Best Ways to Promote Your Online Business
Online business is booming! Whether you’re starting a new online store or looking to grow an existing one, you can employ several marketing strategies to attract customers. And now is the perfect time to promote your online business, build a strong digital presence, and increase sales! Over 5 billion people use the internet worldwide, and estimates show that e-commerce will account for 95% of purchases by 2040.
While it’s a lucrative venture, 90% of online businesses fail, partly because they lack a strong marketing strategy. You must embrace the ongoing promotion of your online store to succeed in the competitive world of e-commerce.
Ready to be part of the 10% thriving online businesses? Read on to discover how to attract online customers, increase website traffic, and watch your business grow.
Utilize Email Marketing
Email marketing is a tried-and-true digital marketing strategy that consistently yields the highest return on investment (ROI). It has an average return of $36 for every $1 spent—and you can increase the ROI even further with proven email marketing strategies.
Email marketing lets you contact your customers directly, provide value, and build relationships that can lead to conversions.
Start by building a high-quality mailing list of subscribers interested in your products. You can collect emails from prospective customers by offering something in exchange for them (lead magnets). Collect emails from customers who purchase from your business too.
Once you have a list of subscribers, create helpful, engaging, and informative email content that resonates with your customers. Use segmentation to tailor your email content to specific segments of your subscribers. For instance, you create different email content for:
- Prospective customers who abandoned a cart
- New mailing list subscribers
- Customers who purchased from your online store before
By segmenting your audience and crafting personalized messages, you can build stronger relationships and keep them informed about your latest products, promotions, and news. Include a clear call-to-action (CTA) in each email to encourage subscribers to take action.
Collaborate with Complementary Brands
One of the most highly effective online marketing strategies is partnering with brands that target a similar audience. Think of it as co-branding or cross-promotion.
It’s more effective when you find businesses that complement your eCommerce business—not a competitor. For example, if you sell yoga mats, you might consider partnering with a company that sells workout clothing or healthy snacks.
You can also look for eCommerce businesses that target the same audience as you but offer unrelated products. Often these will be brands that have similar values to yours.
When you approach potential partners, ensure you have a clear idea of what you can offer them and what you hope to gain from the partnership. Collaboration is a two-way street. Be prepared to negotiate and find ways to create value for both parties.
Offer Discounts and Promotions Tailored to your Target Audience
Who doesn’t like to save money on purchases? Offering discounts can create excitement around your brand, boost sales, and help to build a loyal customer base.
You can implement promotions in several ways, such as creating coupon codes for flash sales, percentage discounts, free shipping, or product bundles.
Plan ahead and promote your offers effectively to make the most of flash sales and promotions. You can use social media platforms like relevant Facebook groups and Twitter hashtags to promote the offers to prospective customers.
Ensure the offers are compelling enough to motivate customers to purchase but not so deep that it cuts your profits. You should also be strategic about the timing of your sales and promotions. Consider holidays, seasonal trends, and your customers’ buying habits.
Leverage Social Media Platforms
With billions of users on various social media sited, there’s a good chance your target audience is already active on one or more. How do you reach them?
You can use your social media channels to promote your business in two main ways:
- Organic promotion
- Paid advertising
For organic social reach, you can try different proven strategies. For instance, you can host giveaways, use appropriate hashtags, optimize social media bios, create shareable content, consistent posting, etc. Boosting your organic social reach will help to establish a strong social media presence and increase eCommerce sales without a big marketing budget, representing 14.57& of all U.S retail sales revenue from 2022.
To reach a larger audience, consider investing in social media advertising. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram offer targeted advertising options that allow you to reach specific demographics and interests.
Collaborate with Influencers
Collaborating with influencers in your industry allows you to tap into their existing social media audiences. Influencers or content creators typically have a massive following on social media platforms, exposing your products or services to a broader audience.
And influencer marketing works! Research shows that 61% of consumers are likely to trust influencer recommendations. You only need to find influencers who align with your brand values and target audience. Giving them high-quality content or guidance to promote your products or services is also a success factor.
You can partner with influencers by sending gifts for an honest review, paying for sponsored content, or inviting them to be affiliates. It’s also great to track the results of your influencer marketing campaigns to measure their effectiveness.
Use Pay-Per-Click Advertising TO PROMOTE YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a highly targeted way to promote your new business and attract customers. These are ads that appear at the top of the Google results page when users search for specific keywords.
Some tips for creating effective PPC campaigns or Google ads include:
- Conducting keyword research to identify the most relevant keywords for your target audience
- Creating compelling Google ads copy that encourages users to click on your ads
- Using targeting options to reach specific segments of your target audience
- Continuously testing and optimizing your ads to improve the effectiveness
Create a Search Engine OptimiSed Business Blog
A blog is a must-have for most online businesses. It helps with content marketing—a solid strategy for driving web traffic back to your e-commerce store.
After Amazon, the second highest number of consumers (48%) typically start their online shopping journey on search engines. You can capitalize on this trend with a well-planned content marketing strategy.
Create high-quality blog content on relevant keywords and topics your target audience is searching for. Ensure the content is SEO-optimized to rank high in Google search results when users type specific keywords.
You can write how-to guides, industry news, product reviews, and other relevant content for your business. This can improve your search engine rankings, drive more traffic to your website, and establish your brand as an authority in your industry.
Optimize Your Product Descriptions TO PROMOTE YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS
If you want more sales from organic traffic, invest time to create helpful, relatable, and search engines optimized product descriptions. You want to optimize your product descriptions both to sell and rank high on search engines.
Don’t copy generic descriptions. Study your customers and create targeted descriptions highlighting their pain points and using the keywords they are searching for.
The higher you rank in search engine results pages, the better. The first position search engine results has an average click-through rate (CTR) of 39.2%, while the second position has an average CTR of 15.45%. And if a customer clicks your business from the search engine results page, you want to ensure the product description is convincing enough to convert.
List Your Online Business on Free Advertising Sites
Do you want to attract more customers without spending a dime on advertising? Promote your online business through free advertising sites or classified websites.
Choose sites that are relevant to your business or audience, create attention-grabbing ads, and provide a clear call to action. It’s best to redirect potential customers on these sites to purchase through your own website. Keep track of your ads’ performance and adjust to improve their effectiveness.
Some popular free advertising sites you can consider include gumtree.com, vivastreet.co.uk, redbrain.shop, Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, and Oodle. Don’t forget to create a Google Business profile if you have a physical brick-and-mortar store too.
Create a Referral Marketing Program TO PROMOTE YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS
Referral marketing is a strategy that encourages existing customers to refer new customers to your business in exchange for a reward, such as a gift card, discount, free product, commission, or other incentives.
The marketing strategy can increase brand awareness by encouraging existing customers to spread the word about your business to their friends, family, and colleagues. Referral marketing helps build trust and credibility for your business. People are more likely to trust recommendations from those they know and trust.
It’s also a cost-effective and results-focused approach to marketing your online store. You only give the reward if the customer successfully refers someone to your online store.
Use Review Sites to gather Customer Feedback
55% of online shoppers are reluctant to trust a brand they have yet to buy from. Instead, they will search for online reviews and recommendations from people who have used your products.
Positive customer reviews can help build trust and credibility with potential customers. When people see that others have had a positive experience with your business, they are more likely to trust and choose your online store over competitors.
Using review sites and online directories like TrustPilot, Google Business, and Yelp can also increase brand awareness. If a customer was searching for your competitor, your brand might feature in the similar businesses section. These sites also allow customers to search for businesses based on location, industry, or other criteria, which can help attract more customers.
Review sites usually rank higher on search engine results pages, which is good for your online store.
After creating a business profile, you should encourage customers to leave a review, actively manage your small business’s presence on review sites, and respond to customer feedback. This way, you can leverage the power of customer reviews to promote and grow your online business.
Join Online Forums and Communities
Joining relevant forums and communities can help you connect with a targeted audience, contribute to discussions, promote online business and introduce your products at the right time and context. Don’t join such communities to drop spammy links!
These are online platforms where people with similar interests come together to share ideas, ask questions, and engage in discussions. You can find niche groups related to your business on platforms such as Quora, Reddit, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Flying Solo.
Ensure you choose a social media platform where you can meet potential customers and actively contribute your tips on relevant topics. Then once the opportunity is right, you can promote your business while following the platform’s guidelines.
Start an Affiliate Marketing Program
Want other people to do the promotion work for you? Start an affiliate marketing program. You’ll pay the affiliates a commission for each customer they refer to your online store.
Start by defining your affiliate program goals. Is it to increase sales, attract traffic to your eCommerce website, or build brand awareness? Knowing your goals will help you determine the commission rates, commission structure, and other details of your affiliate program.
Once set up, you’ll get promotions for your online business 24/7 from different affiliates.
Podcasting
Podcasting is another great way to promote online business. People buy people, and with your personality shining through as a Founder and Director people can connect with your brand. This will encourage some people to become customers through learning about your brand, your opinion on topics and finding common ground. This is a great way to connect with an audience, provide content in a convenient way that gets to cover content they like or use. Which ultimately will have a positive knock on impact and result in more income and sales to your business.
Write Guest Posts
One effective way to promote your online business for free is by writing guest posts for blogs with a similar target audience.
Guest posting is a mutually beneficial arrangement between you and the blog owner. You provide valuable content to their audience and gain exposure for your business.
It’s a good way of driving free traffic to your site. You’ll often get link backs to your site, which can help your business website or blog with search engine optimization.
Find and contact bloggers with an audience that might be interested in your products and offer to write a piece that would be valuable to them.
Feature on Product Review Blog Posts
When a blogger writes a positive review about your product, it can serve as a powerful endorsement influencing potential customers’ purchasing decisions. If it’s a popular blog, you can reach a wider audience and potentially gain new customers.
Sometimes bloggers will feature your product on their gift or review blog posts without your request. But you don’t have to wait on such opportunities.
Look for bloggers who write about products in your niche or industry and whose audience matches your target customers. Once you’ve identified potential bloggers, reach out to them with a personalized message and offer to send them a sample of your product for review. Or find out how you can work together.
Start a YouTube Channel
YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google, making it perfect for promoting your online business. It can help you increase brand awareness, build credibility with your audience, create a loyal following, and drive traffic to your own website or online store.
Decide what type of content you want to create and how often you want to post. You can create product demos, tutorials, customer testimonials, behind-the-scenes videos, or any other content showcasing your products.
Participate in Trending Topics that Align with Your Brand
You can increase your brand visibility by jumping on relevant trending topics and contributing to the conversation meaningfully. It can position your brand as a thought leader in your industry and connect with your audience more.
To contribute to brand-appropriate trending topics, you can monitor social media platforms (with tools like Hootsuite) and industry news sources for relevant trends. Once you identify a suitable trend, you can create content that adds value to the conversation and showcases your brand.
Participating in trending topics allows you to tap into an already-established conversation with social media users which they are actively engaging. This can help promote your online business brand stand out in a crowded social media landscape and increase the chances of your content being seen and shared for free.
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Bottom Line
As a business owner, promoting your online store is essential to increase web traffic, attract new customers, and increase sales. You will require a combination of marketing efforts like search engine optimization, well-crafted product pages, and a solid social media presence.
Utilize the strategies above and you’ll have one of the most successful online stores. It’s an ongoing process that requires constant monitoring and adjustment to ensure you’re reaching your target audience and achieving your goals.
Remember providing excellent customer service is key to retaining customers and encouraging repeat business.
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