The days of having a shop and selling the products to only the customers that visit our shops are long gone. A revolution named E-commerce has happened and the person not using it is just losing the greatest opportunity to grow and expand. Whether you are new in business or you are a long-time player, E-commerce will surely provide you with lots of benefits.
Being from a business family, I know that a businessman wants to grow constantly and have a bigger turn-over in every coming year. To push the business we started advertising using banners, then we started a television advertisement after then E-commerce came and that boosted our business. By doing local advertisements, we were able to attract lots of customers in our area, but we wanted to grow even bigger and to make that possible, we needed to break free from the geographic limitations and expand our reach. And this became possible when we started using E-commerce in our business project execution.
Using E-commerce websites boosted our sales as we became free from the geographical limitations, it lowered the cost, gaining new customers by search engine visibility became easy (which would have been near to impossible for us if we would have an opt-out for a personal website), eliminated the time and travel cost for our customers and it made it possible for us to be open 24*7.
To grow, you need to change with the times and adapt to the changes. Changes are just the opportunity or opening that you were waiting for the whole time. It is just like some batsman has hit the ball and if you catch it you can become the man of the match. Just make sure you catch the ball before someone else does.
Thus using an E-commerce platform will surely benefit you by expanding your customer reach. But as so many e-commerce businesses are out there, you have to create brand awareness out there to stand out of the competition. This is where you should include digital marketing in your business’s project scheduling. But what is digital marketing?
Digital marketing means using social media, digital content, search engines, email campaigns to attract visitors and increase online sales. This can be pretty hard as the internet is an endless place and choosing the right strategy is extremely high. Therefore here are some digital marketing strategies to boost your e-commerce business:
1. Boost product visualization:
When you are on an e-commerce platform, people can buy your product just by seeing the pictures. People have grown a habit of finding high-definition by just some clicks and thus you should stand up to this expectation.
You should use the best angle and a full clear picture to showcase your products. Use tools that allow people to zoom in, spin the product for a 360-degree view. If 3D technology is available, you should use it to stand out from the competition. According to the fourth source, their customers reported an increase in sales by 25% to 30% when using 3D over flat imaging.
2. Add a video:
Flaunt your product in a way in which you want people to see it and this is possible by creating a video. Video is more engaging and descriptive than a photo and thus if it is possible to make a video, you should make it.
Highlight the benefits of using your product and keep it short and simple. Your project objective is to let people know how your product can help them and why they should use your product?
3. Use Artificial Intelligence (AI):
AI can collect all the info of the visitor and thus they can predict how the customer will react, based on their past behavior. You get your hands on conversion rates, bounce rates, and engagement rates and thus you can know how is your website doing and how are people using it.
This helps you in getting the insights that will let you know how what improvements your site needs and therefore you can encourage conversions and loyalty. This way you can make the necessary changes that will help you in turning your website to what people want and thus they will return to your site, buy your products and even recommend them.
4. Use the right social media:
This is the place where your competition will help you. Check the platforms where the giant in your competition works and you should target the same social media. Therefore you should include social media marketing in your project scope.
They are where they are because they are doing something right and are targeting the right audience and therefore you should learn from them and you should do the right thing. The hardest part of social media marketing is to find the right platform and the right people and therefore when you have it all in the place, you should go at grab it. Follow their accounts and observe what they are posting and when. Which post is getting the highest engagement.
Observe and learn and then jump into social media as an expert.
5. Cutting edge filtering:
Finding anything without a filter is head-ache and believe me that no one wants it.
The more products you offer, the more advanced filters you should have to make the process as simple as possible. Moreover, this makes no sense if you have 1000+ products and no filter, do you really think that people will scroll down all the products to find what they need?
In fact, you should provide them with the right tools so that they can find the needed products quickly. Therefore you should include having an advance filter in your website’s project roadmap.
6. Optimize your digital campaign:
Emails are the most critical part of digital marketing for an e-commerce business. This is the address where you can reach the person and thus you can convince them to shop from your website. Therefore, you should use it wisely.
As you cannot pitch the customer for sales on your e-commerce platform, thus you should use e-mails to pitch them.
Send a welcome message as soon as they provide you with their e-mail address. This makes a personalized effect on customers.
The lead knows nothing about you or your product and as it’s your duty to acknowledge them about the same. Send an email that contains all the information that one should know and which will impress the lead.
Send them coupons and discount offers to attract them more.
If someone shops from you, you should send them a feedback email so that they can share their experience with you.
Wishlist or in cart notification is also a part of sales. If people whitelist any product, this means there is a 50% chance that they will buy the product, but they just need a push to do so. This push could be a reminder, discounts, price drops, birthday wishes, or low stock notices. It would be like a decent project proposal for them.
Author Bio:
Shyamal is the Founder of SmartTask, an online work management tool that’s helping teams be more productive by having clarity on who’s doing what by when. Has a penchant for researching and sharing strategies that could benefit a team’s productivity.