Ecommerce Marketing Strategy for Shopify: Getting Better Sales!

Picture this, you started a brand-new Shopify store. And you have big dreams for the store. You eventually want to leave your 9 to 5 and become an entrepreneur. We will give you some good news. That is possible. But you need to know the right and effective ecommerce marketing strategy.

There are some simple yet effective strategies you can use like email marketing, affiliate marketing and rich SEO-optimized content. Most are paid, but organic reach can also be hugely valuable. Upsells and giveaways are also a great way to increase sales.

As you may have guessed, that is only half of it. There is much more to it all. Let's discuss all the important marketing strategies you need to be using for increased sales and growth. We will also touch on why marketing is important and some pitfalls to avoid. Let's get started.

Why Marketing is Important for Your Shopify Store?

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We once heard a quote that stuck with me. It went something like "Selling without marketing is like winking in the dark". If you think about it, that makes a lot of sense. Without the proper marketing, people will know you exist.

And even if they do, they want to know why they should buy from you and not your competitor. That is not to say that the product itself is not important. You can have the best products. But without the right marketing, the problems are no one will know about it.

Good Marketing Shows Your USP

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Good and effective marketing should bring out your USP – a unique selling point. It should differentiate you from the rest.

You can easily set up a Shopify store. Anyone can. It will be your ability to market and promote that will help you succeed.

Increases Your Sales

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Marketing gives you an idea about your reach and potential. It can increase your sales. At the end of the day, that is what it comes down to.

More marketing ensures your products are exposed to a larger audience. And then the more happy customers you get, the more future sales you can expect. That is why many companies even do promotional offers and sell their products at a loss, just for the sake of marketing and future increase in sales.

Builds a Brand

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Good marketing increases sales and gives you brand value. And when you have a strong, trusted brand, you are golden.

People will have brand loyalty and make repeat purchases. That is why marketing is crucial in today’s business world. It always has been and will be.

How Do You Market Your Business Successfully: 11 Ways To Increase Sales (And Profit)

With that said and done, you should now know just how important marketing is. But marketing needs to be done the right way. Bad marketing is worse than no marketing, in our opinion.

There are some very cool and effective ways you can market your Shopify store to increase sales. Let’s dive in.

1. Start With an Executive Summary

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The best way to start is from the top. Get yourself a marketing plan ready. How will you reach customers, how will you promote your products, what is your USP and how can you entice your customers to come back. Repeat purchases are very important.

Make sure to create a complete and detailed marketing plan with all the products you are going to sell, any offers you may want to give them. Keep in mind the ultimate goal of your business and start from there.

If you have opened a business where there is a strong competitor, then you may want to acquire some of their customers. How do you do that? Everything should be laid out. When you start with a plan, you make things easier for yourself.

2. Upsell, Upsell and Upsell

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You might say that to increase sales, you do not particularly need to always sell more to more customers. You may also want to sell more to a single customer. That is where upselling comes in.

It is a classic marketing technique and one that works. When you upsell your customer value will increase. In essence, you are earning from each purchase a single customer makes. Now, do not expect that every customer that visits your store can be upsold. That is not easy.

But a portion of customers who upgrade their purchase from their original intent is still a win. There is a way of upselling though. You need to keep in mind that the product you want to upsell is related to the original product.

Cross-selling is also important. You can sell something related to the product your customer is buying.

3. Giveaways

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Whether you are a billionaire or not, everyone loves free stuff. Giveaways are a great way to create buzz. They help build awareness for your products. And if the product itself is high-quality, you might also create a loyal customer for the future.

As with everything we mentioned, giveaways also need to be done the right way. Make the product related to your audience. Something they will want. It should be enticing enough to make them want to enter the giveaway.

This might not give you instant results in your sales numbers. Well, duh, because you are giving it away. But should help you get more buzz and get higher sales in the future.

4. Do Fantastic Email Marketing

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Email marketing is still one of the most effective ways to market your business. According to a study done by Forrester Research in 2015, email marketing accounts for 24% of the revenue for a business. That is quite a hefty chunk.

You can start with getting more email subscribers. Promoting your blogs and newsletter is important. Present it in a way that makes visitors want to sign up. Then get into more robust and attractive email campaigns.

Your email for marketing purposes needs to be attention-grabbing. You want to make them irresistible for the customer to pass on. You can ask for feedback, or give you more valuable information about what they purchased.

New campaign promotions can also be done through email. And when there is a catchy subject line with a nice graphic and a hard resist the offer that is when you know you are doing it right.

5. Content Is Still King

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As the old saying goes, content is king. Well, guess what? It still is. Good SEO-optimized content gives you something invaluable- Google rankings. This is one of the best things you can do for your sales.

The more high-quality content you have, the more pages you will have. This will make it easier to rank on the search engine giant. Free organic traffic is all marketer’s dreams and good content is a way to get that.

Your content can be educational and also entertaining. They can help your customer to solve their problems or talk more about your products. Write on topics that have a fairly good search demand.

You can think about seed keywords. These keywords can be put into research tools that will help you generate ideas. I cannot stress this enough that Google Ads is very important. Whether it be paid or organic.

6. Reduce Abandoned Carts

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Here is a sad fact, most customers will add a product to their cart but not actually buy it. In other words, they might not check out.  That is what is called an abandoned cart. If you can manage to reduce abandoned carts, your sales will instantly increase.

The way to effectively execute this super helpful ecommerce marketing strategy conveniently ties in with other ones I mentioned. Mainly upselling an email. You can try sending an abandoned cart email to the customers.

It will remind them that they have items on the cart which they did not check out with. You can also make it more enticing for them to check out. You can try upselling or giving them hard to resist offers.

How about a discount for buying more? Or maybe get them to purchase by offering an extended warranty or a bundle deal. There is a lot of things you can do. Your marketing plan that you made at the beginning, should have all of these.

7. Get on Instagram

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Instagram is sort of a highlight reel for people, isn’t it? It can be for your products as well. The app has millions of daily users. More than 500 million to be exact. That is a lot of eyeballs and a lot of potential customers.

You should double down on Instagram and create a following. Your photos should be nice and professional. Couple that with strategic hashtags and the right posting times, you are all set. Make sure that the feed is shoppable.

Because at the end of the day, the goal is to increase sales. Instagram’s users are more engaged compared to any other social media. Get yourself an Instagram business account and get going. Make sure to use all the latest features like Instagram stories!

8. Optimize Your Shopify Store Experience for Your Customers

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Ecommerce is all about ease. Ordering something from the internet without having to drive to the store is very enticing. Customers love convenience and ease of use. So, if your website is hard to navigate and does not look that nice, it is not working for you.

Rather your website might start working against you and drive customers. Away. Any successful Shopify store needs to look well-designed and should be user-friendly. Also, mobile-friendly. It is 2021, mobile is a very important factor.

Well-designed does not just mean some pretty graphics and visuals here and there. It is more than that. Your store needs to showcase what makes you special. Your customers need to be able to trust it the moment they enter the store.

A high-quality professionally designed store can help you do that. Choose a legible and attractive font. Do not put too many products on a single page either. You need to find the right balance of text and pictures. All of these make for a nice store experience.

Think about it, when you walk into a brick-and-mortar retail store, if it is nicely designed, you enjoy the shopping experience. The same applies to your Shopify store as well.

9. Get Into Affiliate Marketing

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Affiliate marketing is another source of businesses earning high revenue. They do help you increase your sales. Think of it as commissions you will pay someone for successfully promoting your business. It is a win-win.

It is pretty similar to influencer marketing as well. Your affiliate will earn a commission when someone buys something from you because they referred to your store. You need to be clear with the policies though.

Make sure both you and the affiliate understand the terms and policies. This will help avoid any misunderstanding later on and will create a healthy relationship. You can offer them a very nice commission offer to get things rolling.

If you want to work with a prominent influencer, your first approach matters. Your emails need to be catchy. You should check out our Ambassador Affiliate Marketing program that allows you to easily manage your affiliate marketing programs and relations with your affiliates.

10. Give Top-Notch Customer Service

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Lastly, good customer service still has a lot of value. And that will be true for eternity. When your customers get good service, it creates trust. And trust builds a brand. I am not saying that customer service is the only thing that builds brands.

A brand is built with every aspect of your company and how your customer interacts with it. And customer service is a part of that. So, do not ignore customer service.

All these are some effective ways you can increase your sales. Be consistent and adamant. Always look for more creative ways you can create buzz and trust. Here are more things you can do:

• SMS Marketing
• Use a loyalty program
• Live chat options
• Video marketing
• Referral programs
• Wishlist emails
  

11. Taking Advantage of Shopify Marketing Services

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If you are on Shopify (which of course, you are), you can also use their marketing tools. Shopify provides you with some fantastic tools that can help you do the things I mentioned above. They have email services, Facebook and Google marketing and more.

You can also see statistics and all the important data about your store. This will help you make critical business decisions. You can blog and use their SEO services to create an impact on your sales.

Shopify Marketing Pitfall to Avoid

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Knowing what not to do when marketing or running your store is equally important. So, here are some mistakes and pitfalls you should avoid by all means. Let’s get started. Do not worry, I will keep these relatively short.

Not Knowing Who Your Customers Are

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Understanding your customer is marketing 101. You need to know who are your customers and who are most likely to make a purchase. That is how you can tailor all the marketing efforts to them.

That will make them more effective and help you get more sales. Also, you do not want to target the wrong customers and waste all your efforts.

Ignoring The Numbers and Data

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Shopify along with all the marketing tools you use will give you lots of data to work with. One particular one is product performance. This is just one example. There are and will be more data points.

For example, which kind of social media posts are doing well, what time email promotions are opened the most. Make sure to keep a close eye on these. They can give you critical insight into your business and also customers. You can use this data to see what needs to be changed and adopted.

Some products may not be performing as well. So, it will not make any sense for you to keep offering them.

Not Using Multichannel Marketing

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Going multichannel with your marketing will increase your reach and make you more visible. In today's competitive world where everyone is out for customer attention, you cannot afford to stay just in your Shopify store.

You need to meet the customers where they are. You can use intuitive tools to make it easier for you when using multichannel marketing. Whatever you do, make sure multichannel marketing is important.

Displaying Outdated Product Information and Pictures

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This is unfortunately one of the most common mistakes many Shopify owners make. And the worse part is it can be easily avoided. You have only a couple of seconds to grab the visitor's attention. These seconds are precious for making them decide whether they want to buy from you or not.

Fill the descriptions and product pages with rich and valuable descriptions. Give your customers more information, Information that they would want to know. Keywords and appealing pictures with a detailed description are the winning recipes here.

Lengthy does not mean wordy. Write descriptions that give value but do not sound like that they are running on for days.

Ignoring Organic Marketing

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As I said, content is still king. Organic traffic is an invaluable resource for every business out there. 70% of clicks on Google are organic results. So, you cannot afford to ignore organic reach when marketing your Shopify store.

You can create content around your customers. That will give them more value and you will have more content ideas to work with.

Wrapping Up

The ecommerce scene is always evolving. That is what makes it fun and exciting. The field has given many entrepreneurs an opportunity, created huge markets and brought consumers ease and a nice shopping experience. Using the right ecommerce marketing strategy, you can also manage to be a part of that pie.

Keep in mind the things we mentioned. Also do not forget to avoid common mistakes as well. You do not want to take two steps back after you take one step forward.