Ecommerce marketing strategy 101: The definitive guide to growing sales
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Ecommerce
marketing strategy 101:
The definitive
1
guide to growing sales
Contents Introduction 3 Step 1 - Attract your target market 6 Step 2 - Convert website visitors into leads 15 Step 3 - Generate sales 19 Step 4 - Delight your customers 29 2
If you don’t have a solid ecommerce marketing strategy, your business is dead in the water. Here’s the thing: Today, competition is fierce. So, even if you sell the best products in the world and have piles of cash to spend, you still need an effective strategy to stay ahead of the competition. Now, maybe you’re already using some ecommerce advertising methods like Facebook Ads and social media marketing. However, if these tactics aren’t part of an overarching ecommerce marketing strategy, they’ll likely be ineffective — or worse, money pits. So, what exactly does an effective ecommerce marketing strategy look like? How does it work? And how can you get started? Let’s find out. In this guide, you’ll learn everything you need to create an effective ecommerce marketing strategy step-by-step. But first, let’s refresh the basics.
What exactly is There are 4 key stages businesses must move
people through to transform them from strangers
ecommerce marketing? to customers, and then from customers to brand
promoters:
Basically, ecommerce marketing is just the Stage 1: Attract the target audience with
process used to increase online sales, build marketing tactics like Facebook advertising.
brand awareness, and generate customer loyalty.
To do this, businesses must first capture attention Stage 2: Convert website visitors into sales leads
and drive traffic to their websites. They can then by capturing their information.
either attempt to compel visitors to make
a purchase or to offer their personal information Stage 3: Close sales by compelling sales
in exchange for ongoing marketing materials. leads to make a purchase.
Ecommerce marketing from a business Stage 4: Delight customers to turn them
perspective: Let’s explore the foundation of into brand advocates and promoters.
ecommerce marketing strategy from a business
perspective. The image below illustrates this process:
ATTRACT CONVERT CLOSE DELIGHT
Strangers Visitors Leads Customers Promoters
Blogs, Forms Email Events
keywords, Calls-to-Action Signals Social Inbox
Social Media Landing Pages Workflows Smart Content
4
Ecommerce marketing from a customer
perspective: Now, let’s explore the ecommerce
marketing funnel from the customers’
perspective using a time-tested formula A
called “AIDA.”
Attention
The American businessman Elias St. Elmo Lewis
developed this formula over a century ago in
1898, but its principles are just as relevant today.
I
Interest
AIDA stands for:
Awareness: Your target market must first become
D
aware of your products or services. Desire
Interest: People must then become interested
in the benefits of your products or services. A
Desire: Interest must transform into desire to Action
lay the foundations needed to make a purchase.
Action: Peoples’ desire must be strong enough
to compel them to make a purchase.
5
Step one
Attract your Here’s what we’ll cover:
target market
Organic marketing methods
1. Social media marketing
2. Content marketing
3. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Paid marketing methods
1. Advertising
2. Influencer marketing
3. Referral program
4. Affiliate marketing
First things first: Before When you tailor every aspect of your business to
you can make a sale, you a well-defined target market, you go from good
to great. Think about it — if someone has a heart
have to get the attention problem, do they want to see a general
practitioner or a cardiologist?
of your target market. In other words, niching down and specialising
helps you cut through the noise.
Before we explore various ecommerce digital As the management consultant Peter F. Drucker
marketing methods, it’s vital that you define a once said: “The aim of marketing is to know
target market. and understand the customer so well that the
product or service fits him and sells itself.”
Here’s the thing: Your brand can’t be all things
to all people. So, before you move on, take a moment to clarify
who you’re targeting. Then, work out how you
To stand out from the competition, it’s very can position your offer to resonate powerfully
important that you choose a target market with your target market.
and position your products or services as the
perfect solution available. Once you intimately understand everything about
your target market and your offer’s benefits, it’s
time to start marketing.
“Choose a target market and
position your products or services Broadly speaking, there are 2 types of
ecommerce marketing: organic and paid.
as the perfect solution available.
7
Use organic 1. Connect with your target market
on social media
marketing methods Perhaps the fastest way to generate sales
organically is to build genuine relationships
with people on social media.
The term ‘organic marketing’ refers to any type
of marketing activity that’s ‘free.’ In other words, Here’s a great example from the fitness clothing
you don’t have to pay money to do it. brand Gymshark (below). The brand is very
active on social media and has grown a highly
So, if you have a limited budget and are down engaged following with relatable posts that
to hustle, you can use the following ecommerce resonate with its target market.
marketing tactics to attract your target market:
• Social media marketing
• Content marketing
• Search engine optimisation
That said, it’s worth noting that organic
marketing methods take time – lots of time.
Plus, to compete effectively, you may need to
hire experts to help or pay for courses so you
can learn the ropes.
Let’s take a closer look at these 3 powerful
organic ecommerce marketing methods.
Image credit - Gymshark: Social Media Marketing Example
8
You can also engage your target market in
Facebook groups, LinkedIn posts, and more —
consider where your target audience spends the
most time online.
2. Engage your target market with
valuable content
Content marketing is the process of creating and
promoting online media that’s designed to attract
and nurture a target market. There’s virtually no
limit to the different types of content you can
create, too — for example, you could produce:
• Blog posts • Case studies Remember, the aim of content marketing is to
• Ebooks • Online courses give before you can get — to provide genuine
value in some way, whether it’s to inform or to
• White papers • Presentations entertain.
• Research • Webinars
• Videos • Q&As This ebook you’re reading right now and the
articles we share on our blog are both
• Infographics examples of content marketing!
• Podcast episodes
• Emails Now, you’re probably wondering, “How can I get
people to check out my content?” To start, you
can share it on social media, but you can also
engage in search engine optimization…
Image credit - Neat content marketing
9
3. Drive traffic by ranking web pages search engines like Bing and Baidu — the no.1
in search engine results search engine in China.
Another popular type of organic ecommerce
Here’s the thing: SEO is a slow-burn ecommerce
marketing is search engine optimisation —
promotion strategy. So, you’ll need to produce
or ‘SEO.’ This is the process of creating and
plenty of search engine optimised web pages
optimising web pages and content to appear
and content to improve your rankings.
higher in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Still, SEO is the gift that keeps on giving. Once
you’re up and running, high-ranking content
can continue to pull in traffic for years, with
minimal updates.
“Not many people realise that
YouTube is the second-largest
For example, when I searched “best sunglasses search engine”
for men” on Google, Sunglass Hut ranks on the
first page (above).
SEO isn’t limited to Google, either — not many
people realise that YouTube is the second-largest
search engine. You can also drive traffic from
Image credit - Sunglass Hut: SEO Ecomm Marketing
10Use paid marketing methods If you’re looking to hit the ground running, there’s no faster way to generate leads and sales than to buy them. And unlike organic ecommerce marketing methods, paid marketing methods don’t require you to spend months building a social media following or improving your SEO rankings. These marketing channels are also pretty straightforward: put money into the system, optimise the system, get money out of the system. That said, paid advertising channels will stop producing sales the moment you stop investing money into them. And although organic marketing methods take time to build, they have momentum and will usually continue to bring in sales even if you dial the investment back. Let’s explore 4 of the most popular paid ecommerce marketing tactics available. 11
1. Start advertising on a major
online platform
The simplest way to get started with paid
marketing tactics is to run ecommerce advertising
campaigns on a major online platform, such as:
• Facebook Ads (which includes Instagram Ads)
• Google Ads (which includes YouTube
ads, Google Shopping ads, and Google Search
ads)
• Twitter Ads
• LinkedIn Ads
• Pinterest Ads
Facebook Ads and Google Ads are undoubtedly
the 2 most significant and comprehensive
ecommerce advertising platforms in the West.
Both platforms provide highly sophisticated
targeting and optimization controls that allow
you to home in on your target market with
unbelievable accuracy.
Alright, aside from ecommerce advertising
channels, how else can you pay to acquire leads
and sales?
Image credits - Facebook Ads and Google Ads
122. Partner with influencers
Influencers are people with relatively large social
media followings — they literally have influence
over a significant number of people. Influencer
marketing is the process of partnering with
influencers to promote your products or services
to their existing audience.
For example, Patricia Bright is a popular YouTube
influencer in the beauty and fashion industry
with more than 2.89 million YouTube subscribers.
Bright regularly partners with makeup and
fashion brands to promote their products to her
audience — the image left shows a promotion
she created for Estee Lauder.
If you’re just starting out, you don’t need to pay
massive sums of money to superstars either.
Research shows that social media engagement
is higher with fewer followers. For this reason,
“Facebook Ads and Google Ads are micro-influencers — those with around 5,000 to
undoubtedly the 2 most significant 100,000 followers — can be incredibly effective
at driving sales.
and comprehensive ecommerce
advertising platforms.”
Image credit - Patricia Bright: Influencer Ecommerce Marketing
13online in exchange for a small commission for
each sale or sign-up they generate.
For example, the YouTuber Tabby Violet created
a video reviewing women’s fashion brand Lily
Silk. Although Lily Silk didn’t commission her to
create the video, Violet uses the video to
promote an affiliate link. Whenever a viewer
clicks the link and makes a purchase, Violet will
receive a small cut of the sale.
3. Create a referral program
You can also ‘pay’ to acquire new customers with
discounts designed to incentivise customers to
refer people in their network to your product or
service. Here we can see Helm Boots offering
customers a $50 voucher if they get a friend to
make a purchase. Plus, the brand makes it easy
to convince friends to buy something by offering
them a $50 discount too. Referral programs have
the potential to drive profound exponential growth
if most customers refer just 2 friends.
4. Create an affiliate marketing program
Similarly, you can also drive sales by creating
an affiliate program. Affiliates are third-party
marketers who promote products and services
Image credit - Ecommerce Marketing Ideas: Helm Boots Referral
Program (above) Lily Silk Affiliate Marketing Example: Tabby Violet (right)Step two
Convert Once you’ve started driving traffic
to your website with ecommerce
marketing methods, how can you
website visitors turn visitors into customers?
Here’s what we’ll cover in
into leads this section:
1. Retargeting
2. Lead magnet
3. Push notifications
4. Craft compelling calls to action
15Very few people will Here’s how it works: Whenever someone visits
your website, you can automatically ‘tag’ them
make a purchase the with something called a ‘tracking pixel’ that’s
linked to your advertising account. This pixel
first time they visit enables the advertising platform to follow the
person as they browse the internet and then
your website. serve them ads whenever possible.
Because of this, it’s vital that you capture visitors’
information so you can continue to market to
them. How? Here are 4 ways.
1. Start retargeting
Paid ecommerce advertising platforms like 2.
1.
Facebook Ads and Google Ads enable you to User visits They decide
run retargeting campaigns. What is retargeting? your site to leave
If you’ve ever felt like a brand is following you
around the internet showing you ads everywhere
you go, you’ve experienced retargeting first-hand.
“Whenever someone visits your
website, you can automatically 3.
They see your
‘tag’ them with something called ads elsewhere
a ‘tracking pixel’.”
162. Use a lead magnet to capture email addresses Email is an incredibly effective marketing channel. According to the Direct Marketing Association, on average, email marketing generates a whopping 4,100% return on investment (ROI. But before you can start sending emails to your target market, you must first capture their contact information. How? Use a ‘lead magnet.’ A lead magnet is an offer that incentivises website visitors to sign up to your mailing list. For example, United By Blue offers website visitors 15% off their first order if they sign up to the brand’s mailing list. Although a discount is probably the most compelling offer, you could also provide exclusive content in exchange for visitors’ email addresses. For example, you could promote: • In-depth ebooks packed full of practical tips • Industry reports exploring current trends • Quizzes that require an email address to find out the results • Email courses that drip-feed valuable information Ecommerce Digital Marketing: United By Blue Email Capture 17
3. Use push notifications
Push notifications are little messages that pop
up on mobile devices and web browsers. Here’s
an example of a web push notification from
Death Wish Coffee. Push notifications are
another great way to keep your brand top-of-
mind and prompt website visitors to return and
make a purchase. They also work particularly
well when used to promote flash sales.
That said, many people find push notifications
irritating, so be careful not to overuse them.
4. Craft compelling calls to action
When converting website visitors into sales leads,
it’s vital to use compelling calls to action. A call
to action — or ‘CTA’ — is a marketing tactic used
to call people to take a specific action, such
as signing up for your mailing list or making a
purchase.
In writing, calls to action usually take the form of
micro-text, such as “Buy Now” or “Sign Up and
Get 10% Off Your First Purchase.” In the example
from KKW Beauty, makeup products on the
homepage are promoted with the CTAs “Add to
Bag” and “Choose Shade.”
Image credit - Death Wish Coffee: Web Push Notification Example
(above), Ecommerce Marketing: KKW Beauty CTA Example (right)
18Step three
Generate How can you streamline your
ecommerce sales strategy
to convert as many leads into
sales customers as possible?
Here’s what we’ll cover:
1. Nurturing leads
2. Emphasise your offer’s
benefits
3. Optimise your product pages
4. Use social proof
5. Streamline your checkout process
6. Up-sell and cross-sell
7. Decrease and recover
abandoned carts
19So, how can you
increase desire and
handle objections?
To boil it down, there are 2 foundational strategies:
• Increase desire: Fundamentally, desire is what
compels people to make a purchase. If you
increase leads’ desire, you’ll convert more of
them into customers.
• Handle objections: Objections are what
stop people from acting on their desires. By
removing or mitigating objections, desire can absolutely must continue to nurture their interest
work unimpeded and lead more people to and desire with marketing messaging. You can do
purchase. this with retargeting ads, email marketing, web
push notifications, or social media marketing.
1. Let’s start with nurturing leads.
There’s a marketing rule-of-thumb known as the For example, the photography marketplace
“7 touches.” This rule-of-thumb states that people Moment sends emails to mailing list subscribers
need to have a positive experience with a brand that contain genuinely helpful information
roughly 7 times before they’ll make a purchase. intended to lead subscribers to make a
purchase. In the example above, Moment offers
At this point, your sales leads have already had a tips on how to choose the right camera lens.
handful of positive brand experiences, but you
Image credit - Moment Nurture Email
202. Emphasise your offer’s benefits
Whenever you create marketing materials, it
can be tempting to highlight your product or
service’s features. For example, when selling
a suitcase, you might write, “premium rubber
handle” or “4 wheels.”
But as the saying goes, “features tell, benefits sell.”
So, instead of just showcasing your product or
service’s features, make sure to also translate
them into the benefits they provide.
comfort and makes manoeuvring the suitcase
easier.” Or, “4 multi-directional wheels allow
To continue with our suitcase example, you could
effortless manoeuvrability over every type of
write, “the premium rubber grip provides lasting
surface.”
For a classic marketing example, check out
how Apple promoted the first iPod. In a time
when many people still didn’t understand what a
gigabyte (GB was, Apple chose not to emphasize
the iPod’s key feature: “Storage for 1GB of MP3s.”
Instead, the tech brand translated that feature into
its core benefit with a catchy slogan: “1,000 songs
in your pocket.”
This ecommerce marketing tactic is essential to
increasing desire.
Image credit - Benefit-Driven Copy: Apple (above)
213. Use social proof
This next ecommerce marketing tactic increases
desire and handles objections simultaneously —
it’s called ‘social proof.’
Here’s how it works: People can be heavily
influenced by the opinions and actions of
others they respect. So, you can increase your
sales by showcasing such positive opinions and
endorsements of your brand.
Social proof comes in many forms, such as
reviews, star ratings, and displaying the logos
of influential associations.
For example, the hair extension brand Luxy Hair
has a section on its homepage dedicated to
showcasing celebrities that use the brand’s
products. People that follow and like these
“Social proof comes in many celebrities are more likely to purchase from
forms, such as reviews, star the brand.
ratings, and displaying the logos Bottom line, make sure to collect and display
of influential associations.” social proof in your marketing materials.
Image credit - Luxy Hair Social Proof
224. Optimise product pages the product’s specifications, warranty, extra
Think of product pages as the last leg of a running information, and more social proof in the form
race: it doesn’t matter how well you’ve run up until of reviews.
this point if you can’t cross the finish line.
The products are also featured in stunning lifestyle
For this reason, every aspect of your product images at the bottom of the page. Plus, there’s
pages should to be optimized to compel leads to a live chat option for shoppers to request more
click “Add to Cart.” information or help. The upshot? Every aspect of
this product page has been optimized to close
Let’s explore a great product page from travel more sales — make sure to do the same for your
gear company Minaal: To start, there are a products.
whopping 14 detailed and professional product
images. These images showcase the appearance
and features of the product and are essential to
increasing desire.
The most important information is highlighted
to the right of the product images, including the
product title, price, colour options, and social
proof in the form of a 5-star rating.
Underneath this vital information is a
straightforward CTA: “Add to Cart.” There’s a
detailed description that highlights the product’s
key benefits in bold for those who want to learn
more about the product. 4 drop-down sections
underneath the images reveal information about
Image credit - Optimised Minaal product page
235. Up-sell and cross-sell
Up-selling is the process of enticing shoppers
to upgrade their purchases. Cross-selling is the
process of promoting complementary offers
alongside a customer’s main purchase.
The image below illustrates the difference:
Up-sell
“Think of product pages as the last
leg of a running race: it doesn’t
matter how well you’ve run up until
+ this point if you can’t cross the
finish line.”
Cross-sell
Image credit - Ecommerce Marketing: Apple Up-sell Example
24In another example from Apple, customers
are treated to a range of up-selling offers
when purchasing a computer or phone.
“Both up-selling and cross-selling
are potent ways to increase sales,
so be sure to use these ecommerce
marketing tactics.”
Image credit - Ecommerce Marketing: Apple Cross-selling
256. Decrease and recover abandoned carts Reasons for abandonments during checkout
When users click “Add to Cart,” your work is far 4,329 responses - US adults 2021 - baynard.com/research
from over. According to the Baymard Institute, a
massive 69.8% of online shopping carts are Extra costs too high 49%
(shipping, tax, fees)
abandoned.
The site wanted me to
create an account 24%
So, how can you reduce your cart abandonment
rate? Well, people typically abandon carts Delivery was too slow 19%
because of getting charged extra costs, being
forced to create an account, or because of Too long/complicated
18%
feeling like the delivery options are too slow. checkout process
The image below reveals more reasons: Didn’t trust the site
with my credit card 17%
information
Couldn’t see/
calculate total order 17%
cost up-front
Website had errors/ 12%
crashed
Returns policy wasn’t
11%
satisfactory
Not enough
payment methods 7%
Credit card declined 4%
Ecommerce Marketing: Reasons for Cart Abandonment
26If you remove or mitigate these common reasons
for cart abandonment, you can increase your
sales substantially.
What’s more, when people abandon their cart,
you can set up an automated email sequence
to follow up and prompt them to complete their
purchase. Here’s an abandoned cart follow-up
email from Ugmonk.
Image credit - Ugmonk Abandoned Cart Email
27Step four
Delight your
Now it’s time to turn a one-time
customer into a lifetime customer
and brand promoter. How?
customers Here are two ways:
1. Provide exceptional customer
service
2. Reward loyal customers
28Congrats, you’ve
made a sale!
1. Provide exceptional customer service
To win repeat business, every aspect of a
customer’s purchase experience must go well
— even when it doesn’t.
For example, should something go wrong with a
customer’s order, it’s vital that you provide swift,
helpful, and generous customer service. Even if
you lose money fixing issues with a customer’s
order, consider it an investment in future sales.
For example, the outdoors brand Patagonia is
well known for its superior customer service:
Image credit - Patagonia: Customer Service
292. Reward loyal customers
Another great way to keep customers happy
and engaged is to offer a rewards program
of some kind.
For example, eJuices offers a points-based
rewards program. It allows customers to earn
points for completing activities and then claim
those points back as discounts on future
purchases.
Image credit - Ecommerce Promotion: eJuices
30Increase your sales marketing to build relationships and prime leads
to purchase.
with an ecommerce Generate sales by increasing desire and handling
marketing strategy objections with tactics like benefit-driven
messaging, social proof, scarcity, urgency, up-
sells, and cross-sells.
Implementing an effective ecommerce Delight customers to transform them into
marketing strategy is essential to sustainable lifelong customers and brand promoters by
business success. Remember, it’s important to providing exceptional customer service and
lead people down the ecommerce marketing engaging loyalty programs.
funnel — from stranger to customer and then to
promoter and brand advocate. You can do this in Finally, implement your ecommerce marketing
5 key steps: strategy one step at a time. And use the
information provided by analytics tools like
Attract your target market with various Google Analytics to refine your process.
ecommerce marketing methods, such as
social media marketing, digital advertising, and
influencer marketing.
Convert website visitors into sales leads by
capturing their information. To do this, you can
use an advertising pixel, gather email addresses,
or request permission to serve push notifications.
Nurture leads. You can use retargeting ads, email
marketing, push notifications, and social media
31Now, go grow your business’s sales! 32
About Neat
As entrepreneurs our businesses are always in Hong Kong
10/F, China Hong Kong
motion: starting from an idea, to making a first Tower, 8 Hennessy Road,
sale, to expanding globally. We need a payment Wan Chai, Hong Kong
experience that evolves with us – an experience London
that’s still stable and secure, but adaptive too. Second Home,
68-80 Hanbury Street,
London E1 5JL
Neat was built for the new economy – where
borders are disappearing and it’s easier than Instagram: @neatapp
Twitter: @neat_app
ever to start a global business. Neat believes
in making international business a reality for
entrepreneurs around the world.
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