Why is it important to promote your online business?
For many people, this goes without saying but for new eCommerce businessmen (or businesswomen) it is important to understand that creating a great e-commerce website is only part of the equation.
The other part is promoting your store for the purpose of increasing sales.
A shop or website alone is not enough to make sales.
You need to create a plan on how to use different digital marketing techniques like SEO, Social media marketing, content marketing, PPC to reach out to your potential customers.
Once you do that, the next step is to convince them that your products and services can satisfy their needs and that they can trust your website to make a purchase.
This is more difficult than it sounds. You will have to do a lot of work to bypass competition and earn your share in the eCommerce world.
How to promote your online store
The first step after creating your store is to promote it and below you can read 10 great ways on how to do that.
- Run a Facebook Campaign
- Use Google Ads
- Use Bing ads
- Start a blog
- Start a newsletter and email marketing
- Create an app for the android and apple app stores
- Create a Chrome app
- Do guest posting on other websites
- Don’t stop on-going SEO
- Go Social
#1 Run a Facebook Campaign
I have this first in my list for 4 reasons:
- First, it is easy to use
- Second, it is efficient and cost-effective
- Third, you can promote your message (sales ad) to the right people using targeting
- Fourth, it works!
So, if you want to get some traffic and even make sales, consider running Facebook ads with the objective of making ‘website conversions’.
#2 Use Google Ads
Second, in my list for eCommerce success is Google Ads.
With Google Ads, you can place your ad in Google search results or in thousands of websites that run Google Adsense.
The campaigns can be highly targeted since they are based on the keywords people use in the Google search box and you only get to paid for clicks on your ads (PPC) which makes them cost-effective as well.
Everything is measured so in a matter of weeks you can decide if Google Ads is a tool that can get you more sales at a profitable margin.
#3 Use Bing ads
Bing Ads are the same as Google Ads, but this is offered by Bing and the ads will appear in Bing and Yahoo websites and other websites that participate in their program.
It is not as effective as Google Ads but still it worth’s a test.
#4 Start a blog
While the 3 methods outlined above are paid, starting a blog for your online store is free.
The purpose of having a blog will be to get more organic traffic from search engines and also more leads from social media.
It takes a lot of effort and hard work to achieve that (will cover this with more details in another post) but the benefits are a lot.
Not only you get a constant flow of targeted organic traffic (for free) but it’s also a nice way to establish your business on the web as a leader in your niche.
#5 Start a newsletter and email marketing
When you run PPC campaigns (either Facebook, Bing, or Adwords) one of your objectives (besides making a sale) is to get the email address of your potential customers.
A high-quality blog with interesting content is one of the best ways to do that but also a nicely designed landing page can serve this purpose for people coming to your site from PPC.
Once you create an email list you can use it as part of your email marketing efforts to either send a newsletter or other content (offers, surveys) to your subscribers. Email lists still convert and you will be surprised by the results.
#6 Create an app for the android and apple app stores
Mobile marketing is on the rise and something you just cannot neglect. Having a mobile-friendly website is a must but it’s also important to have a presence in the Android and Apple Markets.
This does not mean that your app should sell products (that would be the ideal solution but it will cost a lot of money to implement), instead, you should provide tips and advice (from the blog) so as to keep reminding people that you exist so that they will remember you when they are ready to make a purchase.
If done correctly mobile apps are a great way to raise brand awareness.
#7 Create a Chrome app
The Chrome browser is the most popular browser and the Chrome operating system (run on Chromebooks) is steadily gaining market share.
You can take advantage of that by creating an app to add your website to the chrome store. The cost is low and it can generate a constant flow of traffic from Chrome users.
#8 Do guest posting on other websites
Besides updating your eCommerce blog, another way to get additional traffic and also strengthen your rankings in Google is to do guest posting on high-quality websites.
The posts should not be promotional or only about your products and services because it will be very difficult to get your posts published.
What you can do instead is make them more interesting by writing posts that compare similar products or offer detailed reviews.
This can be an indirect way to get customer attention without being too pushy.
#9 Don’t stop on-going SEO
Having an SEO friendly website is necessary if you want good rankings in the SERPS.
SEO is a fast-changing industry and the competition for one of the first positions is huge so you need to keep your SEO fresh and on-going.
Hiring a good SEO company will ensure that your website adjusts to the latest SEO rules so your rankings keep improving without losing any customers to the competition.
#10 Go Social
Besides Facebook, there are other social networks that are great for promoting online stores. The most important that worth a try are: Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
In order to succeed though you need to have a plan and specific goals and not just use them because you read somewhere that they can help you increase sales.
Conclusion
The 10 ways outlined above are only a part of what you can do to promote an online store. Although I did not cover each of them in many details, it can give you a good idea of where to concentrate your efforts.
Have in mind that building an online presence in search engines, creating profitable PPC campaigns, or running successful social media campaigns takes time so you need to be patient before making any concussions.
If you have a functional online store website and good products then with patience you can achieve good results.
