Our Top 5 Digital Marketing Tips for Small E-commerce Businesses
If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s how to adapt to a digital existence. And as it turns out, businesses are front and centre in this transition. The accelerated shift to e-commerce has changed the retail landscape forever and the convenience it offers consumers ensures that the trend is here to stay.
So if you’re looking for a starting point to launch a strong online marketing campaign for your start-up, we’ve got you covered. Acquire’s digital marketing experts and brightest minds have put together a guide on how to promote your business online.
Deploy an omni-channel strategy
Diversify your marketing channels to stay on track and ultimately exceed your marketing goals. As we’ve seen in the past, a site’s algorithm can shift or your target audience may switch to a different platform, so in order to keep the focus on your product make sure it is visible on all platforms.
Look for overall growth instead of platform-specific growth. While you should always be strategic and focus on those channels that maximize ROI, having multiple marketing streams such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok can help your business stay nimble enough to survive any sudden changes that might come its way.
Keep the data simple
At this stage you probably don’t need a mega-dashboard to track every possible metric. Start with where you want to take your business in the next one year and then list down the marketing efforts you need to undertake to get you there. From there pick a metric or Key Performance Indicator (KPI) that will inform you if you’re working your way towards achieving that goal.
If your business is based on a subscription model, your KPI should be the number of times an email gets forwarded. If you are aiming to gain net new customers your KPI should be the number of clicks for your ad. Data gives you confidence, it allows you to measure your progress so get smart about it.
Ad Spend Strategy
Pump money into short-term cash flow positive initiatives that will give your company an instant boost and then work on scaling-up those lucrative initiatives. This could be anything; from premium services to bundle offerings or even a seasonal collection.
The most crucial point here is to opt for a campaign that allows you to measure success in terms of financial gain. If you’ve launched an influencer strategy, for instance, make sure that you are earning faster than you are spending. Smaller businesses have smaller budgets and don’t have the luxury to take an organic, slow-growth approach so instead of putting all your energy into brand building it’s best to invest in straightforward positive cash flow undertakings. It's what lets you grow.
Understand your online customer
A key to marketing, in general, is identifying and understanding your target audience: Who are they? What are their likes, dislikes, preferences? What do they respond to? Social listening helps!
This same principle applies to digital marketing. In order to have a successful digital marketing strategy, you not only need to understand your customers, but also who your customers are online. For this matter, your target audience for digital marketing might be a little different than your target audience for direct mail marketing.
Video Marketing is more effective
Take it from us, consumers prefer videos and they tend to have higher engagement. The boom in digital marketing this year is predominantly due to video-based content because they merge two things that catch user attention: movement and sound. Both of these play an important role in conveying an efficient message, hence leading to better engagement.
This trend is a direct consequence of apps like TikTok and Instagram Reels which launched last year and will continue to dominate the future of digital marketing.
