Friday 10 February 2012

Developing An Online Marketing Strategy For Your Ecommerce Business

With so many thousands of online businesses, ecommerce marketing effectively is essential for growth and success. Careful planning, along with research and a good marketing strategy, is the only way to ensure your ecommerce site prospers and grows. Here are a few tips on drawing up a good online marketing plan.

The first thing to consider is your company’s budget. Marketing ecommerce websites can be expensive, but it doesn’t have to be as there are strategies that can be adopted for any size of company. Your strategy should be sustainable, so set out a monthly budget before delving into how you want to spend it.

Next, consider who your potential customers are, which sites they are most likely to visit and what they are interested in. Not only are you then able to specifically place adverts where your customers are most likely to see them, you can design them to relate to and engage with them.



Then it is time to consider how you want to advertise your products or services. There are many advertising opportunities available online and not all of them may be suitable for your company. Using social media is one popular form of advertising as it allows companies to interact on a much more personal basis with their customers.

Your website should also be search engine friendly for your company to appear towards the top of search results pages. There is an entire science behind this, known as search engine optimisation (SEO). There are a great number of professionals on the net offering their services or advice to improve your site’s ranking on sites such as Google. Research into SEO in order to direct more traffic towards your ecommerce site.

There are also a number of ways of simply advertising your company and its products or services online. The traditional method is to pay for websites to display advertising banners on their pages, although there are other ways. Google AdWords can be effective in promoting your business, as can blogging and writing articles about services and products that relate to your business. If you are offering sound advice in relevant forums, by including a link, you’ll find people are drawn to your company’s website.

Promotions and deals in the virtual world are as effective, if not more so, than in the real world. Customers need to believe they are getting a good deal and value for money and special offers are one way letting them do this. This is also how you will attract new customers as well as retaining old ones. There needs to be a reason for people to choose you over you competitors.

Your website design is also a very important part of your ecommerce site. It should be easy to navigate, the information should be clear, concise and helpful and contacting you should be simple. Using secure payment systems like PayPal is also important as your customers should feel safe when paying for your goods or services. Including pictures, helpful links and bright colours is a simple but effective way of encouraging visitors to your site to part with their money.



In conclusion, planning is definitely the most important part of your online marketing strategy. Without devising a budget and clear goals and milestones you are setting yourself up for failure. Utilise as many advertising methods as you can afford and do not be afraid to invest in professional help for marketing and website design.

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