It’s no secret that ecommerce is a competitive landscape. In order to stay ahead of the curve, you need to have a solid marketing strategy in place.
However, even the best laid plans can fall short if they’re not regularly reviewed and updated.
Here are five steps you can take to optimise your ecommerce marketing strategy and ensure that it’s always working to its full potential:
Re-Define Your Target Market
The first step to any successful marketing strategy is defining your target market. This includes identifying their needs, wants, and pain points.
Once you know who you’re targeting, you can create content and campaigns that speak directly to them. As a result, they’re more likely to engage with your brand and make a purchase.
You may have set a target audience at the point of devising your marketing strategy; however, after your business has been running for some time, you need to have a relook at where your wins have been coming from. You can do so by:
- Checking Google Analytics to see which demographics are engaging most with your content
- Reviewing your social media analytics to identify which age group, gender, and interests are interacting most with your posts
- conducting customer surveys or interviews to get first-hand feedback on what they want from your brand.
Research Your Competitors
In order to stay ahead of the competition, you need to know what they’re up to. Regularly research their marketing strategies and see what’s working well for them. Then, you can adapt and improve upon their ideas to create your own unique strategy.
Later down the line, you will see your competitors making adaptations of their own. You can stay on top of your competitors by:
- subscribing to their email lists
- following them on social media
- signing up for their loyalty programmes
- reading industry news and blogs.
Set Realistic Goals
It’s important to set realistic goals for your marketing strategy. This will help you track your progress and ensure that you’re on track to meet your targets.
Some examples of common ecommerce marketing goals include increasing web traffic, boosting conversion rates, and generating leads.
Staying on the theme of this blog, once your business has been running for some time, you could develop a better understanding of what goals are more realistic. To do so:
- Use Google Analytics to set up conversion tracking and track your progress over time
- A/B test different aspects of your website and marketing campaigns to see what works best
- Work with a marketing agency or consultant to get an expert opinion on which goals you should be setting.
Experiment With Different Channels
There are a variety of marketing channels that you can utilise to reach your target market. These include paid advertising, social media, email marketing, and content marketing.
It’s important to experiment with different channels to see which ones generate the best results. Then, you can focus your efforts on the most effective channels and allocate your budget accordingly.
Even if you have seen successes so far, you will need to continue this process, and even repeat on some of the channels that previously did not work for you. A sensible way of going about this experimentation is to:
- try out new channels when you have the budget to do so
- track the results of your campaigns using analytics tools
- compare the results of your different channels against each other.
Regularly Review and Update Your Strategy
Your marketing strategy should be a living document that’s regularly reviewed and updated. This will ensure that it always remains relevant and effective.
To do so:
- Set aside time each quarter to review your progress and assess what’s working well and what isn’t
- Make changes to your strategy based on your findings
- Test out new ideas and campaigns on a small scale before rolling them out more broadly.
