No matter what type of products you sell, there’s one thing that every eCommerce brand has in common:
Competition.
There are more than 26 million e-commerce sites around the globe, and nearly 10 million in the U.S. alone. Whether your goal is to attract new customers or keep the customers you already have coming back for more, here are seven e-commerce tips to grow your brand this year.
1. Develop a Strong Content Marketing Strategy
With a strong content marketing strategy, you can drive more traffic to your website, increase conversions, and position yourself as a leader in your niche. Without one, you’re pretty much-handing sales to your competitors.
Your content marketing strategy should include a routine analysis of your competition, an idea of what types of content you should focus on, and a review of how your strategy is performing to determine if and when it’s time to pivot and shift your focus.
This article provides a step-by-step framework as to how you can use content marketing to turn your e-commerce brand into an industry leader.
2. Optimize Your Site for Mobile
Over 70% of all e-commerce purchases are made on a mobile device. Your pages must look good and function properly on screens of all sizes.
If your site doesn’t look good or work well on small phone screens, ask your web developer to revamp your site with a responsive UX design.
3. Improve Your Site Speed
The longer it takes your site to load, the fewer sales you’ll make. No one wants to sit idly waiting for a page to load — they’ll just as soon take their business elsewhere.
If you run a store on Shopify, check out Convertly. This app helps to improve core web vitals and cut Shopify page load times in half.
4. Up Your Social Media Game
Your social media strategy should be a part of your content marketing strategy, and you don’t even have to create social content yourself. You can rely on your followers and customers to create it for you.
Ask your social media followers to post videos or photos of them using or wearing your product. Customers love this because they love to share their opinions, plus it makes them feel as though the brand values their opinions.
User-generated content created by real customers acts as social proof, and it’s much less expensive (and much more authentic) than paid ads.
5. Make Use of Affiliate Marketing
For a small price, you can increase sales and build your brand with affiliate marketing.
Affiliates don’t have to be influencers with millions of followers —anyone can be an affiliate, including existing customers that you’ve sold to once or twice in the past.
The best part about affiliate marketing is that it costs you nothing unless the affiliate gets you a sale. It’s like marketing for free, and then rewarding the affiliate with a small commission for helping you sell the product.
6. Invest in Email Marketing
Pay attention to the customers that subscribe to your emails — these are the people that like your brand enough to want to stay engaged.
Along with your content marketing strategy, develop an email marketing strategy. You can turn existing subscribers into loyal followers by using email to share discount codes, announce new product launches, and share relevant content they’ll want to view or read.
Just be careful not to bombard your subscribers with emails. One email a week should be the absolute max.
7. Offer International Shipping
Customs, duty, tariffs, and liability risks are just some of the reasons why many e-commerce retailers choose not to ship overseas. But if you’re willing to open your e-commerce doors to overseas customers you can do a lot more business than you’re doing right now.
Yes, there is a learning curve when it comes to shipping internationally. But if you’re willing to take on the challenge you can significantly increase your customer base, especially if you have a product that international customers have a particular interest in.
In Conclusion
Building an e-commerce brand takes time, dedication, and patience, but there are some things that you can do right now to help build brand awareness, draw more traffic to your site, and increase conversions:
- Create a content marketing strategy
- Optimize your site for mobile devices
- Improve site speed
- Make better use of social media
- Pay commission to affiliate marketers
- Create an email marketing campaign
- Ship globally
Putting even two or three of these tips into play can help you increase sales and become a more recognized brand in your niche.
