Driving Traffic to Your Online Store
You can think about marketing your ecommerce site in terms of three main audiences:
- People who have shopped with you before or at least know about your store
- People who are looking for the kind of product that you offer
- People who would want the product that you offer if they knew about it
Admittedly, this is a simplistic way to think about it, but dividing your time and budget between three different marketing activities can help you to be more effective.
If you want to reach your first audience, the people who already know about you, you should use a direct communication method like email, content marketing, or social media. You can communicate with your customers directly and without any additional costs.
To reach your second audience, you’ll need to find ways to let them know about the products you have that would be useful to them. This includes improving your website for search engines, creating content such as blogs, and advertising on search engines.
You will need to think of ways to make your third audience aware of your brand. Do you think you can solve a problem your customer may not even be aware of yet? Or is your target audience using a competitor’s solution? Your answers will affect your marketing strategy.
After your store is ready, you can begin advertising it to your current customers. We’ll discuss how to make your website easy to find for potential customers who are interested in your product and how to spend your advertising budget wisely to ensure your message is seen by people who are likely to be interested in it.
Merchants can promote their store without an expensive agency. This article contains 11 marketing techniques that can be easily done by businesses of any size, on any budget.
If sellers use these methods, they will have a marketing strategy that allows them to connect with customers who keep coming back, as well as attracting new ones.
Spread the word on social media
It is important to be consistent with social media marketing in order to frequently engage customers that you are trying to reach. This means posting regularly at times that fit well with their schedules.
You shouldn’t try to use every social media platform because you will spread yourself too thin. Instead of focusing on channels that their buyers are not using, focus on the channels that their buyers are actually using. Track which platforms their buyers are using the most with data-driven tools, such as Google Analytics.
Choose the social media platforms that your customers use the most and share information about your industry that will be useful to them.
You should share links to your website and products with customers, but don’t give them too many direct ads. If you promote yourself too much on social media, it will make your account seem less useful and helpful to potential customers. You should keep your ratio at 80/20, with 80% of your content being about topical industry news and 20% of it plugging your site and products.
You don’t need to constantly monitor your social media accounts if you use a social media management platform like Buffer to post regularly. This software allows you to schedule posts ahead of time, as well as track the performance of your posts from one central location.
Utilize PPC advertising
PPC is an advertising model in which companies pay for each click on their ad. Advertising through pay-per-click allows you to evaluate if the campaigns are profitable by looking at how much the ad costs in relation to the number of people who view it and the sales that it generates.
The most popular type of PPC software is Google AdWords. AdWords allows you to create ads that will appear on Google’s search engine. You can pay for your ad placement through an auction process. The amount of money you are willing to spend on a keyword bid, as well as the quality of your ad, will determine which ads are chosen. You can link your Analytics and AdWords accounts to measure customers’ activity after they click on a Google ad. This way, you can see how effective your ad campaign is in terms of driving traffic and customers taking action on your website. This post by AdEspresso explains how you can improve your Facebook ads.
Social media advertising also utilizes PPC models. Advertising on social media platforms appears on a users feed or timeline, and payment is determined by CPC (cost per click) or CPM (cost per thousand impressions). There are many social media channels that use paid advertising, such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Snapchat.
To be successful with PPC, you need to keep testing and improving your campaigns. By frequently reviewing your paid advertising campaigns, you can ensure that your money is being well spent to generate more traffic and sales.
Form strategic partnerships
Make connections with big players in your field to drum up excitement for your store. Reach out to popular bloggers in your industry and see if they’d be open to writing a review of your products or website. Most bloggers are always looking for new content to post about, so this could be a win-win for both of you. If you want to increase the number of visitors to your website, you can have it featured on a popular site. This will help you attract thousands of potential customers who are interested in what you have to offer.
It would also be beneficial to connect with social media influencers in your industry who can post and share content about your store. Once you’ve identified social media accounts that have large amounts of followers and are affiliated with your industry, begin engaging with them on a regular basis:
- Like their Facebook profiles and Pages.
- Retweet, like, or reply to major influencers’ tweets, especially if they are about your store. Comment and thank influencers who retweet your posts.
- Search the people who use your hashtags on Instagram to see if any major influencers have used these keywords, and follow any influencers you find.
Connecting with major industry players will help to increase awareness of your brand and products, which in turn will help promote your store. Look for software that will help you with your marketing and networking needs. It allows users to connect with bloggers and influencers, and reports on the performance of the content they have shared.
Starting an affiliate marketing program is a great way to partnering with influential bloggers in your industry.
Launch podcast ads
Marketing doesn’t always need to be visual. Advertising on podcasts is an effective way to reach your desired listeners because podcasts are often focused on particular niche audiences. Many online stores, such as Dollar Shave Club and Blue Apron, have found success in using podcast ads to reach and engage buyers.
Look for podcasts related to your industry and contact them to talk about fees and how your brand can provide value. Your messaging will benefit from a solid understanding of why your products are useful and worth buying. If you are not familiar with podcasts, you can go to Midroll.com. This website connects companies and brands with podcasts for advertising purposes.
Think about what you want to say in your ad before choosing where to place it in your podcast. If you only need a few lines for your ad, it’s best to put it at the beginning or end of the podcast as a shorter pre-roll or post-roll spot. If you want your message to be heard by a larger audience, place a longer mid-roll ad in the middle of the podcasts. This will ensure that listeners are more engaged and invested in what you have to say. Mid-roll ads are generally more expensive than pre- or post-roll ads.
Go multichannel to attract more buyers
By selling your product on multiple channels, you can reach a larger audience and expand your brand. Some popular channels include Amazon, eBay, and Etsy. If you want to sell more, you should sell on multiple channels according to Sellbrite’s research. Their research indicates that merchants who sell on 3 or more channels sell 144% more.
Because marketplaces receive more traffic than a single online store, selling on multiple venues increases the visibility of your online store and brand. Different channels attract different types of customers who might not have found your store if they hadn’t been looking on that specific channel. spamming potential customers with your product across multiple channels
Exposing potential customers to your products through marketplaces is a good way to get them interested in your brand and encourage them to explore your products more on your online store.
How can you efficiently distribute your inventory among multiple channels to avoid overselling and delivery issues? You can manage inventory easily with a program like Sellbrite. Our software allows you to control your listings and shipping across all channels from a single interface so that you can fulfill orders from one interface.
Utilize (and keep building) your email list.
Email marketing is still important even for stores that are not online. Make a list of everyone you can think of who would want to know about your store opening, including customers, prospective customers, and people interested in your events. When you launch, you can send an email to everyone on the list letting them know that your store is now open online.
It may be beneficial to offer a promotion or referral discount to those on your email list in order to incentivize customers to share your site with others.
Email is still one of the most effective marketing tools, so make sure to collect email addresses on your site. Some brands offer a small promotion, like 15% off their first purchase or free shipping, in exchange for users’ email addresses.
It is important to keep a good communication line with your email list subscribers. Email regularly to promote content, new products, and other news that will bring customers back to your site.
Create interesting, useful content.
If you want to bring traffic to your site and establish your brand as an authoritative voice in your industry, creating high-quality content for people interested in your product is a great way to do it.
Optimize your site for SEO.
SEO covers a lot of ground and can be very time-consuming. Some things to keep in mind if you are new to this:
Think about what your target audience would want to know about your product and how they would talk about it.
Pay attention to on-page content. The on-page content of a website are the titles and descriptions of products, the images, any blog posts or other written content, and so on. You want to ensure that this content uses language that your customers would use when searching for similar products, and that it answers their questions.
Meta tags are important as well. The title tag is like a headline for a search engine. It helps the search engine determine what each page is about. Each page of website should have a different title tag. Meta descriptions are short summaries of each page. When a user searches for something on a search engine and your site comes up on the results page, the title tag and meta description are the first things that the user will see.
Try out Google Ads.
The Google Ads program allows you to place bids on keywords, so that your website will appear first in search engine results pages. Search engine optimization is all about getting the coveted “top spot”. However, Google Ads will still be shown first.
If you’re looking to increase traffic to your website,search engine marketing is a great option that doesn’t require any design changes. This type of marketing can be very effective in getting new visitors to your site. The results of your campaign will be available immediately, allowing you to adapt your strategy based on its performance.
Participate in online events and discussions.
There may be opportunities to increase brand awareness with target communities as online communication and events surge. Get your business out there by participating in webinars or virtual conferences.
If you’re looking to do some shopping online, be sure to check out any virtual malls or marketplaces that are available. These can be great places to find deals on a wide variety of items.
Leverage your offline store(s).
If you have a brick-and-mortar business that is already well-known and has a lot of loyal customers, you can use the time you spend with them in person to help drive traffic to your new online store.
For example, you can use non-intrusive ways to help customers stay engaged with your brand even after they leave the store, such as through social media platforms or email marketing campaigns. Some things you can do to increase customer loyalty are to get them to sign up for your email list, tell them about your customer loyalty program, and make them aware of any promotions you’re running on social media.
You might want to consider creating flyers with promotion codes that can be shared with friends and family members who do not live near your physical store. This could help to increase your customer base. Your customers who shop with you in person can be your biggest fans and help you promote your brand to many people.
Conclusion
If you’re selling online for the first time, or trying to make your online presence more important, it can seem daunting. But it’s definitely something you can do, especially if you take it one step at a time.
If you want to be successful, you should remain consistent in your actions, be patient, and not try to take on too much at one time. Choose a few of the marketing tactics here that you think will bring the most reward for your business. As you start to see results, tweak and adjust what you are doing.
