Social Media Tools for Every eCommerce Marketers

Are you a small business owner or solopreneur who has a limited amount of time to focus on marketing activities? 

You’ll be happy to know that there are marketing tools created specifically for busy online retailers like you. These tools aim to make engaging with your audience as effortless as possible. 

In this post, we’re going to look at 13 free and paid social media marketing tools ecommerce store owners can use to help with social media marketing management.

Social Media Tools to Create & Curate Social Content

 

The first thing you will need for any successful social media marketing campaign or activity is content. The content you publish to your Facebook, Instagram, and other social platforms will help your fans get to know your business. If you’re not sure where to start looking for great sources of social media content, start with the following social media tools.

Canva

 

Canva helps non-designers create visual marketing content easily with drag and drop functions. As a store owner, you can use Canva to make social media posts, infographics, social banners, thumbnails, and more.

 

You can customize the colors, images, and text on templates as needed in Canva to match your business branding and complete your social media posts. You can choose from an extensive selection of free images and icons, but even the paid options are affordable at only $1 a piece.
Once finished, you can export your designs into JPG or PNG image formats, so you can share it on your social media pages and profiles. In addition to social media graphics, Canva has templates for the most-popular types of marketing collateral, like brochures, business cards, infographics, presentations, resumes, and worksheets. 
Plus, you can sign up for an account for free!

Feedly

 

Do you keep up with the latest trends and topics in your industry? Do you want to share some of that news with your audience? 
If so, use Feedly. Feedly lets you organize all of your favorite blog and online publication subscriptions in one place.



You can use Feedly in a number of ways. For social media purposes, you can use it to curate content from other relevant websites and share that content with your audiences on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other top networks. 

Feedly also works with third-party social media scheduling tools like Buffer and social media management tools like Hootsuite, both of which we will talk about later in the post.  
If you like the idea of curating content for your social media audiences, but you don’t know what sites to start with, Alltop will give you the latest five posts from blogs that cover everything from Androids to viral videos. 

You can use these articles to generate interest for the types of products you sell in your dropshipping store. For example, if you have a women’s clothing store, you can share posts from blogs and online publications that talk about the season’s hottest fashion trends.

As a store owner, you’ll find this social media tool helpful on days when you don’t have the time to share your own content but still want to keep your social media feeds populated. Many online retailers use this content curation technique to keep their audiences engaged and interested.

Post Planner

 

Another option for finding content to share on social media is Post Planner. Post Planner allows you to find the most trending content – photos and articles – about a certain topic. You can search for content by keyword search or by browsing the industry page.



Once you find something you want to share, you can share it instantly to your Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest audiences. You can also schedule it to post at a later time and date.

Post Planner plans start at $3 per month (billed annually) for three profiles, 30 posts per day, and 300 scheduled posts. For the ecommerce store owner looking to mostly curate content on social media, Post Planner should be a great fit.

Social Media Tools to Manage Social Activity

 

Next on the list of social media tools is management tools. These are tools that allow you to schedule your social media posts for a future date and time and keep up with your audience engagement. 
Ecommerce store owners can use them to conveniently manage one or more of their social media accounts outside of the social network itself. These social media marketing tools help you save more time.

Buffer

 

Buffer is a marketing automation tool that allows you to create a unique schedule for sharing posts to your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. 



Simply add posts to your Buffer, and it will queue the posts for the next open time slot in the schedule you created. You can also go back in to edit, move, or delete posts from each social account queue. 
This tool allows you to add all your social media posts in advance so that you don’t have to “remember” to schedule posts or so that you can have posts sent out at exact times without manually doing it yourself. It’s great to use to schedule posts after work hours.
Buffer offers a free plan for three social accounts and ten scheduled posts per day. Paid plans start at $15 a month and allow you to connect to eight social accounts and create 100 scheduled posts per day. Buffer also integrates with tools like Feedly (mentioned earlier for content curation).

HootSuite

 

Hootsuite is a social media management and social media listening tool that allows you to do more than schedule posts to your social accounts. Hootsuite’s social media listening functionality allows you to monitor other aspects of your social media accounts, such as managing audience comments, monitoring keyword mentions, and much more for the following networks.


The Hootsuite dashboard organizes your social media into tabs and columns. Each tab can hold up to 10 columns. Tabs can be used to organize your social media by account or by activity, such as monitoring your competitor’s social media activity or responding to post comments.
Hootsuite offers a free plan for three social accounts and 20 scheduled posts per day. Paid plans start at $29 per month for use with 10 social accounts and 100 scheduled posts per day.

Sprout Social

 

Sprout Social is an all-in-one social media management platform that goes beyond scheduling posts and social media listening.

It has several features that help with all aspects of the social media management process. For example, its Smart Inbox is a unified social inbox that lets you manage your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn messages all in one place.
Sprout Social also has a nifty Social CRM feature that helps you build a 360-degree profile of each of your customers, including a history of conversations, contact information, and internal notes about them across your networks.

Sprout Social is available on a tiered subscription model, with a Standard, Professional, and Advanced plan. The Standard plan starts at $99 per user per month.

 CoSchedule

 

CoSchedule has a suite of five tools that span more than just social media management. These five are the Content Organizer, Social Organizer, Marketing Calendar, Work Organizer, and Asset Organizer.
The Social Organizer is a social media management tool that covers everything from publishing your posts to measuring how they performed.

The Best Time Scheduling feature takes the guesswork out of figuring out the ideal time of day to schedule your posts – it intelligently tracks peak traffic times and schedules posts for you. If you have gaps, the ReQueue feature will fill them with your top-performing posts.
CoSchedule’s Social Organizer is available in three tiers: Growth, Professional, and Enterprise. The Growth plan starts at $150 per month for three users.

MeetEdgar

 

MeetEdgar is another full-service social media management platform. But this one’s a bit different – it has the ability to automate your social media strategy. This includes the impressive functionality of writing social media posts for you.

The “Variations” feature allows you to paste in a blog or article you want to post about. From that link, MeetEdgar auto-generates a few different noteworthy quotes or lines that you can then pick or edit (or add your own if you’re not a fan).



Another one of MeetEdgar’s automation features is the auto-scheduler that pulls content from your library to automatically add to your posting calendar. The Continuous Posting feature ensures that your social channels never go silent.

MeetEdgar is available for $49 per month for up to 25 social media accounts.

Originally Published at www.oberlo.com

Increase Your eCommerce Store Traffic and Sales

Huge e-commerce sites such as Shopify have made it easy for individuals to start their e-commerce sites and drive traffic to them with ecommerce marketing. According to a recent press release by UNTCAD, global e-commerce sales grew by about 13% in 2017, resulting in about $29 trillion. Although more people are buying online, you need to make use of e-commerce marketing techniques for e-commerce traffic generation. This post aims at giving you insights on traffic building and e-commerce.

1. Target existing customers

 

When an e-commerce establishment has trouble growing, the obvious conclusion is that there are not enough clients. This misconception is quite common as your existing clients provide you with e-commerce free traffic. Rather than focusing all your e-commerce marketing ideas on how to boost e-commerce traffic, shift your efforts towards client retention. Your existing clients are your best e-commerce traffic as they have a higher conversion rate. You can make your existing clients keep coming back by providing them with a customer loyalty program where you reward them each time they shop at your store or make use of a referral program to motivate existing customers to bring in new ones.

2. Make use of paid traffic

 

Paid traffic is one of the most effective ways on how to increase online sales fast. Though paid traffic is more often than not expensive, done right, it can lead to tremendous e-commerce business growth. Paid traffic could be in the form of creating ad campaigns on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and so on to increase e-commerce sales. Before paying for traffic from these referral sources consult your site’s social media properties to understand where engagement is highest. Targeting social platforms that already appeal to potential buyers is how to increase online sales through social media.

3. Use video demonstrations

 

Anybody would be interested in a visual description or demonstration on how to use the product or service you provide. Studies show that the average internet user is likely to spend 88% more time on your page if you have videos. Videos increase user engagement and show that you have an interest in the product you are selling. Also, videos resonate with people, and they are likely to remember its contents. Videos can also help you generate backlinks and social shares, as customers share your videos with their friends and families.

4. Build your brand’s awareness

 

This can be done by implementing the steps outlined in an e-commerce marketing strategy pdf. Strategy guides should cover how to build brand awareness and related topics like how to boost sales quickly and how to boost sales in a small business.

5. Include clients’ photos on your testimonials

 

The way you increase online sales in 2019 should change with the trends that are constantly developing, so your strategy in 2019 will look different from your strategy employed to increase online sales in 2018. As the web increasingly becomes visual, including your client’s photos on your testimonials and reviews is an effective way to drive ecommerce business growth. This shows that they are a real person and not just something someone made up. You can also allow your clients to share their stories about the product and encourage featured customers to link to your site on their own site. If your product or service is solving a problem, chances are high that your clients will be willing to tell and share their story.

6. Make use of e-commerce traffic statistics

 

You need to be aware of such statistics as:

• What products clients are searching for
• The demographics where most of your traffic is coming from
• From which e-commerce marketing channels your traffic comes from

These statistics help you come with effective and tailored strategies on how to increase e-commerce sales.

7. Optimize your site for mobile devices

 

One of the worst mistakes that an e-commerce owner can make is to assume that clients are going to shop only from their computers. Today, more people are using mobile devices, such as tablets and smartphones, to shop online. Indeed, research shows that 40% of smartphone users have shopped online. An effective way on how to boost e-commerce sales for mobile devices is through the use of apps.

8. Leverage SEO

 

Any credible e-commerce marketing company knows the critical role SEO plays in driving traffic to your e-commerce site. SEO is a common marketing technique that helps your e-commerce site “get found” in search results. Make sure you add keywords on your products descriptions and blog posts to increase the findability of your products via search both on your site and in search engines. Create internal links so that search engines index your e-commerce site.

9. Take an e-commerce marketing course

 

An e-commerce marketing guide is an effective learning tool for how to grow e-commerce sales and how to increase e-commerce revenue. With the high presence of online and offline resources, you are bound to find a course that’s tailored to your location or area or specialty. For instance, a person with an e-commerce platform in India or an e- commerce website in India should look for a course on how to increase e-commerce sales in India since buying habits will differ from location to location. An online jeweler should look for a course on how to increase online jewelry sales. If you run your ecommerce site with Shopify, look for resources on how users of Shopify increase traffic.

The bottom line

 

Gain your clients’ trust by ensuring that your e-commerce site is findable, informative, and secure. This will make your clients feel comfortable making purchases and sharing personal information and credit card numbers. This, along with the listed tips, will go a long way in helping your e-commerce site thrive.

Originally Published at www.gomalomo.com

Complete Guide On eCommerce Personalization in 2020

Personalization is the future of ecommerce. It’s that simple.

It would be easy to throw a ton of statistics at you. Like the fact that 91% of customers are more likely to buy from an online store that provides personalized experiences. Or the growing willingness among users to share their personal information in exchange for tailored recommendations and offers.
But, fundamentally, personalization is so important because it enables retailers to market to customers in a way that directly and precisely meets their needs and desires.

So how can you personalize your store for more sales and revenue?

In this post, we’re going to look at twenty-seven real-life examples of ecommerce personalization. These examples are simple, effective, and you can replicate all of them without allocating significant resources.

What Is Ecommerce Personalization?

 

Ecommerce personalization is the process of creating shopping experiences that cater specifically to individual customers and not a single broad audience.

Rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach to ecommerce, retailers will ensure that important elements of the customer journey, including on-site browsing, email, social media activity, and even paid ads, change based on the needs and past behavior of customers.

You might be asking, “That’s all well and good, but what’s the point of personalization?”

Personalization results in happier customers that are more willing to purchase from your store. 
It’s a fair question. Creating elements, both on-site and off-site, that adapt to individual customers is more resource-intensive than opting for a single, general solution.

But the answer is simple. Personalization drives more sales. A lot more sales. Retailers report a 20% increase in sales after implementing personalized features.

So the moral of the story is that by overlooking personalization, you’re leaving a sizeable chunk of revenue on the table for your competitors to snap up.

What Are Personalized Product Recommendations?

 

Personalized shopping recommendations are recommendations based on a shopper’s profile. They are usually determined by two things: past visitor activity and preferences that a customer has selected on your site.

Recommendations are most often displayed either on product pages or in sales emails.
On product pages, customers might see sections displaying related products, recently viewed products, product ads based on past activity, and so on.

There are many possible personalized email recommendations. Customers may choose, for example, to be notified of updates about out-of-stock products or opt-in to category-specific mailing lists. Equally, customer data can be used to send customers information about relevant promotions, products they have abandoned before finishing checkout, or suggestions based on past purchases.
Personalized recommendations can even be delivered through paid ads. Facebook remarketing, for example, allows retailers to target past visitors with ads for products they have previously viewed or added to their cart without purchasing.

What Are Personalized Social Media Notifications?

 

You can use personalized social media notifications to interact directly with customers through social media.

This is made possible by AI-run chatbots, which give you the ability to communicate with thousands of customers as though you were talking in person. Users can open their Facebook messenger app, for example, and order a new product they have recently viewed. Or they may wish to speak to customer service to process a refund or check the availability of an item in a local store.

It’s also possible to send users direct messages to build engagement. You can thank them for a purchase, ask them for a review, notify them of a new product they might be interested in, or just wish them a happy birthday.

What Are Personalized Triggered Emails?

 

Triggered emails are personalized emails that are sent when a customer undertakes a specific action.
#EmailMarketing is still one of the most effective methods of promotion for online retailers, boasting an average 35% open rate. Personalizing emails further increases their effectiveness. Click To TweetHere are four of the most common “triggered emails”:

• Welcome emails that are sent when a customer first makes a purchase or registers an account on a site.
• Abandoned cart emails prompting customers to complete a purchase. This type of email is sent after a customer adds a product to their cart but doesn’t finish the checkout process.
• Reactivation emails which are sent after a period of inactivity, incentivizing customers to make a purchase by offering them a promotion or discount.
• Order follow-up emails that notify customers of an item’s shipping and delivery status.

The beauty of triggered emails is that they’re effective at boosting sales but don’t require vast swathes of customer data. Most email marketing platforms integrate with site tracking software, making it easy to automate triggered emails.

Some Are Examples of Ecommerce Optimization You Can Use to Boost Your Store’s Conversions

 

Now that you got a solid overview of the different types of personalization strategies, let’s move onto the examples themselves.

1. Run Geo-Location Alerts

 

If you have separate stores for visitors from different countries, offer to redirect them when they land on the wrong site. Most retailers will have country-specific domains (.com, .co.uk, .fr, etc.) for international customers.

There is a caveat to this tactic, however. Don’t force customers to view products on a country-specific site. Often, visitors will leave your store because they’re actually in the right place but your geo-location script keeps trying to redirect them.

2. Provide Seasonal Content

 

Seasonality plays a significant role in some ecommerce sectors, especially fashion. Customers will be looking for different products depending on the time of year they visit your site.
You can pre-empt this interest by including notifications and offers that are tied to specific seasons like spring, summer, autumn, and winter, or even holidays like Halloween and Christmas.
One of the quickest ways to implement this strategy is by including season-specific elements on your homepage and in site-wide areas like the sidebar and header. You should also alert customers to new lines and seasonal promotions via email..

It goes without saying that seasonal content will not apply to every segment of your market, and you should account for seasonal variations and holidays in different countries and hemispheres.

3. Cover the Basics With Personalized Emails

 

Personalization has the power to dramatically increase the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns, prompting customers to open, read, and click on emails.
While you can leverage many different types of personalized emails, for various situations and segments of your customer base, there are a few that you should send to all customers.
Here are the essential emails to include in your personalization strategy:

• Order updates – Let customers know when their order has been processed, shipped, delivered, etc.

• Feedback emails – Ask customers what they thought about their purchase and if they had any problems. These emails are also great for generating customer reviews.
• Subscription alerts – If you expect customers to use a product more than once, such as with consumable household items, send them an email after the usual period of use.

Because they’re so common, many customers expect the personalized emails outlined above, especially when it comes to shipping and delivery updates. Failure to send them will often result in negative customer experiences.

4. Personalize the Homepage

 

Your homepage will likely be one of the most popular pages on your whole store, if not the most popular page. It’s prime space for advertising products, promotions, and offers.
Whenever a customer lands on your homepage, they should see a host of personalized links, including their preferred categories, recently-viewed products, suggested items, and more.
Just look at how many personalized elements are included on Amazon’s homepage:

You might be worried about overwhelming customers, but it’s entirely possible to organize numerous homepage elements in an easy-to-view way, that allows visitors to pick the options most applicable to them.


Read More Inspiring eCommerce Personalization Examples

 

Best SEO Conferences to Checkout in 2020

Networking is the most compelling reason to attend SEO conferences. These events also give you a chance to gain some new insights into your competitors’ strategies and learn new skills. If you’re still exploring your options with SEO conferences for 2020, the experts from Saba SEO, an industry-leading San Diego SEO agency, offer this advice on the best ones to consider attending.

Pubcon Austin 2020

 

When: February 16th, 2020
Where: Austin, TX
Price: Starting at $349

Pubcon is a traveling conference that covers a broad range of SEO-related topics. In addition to SEO essentials, topics addressed include strategies involving PPC, social media, content, and digital marketing. If you miss Pubcon in February, it’ll be in Florida in March and Las Vegas in October.

SMX: Search Marketing Expo

 

When: February 19th–21st, 2020
Where: San Jose, CA
Price: TBA

SEO is all about high-quality content, and that’s exactly what you can expect from this conference. Search engine optimization and marketing topics will be addressed in a variety of settings. You’ll also be able to attend lectures and clinics and participate in roundtable discussions.

Engage Conference

 

When: March 12th–13th, 2020
Where: Portland, OR
Price: $279

If you add this SEO conference to your 2020 itinerary, you’ll be treated to panel sessions devoted to the latest optimization strategies and technological advances. This is an especially appealing conference if you have an in-house team that needs to learn some new skills and be kept up to date on SEO trends.

SearchLove Conference by Distilled

 

When: March 26th–27th, 2020
Where: San Diego, CA
Price: $999

Whether you’re a business owner or digital marketer or you handle in-house or agency SEO duties, you’ll appreciate the digital marketing presentations at this conference. Plus, you’ll have opportunities to learn more about what’s new with paid promotions, analytics, and other essential optimization topics.

Other Conferences to Check Out

 

SearchCon in Breckenridge, CO (April 11th–12th), the Advanced Search Summit in Napa Valley, CA (April 22nd–24th), and CXL Live 2020 in Austin, TX (April 5th–7th), are among the other noteworthy SEO conferences to consider attending in 2020. If you prefer something later in the year, turn your attention toward the Content Marketing World Conference & Expo in Cleveland, OH (October 13th–16th), or the UnGagged conference, currently scheduled to take place in November in Los Angeles.

If you need expert advice on the most effective SEO tactics and how to maximize your marketing strategies, call on the experienced professionals at Saba SEO, a premier provider of San Diego SEO services and digital marketing expertise. With almost fifteen years of experience working with companies of all sizes, we help businesses boost their rank and generate high-quality leads. Give one of our SEO specialists a call today at 858-223-1904.

Originally Published at www.sabaseo.com

You Need to Know About eCommerce Marketing in 2020

With nearly every marketing operation now taking place online, it can be tough to distinguish between the various types of digital marketing people use today.

For example, take eCommerce Marketing — what is it and how does it compare to practices like social media, content, search engine, and email marketing?

Ecommerce marketing and digital marketing are not mutually exclusive. Ecommerce websites can use all of the above digital channels to promote a product and grow their business.

This ecommerce marketing guide will explore all of the digital media available today.

Ecommerce marketing is the act of driving awareness and action toward a business that sells its product or service electronically.

Ecommerce marketers can use social media, digital content, search engines, and email campaigns to attract visitors and facilitate purchases online.

Before we dive into more detail about what ecommerce marketing is and how to implement a strategy of your own, let's review the definition of ecommerce advertising and advertising's parity with marketing for an ecommerce business.

Ecommerce Advertising

 

In similar fashion to the way advertising falls beneath the umbrella of marketing, ecommerce advertising falls beneath ecommerce marketing — and when used in tandem, you have the ability to more effectively reach your audience members to boost conversions and improve brand awareness.
As mentioned in our definition above, ecommerce marketing is about driving awareness and action towards your product or service.

Meanwhile, ecommerce advertising includes the methods through which you actually promote your product. In terms of online or ecommerce marketing and selling, these ads may come in the form of display ads, banner ads, or rich media ads.

The main takeaway here is that ecommerce advertising is a highly-effective method to implement while developing your ecommerce marketing strategy to focus your product or service promotion.
Now, let's get back to our in-depth discussion about ecommerce marketing.

Types of Ecommerce Marketing

 

To give you a sense of what an ecommerce marketing strategy looks like, here are some common marketing channels and how you'd use them to build an online store.

Social Media Marketing

 

Brands, publishers, contractors, and growing businesses all launch pages on today's most popular social networks to connect with their audience and post content that the audience is interested in.
As an ecommerce marketer, you can do the same thing, but the campaigns you run might look a bit different, and not every social network is a good fit for your needs.

Ecommerce websites are highly visual — you have to show off the product, after all — so your success on social media depends on your use of imagery to drive attention and traffic to your product pages.

Instagram is an appropriate platform for ecommerce businesses because it enables you to post sharp product photography and expand your product's reach beyond its purchase page.
You can take your social media posts a step further by creating shoppable content, which is content that enables visitors to buy right away. That can include anything from strategically placed display ads within a social feed to additional tags that take users directly to a shopping cart. These methods help you eliminate friction from the buying process.


An ecommerce business is no stranger to product reviews, either. Using a Facebook Business Page to share product praise is a perfect fit for businesses that already solicit customer reviews across their online store. We’ll dive deeper into product reviews below.

Content Marketing

 

When you hear "content marketing" you might think of blogging and video marketing — content that is meant to improve your website's ranking in search engines and answer questions related to your industry. But if you're selling a product online, do you really need articles and videos to generate transactions? You sure do.

Here are some ways to use content to market your ecommerce store.

Optimize your product page copy.

 

Optimize your product pages for short, product-driven keywords that include the name of the product. If you sell wedding dresses, for example, a Google search for "brown bridesmaid dress" is more likely to produce product pages like yours if you’ve included that term on the page.
Also, make sure that your page titles, headers, and image alt text focus on the right keywords so search engines know to return your ecommerce store for the right query.

Write relevant blog posts.

 

If you manage an online wedding dress store, writing blog posts about "how to plan a wedding" can attract everyone involved in wedding preparations no matter where they are in the planning process.
As visitors become more engaged, you can create posts that will move them into consideration, like “how to select the right wedding dress", and turn them into leads, like a downloadable “wedding planning checklist”.

Create guest posts for external websites.

 

Guest posts can get you and your products in front of relevant audiences (oftentimes for free). Submitting guests posts will also help you get more domain authority for your ecommerce site, thereby telling search engines that you have a reliable site.
You’ll need to search for sites that rank for keywords related to your product. Sometimes you won’t even need to create an entire post. If a site already has a relatable post, offer to expand on it by providing additional context, like a video or infographic with a link to your site.

Put product-related videos on YouTube.

 

YouTube has over a billion active users … chances are your target audience is somewhere in there. It’s also the second-largest search engine behind Google. If you’re looking for a massive, captive audience, YouTube is where you’ll find it. Use highly searched keyword terms to determine your topics, then share videos that are related to your product and helpful to your audience.

This is also a great option for tutorial videos that show current customers how to use your product — these videos can show people how best to use your product, increasing customer satisfaction and building long-term relationships with website visitors.

Include a keyword-driven FAQ section on your website.

 

If your audience is asking questions related to your product, then you need to be the one to answer them. Create an FAQ page on your website with responses to high volume, long-tail keyword searches to get users to your site. You’ll be building both authority and traffic — two crucial components of a successful ecommerce store.

Search Engine Marketing

 

Search engine marketing (SEM) includes both search engine optimization (SEO) and paid advertising. While SEO relies on your knowledge of Google's ranking algorithm to optimize content, SEM can involve pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, display campaigns, or product-specific ad campaigns (think Google Shopping), which allow you to pay for top spots on search engine results pages.

On Google, PPC campaigns guarantee that potential buyers will see a link to your page when they enter search terms that match the terms of your campaign. But because you're paying Google each time a person clicks on your result, the payoff to you should be high.

This is why ecommerce marketers often register with Google AdWords and promote their product pages through PPC campaigns. The campaign puts searchers right in front of the business's product when they click on a paid result, increasing the likelihood that the searcher will make a purchase before leaving the business's website.

Email Marketing

 

Email marketing is one of the oldest forms of digital marketing, and believe it or not, it holds specific value in the world of ecommerce marketing.

The best part about email marketing is it can be automated. Automation means that you can set up a successful drip campaign to subscribers that are segmented by interest or stage in the buyer’s journey and  let your email campaign do its magic. It’s one less marketing tactic that you need to worry about on your long list of tasks.

Even so, it’s imperative that you’re meticulous about your email list so you maintain trust among your leads. In a time when data privacy runs high on an internet user's priority list, not every commercial email is welcome in that user's inbox. Ecommerce marketers need to be careful when and how they add website visitors to their mailing list.

Here are two ways an ecommerce marketer might use email marketing.

1. Post-Purchase Follow Up

 

If a user has already purchased a product from your website — and agreed to receive emails from you during the checkout process — sending a follow-up email a few days after the product is delivered keeps the conversation going and gauges their future interest in your product line.
A post-purchase follow up also shows that you care about them beyond a sale and that your company has an interest in their success using your product. It gives you an opportunity to get feedback on their purchase experience, which, in turn, helps you reduce friction for future customers.
Some best practices for this type of email are to ask them to write a review of your product and/or read original content on how to use your product (those YouTube videos you created would be perfect here).

2. The Abandoned Shopping Cart

 

Users abandon their shopping carts for a number of reasons, and emails to diagnose the problem and retain their business can make the difference between a purchase and a lost customer. We’ll cover ways to reduce shopping cart abandonment below.

If a website visitor fails to complete a transaction while they’re in your shopping cart, consider sending a polite email to remind them to complete the checkout process, offer assistance, or recommend other related products to get their mind back on you and their browser back to your ecommerce store.
 

Influencer Marketing

 

Influencer marketing focuses on people or brands that influence your target market. The term is commonly used to denote Instagram accounts with several thousand followers, but it could also mean a celebrity or community that your target audience follows or belongs to.

Influencers build communities of people that know, like, and trust them. It is, therefore, easy for them to garner attention around your online product through a recommendation, or “sponsored post.”

Affiliate Marketing

 

81% of brands employ affiliate marketing, and ecommerce sites are particularly good candidates. Affiliates are people or businesses that help sell your product online for a commission.

Unlike most social media influencers, affiliates generate interest in products via old fashioned (yet effective) marketing tactics. They often use paid advertising, content marketing, and other means to drive traffic to your their pages on your product — it’s like having a team market for you.

Local Marketing

 

This is an often-overlooked tactic for ecommerce businesses, but local marketing allows you to double down on the areas where most of your prospects are (if you have a large population of them in one area) and allows you to offer incentives to your potential customer base.

Here’s how: use tracking cookies to determine where your prospects are located. Then, offer discounted (or free) shipping to potential customers in the areas where you have warehouses or shipping facilities. The incentive might be just what you need to gain a new customer.

Why Should We Update Our Ecommerce Website Regularly

There is no better or more cost-effective way to advertise your business than on the World Wide Web. The trick, though, isn’t just having a website, it’s developing the right website.

There could be many decisions that go into updating your website and we have broken down our 14 key reasons into the following categories:

• • Design
  • Marketing
  • Usability
  • Time

Design

1. Visual Appeal

 

When people visit your site, they see it as a reflection of your organisation. If your site looks professional and is loaded with useful information readers will see you as an authority and expert. Likewise, if the site looks poorly designed and structured and/or out-of-date they’ll make the same assumptions about your company. The website should highlight your product and/or service and the layout should look harmonious and consistent.

Has your content got dates on it – blog posts, events and similar? It makes sense to remove or update out of date content. As websites mature and grow, it often becomes apparent that certain parts just aren’t working well anymore and are becoming outdated. An obvious example of this is the use of flash.

2. Responsive & Mobile Friendly

 

The UK is now a smartphone society. We’re spending two hours online on our smartphones every day; twice as long as laptops and PCs. If you factor that fact with Google’s April 21st 2015 mobile-friendly update ignoring the mobile market is a very risky business. It is now considered the common practice to make a website mobile-friendly (responsive design).

Responsive Web Design is a collection of techniques that allow a website to flex and adapt to the size of the screen it’s being viewed on. Someone opening your site on a small smartphone could be shown on the same site as the person opening it on their laptop etc. For many businesses, it may even make sense to design your website “mobile-first”.

“Day by day, the number of devices, platforms, and browsers that need to work with your site grows. Responsive web design represents a fundamental shift in how we’ll build websites for the decade to come.” – Jeffrey Veen

In conclusion, if you haven’t updated your website in a while the chances are that you may be driving mobile users and potential customers away. Find information on our responsive on mobile website design.

3. Technique & Coding

 

Is your website browser compatible? Is your source code valid (HTML and CSS)? Does your website meet the basic web standards? Is the technique and/or (version) programming language outdated?

An important factor you should consider is the increase in usability in web design. Every year web standards change radically and techniques to build websites become more advanced to comply with the latest standards. If your site was developed several years ago, it probably has a lot of unnecessary HTML code and may be slowing down your website loads speeds – which may, in turn, impact your ranking in the Google search results.

Including modern techniques such as CSS coding will allow your web pages to adapt to all smartphone devices.

4. Stock photos

 

When building your website, it is important to only select components that will positively impact the objectives of the website. One aspect of a website where this is especially true is in photography.  Too many dated website designs have an over-reliance on stock photos. There is a range of arguments on why not to use stock imagery covered in the blog by Grant Epstein, including:

• Your vision versus the vision of someone else
• Short-term cost versus long-term cost
• Immediate connection

Do the use of images on your website accurately reflect the business message you are trying to present?

Marketing

 

5. Effective use of calls to actions

 

Many dated websites lack effective calls to actions that convert users to customers. A call-to-action (CTA) is a button or link that you place on your website to drive prospective customers to become leads by completing an action on your landing page. Is your USP and call to actions highlighted clearly on every landing page? As important, are they interesting enough to persuade your visitor to complete the desired action?

6. Measuring Effectiveness

 

You’ll be able to measure the effectiveness of your website. An old website may not be equipped with the necessary tools that will help you measure how effective your online presence is. Examples of this include heat mapping, conversion tracking & user recordings. Nowadays, there is an assortment of online tools you can invest in to help you measure what works and what doesn’t on your website, right down to the minutest detail. However, to use those, you will need a modern website.

7. Content

 

The first impression of your website would be the overall layout, but the reader is visiting your website because they are looking for useful information. A site redesign can also allow you to re-address how you communicate with all your visitors and to write simple copy, on target and more effective – remember, in the modern “go faster and faster” world you only have 2 -4 seconds to engage new visitors.

The content of a website should be considered to be the most important thing, as it helps in determining how effective a website is. Fresh and unique website content is a very important factor in encouraging people to revisit your site more often.

8. SEO & Website Update

 

Just like a website your digital marketing and SEO could need a refresh. If you don’t update your website it’s sure to fall in the search engine rankings. Search engines regard websites with the most recent content as the most relevant to web users. Your content might be gold but if it’s the same content as it was 5 years ago then search engines crawlers might not think it is as relevant anymore.

The redesign also gives you a chance to rethink your keyword targeting and the overall conversion rate of your website. The way people search and how they search has changed dramatically over the last few years, even truer with the explosion of smartphone devices now in use.

Usability

 

9. Provide easy navigation.

 

When we talk about user experience (UX), we are referring to the totality of visitors’ experience with your site—more than just how it looks, UX includes how easy your site is to use, how fast it is, how easy it is to find information and how little friction there is when visitors try to complete whatever action it is they’re trying to complete. Your website navigation should focus on nudging the right visitor toward the must-have experience..

10. Is your bounce rate favourable?

 

The definition of bounce rate is the percentage of people who arrive on your site and leave without visiting a second page. A high bounce rate is an obvious sign of an outdated or poorly performing site. eCommerce Website users usually leave a site hurriedly without visiting other pages simply because they don’t find what they are looking for instantly or do not like the look of it!

Are your visitors just leaving as soon as they land on your site? How does your website compare to estimated industry standards?

You can monitor the bounce rate on your website through Google Analytics. Either as a  website whole or on a page by page basis. Look at the bounce rate in the following areas:

Location – If your company is a local business serving customers in the UK, you should expect a high bounce rate from outside of the UK.  If you are a local business, definitely segment your traffic to understand how traffic is performing within your local area and avoid it being skewed by irrelevant visits.

Device – A desktop user, tablet user, and a mobile user often have different intents.  For example, we expect more people to bounce on a mobile device than a desktop/tablet user because mobile users are often looking for specific info like an answer to a question versus casually browsing or shopping.

New vs Returning – A returning visitor has a different intent to a new visitor.  It is common for new visitors to have a higher bounce rate than returning visitors since they are less familiar with your brand or your website.  You should segment your traffic to optimise individually for new visitors and returning visitors.

Medium – People coming to your site through different mediums such as website referral, email, social, direct, organic, paid, display, offline, press releases etc will often have different expectations and may well have substantially different bounce rates.

If an alarming amount of users bounce you may need to rethink your website, SEO or digital marketing strategy.

11. Website Speed

 

Your website’s loading time is a major factor in people either staying or leaving the site and never returning. Kissmetrics published a great infographic on the subject. We recommend you use a tool like YSlow, Google Page Speed Insights or Pingdom and find out how long your site takes to load. If your score is not up to par, then you need to rethink those elements of your website slowing it down. Images and the size of images can often be a factor. Find out more from our blog on the importance of image optimisation online

Time

 

12. Easier to update the website

 

You should be able to update your website yourself. An up-to-date website based on a content management system such as WordPress makes it easy to administer, avoids any messy code, you simply write in what you want in an organized fashion (WYSIWYG editor). That way, you can personally add to or switch your content based on your specific goals, while constantly optimizing your website. The Web design industry is constantly working to improve itself. This includes keeping layout designs fresh, updating blogs, refreshing imagery and pushing out timely promotions and advertisements.

13. You’ll reduce your risk of getting hacked.

 

Stories of websites and social media feed getting hacked are becoming more and more frequent. Security flaws can rear their ugly heads on any website, new or old, but the likelihood of security flaws affecting an older website is much greater as it relies on older less secure coding and technology.

14. Website Integration

 

For the vast majority of businesses, integrated websites are essential for delivering the requisite service levels. We’ve outlined our benefits for website integration here. Your customers will expect access to a blog, contact form, support form and if applicable, shopping functionality, all on one easy to use website. They will require a single login and rapid access to accurate and timely information at all times. Integrating your site with your back-office order fulfilment, tracking, billing and CRM systems such as Sage, MS Dynamics or Salesforce reduce the likelihood of mistakes and confusion. Many small businesses start out using a collection of open-source tools for different activities, only to be forced to use a complex, error-prone and time-consuming strategy involving manually copying information from one system to another.

A website refresh is a perfect time to find ways to save admin time and improve customer service.

Conclusion

In summary, the above information highlights the most important and most common signs to look out for when you want to know if your site is becoming “old hat”. Although there may be other signals that you need a website update, there should be enough here to guide you on the right path.

Originally Published at  www.granite5.com

eCommerce Sites or Mobile Apps: Which is Best for Retail?

62% of smartphone users have made a purchase online using their mobile device in the last 6 months. A resulting debate has started regarding whether retailers should develop an optimized eCommerce website for their retail store or stick with a downloadable app.The decision of which is the better option for a retail business depends on a number of factors like the product offering(s), target consumer audience, required investment and competition.
 
So how can you figure out which method is best for your retail business and will gain more revenue and drive customer loyalty? Let’s take a look.

Customers Like E-Commerce Apps

 

Mobile apps allow retailers to engage with customers. Many retailers struggle to strategize how they can communicate with consumers unobtrusively. Ideally, reminders prompt customers to make a purchase without annoying them. eCommerce Website Development allow merchants to send customers push notifications about discounts, sales, new products and relevant news. Simultaneously, they drive customer engagement.

Additionally, research suggests that consumers enjoy using mobile apps. Studies show that 89% of consumer media activity occurs on mobile apps. Not only can the right app help attract loyal customers, but it can also reward them with a more convenient and interesting experience.

Mobile Apps Will Continue to Grow

 

As technology evolves, so too will the growth of eCommerce apps. To make it easier for consumers to make purchases, many retailers are enabling mobile payment systems. Innovative technologies like “Apple Pay” enable consumers to make in-store purchases from their phones. In brick-and-mortar stores, this prevents customers from having to wait in line.

Mobile apps also improve in-store experiences by streamlining several channels (omnichannel retailing).  Integrating digital catalogs into retailers’ physical stores can improve customer experience. Digital catalogs also increase sales by giving consumers’ information about products of interest. Take app-based barcode scanners, for example. With one click, customers can view product details, deals, and availability.

Consumers Prefer Websites to Apps

 

While it may seem surprising in today’s app-centric world, research suggests that customers prefer using the mobile web as a place to shop when compared to eCommerce apps. This means that having a high-performing, responsive site is just as important as investing in an app. This data also proposes that:

• 51% of consumers prefer shopping on the mobile web vs. using a smartphone app
• 58% of mobile retail revenue is predicted to come from the Web this year
• 82% of smartphone shoppers use their mobile browser to search for products in-store
• 62% of shoppers say they visit a mobile website directly vs. 21% who say they use a retailer’s app in-store
• The majority of retailers under-utilize their opportunity to sell through a responsive eCommerce website

Which Option Should You Choose?

 

Mobile apps and mobile-optimized eCommerce sites may seem similar in function on a basic level. However, they operate in different areas of the sales process. Mobile websites best serve consumer searches for products. Conversely, mobile apps are best for inspiring customers to become return clients. For retailers that are looking to maximize their potential revenue and develop a loyal clientele, a responsive eCommerce website and a mobile app may be strong investments.

Supporting Apps and eCommerce Sites in Physical Stores

 

Mobile apps and eCommerce sites both require strong infrastructure and computer networking systems in brick-and-mortar locations. One study indicated that half of small businesses report customers spent more money when WiFi became available. “For retailers, customers can use the WiFi to browse your products and read reviews in real-time.” says Business Insider. The first step in making your retail location WiFi enabled is selecting an internet service provider. Then, you can use platforms like Field Nation to find networking, cabling, and wireless technicians.  

Originally Published at fieldnation.com