Marketing is necessary for growing any brand, but for ecommerce businesses, marketing strategies must be molded to cater specifically to online buyers. You need more specific targeting, faster turnaround time, and more attention grabbing content if you want to boost your sales and stand out from the competition.
That is why, in this article we’ll talk in depth about what ecommerce marketing is and share actionable strategies and tips that can help you increase sales exponentially in the space. Video creation is key to most of these strategies, which is why you should definitely consider doubling down on videos for your brand. Don’t worry, you can create them easily and quickly using InVideo’s online video maker.
For now let’s look at what we’ve covered in the article:
- What is eCommerce marketing?
- eCommerce marketing channels to use
- 12 ecommerce strategies to boost sales
- 8 ecommerce marketing best practices
Let’s dive in.
What is eCommerce marketing?
Ecommerce sales have been forecasted to grow by 50% and reach 7.4 trillion dollars by 2025. To take advantage of this surge, businesses need to differentiate their products from their competitors’ and build a loyal customer base so they get new customers and scale their business.
This is where ecommerce marketing comes into the picture. It’s a set of marketing strategies that help promote your online store to generate sales from new customers and get your old customers to continue to shop from you.
Why is ecommerce marketing important?
Often customers hesitate to place an order online because they don’t trust the brand and aren’t sure if the product would look the same as it did online. So, you need to build brand awareness and get people to engage with your brand so they can see what your product would look like on them or visualize the results they can get if they started using your product. This will help boost their confidence in making a purchase and eventually get them to trust you enough to make repeat purchases and become your loyal customer.
Another important reason to employ eCommerce marketing is to get a better understanding of your target audience and meet their demands and expectations better. For example, Man Crates figured out that their target audience (men) didn’t wish for much but they liked building things. So, they transformed the insight into an online store which allows them to build their own gifts using DIY kits.
You can also understand your competitors’s strategies and fill the gaps in their messaging in your product so you can differentiate your products consistently.
Now that you’ve understood what ecommerce marketing is and why it is important for your online store, it is important to know which marketing channels you should leverage to help grow your brand. So, let’s dive straight in.
Different eCommerce marketing channels to help you grow your brand
Your eCommerce marketing strategy must help you build brand awareness, generate leads, and get direct sales. This means you should include a mix of channels that take your leads from the awareness stage to the purchase stage. Here’s what each of these stages mean
Stage 1 - Discovery or awareness
At this stage prospective buyers simply discover your brand or the product you’re selling. This stage is also called the Top Of The Funnel (TOFU)
Stage 2 - Consideration
The Middle Of The Funnel (MOFU) or consideration stage consists of the prospects analyzing if your products are the right fit for them. At this stage, they compare it with other similar products in the market and research about your trustworthiness.
Stage 3 - Sales
The last and the Bottom Of The Funnel (BOFU) stage is selling to the prospective buyer. This is the stage where they finally decide on buying and make a purchase.
And before you start posting on every social media platform and stretch yourself thin, it’s imperative to understand your target audience, your budget, along with the purchase journey mentioned. This will help you select the channels that will actually work for you.
Here, we’ve included some of the most popularly used ecommerce marketing channels which you can consider based on these factors:
1. Video marketing
Video is one of the most important marketing channels for ecommerce businesses. 54% consumers want to see more video content from a brand and rightly so. Video is more immersive and therefore more engaging than written content. For ecommerce businesses it works across the spectrum — for product listings, content marketing, as well as paid advertising.
This also means that videos work well for all funnel stages. For instance, you can offer educational videos to improve product awareness and brand recognition to TOFU audience. For the audience in the consideration or MOFU stage, you can show tutorials and how-to videos that help the viewers solve a problem. Since you’re providing value by showing how your product can make their life better, customers will be more likely to consider your product or services.
To reach the BOFU audience, your video ads must highlight the special features of your product and add differentiators which helps them understand why you’re the best and only option for them.
Here’s an example of a video from SISU mouthguards. The video is focused on gaining trust from the customers by backing their product with what experts and professionals say about it. The product makes the MOFU audience consider buying it when it shows itself to be approved by doctors.
We’ve established that videos should be an important part of your content landscape. But how can you create professional videos in minutes when you’ve got a limited budget? This is where InVideo comes into the picture. It is an online video editing tool that offers 5000+ pre-made templates that helps you make stunning video ads and product-related videos within minutes. You can customize the template, add photos and videos of your product and add stock media to create compelling product videos.
2. Pay-per-click advertising
Pay-per-click or PPC is an advertisement model that charges businesses only when the ad placed on the platform is clicked. The ad’s goal is to get people to the product’s website so they can complete an action like signing up for the email list or purchasing the product.
This is a super popular ecommerce marketing channel and while the term PPC also encompasses social media channels like Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest apart from Google and Bing, we’re only going to be talking about Google ads in this section and talk about social media ads in a separate section.
Pay-per-click advertising is a proven tool for boosting conversion rates. They bring more traffic to the website by allowing more focused targeting and retargeting customers who have abandoned their carts.
It also helps improve brand awareness and ROI, and according to Google Think Insights, PPC ads helped improve TOFU awareness by at least 6 percentage points.
Like video marketing, these ads are suitable for any stage of the funnel. For people in the TOFU stage, your PPC strategy can focus on spreading awareness through ads on broader topics that attract viewers to click to know more. To do this, you’ll bid on “broad” and “phrase” search terms that give a general idea of your brand and point to your website and give an overview of your business.
In the MOFU stage, your ads will point to more educational and specific information by focusing on “phrase” and “exact” search terms. Lastly, in the BOFU stage, you’ll bid only on specific keywords that denote high purchase intent like “Buy shirts online Now”
An example of a brand with a great PPC strategy is Flashbay. It’s an electronics and gadgets company and in this example, it’s targeting people in the consideration or MOFU stage with reviews that compel people to check out their products and choose them.
PPC advertising also works really well by using videos since videos have a higher ROI. You can create Google video ads to help maximize results by using a tool such as InVideo that helps you create ads in minutes.
3. Social media marketing
The most important benefit of marketing on social media is that you can interact more closely with prospective buyers and understand their pain points. It’s also easy to get feedback and makes you more available for customer service. Plus, buyers often research about brands on social media before buying online and spend a lot of time browsing these platforms. So, marketers use social media platforms to connect with their audience, keep them engaged, and make sure they’re always on top of their audience’s minds.
While organic social media posts help you build a community, improve brand loyalty, and highlight your values, advertising on social media equips you with advanced tools and targeting methods that help you reach your target audience and achieve your business goals. It’s also cost effective and gives performance data for further analysis and enhancement.
Social media marketing works most effectively in the TOFU and MOFU stages. The TOFU audience can be shown ads and posts that make them aware of the brand’s values and boost the interest in their products so they visit the brand’s social media page and website to know more.
For the MOFU stage, the ads and posts must focus on providing a solution to their problem, while highlighting the benefits of their product.
Dollar shave club has got their social media marketing on point. Their instagram page captures their brand voice and puts out content their target audience can relate to. This enhances their brand recognition and encourages more people to check out and follow the page.
Now, if you look at Dollar Shave Clubs posts on social media, they’re always aimed at solving problems and highlighting how their brand differentiates itself from consumers. Here’s an example of one such social media post that uses this:
The post tries to convince customers in the MOFU stage by bringing to them a one stop solution for their personal hygiene and care through the Dollar Shave Club products.
Again, if you want your brand to shine on social media, focus more on video content as it helps you get more engagement as compared to other formats. The best part is that you can also repurpose a lengthier video into snippets or video ads for your brand. Videos for social media need to be sharp and to the point to create maximum impact. But they also need visually appealing effects to grab attention. Use trendy and attractive templates from InVideo to create such videos that attract more views and help you reach a larger audience.
4. Email marketing
Email marketing is extremely crucial for eCommerce businesses because they help connect with customers, build a relationship with them, get them to buy from you and improve your customer retention rate. Another reason for choosing email marketing is that you own your list and don’t have to worry about algorithm changes or a social media platform ban.
Since email marketing helps nurture your customers and build trust with them, they can be used in the MOFU and BOFU stages. For the MOFU audience, you can build a strategy that incentivizes on signing up and uses drip messages to deliver useful information to them.
For BOFU audiences, create incentives so they’ll be encouraged to purchase your products. You can also retain past customers by targeting them with follow emails and discounts and offers on their next order placement.
If you’re wondering what type of emails you must create to keep your customers engaged, here are 3 broad types you can use.
- Lifecycle emails: Engage with the audience with welcome emails, feedback requests, birthday wishes etc.
- Transactional emails: They are a result of an action taken by the buyer. It can be password resets, order receipt, email id confirmation etc.
- Broadcast emails: They are emails like newsletters, announcements etc that are sent to the whole or a segment of the list together.
No matter what type of email you choose from the list above, you need to make sure that your emails are personalized so they’re relatable for your audience and are more likely to successfully convert a prospect. And the best way to do this is to use videos in your emails.
Here’s an example of clever video usage from Makeup forever. They’ve added a product testimonial to the email to establish social proof and successfully convert their prospects into paying customers.
To create such videos you can use templates from InVideo and then add them to your newsletters for effective delivery so that you can optimize the response from your emails. The below template can help you create such impactful videos within minutes.
5. Search engine optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization or SEO enhances the visibility of your website so you can be discovered easily when a customer searches for your product online.
Search engines use bots that crawl from site to site to collect information, and then index it based on a number of factors. So when you search something on Google like “summer dresses”, it fetches all the information on the web about your search (summer dresses) and organizes it in order of relevancy.
To put SEO's role simply, it helps your website climb up in this relevancy order organically through keywords. Unlike paid ads, SEO rankings can't be paid for and needs strategy and working by SEO experts.
Search engine optimization helps reduce marketing costs, and gets you long term marketing results. It is most suitable for the audiences of the MOFU and BOFU stages. Audiences in the MOFU can be educated and informed with organic SEO keywords.
Articles, blogs, case studies, and YouTube videos can be a part of the content for this stage audience. For the audiences of the BOFU stage, more narrowed down specific keywords must be optimized. Descriptive product pages and clear CTAs are more important at this stage.
Combining PPC and SEO is a great option and can benefit the brand with more conversions. Take for instance a company that has already written content focusing on each stage of the funnel. When the prospect buyer has been through the funnel and is ready to buy, a PPC ad can push the buyer further to place an order by clicking.
Skinkraft uses PPC and SEO together in a similar manner. It has articles on broader topics like skincare routines. Articles like these help spread awareness about the brand.
Later on when the prospect moves down the funnel and wants to buy, skinkraft has also bid for transactional keywords and created compelling PPC ads to make buying easier.
Articles and PPC ads can improve your SEO rankings significantly but videos can improve SEO rankings for your website by being presented into thumbnails in the search results. So if you’re focusing on SEO, you should also consider posting video content on YouTube. You can use a feature-rich editor like InVideo to edit videos for your channel quickly and easily. Make sure to check out the intro and outro templates to create compelling intros for your videos.
Now that you understand the different channels you can use for marketing your ecommerce business, let’s look at the best strategies you can use to get better leads and boost sales.
12 ecommerce marketing strategies to boost sales
Here are 12 eCommerce marketing strategies you should use to get discovered, scale your business, improve customer retention, and build your brand loyalty.
1. Create video listings for your product
Online shopping has become very advanced but one downside to it is its inability to experience products physically before making a purchase. But while there’s no way to replace the experience of holding a physical product in your hand, video comes as close as possible to recreating that experience. Data also backs that 84% of consumers are convinced to buy a product after watching their product videos.
That’s why having videos as part of your ecommerce product listing is extremely important in 2024. If you’re using platforms like Amazon or Flipkart to sell your ecommerce products, you have to become a brand registered seller on the platform. However, if you’re using your own website to sell your product, you can upload them directly and turn a stagnant listing into one that consistently converts.
While none of these platforms restrict the length of videos you can upload, it’s best to keep your video content short and sweet. 10-15 second long videos work the best, and timing in these 15 seconds is the key. You’ve to capture the attention of viewers in the first five seconds, to get them to continue watching. Communicate the core of your message in the next 5-8 seconds and have a clear CTA.
It’s also advisable that you use consistent branding for all your products, so that consumers can quickly recognize and remember your brand. So, use your logo in all your videos, and keep the fonts, color schemes, text styles, etc. consistent. You can also pick up a theme and stick to it in all your product videos.
Product highlight videos like this Macally USB Wired Keyboard for Mac and Windows PC work are also great to showcase the features of your product and what it can do for the customer. See how the video uses captions and on-screen text and graphics to convey the product features, so that even if the viewer has the sound-off, they’re not missing anything.
We have a separate blog on product marketing videos that you can check out to understand how to make compelling videos. We’ve also covered examples from popular brands that you can take inspiration from and templates for every inspiration idea that can help you get started. And here’s one product template from our library that can help you get the ball rolling.
2. Create short-form video content
A study by Wyzowl shows that people today share videos twice the rate they would any other form of content on the web. The study also says that consumers want to see and engage with more short form video content vs long ones.
Short-form video content allows your brand to be innovative with your marketing and build a community around the brand by engaging viewers. This will also give you a leg up over the competition and help you stay ahead in the game.
Here’s an example of a TikTok video from popular fitness wear brand Gymshark. The brand posts entertaining short-form content that’s relatable to people in the fitness space. In this GymTok, one of Gymshark’s followers adds a hilarious spin to all the weird things everyone who goes to the gym does. The short video is entertaining and engaging and helps improve Gymshark’s brand recognition and awareness.
To create engaging short-form content for your brand, make sure you start your video with a good hook. Usually, the first 3 seconds of the video are crucial so use creative captions at the start. If your videos have dialogs, make sure you add subtitles in the end so viewers watching the video on mute don’t skip your video. And lastly, make sure you add your own spin to the latest trends if it aligns with your brand image.
InVideo has plenty of free challenge templates like the one below which you can use to create your short-form videos. All you’ve got to do is open the editor, add your footage or pictures and add different transition effects and cuts to make your video more engaging. You can add the audio directly from Instagram or TikTok as they have a higher chance of gaining more views and getting on the Explore page.
3. Leverage the power of YouTube
YouTube is an extremely powerful platform to leverage for ecommerce marketing. It’s the biggest video platform in the world and the second biggest search engine. If you’re not creating content on YouTube you’re leaving money on the table.
The best part is that your content on YouTube can be tailored to the niche your brand is in. For instance, if you’re a fashion brand you can create style guides and product releases, on the other hand as a tech ecommerce brand you can create product explainer videos answering relevant questions about your product to build trust and convert visitors into customers.
So, Youtube videos must be a part of your eCommerce marketing strategy. The added advantage of using Youtube as a medium of creating and publishing these videos is that you can use Youtube’s organic search capabilities to optimize your video and reach more people.
Here’s an example of an explainer video from one of Fitbit’s product pages. It lists the product benefits and highlights the watch’s USP which immediately conveys how it’s different from other smart watches and why people should choose it over others.
To create videos like Fitbit Sense, script a demo that shows how your product fits into your customers’ lives, highlight its benefits, and include a call-to-action that tells people how and where they can buy your product. Then, use the InVideo template given below, add your footage, music, and stock media if needed to create a product explainer video that sells your product.
4. Run social media ads
You should also run social media ads to increase your brand exposure and get people hooked into your brand. It’s advisable not to run campaigns directly for the sale, especially if your product is on the higher price point. This is because the higher your price, the more customers have to be educated before they can make a purchase.
So, consider running retargeting ads to customers who’ve already shown some interest in your product and create brand awareness campaigns for new customers. You can then nurture these customers with email marketing and get them interested in buying your products.
And the best way to create these brand awareness ads is through videos. That’s because dynamic video content catches the eye better than any static text or image post. A lesser known factor in the cost of your ads is user engagement. The more traction your ad post can get, the lesser it’ll cost you to run them. That’s because platforms like Facebook and Instagram want users to stay with the platform, and ads that can do that are always favored over those that cannot.
Here’s a fantastic ad from Macy that’s promoting floral beauty gifts on Mother’s Day. The ad is packed with emotions as it shows a toddler sprinkling cologne on her mother who’s surrounded and dressed to depict the floral theme of the product.
We’ve covered the topic of ecommerce ads in depth in our blog here. You can check it out to understand the different types of ads you can run and the best ideas that can help you get started. Here’s one template from our library that you can use right away.
5. Collaborate with influencers
As an eCommerce brand, winning the trust of your customer plays a crucial role in your success but developing that trust and getting customers to try your products can take a very long time. But you can shorten this time if you collaborate with influencers your target audience follows as they already like and trust the influencer and you can leverage these factors to improve your brand awareness and grow your business.
For example, Hothands warmers collaborated with Poppy to promote their warmers. The post talks about how essential the warmers are for winter and goes into the workings and price of the product so customers head to the website to place an order.
The best way to reach out to influencers is to send a personalized message that shows the influencer that you know their content. Even if you’ve never met them, a great way to start the message would be to talk about a few things you liked about the content they posted and then get into why you think they should work with your brand. If you’re going for an email use a catchy subject line and keep it concise so they get relevant information about you and your brand easily.
Since videos give the feeling of face-to-face interactions, you can shoot a short pitch video talking about your brand and add it to a template like the one below so it looks professional, stands apart, and encourages the influencer to respond to you.
6. Leverage User-Generated Content (UGC)
Any brand-specific content created by its customers and posted on social media or other online channels is called User-Generated Content (UGC). Images, videos, reviews, podcasts, and blog posts written by users are included under User-Generated Content.
90% of consumers feel that UGC influences their purchase decisions more than emails and search engine results as they can trust reviews and experiences from other users who have already used the product. It also helps build your content library, humanize your brand, and improves brand loyalty which will eventually lead to increased sales and customer retention.
For instance, Calvin Klein has featured UGC from their customer in this post. It adds a human element to the brand, subtly connects the brand with communication and self-expression and prompts users to create a post of their own to be featured by the brand. As a result, more people will want to try out Calvin Kleins and create posts around what it means to wear them, which will help improve Calvin Klein’s brand recognition and loyalty.
To encourage more user-generated content that will grow your brand, you should start by creating a buzz around your brand. You can do this by offering freebies or running contests and quizzes on social media under your hashtag.
The idea is to incentivize your users so they try out your product and start talking about it on social media which will create a viral loop and encourage more users to do the same.
Now, the best way to announce a contest or giveaway is through a video as it’s the most popular content marketing medium for eCommerce brands. All you’ve got to do to create a giveaway video is use one of the InVideo templates given below and replace the default media with pictures of your products. Then, edit the text to convey the rules of the giveaway, add your hashtag, and end with a CTA that recap what they’ll get at the end.
7. Set up customer loyalty programs
Incentivizing your customers to purchase from you drives sales and helps improve customer lifetime value as it helps build an emotional commitment towards your brand with repeat behavior. Eventually, your customer retention improves and you’re going to reduce turnover and improve your revenue.
The best example for a loyalty program is Nike’s membership program. It’s an exclusive club of shoppers and fans that join Nike through their website or any of the four apps; The Nike app, Nike Run Club, Nike Training Club, and SNKRS.
The membership program was a success and Nike got its guests to spend 3x more than normal customers because the club offered a sense of exclusivity to its members and made sure they got tickets to special events and tried out products before they launched to the general public.
To set up a loyalty program, study your target audience to figure out their goals and come up with a loyalty program that provides them with value. Then, make enrollment easy by allowing them to enter the program in more than one way. In the above example, Nike provided 5 ways for customers to enroll in their membership program. Lastly, provide monetary and non-monetary rewards that align with your customers’ value. For example, if your customers like helping others, you can donate a portion of their fee to charities to incentivize them to join you.
8. Leverage social shopping
Social shopping refers to the practice of buying and selling products directly from social media websites. Some examples for this include Instagram and Facebook shops and Pinterest’s Shop The Look feature.
Social shopping is gaining popularity amongst online shoppers as users just have to click a few buttons to make a purchase instead of going through a long process. It also helps generate enough social proof in the form of likes, shares, and comments so prospective customers will be more likely to trust your brand and purchase from you too.
Here’s an example of an Instagram shopping store from Cluse. The Instagram store redirects users to the website and allows consumers to place an order with just a few clicks.
To make the most out of social shopping, use Instagram’s Live shopping feature or integrate an automated chatbot that guides your customers to the checkout page. This way, you won’t lose customers because you couldn’t answer their questions on time. Lastly, include plenty of social proof and invest in your social media content to attract your ideal customers to the store.
9. Improve your site speed
Slow websites will increase bounce rates and reduce conversion rates for two reasons- consumers don’t prefer to wait more than 3-4 seconds for a website to load and Google won’t rank websites with high bounce rates, so your website’s visibility is reduced and it won’t be discovered by potential customers.
Google and Facebook have also made site speed one of the metrics that’ll determine their paid rankings. While site speed has been an important factor that determined a Google ad’s quality score for a long time, Facebook also decided that it would prioritize ads from websites with a decreased loading time so it can deliver users the best user experience.
So, if you want your website to rank higher and get more conversions from your paid ads, you’ve got to improve your page score.
For example, Agrofy, an online eCommerce marketplace for agriculture businesses found that users abandoned their site because the images took too long to load. So, the brand used a Content Delivery Network (CDN) and optimized the images on their website. As a result, the exits reduced by 18% and their abandonment rate went down by 76%
To improve your website speed, the best place to get started with is your website code. Minifying the code helps reduce the number of requests the server has to make to each element on your webpage i.e., text, image, videos, etc., so it can load it on the user’s screen. Then, optimize your images and use Google-recommended formats like WebP. You can also use a Content Delivery Network or a CDN so servers nearest to your users can display your website quickly. Lastly, site-speed optimization is a vast topic and it’s not possible to cover all of the techniques here in detail so check out this Moz blog for more information on the same.
10. Optimize for voice search
Voice searches are more popular and convenient than traditional searches as they allow them to carry out other tasks while they’re searching for something online. A report from eMarketer also suggests that more than 40% of the US population will use voice assistants at least once a month on any device in 2024. Analysts also suggest that eCommerce brands can grow their revenue by 30% if they redesign their websites to support voice search capability.
So if you’re looking to grow your eCommerce business, you must optimize your eCommerce marketing content for voice searches like Sephora has done. They’ve included long-tail keywords and employed a conversational tone in their product pages so their vegan mascaras appear on the first page of Google search results.
To get started with optimizing your content for voice search, all you’ve got to do is go to your Google Search Console and look for long-tail keywords that look conversational or ask questions. Then, understand the keyword’s search intent and create content that uses your consumer’s natural language to rank higher.
In the above example, Sephora’s mascara product page displayed reviews to boost their rankings as they naturally employ the conversational tone of the consumer and have plenty of long-tail keywords sprinkled within the content.
11. Get creative with your social media campaigns
It’s extremely important to connect with your audience and keep them engaged on social media. So, try to get creative with your campaigns and use elements like filter campaigns on Instagram. Apart from improving sales, it’ll help your brand get more awareness and traction as customers would want to join the hype and maybe even visualize what your products would look like on them.
For example, Sugar cosmetics’ Wheel of Love filter has a spin wheel which picks lipsticks for users and prompts them to emulate a random emoji. The filter also clicks a picture and users can share the entire process as a Reel with a popular audio. The whole process is engaging and prompts users to complete an action they like doing and share it to their network. It helps the brand generate more UGC, improves brand awareness and generates more sales as customers will be more willing to buy the product once they’ve tried it on.
To create your own social media filter, download software like Spark AR studio to create the effect. Then, create a promotional video that shows people how to use the filters. All you’ve got to do is film a preview like Sugar cosmetics did to generate excitement around the product. You can also convert screenshots of your filter into video using the slideshow template given below
12. Engage your existing customers with push notifications
Very often ecommerce companies tend to only think about user acquisition when they’re creating their marketing strategy. However, studies have shown that repeat customers can contribute to more than 40% of the company revenue. So, it’s critical to have a strategy for repeat purchases and retention along with one for getting more new customers.
And push notifications are one great way to do this. A push notification is a text message that allows brands to reach consumers even after they’ve exited the app or website. It includes news updates and product offers and has become the most popular form of communication as it keeps the audience engaged through personalized content.
It also allows brands to retarget customers, enables visitors to join their community in a single click, and keeps the brand fresh in the minds of their customers. Here’s an example of a push notification from Pura Vida bracelets.
The simple message creates FOMO and compels the customer to complete their purchase while the clever CTAs allow the customer to go back to their cart or browse the website again. As a result, the customer makes a purchase right away or spends more time on the website and eventually makes a purchase. Either way, it’s a win-win for Pura Vida.
To create push notifications that compel people to take action, personalize the message by adding the user’s name and using first person, reinforce the value your product provides so they understand what’s in it for them, and make sure to include a clear CTA at the end.
Now that you know the ecommerce marketing strategies you can leverage in 2024, let’s look at some best practices that’ll help you make the most of your campaigns.
8 eCommerce marketing best practices
Catching your target audiences’ attention, converting them and then retaining them is a tough task. It requires strategic planning, proper execution and effective implementation of marketing campaigns. So, here we have listed our top 8 ecommerce practices that will make the process easier for you and help your ecommerce business get more traction.
1. Create dynamic content
Attention spans are getting shorter, which means people don’t want to spend too much time on a piece of content if they don’t find it valuable or entertaining or both. Achieving this target is a tough task with static content, which is why a lot of brands are doubling down on video content, which happens to be more dynamic, immersive, and engaging.
You want to focus on creating videos that hook your audience from the get go and also retain their attention till the end. This can be achieved by writing better scripts and then creating a stellar narrative in the edit. Of course, you will need to learn the basics of storytelling first to achieve these results. Once that is sorted, you can use an editor like InVideo to create stunning videos in minutes.
2. Promote customer reviews
About 91% of people buying online read customer reviews before making a purchase from a brand and about 84% of the time it influences their decision of whether they should go ahead with the purchase or not. Research also shows that it takes about 40 reviews to convince a prospect to buy an average rated product. However, any number of reviews have given a better result as compared to products where there are no reviews.
Positive words from previous customers drive sales organically. It acts as social proof and makes it easy for buyers to trust your ecommerce brand. Reviews also act in favor of SEO and ease up the ranking process as customers themselves use important keywords like the product’s name, its features and benefits.
So, make it easy for customers to give your product feedback and prompt them to do so when they’re happy with the product. You can do this during the checkout or when the order has been shipped to the customer. You can also place a button on the homepage of your website so that customers coming to the site can also drop their feedback. Incentivize customers who give your products feedback and respond to their comments on your ecommerce platform.
Videos are a great way to do this as it’s very difficult to get someone to fake video testimonials- buyers know this and are also likely going to trust brands with videos more. Thanks to online tools like InVideo you can create and add them to your website in minutes. You can also put together text-based testimonials and turn those into a video for better reach and recognition. Here’s a template you can use:
3. Promote online coupons and discounts
Coupons and discounts are incentives driven by scarcity to get the customer to purchase from your brand. A research found that 92% of people who purchase from ecommerce brands online are looking for promotional offers and about 97% of people are looking for promotional deals.
Coupons are given to people in the form of codes they can use during check out. This code lets them avail a discount on the product purchased. Discounts can be given as per season, to promote a new product, or even during special occasions like Halloween or Black Friday.
A good place to use these coupons are with abandoned carts. You can do this via emails and attach coupons that the customer can use to avail the offer at the checkout. You can also give these for weekly deals, retargeted ads, influencer campaigns, newsletter signups, loyalty programs, etc. While some of them are personal and individual to customers, like loyalty programs and retargeted campaigns, others can be discounts that’re publicly announced like your monthly or weekly deals.
Amazon gives its customers clearance deals with discounts of 10-40% on the prices, making an irresistible offer of getting the products at a much lower price than usual.
Once you have your discount in place, you can create social media posts and even paid ads to push these discounts and let your customers know. With tools like InVideo, you can create these promotional videos in a matter of minutes with over 5000 pre-made templates that you can use and customize for your ecommerce brand. Here’s one offer template to help you get started.
4. Offer free shipping
High shipping costs are an immediate turn off for many customers. Many customers abandon their cart when an additional shipping cost is slapped on to their bill. And giving free shipping is one way to avoid this while also immediately attracting more people to your brand. However, it doesn’t have to be a loss for your brand. You can always recover this with higher sales and factoring this cost when adding the prices to your product items.
You can also offer free shipping only above a certain threshold purchase. This gets customers to buy more products from the brand just so that they can reach that offer limit, which will also get your brand more sales.
If both of these don’t seem to work for your brand, you can open free shipping for certain time windows in the year. Do this when you expect sales and traffic volume to be fewer than usual because then the incentive is likely going to draw more customers and conversions for you. Here’s an example from Nordstrom giving free shipping to their customers for their entire range of products and services.
You can always use video to talk about your free shipping offer on social media or promote your offer on social media channels to attract customers to your brand. To create these videos in minutes, you can use Invideo’s templates and get started.
5. Improve user experience
With so much competition in the market and companies battling for consumer attention, it's imperative that you give your customers a seamless buying experience. And one way you can do this is by improving the user experience of your website.
User experience (UX) is the overall experience the customer has when they’re purchasing from your website, all the point from when they’re casually browsing to when they’re checked out. And to offer a great UX, you need to ensure that users can easily navigate your site and understand the next steps they’ve to take.
Taking feedback from customers about their current shopping experience on your site is the best way to optimize your existing UX. You should also pay close attention at places when customers ask for support, the queries they have, etc. and then work to find out if there are any issues that are blocking the customer experience and go from there.
Skullcandy has a great user interface
Some other things you can do to optimize your UX include optimizing for mobile, checking for any broken links or 404 pages, decreasing load time of your store, optimizing product descriptions, etc.
Videos are also critical to improving user experience as viewers tend to get drawn to more interactive elements rather than just static images on screen. To create videos for your website and social media handles, you can take the help of InVideo to create stunning videos in minutes even if you’ve never edited one before.
6. Offer upsells and cross-sells
According to Mckinsey, upselling and cross selling can increase your sales in your ecommerce store by 20 to 30%. To recap the difference, upselling is convincing a buyer to buy more expensive items while cross- selling refers to recommending products that complement a purchase.
Ecommerce companies can upsell and cross-sell in two ways. One is, before the customer is about to pay for their order or before a product is added to the cart, known as the pre-purchase upsell or cross sell. And the second is, after the customer has added all the details to pay for the product at checkout, known as the post-purchase upsell or cross-sell.
Pre-purchase upsells and cross sells are usually on the product page or the cart page and are shown as pop-ups, on-page div, banners, etc. When the customer adds the product to the page, the cart is automatically updated and the product is added to the bill.
The trick to doing this right is showing inexpensive and relevant products that are similar to the product the customer has purchased and one that might likely improve the outcome of the product the customer has purchased. The last thing you want to do is scare the customer with aggressive upsells or cross-sells before they’ve even completed their initial transaction.
Post purchase upsells and cross sells are usually shown to the customers on their order confirmation or thank you page. They’re much less risky than pre-purchase options since the customer has already filled out all the payment details and are ready to buy. It’s usually a one-click offer that the customer gets from the brand. They can also be made after the customer has paid for the initial items added to the cart via emails and messages. But in this case the customer would have to re-enter the payment details or use the saved information they have on your site.
If the prospect is looking to exit without buying, you can also downsell the product with a cheaper alternative or give them an offer for instant checkout. You can also prompt them to enter in their email-id before they leave, so that you can then convince them with offers and discounts to purchase their product items.
7. Improve security of your website
About 69% of the buyers add products to the cart but leave it without buying because they’re worried about the safety and security of the platform. So, you’ve to ensure that customers feel safe about giving you their credit card details and making the purchase.
Ensure that your shopping cart and checkout have the same look and feel to them, so that customers are not led to believe that they’re being redirected to an unauthenticated page when they’re entering payment details.
Let customers know that their information is safe with your website and ensure that your website shows a security lock in the customer’s browser with an updated SSL certificate. Do not force customers to sign up with all the details or save the customers information if the customer does not want to. And most importantly, make the next steps for the customer clear and easy to follow.
Do not scare the customer with pages on return policies, warranties, or privacy issues. You can just include links to these at the bottom, so that the customer can go and read more, if they want more information. Let the customers complete their checkout in a few clicks and do not interrupt the process with new windows or unnecessary details that can be avoided.
8. Make your websites responsive
Consumers are increasingly relying on their smartphones to do their shopping and Google has launched the mobile-first index which means you’ll need to optimize your website for mobile devices to be ranked on Google and get discovered by your audience.
Plus, creating a responsive design also improves the user experience and reduces the bounce rate of your website, which leads to improved discoverability and increased traffic. Here’s an example of a responsive website. As you can see, resizing the website has no effect on the elements in the webpage and it looks readable regardless of the device it's displayed on.
To create a responsive website, understand how visitors use their mobile to interact with your website. You can use heatmap tools to check out which elements they interact with the most. Then, take the help of experts to plan your design, optimize your images, and ensure buttons can be clicked on smaller screens easily.
Wrapping Up
The right eCommerce marketing strategy will help you understand your target audience and position your products in a way that helps you generate more credible leads and make more sales. And then you can work to improve your customer acquisition and retention with the strategies we’ve listed above.
If you’d like to learn more on growing your online store with ads, check out this article on eCommerce ads and if you want to dive deeper into running ads for Facebook check out this article on Facebook eCommerce ads.
And if you prefer learning via videos, you should check out our YouTube channel, where we share daily video creation tips and tricks, the latest video trends and ideas, and help you make more money as a video creator.
This post was written by Mrignayni and edited by Adete from Team InVideo
