Marketing Your Ecommerce Website

The best built ecommerce website will fail without good marketing support. After all, without customers how can you have sales? In the world of ecommerce on the Internet, you hear about many success stories - where sites have a huge sales volume and make a significant amount of money. The stories go on to speak of owners who only work a couple of hours a day - just long enough to check sales orders and review inventory levels. This is the kind of work schedule that we all dream of. However, while some of these stories are true, there are at least 1,000 bad stories for every good one. The difference between success versus failure has to do with many factors, but the most significant is marketing. Without an effective marketing plan, your ecommerce store will not succeed.

While there are many strategies for marketing an ecommcere website, the primary components of most strategies will include the following:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

This is the process of optimizing your website for keywords that are related to the products and services that you are selling. This is very important, as it is the foundational step of being found in search engines. A good SEO program ensures that when potential customers are searching through search engines for the products that you are selling, your website will be included in results. If your website is listed, people will come to your website and most likely buy your products. This method of attracting customers is the least expensive and one of the most effective methods of generating site traffic and sales.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

This is a form of advertising through search engines, where you post advertisements that are returned in conjunction with search results. Viewers will see these advertisements and most likely click on them first before clicking on other search result listings. When a viewer does click on the ad, they are immediately taken to your website where hopefully they make a purchase. The cost for this type of advertising is based on the value of the term that was searched for. As an example, if you were selling wedding albums and have a PPC ad running for the term “Wedding Albums,” and someone searched for “Wedding Album” in Google and clicked on your ad, they would go to your website. The cost of this visit would be based on the cost of the term “Wedding Album.” This cost is determined by a bid structure, where advertisers state how much they are willing to pay for that term. It can be very competitive and at times expensive, but the upside potential is huge.

Email Marketing

Email marketing can be effective in terms of marketing a site, but it usually starts out as a customer retention tool. The reason is simple. Clients who are starting a new ecommerce website don’t normally have a large permission-based email list. A permission-based list means that you have permission from the people on your list to contact them. This is important, as you never want to be guilty or accused of SPAM. As you receive customer orders, it’s important to get their permission to send them future emails regarding sales, new products, etc. This way, you have permission and the ability to market to existing customers, which is a very effective way of driving sales without spending a great deal of money.

Other Forms of Online Advertising

There are other forms of Internet advertising that can be utilized in addition to the three mentioned above. These forms can include banner placement, ad exchanges, podcasts, and webinars. These programs usually are deployed after the ground work is laid with the first three. Although each client’s strategy will differ depending on budget and goals.

The bottom line is, to have an effective ecommerce website you must have a marketing plan and associated strategy to reach success. Rhythm Interactive can assist with the development of your ecommerce strategy and with the enactment of it. We offer complete support for all the methods mentioned in this article and look forward to working with you to attract customers to your store.

To learn more about online marketing, please contact us at 949.215.1250.