eCommerce digital marketing is all about boosting an online presence to grow brand recognition and increase sales. With this digital-focused strategy, eCommerce web marketing boosts awareness and drives action towards a business that sells online – a must-have strategy when thinking about standing out in a bustling online space.
And the best part? It’s super customizable. There are a lot of avenues to utilize when thinking about a digital marketing plan for eCommerce. With everything from social media to optimizing search engines, email campaigns, and content marketing, the options for eCommerce internet marketing are diverse and personalized.
eCommerce digital marketing was already cemented as a key strategy for businesses selling products and services online, and in light of the pandemic, these digital options have only continued to gain traction.
While classic advertisements on billboards have long been a staple, more and more businesses rely on digital strategies for the bulk of their marketing in 2021. As the digital era was already on the rise pre-pandemic, more time spent at home on our phones further perpetuated the switch, making a transition to digital marketing essential to businesses’ survival.
Beyond it being necessary, eCommerce web marketing is also highly cost-effective. As mentioned before, the different strategies and platforms that can be used for a digital marketing campaign are numerous, allowing each business to customize their plan based on their digital marketing goals for eCommerce store sales. Plus, digital marketing is vastly more appealing to younger generations – a coveted consumer base every business is looking to tap into.
All in all, the key to success in 2021 is eCommerce internet marketing. It’s just that simple.
Every great digital marketing strategy for eCommerce starts with a plan. With different platforms to choose from and various goals in mind, sitting down and planning out your strategy is essential to seeing the results you’re looking for.
How’s this done? Our team at Catapult has a lot of experience with eCommerce web marketing, and we are breaking it all down here.
eCommerce web marketing is essential for solidifying your business’s reputation and online presence, but how do you achieve these goals? To reach your desired audience and boost business in this highly competitive market, you need a great plan.
With a plan in mind, you’ll not only help direct your strategy but ensure that everyone on the team has a clear guideline of what’s set to happen. It’s also important to have a plan to better monitor the progress of your campaign and its efficiency.
To help create a plan, we recommend:
SWOT analysis is an analytical tool that maps out the factors that can influence business. SWOT focuses on 4 key elements – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This can include everything from economic variations to employee productivity. With this tool, you can better understand your company’s standing, anticipating any issues or openings for success – a must when prepping your plan.
Next, you’ll want to determine your buyer persona. This means characterizing the details of your ideal customer, not only looking at the demographics of your target audience but going even deeper into their motivations, needs, and hobbies. With a better understanding of your consumer, you can improve your marketing to them and boost conversions.
Once you understand the best opportunities for your business and the consumer you’re most looking to target, you should begin analyzing what channels are best to reach that audience. For example, is it a younger audience that spends a lot of time on TikTok and Instagram? Or a professional crowd that’s all about LinkedIn? Knowing your audience and goals will help you zero in on what platforms to tap into for your strategy, ensuring a more effective plan.
A strategy is nothing without clear goals, however, not every business’s goals will be the same. Sure, at the end of the day, everyone wants to see an improvement in sales, but this isn’t (and shouldn’t be) every company’s primary focus.
Let’s take a new business, for example. A company that’s new to the scene will need to focus more on brand awareness to boost business instead of a strict sales approach, while a leader in the industry may simply be looking to boost sales.
With this in mind, there are a few different goals your business can focus on. Our main 5 include growing sales, connecting with customers, adding value, saving costs, and expanding your brand online. Depending on your business, your services or products, and your time in the industry, you may want to tackle one (or a few) of these goals to optimize your success.
Since a well-thought-out plan is so essential to the success of your digital marketing strategy for eCommerce, hiring an expert is often the best way to go.
If you are new to eCommerce digital marketing or don’t have the team to support an intricate strategy, an expert team can help. Experts in the field will not only help to build your strategy but monitor it and continually optimize to ensure you see the results you’re looking for. This will take that trial and error period out of your planning, equipping you with an expert strategy from the start.
There are several different types of eCommerce digital marketing options, with each boasting different benefits and results for your business, but which is right for you? Well, that depends.
To help guide your plans, we break down the most important types of digital marketing to ensure your business’s strategy incorporates the best of the best. Let’s start with a few of the fundamental choices: SEO and PPC.
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the process of improving your business’s visibility on search engines. But, when it comes to getting in those top few spots on the first page of Google, it’s all about a killer SEO strategy that can work to improve both the number of visitors to your site as well as the quality (or targeting) of those visitors.
With SEO for eCommerce, there are several ways to use this strategy to boost your site’s visibility and beat competitors in the top few spots. Let’s break it down.
Often, when people think of SEO for eCommerce, they think of keywords. Keywords, which refer to the use of search terms related to your business placed strategically throughout your site, are a wonderful way to boost SEO, but it’s not the only method.
When we talk about SEO, we are thinking about:
Phew, that’s a lot, right? But, of course, those are just a few of the SEO-related strategies, but all together, you can make a big difference in your search engine rankings to majorly boost business.
When talking about a digital marketing strategy for eCommerce, PPC is one of the go-to strategies. PPC, or pay-per-click, is a marketing strategy that drives traffic to your site, however, you only pay when the ad is actually clicked on. This is incredibly beneficial for budgeting as you only really spend on searchers that are truly interested in your business or service and want to learn more, ultimately spending less on passing, uninterested audiences.
There are many different areas PPC can appear and be utilized when it comes to your eCommerce web marketing strategy. However, when incorporating PPC, we often turn to:
There are a lot more PPC strategies you can tap into for your eCommerce internet marketing, with each helping target your unique audience quickly and efficiently.
So, we’ve shared the perks of both PPC and SEO for eCommerce, but why not both? Great thinking.
Ultimately, SEO and PPC strategies work wonderfully in tandem as both have to do with boosting the same thing: searches. So to coordinate your PPC and SEO strategies, whether it be sharing keyword data to boosting social media marketing for eCommerce, we’ve got the best ways to join these two strategies.
That’s not all there is when it comes to eCommerce digital marketing! In part two, we share the benefits of social media and content marketing – two essential pieces of a successful digital marketing plan for eCommerce. Check it out!
At Catapult, we know a thing or two about utilizing social media for a digital marketing strategy for eCommerce. When it comes to social media for eCommerce, it’s all about boosting your online presence and awareness to ultimately drive sales through everything from Facebook to Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and even TikTok. There are a lot of social media platforms to choose from, and each one can help better target your customer to share your products and drive to purchase with one easy click.
Social media doesn’t just help share your brand but connects with your audience, too. This is useful for building a loyal customer base as you can directly interact with shoppers, answering questions and allowing them to feel heard in an overcrowded space. So really – don’t underestimate the power of this tool.
When we think about content marketing for eCommerce, we are talking about a variety of content options – from articles to videos, infographics, and more – than your target audience will be interested in. This content can help share useful information with your audience while simultaneously driving more customers to your site. This will ultimately lead to an improvement in sales – and who doesn’t want that?
Content marketing is a pretty over-arching term, but a few areas include:
Social media and content marketing are all about being creative. But, let’s face it – the internet is an overcrowded space, and standing out within that crowd takes a bit of extra work. With this in mind, it’s important to focus on more compelling, useful, and relevant content that your specific audience will want, making you a go-to source for all things related to your field of work.
But where do you start? Simply diversifying the type of content you create is a great place to begin. Sure, a classic blog post is useful (hey, it’s even what you’re reading right now!), but some other formats can both catch your audience’s eye and deliver useful information. These include:
There are a lot of ways to get creative with content for eCommerce digital marketing, and by stepping outside the box, you can draw in a whole new host of customers.
We warned that there are many ways to go about digital marketing – so many that they even warrant three parts! In this section, we are talking all about email marketing and affiliate programing to boost business. So let’s dive right in.
Email marketing is a great way to follow up with new and existing customers, ensuring you remind them of your business and offerings while sharing useful information and products.
There are many ways to go about email marketing when it comes to a digital marketing strategy for eCommerce. Whether you’re emailing about a new product, sharing a special offer, providing useful information based on purchases, or reminding a shopper to checkout, this strategy can help boost your ROI with a quick, simple email.
We mentioned there are a lot of different forms or goals behind emails for eCommerce, but what are the most effective kinds? We’ll give you a hint – both have to do with the customer’s shopping cart.
After a customer makes a purchase, follow up with an email that not only shares a “thank you” for their purchase but provides ongoing support and services. This can look like an email about tips and tricks based on the product they bought or other items or services you offer that will pair well with a purchase they made. This will ensure you build a long-time customer base as you continue to provide them with more useful information and products, keeping them coming back for more.
Ahh, the fateful abandoned shopping cart. Some customers may not be ready to pull the trigger and hit “purchase” right away and leave their cart behind. But that doesn’t mean hope is lost. Instead, think of this as an optimal time to send an email, reminding the customer of what’s in their cart and why it’s so great. This will help close the sale and boost your revenue, all with one simple email reminder.
Another way to boost your eCommerce business is with an affiliate program. This eCommerce digital marketing strategy is all about other online merchants or creators promoting and linking to your company, services, or products to earn a commission. This can do a lot to boost traffic to your site or specific products, all at a relatively low cost. Plus, these affiliates can share more information or personal reviews that can reassure new customers – another great perk!
Sometimes, customers need a little reassurance before purchasing from a trusted or experienced voice, but how can a company garner this content? Through influencers and former customer content – of course! If you’re new to this marketing strategy, don’t worry – we’ve got you covered.
First up is influencer marketing. This option has completely flooded marketing strategies and is one that can prove incredibly beneficial. Influencer marketing uses the idea of a celebrity endorsement yet gives that power to smaller voices on the internet with a personalized following. Let’s face it – a significant social media following can actually garner a lot of power, and with each influencer offering a unique, loyal following, they can serve as a truly trusted voice to back up your product or service.
When tapping into influencer marketing, you can have influencers create content around your product or services and share reviews. With this collaboration, you can get more brand awareness and ultimately drive sales based on your ideal target audience. However, the success of this will rely heavily on the influencers you choose, so be sure they make sense for your business.
Next is user-generated content, or UGC. As the name suggests, this content is created by your customers and can include everything from reviews to images, videos, posts, and how-tos. This content is wonderful for providing more insight into your business for prospective customers and helps share more authentic voices to assure them that they are making a good purchase.
There are a lot of different types of UGC that can help boost your business, and all can prove valuable when it comes to securing new customers. However, if we had to choose a few of the most effective forms of UGC, we recommend:
At the core of every eCommerce, web marketing strategy is a killer website. With ads driving to your site and product pages, keywords sending your site to the top of the search engines, and influencers driving further traffic with swipe-ups to your site, it’s essential that your website is in tip-top shape.
Beyond a beautiful, well-curated site, there are a few things to consider to boost the user experience on your platform. Our experts at Catapult are sharing how to prep your site for success to keep your website competitive.
While online stores don’t offer that same immersive in-person experience, there are a few ways to ensure that your customers still get everything they need, and this starts with live chat.
Like with a sales associate in stores, live chat allows your customers to ask any questions about your products and get any last-minute information they need to feel secure in the purchase. Whether this is how-tos or your return policy, having a live chat can help quickly address any concerns and secure a prospective customer’s cart.
We are living in a super fast-paced world, and no one is waiting around for your site to load. Typically, shoppers will wait around 3 seconds for your site to load before they lose interest. Yes, it’s that quick. For this reason, it’s an absolute must that your website is fast and loads efficiently so customers can view your products instead of turning to a competitor that’s quicker to load.
Additionally, with everyone relying more heavily on smartphones, creating a mobile-friendly site is essential to remaining up to speed with the rest of the industry. Just think – when’s the last time you searched for something on your desktop computer versus your cell phone? Mobile devices are a quick way to find what you need, and with a mobile-friendly site, you can ensure you don’t miss out on those pivotal customers.
When it comes time to purchase, we want to take any stress or questions off the customer’s plate, and this means creating a seamless checkout experience.
To help ensure a customer hits “checkout” in their shopping cart, be sure you answer all their potential purchasing questions right there. From your return policy to payment methods and shipping times, you can ensure the customer doesn’t have to seek out their questions. This will help the customer feel ready to check out faster, ensuring they won’t abandon their cart. Plus, this is a great place to prompt with a live chat option so any last-minute questions can be answered.
Whether your business is completely online or has a brick-and-mortar option, a digital marketing strategy that promotes eCommerce is a must for every business. As we shift towards a more digital approach in all aspects of life, customers are looking for this online presence to answer questions and reaffirm their need to purchase with you, and this starts with a wonderful eCommerce digital marketing strategy.
From boosting brand awareness with SEO and PPC to sharing more information and insights with content marketing and creating a seamless experience with a mobile-friendly site, there’s a lot that goes into a digital marketing campaign, and, thankfully, you’re not in it alone. As a full-service web design and marketing company, Catapult Revenue knows all the ins and outs of a stellar digital marketing strategy for eCommerce. With a team of experts and years of experience, we work to customize your strategy to your unique needs and goals, ensuring you see the results you want for your eCommerce store while taking the stress out of a complex marketing strategy.
Ready to boost your digital presence and iron out your digital marketing goals for your eCommerce store? We’ve got you covered. Contact us at 312-625-0447 today, and we will begin perfecting your digital marketing plan for eCommerce success.
Δ
What Is eCommerce Digital Marketing? eCommerce digital marketing is all about boosting an online presence to grow brand recognition and increase sales. With this digital-focused...
Need Help With Your eCommerce Site? Building a new high-performance website? Need a redesign or facelift? Tell us what you’re working on. We are sure we can help.
Once or twice a month. 100% goodness, 0% spam.
Increasing traffic or sales? Designing a new high-performance website or face-lifting an existing one? Strategic consulting? Tell us your needs. We're certain we will find the right solution.
