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So you have recently developed a shiny, new eCommerce website and are looking to promote and sell your excellent range of products, but where to start? Despite what a lot of blogs and e-books might tell you, building a successful eCommerce website takes plenty of time and effort, including a fair share of trial and error.

In this article, we will look at 7 proven eCommerce marketing strategies to boost sales growth, helping to make your online store a success.

An Overview of Ecommerce Marketing

Ecommerce marketing is a range of practices and techniques that can typically be broken down into three stages:

• The first step is to promote your products via numerous channels to help drive potential customers to your online store. 

• Once a new user is directed to your store, the next stage is to encourage them to purchase with the help of a strong user experience. 

• When a first-time purchase has been completed, the last step is to keep the customer as a long-term patron, resulting in repeat business.

Developing an eCommerce website is not covered by this guide, but there are many website builders out there that can simplify the process and create effective and functional online stores. 

If you prefer WordPress as your chosen content management system, Elementor, Divi and other powerful WordPress page builders might be of great interest.

7 Proven Ecommerce Marketing Strategies To Boost Sales Growth

1. Establish Your Target Audience

Knowing exactly who your target audience is and optimizing your content around their wants and needs are vital to growing a successful online business. However, identifying your key target audience requires thorough research.

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Here are some useful tips to define your primary target audience:

• It is always a good start if you can be ‌part of your intended target audience, allowing you to apply your preferences to your strategy. If you have no interest in the products you are selling, then the task becomes much more difficult.

• Envisage your ideal customers, determine individual profiles for each and think about how to meet their requirements. This will help you build a targeted marketing strategy. 

• Using the profiles you have created, you can then segment your audience to create personalized campaigns. Think locations, behaviors, interests, and professions.

• Once you are up and running, it is important to understand what you are doing successfully and where you could improve. Think of ways to gather feedback and opinions from your customer base, such as a survey that offers incentives.

• Encourage referrals by offering incentives to your customers for promoting your store this can be achieved through social media shares in return for a discount or a prize.

• Conduct regular competitor analysis to stay on top of new trends and products. This can help you identify new niches that may have passed you by. If your competitor’s product is good, then it is up to you to show why yours is better.

• Finally, always be willing to change and adapt. If a campaign hasn’t produced significant results, then analyze how to improve it, or if it needs to be scrapped altogether.

2. Use Keywords To Drive Your Marketing Strategy

When building a search engine marketing strategy, you need to know what the search intent of the user is. In our case, this is likely to be for purchasing ‌or product research. 

Product research-related search terms often contain words like “cheapest”, “best” or “newest”, while customers looking to buy a product are likely to use words such as “shop”, “discount”, and “sale”, for example.

Establishing the intent of your target audience will help you identify the correct keywords to use in your content. An old-school brainstorming session is a great way to build an excellent library of potential keywords before using a keyword research tool such as Ahrefs or Uber Suggest.

3. Ensure Your Product Pages Are Optimized

Your product pages need to be optimized for both text and visual searches. This means high-quality, unique text, images, and video. You will also need a strong call-to-action (CTA) to encourage the user to place an order. 

Product reviews and ‘Social Proof’ are also fundamental to a successful eCommerce website, as a customer is more likely to purchase a product if there is a convincing testimonial from a fellow shopper.

Remember, you can create amazing product pages, but if your website does not function the way it should and impairs the user’s experience, then it might all count for nothing. Applying effective business process automation can turn a potential exit into a sale - assist the customer as much as possible without being invasive.

4. Create Sensible Re-targeting Campaigns

Annoyingly, there will be times when a customer places an item in their cart, ready to buy. Then they suddenly exit the store without making a transaction. There can be many reasons for this, and it is a common occurrence, but not all is lost.

Re-targeting should be one priority of your eCommerce marketing strategy.

Using automated processes, you can send gentle reminders to these ‘nearly customers’  trying to entice them back to your store, perhaps offering a discount or an alternative product.

5. Build a Strong Mailing List

Many unsuccessful online stores have neglected to build up their mailing list and instead have narrowed their marketing plans focusing on search engine optimization and social media. We should not underestimate the role of email marketing.

Build up your mailing list using the following methods:

• Pop-ups asking users to sign up for your newsletter

• Offer discounts for users that have opted-in to your mailing list

• Product giveaways on social media

• An opt-in option at the checkout

• Strategically placed calls-to-action across your website

Keep in mind that when asking people to sign up for your email list, you need to offer something of value.  While coupons and discounts can work, for some brands this can be educational content as well.  

For instance, if you had a golf ecommerce brand it may make sense to create an online course that explains how to get the perfect golf swing.  

The nice thing here is that your offer isn’t selling anything, it’s just educating your audience.  So, they’re much more likely to get a free resource like this and then look at you as a thought leader, which will lead to more sales in the future. 

You can build a list of subscribers with the help of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrRiWwQ3ThI

6. Stay Ahead of the Game With Automated Emails

For any form of marketing, it pays not to be reactive, eCommerce is certainly no exception. 

Automated email campaigns can help you inform your mailing list of a sale or special offer during key periods of the year, as well as entice back customers that have abandoned their shopping cart. This is a powerful tool and a great time saver.

7. Focus on Effective Social Media Campaigns
   

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Establishing a brand is vital if you want to launch an online store that generates sales, and the best place to promote your brand online is via social media. 

Platforms such as Instagram allow you to develop ad campaigns that can target specific audiences, while there are also helpful tools to help you schedule Instagram posts so your page remains active - using a range of software is key to managing each aspect of your campaign without being overwhelmed.

To achieve great social media success and high conversions, we refer you back to our first point, knowing your target audience!

Final Words

We hope our insights have been both digestible and useful, and we wish you and your online store luck with your chosen strategy. 

Remember, successful eCommerce websites are not achieved overnight, and mistakes will be made along the way, the important thing is how you adapt.