What is the biggest problem for any e-commerce store recently launched?
Traffic…
Always traffic.
No one knows you exist unless you do your marketing.
Lots of ways to skin a cat on this front. But the “build it and they’ll come “ is NOT a good strategy.
So what will be a good strategy?
I’ll be brutal with you, there’s no fixed strategy for this purpose.
That said, I’ll take you through some of the best and most reliable ones that I’ve experienced with my e-commerce clients.
1. Take some time out and delve on organic SEO
This is slow and might take up a lot of your time.
But, if you get this right, it will give you the best outcomes in terms of traffic.
You just need to be patient for around 6 months to see the actual results.
Although, it’s really easy for stores built on Shopify.
2. Give influencer marketing a shot. You’ll love the results…
Heard of goodwill?
This method will build up that for you.
You just need to find the right influencers that align with you Target Personna and then you need to choose on certain parameters.
For instance consider two scenarios: a) An influencer with a medium follower base, ready to promote you for free or at a minimal cost or b) An influencer with a huge follower base but costing almost ⅔ of your budget to get onboard.
It’s almost always this choice that happens to be the toughest, because trust me, option b can be really tempting.
3. Paid Ads are a boon if your pockets are heavy
These work faster than organic SEO but will take up a huge percentage of your budget in addition to your time.
It’s best if you get a fully dedicated team to get the best results from this.
You can start with targeting the most searched keyword relevant to you and might even go on to attacking your competitor’s audience.
4. Get a hold of your customers wherever they might be
Absence is good, but you should always make your customers feel your presence, even when they are on your competitor’s website
You can use push notifications or email marketing and remind your visitors what will they be missing if they don’t return to you.
After all if you reduce your website bounce rate or as I like to call it visitor abandonment, that’s increasing traffic, rather quality traffic on your site.
5. Blogs and Guest posts often go a long way
Often my clients take this approach the most lightly.
But over a period of time, a high number of relevant backlinks will not only get you traffic (the trick is to use CTAs anywhere possible) but will also improve your ranking on search pages, without any additional investment.
And a few guest posts can go a long way in building goodwill for your website, but make sure that your guest is worth space.
Okay, so you start getting some traffic, at least on some of your pages…
How do you make sure that these visitors stay on your site and ultimately become your customers?
Engagement.
That is what you need to do now!
Most of my clients believe in engagement but unfortunately, they all have been doing it the wrong way.
Engagement, like traffic, should be done in ways that are measurable.
To know the steps to implement a campaign that drives results, stay tuned to the next part in the series.
Bonus! I’ll also disclose the simple tricks that companies like Netflix are using in their campaigns but you aren’t, and that has made all the difference.