Customer Acquisition

Learn how Podium gets you more leads

Ecommerce Marketing 101: 14 Strategies to Boost Leads

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">From chatting with friends, to attending work meetings, catching up on hit TV shows and even doing our shopping, many people are living more and more of their lives online. Ecommerce businesses are thriving. The convenience of browsing thousands of products without leaving the house hasn’t lost its appeal. In fact, shopping online became a habit for many during the pandemic when in-person shopping was restricted. The shift to digital has been a permanent one for many.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">So how can ecommerce businesses leverage the digital world and maximize the opportunity of online stores? Read this complete guide to growing your ecommerce business with improved marketing strategies to find out.</span></p>
<h2><span style="font-weight: 400;">What Is Ecommerce Marketing?</span></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ecommerce businesses are online stores where customers can buy physical or digital products. These brands may only operate online or have a hybrid approach with</span><a href="https://www.podium.com/article/brick-and-mortar/"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> in-person stores</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> as well.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ecommerce marketing is how these businesses attract and convert potential customers. Most of the marketing tactics ecommerce businesses use rely on digital marketing, leveraging online marketing channels to drive traffic to their ecommerce site. Through consistent marketing efforts, a customer journey can be crafted, attracting new leads and nurturing them to the point of conversion.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">There are multiple benefits of ecommerce marketing including:</span></p>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Increasing brand awareness and creating a strong online reputation</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Lead generation that brings new customers to the business</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Retargeting previous customers to make repeat purchases and become loyal customers</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Boosting conversion rates and getting more ecommerce sales</span></li>
</ul>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">There is more than one way to gain these business-boosting benefits from ecommerce marketing.</span></p>
<h2><span style="font-weight: 400;">5 Types of Ecommerce Marketing</span></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Digital marketing covers a plethora of strategies and techniques across multiple platforms. At its core, it is the practice of using the internet to attract and convert customers. Discover your perfect</span><a href="https://www.podium.com/article/ecommerce-marketing-automation/"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> digital marketing approach</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> by taking a look at the options below, making sure to consider which ones would best fit your business type, size and budget, and target audience. The most popular types of ecommerce marketing include:</span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">1. Search Engine Marketing</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Does your customer base turn to Google or other search engines to find products like yours? If so, your ecommerce site should be showing up at the top of the search engine results. This can be done in two ways. First is search engine adverts. Businesses can pay to appear at the top of the results page for certain keywords (this is called pay-per-click). However, as these placements are labeled as adverts, some users scroll past them to the organic results.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Alternatively, use search engine optimization strategies to organically rank at the top of search results for keywords your customers will be searching. The ranking of your ecommerce store depends on the algorithm of the search engine. Google’s algorithm is complicated and changes frequently. However, we know that key factors include keywords, quality content, internal links, and backlinks.</span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">2. Social Media Marketing</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Social media is a great marketing channel to get in front of your customer base. There are multiple social media platforms to choose from. Research the demographics of each to find the ones that best match your customer profile. Then as with search engine marketing, you can run both organic and paid marketing campaigns.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Organic content refers to photos, videos, and text posted to the company profile (no ad spend necessary). It then appears on the feeds of the account followers and other accounts’ feeds the platform algorithm believes will be interested in it. Paid social media advertising can speed up success on social media as the content is shown to more people in your target audience.</span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">3. Email Marketing</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This is a great way to stay in touch with potential customers and loyal customers because updates, insights, and announcements will be sent straight to the inboxes of leads who have chosen to be on the company email list.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">From informational newsletters to exclusive discounts, email content can get subscribers onto your ecommerce website and buy products. The main advantage of email marketing is the ability to set up marketing automations. This streamlines and systemizes the customer journey for maximum efficiency. An example of a popular automation is the abandoned cart email. This is when customers who have started putting items in their shopping cart but didn’t check out receive an email encouraging them to complete the transaction. It has a relatively high conversion rate.</span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">4. SMS Marketing</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Like email marketing, SMS marketing sends messages straight to the inbox of leads and customers. This time their text inbox. It’s a less saturated marketing channel with a</span><a href="https://www.podium.com/text-marketing/"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> good engagement</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. These marketing messages tend to be on the shorter side. There is a key point that is being delivered. For example,</span><a href="https://www.podium.com/texting-templates/"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> announcing new products or sending notifications</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> about the shipping process. It’s a quick and concise touchpoint in the customer journey that keeps customers in the know and feeling like they are being looked after.</span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">5. Content Marketing</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Taking the form of blogs, videos, podcasts, and other helpful content, content marketing shares information and advice the customer base would be interested in to attract them to the brand and eventually onto the ecommerce website. Popular content includes how-to materials, guides, listicles, and user-generated content which includes customer testimonials, photos, videos, </span>and questions shared on the company’s platforms.</p>
<p><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-26494" src="https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/someone-online-shopping-1024x597.png" alt="Person online shopping on an ecommerce site" width="640" height="373" srcset="https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/someone-online-shopping-1024x597.png 1024w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/someone-online-shopping-300x175.png 300w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/someone-online-shopping-768x448.png 768w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/someone-online-shopping-600x350.png 600w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/someone-online-shopping-360x210.png 360w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/someone-online-shopping-160x93.png 160w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/someone-online-shopping-350x204.png 350w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/someone-online-shopping-100x58.png 100w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/someone-online-shopping-588x343.png 588w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/someone-online-shopping.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" /></p>
<h2><span style="font-weight: 400;">4 Ecommerce Marketing Tips</span></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">While more and more businesses are becoming aware of the power of digital marketing, not all are aware of how to leverage digital marketing effectively. There are some best practices that should be followed by ecommerce brands to get the best possible results. If nothing else, keep in mind the following 4 steps.</span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">1. Personalize Your Campaigns</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Writing marketing materials to the general public is nowhere near as effective as writing marketing materials with your specific customer profile at the forefront. Personalize your campaigns not only to their wants and needs but also the likes, interests, and other descriptors that they identify with like busy mom, working professional, or eco-conscious consumer. It makes the content easier to identify with. When a lead sees themselves in your brand, they are much more likely to click through on your Google ads or follow the call to action on your landing page.</span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">2. Craft Retention and Loyalty Programs</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">It’s undeniable that increasing customer loyalty increases a business’ profitability because it’s easier to win a sale from a previous customer compared to a new customer. That being said, a good customer retention rate is built from investing time, money, and effort in encouraging repeat sales. As well as upselling through email marketing, consider introducing a loyalty program that rewards repeat sales and referrals with bonuses and special offers. Customer rewards are beneficial to the customer experience too. It’s a win-win.</span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">3. Do Your Research</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The more you know about your customer base and your industry trends, the more effective your ecommerce marketing plan will be. For example, if you want to increase your click-through rates, you need to understand what motivates your customers to follow links in your emails. Is it by highlighting a special offer or is it by focusing on the amazing results you’ll help them achieve? Learn from others’ experiences with digital marketing. What are other businesses in your industry finding success with? Are they missing something and there’s a gap you can fill, creating a competitive advantage?</span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">4. Align Your Strategies with Your Goals</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When you have decided on the strategies you’ll utilize such as the types of campaigns you’ll send and the platforms you’ll use, set specific goals by detailing outcomes and deadlines. How will you tell if your marketing efforts are going well? Set goals according to the metrics available for the channels you&#8217;ll be using and how each one fits into the rest of the customer journey. For example, if social media marketing is at the top of your funnel, you’ll focus on reach not conversion.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">What strategies should you be using to leverage digital marketing for your ecommerce business?</span></p>
<h2><span style="font-weight: 400;">10 Best</span> <a href="https://www.podium.com/article/marketing-strategy-examples/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ecommerce Marketing Strategies</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> to Grow Your Business</span></h2>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">1. Invest in SEO</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">While SEO takes effort to implement and time to achieve results, it can be a very powerful component of an ecommerce marketing strategy. Sales are made directly through your website so it’s essential that traffic is driven to it. There’s no better way to do that than for the site to appear in search results for relevant keywords and queries. Optimizing website copy, updating an SEO-friendly blog, and establishing backlinks all helps to improve your ranking.</span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">2. Consider Partnering with Influencers</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Affiliate marketing is growing in popularity. It involves getting public figures with loyal audiences to promote your products in exchange for a commission for each sale that comes from their marketing efforts. It makes it easier for new customers to trust you because they already trust the person who is promoting your product. Partnering with influencers who have a similar target audience to you can be very profitable.</span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">3. Run PPC Ads Campaigns</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Pay-per-click gets faster results than SEO because you pay to appear in the search results for certain terms instead of relying on the algorithm. So it’s a good route to take as you start implementing SEO principles and building a strong reputation on Google and other search engines. It ensures your business is showing up when your customer searches for relevant queries.</span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">4. Consider Social Media Advertising</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">To get in front of your customers, especially new customers, your marketing needs to appear wherever your customers naturally hang out. Depending on the demographics of your customers, they will spend time on at least one social media platform. As they’re scrolling through content, you can make it more likely that they will come across your business by paying for advertising. Meeting your customers where they’re at is a good start to building a strong relationship. Social media advertising is an effective way to do this because you can specify your target audience.</span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">5. Add Your Business to Local Listings</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Your local customer base could be an untapped goldmine. A significant amount of Google searches include phrases like ‘near me’. So even if they end up ordering online, consumers want to support local businesses. Also, it supports your SEO efforts to show up on a variety of business listings from Google Business Profile to local listings.</span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">6. Make Your Website User-Friendly</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">You want website visitors to stay on your site long enough to be convinced to make a purchase, right? Well, you need to work on the usability of your website then. It should be easy to navigate from page to page and find key information customers will want to know before committing to buying a product. With so many other things vying for the attention of your customers online, you want to keep them engaged, not frustrated.</span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">7. Optimize Your Product Pages</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">No one buys a product they don’t think they need or they just don’t want. It’s a waste of money. So you have to make your products appealing to your customer base at all stages of the customer journey, from social media posts to the product description. Is it clear what the product is, who it is for, how it helps, and what makes it unique? If not, work on your sales page copy, especially as not all potential customers will be familiar with your brand when coming from Google Shopping and the like.</span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">8. Optimize Your Site for Mobile Devices</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Increasingly consumers are shopping on the go (or when scrolling on their phones while watching Netflix!) so don’t assume your customers are viewing your website on a desktop. Make your site easy to browse and purchase from on a mobile device, whether a cell phone or a tablet. This is particularly important if you invest in social media ads because it increases the likelihood that they’ll visit your website on a mobile device. Lack of usability leads to lost sales.</span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">9. Get Customer Reviews</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Social proof is great for conversion rate optimization. So work on</span> <a href="https://www.podium.com/reviews/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">collecting positive customer reviews</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> on popular review websites like Google Reviews in addition to adding testimonials to your own marketing such as landing pages. This improves your SEO ranking and has the potential to win over new customers who are looking for trusted businesses like yours. An easy way to boost your reviews is to ask for them by</span><a href="https://www.podium.com/google-review-link/"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> sending over a link</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> through text or email.</span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">10. Install a</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Web Chat Tool</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">After putting work into getting social media followers, Google searchers, and more to visit your website, ensure your website fulfills their needs. It’s a key part of the customer experience. Website visitors can really</span><a href="https://www.podium.com/webchat/"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> benefit from having a web chat available</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> where they can ask questions and get a response in a timely and convenient manner. You don’t want to lose potential customers at the last hurdle—purchasing from your ecommerce website.</span></p>


Learn More

<h2><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-26495" src="https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/couple-shopping-on-an-ecommerce-website-1024x597.png" alt="couple shopping on an ecommerce website" width="640" height="373" srcset="https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/couple-shopping-on-an-ecommerce-website-1024x597.png 1024w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/couple-shopping-on-an-ecommerce-website-300x175.png 300w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/couple-shopping-on-an-ecommerce-website-768x448.png 768w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/couple-shopping-on-an-ecommerce-website-600x350.png 600w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/couple-shopping-on-an-ecommerce-website-360x210.png 360w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/couple-shopping-on-an-ecommerce-website-160x93.png 160w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/couple-shopping-on-an-ecommerce-website-350x204.png 350w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/couple-shopping-on-an-ecommerce-website-100x58.png 100w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/couple-shopping-on-an-ecommerce-website-588x343.png 588w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/couple-shopping-on-an-ecommerce-website.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" /></h2>
<h2><span style="font-weight: 400;">4</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Ecommerce Platforms to Consider</span></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">A big factor in the success of your ecommerce marketing campaigns is the technology you have supporting you. There are multiple websites that are designed for online stores, created to streamline the online shopping user experience through a smooth checkout process and in some cases integrated marketing tools. Which one of the following do you think will suit your business best?</span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">1. Shopify</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">With a variety of subscription plans to suit different business sizes and needs, Shopify is a popular choice for many ecommerce businesses. It’s easy to use, making managing your online store a bit easier. Plus it has marketing tool integrations including Facebook ads.</span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">2. Wix</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Wix is appealing to those just starting out because it has a free plan and only requires drag-and-drop designing—no code. Although that does mean losing out on some functionality and personalizations. It doesn’t grow with a business like Shopify because of these limitations.</span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">3. Squarespace</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This one falls somewhere in between Shopify and Wix. It has affordable subscription plans and only requires drag-and-drop designing. It also has marketing features including an in-built email marketing tool. However, there are some limitations, a big one being the payment options at checkout, only compatible with Apple Pay or Stripe.</span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">4. WooCommerce</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">It’s WordPress’ version of ecommerce. A website built on WordPress can use plug-ins from WooCommerce to turn it into a functioning online store. The different plug-ins (for example, a</span><a href="https://www.podium.com/article/ecommerce-live-chat/"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> web chat</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> plug-in) make it very flexible and adaptable so you can make it as simple or complex as you like.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">With that, you’re ready to take on ecommerce marketing and see your sales fly.</span></p>


Ecommerce Marketing 101: 14 Strategies to Boost Leads

See Webchat in Action

Ready to grow?