Ecommerce Marketing: 6 Tips for a Winning Strategy

More people shop online every year. By 2023, ecommerce is expected to make up 22% of global retail sales.

For an ecommerce business like yours, the increasing popularity of online retail is an exciting opportunity for growth — but only if your potential customers can find you.

And once you get them to your website, you have to convince them to make a purchase. Almost 70% of shopping carts are abandoned on ecommerce sites.

The right ecommerce marketing strategy can put your products in front of motivated customers and increase the chances that they’ll convert. This article shows you 6 ways to succeed at ecommerce marketing in 2021.

What is ecommerce marketing?

Ecommerce marketing aims to drive traffic to your online store and convert those users into paying customers.

It has a lot of moving parts. Ecommerce marketing requires a focus on details like SEO optimization for individual product pages as well as big-picture thinking like growing brand awareness.

What makes ecommerce marketing unique?

Ecommerce marketing employs many of the same strategies as any other kind of digital marketing, but ecommerce marketers have some unique challenges.

First of all, ecommerce is incredibly competitive. There are millions of ecommerce stores out there, and they’ve all set up shop in the same neighborhood — the world wide web.

To stand out in the crowd, you’ll need a strong ecommerce marketing strategy.

Secondly, your customers are demanding. Major players in the ecommerce field have set a precedent for feature-rich websites that let shoppers order in just a few clicks and receive a delivery the next day.

They expect their shopping to be informed by detailed product pages and customer reviews, and they expect instant customer service when they need it. They won’t settle for a clunky checkout experience or a site they can’t use from their phone.

Finally, an ecommerce marketer needs familiarity with technology that isn’t relevant in other industries, including ecommerce platforms like Shopify and Magento.

Top 6 ecommerce marketing tips:

#1. Wow your customers with a great website

Your website is your storefront, and it’s important that it makes a strong first impression. Your shop should be visually appealing and consistent with your brand.

But it’s not enough for an ecommerce site to look pretty. The experience a customer has on your website can seal the deal or cause them to abandon their shopping cart. If you’re planning to build a new website or revamp your existing one, keep these factors in mind:

Your ecommerce platform

Unless you’re paying big bucks for a web developer to create a site with ecommerce functionality from scratch, you’ll probably use an existing third-party website builder platform. These platforms help ecommerce companies create professional-looking websites at a lower cost.

The platform you use is the backbone of your ecommerce website, and it will affect your marketing strategy.

For example, Shopify allows you to sell your products on Facebook and Instagram and has add-ons for eBay and Amazon. BigCommerce has tools for search engine optimization. And Wix has an easy drag-and-drop interface.

Before you make a decision, be sure you have a good understanding of how marketing will be different for each platform.

Intuitive navigation

Customers have to be able to easily find what they’re looking for on your site, or they’ll bounce and head to a competitor.

When you’re planning your site, put yourself in your customer’s shoes. If you were looking for a particular product, what steps would you follow?

Easy checkout

Customers hate an inconvenient purchase process. Really hate it. They’ll abandon their shopping cart at the first sign of trouble.

Out of shoppers who abandoned a cart in the last three months, 24% did so because they were asked to create an account. 18% thought the checkout process was too long or complicated. 17% didn’t trust the site, and 15% said they left because the site had errors.

Streamlining checkout and avoiding any other inconveniences is an essential ecommerce business strategy.

Mobile responsiveness

A mobile-friendly website is a requirement for any business these days. 45% of consumers abandon any piece of content displaying poorly on the device they are using.

Security

If you’re handling credit cards and other payment information, you have to prioritize cybersecurity.

Customers won’t be willing to use your site if anything strikes them as suspicious. And if you do get hacked, it’s devastating. The average cost of a data breach has grown to $3.86 million.

High-resolution photos and videos of products

Customers are increasingly migrating from brick-and-mortar stores to ecommerce sites, but they still want to see the products clearly and from every angle.

Ideally, you would have photos and videos on every product page as well as featured prominently on your home page.

Site speed

Modern consumers have no patience for long waits or pages that load poorly. A customer is likely to abandon the process if the site is slow.

#2. Build brand awareness with content marketing

A content marketing campaign can help spread the word about your business as well as help with your SEO.

The first type of content an ecommerce business needs to think about is the content on its product pages. Your product page content should be thorough and detailed, but don’t overdo it — customers will be overwhelmed by a wall of text.

Content marketing for ecommerce can involve long-form blog posts as well. In fact, the top-earning ecommerce companies produce a lot of articles.

Ecommerce companies with over $100K in revenue publish an average of 30 articles per year, while companies under that mark publish an average of 20.

Unlike your product pages, your blog posts can be aimed at top-of-the-funnel site visitors. If you sell pet products, for example, fill your blog with articles about caring for and living with pets. This content will target people that may not be ready to buy yet, but are your ideal future customers.

Other useful types of content marketing for ecommerce include:

• Video marketing
• Social media
• Infographics
• Slideshows
• Podcasts

Any content you can create that builds awareness of your brand and drives traffic to your site is valuable for ecommerce marketing.

#3. Drive website traffic with search engine optimization

53% of website traffic comes from organic search. To take advantage of that leading source of customers, you need ecommerce SEO.

Search engine optimization for ecommerce follows similar principles as general SEO, but it can be an especially large undertaking due to the high number of product pages. Furthermore, different ecommerce platforms require slightly different optimization strategies.

Here are some of the common SEO activities of ecommerce marketing teams.

On-page optimization

Like any SEO, best practices for ecommerce SEO involves keyword research. Ecommerce marketers should focus on in-market keywords that target consumers who are further down the buying cycle.

Awareness-level marketing has its place in ecommerce, but the primary goal is sales, not window shopping, and your SEO should reflect that.

Each product page should be optimized for search engines. That starts with the product descriptions.

Sprinkle your product-centric keywords into the description. Don’t forget to include the most important keyword: the name of the product.

Also make sure to optimize your page titles, headers, and image alt text. The page’s meta description isn’t a search engine ranking factor, but it’s important for providing context and attracting the attention of buyers.

Backlink building

These days link building is about quality over quantity. For effective off-page SEO, focus on getting links from authoritative industry resources. This could include trade associations or reputable niche directories.

Consider seeking out guest blogging opportunities. A guest post on a blog related to your products helps build your reputation as an expert while also providing a link to your site.

You may also want to ask relevant influencers to write about your products and link to them in return for a product.

Reporting and analytics

An important part of SEO is continually analyzing and refining your efforts. For that, you need data. Keep an eye on factors like:

• Which keywords rank and convert
• CTR
• Bounce rate
• Growth in organic traffic

The more you know, the more you can improve.

#4. Boost your reputation with reviews on product pages

Today’s consumers are savvy, and they won’t take your word for it that your products are great.

When they shop on major ecommerce sites like Amazon, they see proof of quality in the form of customer reviews. They expect the same from any ecommerce business.

Don’t overlook the good — or harm — that reviews can do. 77% of consumers see customer reviews as a deal-breaker or deciding factor in their buying decision.

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Positive reviews are great ecommerce marketing, and you don’t even have to create them yourself. They’re likely to use your product name or other keywords, and they recommend your product more authentically than marketing content can.

You can encourage customers to review your products. For example, send a post-purchase email with a link to leave a review.

You can’t insist that they leave positive reviews, of course. But here’s the good news: inviting customers to review a product is likely to result in a higher percentage of positive reviews. That’s because customers that like a product rarely think to leave a review, while the angry ones are eager to do so.

Some negative reviews are inevitable, but even these are an opportunity to build trust. Shoppers want to know that you’re transparent about your products. Responding helpfully and politely to reviewers shows other consumers that you will provide a positive customer service experience.

#5. Influence potential customers with social media

When a potential customer wants information on your product, they may not turn to your website first. 43% of internet users research products on social media.

Like most companies, ecommerce brands can benefit from business pages on social media. What you do with those pages may be different than other types of companies.

Ecommerce marketing is highly visual. Instagram is a popular social media platform for ecommerce because it allows for high-resolution images. It also supports shoppable content.

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Shoppable posts allow users to click on the products they see to make a purchase. Facebook also has shoppable content, as do many websites.

Another way to create social buzz around your products is through influencer marketing.

You can work with the most well-known social media influencers in your space, or you can find people within your existing customer base who love your brand and would be happy to talk about it on social media.

#6. Reach your target buyer with PPC advertising

Pay-per-click advertising is a quick way to reach buyers who are looking to buy your product right now. They search for a type of product by name, and there your product is at the top of the search results page.

The most popular PPC network is Google Ads. Google offers an ad type specifically for ecommerce called shopping ads. They’re the product listings with images that you see at the top of the page when you Google a product.

In the image above, a search for “Nike shoes” shows Nike shopping ads and a Nike text ad at the top of the page. Since Nike also ranks as the first organic result, it takes up a lot of real estate on the SERP.

Google Ads has other options like YouTube ads and display ads that can be useful for ecommerce as well. There are also other ad networks, including Microsoft Ads and Facebook.

Ecommerce businesses often engage in remarketing campaigns, which show ads to people who previously visited your site. You can even target those who browsed specific products.

Who should do your ecommerce marketing?

As an ecommerce brand, you have a lot on your plate. Many companies find it worthwhile to outsource some or all of their ecommerce marketing.

Not every marketing agency has the expertise required for ecommerce. Choose an agency that’s familiar with your specific ecommerce platform and has a proven track record with businesses like yours.

Conclusion

Ecommerce marketing isn’t easy. The industry is competitive, and a comprehensive ecommerce strategy has many parts.

One of the most complex — and most effective — aspects of ecommerce marketing is SEO. Ecommerce SEO encompasses on-page SEO, backlink building, and technical optimization of your website.