Life online is busy. Online businesses should be talking to their audiences, creating awareness, and staying front of mind to bolster their eCommerce efforts. Digital marketing helps them do just that, by prioritizing their customers and connecting with them in a genuine and honest way. While you don’t have to have the Best eCommerce Platform to have your store thrive online, these six digital marketing tips for eCommerce will drive results for your shop in no time.
Cross-Selling in ECommerce
Cross-Selling in eCommerce stores is a key strategy for increasing the value of your customer’s purchase. Your online store will benefit from increased cart sizes and an increase in user satisfaction as you anticipate your website visitors’ needs. By understanding what a customer wants, you can determine which strategies to use to maximize sales.
It entails putting yourself in the mind of your customers and asking what additional products or services might go well with the purchase they are considering. One of the most common examples of cross-selling is the McDonald’s cashier offering customers buying a hamburger if they would like the side of french fries and a beverage. It meets an anticipated need BEFORE the need occurs.
Additionally, it’s an effective way to increase the average order value of a product. By adding upsells at strategic points throughout the buying process, you can increase order size. A thoughtful, no-pressure cross-sell shows connection with your audience and may lead to higher conversion rates.
In eCommerce, cross-selling strategies are commonplace. Product pages often feature complimentary items, and you can even email them to your customers. Tagging complimentary items in your catalog allows you to seamlessly offer a shopping experience that consumers are accustomed to. They will appreciate your awareness of their needs.
By talking to your customers (even virtually), you will inform them of additional products they may like. Automated programs within eCommerce platforms can have this conversation 24/7 by connecting with customers in small but impactful ways.
It’s important to use a variety of different strategies when targeting your audience. Cross-selling, when done well, increases customer lifetime value, boosts customer satisfaction, loyalty, and improves your bottom line.
ECommerce Thrives on Email Marketing
Email marketing requires carefully crafted messaging to catch the attention of customers. Design is also crucial for establishing your brand. Sending an email is just the beginning; there is more to this medium. When done well, your business will benefit from high user engagement, increased brand loyalty, and valuable information about your website audience.
The subject line, the first thing recipients see, should arouse their curiosity. Try to intrigue and ask questions to start a conversation and persuade them to open your message. Avoid using off-putting words in the subject line, as they can decrease your open rate by up to 50%. Make sure your subject line is easy to read, concise, and well-structured to naturally draw your readers to your call to action.
Also, avoid long emails that appear as a solid block of text. Plan your emails to convey a single message and keep them to a paragraph or two.
The design of your email is just as important as the content. It should portray your company’s personality and values. Avoid cluttering your email with images, as this can damage your deliverability. Use images sparingly and make sure they aren’t too large.
Another benefit of digital marketing is that it provides you with a wealth of information about your customers. By tracking social media and website analytics, you can learn which products and topics your customers are most interested in. Lead forms and email lookup tools are also helpful for gathering basic customer information. Automated marketing tools can guide your customers through the marketing funnel and keep you top of mind.
Personalized emails have high open rates and a 122% return on investment. Birthday emails generate 342% more revenue than emails sent to random people.
Email is a powerful digital marketing tool, but many businesses are missing out on its full potential. Email marketing is the most effective way to reach customers and is an excellent way to turn one-time buyers into loyal, repeat buyers and fans. With over 319 billion people emailing daily, email is still one of the six digital marketing tips for eCommerce.
Increase Cart Size with Text Message (SMS) Marketing
Businesses can integrate SMS marketing into their eCommerce strategy to establish a connection with customers, and increase sales frequency and cart size. Compared to traditional marketing methods, SMS messages are:
- Faster
- More Personal
- Wider Reaching
- Higher Engagement
- Creates Urgency
- Builds Your Brand
- Allows for Two-Way Communication
- Gathers Data
Text (SMS) messaging is more convenient, faster, and more personal than traditional forms of marketing, such as email and phone calls. It is an easy way to start building relationships with your customers. Subscribers perceive SMS messages to be more genuine than traditional marketing campaigns. You can also use SMS marketing to foster customer loyalty by offering freebies to your customers, especially those who sign up for your email list.
SMS messages have a high open and response rate, making them a powerful and effective option for any company’s marketing strategy. They promote customer engagement and a sense of urgency, instilling confidence in the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
SMS messages serve various purposes, including brand building, delivery notification, and two-way communication. They are also a smart and cost-effective choice compared to other marketing methods. You can easily obtain customer phone numbers using various methods.
However, managing SMS messages can be challenging if you do not understand how to set them up correctly. You can hire an agency to handle your SMS marketing campaign for you. They will utilize proven marketing strategies and help you find the right tools and technology to achieve your business goals.
Use a Blog to Improve SEO
Blogging is a powerful way to enhance your SEO and connect with your audience.
One of the most effective ways to improve your eCommerce site’s SEO is by maintaining a blog. Regularly updated blog content can drive organic traffic, establish your authority in the industry, and keep your audience engaged.
Blogs allow you to target long-tail keywords that might not fit naturally on your product pages. By writing detailed, informative posts on relevant topics, you can attract visitors who are searching for information related to your products. This not only helps with SEO but also builds trust and credibility with your audience.
Action Steps:
- Create a content calendar to ensure consistent posting.
- Use keyword research tools to find topics your audience is interested in.
- Promote your blog posts through your social media posts and email newsletters.
Build Awareness On Social Media
Building brand loyalty and awareness on social media is critical to your overall business strategy. Increasing visibility is crucial to gain new followers, but building trust is equally important. By leveraging the power of social media, you can create long-term advocates who will recommend your brand to friends and family.
You can start building brand awareness on social media by becoming familiar with general social media usage. Focus your energy on publishing content where your target audience spends the most time on Social Media. The best way to get your message across to your target audience is to be consistent and sustainable.
Take the time to craft your tone and voice. Using the right tone and voice will set the stage for a successful brand awareness campaign. Here are a few tips to create the perfect social media presence.
To maximize your reach, research the culture of the country where you want to target. Find out what characters are ideal, what image size is best, and when the best time to post content. Also, create bespoke content for each social media platform with tools such as Canva and Biteable.
Create compelling visual content. Use stock photos and GIFs to create a visual element to your posts. Remember, high-quality production is not always the best. If you don’t have the time to create quality content, it might be better to invest in a content marketing tool that will help you create more content, or outsource it to a marketing agency.
Make sure your message is relevant to your audience and makes them want to learn more about you. Useful and relevant content is more engaging than anything else.
While promotion used to be a powerful tactic for brand loyalty, today’s consumers are more discerning and have higher expectations. Therefore, building a relationship-based brand on social media requires more effort and commitment.
Leverage Video to Build Awareness for your Online Store
Video content is a versatile tool that can be effectively used at every stage of your business’s marketing lifecycle. It’s not just about driving higher engagement or boosting conversion rates, it’s about leveraging its power to enhance your business’s performance in various ways.
Social media sites like Facebook and Instagram allow video ads to be posted as standard posts. Videos posted on Instagram can be leveraged across multiple channels. This type of advertising is great for brand awareness and works well with image-focused social media like Instagram. YouTube and TikTok ads are a great example of how to use video in digital marketing. You can also repurpose an existing video campaign with Google ads.
Video drives higher engagement than other forms of content and can boost your overall conversion rate. But the secret is to ensure that you don’t just approach your video like you would if creating a 30-second TV commercial. Experiment with different video styles and preferably run a combination of ads that look like commercials and ones that look authentic to the platform. People often spot a sleek, overproduced ad and easily skip it while they’re scrolling.
Video content’s benefits extend beyond social media. Once you’ve transcribed the video, you can repurpose it for other marketing channels, such as longer articles, emails, or other content. This not only maximizes the video’s impact but also makes your marketing efforts more cost-effective and efficient.
Conclusion
If the goal of digital marketing for eCommerce is to talk to, create awareness, stay front of mind, OR prioritize and connect with customers, these tips will help. Utilizing the ability of artificial intelligence to suggest additional items to customers enhances their experience and brings value to the sale. Email marketing can give you a wealth of information about your customers as they progress through the marketing funnel. Text messaging allows for two-way communication and creates urgency. Social media allows for targeted, relevant messages to your audience. Video has high engagement and can be reused in multiple ways. Used together, these six eCommerce tips can improve your business.
If all of this sounds great but you don’t know where to start, Fahrenheit Marketing is the perfect partner for you. We’re a full service agency that will tailor a strategy to get more customers to your eCommerce store. Reach out to find out how we can help.