you are to succeed in the tough operating environment in which we find ourselves today. That is particularly pertinent for new businesses. In all likelihood, you are still floundering around with no firm idea of what you face;
- Competition: If you are just getting set up, chances are high that you are already very late to the party. Most people refuse to acknowledge this fact, to their detriment. That idea that you thought was going to revolutionize the world is probably not so revolutionary after all! It has probably already been tried thousands of times around the world. So, you are going to have to learn to wade through this tough, competitive environment.
- SEO: Search Engine Optimization is how businesses get “free,” organic traffic from search engines such as Google and Bing. That’s good, but newly established eCommerce stores face a major huddle. Getting your pages to rank where it matters can take years. But what do you do in the interim? Does it mean you simply have to give up?
- Limited marketing budgets: Here is another challenge facing eCommerce businesses. If you have just been established, or if you are a small player in your industry, you are probably not going to have as much to spend on marketing as established players. So, what do you do?
10 Ways to your Promote Ecommerce Store
Ecommerce stores face many more challenges. In this article, we have only focused on ones relating to marketing. Others include supply chain disruptions, problems with returns, negative reviews from customers, challenges getting hold of the required skills sets and many more. But what are the solutions? Below you will find 10 ways to promote your eCommerce store;
1. Advertise on Facebook
Facebook Ads are my bread and butter. So, it should not really be surprising that I have put this point at the top of my list on 10 effective ways to market your eCommerce store. However, I am not just being biased. I have worked with countless eCommerce concerns over the past decade or so, and many of them have benefited immensely from advertising on Facebook and on other Social Media platforms. So, Facebook ads really work.
Remember I noted that it can take years for SEO to begin to bear results for eCommerce companies. In the meantime, you need to proactively go out there where your clients spend their days. And it’s no secret that most people spend their time glued to their phones, tablets and computers while chatting with friends and family on Facebook.
Benefits of doing Facebook Ads for eCommerce
I recently wrote another article in which I talked about doing Facebook Ads for eCommerce. One thing that I noted then is that all eCommerce stores should advertise on Facebook for the following reasons;
- It’s where your customers are. Facebook plays host to over 2.7 billion monthly active users. Surely, you will be able to find the right people for your business on there?
- Don’t be intimidated by Facebook’s vastness, however. It’s still easy for you to find the right target audience on the platform. That’s because Facebook knows a lot about it’s users. It know where they live, where they work, their demographics, interests and behaviors. So, you can use these parameters to define and refine your targeting on the platform.
- If you are worried about how much it’s going to cost you to promote your eCommerce store, Facebook is the answer. You can start advertising on the platform for as little as $5 per day. And if you set things just right, you will be able to earn lots from that small investment.
- It’s not that difficult to create your own Facebook Ads. Well, it’s a bit difficult, but anybody can learn how to do it after some time. People usually stumble on the getting set up part. If you have trouble there, feel free to sign up for my Facebook Ads Setup Plan. Once you have done this, I will do all the initial hard work on your behalf. I will leave you with 2 live ads and a canvas on which you can do your own thing going forward. So, get in touch with me today!
Best approach to promoting eCommerce stores on Facebook
What’s the best approach if you want to promote your eCommerce store on Facebook? Again, you will find more information in my Facebook Ads Marketing for eCommerce article. However, there are a few things that I can point out here.
Have a Facebook page
First, you need to have a Facebook Page for your business. Check out my article on how to properly set up a Facebook Business Page. Use this as a platform for promoting engagement with existing and potential customers. The beauty of it is that Facebook Pages are created free of charge. So, there is no excuse for any business not to have one.
Once it is set up, you can use it to get feedback from your customers as well as to answer questions from people who wish to do business with you. Facebook Pages can be very useful when it comes to promoting Brand Awareness. And did I mention that they are free?
Run Facebook Events
Facebook Events are a great way of creating hype around product launches, promotions and other events on your eCommerce business’ calendar. One way of getting the word out before the launch of your business is to promote events. If you do this, you can get people to look forward to the launch, meaning you won’t have to desperately look for customers on the day.
Run Dynamic Facebook Ads
This is the paid option when it comes to marketing on Facebook. Facebook Ads really work wonders, as I noted earlier. They can be what stands between success and failure for your business. So, you need to embrace them.
Creating Facebook Ads can be done from a seemingly countless number of angles. You can, as an example, upload a catalog to Facebook. People can then be shown Facebook Ads that relate to their interest in products on your eCommerce store.
Run Facebook Pixel
Dynamic Facebook Ads work with Facebook pixel. Pixel is a remarketing code that you install on your website. When people land on your site, their interests are then tracked. If somebody clicks on a particular product, as an example, Pixel notes that interest.
Then when they go to Facebook, they are shown your ad featuring that product. It’s a form of Remarketing. And it has the potential to boost your conversion rate from the eCommerce average of 2% to an astounding 10%!
2. Advertise on Google Ads
Google is another great platform if you wish to promote your eCommerce store. The great thing about Google is that it is everywhere. Google Ads get showcased across millions of websites. And Google has publishers scattered all over the world. So, you have the chance to reach out to people who really matter.
Again, Google Ads are something in which I specialize. So, if you need help getting set up, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I have a Google Ads Setup Plan that you can sign up for. Once you have done that, I will set everything up for you nicely. From there, you can start running your own account.
3. Do remarketing
Remarketing is another great way to promote your eCommerce store in today’s operating environment. Most people are not doing this, so you are going to get ahead of the competition. I have already described what Remarketing does while talking about Facebook Ads.
Most people notice that there are some Google Ads that seemingly follow them across the internet. If you go to BeForward, a company that sells Japanese cars as an example, you will notice that ads featuring their cars will begin to follow you across the internet.
That’s because they are doing remarketing. What happens is that Google keeps track of people’s interests when they visit various websites. And because BeForward advertises on Google, their ads continue to follow you all over the place across the internet. That’s just one example.
4. Upsell your products
Upselling can be annoying from the point of view of a consumer but it’s really the way to go from an eCommerce business’ perspective. This is another effective way to promote your eCommerce store. Upselling happens when somebody has already landed on your website. Perhaps they wish to buy a smartphone, as an example.
But Smartphones rarely go alone, do they? They need quite a number of accessories, such as screen guards, pouches, chargers and much more. By promoting these products, you get people to buy more from you than they would otherwise have done.
With upselling, you could even get people to buy premium models of the same products. The point is to get people to spend more on your store. But make sure that your upselling is within reason. If somebody is interested in a Samsung smartphone that costs $200, they are probably never going to buy another Samsung model that costs $1000, no matter how well you make your pitch. It’s better to try to get them to buy another model costing $250 because that’s conceivably within their price range.
5. Do email marketing
Use email marketing to promote your eCommerce store
Doing Facebook or Twitter marketing is great, but you should never neglect age old marketing tools such as email marketing. Email marketing is another effective way to promote your eCommerce store. There is a high degree of intimacy in email marketing that’s absent in social media marketing.
What you need to do is to make sure that you have build an extensive mailing list. But that does not happen in a single day. You can start now knowing you will begin to reap rewards in the future. Do content marketing to build your mailing list. Make sure that every customer ends up there as well. It’s way easier to promote to people who have already bought from you than to new customers.
6. Make your email campaigns effective
Most people do email marketing. They have mailing lists and everything else. However, their campaigns are hardly effective. The result is that most of the emails that they send out end up in the digital dustbin. But what can you do to make your email campaigns effective? Well, here are a few tips;
- As soon as somebody buys from you, send them an email thanking them for the purchase. That’s a great way of turning a onetime purchase into a long term relationship. It shows that you care and the customer will remember you the next time that they need to buy something else.
- People need some motivation to buy from you. If you check out the big players in eCommerce, such as Amazon and eBay, you will realize how true this is. They are always running one promotion or the other. The point is to entice people to a particular product. Sending out unsolicited emails has little chance of success as it is. You can improve the odds by offering people promo codes.
- Don’t make your emails all about you. If you do this, you will likely have a very low open rate. What you should do instead is to make sure that your emails are about the customer. What is it that they are going to benefit from transacting with you? This is something that we have just talked about in the preceding point. You can offer them promos to motivate them to open your emails.
- Give people helpful tips in your emails. That’s another way of making your emails all about the customer. Show them how to do stuff and they will remember your brand when it matters.
7. Don’t neglect existing customers
Most eCommerce businesses are guilty of this; they become so focused on acquiring new customers that they forget all about their existing, loyal customers. However, you should not do this. As noted above, it’s easier to make your pitch to people who know you.
They are much more likely to respond positively to your product launches and promotions. Keep in touch with them either via email or using your Facebook page. But avoid becoming a pest. One email every now and then is probably enough to keep your business on the back of their minds.
8. Live chat with visitors to your eCommerce website
Get a live chat tool for your eCommerce store
I have just published an article on the best live chat tools for online stores. One thing that I noted in that article is that live chatting is one great way of improving the chances that you will turn a visitor’s interest into a conversion. Having a live chat tool is great for those looking to promote their eCommerce stores.
It’s onsite marketing. When somebody gets to your site, they probably still need a lot of convincing to get them to buy. That’s why conversion rates for eCommerce sites tend to be rather low. Not only that, but there is usually lots of shopping cart abandonment. You can reduce that by having a live chat tool.
So, when someone comes to your site and they still need convincing, you get the chance to do so through the live chat tool. Perhaps they still have questions. You can answer these questions and other concerns that they may have about your products. You can also use the live chat tool to gather visitor details, including their email addresses. That way, you will add them to your mailing list.
9. Do content marketing to get free traffic to your site
I have already talked about this in regard to SEO. The beauty of it is that you get free traffic. Once your content begins to rank, you can be assured of getting sales without needing to spend much on advertising. However, I noted that SEO is a long term project. It’s not going to happen overnight. So, what can you do to get things to move forward.
The trick with SEO is to produce content that answers people’s questions. To do that, you need to do lots of keyword research. That way, you will know what people are looking for with regard to your products. Then start blogging around these issues. Try to blog at least twice a week. Make sure that you produce well written content. Do that, and Google will eventually take notice.
10. Display reviews on your products
Here is another great idea for those looking for effective ways to promote their eCommerce store. Generally speaking, people rely on feedback from others to make purchasing decision. That has always been the case. Today, the phenomenon has become even more pronounced.
If you go to a platform such as Amazon, you will realize what I am talking about here. Most people will not buy a product without first reading reviews. And away from there, online reviews play a pivotal role in purchasing decisions. In fact, up to 90% of people confess to first consulting online reviews before making purchases. So, reviews are a big deals.
Allowing people to post reviews on your products is also a good way of getting user-generated content. That’s great for SEO.
Summary
Promoting an eCommerce store can be challenging. Part of the problem has to do with competition. Whatever the field that you are into, chances are high that there are thousands of others competing against you. Fortunately, there are a lot of things that you can do to promote your eCommerce store. The best approach involves turning your own customers into brand ambassadors.
Treat them right, and they will go out to Facebook, Google and other review sites to promote your brand. You can also do Facebook Ads and Google Ads. Content marketing can help you get free traffic. Anyway, if you need help, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. This is what I do on a daily basis. Talk to me and I will help you put your eCommerce store on the map.
