With everything online these days, e-commerce stores have become more common than ever.
Adding the COVID-19 pandemic on top of that, it’s little wonder why people would rather order the things they need from an e-commerce website rather than go through the hassle of driving to a brick-and-mortar store.
But, naturally, the increase of e-commerce websites means that no matter what industry you’re in, you’re bound to have plenty of competitors vying for a piece of the market.
So, how do you market yourself to your target audience and drive the traffic you need to your website instead of others?
Whether you’re an established business or a new online store looking for the tools to succeed, this blog is going to lay out some helpful e-commerce marketing strategies to drive more traffic to your website and increase your sales and profit.
How to Drive Organic Traffic to Your Website
There is a difference between the kind of traffic you get to your website and you’re going to want them both because they are equally beneficial.
Organic traffic is the first kind. This is the traffic you get when your consumers search for your products on Google or through social media posts, or through any other form of unpaid marketing efforts.
Let’s begin with some strategies on how to drive that free organic traffic to your website.
Content Marketing
Creating some valuable and relevant content for your target audience can really help you drive organic traffic to your website.
The kind of content you create is totally up to you, but it would very much help if you had a creative team backing you up.
A copywriter can create informative and entertaining blog posts about your industry or your products. They can write product reviews, how-to guides, blogs, emails for your list, social media posts, and whatever content you think both your potential and loyal customers will enjoy.
If you have a graphic designer or video editor or animator, you can have them create some great infographics, product videos, real-life testimonials, email header graphics, email header graphics, and more. Keep reading for more about emails and socials!
The only limit is your team’s imagination!
Social Media Marketing
These days people practically live on social media, so you’ll need to find them where they already are!
Social media can be a great way to promote your products once you’ve built up a strong presence on the platform of your choice. You’ll want to think about your target audience here and their demographic.
Knowing that can help you figure out if Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or TikTok is the best place to reach your audience. If you can reach out to a popular influencer on social media while you’re at it, then do so and take advantage of the benefits of influencer marketing!
All it takes is to find someone who aligns with your brand values and who appeals to your target audience, and you can have a chat and collaborate together on sponsored content or product reviews.
Remember that content we mentioned above? Social media is a great place to share it. If it’s engaging and informative and entertaining, you can bet your social media followers will engage with your posts, reshare them, and amplify your brand awareness.
Don’t be afraid to get creative, either! Interact with your followers, ask them questions, post polls, run contests, and if you’d like, ask for some user-generated content and let them do some of the heavy lifting for you!
Email Marketing
It’s true that many people don’t like getting emails from companies.
But what if your email campaigns were exciting and engaging and full of special offers, sneak peeks at upcoming products, and valuable content? What if you gave behind-the-scenes glimpses of your product being manufactured, or your team brainstorming new service updates? What if your emails were short, personal letters from the CEO talking about the future of your industry?
Remember that you own your email list, but you don’t own the social media platforms. Use that ownership wisely to foster real human-to-human connection. Be altruistic. Be genuine. And commit 20% of your emails to promotion. The remaining 80% should be non-promotional.
That’s the stuff that changes minds!
To retarget your audience, build out an email list made up of the folks who have already purchased from you and some potential customers who’ve given you their email address and send out regular (but not too regular! You don’t want to wear out your welcome) newsletters, promotions, and upcoming events that your followers will be interested in.
Make sure whatever you send out has value to your customers and a clear call to action to get them back on your website.
It’s also a great idea to generate reminder emails to those customers who’ve abandoned carts on your website too. A reminder email or special offer might be all it takes to coax them off the fence and convert them to a sale!
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
In order for those motivated potential customers to be able to make their way to your landing page or website, you’re going to have to optimize your website’s content in order to rank higher on search engine results.
You’ll need to use relevant keywords in your website copy, product pages, headlines, page titles, and blog posts (if you have them). Use header tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.) to organize your content and make it easier for the search engines to analyze.
Some other methods are to add alt tags to your images and make sure they include some of those relevant keywords.
If you’re not sure where to find those juicy keywords, there are some programs to help you do this, such as SEMRush or Mangools.
Pick one, experiment with some keywords, and make sure you’re patient because ranking high in search engines doesn’t happen overnight. Give it a few weeks, see how things are going, and then adjust from there.
How to Drive Paid Traffic to Your Website
Paid traffic is the visitors who get to your website via your paid advertising efforts.
This paid traffic requires you, as the website owner, to pay a fee for each click or impression, and the success of your paid campaign will be determined by the cost per conversion or how many people have to click before someone actually makes a purchase on your website.
Here are our favorite strategies:
Pay-per-click (PPC) Advertising
PPC advertising lets you place paid ads on search engines and other platforms for your potential customers to see. You only have to pay when someone clicks your ad and if it leads to a sale, then it’s money well spent.
One of the more common platforms for this is Google Ads, but there are Bing Ads, DuckDuckGo ads for the privacy-focused customers, and ads for the social media platform of your choice.
If you’re choosing to use PPC social media ads, make sure that you use the platforms that would allow you to reach the most viewers. Facebook and Instagram are popular choices right now, but if you have video content and are looking to court the younger generations, TikTok and YouTube might be good choices as well.
Social Media Advertising
In addition to PPC ads, some social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter also offer advertising options that let you target specific audiences based on their interest, their demographics, and browsing behavior. You can also upload a list of your past customers, and Meta will create a lookalike audience of new people with interests similar to your customers. You can then show ads just to that lookalike audience.
People spend a lot of time on social media, so this method could pay off for you tenfold!
Display Advertising
If you’ve seen a banner or pop-up ad on a website, then you’ve seen a display ad.
Display ads can include images, videos, or other media and they’re usually found on various websites or on social media. You usually pay for these ads on a cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) basis, and they can be targeted based on whatever you please, like demographics, interests, or browsing behavior.
Banner ads tend to be the more popular (and least annoying) option, but there are also interstitial ads and native ads as well.
Interstitial ads are a bit like pop-ups. They appear in a new window or tab and cover up the original content of the page. Because of that, you probably want to stay away from this one.
Instead, try native ads.
Native ads are a newer type of ad, and they are quite effective as they seamlessly blend in with the content of whatever webpage they’re on, making them less jarring and intrusive than other ads.
Whatever method you choose, display advertising can be very effective in increasing brand awareness and driving traffic to your website or landing page.
Just be sure that you’re using the right targeting and tracking tools (Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn have some good ones) to make sure you’re reaching the people you want to be reaching and getting the best ROI.
Affiliate Marketing
This is a strategy where you partner up with other websites or influencers within your industry to promote your products for you!
It usually involves a previously agreed upon compensation, such as a commission for any sales that they bring in for you.
It can be a great way to expand your reach to folks who, otherwise, might never have known you existed!
Retargeting
While some retargeting strategies can be free (such as the abandoned cart emails) the kind we’re talking about here is a paid ad, targeted directly to a potential customer who has already taken the first step of engaging with you online.
It involves placing a tracking pixel on your website, which then tracks the user’s behavior and lets you place personalized ads in front of them as they surf the web or play on social media.
You can also combine this strategy with email marketing and send emails with targeted ads to your subscribers or anyone who has given you an email in exchange for a special offer or content.
Retargeting can have a great ROI because the folks you’re focusing on here are already familiar with your brand and much more likely to convert than someone who has never seen you before.
The Best of Both Worlds: Omnichannel Marketing
Of course, casting a wider net is much more likely to drive in those leads and move more people along your funnel, turning them into converted sales and happy, loyal customers.
By combining the organic strategies described above with, say, Google Ads, sponsored posts on social media or display ads, you can keep the traffic pouring into your website and reap the most rewards.
It always helps to have a creative team behind you when getting the most ROI on your ads or the effort you put into driving organic traffic.
And that’s where partnering with Designity can really help you shine.
With a designated Creative Director on your team, plus a pool made up of the top 3% of US-based creative talent, things like content marketing, SEO, infographics, and website design become a breeze.
Just tell us what you’re looking for and who you’re looking to appeal to, and our graphic designers, copywriters, website builders, and animators can get you the content and marketing strategies you need to stand out in an overcrowded market. If this paragraph feels overwhelming, your designated Creative Director can even lead a brainstorming session to determine who you should target and what campaign would be the best first step.
And with our cost-effective monthly subscription, you can have it all without having to pay an expensive retainer.
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Let Rush Hour Begin!
Driving traffic to your website is something that takes some effort and quality content to do, but it’s what is ultimately going to be the difference in your e-commerce business sinking or skyrocketing off to new heights.
Whatever strategies you choose, be sure you’re keeping up with changing trends, customer behavior, and monitoring your data closely to be sure you’re keeping up and staying the relevant, much-sought-after e-commerce website your customers love.
What’s your favorite way to bring traffic to your website? Hop into the comments below and let’s chat about it!
