E-commerce business can simply be described as the process of selling or buying of goods and services on the internet. People can shop for different items using their phones, tablets, or computers from any location. Some of the biggest e-commerce companies are Amazon, Alibaba, Shopify, and eBay.

The COVID-19 pandemic led to the closure of many physical stores—which caused entrepreneurs to turn in greater numbers to e-commerce businesses. The boom in e-commerce businesses means that the online market is becoming more concentrated each day, especially among small businesses. Only one activity can allow these organizations to appeal to their target audience: e-commerce marketing.

E-commerce marketing involves using different promotional strategies and tactics to increase traffic to an online store, attract paying customers from that traffic, and boost brand awareness.

This article will highlight a variety of strategies and tactics that could improve e-commerce marketing for your brand. We will also provide a detailed explanation of how each e-commerce marketing strategy works.

1. Focus on customer experience

2. Make your product pages SEO rich

3. Launch an affiliate marketing program

4. Implement social media strategies

5. Add an email signup option to your website

6. Implement pay-per-click advertising

7. Set up cart abandonment emails

8. Reward loyal customers

1. Focus on customer experience

Providing an excellent customer experience can help an e-commerce store to distinguish itself from its rivals. Furthermore, this practice contributes to revenue growth, enhanced customer loyalty, and a higher return on investment.

Improving customer experience has become the top priority for huge online retailers such as Amazon and Alibaba. Before going further, let’s take a minute to review what customer experience actually entails.

Customer experience includes all the interactions that clients have with your brand. Customer experience begins from the marketing activities, communication, website design, and continues throughout the actual product delivery process.

Having a positive customer experience is vital because it allows individuals to perceive the brand positively. As a result, customers are likely to become loyal to the brand and may recommend it to their family members and friends.

Excellent customer experiences also pave the way for cross-selling. In this context, cross-selling involves offering additional products to existing or repeat clients.

So, are you wondering how to create that great experience?

Read on for some of our best marketing tips to improve customer experience.

‍The first tip is to offer a personalized shopping experience. Personalization makes customers feel appreciated. Furthermore, it helps successful e-commerce brands to deliver better product recommendations and discounts, which can translate into higher sales.

The second tip is to improve communication processes. Since technology has evolved greatly, e-commerce platforms should use new tools such as chatbots and live chats. Chatbots will provide ready feedback to customers, which could improve their overall online shopping experience. E-commerce retailers should have website pages dedicated to frequently asked questions (FAQs) for faster clarification of points.

In addition, customer service agents still need to be trained well to supplement chatbots. Customer service agents should have appropriate skills to identify and resolve conflicts before situations escalate to problems.

E-commerce platforms should also provide customer reviews and testimonials. Such information can enhance the consumer decision-making process.

The third tip for improving customer experience is to provide an appealing user experience. In this context, the user experience is achieved from the look and feel of the e-commerce website or app. The software should be reliable, simple, and functional. Users with little IT knowledge should be able to navigate across different pages easily.

Customers are likely to exit a website if they find it too hard to use or they keep encountering errors. Offering certain clues can help avoid these negative actions. Websites should also have a fast loading speed to improve customer retention. The image below shows what a typical checkout should entail. Diverting from this established process may lead to confusion.

Not sure where to start with creating a positive customer experience transformation within your business? Ndiwano.com has a plethora of customer experience freelancers for you to choose from to make the job simple and effective.

2. Make your product pages SEO rich

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is responsible for the amount of traffic directed to your website. Users should be directed to product pages where they can view the different items available in your store.

Research by Google shows that users are likely to click through and navigate to websites that appear higher in their search results. So, you want your offering to appear on the first page of the search results, even though Google might provide hundred of thousands of website pages that are relevant to a customer’s query.

The following steps can assist in making your product pages SEO rich:

First, use the right keywords. You can think of keywords as the core pillars of SEO. Keywords lead users to your product pages and help Google algorithms to understand your site better.

Consumers can use generic keywords, especially when searching for a product that they don’t know. For instance, a potential customer may type “training gear for men rain-proof size 32.” This full search term is referred to as a long-tail keyword. Including these long-tail keywords is beneficial since they have higher chances of conversion and little competition.

Second, make sure your product descriptions and titles are relevant. The titles must summarize your products accurately. It’s recommended to have titles with less than 60 characters because only the first 50-60 characters are shown in the browser.

Third, remember to optimize multimedia objects such as images and videos. Images assist customers in making decisions regarding whether to purchase particular items or not. Therefore, it’s crucial to use high-quality images. The images’ file names should be optimized correctly to rank better, with meaningful alt text descriptions.

Using relevant content in digital marketing campaigns is also required. Due to market saturation, most e-commerce platforms deal with similar products. Online businesses should be wary of using duplicated content since it can hurt their website’s SEO performance. Search engines usually categorize websites with duplicate content as low-quality.

Other things to consider are using unique meta descriptions, optimizing URLs, and improving the site’s loading speeds. Meta descriptions provide a short summary of your website and should be less than 160 characters.

Don’t know where to get started with SEO? Hire an SEO expert on Ndiwano.com.

3. Launch an affiliate marketing program

An affiliate marketing program involves partnering with other individuals or parties to promote a firm’s products. Affiliate marketing programs can increase user traffic to a website. As a result, e-commerce stores may experience higher sales due to new customers.

E-commerce affiliate marketing programs have few operating expenses when compared to those in other sectors. You can place google ads and links on other stores’ websites. These links will then redirect users to your site. Using influencer marketing can also introduce the e-commerce platform to an already established target audience.

Alternatively, you can partner with manufacturing firms to promote their products in exchange for a commission.

4. Implement social media strategies

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Social media is the ultimate digital marketing tool in the modern world. Popular social sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have millions of active users. When implemented correctly, social media marketing strategies can boost the conversion rate, which represents converting users to paying customers.

E-commerce stores should maintain an active presence on social media platforms. Posting frequent product images, messages, and links can attract users’ attention and direct them to your website. Furthermore, this regular activity facilitates increased customer referrals.

Social media channels can also help you keep in touch with the target audience. For example, managers can respond to customer queries and deal with complaints. Such actions can promote a loyal community, which is quite beneficial to online stores.

E-commerce stores can also collect valuable data from social media channels that they can use for personalization. A perfect example is monitoring the number of shares, likes, and follows that product postings have. The information can then be used to stock appropriately.

If you’re struggling to maintain an active social media presence or require some assistance with conversion rate optimization, Ndiwano.com is here to help. Find qualified social media strategists on Ndiwano.com today.

5. Add an email sign-up option to your website

Email marketing enables e-commerce stores to communicate with their customer base. Businesses can engage in email campaigns to update new customers regarding upcoming sales discounts and the availability of new products. To leverage these functions, adding an email sign-up option to a website is recommended. The store can offer certain incentives to encourage more website visitors to sign up.

E-commerce platforms should send emails with clear subject lines. It’s important to make the content of the email easy to understand.

Once emails are sent, you’ll want to monitor business analytics using different automation tools to understand the effectiveness of your email marketing efforts. The information can help e-commerce platforms understand how customers receive and respond to email notifications.

6. Implement pay-per-click advertising

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Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is also an effective e-commerce marketing plan. This marketing activity involves placing ads on a website that will then redirect users to other sites when clicked. The advertiser will need to pay the publisher whenever the advertisement is clicked.

When engaging in pay-per-click advertising, online stores should consider the ad, pay offer, and landing page. The ad should have a clear message of what the advertiser is offering. The advertisement should also have certain keywords to rank higher in search engine results. The landing page should present what was advertised to the user. The page should also be free from all kinds of distractions, including unnecessary pop-ups, for better user satisfaction.

7. Set up cart abandonment emails

It’s a common practice for users to place items in their shopping cart and exit an e-commerce site before placing an order. Successful e-commerce stores have proper strategies in place to capture sales and upsell to such customers. Upselling involves convincing individuals to purchase additional items.

One right step that these businesses take is to notify users on their email list of their abandoned cart, possibly with additional information or offers. Customers can respond to this call to action by purchasing or modifying items in their cart.

8. Reward loyal customers

Having a loyalty program is among the best ways to keep existing customers. Online stores can create healthy relationships by celebrating their loyal customers.

Common ways of rewarding customers include making them brand ambassadors,  granting them access to early programs, and offering discounts, price cuts, and free deliveries..

Hire an e-commerce specialist and boost your business’s marketing potential

Due to the increase of online businesses, the need for e-commerce marketing specialists is at an all-time high. You’re likely to find numerous benefits of working with an e-commerce marketing specialist. For starters, an e-commerce marketer will help you deliver an excellent customer experience, which will contribute to better online sales.

An e-commerce marketer will also assess your SEO and social media strategies and advise how to improve them. As discussed above, SEO marketing tactics affect your visibility on the internet. Good SEO should help you appear among the first results whenever a user performs a Google search for specific product reviews.

You can start experiencing the benefits of e-commerce marketing by hiring an e-commerce marketing specialist on Ndiwano.com.