Top 5 List of Leading Ecommerce Marketing Schemes
Ecommerce marketing is one of the trends that came about with the phenomenal rise of the Internet. Also referred to as online shopping, ecommerce is now a widespread choice among numerous consumers around the world. People prefer doing their shopping in the Internet for an array of reasons and perks. There are also more selections and competitive prices online compared to those in the local brick and mortar stores. Thus, entrepreneurs are now focusing their efforts to online business and ecommerce marketing.
Significant Ecommerce Marketing Evolution
Any commercial transactions that are electronically conducted on the Internet is considered ecommerce or electronic commerce. Online stores face a huge challenge not only in its initial setup but most importantly in marketing the products and services offered. This is where ecommerce marketing comes in. In the recent years, purchasing decisions have significantly shifted from “Black Friday” to “Cyber Monday.” There are fearless broadcasts in the U.S. retail market that ecommerce sales will generate billions in sales for the coming years.
With the unstoppable rise of online commercial transactions worldwide comes numerous ecommerce marketing schemes. Experts have developed several strategies to help business owners and online marketers in their efforts. There are also various platforms and tools that are designed to boost the results of your marketing campaign in a competitive virtual marketplace.
Top 5 Ecommerce Marketing Schemes
There are five top ecommerce marketing platforms used for successful and effective results. Take note that the online market is a dynamic and constantly changing one. The kind of marketing plan and tool you use today may not necessarily work for other businesses in different niches. Regardless of the trends in the online arena, there are ecommerce marketing schemes that remain effective, functional, and important.
Here are the leading five marketing schemes for ecommerce businesses today:
1. Search Engine Optimization
The world of search engine optimization or SEO is one of the most vast and complex to use. Nevertheless, SEO is also a promising marketing platform that guarantees remarkable sales and revenues for your online business. You only need to know how to use and maximize the power of search engine optimization to serve your purpose and achieve your business goals.
The rules are constantly changing yet again. Make your SEO practices up to date to keep up with the current trends and cope with the increasing demands of the Internet-based market. Effective SEO is a fulltime job. Moreover, it requires a slew of strategies to have your website fully enhanced and optimized. It helps to have a full understanding of the dynamic online market and the different SEO tactics that could cater to the needs of the market. According to a web-based report, there are several factors that affect search engine rankings. The usual SEO tools such as Keyword Research, On Page Optimization, Link Building, Content Marketing, and Guest Posting remains effective SEO strategies to beat.
These are the factors that have increasing impact on your ecommerce website and the percentile of their impact on your business online:
- Mobile Friendliness. Have your website fully optimized and mobile-friendly. This means it is accessible and easy to navigate and use when consumers are using their mobile gadget. Mobile friendly websites have 88% chances of getting better traffic that converts to sales and profits.
- Perceived Page or Site Value. With a whopping 81% chance of getting your website out there in the vast online sphere, pages or sites that are perceived valuable have higher success rates. Major search engines such as Google have their criteria to classify your website valuable and relevant for online users.
- Usage. SEO can make your website engaging and draws your potential customers and target market in. Optimized sites with high dwell time or CTR have 67% chances of increasing their sales and expanding their clientele.
- Site Speed. A lot of mobile and online users are people on the go. Thus, it is essential that your site speed is always at a remarkable rate. Site speed increases your site value by 58% and attracts more users due to easy and fast navigation.
There are other relevant factors that could make your search engine optimization effective for successful ecommerce marketing:
- Relevance of links
- Balance of ads and contents
- Social signals
- Internal links
- Incoming links
- Paid links
- Anchor texts
2. Email Marketing
Marketing your products and services online requires you to keep in touch with your target market and doing it in a consistent, constant manner. This is where email marketing can help you. Nowadays, it may sound old-fashioned but there are new and innovative strategies on how to take your email marketing schemes to the next level.
Before going through the proven and tested email marketing strategies, here are the top advantages of using this type of ecommerce tactic:
- High and wide reach. Your main target is to get as many people as possible to join your business email list. This is done through asking them to subscribe to updates or clicking the “opt in” button or link. Emails are still effective communication method compared to other options in the ecommerce marketing arena.
- Remarkable flexibility. Emails are applicable for all types of businesses. Whether you are offering a consultation service, selling lingerie or houses, you can use email marketing for your ecommerce scheme.
- Minimal risks. The top marketers highly suggest email marketing if you don’t want to deal with advertising expenses risks. Even with profitable campaigns, alternative advertising is definitely costlier compared to emails. There are innovative email marketing software products but they are still significantly more affordable than the expensive premium SEO tools.
- Full Control. Most online marketing tactics need to follow policies and protocols such as AdWords and Google. Aside from the usual email spamming that you must avoid, there are no other restrictions when using this particular ecommerce marketing tactic.
Types of Email Marketing Strategy
Effective email marketing is made up of specific steps that could enhance your Internet-based marketing campaign. Here are some of the things to include in your email for better and successful results:
Offers
A good ecommerce strategy through email offers gives help and provides what the recipient is looking for. Make sure however that your offer does not feel sale-sy or pushy that could turn your potential customers off. Promote email offers that would basically help your recipients. Take note that when people feel they have a very good reason to buy something, you don’t need to push them into buying your products or services.
Content
Content email marketing is a popular and widely used ecommerce strategy. It is done through creating a content piece that usually contains infographics, report, video, article, and the likes. The email is content-rich which tells your recipients about the product or service that you promote. The strategy also gives people the impression that you are a trusted source. It helps you establish relationships with the people in your email list and increases your chances of getting sales and profits.
Relationship Building
One of the primary reasons why online marketers send email to their subscribers or target market is in order to build rapport. People basically trust and prefer your product and service over your competition if they have built a healthy and good bond with you. Email marketing is designed to make that happen. Take note that you need not promote or sell in your email. In fact, you need to use other strategies such as sharing an opinion or good-to-know contents that could help them.
3. PPC Marketing
PPC or Pay per Click is an Internet marketing model which online marketers and business owners have been doing for some time now. Advertisers pay a fixed fee every time their ads are clicked. In other words, it is like buying visits or leads that are generated to your website. Search engine advertising is considered one of the leading PPC forms available today.
Check out some of the most important ecommerce marketing schemes under the PPC category:
Google Adwords
This SEO tool is a great method that would get your online store or business off the ground in a much faster phase. It basically drives your targeted traffic to your website. With proper and regular usage, Google Adwords is a money pit according to online marketers.
Product Listing Ads
The online marketing tool is more shopping centric compared to Google Adwords. The main focus of the advertising campaign is a particular or collection of products you want to promote. Unlike Google Adwords, this PPC method is much cheaper while the conversion rates are impressively higher.
Facebook Ads
Facebook is a global online phenomenon that swept the world by storm. No wonder it is also a remarkable venue where you can post ads that could generate traffic to your business site. Facebook ads are also good options if you want to establish and build a strong email list or fan base. A lot of people use Facebook in a daily basis regardless of time zone and economic status. Thus, if you want to have a surefire PPC campaign, make sure you put Facebook on top of your list.
Comparison Shopping Engines
There are websites that offer remarkable PPC tools for online merchants and marketers. Sites such as PriceGrabber, Nextag, and Shopzilla are just few of the places where you can get traffic as well as organic searches. Generated leads are commercial and cheap and could easily convert to sales and revenues.
4. Social Media
The world of social media is a constantly ballooning niche. More and more people depend on social media for personal connection, communal interaction, and commercial transactions. There are various social networking sites where you can find your target market or clientele. Some sites have billions of followers or users where your business could easily find people that are interested with your offered products or services.
Online users are now using social media for organic searches aside from major search engines. In fact, YouTube is becoming a leading venue where people search for something or stuffs they want to learn and understand. Ecommerce marketing ensures remarkable results if you create social media profiles and maximize their features.
Most Popular Social Media Sites
Create your profile and business pages in various social networking sites to communicate with customers and establish brand awareness and presence:
- Google+
- YouTube
Product Reviews
New products and brands face various challenges especially in creating awareness and establishing trust with its target market. Product reviews are strategic ecommerce marketing schemes that could effectively give your new business name a huge boost. Customers would know the features, strengths and weaknesses of your product. The more they know about a particular brand, the more likely they are going to prefer it above the competition.
Contests and Giveaways
People are attracted to freebies and promos. Thus, if you promote a contest or offer giveaways in your social networking site, you will surely get a boost in your social follower and email list. There are various ways on how you can maximize this particular tactic especially if there are holidays or celebrations. Give a Valentine’s Day discount or create a contest for the best outfit of the day and post them in your business page. These are just few of the ecommerce marketing tactics that have proven the power of freebies and discounts for better sales.
Growth Hacking
This social media strategy is all about a powerful combination of all the strategies in the social media category. Put together product reviews, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other widely used social networks and you have a growth hacking strategy to boost your ecommerce campaign.
5. Other Ecommerce Marketing Schemes
The limitless world of ecommerce marketing is going to make your online business campaign rewarding or disastrous. It all depends on you. How you use and maximize the different ecommerce strategies available at your disposable is what makes a world of difference. You can allot a good amount of your time to learn the ropes or hire an ecommerce marketer for the job. There are also new online marketing products and software that are designed to cater to the ever changing needs in the Internet marketplace.
Check out some of the other ecommerce marketing schemes available for all types of businesses in different niches:
Video Marketing
YouTube is no doubt the best place where you can do video marketing. With billions of users in a daily basis, the site can serve your purpose and help deliver your goals. There are various ways how your video can reach your potential market. Video marketing may contain information such as how-to videos. There are also documentaries and infomercials that you can find in YouTube. The best videos usually contain must-know clips that you can integrate with your sales pitch in the end.
Affiliate Marketing
This is a complicated niche in the ecommerce marketing campaign. Online businesses and merchants get to hire affiliate marketers or affiliate marketing companies to help promote their site. The compensation system in affiliate marketing may differ from one merchant to another. It helps to know the basics of affiliate marketing first before you consider it. For most online marketers, this scheme could eat into profits. However, it could definitely get extra sales here and there.
Related Industries
Ecommerce marketing is not a one-man show. The adage “no man is an island” is also applicable to this niche. Thus, you can approach other online business owners and stores in related market to foster a healthy and lucrative relationship. You can go the extra mile and become more daring with your campaign. A “you scratch my back, I scratch yours” tactic may not hurt if you know what to do.
Forums and Q&As
Create a venue where people could find the solution to their concerns especially the solutions that promote your business. Q&A sites and online forums are sure hit in the ecommerce marketing scheme. Make sure that you also join other online groups and discussions to see how your product or service could help users in the site. An important reminder you must always bear in mind is to avoid spamming, at all times. People will instantly block you and your chances of promoting your brand and getting sales would all go down to the drain.
Ecommerce Marketing Reminders
There are salient pointers to always remember for effective ecommerce campaign. All expert marketers know the rules and novices in the site must learn and understand the basics. If you want to implement a successful ecommerce marketing campaign make sure that you have a specific niche or target. Avoid generalizations. Always personalize and create contents that would stick to the minds and consciousness of your target audience.
Ecommerce marketing schemes need to be flexible and dynamic just like the online world that they serve. Web developers, Online marketers and business owners need to constantly watch the changes and modifications in the market today. Use the latest ecommerce marketing schemes and discard outdated ones that no longer cater to your changing market.