Marketing Your Ecommerce Website

So you’ve built a fantastic ecommerce website and now what? Customers are not bringing your server to a halt. You thought that orders were going to pour in as soon as you launched your site. If only it were that easy, everyone would be instant millionaires. But no matter how great your product line is, how award-winning your website is, the competitive marketplace demands that you get the word out faster and more effectively than your competition. Today, the number of available tools to market your website are staggering. Let’s take a look at some of the options.

Search marketing is normally the first choice for ecommerce marketers. It’s effective and accountable. Two basic forms of search marketing exist, paid placement and search engine optimization. Paid placement allows a marketer to bid on specific positioning within the sponsored listings of a search query. The advertiser only pays for when the user clicks on the listing and visits the website. With search engine optimization, the website needs to be “optimized” for targeted keywords and phrases for each search engine. Once the site is optimized, the site begins to climb the ladder in the “natural” search listings. Once high positions are attained, constant monitoring is needed to retain the strong positioning. Normally, marketers will contract this service to a specialist for maximum results.

Email marketing is a fantastic tool for ecommerce. Whereas search marketing excels in customer acquisition, email is the champion of customer retention. The most important aspect of your email marketing campaign needs to be centered on permission. Email is highly effective in generating sales and building brand equity when a user is expecting to receive email from the advertiser. This is not spam or junk mail, which can actually damage your brand. Email marketing today is getting more sophisticated and even though it is possible to manage yourself, you can get better results contracting your email marketing to a service provider. Online applications exist that enable a marketer to manage and segment their database, deliver dynamic content-based emails and track the results down to the individual user. Another benefit from contracting with an email service provider is they stay current with legislation to ensure you are not breaking any laws in regards to email marketing. This is important since the government prosecuted their first “spammer” earlier this year.

Rich media advertising is growing quickly as a preferred advertising method. Gone are the days of the old static banner. Today, banner ads come in a variety of formats and allow marketers to use complex animation, audio, video, and interactivity. This added level of complexity not only attracts the user, but also engages them to interact with the brand. Many of the top news websites are displaying rich media ads. Some of them are even games. Look for this category to increase in popularity over the coming year.

Those are the top three online methods, but you can also choose an integrated approach. This means combining traditional media with new online methods. For example, a marketer can utilize a direct mail campaign (traditional) using either a postcard or perhaps a multimedia CD-ROM (new media). The direct mail campaign drives the user to the website, perhaps to a specific page where they enter a contest or receive something of value for visiting the site and submitting their email address and other demographic information. At that point, retention email marketing with a viral component kicks in and before you know it, you have a new customer for life that is spreading the news about your brand. Other integrated methods that are becoming popular are combining spot tv ads directing users to interact with a website to participate in a specific site attraction – a contest, a game or submitting their own content. Integrated campaigns are the future of advertising, and marketers need to be thinking in this framework to compete effectively.

The options are too numerous for this article but here is a list of marketing tools at your disposal to promote your ecommerce site:

• Search Marketing
• Email Marketing
• Rich Media
• CD-ROMs/DVDs
• Affiliate Programs
• RSS News Feeds
• Direct Mail
• Print Advertising
• Blogs and Vlogs
• Podcasting
• Television (my least favorite, very expensive, only suited for large companies)
• Integrated Campaigns (my favorite)

This is not a complete list, but it’s a lot to start with. I recommend starting with online methods utilizing search, email and rich media. You can set minimal budgets, experiment, optimize campaigns and unleash the fury with a complete integrated campaign once you are confident you have all the pieces in place. Ecommerce is ready to deliver on the promises of the 90s but in order to cash-in, you will need to be smart with your marketing dollars. It’s a whole new ballgame, and I recommend hiring an interactive agency. Traditional agencies are not experienced with these tools, and they contract most of their interactive work out anyway. You can try it yourself, but having an expert to rely on when you need help is the best way to go. Ecommerce is here to stay, so market your site effectively and build the brands of the future.