E-commerce marketing is one of those things that, simply put, has its quirks. To call E-commerce marketing “digital marketing” isn’t entirely accurate– it’s not just digital marketing, it’s different. It’s special. It’s deeper. (And it’s fun).
To me, an e-commerce campaign is one with special meaning – for one, it’s extraordinarily rewarding to see it work (and it’s easy to see it work – just watch the sales come in and the boxes full of product go out).
Some things you do with patience, like SEO, and other things you do with instant cleverness, like social media and e-mail marketing. The beauty of e-commerce marketing is that all the special tactics required for a campaign will eventually intersect and strengthen one another’s results – and then voila! You have sales (eureka!!!).
And then voila times two! Sales are people and any nifty e-commerce marketer knows that people are going to talk – especially in our hyper-social world and especially if you enable them!
So…what does a nifty e-commerce marketer do to generate those mega-awesome sales you crave? Well, we’re glad you asked.
Behavioral based triggers are essential in e-commerce marketing. Sally Jane visited the “gogo gizmo” page three times this week but hasn’t made a purchase? Send her a special 20% off with a special promo code just for her hesitation – come on, you can do it and you have the data that suggests she really wants that “gogo gizmo.”
Is that possible? Why yes. Yes it is. With the right tools and the right strategies behavioral based triggers are super possible. Automation means a powerful e-commerce sells product while you’re sleeping. That’s what we call “love at first sight” in business – nothing satisfies our sweet tooth more.
Here’s my opinion – Ad dollars on social media are often cheaper and more effective than a traditional AdWords PPC campaign – so start there. You can target by gender, other interests, age, and more. You can A/B test your advertisements to eventually lower your CPM (which we recommend doing to optimize your ROI).
If you strategically leverage your social budget, you’ll enjoy a quick and easy way to get healthy website traffic to your e-commerce. This is great when you’re in the beginning stages of SEO and you need additional traffic to hit your sales goals.
Helpful tip! It’s not very helpful to pay to advertise someone else’s blog – even though you might share it with your audience. Make sure you’re boosting the 20% of your social media content that focuses on selling your product(s).
Just for kicks here’s some awesome news to give you a confidence boost – we once got a CPI on Facebook down to $0.02 with some A/B testing and some clever creative. Talk about economical. We definitely sold product for our client that day. 😉
Get it! Just FYI, shopping cart abandonment is a form of automation – it’s that neat little trick Amazon does when you put something in your cart but don’t actually buy it (ohhh, so that’s how they send you those e-mails that remind you to check out!).
Amazon is, in my opinion, one of the best e-commerce marketers the world has yet to see (and congrats Amazon, on prime day! – so brilliant!), but that doesn’t mean that Shopping Cart Abandonment only belongs to them – you can do it too.
This one is simple, but it needs to be said – would you put your credit card information into a website that looks like it was made by Willy Wonka’s 15-year old 2nd cousin? Probably not. So you can’t expect anyone else to, no matter how epic the product really is.
E-commerce sites must be designed well if your plan is to sell anything. And “well” does not just mean “pretty.” In fact, “well” means that the design of the e-commerce takes the buyer journey into perspective – it guides the potential consumer to a sale in an intuitive and almost flawlessly-swift manner. It provides the right information, all the buttons are in the right place, and the check-out process is easy-peasy.
How is that possible? With data. And with a tribe of talented designers that know how to optimize for conversion, or in this case, sales.
Hey guess what? We’re that tribe! Want to kick-start your e-commerce marketing?
