Are you frustrated with your current digital marketing and feel that you’re not getting the most out of your marketing budget? Symptoms include poor sales, low rankings, clicks with no conversions, or floundering on social media.
Even the best marketing strategies can miss the mark at times. Or, maybe you don’t have a strategy at all.
“49% of organizations don’t have a clearly defined digital marketing strategy.”
- Smart Insights
Strategy or not, these five tips will help you overcome your digital marketing challenges. They will help you to stay ahead of your competition and improve ROI.
1. Ask for The Sale
Bebe
If you’ve ever done any face-to-face selling, one of the most important lessons taught is to ask for the sale. You can do a stupendous warm-up, fabulous presentation, and a solid close. But, unless you ask for the sale, you’ll walk away empty-handed.
And, it’s the same with digital marketing. Your product page can have all the information, the latest 3-D, 360⁰ views, and AI-powered gizmos. But when there is too much going on, multiple links, and an unclear call to action, you’ll lose the sale. Your buyers are abandoning their carts in confusion because the “BUY NOW” button is surrounded by ten other links asking questions and pointing away from the sale. The first rule of eCommerce digital marketing is to use the less-is-more approach.
Here are some other overlooked or underused methods of asking for the sale.
- Upselling Adds 30% or More to Your Sales – One study concluded that by merely showing a higher priced item next to the shopper’s choice, 4.25% of all shoppers bought the more expensive item instead.
- Cross-Selling – You’ve sold them the computer, now sell them the mouse, screen cleaners, and protection plan. Cross-selling increases revenue and Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) especially B2B. 31% of retailers see conversion rate increases from 1% to 15%.
- Clear & Multiple CTA’s – Use one highlighted, attention-grabbing call to action button above the fold on every page. Add other CTA’s in appropriate areas in the middle and bottom of each page.
The only hard and fast rule for CTA copy is to keep it short and sweet. [Our customer] uses only “Shop Now” to drive customers to product pages from the homepage.
BigCommerce
No business is immune to these mistakes because eCommerce digital marketing is much more complex than it seems. A survey of 200 enterprises uncovered the fact that 70% don't display clear calls to action, representing a tremendous loss of opportunity.
2. Integrate All Your Social Sites for Sales
Social media is a long-term play for online marketers. The goal is to convert visitors into interested followers and then into paying customers. Creating branded social media accounts and maintaining a consistent online presence is the key to gaining maximum organic engagement and getting more conversions.
Incorporate these sites into your eCommerce marketing strategy.
- Instagram – You can make any post on a shop now Instagram galleries connection to your store. Customers can click the image to go directly to your store and buy it.
- Facebook – There are 2 billion people on Facebook every month making it a powerful marketing tool. Facebook ads offer highly segmented targeting using demographics and location to deliver relevant information with a better ROI.
- YouTube – This video platform has nearly as many users as Facebook at 1.5 billion. Businesses can leverage this platform for free, adding valuable content such as explainer videos, product reviews, cross-promotions, and new product announcements. It’s the third most visited website, making it a perfect place to build your brand and generate leads.
- Pinterest – eCommerce retailers can showcase all their product images. Pinterest works well to gain more traffic or sales to their sites because consumers love the pin and save concept to plan their purchase. At $50, Pinterest boasts the highest AOV (Average Order Value) and is the second-highest source of traffic for eCommerce sites on Shopify.
Social marketing requires significant lead time to build a following and see any ROI. Influencer and content marketing will eventually pay off with backlinks, SEO organic traffic, and sales. Make sure that your branded social media pages reflect the identity of your brand and address the correct demographic.
To those who are new to social media, maintaining your brand identity on multiple platforms can seem daunting, however, it can be a very powerful tool for eCommerce digital marketing if done correctly. It is an area that requires a lot of thought and creativity. The creation of branded content needs to be consistent and original, as well as authentic and real. If you are seriously considering adding social media into your eCommerce digital marketing strategy, make sure to be on top of planning, engage with your audience, and have fun.
3. Optimize Your Email Campaigns 5 Ways
J.Crew
Email Marketing is one of the most critical parts of your sales funnel/digital marketing strategy. There are volumes and websites dedicated to email marketing and the amount of various digital marketing eCommerce tips can be overwhelming. Here are some of the fundamental optimizations that are often overlooked or ignored, costing conversions and sales.
- Welcome emails – A welcome email helps cement a relationship between your brand and the customers. It makes future targeted offers and upsells more likely.
- Provide tips and relevant info – In marketing terms, this is lead nurturing. Keeping your prospects interested without hammering them with sales offers goes a long way to establishing trust. Providing useful and interesting content keeps your brand top of mind.
- Send coupons and discounts – All shoppers love a deal. In one experiment, a merchant who sent coupons to all his social media channels improved conversions by 272%.
- Ask for feedback – Email surveys are an effective means of learning about your customers and your business. Don’t take this step lightly and use the best practices before asking for feedback. The knowledge you gain is priceless.
- Wishlist reminders – Your customer’s wish list is an untapped goldmine. Keep them interested with reminders, price drops, birthday wishes, and low stock notices. It’s direct access to your customer’s mind which you can quickly monetize.
A good marketing agency will set you up with personalized branded email templates and pre-built flows to ensure that your eCommerce digital marketing strategy appeals to your customers. In fact, there are many ways that you can leverage digital marketing tips from your agency team, as their responsibility is to continually push innovation and find new ways to break through the clutter and generate eCommerce digital marketing results; both increasing average order values and sales overall through the application of perfectly timed and scheduled e-mails that both delight users and engage at the right time.
The trick is that when you are looking for email, social, and digital marketing tips for eCommerce, avoid focusing on the trends and stay aligned with the main best practices. Good product, good content, good prices, and great user experience within the digital marketing landscape; no matter what medium you use. Email is amazing, but so is SMS and many other activities.
Trying to trick buyers or using short-term tactics won't generate a long-term return, so be careful to review all the recommendations and ensure that the digital marketing tips align with your brand values, purpose, and capabilities when it comes to the technical side.
Many brands try to focus on what is working for their competitors, but that is a quick way to spend a lot of money, time, and never a return. Most competitor brands have uniquely qualified positions, which is why they are able to do certain things that only work for them. The key here is to find the best approach to your brand marketing and then stay consistent with it.
Here are a few more examples to follow when it comes to UGC and digital marketing for the eCommerce site Sephora.
4. UGC Product Reviews
Sephora
Adding customer reviews to your product listings can create an immediate boost in sales. Dune, a London shoe retailer, reported an 82% increase in sales by adding reviews. The biggest reason why user-generated content reviews work is credibility. 92% of consumers trust word of mouth more than any other kind of advertising. They want to hear the genuine opinions of other consumers who purchased the same item.
Some companies can help gather and curate UGC for your marketing efforts saving you time, but make sure to work with the right influencers for these programs. There's a great blog that we share about influencer marketing fraud and how to avoid it.
5. Personalize for a Unique Customer Experience
Fabletics
Countless digital marketing tips are floating around the internet, however, this crucial point doesn't come up as often as it should. We live in a world, that is ruled by eCommerce and technology, which is why you have to be careful with which digital marketing tips you actually implement in your strategy. The goal is to show the client why your brand is unique and why they have to become your loyal customer.
One of the biggest brand differentiators is personalization. Ecommerce has become “me-commerce” as retailers vie for shoppers’ attention and sales. Shoppers have come to expect personal treatment and gravitate towards those shops that provide it. Online retailers have the advantage over their brick and mortar cousins because they have scads of personal shopping data at their disposal.
Online stores can address customers by name while they browse, offer related products, coupons, and upsells when they purchase. After their purchase, they can keep in touch by sending birthday greetings, ask for feedback, give exclusive discounts, and promote new items to keep them engaged all year long.
Soon, stores that don’t make shopping a personal experience will be as obsolete as stores that don’t offer mobile-responsive websites. This is a great strategy to use in your digital marketing for eCommerce sites.
Save Your Time and Resources
Unless you have an in-house team, implementing these five tips can take up a lot of resources. As you can see, eCommerce digital marketing is a complex art. It takes the right applications to curate and manage all the data for each strategy. The idea is to contact consumers in the right place at the right time with the right offer.
Most eCommerce businesses think the level of sophistication in digital marketing has become too complicated and time-consuming. You need an experienced team to bring the tools and tactics together to make everything work. If you think it’s time to get help with your marketing, or need some guidance, please contact us.
