At the moment, online shopping is ruling the world.

In 2018 alone, 1.8 billion people shopped online.

That year, $2.8 trillion in global sales was acquired.

Many experts predict that this figure will grow to $4.8 trillion in 2021.

All this means is that more people are shopping online like never before.

With that said, do you have a marketing strategy in place to attract these new potential customers?

If you don’t, fortunately, e-commerce marketing is a succinct topic.

In this guide, we’re going to go over the basics of e-commerce marketing so you can build your own campaign.
 

What is E-commerce Marketing?

E-commerce marketing is the process of generating awareness toward a business that sells online products or services.

Particularly, marketers in this field use digital content, social media, email campaigns, and search engines to attract website visitors and compel them to make purchases.

The crux of e-commerce marketing is e-commerce advertising.

Do both of these terms sound interchangeable?

Unfortunately, they’re not.

It’s important to understand the difference between both terms.

So, we’ll break them down in detail below.
 

Difference Between E-commerce Advertising & Marketing

Advertising often falls under the umbrella of marketing.

In e-commerce, the same principle applies.

When both activities are used together, you can effectively reach new members of your target audience and drive them to conversion.

As we mentioned above, e-commerce marketing is all about driving awareness to your online store.

In contrast, e-commerce advertising entails the process of actually promoting your products.

Examples of e-commerce advertising include:

  • Rich media ads
  • Display ads
  • Banner ads

The major takeaway here is that e-commerce advertising and marketing campaigns need to work in unison to boost brand visibility and sales.
 

Types of E-commerce Marketing

To give you a broader look at what a sample e-commerce marketing campaign looks like, here are all of the channels and how you can use them to build the perfect online store.

Social Media Marketing:
Social media is a gold mine for e-commerce retailers.

On these platforms, you can design and promote advertisements to reach your target audience.

Also, social media ads are highly-interactive, allowing potential customers to view your products and click on them to navigate straight to a product page.

This is called shoppable content and it’s an ideal way to drive conversions from qualified leads from your social media networks.

Plus, it eliminates the friction of visiting your website, finding the product, and then determining if you want to buy it.

We included a snapshot of shoppable content from Instagram particularly because it’s one of the only social media networks where you can’t embed links.

By creating shoppable content, retailers can instead use the text to promote your products.

This is the basis of using social media marketing to draw awareness to your online store.

Content Marketing:
If you are trying to persuade others to make transactions, you’ll need to talk about your brand in a way that captivates your audience.

Content marketing allows you to do this…

And then some!

Through blog posts, videos, and even e-Books, you can draw interest from your audience and convert them into paying customers.

However, if you want to even capture the interest of your audience, they have to know you exist.

This is where conversion optimization comes in.

By optimizing your product pages with relevant keywords, you can allow qualified leads to visit your website.

You can optimize product pages by configuring the headers, page titles, and image alt text to focus on precise keywords that will drive conversions.

This optimized product page successfully uses popular keywords that will certainly drive interest.

Doing something like this is a must, but it’s definitely not everything.

Creating quality blog content is essential as well.

For example, if you’re selling wedding dresses, it would be ideal to create a post informing readers how they can “pick the right dress”.

From there, you can keep your audience engaged and offer some sort of wedding dress checklist to help them with their search.

Ultimately, this will push your readers toward making a transaction with you, especially if you provide an offer (the wedding dress checklist) and get their email addresses to add to your email list.

Search Engine Marketing:
Search engine marketing includes both search engine optimization (SEO) and paid search (PPC).

We titled this header “search engine marketing” for a reason.

Clearly, having a high ranking on search engines is beneficial for any type of business.

For example, if you wanted to find a wedding dress, these would be the first options you would see in the search engine result pages (SERPs).

However, just above the local listings, there are paid search ads that will be the first thing you see on the SERP.

SEO and PPC are both equally important, but when you can create engaging ads and have a high ranking, you can effectively reach a larger online audience.

Just in case they skip over your ad, your audience won’t likely ignore your top position in the SERPs.

Email Marketing:
If you run an online store, email marketing is going to be a major part of what you do.

Here’s how email marketing will tie into your other marketing activities.

We’ve mentioned social media marketing, with the purpose of diverting qualified leads to your website.

But, what happens when people visit your website and leave?

What if a person changes their mind and doesn’t find what they’re looking for on your site?

We’ve also mentioned content marketing.

However, even if you create the best content, what are you doing to keep potential customers reading your blog.

Your blog isn’t a library.

Ideally, you want potential customers to read your blog and say, “I like this, and now I want to buy something.”

Lastly, we’ve mentioned search engine marketing.

Just like social media marketing, what are you doing to do when you attract qualified leads to your website?

Do you see what’s happening?

In marketing, you need an end-game.

This is called a funnel.

For e-commerce retailers, the funnel isn’t your website.

Funnels are designed to capture something and send it through the narrow end.

Your website can’t truly be a funnel if people are leaving your site.

Instead, your email list is your funnel.

When qualified leaders sign up, they are being groomed to eventually make a purchase by reading promotional emails.

With social media marketing, you can capture the email addresses of those who may not have found what they are looking for based on your ad.

With content marketing, you can encourage readers to sign up to your email list to receive updates about other great content you publish.

With search engine marketing, you can influence new prospects to sign up to receive weekly alerts of deals.

You can even customize your email list to ask them about the types of products they like and wish to receive alerts about.

This is what email marketing is about, and every successful retailer must have a campaign working for them.

Influencer Marketing:
The prevalence of social media networks like Instagram, Facebook, and even YouTube has led to a new form of marketing called Influencer Marketing.

Influencers are social media superstars with thousands and even millions of followers.

Interestingly, potential customers will listen to anything an Influencer tells them.

For example, a beauty influencer with great skin will clearly receive attention from followers wanting to know their secrets for healthy and radiant skin.

If you hire that person to promote your products, you’ll receive a large stream of incoming leads who want their skin to look just like the influencer.

Fortunately, influencer marketing isn’t expensive.

Depending on your budget, you can hire a modest celebrity or Will Smith if you choose to.

Also, if your relationship with your influencer becomes a long-term partnership, you can then branch out to affiliate marketing.

This is where influencers, blogs, or other individuals can earn money from promoting your brand through links.
 

Ignite Your Online Store Today!

E-commerce stores are nothing without a quality website.

That’s where Optuno comes in.

We also provide a wide range of marketing services to promote your brand.

Ready to get started?

To speak to a member of our dedicated sales team, give us a call today at 1-888-678-8662 or click here to schedule a free consultation.