Today, we’re going to look at some of the top marketing tips to run a profitable e-commerce business online.
Tip #1: Build the perfect product detail page
This is your “money page.”
After a lot of study on the fastest growing e-commerce stores in the world, we have found that their websites shared some common design elements on their websites, specifically on product detail pages (PDP).
Generally, they have implemented elements like engaging product titles and page headlines, customer testimonials, frequently updated featured products (on home and landing pages), client reviews, detailed product descriptions including specs, and most importantly, their unique value proposition (UVP).
These best practices are a good start to running a successful e-commerce store, but as good as we think our ideas are or how well we think we know what our audience wants you should always be A/B testing elements of your page to what designs, titles, images, call-to-actions resonate best with your audience and lead to more sales. There are a multitude of tools available to help with A/B and multivariate testing and many will even track conversion rates and revenue for each experiment.
Once you’ve tested an element on your product detail page and determined a winner – be sure to apply your best performing text variant across all product pages of your site.
Tip #2: Email Opt-in Forms
Once you have your website design nailed down, start building your marketing list by collecting email addresses from site visitors and add them to your email marketing automation tool like MailChimp, or Klaviyo. Many successful list-building techniques will include subscriber pop-up that’s presented to the user on exit intent, after a certain amount of time on the website, a certain number of pages or a specific page is viewed, or once a user has scrolled down past a certain point on the page.
Test different triggers for your subscriber pop-up, as well as different offers to encourage new signups, and include a clear call-to-action letting your visitors know the steps to subscribe and what type of benefits they can expect by becoming a subscriber.
Tip #3 Use professional product photography
Just like “people eat with their eyes,” they also buy with their eyes.
If people don’t like what they see, they are less likely to purchase. If you don’t have the equipment or aren’t comfortable shooting your own properly-lit, hi-resolution product photography then consider hiring a professional photographer. Be sure to include multiple images for each product from different angles on a clean background as well as an image or two of the product in use. .
Tip #4 Include product videos
Go a step further with your product imagery by including product videos. For complex products, products that have a highly specific use, or have benefits that aren’t easily explained in a product description then including a product video will help explain how your products work and why they are worth buying.
Tip #5 Optimization product pages for SEO
One of the most important tactics you can do on your website is to optimize your product detail pages for search engine optimization (SEO).
Write your product titles and descriptions carefully by including keywords that people would use to find products like yours.
Tip #6 Google Shopping Ads
For products, Google Shopping ads are one of the lower cost, higher-converting ways to promote the products in your e-commerce store.
With these types of ads, when people search for a product that matches an item in your store, the user will see a custom ad that includes an image of your product, its price, and your store name in the search results page including the shopping tab. This ad will include a link that takes the user directly to your product detail page where the user can learn all about your product and start the checkout process.
Tip #7 Facebook Ads
Like Google, Facebook has its own ad platform for advertising products for sale. Generally speaking, Facebook ads are also a cheaper cost per acquisition (CPA) to advertise your products. Because of the type and amount of data Facebook tracks about its users (yes, they’re watching), advertisers can take advantage of potential customer data and target their ads by interests, onine behavior, geographic location, past engagement history, or other demographics.
Some of the more advanced targeting features include:
- Online shopping frequency
- Retargeting users who have engaged, but not converted
- Creating new “Lookalike” audience that have similar profiles to your past purchasers
Tip #8 Instagram Ads
Instagram is owned by Facebook. Because they share the same ad platform you can use some of the same advanced targeting features that are available on Facebook to showcase your top products to users on Instagram.
Tip #9 Content Marketing
Content Marketing is one of the most effective ways to grow your e-commerce website traffic organically.
Start by creating blogs, videos, or image stories to keep your audience aware and engaged with your brand.
Focus less on sales-y pitches and instead focus on content that is useful to the readers and includes keywords that your audience is searching for that relate to your products. A good rule of thumb for your content strategy is to keep your informational/educational content-to-sales content ratio around 85% and 15%, respectively.
To make your content more valuable to your site and useful to your readers, invest time in keyword research focusing on trending and relevant topics in your industry. Once you have your content strategy in place.
Quick recap of e-commerce marketing
- Focus on product detail pages; invest in A/B testing
- Build an email marketing list and keep customers/subscribers engaged
- Use professional product images
- Include product demo videos on your product pages
- Apply SEO strategy on your product pages and website
- Use Google Shopping ads to generate traffic from Google
- Use Facebook Ads campaign to target a broad, interest-based audiences
- Use Instagram Ads to target visual audiences
- Build your brand with content marketing
If you need help with your growing e-commerce business or interested in specific e-commerce development contact us today! We are a digital marketing agency passionate about e-commerce and online selling. Our team is always ready to help!
