The importance of e-commerce marketing has increased in recent years, with more businesses now offering a checkout option on their websites. Carried out correctly, e-commerce marketing can have a huge impact on converting inbound traffic into sales. Therefore, it’s imperative that businesses expend the requisite effort in developing their e-commerce marketing strategy if they wish to remain competitive.
E-commerce marketing can be divided into two general actions: driving website traffic and optimizing the user experience for conversion. Both of these are critical to online business growth. Moreover, there exists a direct relationship between failure in both activities. We’ve compiled 5 tips to help you get the best from your e-commerce marketing strategy in 2016.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is an integral element of any successful e-commerce strategy. SEO traffic originates from unpaid, “organic” results on search engines. Successful SEO requires adherence to best practices on a product page level in tandem with content creation, inbound links, social media engagement and other factors that search engine algorithms take into consideration. Optimising your SEO can improve your ranking in organic search engine listings, yielding increased website traffic, which can then be converted into potential sales. Generating engaging content which has been optimised with long-tail keywords, alt tags, title tags & meta descriptions to generate backlinks and drive organic visits will facilitate this.
Pay Per Click (PPC) refers to paid advertising campaigns. It is sometimes labelled under the synonym Search Engine Marketing (SEM). PPC describes efforts on Google’s AdWords platform and paid platforms on other search engines, such as Bing. This multifaceted term is also used by many marketers to describe all paid and organic efforts.
Similarly to SEO, it is based on keyword optimisation, but PPC does not work organically. Instead, businesses pay for advertising space in Google search results.
The process involves using paid keywords relevant to the campaign. Businesses pay a fixed cost each time the advertisement is clicked. Ideally, PPC and SEO should be used together as this combination of paid and organic traffic can yield dividends for businesses. However, it’s inadvisable to set costs too high. Identification of apt keywords will generate site traffic.
DISPLAY ADVERTISING in the form of buying sidebars, small banner ads on related blogs, message boards and other websites, gains businesses exposure to an audience that would otherwise remain untapped. Display ads are facilitated by ad networks such as Google Display Network. Although display advertising can be viewed as a costly medium, when used strategically it can exert a markedly positive effect on on-site traffic. Thus, purchasing advertising space and flash banners on relevant social media, blogs and topical websites can vastly extend reach whilst enticing new website traffic.
SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS are essential to e-commerce websites as they represent an opportunity for businesses to engage with a potentially global audience. Diversify the social media platforms used for business purposes, eliminating those that underperform. Disseminate content through these media and use analytics tools to comprehend which works best and why. A multichannel approach to social media gives customers more ways to interact with your company.
Not all social content requires automation, but planning a social media strategy frees up time for other business tasks. Moderation of comments is still needed to preserve the brand image and promote customer loyalty. Place call to action (CTAs) buttons on each social platform which link to high-quality landing pages on your website where visitors can find out more details about your business.
EMAIL Marketing is a vital component of e-commerce marketing which facilitates direct engagement with an audience at a relatively low cost. Scheduled newsletters and event notifications constitute an opportunity to inform subscribers of upcoming sales or special offers, thereby enticing them to visit your site. It’s possible to track who opens and engages with distributed emails, thus delivering smarter marketing spending. Emails can be custom-designed so they are on-brand with the rest of the digital marketing campaign. Newsletters abandoned cart notifications and remarketing all utilise email to target past and potential customers.
We advocate a two-pronged approach to email marketing strategies: drip campaigns and newsletters. The former features educational and entertaining content. Each sequential email in a series builds on its predecessor, to form a narrative. Subscribers receive the series chronologically, irrespective of when they sign up or what stage of the customer cycle they’re at. The final emails of the series lean towards sales, but the overall theme remains education and entertainment. Each in the series features a relevant question to stimulate engagement.
The latter’s content will increase conversions and click-through rates to websites (buttons will facilitate this). The email newsletter is a message that goes out every week or month and is completely unautomated. It’s a chance to share unusual content and personal messages. Newsletters must be created afresh each month (in contrast to Drip Campaigns which are generated in one fell swoop) so are more labour and time-intensive, requiring content creation, link testing and code tracking.
It’s based on a subscriber list from customers who have completed transactions in the past or simply signed up for your newsletter. Businesses must provide a clear signup form on their website followed by a thank you form. Also, an unsubscribe option must be present within the emails themselves.
Conclusion
We hope our e-commerce marketing tips yield the desired results for your business in 2016. By implementing them you will have provided your business with a solid e-commerce foundation on which to build throughout the year. E-commerce marketing is a constantly evolving discipline so check back with Matrix regularly to keep abreast of developments in the field.
By Jeff Sheridan
By Conor McCaffrey