By Zack Devin
E-commerce is the engine that is driving product sales. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, where varying degrees of lockdown protocols hampered traditional retail and bolstered online sales, e-commerce was booming. Many businesses today sell products exclusively online, utilizing the internet’s reach to grow sales while saving tremendously on overhead costs. Given the density of products in online shops and marketplaces, performing dedicated e-commerce marketing to drive traffic and customers to your shop is paramount for continued growth.
Below outlines just a few basic e-commerce marketing practices that can help improve your online sales.
Improve your Shop’s Design and Content
When users access your shop, they will be looking for something attractive and eye catching. Whether that be your product shots, promotional banners, or copy, each faction of your store is critically important. It helps to look at accomplished shops and try to understand where their marketing success lay.
If you own your own e-commerce platform, make sure it is optimized for mobile and tablet use. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to quickly shop and having the interface restrict easy access!
Optimize Email Marketing
Most mailboxes, like Gmail, automatically sort marketing emails into a “Promotions” folder, helping keep their user’s inbox free from the very emails you worked hard on. This makes the probability of a customer opening your email very low and makes the value of each word in your email’s subject that much greater.
In addition, should a user open your email, the design and layout of each email should be clear, concise, and have a direct link to your desired e-commerce page. Overstuffing your email with unnecessary information and pictures is an easy way to deter customers from interacting with emails from you again.
Encourage and Promote User-Generated Content
Shoppers today have a very discerning eye for trusted brands. They reject the idea of being “sold to” and much prefer to feel some familiarity with a brand before making a purchase. A quick way to increase that familiarity and give customers a sense of trust is through user-generated content.
This style of e-commerce marketing feels much more natural to the customer. A clothing brand, for example, will likely see more customers interact with posts featuring an everyday person like themselves rather than a professional model, thus prompting those users to make a purchase. Plus, brand owners get the added benefit for free content!
Localize Your Content
There are plenty of famous examples of brands learning the hard way that unique markets react to content or product offerings differently. Particularly for international businesses, localizing e-commerce marketing content requires a bit more effort and knowledge than creating content for your home market, but the results will speak for themselves.
If you happen to be short on manpower, enlisting the services of a professional digital marketing agency in your target market is an easy solution. Locals will always know their market best and will be able to guide you towards the best marketing practices for optimal sales results.
