Today’s ecommerce market is crowded to say the least. The reason, of course, is that barriers to entry are really low today, and there are a lot of opportunities.
The challenge, therefore, is to get noticed. Ecommerce founders need ways that they can let other people know about their retail operations and, hopefully, thrive.
That’s where this post can help. It explores various marketing techniques that you can use to make the most of your ecommerce store. We discuss what you need to do and some of the novel techniques that are now coming online to ensure that more people notice and appreciate your brand.
AI-Powered Personalization During The Customer Journey
One of the biggest innovations in recent years is the development of AI personalization of the customer journey. Smart tools are enhancing the user experience beyond what generic software ever made possible in the past.
For example, a lot of ecommerce stores are now using AI software to make dynamic product recommendations. Consumers can see what to buy next, giving them ideas for how to complete their retail experience and make it even more satisfying.
At the same time, a lot of ecommerce stores are using AI for reviewing bundles. The idea here is to give customers systems they can use to compare products and decide which options are right for them.
Lastly for this section, AI is also being used to drive urgency and pricing at checkout. Artificial intelligence can predict what comes next and, sometimes, how much someone will be willing to pay based on their past behavior.
Omni-Channel Gravity Building
Another thing that ecommerce stores are doing is “gravity building” via omni-channel approaches. This term is relatively new in the marketing lexicon, but it is also extremely powerful. The idea is to build multiple connected nodes so that different forms of marketing reinforce each other, enabling business models to thrive.
For example, let’s say an online retail outlet has three channels: its blog, email, and retargeting ads. The idea is to create content across the board so that these channels cross-pollinate each other, each feeding into the next. For example, ads and blogs could drive email signup, while emails could provide links to posts, lead magnets, and social media accounts. Social media could then drive emails and show people ads.
It’s this network that a lot of marketers are discovering is extremely powerful. Nothing seems to compare to it in terms of getting the marketing flywheel going and delivering results over the long term. It brings in real buyers and helps to generate a mental landscape that makes users significantly more likely to convert.
SMS And Push For High Engagement
Ecommerce stores are also getting ahead of the game with SMS and push notifications for higher engagement. The concept here is to increase click-through rates by providing communications with customers via their preferred, high-engagement medium.
Research shows that open rates for most marketing emails are low. However, open rates for SMS and push notifications tend to be significantly higher, just because of how users treat these communication channels psychologically. One leads to low open rates unless a lead is highly motivated, and the other can push opens to 50% or more.
Furthermore, even if a customer doesn’t open an SMS or a push notification, it will still usually get their attention. They will internalise the idea that you’re the sort of business that can help them with the retail shopping problems that they face.
SMS is costlier than email, but it is the sort of tactic that grows a business rapidly. You’ll be surprised by just how much of a difference it can make to your overall profitability and ability to make sales.
Google Shopping Optimization
Nobody likes to think about Google Shopping, but as an ecommerce owner, this platform is critical. It lets you advertise what you do to your customers, enabling them to find products that they might not be able to get elsewhere.
If you can combine it with PPC, you put yourself in an even better position. Google is keen to monetize its platform, and new ecommerce brands can benefit by advertising rare products that users want upfront, without going through the hassle of developing an in-depth SEO strategy.
Google shopping is particularly good if you think there’s a hole in the market and want to fill it. You can charge a significant premium if you’re the only outlet selling something in a specific niche.
User-Generated Content And Social Proof
Another way ecommerce stores are getting noticed online is via user-generated content and social proof. These elements are working together to ensure that brands that can actually deliver on their promises get noticed.
User-generated content (UGC) is one of the fastest-growing trends. It’s spectacularly powerful and one of the best ways to get new people to trust you. When customers see their favorite influencer touting your products (or even other customers), it can go a long way to building trust and encouraging them to place their first order.
These days, there are all sorts of tools online retailers can use to ensure that they can leverage these outreach methods even more powerfully. One of them is UGC services. The idea here is to literally just pay for a UGC video and then get an influencer to post it. Most of these allow businesses to select the influencer that they want to use and then ask them to put up videos on specific platforms. What’s nice about these services is that they are highly scalable.
Using brand mentions is another option. Here, you get a third-party service to write your store as part of a review. You get a link from a high-DA third-party site pointing to yours, improving Google SEO traffic substantially.
Again, many of these methods you can scale. For example, you can get your brand mentioned 100 times on different sites, all with links, encouraging Google to prioritize you in search whenever anyone asks for products hosted on your domain.
Voice Search Optimization
Voice search optimization is one of those hidden tricks that a lot of businesses are focusing on these days. Concentrating on this aspect of SEO is enabling a lot of stores to take advantage of markets that their competitors are missing out on.
Voice search is big business right now because of the stunning growth in voice queries. More people than ever are looking for products in this way, and it is just a question of adjusting the behind-the-scenes SEO to cater to them.
Meanwhile, SEO is also playing a big role in ecommerce store success, and helping the top brands get noticed. Most of this involves simply upgrading the site experience. Any store that makes it easy for people to pay in one click and find the products that they want with ease is bound to race ahead.
Livestream Commerce
New ecommerce businesses are also tapping into the extreme power of livestream commerce. The idea here is to stream services in different markets to encourage people to buy there and then, instead of relying on them to interact with a passive site.
Live streaming is effective for a couple of reasons. First, it makes it easier for top ecommerce stores to sell their products. People are much more likely to purchase based on the advice of familiar faces that they trust rather than product descriptions and photos.
Second, livestreaming allows people to get more of a product experience. They can see what it might be like to use, giving them more context around whether it is something they should be interested in exploring further.
In China, for instance, a lot of ecommerce stores now have livestreaming events that dovetail with AR and VR. Consumers put on their headsets and then enter virtual environments where they can try on the clothes being advertised. Many of these are growing rapidly and allow customers to literally reach out and touch what they want to purchase.
Retention-First Lifecycle Management
Also, new ecommerce businesses are prioritising retention-first business models. The concept here is to get more people signed up and stick with the brand instead of going to the expense of constantly attracting new customers (which isn’t cheap).
The best way to do this, according to a lot of top retailers, is to build an email welcome series. These keep prospects engaged, encouraging them to return to the store and build the right habits.
Another tactic is cart recovery. The idea here is to remarket to people about their carts (if they haven’t checked out) and remind them that there’s still time for them to get all the things they want to get.
Brands that layer email on top of SMS to win back customers and encourage follow-on spending are doing even better. These firms are dominating the industry and getting their customers to come back more often.
Of course, AI is playing multiple roles in this process and making life a lot easier for many business owners. It is enabling more success through curated strategies.
