Run an E-Commerce Site? You Need a Digital Marketing Strategy
In the run-up to the c-word (Christmas), the pressure is on for online retailers. Standing out from the crowd and standing up against competitors is more important than ever. If you want to increase your brand awareness and start to make sales before the festive period, then listen up. Running an e-commerce site and being an online retailer means that digital marketing should be your best friend. We’re here to help you out with a digital marketing strategy in the lead-up to Xmas.
Brand Awareness
Having great products is just half the battle. In order for you to make sales, consumers have to know that you exist. To really increase your brand awareness, and hit new people that fit your target audience, implement a strong social media marketing strategy. A good social media strategy consists of:
- Regular postings on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Google+. Post at popular times of the day, i.e morning, lunch, and evening and always keep a consistent brand voice.
- Promote your products and services but also provide your audience with valuable and informative curated content you have specially chosen from across the internet because of relevance to your audience.
- Run exclusive competitions or giveaways to try and encourage engagement with your page and posts.
- Monitor and respond to all brand mentions – negative or positive, and turn every review into a positive. Good customer service is key to increase brand awareness as customers will leave reviews and recommend your business to friends or family members.
- Implement a paid social advertising strategy on Facebook or Instagram. Run adverts that are tailored to your target audience and get them to interact with your page.
- Research influencers in your industry and approach them about working together to promote your business or products to their audience. Choose an influencer with a loyal fanbase who will be genuinely interested in your products or services.
The more people see your brand appear on their social media timelines, the more interested they will be. Combine regular posting of interesting content with a referral from an influencer, 5* reviews, and the occasional advert, and people are sure to visit your site.
Increased Site Traffic
Christmas is the biggest time of year for shopping. Every retailer whether online or offline knows this. It’s only natural then, that when Christmas shopping starts, that your website traffic should increase. However, if you’re not hitting the numbers you think you deserve, or people are leaving your site without purchasing, there are a few things you can do.
One of the most effective ways to increase site traffic is actually nothing to do with the products you stock. Simply put, the higher you are on search engine results pages, the more traffic you will receive. Most people when searching a query will not go past page 1 of results. This is why it’s imperative to rank highly for your chosen keywords. So, for increased site traffic, you want to be paying attention to SEO. Both on and off-site SEO strategies will help you stay ahead of your competition and rank highest.
If your site is old, or if it’s been developed without SEO in mind, then take another look at it. It’s important to make sure each page is optimised for SEO. Key things to look out for are headers (H2’s and H4’s), keywords, images with alt-tags, meta descriptions, linking, URL structure and sharability. Your optimised site should be resubmitted to Google for scraping after every change so that the newly optimised site can finally be served up to the relevant search engine queries. The more sites that link to your website, the higher you will rank.
Conversions
Perhaps the last hurdle for any e-retailer… Actually getting people to purchase a product or service. With the seasonal influx of site traffic coming your way, how do you get site visitors to stay on the page, and convert? To judge where people are abandoning the site and not converting, take a look at your analytics. Important things to look at are your bounce rate – is it high? And, if so, why?
If your site is hard to navigate, slow to load or poorly designed, the user experience will be poor. Poor user experience leads people to leave the site. This could be because they are overwhelmed, frustrated or disappointed. Omni Search offers responsive, functional web design that is optimised for SEO. We offer fast sites that have decreased load times due to caching and innovative plugins. Our design is easily navigational and simple for page visitors to use. Following their journey through analytics, we can pinpoint the exact moment they abandon the site and work with you to improve their user experience.
A constructive, effective digital marketing strategy implements all these aspects mentioned and more. As well as social media marketing, SEO, and effective web design, elements such as email marketing or copywriting should also be included. If you’re looking for help with your digital marketing strategy in the run-up to this Christmas, why not contact us. We can help show you where you can improve, and will give you a guiding hand along the way. Say hello to new customers, and conversions and a fabulous festive season.