Digital Marketing Plan for Ecommerce: 6 Steps to Set Up Your Marketing Strategy

Running an eCommerce store without a marketing strategy is like a happy meal without fries. To ensure the long survival of your online store, you need a marketing strategy.

Fifty-eight percent of customers stop doing business with a company because of poor customer service. The margin for error is quite thin these days, and there may be no second chance. Before embarking on an eCommerce business, you need to get everything in order.

Times change, and with it, your marketing strategy should evolve too. Post-pandemic, real-time payment options (Google Pay, Apple Pay, PayPal) have witnessed a sharp rise, 41% to be exact. Keeping up with the current times is crucial; it applies to SEO, functionality, marketing, etc.

Tackling the first two aspects is relatively uncomplicated. However, marketing requires a methodical yet creative approach. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced digital marketer, you need a robust digital marketing plan for your eCommerce business .

What are these aspects? Let’s find out.

6 Techniques to Create a Digital Marketing Plan For eCommerce

1. Content Marketing

Why is content marketing an integral part of your digital marketing strategy? The answer is simple. It draws quality traffic to your website, creates awareness, and generates leads that boost your sales.

47% of buyers read three to five content pieces before engaging with a sales representative. As you see, almost fifty percent of individuals rely on content to make a decision. Besides implementing a solid content marketing strategy, measuring the strategy’s results is also necessary.

As per Semrush, 61% of marketers measure their content marketing ROI. Content marketing is nothing but an inbound marketing technique that brings massive traffic to your eCommerce website through video marketing, social media, and search engines.

The perfect way to unleash the power of content marketing and promote your eCommerce business is by publishing blogs. Creating a specialized content strategy for blogs is a long process, involving a lot of thought and effort, but that is for some other time.

To put it simply, create a unique blog and insert niche keywords that will provide value to your customers. Conduct thorough research about your target audience, the relevant industry, find specific keywords, and create engaging content.

2. Instagram Marketing

Most social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, etc., are full of paid marketing advertisements. The most happening platform is Instagram which allows you to connect with your audience personally.

Use Instagram to promote your products/services online without being pushy. How do you accomplish this goal? Here are a few tips for marketing your products using Instagram.

• Publish Instagram ads
• Post visually appealing images and videos
• Connect with influencers in the industry
• Create a niche-specific community
• Boost user engagement through quizzes, lucky draws, and getaways

3. Loyalty Programs

As per research conducted by Fundera, customers engaged in a brand loyalty program will spend 12-18% more each year. One of the best ways to retain a customer is implementing a customer loyalty program. It is a crucial part of a digital marketing strategy.

What exactly is a customer loyalty program, and how does it work? Many fast-food chains, fashion stores, eCommerce companies, and others reward loyal customers with gifts, gift vouchers, discounts, or redeemable points for repeat purchases.

In this day and age of cut-throat competition, an eCommerce company has to go the extra mile to retain customers. Good service and outstanding customer experience are a must, but loyalty programs give customers the extra incentive to shop with you.

Learn from your competitors. What do they do to retain customers? Research the market, your competitors and implement a proper loyalty program.

4. Referrals/Affiliate Partners/Businesses

You can’t ignore affiliate marketing while developing an eCommerce marketing strategy. What is affiliate marketing? It is performance-based marketing where a website offers a reward for referrals provided by partner businesses.

You don’t have to spend thousands of dollars on expensive marketing campaigns or advertising. All you need to do is sign up on an affiliate website or platform. Building an affiliate marketing program becomes easier for an eCommerce store if you have existing customers.

You can’t imagine the benefits affiliate marketing can bring for your business. When an existing customer refers your product/service to his friends or family, he gets a discount or a voucher.

Social proof marketing is an excellent tool to boost sales for eCommerce companies that can afford to spend big dollars on marketing. Credible recommendations made by friends, family, industry experts, or celebrities. How can you use social proof marketing?

You can use social media proof in testimonials, ad commercials, reviews, etc. Many successful brands have used social proof marketing to boost their businesses.

5. Email Marketing

Email marketing is a potent marketing tool that has been around for quite some time, and it is not going to fade out anytime soon. Once your eCommerce website builds a sizable customer base, you can send emails to target your existing customers.

Although we can’t rule out the effectiveness of an email marketing campaign, you need to be wary of the shortcomings. Many companies send emails to subscribers daily. Most of these emails end up in the spam folder, or people just delete them.

How do you differentiate yourself from your competitors?

• Use a unique and personalized email template.
• An email marketing tool for customization.

Follow the two rules mentioned above, and you will see good results. One last thing, don’t go overboard with email marketing, or subscribers will mark your emails as spam.

6. Facebook Marketing

You may have heard this from many people - Facebook is a saturated platform, and you can’t get out of it. While that may be true to a certain extent, Facebook still has over 2.89 billion active monthly users.

As a business owner, your Facebook ad copy needs to be impressive if you want to improve your click-through rate while promoting on Facebook. The ads need to be such that people notice them and interact with your brand. Follow the steps below to create amazing ad copies.

• Create an ad copy that has spectacular images.
• Your ad copy should align with your business objectives.
• Narrow down your target audience.
• Use simple, crisp, and clear language.
• Unleash the power of social proof.
• Don’t make it all about yourself.
• Be prepared for criticism & objections.
• Don’t forget the headline.

Secondly, you need to create urgency. You need to create an impression that your product/service is selling like hotcakes. Use lines like the ones above.

• Only 100 pieces remain in stock.
• 70% Discount for a Limited period.
• Grand prizes for 10 lucky winners

Give them the motive to interact with your brand. You can motivate them to visit your page by offering a discount/freebies. Additionally, you can use cliffhangers in your Facebook ad description to keep the audience guessing, which will ultimately improve the click-through rate.

Always remember that less is more, especially for Facebook ads. Follow the 20% rule to make your ads more appealing and compelling. Your Facebook should not contain more than 20% text. Since you’re in the eCommerce business, make sure you use a carousel layout.

An innovative way to target your audience is to use features like re-targeting and interest-based targeting. These two techniques will yield the best results.

Which is the Best Digital Marketing Plan for Your eCommerce Business?

Creating an online eCommerce store is easy. The challenge lies in bringing customers to your online store. How do you draw customers to your website? The trick lies in using multiple marketing strategies. In a nutshell, this is what you need to do

Developing a digital marketing plan for an eCommerce store is challenging but not rocket science. You can implement robust digital marketing for your online store and reap rich dividends by implementing the above mentioned steps.

• Content marketing - Provide detailed and engaging content along with high-volume keywords.
• Instagram marketing - Build a large community and use social media influencers to spread brand awareness.
• Loyalty marketing - Reward your customers with discounts/vouchers/freebies for sticking with you and encourage them to make future purchases.
• Referral/affiliate marketing - Partners and customers who promote your store should be rewarded handsomely.
• Email marketing - When you build a large subscriber base, create a personalized email-marketing campaign for better conversion rates.
• Facebook ads - Sell more products on Facebook, Instagram, etc., through Facebook ads.

Need professional guidance to set up a digital marketing plan for eCommerce? Contact Netclues on +1-345-525-9999 or fill out our contact form here - www.netclues.ky/contact-netclues-cayman-islands