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Effective Digital Marketing Strategies for eCommerce

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Effective Digital Marketing Strategies for eCommerce

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Running an eCommerce business needs extra attention and energy towards your marketing strategies. This is because apart from targeting new traffic to your platforms, you are also working to ensure that you entice existing customers to keep coming back to your store.

Even though we live in a digital age, there are still many challenges that eCommerce sites undergo. As the competition remains unforgivingly fierce with millions of shopping options, it becomes a lot harder to convince online shoppers to purchase products from you.

There have also been various developments in the eCommerce world, thanks to search engine giants such as Google. This is because people can easily check out the prices of products much quicker, compare the goods with those of competitors, and they can decide on who to settle on, even before approaching your site.

To ensure that you remain relevant and close more leads, you may need to relook your marketing efforts and stay ahead of the trends. Here are five effective digital marketing strategies for eCommerce sites that will ensure you capture your share in the $2.8 trillion annual online sales.

1. Define your sales cycle

Before you embark on any digital marketing campaigns and even before writing your business plan, the first thing you’ll always hear is that you should understand your audience. In the eCommerce world, going in without defining your user personas would be heading for doom, as the chances of your business failing are pretty high.

Every business is unique, and therefore, you ought to define your sales cycle before launching any marketing strategies. In essence, you need to know how long it takes for a customer to make a purchase on your website. Learn their journey and understand how they move through your sales process. This is the only way you’ll be able to come up with relevant eCommerce marketing strategies that will actually work.

Without a clear understanding of how long it takes for a customer to complete the entire sales cycle, you will find it a little more difficult, trying to pinpoint the areas of improvement and what platforms you need to focus on the most.

Furthermore, with such information, you are also able to know how to target and qualify leads, how to move them onto the next stage of the sales funnel, and what needs to be done to keep them coming back. Fortunately, all these can be done on a trial and error basis so you don’t have to be perfect with your first findings.

2. Optimize your checkout process

One of the biggest mistakes made by eCommerce business owners is the failure to have a seamless checkout process. Getting your prospects to the checkout page takes a lot of convincing and they are satisfied that your products would actually help them solve their pain points.

However, if your checkout process isn’t smooth, then you may end up noticing a high bounce rate emanating from your checkout page.

Ensure that all actions and buttons are clearly visible and that the visitor knows exactly what to do after they have added their preferred products to the cart. There are some methods that you can easily learn by registering to some of the best distance learning platforms, and get to know the different ways you can optimize your checkout page for higher conversions.

3. Provide helpful product descriptions

Having clear product descriptions will help a prospect throughout their sales cycle. They’ll be in a better position to understand exactly what the product is all about and make a decision if it would be helpful to them.

As for the seller, you will gain customer trust if you know how to correctly label your product. This will establish you as an authority, which can boost the customer’s trust in you.

Furthermore, apart from helping to convince your customers, having clear product descriptions can help your site even further through Search Engine Optimization (SEO). By using the right keywords within your product descriptions, search engine crawlers would be able to rank your page as an authority site, helping you to appear on the first page of the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). This will ultimately enable you to land on more leads and conversions.

4. Invest in retargeting

The hard truth is that 98% of website visitors do not make a purchase on their first visit. Most of them will be window shopping on your site, or maybe trying to compare you with a competitor. Another batch of individuals would actually add the items to the cart, and leave it half-way, even before they proceed to the checkout page.

If this is the case, you need to invest in retargeting marketing strategies. With this type of marketing, whenever someone visits your website and fails to make a purchase, and you could check on your dashboard that they were interested in a particular product, you reach out to them using other means.

For starters, you can use retargeting ads on other websites that the prospect may visit and bring to their attention your deals and offers on the specific product. Furthermore, if they had subscribed to your website, or had put in their email addresses, you can use these details to reach out to them and offer a personalized offer. By doing this, they will feel appreciated and can end up making the purchase from you.

5. Boost product visualization

People love what they see and if you’re an eCommerce business site owner, this is one of the first things you need to understand. Although content is king, you should beware of the type of content to add to your website. Although blog posts will be a boosting factor, they are not the key selling points.

Ensure to invest more in having quality images of the products you wish to sell. You should also use advanced methods such as 3D technology, where customers are able to view the product from all angles, including rotating 360°. One company, Fourth Source, has recorded increased conversions and sales from 25% to 30% when they used 3D images over flat surface photos for their products.

Conclusion

Having a concrete eCommerce digital marketing strategy will not only be vital for your company’s success through increased sales, but will also ensure you remain relevant to the changing trends and stay ahead of the competition. These five tips are just a starting point for you to up your game and get a piece of this elusive market share.

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Lidia S. Hovhan is a part of Content and Marketing team at OmnicoreAgency. She contributes articles about how to integrate digital marketing strategy with traditional marketing to help business owners to meet their online goals. You can find really professional insights in her writings.

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Digital Marketing for B2B Companies in 2021—What Changes?

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The digital marketing landscape is constantly evolving, especially for B2B businesses. Tactics that worked a few years ago have been phased out.

 As we move into 2021, we can expect more exciting marketing trends that’ll dominate for years to come. Here are some of them:

Growing LinkedIn Use

No other social media platform can rival LinkedIn when it comes to B2B marketing. And here are a few reasons why:

-Senior Level workers account for almost 61 million users, and a whopping 40 million are decision-makers in their firms, according to this study. 

-LinkedIn helps B2B brands generate over 80% of their leads — a shocking 7 times more than other channels. 

-65% of B2B businesses have gained a customer through the LinkedIn platform. 

There’s no doubt that LinkedIn is a B2B goldmine. C-level executives spend their social media time there. They’re looking for valuable posts to read. 

Unlike with Facebook or Twitter, you already have an active audience that’s hungry for your content. By doubling-down on your efforts, you can get your business in front of the right people at the right time. 

The platform is friendly to even novice marketers. If you don’t know how to attract customers through the app, you can choose paid marketing strategies. They’ll help you narrow down your outreach to the most ideal audience — influencers, b2b clients, and other buyers. 

From the evidence above, LinkedIn marketing will continue to be the staple strategy in B2B circles. Unsurprisingly, an estimated 92% of marketers include the medium in their campaigns today. We expect this figure to grow in 2021. 

Chatbots

Outgrow estimates that, by 2021, 80% of brands will adopt some form of chatbot systems. These systems will help businesses avoid shelling out big bucks on customer service. The effective inbound lead generation they offer is expected to generate more profit for these brands. 

Unsurprisingly, chatbots have taken over online marketing, becoming a major part of web designs. They give answers to consumers quickly. Your customers no longer have to wait for hours to get an answer and get tempted to start searching for other alternative options. 

By offering instant answers, these AI tools make your brand appear more professional. This way, you can attract more potential clients and retain the available ones. 

Another benefit of integrating bots into your website is that they give you valuable consumer insights by collecting data on your visitor’s preferences. You can then use the data collected to revise your marketing tactics. 

Your customers don’t have to spend minutes filling out long forms, either. So it’s a win-win for both of you. 

Other perks you may get from bots include:

-Helps in recruitment — Potential hirees can communicate with the bots instead of submitting forms. 

-Creating content — Some bots can help reduce your workload by publishing content on your behalf. 

-Customer support — When your real agents aren’t available, the AI can take over conversations with visitors. 

Higher Demand for Content Marketers

In a recent ContentWriters survey, 61% of marketers claimed that they’re publishing blog posts several times a week. To top it off, 89% of these respondents said they received higher-quality leads from content marketing compared to other strategies. 

These studies show that content marketing as a lead-attracting tactic isn’t slowing down anytime soon. And using this strategy effectively has become much more difficult as the years have gone by.

The days of publishing 350-word posts and ranking in Google’s first pages are, unfortunately, fading into the past. Creating content is a much more complex discipline these days. It involves researching your marketing thoroughly, understanding your audience well, and carrying out comprehensive campaigns. 

That’s why experienced content marketers will have a higher demand in 2021. Hiring interns to churn out articles can’t work any longer, so B2B businesses will be forced to get specialists. 

Guest posting is a key part of content marketing. As this method is still a popular move for many websites, keep in mind that you’d have to create a dedicated team for this strategy. You’ll need people to reach out to other sites and talented writers for the content itself. There are also quality blogger outreach service companies that can help you reach out to sites and create great content. 

More Interactive Content

Interactive content requires visitors to be involved more. They have to do more than just click a link and scroll. Savvy B2B business owners know the potential this type of content can have to not only engage users but to also stand out from its counterparts. 

In fact, a Content Marketing Institute survey shows that 81% of marketers consider interactive content more likely to attract visitor’s attention compared to other content types.  

Generally, it can be in the form of these categories:

-Infographics — They can include engaging animation or datasets

-eBooks — You can add some video or animation to your books

-Quizzes — You can ask questions that make visitors more engaged. 

-Calculators — Visitors can input data to get some varying outcomes 

-Interactive videos — Allow consumers to decide what happens to a film’s plot. 

That said, there’s no doubt that marketers will increasingly make use of interactive content to draw leads to B2B sites. Storytelling will continue to be important for brands’ success. 

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How an ATS Can Help Your Business Survive and Thrive in the Digital Era

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It is very clear why you are looking for elusive talent in a niche where it is already lacking, trying to convince your top choice candidates to consider you and not your competitors and evaluating the right fit for a given position – all with a restricted recruitment budget and a deadline. Having an ATS at this point can turn the tables and give you a competitive edge. And you need it because it empowers you to significantly move the needle on improving the quantity and quality of hires.

You can either run a business that makes forward progress or you can deal with an overflowing email inbox, sort resumes, screen applicants, schedule interviews, make phone calls and interview them. Fortunately, you can leverage technology to do all the legwork and stay focused on getting the right people who can grow your business.

What is Applicant Tracking System and Why Use It

An applicant tracking system helps streamline and speed-up the sourcing process by automating manual aspects of recruitment so you can save time and stay focused on selecting the right fit. A feature-rich applicant tracking system includes:

-Automated job postings

-A branded careers site that is mobile-responsive

-Job board and social media integrations

-Smart filter intelligence

-Real-time dashboards

-Auto-generated recruitment reports

-Customizable recruitment workflows

-Personalized email templates and text messages

-A centralized candidate database

-Unlimited cloud storage

If all of these features sound terrific to you; imagine the enormous savings they will bring your business in terms of time, effort and money.

Time savings

Manual job postings take up a ton of your time. Promoting your open positions on different social media platforms can take up precious hours of your productive day leaving you little time to focus on your core business processes. If you thought this is it, now comes the actual task that will test your patience and your sanity – opening emails, downloading resumes in different formats, screening and sorting applications, and shortlisting candidates for interviews.

Using online recruitment software automates all of these mind-numbing activities in an instant, freeing up your valuable time for things that actually matter.

A Seamless and Superior Candidate Experience

Today’s tech-savvy job seeker expects you to deliver a positive candidate experience at every step of the sourcing process. Online recruitment software makes it easier to ensure a rich end-user experience with a mobile-responsive careers site, allows you to customize the application process to make it quick and easy for your busy candidates, keeps them involved at every stage with automated emails, sends them interview reminders to eliminate no-shows and gives you a competitive edge when it comes to candidate management. Also, with Google’s increasing emphasis on mobile-responsiveness, having an applicant tracking system can make or break your talent pool.

Improved Collaboration

Online recruitment software keeps the entire team in sync and updated with a centralized, easy-to-access framework. It ensures a collaborative recruitment environment where you can share candidate ratings and reviews in real-time, use @mentions to notify specific team members, set automated interview reminders, access recruiting data on-the-go with a mobile app, and keep candidates engaged in a timely and professional manner with personalized emails – all without the hassles of maintaining paperwork.

Actionable Insights

Using an applicant tracking system allows you to leverage real-time insights with intuitive reports that facilitate informed decision making. With more actionable data at hand, you can make better hiring decisions. You can also leverage these intelligent reports to get a clear snapshot of your recruitment operations and evaluate the performance of different job boards and social media platforms. This helps improve hiring efficiency by enabling you to focus your efforts on the right resources.

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Kelly Barcelos is a progressive digital marketing manager specializing in HR and is responsible for leading Jobsoid’s content and social media team. When Kelly is not building campaigns, she is busy creating content preparing PR topics. She started with Jobsoid as a social media strategist and eventually took over the entire digital marketing team with her innovative approach and technical expertise.

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6 Advanced Digital Marketing Strategies You Should Try

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Marketing is crucial for your business to succeed. Whether you are an online retail shop owner or a first-time entrepreneur, you probably already know the importance of smart and effective advertising.

In order to kick-start your business and support it as it grows, you should have a detailed marketing plan. This article will look into six advanced digital marketing strategies you should try in your campaign.

1. Guest Posts

Guest blogging is often being overlooked by the majority of entrepreneurs and even marketers themselves. The primary purpose of guests posts is link building, and perhaps they are the best tool for it.

Guest posts are essential for growing your business, and here’s why:

They help build relationships: If you are an expert in your field, you will easily be able to establish a connection with your audience and with the bloggers you collaborate with. Being professional about what you do and displaying an insightful look at the industry can help inspire loyalty and trust in your customers.

They are good for SEO: When you leave a link to your website on the guest post you write on an authoritative blog, you will not only receive more traffic through those links, but your website will rank higher in web searches. Google sees backlinks from different places that lead to your site and this makes the search engine prioritizes your website over others.

They are relatively cheap: Compared to other marketing techniques, guest blogging is fairly cheap. The thing to keep in mind though is that you must mainly focus on the quality of content instead of trying to sell your products. If your article has no value, then what use is it?

They provide new leads and opportunities: As mentioned before, being an expert in your field can potentially lead to new customers. If people like your content, they will want to find out more about your business and eventually become your clients.

2. Translations

The logic behind this strategy is fairly simple: the more accessible you make your content, the more people you will reach. By translating your website into different languages, you will be able to appeal to the foreign audiences, which will lead to your business going global.

If you are not good with languages and don’t know anyone who can translate your content, you can always turn to online translation services which have become very popular in recent years. Such sites as The Word Point offer translations to dozens of languages for a decent price and in a small amount of time.

For this marketing strategy to be effective, you should consider translating to at least two or three languages other than English. If you are based in North America, a good idea would be to spread into South America. This means that you will have to localize your content for the respective countries, whose main languages are Spanish and Portuguese or variations of these.

Likewise, if you are based in Europe, you can target the biggest potential markets that you are missing out on at the moment. Don’t try to hurry though, and start off with several languages first. You can increase that number once you have established yourself in your target countries.

3. Skyscraper Technique

When using the Skyscraper Technique, you will be able to develop many aspects of your business marketing. The technique itself is pretty simple:

Find Trending Content: The first thing you do is find the content in your niche that is currently trending. Sometimes such topics can die out as fast as they sprang up, so be sure to act fast.

Compile A List Of Distributors: Now make a list of websites or blogs where you will be posting your future content. Your articles might be guest posts, so you have to find out if the sites permit backlinks beforehand.

Create Better Content: Go through the content you found and make it better. Develop certain points or include additional analysis. Maybe the content lacks facts or statistics. If the language is too complicated, simplify it so that more people can understand it. Your goal is to create an article that is better than what you found. Because you are using a trending topic, you will most definitely succeed in finding an audience for your work.

Post It & Receive Feedback: Once you post the content on the sites you chose, keep interacting with your readers. Show that you are willing to stay up-to-date on the topic and are a professional in your industry. The backlinks should increase your traffic too.

4. Smart Emails

You are probably thinking about how useless and ineffective email marketing is nowadays. But this is actually not the case if you know how to do it properly.

A good email will possess all the qualities of a good ad. To make your emails more appealing, think about these features:

  • -Design is everything. Make it stand out.
  • -Less text. More images.
  • -Saturate your content. Only on topic.

Along with the things listed above, try targeting specific people instead of the general public. Look for certain users on the Internet and aim your emails at them. One way to make email marketing easier is to use such a tool as MailChimp or analogs. It makes sending these messages faster and more efficient.

5. Moving Man Method

This is a fairly new tricky technique that was coined by Brian Dean. The system goes like this:

  • -Find Defunct Websites: Find websites in your industry or niche that have moved to a new URL, changed names, stopped offering services, or went out of business completely.
  • -Look Through The Data: Carefully look through these websites to find the content you like.
  • -Create Better Content: Just like with the Skyscraper Technique, create better content than what they used to offer.
  • -Reach Out To Sites With Backlinks: Find sites and blogs that contain backlinks to these defunct websites. Reach out to them and ask if they would change the links to your own articles.

Quite a witty technique that is gaining popularity right now, the Moving Man Method is an easy way to create quality content and get backlinks to your site.

6. Advertorials

Last but not least, advertorials are the way to go because of their unique nature. Unlike traditional advertisement, advertorials serve the purpose of connecting with your audience rather than plainly selling your product.

There is a great article on How To Write An Advertorial that you can check out to get acquainted with what an advertorial is. Here’s a rundown of how to make your advertorial more appealing:

  • -Find the right media outlet. Don’t choose at random.
  • -Clearly label your advertorial as ‘advertisement’ (according to FTC’s guidelines), or else it will be banned.
  • -Advertorials are like blogs: don’t sell the product, sell the content related to your product.
  • -Share your advertorials on social media.

To sum up, these are definitely not the only advanced digital marketing strategies that will aid you during your advertising. But they are most obviously worth a try and may be of great use when implemented right. Don’t pass by and take note!

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5 Reasons Businesses Should Bare Their Souls To Customers

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We live in the information age — aptly named because we have unprecedented access to information through many platforms. Researchers estimate that between television, radio, the internet, email and social media, the average person receives the equivalent of 174 newspapers worth of data every day. That means consumers have a lot to sort through and choose from when shopping for virtually any type of product. And studies show they demand more transparency from companies to help them make an informed decision. 

“This is especially critical in digital marketing,” says Jonathan Musgrave, owner and chief digital marketer for Steep Digital Marketing (www.steepdigital.com). “With information so abundant and readily available, companies are becoming increasingly transparent in an effort to engage the potential customer. They’re inviting potential customers into their world rather than talking at them.” Musgrave offers five ways that being transparent in digital marketing can win over customers:

Builds trust. “You deserve more than someone playing games with you and withholding information,” Musgrave says, whose digital marketing agency specializes in seminar advertising, lead generation and marketing automation for financial advisors. “The consumer expects and is entitled to know exactly what they’re signing up for. The financial advisors my firm works with, for example, tell us that they build such good rapport with their seminar attendees before the event occurs because of the way they’re featured on the event landing page. There’s a lot of ‘gotcha marketing’ going on in the world today, and no one likes to feel like they got fooled.”

Develops loyalty. Surveys show that the vast majority of consumers will be loyal to a brand that practices transparency. “Brands now have the enhanced opportunity to show their personalities and values due to the internet and social media,” Musgrave says. “So consumers expect to know more about companies than ever before. And if you give them transparency, they’re willing to pay extra for it.”

Shows authenticity. “To do digital marketing right,” Musgrave says, “companies need to take a deep dive into who they are, where they’ve been — warts and all — and show a vulnerability that potential customers can relate to. People can see themselves in what you truthfully present. The whole objective is to create a human interaction, and being authentic in this way is one of the most powerful things you can do.”

Pairs a great offer with great value. “Regardless of what you’re selling, there is some ulterior factor we’re using as an advertising carrot,” Musgrave says. “An example would be a time-share presentation; get a free cruise if you sit down and listen to them talk about some product they’re trying to sell you. But the carrot blinds you from the actual intent of the event. In order to be transparent and build good trust, the offer has to be paired with value.”

Increases efficiency. “Becoming more transparent through digital marketing can greatly improve a business’ efficiency by spending less time talking around product limitations and sidestepping customers’ concerns,” Musgrave says. “By not embellishing your results, you save time for more productive work.”

“Giving consumers access to all the information they need to know without masking your intentions is a proven way to build better relationships through digital marketing,” Musgrave says. 

Jonathan Musgrave is the owner and chief digital marketer for Steep Digital Marketing (www.steepdigital.com), which he founded in 2017. Musgrave got his start in the direct mail business, using his communication skills to craft powerful marketing messages that reached more than 1,000,000 households each month. He’s started his own wholesaling company that brought digital marketing tools to the financial advisor space for the first time in 2013 that were responsible for doubling sales for three consecutive years.

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How Traditional Marketing Can Benefit From A Digital Twist

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At one time, marketing meant using such tactics as buying commercial time on TV or radio stations, advertising in a newspaper or magazine, or sending your message through direct mail.

All of those remain options today, but they are joined by a plethora of digital alternatives for reaching potential customers or clients, who spend a lot of time hanging out in the digital world.

“Websites are optimized for sharing content with others, and people are getting on social media to be educated or entertained, so delivering on those ‘needs’ is super important for any business or professional who wants to remain relevant,” says Jonathan Musgrave, owner and chief digital marketer for Steep Digital Marketing (www.steepdigital.com).

Yet, Musgrave says many businesses and professionals don’t always take advantage of what digital marketing offers, instead falling back on what worked in the past, either out of habit or due to a lack of understanding of the power of digital.

And that’s no way to move forward, he says. But choosing between digital or traditional approaches to marketing isn’t an either/or proposition. Musgrave offers a few examples of how the two can be married to produce great results:

-A text instead of a call. Musgrave says one of his clients, a financial professional, would buy TV time each month for a show in which he would talk about money issues. At the end of each segment, in an effort to generate leads, his firm’s telephone number would be displayed so viewers could call if they wanted more information. “I suggested that instead of a number to call, they should show a number that people could text,” Musgrave says. That change might appear insignificant on its face, but it proved to be extraordinarily consequential. The financial professional went from receiving about three responses per show to about 300.

–Billboards and digital calls to action. A message on a billboard provides the same opportunity to elicit a digital response from anyone who sees it. Once again, instead of urging people to call, urge them to text. You can also include your website address in your billboard ad so those intrigued by what you have to offer can learn more there, Musgrave says.

-Work digital connections into all marketing materials. Likely, you have business cards, brochures or any number of other marketing materials that people can hold in their hands. All of those should let people know how they can find you online, whether it’s on your website or on social media channels, Musgrave says. By the same token, if you have speaking engagements, you can put that information on a display poster or include it in a PowerPoint slide. “Since people always carry their phones, if they see how to find you on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or wherever, they may follow you right then and there,” he says. 

“The most dangerous thing I hear people say is that digital marketing is the future,” Musgrave says. “That’s not quite accurate because the future is already here. Advertisers globally spent more on digital advertising than any other medium in 2017, displacing TV at the top of the chart for the first time. If you keep kicking the digital can down the road, by the time you catch up to it again, your competitors will have already passed you.”  

About Jonathan Musgrave

Jonathan Musgrave is the owner and chief digital marketer for Steep Digital Marketing (www.steepdigital.com), which he founded in 2017. Musgrave got his start in the direct mail business, using his communication skills to craft powerful marketing messages that reached more than 1,000,000 households each month. He’s started his own wholesaling company that brought digital marketing tools to the financial advisor space for the first time in 2013 that were responsible for doubling sales for three consecutive years.