What is the primary goal of any ecommerce store? Making a commercial profit! How do you achieve this in real life? There is a lot of proven marketing advice on which to lean. No matter how excellent or affordable your goods or services are, your target audience will never know about your store if it does not appear in the top search results.

Commerce has changed over the last 20 years. In real life, a person has a chance to discover by chance an exciting and unadvertised spot. In the virtual world, this is virtually impossible.

Marketing promotion of ecommerce stores is a complex activity. And its effectiveness depends directly on the quantity and quality of the techniques used. Below, you will find seven marketing ideas to launch your ecommerce store.

7 marketing ideas for your ecommerce store

The marketing strategy of an online ecommerce store should always be based on understanding the basic principles of market functions. Many marketologists and ecommerce managers study these principles with the help of Studocu study materials platform to gain knowledge before launching their ecommerce store. The Internet is the most complex market environment, living according to unique laws. The rules tend to be modified constantly. Unlike the physical world, the strategy of promoting an online ecommerce store on the web should take into account seven startup marketing ideas listed below.

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

This ecommerce marketing idea works well to make sure you identify your products with the terms people are searching for that match your category. The user knows what search queries to enter in the search bar. This ecommerce marketing practice is the most universal and gives long-term results because it is not based on advertising but on optimizing the website according to keywords. To make your website SEO-friendly, you should:

  1. Plan website structure (for new websites)
  2. Set up Google Search Console
  3. Set up Bing Webmaster Tools
  4. Create and submit a sitemap
  5. Create a robots
  6. Make sure your website is indexable
  7. Make sure your website is accessible at only one domain

With proper implementation, the website will rank highly in search results. The only serious disadvantages are long-time promotion and higher requirements for the professionalism of the SEO expert.

Types of SEO promotion

This ecommerce startup marketing idea should be considered in more detail. Online stores that aren’t optimized for SEO will not be discovered as readily as those that are. Without search engine optimization, success in the long term is unrealistic. When using SEO promotion, it is essential not to make a mistake in choosing the method of promotion. Consider the most effective options in order of value.

Promotion by traffic and positions

The peculiarity of the method is that, in this case, SEO optimization for an eCommerce store focuses on low-frequency search queries. This requires a deeper analysis of the client’s business to form a broad semantic core. But as a result, the customer receives not just random but targeted traffic from visitors looking for a specific product.

Promotion by leads

It is the most expensive and effective method of search promotion. The customer pays only for the actual actions of the visitor, leading to a profit – money transfer, ordering, phone call, etc. The cost of such a service is formed individually.

2. Contextual advertising

Paid small text ads are placed in search engines (Google, Bing, etc.) or on their partner websites. When a user enters a search query that matches the ad, it appears on top of the organic results. The main advantages are the immediate effect and the possibility of regional filtering. Disadvantages are high cost and the negative attitude of “ad blockers” in browsers.

Payment is made only for the transition to your ecommerce store website from organic search engines. An independent statistics system counts the clicks. This is a convenient option for ecommerce stores selling seasonal goods: fewer clicks in the off-season, therefore, lower payment.

3. Media advertising

This more advanced version of contextual advertising includes a media component, such as a brand logo. Examples of media ads are topline, rich-media, pop-under, screen glide/expandable, and pre-roll. A banner that includes media allows your ad to stand out visually from the competition. The service costs a little more, and the advantages and disadvantages are similar to the previous technology.

4. Promotion through marketplaces

For users’ convenience, many search engines and individual commercial organizations create aggregation websites or marketplaces (Amazon, Aliexpress, or eBay). Users treat them with a high degree of trust. Payment for the products may be charged either when the buyer goes to the eCommerce store or for the presence of your products in the database.

5. Content marketing

This ecommerce marketing idea is effective if there is no information about your product or service or if the operation of the ecommerce store is limited to a specific region. For example, detailed advertising information about the new baby food should be placed on the forums for moms. On the city news website, it is useful to advertise a fair price offer for the goods you brought to the store’s local branch. You can also use a blog on your website to drive traffic.

6. SMM and targeted advertising in social networks

This ecommerce startup marketing idea is based on promotion in social networks, the effectiveness of which increases every year. SMM is an opportunity to get as close as possible to the target audience. The main thing is to fill your account on social networks with live (unique) helpful information and not to forget about targeted advertising. With it, as many potential clients as possible will see your content. Thus you will increase brand awareness and sales.

7. Email marketing

This ecommerce marketing idea is the oldest promotion method with a 20-year history. Its main advantage is its vast reach (tens of millions of mailboxes). Over 40% of the Earth’s population use mailboxes, and you can use them for sales. On the other hand, it is challenging to make this marketing idea work effectively. Ordinary spam mailing won’t help. You have to consider the current trends – orientation to mobile devices, maximum personalization, interactive emails, mailable microsites, etc.

Spam mailing is not necessarily intrusive advertising or dubious offers. Even a good email newsletter becomes spam if it is sent without the recipient’s consent. Consent should be taken when subscribing to the mailing list and, preferably, additionally confirmed by clicking on the link in the first email.

Conclusion

These marketing ideas should be implemented during the ecommerce store planning stage, even before the preliminary design of the ecommerce website. This approach will provide maximum compliance with the future online store and help reduce the ecommerce store’s promotion cost. And also, don’t forget to watch for ecommerce trends.

By guest contributor Stacey Wonder