“5 Low-Cost Marketing Tactics for E-Commerce Business Owners” is a blog guest-written for Pedddle by Michael Deane.
We’re going to explore 5 Low-Cost Marketing Tactics for E-Commerce. With cut-throat competition in the e-commerce market, small businesses must use all the available resources to set themselves apart, so that they can attract and keep their target audience.
If you’re running a small e-commerce business, your marketing tactics should focus on capturing the attention of your potential customers, as well as turning them into loyal customers and preventing their churn.
We present to you 5 low-cost marketing tactics for e-Commerce – you can use these tactics to achieve your goals, differentiate your e-commerce business, and ultimately boost your sales.
5 Low-Cost Marketing Tactics for E-Commerce
1. Optimise Your Website
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is an essential part of any successful e-commerce strategy. When compared to other e-commerce marketing campaigns, SEO has the highest return on investment.
SEO helps your target audience find your product amongst other search results, thus bringing traffic to your website, building its trust and authority, and increasing the visibility and reputation of your brand.
Your website and individual product pages must be fully optimised with the words and phrases that your target customers use when they are searching for information about the products you’re selling, or making their purchasing decision.
Relevant keywords should also be included in the title tags, H1 tags, meta descriptions, and alt tags. Use tools such as Ahrefs Keyword Explorer or SEM Rush to find relevant keywords and opt for high-buyer-intent keywords with a decent search volume and optimal keyword difficulty.
Apart from using keywords, other essential steps to optimising your website are:
● Link building, that is, acquiring links from relevant and trustworthy websites.
● Boosting the loading speed of your website. Your website visitors don’t want to wait for longer than 3 seconds for the website to load, and with every second added, you lose 11% of traffic.
● Optimising your website for mobile. By 2021, mobile purchases are expected to account for 54% of total e-commerce sales, so unless your e-commerce runs smoothly on smartphones and tablets, your business can suffer.
● Website design – 94% of first impressions are design-related, so ensure your website is professionally designed to be both functional and attractive.
2. Provide Great User Experience
With the rise of technology, expectations of online shoppers have only grown higher. When shopping online, they don’t care much about the time zones or business hours – 58% of people shop online because they can do it 24/7. They want to get all the info they need and complete their purchase without any hassle, whenever they find it appropriate. If they need to make a complaint or need some help with the product they’ve brought, they want
the customer service to respond immediately and adequately.
Delivering excellent user experience was once the privilege of the big and the powerful. Now even small e-commerce businesses can meet the expectations of their customers.
Conversational AI assistants can provide highly-personalised support to each of your website visitors and engage with while they’re making the final purchasing decision. Furthermore, AI chatbots are available 24/7, and capable of handling multiple queries, offering customised quotes, or providing personalised advice, thus boosting your customer satisfaction, and increasing sales.
3. Craft Top-Notch Content
Fluffy content that you use as a vehicle for keywords won’t bring your e-commerce businesses much closer to success.
Provide your target audience with relevant and useful content pieces that fit their interests and needs. The point is to help them overcome some of their challenges and solve their pain points.
For example, instead of writing about the latest trainers in your store, focus on the qualities sports footwear should have for different activities, such as running, trekking, or basketball.
Blogging is a great way to attract potential customers and nurture them through the sales funnel. You can also use your blog posts as a lead magnet. You can use gated, premium content to get your website visitors to subscribe to your newsletters and then target and nurture them using email marketing.
4. Include Customer Reviews on Your Website
One of the best ways to boost your e-commerce business credibility is by using customer testimonials and success stories on your website and your product pages.
Recommendations serve as social proof when your potential customer makes a purchasing decision, as they build trust in your brand. But, if you want them to be effective, recommendations need to be authentic
and have a genuine feel.
Furthermore, stats show that 83% of your customers who had a positive experience with your company will be happy to give you a referral. However, only 29% of them do, since no one is asking them to. So, instead of waiting for a random referral, incentivise your satisfied customers and generate new quality leads by starting your referral program.
5. Market on Social Media
Social media marketing is cost-effective, and it’s an excellent way for you to promote your e-commerce business, engage with your potential and existing customers, and build meaningful relationships with them.
Determine which social media channels are the most popular in your niche and among your target audience. If you think that you can’t handle being actively present on more than one social media channel, focus yourself on rocking it on a single platform, as this can help you generate 32% more sales.
Ensure you engage with your users regularly. Incentivise them to post about their experiences with your brand. This way, you’ll obtain social proof and turn your loyal customers into your brand ambassadors.
Connecting with popular influencers in your niche can be beneficial, too, as long as your values are aligned.
Use these five essential but low-cost marketing tactics to set your e-commerce business on the road to success.
‘5 Low-Cost Marketing Tactics for E-Commerce’ blog guest written for Pedddle by Michael Deane.
Michael has been working in marketing for almost a decade and has worked with a huge range of clients, which has made him knowledgeable on many different subjects. He has recently rediscovered a passion for writing and hopes to make it a daily habit. You can read more of
Michael’s work at Qeedle.
Looking for other small business tips? Read our other blogs…