With the growing competition in the market, companies need to retain their existing customers and should also increase their consumer base simultaneously. Therefore, nowadays, companies have started to advertise their product on social media and other internet platforms that have a wider reach of audience. The company may only get a handful of consumers, maybe even per thousands of the people reached by them, but since the internet is a huge platform, it makes it easier for them to reach millions of consumer with small investments.
As the internet has turned the world into a global village, the people today are connected much better with each other more than ever.
Setting up an e-commerce store is a straightforward process and does not need a very powerful laptop. Being web-based, you can manage the store using a MacBook or PC with a decent processor and internal storage. Once you know how to check and optimize your device, you are good to go.
So let’s go through some important E-commerce marketing strategies that will help you in kick-starting that business you always wanted.
CONTENT MARKETING
Content marketing is the type of marketing in which free content across the web is made available to the people to get a target audience and a potential consumer base which is important for building and marketing a company.
This method is primarily used for creating a reputation and trust for the company rather than direct sales benefit for them.
The main goal of content marketing is to provide information to the consumers and make them buy company’s products in the future.
A good example of content marketing can be seen in the coca cola ad campaign, ”Share a coke” in which each of the product’s consumer is allowed to personalize their drink which led to the campaign getting viral.
AFFILIATE MARKETING
Affiliate Marketing is the process of promoting other company’s or individual’s products and hence earning a commission from it.
The Affiliate Marketing process follows the three basic steps:-
- Find a favorable product.
- Promote the product.
- Earn a commission by the promotion.
You can see it as a process of distributing the product marketing across various groups, and each group earns a share of the total revenue as per their contribution.
There are four people involved in this kind of marketing:
- A Merchant
- A Network
- A Publisher
- A Customer
Most of the publishers are bloggers who involve in making money through affiliate marketing!
Some of the top websites using Affiliate Marketing are
- IMDB .com
- TopTenSelect .com
- HuffingtonPost .com
- Flycart.org
EMAIL MARKETING
When you send a commercial message to a person or more precisely a group of people, it is known email marketing.
In a broader context, when a company sends an email to a potential or a current customer, then we term it as email marketing.
The motto of the individual or the company behind these emails may vary from enhancing relationships with the existing customers to acquiring new customers or to convince a customer to buy a product immediately.
Email marketing is very useful in increasing your sales and increasing the audiences to promote your brand.
The main reasons why you should choose Email Marketing are:
- Emails are the simplest and the most popular channel of communication
- You have your own target email list
- The conversion rate through emails is pretty high.
BRAND MARKETING
Brand marketing is the establishment of a strong brand by using different theories and tactics.
It constantly grows your brand and your company’s value.
The very reputation of your company and the trust on your products or services of the customers are instantly informed by your brand name. Hence it is important to maintain a proper brand name and should not be considered any less than other business assets.
BEHAVIORAL MARKETING
Your behavior on Websites is targeted by a company in behavioural marketing. For example, while you are visiting various travelling category webpages, a served advertisement pops up on your screen regarding a particular travelling agency and so on.
It uses your IP addresses, computer cookies, browsing history etc. to improve the method of marketing. Even your comments on a site are taken into consideration while presenting the efficient ad according to your preferences.
Behavioral marketing allows you to have a complete image of your customer- who the customer is, what is their preference and what they would likely purchase and visit.
BUZZ MARKETING
Buzz marketing is a viral marketing method in which focus is basically based on the conversations among the consumers’ family and relatives or a discussion on any other social platform. It is used in maximizing the conversation potential of a certain product.
The main component of buzz marketing is the social media platform. Both Facebook and Twitter are platforms where your company might try to maintain a presence on. These social media platforms can help you interact with your customers and receive their valuable feedback and issues and concerns regarding your product.
This marketing is pretty effective in publicizing any new product or a service of your company. It reaches more people and at a faster speed than direct advertising or even the internet.
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
The use of social media and /or social media websites to promote a company or a product is called social media marketing. With over 0.8 billion user alone on Facebook the wide reach of social media can be estimated.
Companies use social media platform to gain consumers as some companies even use tools to analyse the data, their wide reach and track the company’s progress. Companies also use social media to have a cheap product report and get to know how the product is received by the general public.
Comment left by the general public on the company’s website, blogs and other media platforms like Facebook and twitter help the company get low cost public reviews. These reviews from existing customers is one of the elements of social proofing through which more customers get influenced. Social media provides a short and cost effective platform to reach to a potential consumer base.
With the use of google AdSense, companies can target a particular group of audience that is interested in the product. As google AdSense shows the user type ads based on their previous posts and comments on social media so it is relatively easier to get target audience.
The main disadvantage of social media marketing is that the posts and comments should be made reasonably more irresponsible posts may lead to more harm than good.
CLOUD MARKETING
Another popular e-commerce marketing strategy is Cloud marketing. Cloud marketing is used by companies to set up their businesses online and promote themselves.
Cloud marketing describes all the efforts by the company to promote their business online. A good example of cloud marketing is Flipkart which have no physical stores but only is available virtually.
CONVERSATIONAL MARKETING
Conversational marketing is the method of online marketing that is based generally on one to one marketing rather than appealing to a crowd of people. Conversational marketing uses features like smart chat bots and personalized customer care executives which provide the user with a friendly experience. This technique rather than broadcasting message to a wide range of public confides to only answering the user’s queries or listen to their feedbacks.
Conversational marketing helps the company interacts with the user on personal bases and solve the problems and queries on the go.
Conversational marketing helps the company interacts with the user on personal bases and solve the problems and queries on the go.
AUGMENTED MARKETING
Augmented Marketing is adding of an additional offer that is innovative and adds to the value of a proposition. The term ‘augmented’ means “having made greater in size or value.” For example, when you are giving any item free with any other product, then that is Augmented Marketing.
The augmented product is the added product for which the consumer may not have to pay any extra charges.
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION
Search engine optimization is quite effective when it comes to gaining website traffic by purchasing ads in search engines. Using Google AdWords, you can increase the visibility of your website in search engine results pages (SERPs) primarily through paid advertising.
This in turn helps in better ranking of one’s site for relevant searches. In order to perform well here, you need to stay up to date with the ever changing search engine algorithms.
Final words
With over 3 billion users of the internet, the web is the widest reachable platform to promote your product. Using the above marketings to your advantage, e-marketing will help you transform your business in a positive way by boosting growth and increasing the consumer base.
As E-marketing is constantly evolving and changing, there is a need to analyse and understand it’s purpose catering to your business needs. Keeping your focus on the areas that align the most with your own natural strengths and your requirements, we are sure that you will be able to record growths in your business soon. Happy e-marketing!
