How to reach customers the right way and make every dollar count

With a growth rate of nearly 16% this year in the U.S. alone, eCommerce is considered by many to be fastest growing market sector in the entire world. However, it isn’t just growing in a vacuum – it’s continually expanding its share of the overall sales market, accounting for approximately 8% of all U.S. sales in the last four quarters.

While these numbers are impressive, the influence of shopping online goes beyond a few statistics. It’s a trend that’s already begun to affect the way nearly everyone works, plays, and does business, and as younger generations grow up shopping for nearly everything online, its influence on the world economy will only increase.

While you probably already know that expanding your online sales efforts is essential to the growth of your business, implementing an effective eCommerce strategy can be difficult. With the introduction of new social media platforms, the growing popularity of cloud-based business software, and ever-changing cultural trends, it’s hard to stay innovative while not getting caught up in fads or wasting resources on ineffective marketing techniques.

Let’s review some learn tried-and-true strategies to develop your brand, implement digital marketing techniques, understand your customers, and reach them effectively – all without breaking the bank.

Microtarget a specific demographic

While your business may have a broad demographic as a whole, you’ll have to target one or more specific groups if you want to get the best results online. Internet marketing spaces and social networks are getting more crowded and competitive by the day, so potential customers need to feel like an advertisement or website is speaking to them directly if they’re going to take the time to respond. General ad copy and promotions for everyone don’t work as well in today’s online market – if you’re speaking to everyone, you really could be speaking to no one.

This doesn’t mean you can’t have multiple target demographics, or target different demographics for different products. For example, if you’re marketing a general product like health insurance, you might set up three, four, or five different sets of ads for people of different ages, addressing various concerns that might relate most to their age or lifestyle. If you’re marketing a more specific product, like motorcycle insurance, you’re likely to only need one demographic target – and keeping that in mind, you’ll want to make sure that your motorcycle insurance products are differently marketed and packaged than other insurance packages.

Go mobile

According to Forbes, mobile commerce is growing at a rate of 130% annually, so it’s essential that you invest in a responsive website and eCommerce platform – one that is completely compatible with various types of mobile devices. If it’s difficult to purchase products or find information about your company on a mobile device, you risk losing significant sales to competitors who have painstakingly ensured a seamless mobile experience for their customers.

Targeted email lists

It might sound old-fashioned, but traditional email marketing is still an incredibly effective component of eCommerce. In fact, a recent survey showed that, when compared to other forms of digital marketing, it ranked as both the easiest to implement and the most effective.

Plus, email is a way to get personal with customers: Share with them changes and improvements to your business, as well as offer them specialized deals, sales, and custom offers. If you’re already implementing an effective content marketing strategy (i.e., regularly publishing blogs and posts on Facebook and Twitter) you can augment these efforts by sharing this content through email. Better yet, you may want to create specialized content and sales just for email subscribers as a way to entice customers (or potential customers) to sign up for your company’s email list.

With 91% of customers saying that they’d like to receive emails from brands they do business with, skipping out on email is more than just a marketing mistake; it’s an error which could seriously cost you in terms of lost profit and reduced customer engagement.

When it comes improving your company’s eCommerce strategies, you most likely don’t need to latch on to any passing trends – you simply need to find a few effective, tried-and-true strategies and stick to them.

If you want to learn more about how to craft your business and eCommerce strategies for the digital age, contact the online strategy experts at Creative Technology Partners for a free consultation.