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: