Category: SEO

1. Social Media

Think managing your social media is as easy as posting content once a day? It’s not. When it comes to social media, your marketing strategy shouldn’t be to just do it. You need to come up with a plan… and one that works.

Every social platform has a specific target audience. If you’re an online fashion retailer, you probably won’t get most of your sales from LinkedIn, which serves more of a B2B (business to business) audience. Instead, you’ll focus on visual platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. Your best engagement will likely be on Instagram. Your best performing ads will likely come from Facebook. And you might drive a lot of traffic from Pinterest (which you can then retarget with Facebook ads).

So, once you’ve figured out which platforms are worth pursuing for your specific business, it’s time to zero in on your marketing strategies. What type of content should you post? Which tactics should you execute to increase growth? How often should you post?

2. SEO

What’s more powerful at driving traffic to a website than social media? SEO. It won’t bring you results on day one. But marketing strategies aren’t about short-term plays. It’s about planning for the future growth.

Most online retailers focus on immediate gratification when it comes to building their online stores so they’ll run Facebook ads and call it a day. But if you really want to keep your acquisition costs low, SEO is your best bet.

The thing about SEO is that it’s actually not about picking keywords for your specific niche but going a bit broader. For example, if you have a running store, you wouldn’t only focus on keywords related to running. You’d also focus on keywords related to fitness or weight loss. Why? Because SEO is about acquiring new traffic, not just sticking to your exact audience. By having content around weight loss, you can still introduce the concept of running as a potential way to lose weight. It allows you to target a broader audience who could still be interested in your products.

3. Content Marketing

One of the most popular marketing strategies right now is content marketing. It helps keep acquisition costs low. But it’s also great at “warming up” leads. What does that mean? It means not everyone will be ready to buy from you the first time they visit your website. However, your content can act as a relationship builder. The more of your content someone sees, the more familiar the potential customer becomes with your brand. Eventually, that familiarity can result in cold, hard cash. Like SEO, it’s a bit of a long-term play. But it pays off.

Content marketing serves multiple purposes beyond acquisition though. It can also educate your customers so that they can improve their performance within the niche. For example, if you run a hair extension store, you can create hair tutorial videos with your hair extensions. This will help your customers look more beautiful using your hair extensions but also keep them using your product. Eventually, when customers want to buy another style, they’ll be more likely to be from you. Why? Because content marketing improves customer retention too.

Content can come in many forms like blog posts, ebooks, videos, infographics, webinars, podcasts, polls, quizzes, templates, and more.

4. Public Relations

The realm of public relations (PR) covers everything from media coverage to branding to content marketing. PR is about maintaining a positive public image and increasing brand awareness. On the one hand, PR is about preventing and putting out fires that can harm a brand’s reputation. And on the other it’s about showcasing the good things your brand does such as corporate social responsibility.

Marketing strategies like PR should always be included in your marketing plan. The reality is your brand’s reputation can be as magical as Disney’s or it can be as tarnished as Takata’s.

5. Collaborations

Brand collaborations or partnerships can help skyrocket your business. Marketing strategies like collaboration or co-marketing allow you to elevate your business by tapping into another brand’s audience. Most view brands in similar niches as competitors but they can be allies. If two brands serve the same audience but carry different product lines, they can help each other grow by co-creating content, hosting a contest, or launching a joint product together. By leveraging another brand’s audience your marketing campaign can reach a bigger audience, making it an even greater success.

In part 8 of my case study series, I shared how another online retailer in a similar niche gave me a free shout-out on Instagram. While the post didn’t result in any sales, it did result in new followers and website visits. My online store didn’t even have 20 followers at the time and this brand had over 200,000! So collaborations don’t always need to be an even trade. This is a simple way to partner with a brand with a bigger audience without having to offer something extravagant in return.

6. Email Marketing

For many online retailers, email marketing drives the fastest immediate results in terms of webpage traffic and sales. You can build your email list by asking customers to opt into your marketing when they check out. Or you can add an opt-in form to your blog, homepage, and other popular pages of your website.

The real magic in email marketing comes from the ability to continue to remarket to your audience on an asset you have 100% ownership of. Think of social media followers as rented. Whereas, your entire email list can be moved to another email provider anytime. So you’ll always own your complete list.

What are the top marketing strategies for email?

The easiest way to increase your email marketing impact is to build a bigger email list. Apps like Spin-A-Sale can be added to your online store, gamifying the process of email list building. The tool allows customers to spin a wheel to get a discount. Customers have to enter their email to spin. But it’s also proven to result in sales as well. I personally tried it on my store and we ended up building a massive email list.

Create email funnels. An email funnel is a set of sequenced emails. A standard email newsletter might include your best-selling products. However, an email funnel might start by featuring a couple of blog posts about the niche to help customers increase brand familiarity. You might then send an email showing your best-selling products of the week to convert the sale. But you’d only send the conversion email after sending a non-sales email first. You could also build funnels for your abandoned cart emails.

Segment your email list. As your email list keeps growing, personalization and segmentation become essential. You’ll have customers who’ve ordered different products on your store. However, by personalizing your emails, you can show them products they may be interested in based on their previous browsing history. This can help make them more likely to buy your products because it’s catered to that individual customer. Apps like Customer Segment Builder can help with this.

7. Video Marketing

Picture posts just aren’t cutting it anymore, folks. Videos are one of the most important marketing strategies for 2018. Fortunately, it’s never been easier to create videos. All you need is your phone. And you could use a free video editing app from the App Store or Google Play to make easy modifications to your videos.

How you create your videos also depends on which platform you’re on. For example, on Instagram, you might use Instagram apps like Boomerang to create a short video loop. On YouTube, you’ll likely be creating widescreen videos.

by Nicole Martins Ferreira

Nicole Martins Ferreira is a content marketer at Oberlo and experienced ecommerce entrepreneur. She’s been building online stores since 2013 and sharing her secrets with Oberlo users since 2016. Follow Nicole on Twitter at @NicoleMarFer.