E-Commerce Marketplace Blog

Tag: Digital Marketing

  • How to effectively use Social Media for your E Commerce Business

    Social media these days is one of the primary ways to interact with friends and family on internet. However, almost all social media channels also double up as venues for facilitating E Commerce activities. Social media websites can be utilized for brand awareness, launching new products, creating sales funnel among many other things.

    Social media can also be used as customer communication channels where complaints and inquiries can be handled right on the social media website.

    Social media can also to be used to develop granular insight into the customer behaviour so that you know your customer base and you can move to end of funnel pretty quickly (in this case, sales)

    Your E Commerce store can benefit from being on social media and utilizing the benefits of a targeted campaigns run on social media with deep analysis done on your customer segment.

     

    Select your social media platform carefully

    The idea is not to start on all social media platforms at once and then get overwhelmed checking up the engagement on each of them.

    If you are a sole entrepreneur or a business owner with small marketing team, trying to be on every social media platform at once meaning stretching your limited resources.

    Let us say your product needs an explainer or a live tutorial (like a how-to-use video). Video would be obvious choice for marketing. And the platform that serves the best interest is YouTube. YouTube viewers are used to long videos and they will not mind watching a well-made video.

    However, if your product appeals to families or friends who interact a lot with each other, you may prefer Facebook as that kind of engagement gets higher reward over there.

    If you prefer short form videos, Instagram and Tik Tok are your friends and if images are what are important to you, Pinterest is the right place.

    If virality is important to you and your product line needs rapid coverage, X will better serve your needs.

     

    Influencer marketing

    Social media created a new generation of celebrities. They are called as influencers. Even though the term does not have a lot of positives associated with it, influencers are a major force in the social media world.

    A reliable influencer can readily convince their follower to give your products a try. They can become brand awareness consultants for your brand, taking your new product launches to their million of followers.

    This obviously introduces a level of scale that is not possible with just plain advertising.

    However, you need to be aware if the influencer has the right reach and credentials to connect with the followers. And, that influencer needs to be knowledgeable about the industry he is going to work with.

    Understand how interactions work in social media context

    Social media interactions are different compared to other styles of interactions. In a phone or email conversation, a limited number of people are involved and there is almost no virality.

    However, with social media, every statement that your company writes, is broadcast to the world. The statements may generate further discussions which may be positive or negative.

    The primary idea on social media is to show that your brand is mature enough to handle all kinds of feedback such as praise, criticism or worse, trolling. Respectful answering in the face of provocation, with facts indicates that you can handle criticism of your product and are willing to incorporate changes to make your product a better one.

    Using nonorganic methods to promote your products

    Yes, we all want almost zero cost virality. In recent years, the organic reach of the pages esp. in Facebook has been going down continuously. That means social media companies would want to cut the free traffic and charge you for showing your products and campaigns to their users.

    With the paid advertising, there are a number of features that social media platforms provide. You can for example with paid advertising, target a specific set of people, you want to reach. It could location, gender or interest groups. This may not be possible in a organic sharing. The reach may be far restricted than the paid campaign

  • Why small businesses need digital marketing?

    Why small businesses need digital marketing?

    In the era of social media, it is imperative that your E Commerce product needs to leverage the power of already existing networks that are curated by various social media giants.

    Using Google to leverage your content effectively, so that users can land on your page based on search results will work wonders for your E Commerce project.

    Let us discuss a few ways digital marketing helps you break new ground in your marketing and how is it essential to your business’s success.

    Reach

    A small business will often find it difficult to reach audience on a limited budget. Building an engaged base requires money, time, and teams to manage expectations. Social media instantly allows a small business to enhance the reach. The virality generated by a relevant content idea can reap its own reward without spending any additional dollar. Users share what they like on social media with their friends, and your content can effectively spread in a geometric fashion.

    Cost Effectiveness

    The costs of running an advertising campaign on social media is not remarkably high when compared to offline advertising for example using a billboard or using printed material to highlight your business.

    You can also use Search engine optimized content to give Google search a reason to display your link when products related to your categories are mentioned. It is often almost like a free traffic. Once you create articles or tutorials that have value to your prospects and keeps them on the hook, you will be rewarded with repeat traffic from search engines, even when you are not actively managing any ad campaign.

     

    Competition

    There are big sharks in E Commerce space and trust me when I say that you can not outspend them in advertising. They have specialized team and unlimited budgets and can bury your E Commerce site under their advertising blitz. The internet however levels this by giving you a chance to showcase your expertise in your product. Big competitors often will find it difficult to create content for every category and product they are in. That means using social media you can always have a leg up over them. By smartly creating helpful content which is authoritative you can bypass heavy spends and yet shine on the internet

    Results analysis

    The biggest advantage of online advertising is immediate data analysis available for your campaigns. You need to add markers often in the form of URLs parameters to your product and share the URLs for a specific purpose. You can instantly find in your analytics panel if people are clicking on URL and if you are getting engagement that you thought you would get. In addition to your own analytics, there are analytics dashboards provided by social media companies as well as Google to help you measure effectiveness of your campaigns.

    Using this data, you can see if your campaign is working well or it needs some tweaking. You can respond faster based on the data and increase your chances at higher sales.

    Customer retention

    We all like to entertained from time to time. Some brands do it very well. They often share witty updates on your social media timeline. The engagement that it may generate helps social media companies to reward you with more eyeballs since your content helps user to stay on their sites longer which is exactly the metrics they measure and report to their shareholders.

    In case of Google search, results mean the search is actually being effective at getting results and google loves it when you deliver on that promise.

    Repeated content, which is of high quality, helps not only create engaged customer base but also helps increase sales over time.

    Often you may receive feedback from customers right on the social media. You should be ready to take that into account and incorporate it into your process.

    Photo by Kindel Media

  • How to promote your E Commerce Store?

    How to promote your E Commerce Store?

    E Commerce store is easy to start. But one needs to be aware of the extreme competition in E Commerce world and the need to stand out among the crowd. It is a slow, grinding path to the end. If done right, the rewards are plenty.

    Next, we list out some of important and useful ways to promote your E Commerce store.

     

    High-quality product titles and descriptions

    The first step to a wonderful experience to an E Commerce site is attractive product titles and descriptions. You can create product titles that are SEO friendly.  Your product description may de divided into sections organized neatly. It should be easy to read and should provide a professional look for your site. If needed, you can create tables or comparison charts to make a point in favour of your product.  You may add images and videos to further enhance the appeal of your product.

    Clean and bright images

    Investing a good camera, photographic equipment is necessary. Clean images form the backbone of high-quality product listing. You would need images in various resolutions that satisfy printing requirements, multiple browsers, and multiple screen sizes. They also need to be mobile friendly. They need to be shareable as well, as sharing gives an opportunity for your product to be marketed at no extra cost to you.

    If you can’t take quality photos yourself, invest in a great photographer who can help you in this endeavour.

    Great content on the website based on Keyword research.

    In addition to the product titles, descriptions, and images, you may also incorporate blogging into your website. Blogging which is search engine friendly and which has an option to share the posts, helps people share information about you with their friends and provides you with free marketing (except for the expense of writing a great blog post).

    In addition, it helps you trigger word of mouth promotion which is radial and free.

     

    Use Social media!

    If you have budgeted money for advertising and marketing, use some part of it for social media marketing. Large companies such as Facebook, Pinterest and X have a sizeable population which is also engaged in their subject of interests. You may find groups of people whom you can target or also do interest based individual targeting. The ad should lead to your website and there should be a clean way to make the purchase.

    Influencer marketing

    Influencer marketing has become infamous for the actions of a few annoying influencers. However, in this age, one cannot wish away influencer marketing. An influencer may have fans who are eager to give a try to the product because the influencer has recommended it. This works great for electronics, restaurants and beauty industries. Strategic partnerships with influencers can help your brands go places you can not reach easily organically.

    Email Marketing

    Email Marketing is one of the most powerful methods to market your products. If an interested party (your lead/customer) has given you a permission allowing you to send them emails about your product, consider it is a privilege. People read their emails very seriously and will act on your recommendations. You need to make your emails readable and interesting.

    Also do not spam. You could be unsubscribed and even fined for spamming.

    Time sensitive discounting and promotions

    In marketing terms, marketeer creates the urgency when they can show that either prices are going to rise or stocks are going to zero in a certain time. Real Estate industry has shown to utilize this tactic very effectively. You may also use time sensitive discounts or discounts based on festivals or events to drive sales. This tactic is meaningful though when your E Commerce store has achieved certain level of virality.

     

    Photo by Pressmaster

  • How to successfully compete with E Commerce Giants

    How to successfully compete with E Commerce Giants

    So, you have decided to venture into your own E Commerce business. Welcome to the world of possibilities. There are more opportunities than even before in this area. However, you also need to know in this sea, there are giant sharks. Large E Commerce companies with huge marketing budgets and often predatory tactics can reduce your profit margin in a straightforward way to causing your venture to shut down at the extreme.

    Here are a few ways, your small or medium size E Commerce venture can compete against these sharks in the E Commerce world.

    Planning

    E Commerce startups often underestimate the importance of planning. You are stepping in a place where there are giant sharks waiting to eat you for lunch. You need to be able to find out how you are going to out compete. You need to do thorough research about their marketing and their strategies. It is similar to guerilla marketing tactics where you are the nimble task force fighting a mighty army. Planning at the strategic level as to what things you would compete upon (like offering/ price / customer experience) and then at the tactical level such as what steps would you take to make your offering better w.r.t. to your large competitors. It needs careful considers and market research.

    Local flavor

    Your large competitor is stretched thin. The segment they are in needs to be profitable enough for them to give you competition. They will find it difficult to conduct operation in every local segment. You may leverage your knowledge of area, local product, local language to create a strong offering that your competitor simply cannot match without devoting substantial resources to achieve similar results.

    Strong niche

    Your enemies i.e., the giants of E Commerce are often stretched. They have cost structures and often optimize for sales and cost. It is impossible for physical reasons for them to focus on every segment of the market and yet win profitably. That is where you can shine. You can determine the areas where you are strong. It could be your price because of sourcing, or it could be quality of your product or patents that you hold.

    If you perform well and deliver value, it will be difficult for the large competitors to dislodge you.

     

    Personal Connections to the shoppers

    E Commerce giants provide services that are automated. One needs to go through multiple levels of chatbots conversations, and AI provided answers which causes dissatisfaction. On your website on the other hand, you can provide a work phone and /or a WhatsApp number for rapid answers to your customer’s questions. You customers may like such levels of personalization.

    A thank you note to the buyers and if possible, a call asking them about their satisfaction of the product is how you build a long-term relationship with them.

     

    Your personal story

    If there is a business, there is a story. Is there a story for your business, a customer can instantly connect with and identify with?

    For example, often stories talk about how founders struggled through their life experiences and then stepped up to provide you the best of the breed solutions. A personal story helps a customer relate to their own experiences of struggles.

    You need to make sure that you have genuine reasons behind your story as your honesty will be rewarded with free advertisement and sales later.

    Unique marketing techniques

    Giant e commerce companies use billboards, big festivals and big ad spends to attract eyeballs because they have big budgets to spend.

    To counter, you can go low cost, high impact tactics such as surprise gifts, detailed content videos for example tutorials/ how to use your products. You may utilize humor to craft engagement that suits your product line and not cater to whole market that your large competitor needs to cater to.

    Leveraging social media to the maximum

    Social media is easy and cheap medium to get famous. Create and share posts and ask your friends and family to share them on their timelines. It instantly builds up the trust without need to spend additional money. You can also create product pages and share helpful content and updates. You can create group where you can share your expertise and even others can chime in too with their opinions. Keep an eye open for the feedback and respond personally and constructively.

    Image by Waldryano from Pixabay