Why do you need a marketing strategy?
A marketing strategy is a plan for promoting a product or service. It involves the time, place, and manner in which you will carry out your promotional activities. It also specifies what your goals are and how you plan to achieve them.
A marketing strategy should be based on a thorough understanding of who the customers for your product or service are and what will be attractive to them.
Your company has a website that you want to promote. What do you do?
You need to develop a marketing strategy that shows not only who you want to attract, but how to reach them and what will motivate them to buy.
If you are not able to get people to visit your site, you are never going to sell any products. In order to reach people, you need a plan for promoting your website.
Shopify marketing strategy must-haves
It seems like social media platforms are always changing. Instagram is now offering video features, Twitter just changed how its character count works, and Facebook keeps updating its algorithm.
With all these changes, you have to wonder about the business benefits of each platform. Is it worth being active on multiple channels, or should you focus all your efforts on one?
First, let’s clarify what each channel is best for. By now, almost everyone knows the basics of using Facebook and Twitter. We’ll discuss the newer players in performance marketing – Pinterest, Instagram Video & Storify.
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Facebook :
Facebook isn’t just a place to catch up with friends – it has become an essential part of marketing strategies. Business pages can create promotions and ads that build up a following for little cost. Facebook’s sophisticated tracking tools let you monitor engagement, see how many people are clicking your links & then re-target them with new ads.
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Twitter :
Twitter is where news breaks first, but also it’s more of a one-to-one experience. Twitter’s character limitations keep people concise, unlike Facebook or Pinterest where you can post lengthy content. On Twitter, less is more – you don’t want to post anything too in-depth that might discourage your followers from clicking through to your website.
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Pinterest :
Pinterest has 100 million monthly users who are primarily women ages 18-44. It is all about images, so it’s great for generating clicks to your site. The only downside is that the average order value on Pinterest is lower than other channels like Google Adwords or Facebook Ads.
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Instagram :
While not as popular as Facebook (300 million users), Instagram has more engagement, with over 95 million daily active users. It’s also owned by Facebook, so if you have a presence on FB it’s easy to cross-post content.
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LinkedIn :
LinkedIn is great if you want to target professionals with your products. The average customer has an annual income of $75k and 100 million members worldwide. On Twitter, the average user spends 6 minutes, 40 seconds on LinkedIn.
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YouTube :
With one billion active users watching an average of 60 minutes per day, YouTube has transformed itself into the second largest search engine (after Google). If your business hasn’t established itself on YouTube yet, it’s time to take the platform seriously.
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Reddit :
Reddit gets over five billion monthly page views and is one of the most popular sites in the world – if you’re not using it, you’re missing out! According to CoSchedule, Reddit is a place to find “a unique and authentic voice that your customers love.”
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Pinterest :
There are 100 million monthly users who primarily use Pinterest for DIY projects, home decor, fashion, and food. However, many businesses have used the platform successfully – check out these examples from big brands.
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Use SEO
SEO is the process of optimizing your website to help it rank higher in search engine results pages so you can gain more visibility and improve user experience. If done correctly, SEO will help drive targeted traffic and increase sales by improving conversion rates (how many people that come into your store end up buying something). There are several key areas you need to focus on if you want to optimize your store for SEO. You can also take help and support from Shopify seo company and hire them and they will provide you best SEO services.
Write quality and unique content:
To improve user experience and rank higher in search results, shops need to focus on the creation of great content that focuses not only on products but also demonstrates knowledge of their industry or niche. This will help demonstrate your expertise to searchers which can lead them to become interested in your products.
Create an XML sitemap:
This is a file that lists all of the pages on your website so you can help Google index them. When it comes to SEO, you need to know everything about how Google works.
Manage your online reputation:
You can also use SEO to help improve your online reputation by monitoring what people are saying about you on the internet. Customers have a big voice now, so it’s crucial that you do everything possible to ensure they are happy with their shopping experience. This will not only result in more conversions but also help improve the user experience.
Use product reviews to help boost SEO:
One of the best things you can do for your Shopify store is to encourage your customers to leave reviews. In addition to making a sale, this will also serve as a massive indexing factor that will help you rank better in search results.
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Use brand ambassadors
Sharing positive stories about your brand is a powerful tool for increasing brand awareness. In order to encourage people to share the good things they have to say, you need not only to ask them but also provide an easy way for them to do so. The easiest option is through social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. However, when someone is already excited about your brand, there is a better chance that they will share their experience if you give them more personal means of communication.
When doing whatever you can to make it easy for your customers to shout your praises from the rooftops, don’t forget that you also need a strategy in place to collect those positive stories once they’ve been shared. You might consider using brand ambassadors (people who advocate for brands in exchange for free merchandise such as tee shirts or hats) to collect and share stories on social media.
A brand ambassador program is a great way to build relationships with your customers, and it can provide you with free marketing that will help attract even more people to your Shopify store. It’s all about asking your best customers to share the love, and then rewarding them when they do.
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Use an email marketing app
- Full drag and drop email builder
- Easy to use email templates.
- Customizable subscribe popups so you can collect emails from your visitors before they hit the buy button.
- Ability to create a sequence of emails that automatically send when someone first subscribes, then another set of emails after X days that encourage people to buy.
- Ability to customize the subject line of each email so you can have a different title on every email. This is great for personalization and boosting open rates.
- Ability to send scheduled emails so you don’t have to worry about sending them right away.
- Automated welcome series that automatically sends people an email after they subscribe with helpful tips on your product or store.
- Ability to send emails to people who abandoned their cart with an automated email that encourages them to come back and complete the order. With this feature, you will be able to win back many of those potentially lost sales!
- Support for landing pages (perfect for promoting single products, one-time offers, and running contests and promotions).
- A/B testing so you can test different copies and images to see which emails get the best open rates.
Use Buy Buttons to Make Sales More Accessible
By far one of the most useful apps available to Shopify users is the buy button app. It’s especially helpful if you happen to be selling a product or service that’s lengthy and difficult to describe in words.
Buy buttons allow you to create “swipe” images for your products so shoppers can easily swipe up, down, left or right with their finger on any device. They’re an excellent way to drive conversions because they let customers react immediately and without having to read a word.
Create Custom Landing Pages for Each Marketing Campaign
Email marketing is an incredibly effective strategy for online businesses, but it’s only as good as your list. That’s why it’s essential to create custom landing pages that are intended to turn visitors into customers, and yes – even those coming from Google Adwords go straight to your landing page.
The only way to do this effectively is with the Landing Page app. You can use it to create landing pages that correspond with specific marketing campaigns (i.e., an email marketing blast or Google AdWords ad). That way, you won’t have to convince your visitors why they should buy – you’ll already have that part covered.
Set Up Email Automation
Email automation may be one of the best features that Shopify marketing affords you, as it allows you to automate your business processes based on user behavior. In other words, if a customer abandons their shopping cart or doesn’t return for a certain period of time, they’ll automatically receive a follow-up email to remind them about the product they left behind.
The Email Campaign app is one of Shopify’s most popular eCommerce apps, as it’s incredibly easy to use and requires no coding experience whatsoever. What’s more, it integrates seamlessly with other third-party apps such as Mail Chimp, allowing you to send out emails that are automatically generated based on certain criteria.
Create Custom Discounts with the Purchase Order Discount app
For many eCommerce businesses, the effort to go digital is worth it because it streamlines their workflow and facilitates better communication between team members or departments. That’s why you need to set up purchase order discounts with the Purchase Order Discount app.
Even if your company doesn’t use purchase orders, this is still a valuable feature. Because it allows you to get rid of the awkwardness regarding how much customers should pay for products. Instead of having to ask someone “how much do I owe you,” they can simply refer to their invoice and know exactly how much money is owed.
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Use a referral program
Ecommerce platforms are both easy to use and effective. They’re an incredibly convenient way for businesses big and small to sell their products without having to worry about the technical complexities of hosting a website or building out an eCommerce site from scratch.
The only problem with shopping cart solutions is that they often lack features offered by third-party apps. Which can hold new business owners back from reaching their full marketing potential.
Fortunately, Shopify users can access third-party app marketplaces to take advantage of additional features such as email automation and marketing automation, among many others. These apps help business owners stand out by streamlining their workflow and facilitating better communication between team members or departments.
To be successful with Shopify marketing, however, there are certain core features that your shop absolutely must-have.
Use a referral program for Shopify marketing
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Ask for customer reviews
Customer reviews help social media and search engine rankings, create trust with your customers, and give potential customers a reason to buy. There’s no downside to asking for them! And it turns out, most Shopify merchants aren’t doing it.
The percentage of online shoppers who read customer reviews. Before a purchase has increased from 55 percent in 2014 to 67 percent today, according to an eMarketer study.
Those who read 10 or more online reviews before making a purchase rose from 33 percent to 45 percent over the same period.
How do you stack up against those numbers? If you’re not asking for customer reviews on all your Shopify store’s pages, you’re likely losing out on a valuable opportunity.
What types of Shopify stores do well with customer reviews?
All kinds! But there are some Shopify stores that stand out. Because they make requests for reviews a part of regular, ongoing customer service interactions.
Whether someone is immediately after purchase or months down the line, these stores are getting reviews. If you’re asking for feedback on your Shopify store, chances are you’re already seeing positive results. But if it’s not part of your regular customer service interactions, there’s no time like the present to start. At Instapage we encourage all our customers to ask for reviews following purchase, rather than putting it off until they feel it’s warranted.
