Digital Marketing For Your eCommerce Website
So, you have yourself a well-designed, conversion hungry, lead-generating eCommerce website… so where are all the customers?
No matter what you’ve been told, just because you’ve built it does not mean they will come. Getting traffic to your website and maximising sales requires some work.
While sales revenue is an obvious goal, conversion rate, brand awareness and customer engagement are all measures of success you may want to track. Setting these goals and then using analytics to assign a value to them is what will allow you to test and measure your campaign ROI (return on investment). If you don’t set realistic goals and track them throughout, it will be increasingly difficult to know how successful your marketing efforts really are.
Here are some channels with the most proven track records when it comes to ROI and ROAS (return on ad spend):
Email Marketing
Email is still an effective way to connect with customers. It allows you to build a subscriber list, personalise content and follow up – think, birthday vouchers, abandoned cart reminders, and deals to loyal customers.
“Email is the killer mobile experience everyone seems to be forgetting about, and many marketers stopped putting content in the inbox in favour of blogging, so there’s a massive opportunity to “zig” when everyone is zagging.” – Ryan Deiss, Founder and CEO of DigitalMarketer.com and Founder of RivalBrands.com.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – Paying For Google Ads
With over 75% of all desktop search taking place on Google search, it’s really the only search engine in town worth worrying about. SEM is the pay-per–click version of search and returns consistently high ROI. If you need results for your new website NOW, this is it. If done wrong, you’ll burn quickly through click budget and get poor results. The surest road to successful ROI is to partner with an agency that is an official Google Partner, so it’s done right and you realise results faster.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – being liked by Google
Google is #1 because it delivers the most relevant content to its users – so your goal is simple – have the right (relevant) content that people are searching for on your site. The top 10 (first page) search results on Google account for 92% of all traffic. A whopping 33% of all organic clicks go to the first ranked search result. Traffic drops off by 95% on page two. So, it’s pretty clear the money’s on page one.
SEO is a medium to long term strategy that yields great results with a solid content strategy, frequently posting relevant content, good metadata practice, proper use of alt tags and backlinks – all factors to achieving a good search rank.
Google display ads
This is a network of over two million sites that serve Google Display Ads. These are different than Google Ads displayed based on keyword searches. Display Ads appear on any number of websites like news, video streaming sights, in–apps and countless other places. They’re great for remarketing and brand awareness.
Instagram shopping
Designed for mobile experience and an image-oriented approach, Instagram is the social media channel of choice for the millennial with a massive 64% of its userbase comprised of the 18–34 age range. Instagram now has a marketplace which caters right through to purchase. If you make or sell a physical product, this should be a channel that you are using. Your existing website can be set up to push a content feed, meaning you only must maintain one platform while enjoying the benefits of an extra channel.
Facebook is the preferred social media platform of pretty much everyone else online, from Baby Boomers and Generation X to Xennial; and with 2.23 billion monthly active users, it is still the number one social media platform. Facebook is a treasure trove for eCommerce and allows probably THE most tailored paid advertising. You can use Facebook Ads at any stage of the sales funnel. From brand awareness to remarketing with Facebook pixel, you can’t afford not to be there. Another perk, targeting audiences by hobbies and interests – a ridiculously powerful tool not available with most digital marketing.