With millions of eCommerce businesses scrambling the market for a spot, entering and branding your eCommerce site is essential. With marketing strategies, your eCommerce business can open up and help increase your customer base. The focus is to sell your product, and a well-planned online marketing strategy efficiently does that for an eCommerce brand.
Traditional advertisements indeed work, but they come with an expensive price tag. Therefore, online marketing can cut down the price, proving to be cost-effective. But why is it cost-effective? In a single word: targeting. Instead of creating general advertisements, an online marketing strategy creates ads targeting potential customers. Most importantly, the internet is vast. Therefore, the reach of your advertisements can be immense without having to shell out the extra money.
Following are the top 10 eCommerce marketing mistakes to avoid.
1. Not Knowing Your Target Audience
The interconnectivity due to the internet lets every eCommerce business go worldwide. However, many eCommerce websites are unaware of their target customers. There are already too many brands online, therefore cutting out the extra noise will help your business drive traffic. Your content may be brilliant, but if it does not resonate with a customer, it will never bring enough revenue. As a result, an online business loses eCommerce sales from their hard-earned traffic. Your product or eCommerce business must target audiences who possess similar buyer persona. An accurately identified audience can boost business sales dramatically.
2. Improper Product Description
A marketing copy, which illustrates a product’s worth that is proposed to the would-be customer, is called a product description. Many times, a product description answers customer queries and automatically sells the product. Writing a product description gives a business an upper hand if the features are written more as a benefit. So, the lack of description acts as a drawback. Hence a good description highlighting the perks of the product to the targeted customers is always an asset.
3. Not Using Enough Social Proof
With social media garnering momentum, most brands are looking to make a mark on it. Social media can be a powerful tool to increase direct sales if linked in the back-end so that people can share their latest purchases with peers. Whether it is through reviews or collaborations with influencers, an online word of mouth acts as social proof. Unless an eCommerce market is linked to social media grounds, it will lack in demographic assessments and the sphere of popularity, resulting in a drawback for eCommerce marketing functions. Engaging in social media activities, especially with a defined goal, is inevitable and necessary.
4. Poor Customer Service
Marketing strategies entail the before, after and during, of any eCommerce websites sales. The difference between customer acquisition and requisition is defined at the moment of purchase, and the service extended post it. A customer will tend to come back if the previous experience has been excellent. Ensuring that a customer is satisfied with a product calls for a reputable business. Delivery of service can be real or virtual, but the response to a query is mandatory to build the confidence of the customer towards your eCommerce business. Customer services come with their own set of challenges. For customer engagement, an up to date, call to action tools enable an organisation to serve customers across all touchpoints. Also, the online customer care service must be well versed with any service requirement, which would help in dissipating an omnichannel customer experience.
5. Poor User Experience
It has been observed that in the race of attracting new customers, eCommerce websites ignore the requirements of current ones. It is more cost-effective to sell a product to an existing customer rather than proposing a fresh start. eCommerce markets being vast and extensive can neglect their buyers. Thus, the buyers carry a negative impression and dissipate the same. To avoid this, you can build necessary steps such as sharing exclusive products, offers or services. Keeping your customers up to date with the changes in business and providing them with excellent post-purchase service will always act as goodwill helping in garnering more clients through a personal account. They can be asked for feedback, and a follow up should be mandatory to improve further sales.
6. Poor Experience in Mobile Devices
“Mobile first” is a phrase most broadly used by any tech company who understands the boom of it in the current market. The usage of desktops and laptops are now somewhat limited to work tables. Therefore for any growing online store, it can be a major downfall if their website isn’t mobile-friendly. A user-friendly layout for a phone is vital in this day and age where the desktop-only format of applications can be cumbersome. So, to avoid such complication, the website must operate on both desktop and mobile devices. An optimized for mobile design is accepted as more responsive than the desktop design. An auto-resize function can make the design flexible and easy to use and is more interactive.
7. Poor Content Marketing Efforts
“Finger licking good” is a three-word phrase known globally. This KFC phrase is a live example of how content can be compelling. Engage in creating content that helps drive sales or retain your visitors. Let the content be about what the brand believes in rather than merely being about the product. Content marketing also helps build brand image and tailoring it to the ideal customers can drive traffic to your website.
8. Poor Email Marketing Automation Setup
It is a proven fact that traditional email marketing has a higher ROI than any other form of online marketing. But dropping the same old, exhaustive promotional emails is counted as spam. Therefore, it is essential to segment the subscribers before sending out automated mails. Categorising emails and personalizing them, leads customers actually to open them. Check for customer prerequisites for the extra added touch. Additionally, the email should be linked to the eCommerce website directly to provide an uncomplicated experience.
9. Poor Social Media Management
Social media has now bridged the gap between a brand and its customers. But it can turn into a negative stake for any eCommerce business if not planned properly. One wrong message from the brand on any social media platform will lead to negative feedback or backlash. Therefore, for any established brand on any social media platform must focus on consistency and predefined plans which build an online presence rather than dwindle it. Flexibility on every platform is essential for growth and a spontaneous response team to any customer complaint, shows attentiveness of a business.
10. Not Analyzing the Results of Your Efforts.
“You can’t look at the competition and say you’re going to do it better. You have to look at the competition and say you’re going to do it differently.” – Steve Jobs
In the modern era of consumerist society, which is full of advanced technologies, competition plays a vital role. Thorough research for customer need and marketing programs is what defines a thriving market and makes it stand out. It is essential to find a strategy to differentiate. The omission of obsolete items and focus on trends helps in achieving goals in the consumerist society. Influencer marketing, media marketing, online marketing, affiliate marketing and local marketing are a few strategies which can be followed to attract a targeted audience.
Conclusion
To encapsulate, eCommerce websites though a boon to the society have various drawbacks which can easily be prevented and managed. The top ten flaws described above are the major ones which can overshadow the benefits of an eCommerce marketing concept. Pay-Per-Click advertising (PPC) and search engine optimisation (SEO) are significant tactics and tools while designing an eCommerce marketing plan. There are a few tricks that a new retail business can follow when beginning with eCommerce marketing to avoid common mistakes. The online stores, retailer, wholesaler, or an organisation can use the means of eCommerce marketing for promotional purposes.
Additional resources
- https://www.osiaffiliate.com/blog/best-ecommerce-marketing-platforms/
- https://www.osiaffiliate.com/blog/the-ultimate-guide-to-market-your-ecommerce-store/
- https://www.osiaffiliate.com/blog/20-top-ecommerce-marketing-blogs/
- https://www.adnabu.com/ecommerce-marketing
- https://www.adnabu.com/ecommerce-marketing-strategies
- https://www.adnabu.com/ecommerce-marketing-trends
* This article was originally published here
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