There are several ways to market your business online effectively.
The key is to choose the method that suits your budget and target audience.
In this article, we’ll go over some of the best ways for you to get your new online shop in front of the people who want to buy.
1. Utilise (and keep building) your email list.
Even in a brick-and-mortar store, it’s important to have a strong email marketing strategy.
Collect as many email addresses as you can — customers, prospective customers, people interested in your events, etc.
When you launch, you’ll be able to send an email to all of those people letting them know that they can visit your store online.
This can be a good time to consider offering a promotion to those on your email list, or even a referral discount to encourage customers to share your site with friends and family.
Email continues to be one of the most effective marketing tools in the eCommerce toolbox, so make sure that you keep collecting email addresses on your site.
Some brands use pop-up boxes to prompt users to enter their email addresses in return for a small promotion, like 15% off their first purchase, or free shipping.
You should also make sure you’re keeping a steady flow of communication with your email list.
Develop a regular email cadence and include promotions, new content, product launches and other news that can encourage customers to visit your site.
2. Boost your organic social presence.
With your online business, you’ll want to take every opportunity to boost your digital engagement.
One of the easiest and most effective ways is to give a little extra love to your social media channels and make sure they’re stocked with vibrant images and engaging videos.
If you already have a pretty solid presence on social channels with a core audience, this is the time to build on that.
Increase your post frequency and invest a bit more time in creating rich visual content and short, engaging videos.
Boosting engagement with your followers increases the chance for brand awareness with their followers.
Encourage sharing, and incorporate user-generated content.
If your social media presence needs some work, now’s the time.
You don’t have to be everywhere.
Make sure you have a presence on the channels that are appropriate for your target customer and put your energy there.
3. Optimise your site for SEO.
Search engine optimization (SEO) encompasses many things, and trying to optimise can lead you down a deep, deep rabbit hole.
Here are a few things to keep in mind if you’re just starting out.
Put yourself in the mind of your user — how does your target audience talk about your products, and what do they want to know?
Pay attention to on-page content.
On-page content refers to product titles and descriptions, images, any blogs or other content you might have, etc.
You want to make sure that content naturally uses the language your customers might use when searching for related products and answers their questions.
Meta tags are important as well. Title tags, which are like headlines for a search engine, help the search engine figure out what each page is about.
Each page of your website should have its own unique title tag.
Meta descriptions are short summaries of each page.
When your site shows up on a search engine results page, users will see your title tag and meta description before anything else.
4. Create interesting, useful content.
Creating great content for people looking to buy your product is a great way to bring traffic to your site and provide helpful information that positions your brand as an authoritative voice in your vertical.
But it doesn’t stop at writing blog posts and posting them to your social platforms.
You can create valuable content by answering common questions, providing tips and tricks, and even offering exclusive deals.
For example, if you sell gardening tools, you could write a guide explaining how to plant different types of flowers and vegetables.
5. Try out Google Ads.
Using Google Ads for search engine marketing gives you an opportunity to bid on keywords so that you can show up first on search engine results pages.
Getting the coveted “top spot” is what search engine optimization is all about — but, a head’s up, Google Ads will still show up first.
Search engine marketing is a great way to advertise your website because it doesn’t require any design and can be very effective in driving new traffic.
You’ll get results in real-time and can adjust your campaign strategies based on performance as you go.
6. Advertise on social platforms.
Social media is a great place to focus ad spend because you know people are spending time on social platforms.
If you were going to buy a billboard, which road would be the best one to put it on? Think about social media advertising like this, too.
If your audience spends a lot of time on Instagram but not Twitter, you’ll want to focus your spending on Instagram.
You can use photos and videos in your ads, but start small.
A photo ad can be a great way to get your product in front of new people.
Try simple, engaging imagery of your product in use and adjust your tactics based on how well it performs in the first couple of weeks.
7. Consider using influencer marketing.
Influencers are people who have large online audiences and have the power to “influence” that audience’s purchasing behaviour.
Working with the right influencer can get your product in front of a huge number of potential customers, increasing your brand awareness.
To make the best use of influencer marketing, make sure your targeted influencer’s following aligns with your target audience, and that their values align with your brand.
Common influencer marketing tactics include an influencer writing a blog post about your product, posting social media content reviewing or demonstrating your product or talking about your product at an event.
There are many ways to market your business online effectively.
It’s important to remember that SEO isn’t just about creating more links to your website.
SEO is also about helping people find your website when they search for something related to your business.
So, take some time to think about where you should invest your resources, and then give us a call!
We’d love to help you get started.
