Adventures in marketing your ecommerce business.

Jun 10 2022 | PayPal editorial staff

Your ecommerce business is up and running, and you’re ready for the world to beat a path to your virtual door. It’s time to focus on marketing your business: attracting new customers, while keeping your current ones engaged and satisfied. To build a loyal customer base—and a great brand—you need an ecommerce marketing strategy.
To build a loyal customer base—and a great brand—you need an ecommerce marketing strategy. Online marketing may seem daunting at first, but it’s actually rewarding and can be a lot of fun. Here are recommendations and best practices to get your program off the ground running.
 
1. Make interactions more meaningful with personalization.
Personalized content is a powerful tool for rising above the marketing noise that pervades customers’ online experience. Personalization can come in the form of emails containing links to related blogs, newsletters and online videos. It can even be a simple (but loyalty-building) birthday email with special offers. For personalized website content, there are many plugins and platforms that make custom tailoring of site content – based on customers’ preferences and interactions – easier and more affordable than ever.
 
2. Raise your profile with search engine marketing (SEM).
Another way to stand out from the crowd is through search engine marketing (SEM). SEM is a type of paid advertising that promotes your website based on search terms (aka keywords) that you choose beforehand. SEM can raise the visibility of your ecommerce business on search engine results pages, making customers more likely to encounter your brand as they search for specific products or services.
 
3. Get strategic with email marketing.
Email marketing is still one of the most effective ways to promote your business and sell your products and services to both existing and prospective customers. Proper email marketing is both an art and a science. There are dozens of best practices for a successful program, especially with regard to delivery and spamming. Therefore, perhaps the most important is to consider partnering a third-party email delivery service. It’s less work for you and their easy-to-use HTML templates mean you won’t risk looking like an amateur. Most services also offer data tracking and reporting.
 
4. Use social media to help drive sales.
Building relationships with customers through social channels can help you grow your brand and generate sales – especially since existing customers’ referrals are your best tool for getting new customers. If you decide to use social platforms as part of your marketing strategy, be prepared for significant hands-on effort. You’ll need to update your social media regularly to keep it fresh and to keep engaging with your customers. However, it’s a great way to help build your relationships with our customers, strengthen your brand and establish yourself as a thought leader. It’s also important to note that social media is a two-way street: if a customer reaches out to you, you must respond promptly—otherwise, you risk damaging your business’s reputation.
The contents of this site are provided for informational purposes only. You should always obtain independent, professional accounting, financial, and legal advice before making any business decision.
 

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