15 Highly Effective Ways to Promote Your eCommerce Business

With a product to sell, the next wise move would be to hit the internet and set up an eCommerce business as this is a literal gold mine for customers. After setting up, the next step is finding ways to lead potential customers to your site. Without an effective marketing plan, it will be hard for your eCommerce business to be visible and you will end up flopping.

If you are clueless on how to promote your eCommerce business, here are 15 highly effective ways to promote your eCommerce business:

1. Email Marketing

Email marketing has stood the test of time and remains to be one of the best methods for leading customers and convincing them to indulge in buying more. Email marketing rides on the fact that customers will open emails irrespective of whether it’s just a simple advertisement. As such, set up an email marketing campaign and use it to keep in touch with your customers, sell them your products and also keeping them in the know of new offers and services. A great example of the use of email marketing is SuperBabyOnline who send tips on child development to people who have subscribed to their newsletter.

2. Diversity in Your Social Media Platforms

Don’t’ just stick to one social media platform when promoting your business. Instead, spread them out and after some time, cut on the platforms that are not effective.  Open up Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest and such accounts. Distribute your content on these platforms. After that, seek the services of analytic tools for social media analysis to help you identify which platform works best for your business.

3. Personalize Your Marketing Campaign

Customers respond more to companies that use ‘faces’ in their promotion. The idea behind this is using a person or two as your brand or the ‘face’ of your business. Other techniques include addressing your clients with their names when sending emails, involving your employees in videos and their images when you show how your products are made. Every little detail you dedicate to personalization will make your clients feel special.

4. Generate Your Own Content

When looking for content to post on their websites or social media platforms, some platforms pull content from around the web in a bid to boost their SEO and also free up time for other tasks. However, such content does not have the same effect as original content. Original content such as blog posts, eBooks, videos and audio segments help establish your eCommerce site as a source of knowledge for people who might be interested in knowing more about your market.

5. Incorporate Contextual Marketing

Contextual marketing means putting your message in the right places and at the right time while connecting to your demographics. A great example is Oreo’s Super Bowl tweet, where they took advantage of the lighting problem in the Super Bowl XLVII stadium and tweeted “you can still dunk in the dark” to viral success. This was a combination of humor and timelines and addressed an audience that indulges in snacks during a game.

6. Results to User-Generated Content

As an eCommerce business owner, strive to connect with the customers and one of the best ways to build interaction is through user-generated content. It is also good as you do not have to pump in much time or money into the campaign. Ask people to participate in selfie challenges, submit their videos doing a particular thing or even submit their own blog posts to build up interaction.

7. Loyalty Programs

Do you want your customers to feel appreciated after spending money on your products and also have them come back to your store? Well, implement a loyalty program. Through this, you will convince your loyal customers to spend some extra money and in doing so, they will be rewarded for it.

8. Automation of Social Media Platforms

Automating your social media platforms is an effective way to free up some time for other tasks that are vital to your business. For example, you could have a month’s Facebook posts all written down and scheduled. This way, you don’t have to think about Facebook posts for that month. This means that you don’t have to halt everything you are doing daily or weekly so as to post content on your platforms.

9. Use of Native Languages

Once an eCommerce site expands, it is no wonder for it to start selling its wares to people all over the world. However, just because your native language is English shouldn’t limit the language on your site to English only. You could increase sales by using native languages to reach out to other people. For that reason, you can reach out to more people by offering translation services on your online store. This way, you won’t exclude people who are not familiar with your language.

10. Optimize Your Site for the Mobile World

Many of your clients will probably access your site through their mobile phones. Such customers would want mobile responsiveness when on your site. This means that they don’t have to open a completely different mobile site so as to interact with a mobile-friendly interface. For that reason, when creating the site, implement a responsive interface to enable the site to transform for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.

11. Online Discussion Areas

Strive to build a community around your eCommerce store and a great way to do so is through forums, message boards and chat areas on your site. They will make your site an authoritative discussion platform and this will drive your store through user-generated content.

12. Pack Your Content With Photos

Use of photos drives people to click on IT and they will most likely read through your content. Instead of using stock photos, take professional photos of your products and this will keep people glued to your content.

13. Be in the Know

Industry news is a great source of content ideas which you can share with your clients. Even if the material may seem complicated, take the initiative to break it down and make it easy for the customer to understand. As such, always stay updated on what is happening in your industry.

14. Reduce Steps on Your Site

Assess your site to see that it has the fewest steps for customers to get to what they want. You can also have customers walk through the processes and give you feedback on how fast the various processes were. You can then minimize on unnecessary steps based on their feedback.

15. Product Reviews From Customers

Many people are led to buy stuff simply because of the ratings and reviews to the products or the sites. This is because product reviews provide social credibility and customers will be convinced to buy products from the user feedback. As such, push your customers to write product reviews to promote your products and in the process, promote your business.

Your site won’t get traffic simply because it is on the web. As you have you seen, there are many ways to promote and generate traffic. Use the ways you find suitable for your eCommerce business so as to achieve conversions.