Ecommerce business is a relatively young fledgling. Compared to the brick and mortar plan, which has been around and developing for centuries, ecommerce business is practically a baby. Instead of crawling, however, it took of running, and sometimes it’s hard to keep up with the ever-growing and always changing practices of ecommerce marketing. In order to make sure your business is found online, selling, and profitable, it’s important to make sure your marketing campaign is high charged and up to date. It’s true with all marketing, but especially with ecommerce marketing, that you must change your approach in order to continue to be successful. This can easily be exhausting, stressful, and overwhelming. That’s why we’ve got a checklist of all the basics that you’ll need to have to be successful in your 2014 ecommerce marketing endeavors. Got a pen and ready to cross things off? Let’s go.
Say Something New
This sounds shockingly simple, and in some ways it is. Even if you can avoid sounding like a broken record yourself (which a lot of companies seem to struggle with, even some of the bigger ones), you have to make your voice and your content stand out from dozens of other similar businesses. In the past, consumers often had limited access certain products, services, and information based on geographic location. Now, however, they can get a wide array of services online with a few simple clicks, and they can get them from anywhere in the world. Standing out from all that competition can be a daunting task. One of the most important ways to do it is to continually offer new and exciting content that customers are less likely to find elsewhere.
As shoppers continue to take advantage of the growing market, this gets harder. Customers have the option to be picky and a little fickle. While some will be loyal to your name and your brand, some that you provided your best services to may still be swayed by other factors (the big one is the price tag). Having content that is as rich as the diamond deposits in Namibia helps keep those customers around.
Want to know where to improve your content? Revamp your product descriptions, including better and more captivating pictures of your products if applicable. If you have a blog (and for many reasons, it’s recommended that you do), keep it updated and flood it with exciting updates, unique content, and reputable guest bloggers. Take advantage of the frequent use of social media (in some cases, this borders on near reliance), which we’ll talk about a little later on. How-to videos, showing how to use your product, and interactive aids online are both incredibly successful at drawing in customers with a more personalized feel.
A great example of interesting, interactive content can be found at the website for Wen hair care. The product itself, designed by Chaz Dean, is a cleansing conditioner that operates instead of a shampoo. Because people may not know how to use it correctly, he has a video where he shows consumers exactly how to do it. He also has a list of all his conditioners to help customers select which is right for them. Popular make-up companies also have this in the bag: they offer quizzes based on skin-tone, physical features, and fashion sense to offer color palettes and videos of how to use them. Helping a consumer find exactly the right product for them and showing them how to use it can often be accomplished more quickly in a brick-and-mortar store. Using these tactics can help you accomplish this online.
Be Organized
This is another biggie that sounds simple, but a website can easily be muddled down or become confusing. I had a roommate who had our whole kitchen laid out in a way that made perfect sense to her. Unfortunately, it made no sense to me. Instead of the silverware being all together, she kept the spoons by the bowls, and for some reason I’ll never quite understand, the forks and knives with the drinking glasses. She was wonderful, and I adored her, but trying to function in our shared spaces was a constant headache. Moral of the story here: even if a website makes sense to you, it might not make sense to your customers. This is crucial to keep in mind.
Have a clear call to action. Place it strategically on your home page, as well as potentially a sample of your most popular items or any specials going on. Make your site easy to navigate—put everything under clear headings, including your about you, products, and contact sections. Sort your products into categories if you have enough, and make those easy to navigate, too. Make your buying process simple- don’t have a shopping cart that needs ten clicks and sometimes processes orders twice. Nothing will lose a customer faster.
A new obstacle that you now have with ecommerce marketing is making sure your advertisements and website functions on mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets. More and more business is happening through mobile devices now that you could miss an entire demographic by not having your site be compatible. Having versions of your newsletter or e-mail campaign designed just for these devices, keeping in mind not to bog them down or overwhelm them with too much.
Testing your marketing efforts is always important, but that’s going to be especially true when it comes to the design and layout of your marketing campaigns and your website. Have a good friend (or even better, a few good friends) try to navigate your site. Make sure that your system works for everyone else, too.
Have a Wish List
More and more businesses are adding the option for customers to add products to a “wish list” page. This is good for myriad reasons. The first is that if a customer is unable to buy at first glance, they’ll be able to come back to your site and see what they were considering before. Another big one? This often requires customers to create an account your site, meaning you can send them promotional e-mails, and—most importantly, perhaps—reminding them that those items they were looking at are still there and waiting for them. It feels personal, and it prods customers towards returning and making a purchase if they had forgotten. Keeping your business in the forefront of a client’s mind is important, and a wish list will help you do just that.
Make the Most Out of Landing Pages
Landing pages are just what they sound like. It’s a page designed for customers to start on, a page dedicated to special promotions, and it’s an SEO practice that’s been proven to work wonders. Landing pages often have a call to action listed clearly on them, and they tend to have higher conversion rates than using a homepage. If you’re offering a special promotion, be clear about what it is, and underneath plaster a big “Start Shopping Now!” button that will take you right to the products. While the customer could just navigate their way to the products (hopefully with very few clicks due to great layout design!), make it as easy as possible. Make it hard not to do it.
Keep In Touch
You have a customer who has purchased from you. Congratulations! Now you have to keep them, which can be just as difficult as getting them in the first place. One of the best ways to keep a customer is to keep in touch with them. Returning customers are nine times more likely to buy than a new one, so keeping those clients can be crucial.
E-mail is the most traditional way to do this. To make it easy for yourself, you can use a combination of automated, generic systems and personalized e-mails (which can also be automated) to best reach your clients. It’s a simple process. Send thank you e-mails after a client has made a purchase. Send updates every so often of products that you think the customer may like, based on what they’ve already purchased. Ask for feedback and products reviews. If the customer contacts you with questions or concerns, respond quickly with answers or a solution.
Social media is also a great way to keep in touch, as well as a way to reach new clients. Some of that unique, exciting content discussed early needs to come into play here. Post links to your blog or exciting updates in your industry. Share information about exciting promotions and sales. Make contact and build relationships with peers. Ask questions, encouraging customers to respond and interact. Twitter and Facebook are currently among the biggest of the social media giants at the moment, and have millions of daily users. A huge benefit of social media? When users repost your content, or even if they just post on it themselves, everyone in their friends and contacts can see it, giving you more exposure. Having a friendly face vouch for a company can sometimes sell a company more easily than it can sell itself.
Watch Your Prices… And Your Competition
As stated before, while great customer service and everything discussed on this marketing checklist is often needed to keep a customer, so is fair pricing. With more and more options, especially when operating through a less personal ecommerce system, customers are easily fickle and easily swayed. I’m guilty of this as well. Even with experience in commission-based retail, I try not to, but if someone’s offering me the same thing for 20$ cheaper, I’ll head over their way for the big purchases and maybe come back and see you for smaller things. And I tend to be one of the loyal ones.
Keep an eye on your biggest competition. Ecommerce businesses can sometimes offer better pricing than brick-and-mortar stores due to lower overhead costs. You may not need as many employees, you don’t have rent for an actual floor space, etc. Regardless of this, however, ecommerce businesses are largely competing with themselves.
While pricing of your products is important, so is pricing of other aspects of your business. How expensive is shipping? Do you offer free shipping for first time purchases or if the customer spends over a certain threshold? I know I spend the obligated 35$ every time I head to Amazon. Some businesses offer free two-day shipping, period. Evaluate the norms in your industry, as well as shipping costs, and offer the best rates possible for customers. This includes returns, as well. If you can afford to, offering free returns means the customer is more likely to give your product a try since it’s risk free and no money could be lost. It’s a great way to get a customer to trust you and your product, and to fall in love with both.
Sell Everywhere
Having your own site with your product is great. Especially if you’re building up a company, it’s almost needed because it allows you to increase customer loyalty and build brand awareness. Sometimes, however, even with the best SEO practices it can be difficult to get your product as much visibility as you want. Adding your products to multiple channels like eBay and Amazon, two that are very popular and frequently visited, can gain your product new exposure. There are even tools you can use, like ChannelAdvisor, to make this process a simple one. Sales are sales, no matter where they come from, and using multiple channels can increase traffic, sales, and customers.
Go Live
With online businesses, you don’t always have the advantage of salespeople being visible to push sales, recommend products, and answer questions. You do, however, have the option to add live chat to your site, something that more and more businesses are taking advantage of. This gives customers the opportunity to voice concerns and ask questions about a product from someone trained to give an answer and help them immediately, as opposed to searching the internet and getting outdated, slow, or possibly flat out incorrect responses. Having someone instantly available can also boost customer confidence and trust in your business, knowing that if they have a problem, you’ll be there for them.
About Tariehk Geter – Tariehk Geter is the Director of Marketing at OSI Affiliate Software and he loves to share strategies that help businesses sell more. Follow him on Twitter and Google+
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