E-commerce Advertising in the Digital Age
Key elements of e-commerce advertising:
Creating a social media presence for your brand
Social media has triggered a paradigm shifted in the world of advertising. For the first time, we’re presented with a two-way communication channel, allowing us to both share our message with millions of people worldwide, and to listen to what our clients are saying! Ever-evolving and constantly churning out new tools to connect, the social media landscape presents a conundrum for even the most tech-savvy of us. How can we keep up with current trends to maintain our brand’s relevance in the digital age?
Firstly, it’s important to note that denying the key role that social media plays in advertising an e-commerce website won’t get you anywhere. Rather, the power of social media must be leveraged to help you achieve your goals, whether that’s to drive traffic to your website, engage with customers, or simply reach a wider audience. With revolutionary tools such as Instagram shopping, you can even sell your products directly through the app with a combination of posts and Instagram stories!
Although setting up a social media profile is free, allocating a spending budget to advertise your e-commerce website is necessary in order to truly reap the benefits of these platforms. Many social media platforms can be used to boost your brand’s image, but the most crucial aspect of an e-commerce advertising strategy is selecting the right channels to connect with your target audience. You’ll also need to identify what type of content will get your audience talking. Whether that’s high-quality video production, professional photography and design, or well-written articles, make sure that the content you’re going to pay to promote is meaningful, flawless, and worth every penny!
Performing A Competitor Analysis For Your E-commerce Website
Carrying out an analysis of your e-commerce competitors’ performance and website advertising can be hugely beneficial. By pinpointing your direct competitors and looking into what products they offer, you will be able to measure your own brand’s success against theirs. Is there a market that they’ve successful tapped into that you’ve completely missed? Perhaps their creative marketing campaigns are attracting more customers to their site, or maybe they’re really hitting the nail on the head in the content department. Either way, competitor analysis will help to identify potential gaps in the market and create products and services that your clients are interested in, while also giving you insight into current marketing trends that actually work!
In addition to this, your competitor’s social media engagement levels pack an interesting set of data of their own. By analysing their social channels, you can get a detailed understanding of what drives clients to their website, and look to incorporate new features, trends, or content styles into your own e-commerce website advertising. This can help you to get creative with your social media presence, how you market your content, and the platforms you use. Finally, a SWOT analysis will help you to understand your strengths and weaknesses in relation to your competitors, and identify any opportunities or threats that lie ahead.
Writing Up A Six-month Marketing Plan And Content Calendar
Writing up a marketing plan before you begin advertising your e-commerce website will help you to align your individual campaigns with your overall business goals. Research shows that planning your e-commerce advertising gives your business a better chance of succeeding, provides a reinforced sense of direction for all your employees and helps you to gain a competitive edge. Think of this plan as a framework for your day-to-day marketing activities, which will enable you to measure the success of each campaign as you go along.
Now, where to begin? Three things that a well-rounded marketing plan must include are your business’ mission, your business’ KPIs and, of course, your budget. It can also categorise your buyers into different personas, making it easier for you to curate content to suit your target audience. This plan will then describe and plot the content strategies that you will be adopting, the contributors, individual responsibilities, and deadlines. Having everything laid out ahead of time will make it easier to hit those targets.
Your overall e-commerce advertising planning should also feature a social media content calendar. This will save time and money in the long-run, and help you to keep your social media postings consistent and organised. Plus, once you’ve planned out your social media content, you can start keeping track of what works and what doesn’t, mark upcoming notable events to create timely posts, and begin to think outside of the box with your social media strategies.
Once you’ve planned your e-commerce advertising strategy, it’s important to re-visit and update it every six months. Keep what works and scrap what doesn’t, and don’t be afraid to try something new.
Managing And Organising Your Campaign Assets
Online marketplaces are incredibly fast-paced environments. Sometimes, there just isn’t enough time to produce an original piece of content and companies often end up missing out on valuable marketing opportunities. What if you then remember that you already have the appropriate materials, and, with just a few tweaks, they’ll be ready to send out in time for the deadline… if only you could find them!
Situations like these are far too common in the online marketing space, which is why companies do well to maintain an organised and efficient ‘library’ of their campaign assets. This system will make it easier to locate, organise, and use the content that they’ve already produced. Having a sensible search system increases productivity, creativity, and consistency, so it really is a no-brainer!
Let’s streamline your business’ essential campaign assets – from press releases to social media ads and google ads, we’ll create an efficient system to ensure that you’re getting the most bang for your buck.
Reporting And Tracking Performance Of Your E-commerce Advertising Campaigns
Once you’ve successfully implemented an e-commerce advertising campaign, you’re going to want to track its effectiveness. Measuring the impact of your advertising campaigns can be done using technical tools, although many business owners are sceptical of analytics, usually due to a lack of technical understanding or fear of investing in expensive technology. This would be understandable were it not for the fact that tools such as Google Analytics are free of charge. So, all you need to invest, in reality, is time!
PS: There are lots of free analytics courses available online, and if you don’t have the time to study, we can take care of all your e-commerce advertising tracking for you, too.
It’s never been easier to gain insight into your visitors’ customer journey and experience. With online analytics tools, e-commerce business owners can track the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns and fine-tune strategies, maximise customer engagement, and bolster ROI. By implementing campaign tracking links, you’ll be able to view the mediums through which your visitors access your site, and how many of those visitors actually convert into customers! With this data at your fingertips, you’ll be in a better position to take a profitable decision the next time you’re torn between using Facebook or Google Ads!
Segmenting Your Email Marketing Flow
With so many new technological tools at our disposal, it’s easy to overlook the pioneering emailer. Business owners who think that emails are a thing of the past are missing out on a vital opportunity to connect with their audience, build a strong reputation, and increase their online conversion rate. Email marketing remains one of the top avenues for lead generation, but there’s more to this craft than simply blasting out emails to the masses.
Effective email marketing entails segmenting your email list. This will enable you to create content to target the specific needs of each segment of your client list. Segmentation can be based on a wide range of factors, such as geographical locations, purchase history, or even clients who abandoned their shopping carts before check-out. Having a better understanding of the person who’s likely to be on the receiving end of your message will increase your open rate and website traffic. The more engaging your e-mail messages are, the better!
We know that advertising your e-commerce website can be tricky, which is why we’re here to take care of planning, strategizing, implementing, and tracking all your advertising campaigns. Let’s get everybody talking about your website, in the best possible way. Are you ready to get started? Contact one of our team members today!
Could you use a helping hand in examining any of the areas listed above?
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