Using ecommerce marketing to promote your online store

Buying and selling stuff over the internet has been a ‘thing’ for 30 years now. Ever since the first online sale – a CD of Sting's Ten Summoner's Tales on August 11, 1994 – people have been enjoying the benefits of ecommerce. It’s only in recent years, though, that online shopping has really exploded.

Driven by a combination of convenience and Covid restrictions, ecommerce sales now make up over 19% of all retail sales worldwide. And it’s only set to get bigger. By 2027, Statista predicts nearly a quarter of all global retail will be carried out online. So, just how do you promote your ecommerce store and get a piece of that hot consumer action?

Our first piece of advice: read our 7 essential steps to ecommerce marketing...

1. Grow your online social presence organically

Social media is one of the best and most accessible ways to start your ecommerce marketing campaign. When done right, organic social growth is also more effective and affordable than paid-for advertising, because nothing is more powerful than word of mouth.

Choose to focus on the channels that best align with your values, offering, and target consumer base. For visually appealing goods and services, Instagram is ideal; if you want you wow with demos, TikTok and YouTube videos are the way to go.

Think vibrant, eye-catching, and different. Engage with followers, encourage sharing, and incentivise with offers and giveaways to get people talking.

2. Show your email list some love

Building a strong email list of warm leads is another key ecommerce marketing strategy that requires a bit of time but pays real dividends.

There are various ways to collect emails from your current and potential customers. Offering them something of value in return for their precious contact details is often the most accepted and successful approach. Exclusive promotions, discounts, competitions, free shipping, and pop-up boxes with tasty benefits all work well.

Once you have a healthy list of warm emails, nurture those leads with regular content. Mix it up with product newsletters, gift guides, seasonal greetings, launches, and limited offers.

Depending on your type of business, you could even include staff highlights and insights to reinforce your brand values.

Encourage those on your email list to share your store with friends and family.

3. Create useful content and optimise it

One of the many benefits of having an ecommerce store is the ease of adding value to your customer’s experience of products and services.

People like getting stuff for ‘free’. Aside from the time it takes to create blogs, how-to guides, and news stories, this type of optimised, useful content is relatively easy to produce.

It’s a great way to assert yourself as an informative, helpful authority in your field; you are a business that’s aware of customers’ problems and is happy to share your expertise with them.

It’s also perfect for boosting your SEO... read on for more on that.

4. SEO and ecommerce marketing

You may be familiar with the internet wizardry commonly referred to as ‘SEO’. The term encompasses a great many things, but simplified, SEO is the art of optimising your website so that it appears in relevant Google search results.

Using keywords – the words your prospects might enter into Google when searching your product – in your web copy and content is one SEO marketing strategy that helps your website rank and customers find you.

Remember to use H1, H2, H3 text for headings, Alt text on product images, Meta tags, and Meta descriptions to maximise your page’s SEO potential.

Ensuring your website is accessible, easy to use, informative, authoritative, and easy to understand also helps raise its status in Google’s estimations and push it up the rankings ahead of your competitors.  

5. PPC advertising

Pay Per Click or PPC advertising is the most popular form of paid-for online advertising for small to medium ecommerce businesses.

The model is simple: you put out an ad with product keywords on Facebook, Google, or another digital platform and the algorithm ensures it appears in front of relevant shoppers who are ready to buy that product. You then pay a fee every time one of your ads is clicked on – hence, PPC.   

Its benefits are that it’s highly targeted, ensuring your ad gets seen by the right people at the right time. It’s also easily scalable, meaning you can invest as little or as much as you want in line with response to your adverts and your ecommerce marketing plan.

6. Form an alliance

One of the most exciting approaches for how to promote your ecommerce business is embracing the creative flexibility you get with marketing in a virtual world.

Partnering with other well-known brands and people – particularly influencers – that align with your product and values has the power to multiply your reach to potential customers many, many times over. And as it’s all done digitally, the world wide web is literally your oyster.    

You could sponsor an event, run an exclusive offer, or produce a line of limited-edition products in association with another brand. If you want to work with influencers, try sending samples of your product for them to use and review or invite them to write a guest blog for your website.

7. UX and the art of ecommerce

Whether this is your first foray into retail, or you already run a successful bricks-and-mortar business that you want to take online, it's important to remember that the customer benefits of ecommerce are as significant as the product you are selling when it comes to marketing.

People shop online for convenience; the appeal is getting the right product, at the right price, delivered straight to your door, without the hassles of the high street.

To leverage this, think about the ease of your customer’s online shopping experience. Is your website simple to navigate? Are your products or services searchable? Are the buttons clear and is the purchasing journey smooth? Do users get the feedback they’d expect when a purchase is completed or are they left wondering if the sale has gone through?

Perfecting the User Experience (UX) of your ecommerce website and its interface is a great place to start before you begin marketing your online store. Get this right, and your one-off visitors will become regular paying customers in no time.

Formation specialises in creating user-friendly ecommerce websites that are optimised for SEO and look amazing. And when your website’s ready to launch, we’ll help you devise and carry out an ecommerce marketing strategy that pulls in visitors and converts them into paying clients. Speak to a member of the Formation team today to find out how we support ecommerce businesses like yours.