Have you taken a good look at the current eCommerce strategies your brand is utilizing? Are those tactics driving significant results or are they keeping your brand just above the water?
There are various strategies for building, designing and marketing your online store. To help you reach more customers, drive more traffic and increase conversions, we're sharing 10 eCommerce strategies that will help you exceed your revenue goals.
10 eCommerce Strategies: Increase Reach & Drive Sales
Convert more visitors into customers and increase return on investment by implementing the following eCommerce strategies into your website and marketing plan:- Establish SMART goals
- Create buyer personas
- Create a content strategy framework
- Establish a social media branding strategy
- Take advantage of marketing tools
- Have an optimized email marketing strategy
- Use paid media to increase reach
- Use paid search and SEO
- Leverage on-site search
- Optimize your store for mobile
Establish SMART Goals
When establishing goals for your company or organization, be sure they're SMART - Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. Following this framework helps to ensure that you set reasonable goals based on your circumstances and time.
For example, a common goal for eCommerce brands is to increase revenue. To make this goal SMART, think about how you're going to increase revenue. How will you measure results?
Try changing the goal to something like, "optimize our SEO strategy to increase organic revenue by 20% by December 31st." This clearly defines sets a timeline and allows for measurable results.
Create Buyer Personas
Buyer personas are great for segmenting your audience and customizing campaigns to cater to different customers' needs. Base your buyer personas off of your existing customers and their intentions with your brand.
Buyer personas take demographics into consideration; however, they go beyond just demographics and buyer profiles. Effective buyer personas involve individual behaviors, like how the customer uses the product, what they intend to do with it and what problem it solves for them.
Create A Content Strategy Framework
In addition to setting SMART goals and creating buyer personas, we encourage eCommerce brands to create a content strategy framework. Before creating and publishing content, conduct some keyword research to identify search volumes and competition. Then, determine topics that are relevant to your brand and optimize your SEO to rank in search results for those keywords.
Whether you sell B2B or B2C, ensure your brand voice remains consistent throughout all of your content − even if more than one person on your team posts on social media. All of your blogs and eBooks should be written with the same tone of voice to maintain a consistent brand image.
Don't be afraid to explore different content formats, too. There are so many benefits of content marketing, so take advantage of not only blogs and guides, but also infographics, videos, case studies, webinars and more.
Last, make sure the file formats throughout your site are best fit for your users. For example, a large .zip file is inappropriate for mobile shoppers and will contribute to slower page load times. Rather, use smaller file formats, like .png or .jpg, to increase load time and improve the user experience.
Establish A Social Media Branding Strategy
Increase reach and engage more users at every stage of the buyer's journey with a strong social media presence. Remember how we said to keep your brand voice and tone the same throughout all of your content? That holds true with social media, too; however, social media is a great outlet to converse with your audience on a more personal level.
Be sure to engage with comments (both positive and negative), answer all direct messages and make your audience feel like they're part of a larger community. A successful social media branding strategy prioritizes users, shows authenticity and remains engaged in a human-like way.
Take Advantage of Marketing Tools
To survive in the modern eCommerce landscape, many businesses benefit from leveraging marketing tools. There are so many tools available, so how do you know which is best for your business needs? We recommend doing some research before investing in a tool.
In the video below, Bethany shares some of the trusted marketing tools we use here at Groove.
For more details about each of the eCommerce marketing tools that Bethany discussed, check out this blog. More specifically, there are a variety of tools different business needs.
Want to improve your SEO strategy and drive more organic traffic to your website? Take advantage of any of these 18 SEO tools. Want to improve your social media strategy to engage more users and drive conversions? Check out the 4 social media marketing tools our team trusts.
Have An Optimized Email Marketing Strategy
Did you know that email marketing remains one of the highest-converting channels for eCommerce businesses? Email marketing is one of the most integral eCommerce strategies because it holds incredible potential for increasing conversions and return on investment.
It is projected that by 2021, the number of emails sent and received each day will reach 320 billion. Since building and scheduling emails can take a lot of effort, we recommend using automation to save yourself time.
Whether you want to automate sales emails or run special promotions for an upcoming holiday sale, use an email automation platform (like HubSpot) to create an automated workflow. Workflows let you send emails to active lists so that when people meet a specific criteria, they're enrolled to receive the automated emails you've created.
Creating a highly optimized email marketing strategy can be challenging at times, so be sure to always follow email marketing best practices.
Use Paid Media To Increase Reach
Paid media is an essential part of a successful advertising strategy, and implementing initiatives like Google Shopping and paid search really help to increase brand awareness and conversions.
We encourage eCommerce businesses to complement their SEO efforts with a strategic paid media approach to increase revenue. There is a ton of opportunity for online advertising, and we particularly find success with Google and Facebook ads.
There are a variety of ad formats available on different platforms, so we recommend doing some research to see which ad formats and social platforms best align with your company's goals. To help you determine the best advertising outlet for your business, take a look at this eCommerce Advertising Guide that covers Google, Gmail, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat advertising.
Use Paid Search And SEO
Paid search and SEO are some of the best eCommerce strategies for increasing reach and driving relevant traffic to your site. Utilize paid search to target highly-specific segments of your audience. Take advantage of Google Text, Shopping and Display Ads so that your brand shows up in relevant search results.
One of the most effective forms of advertising is retargeting. Retargeting is when a brand displays an ad for something that a person previously expressed interest in. These types of ads are 76% more likely to get clicks than regular display ads, according to Connectio.
In addition to leveraging paid search, keeping up with SEO can also help to increase traffic, engagement and conversions. One of our clients, Final Draft, saw a 22% increase in organic revenue after we implemented technical SEO strategies and identified metadata errors, redirect opportunities, site errors and more.
Leverage On-Site Search
Visitors who interact with site search are 3 to 5 times more likely to purchase, and of those purchases, the average order value is 20 to 50% higher than those who don't use site search.
Site search helps customers navigate throughout a website easier and find the specific product(s) they're looking for. Without it, it could take many clicks for someone to find a specific product, and at that point, your best bet is to hope they don't abandon your site.
We encourage all of our clients to implement on-site search to drive conversions. Track your conversion rate and return on investment within your site's KPIs, and we're sure you'll be pleasantly surprised with the results.
Optimize Your Store For Mobile
In a 2019 survey conducted by Google, 59% of shoppers say that being able to shop on mobile is important when deciding which brand or retailer to buy from. Use these mobile eCommerce tips and website optimization strategies to engage and nurture users through the buyer's journey, improve the user experience and drive more online revenue:
- Use sticky CTAs
- Provide a one-page checkout
- Consider the "thumb zone"
- Make the mobile navigation simple
- Use smart search
The prevalence of mobile shoppers is leading websites without a mobile-optimized design to fall behind and lose out on sales. When shoppers need to pinch and zoom to navigate a website, that website is likely to be abandoned, and the shopper will find somewhere else to make a purchase.
Conclusion
Though these eCommerce strategies are beneficial for different things, they all help online stores reach one final goal: more conversions. With over 13 years as a full-service eCommerce agency, the Groove Commerce team is available to assist you with building, designing and growing your online store. Just fill out the form below with any questions or concerns, and a member of our team will be in touch. Cheers!
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