Special considerations you have to make when marketing your e-commerce brand

Submitted By:
Ashley Rosa

Today, when ecommerce has become the norm, every business is struggling to increase its online sales and conversions. It can be quite a challenge to design and implement a marketing strategy. Growing a successful ecommerce brand will not only require you to formulate a marketing plan but also to make it work to get the maximum results.

Like conventional marketing, no single best strategy in ecommerce marketing will work for each brand. Whether or not, an ecommerce marketing strategy will work for you or not depends on your niche or industry, your products or services, and your target customers.
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Your ecommerce marketing strategy should drive traffic to your online store, help you convert that traffic into sales and ideally retain those customers after purchase. A good ecommerce marketing strategy will be a combination of both online and offline tools and techniques. It should help you in building a loyal customer base, awareness of your brand and of course, increase your sales. Below in this article, we have put down some special consideration you have to make while marketing your ecommerce brand. 

​1 - Make the outlook appealing

Before implementing any marketing strategy, make sure that your store is visually appealing or is well designed to cater to customer needs. If you are implementing marketing techniques on your poorly designed online store, not only you are losing potential customers but also your money and energy. A poorly designed store can look untrustworthy. It can confuse the customers, and they might end up leaving without making a purchase. To avoid these common mistakes, follow these few basics:
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• Get a unique and simple logo designed for your brand. There are many professional logo design websites that you can consult for this purpose.
• Segment or display your products properly. Divide them into suitable categories making it easier for the customers to navigate and find a product of their liking. The products can be divided in many ways depending upon their nature. For example, this online leather jacket store has divided products as per male and female categories as well as based on their type.
• Figure out the right balance between text and visuals, i.e., make sure your theme is well implemented and goes with your brand image.

2 - ​Implement marketing techniques to retain current and old customers

​While formulating and implementing marketing plans, one of the most common mistakes that businesses tend to make is not doing enough to retain their current and old customers. In many cases, implementing marketing techniques to hold old customers can be more successful and profit generating than making efforts trying to get new customers. Considering marketing techniques such as upselling can be an effective tool in this regard. When upselling products to customers, always ensure that the upsell is related to the original product that your customer is interested in. The upsell should also be relevant to the customer’s original needs.
 
Another effective marketing technique to retain old and current customers is cross-selling. Cross-selling involves businesses recommending existing customers to add additional accessories related to a product that the customer already wants to buy. These marketing techniques when implemented consistently can bring significant changes in the overall revenues. 

​3 - Look for the details

With thousands of online business operating from everywhere around the world, you need to do a little more than basic work if you really want to stay on the top of the game. Your business is on Instagram, so are many others too. To stand out, you need to look out for the details. For example, instead of just taking photos, consider taking photos that are aesthetically pleasing and well connected with your brand. Take out time to take compelling photos. Understand and appreciate what these little differences can do for you. Considering Instagram marketing, here are some tips other than the basics that will help you stay a few steps ahead of your competitors:

• Use hashtags strategically
• Post your updates at the right time
• Consistently engage with your followers

4 - ​Stick to the classics

​In addition to adding details and going for innovative marketing plans, make sure not to forget some of the classical techniques such as email marketing. Social media can sometimes become too noisy and disturbing making the customers to possibly miss your updates and sales. People are more sensitive to messages sent to them personally. You can start off with email marketing by promoting your newsletter and blog. This will help you collect several email addresses of your potential customers. Once you have acquired an email address, the next step should be put up an email marketing plan in place. This may include offering exclusive gift cards and discounts for email subscribers, sending personal notes or asking for feedback. You can also launch abandoned cart emails and wishlist emails which will remind the customers to make their final step for purchasing. 

5 - ​Do your research well

​Research is no doubt the most important part of your campaign. Before formulating a marketing campaign for your brand, have a detailed look at online stores of similar brands. Look up for successful online businesses and dig into their strategies. Obviously, all of their strategies will not be relevant for you or may not work for you, but you will get an overall idea which will help you to set your track. Some strategies that you should be paying attention to should be:
 

• How to acquire new customers spending minimum costs
• How to achieve a high repurchase rate
• How to set healthy margins

 
In short, the focus of your marketing strategies should depend on the stage of your business. If you are a young business, your focus should be more on better website development and the acquisition of new customers. On the other hand, if you are an old business, your focus will be more on customer retention. 

​Author Bio:

​About Ashley Rosa:

​Ashley Rosa is a freelance writer and blogger. As writing is her passion that why she loves to write articles related to the latest trends in technology and sometimes on health-tech as well.  She is crazy about chocolates. You can find her at twitter: @ashrosa2.