The Best Marketing Plan for an eCommerce Startup Ever!

The beginning of any successful eCommerce startup is its starting point. After spending time creating a business plan, a product to sell, and even a target audience, the next question becomes how to market it. It is possible to have a best-selling product, but unless your audience is aware of that product, your eCommerce startup can be a bust.

Numerous marketing strategies aid eCommerce promotion but is that strategy the right fit for your business? eCommerce is evolving and becoming increasingly competitive, which is why eCommerce startups need to be paired with the right tools.

What is eCommerce Marketing?

A brand without awareness defeats the purpose of that brand. eCommerce marketing simply brings the product of your eCommerce startup to your audience. It is the process of pushing and converting site traffic to sales and ultimately increasing brand awareness.

In business, different brands utilize different marketing strategies. For example, the way one would promote its services is not the same way the others would. The same scenario applies to your eCommerce startup.

Because an eCommerce marketing strategy works for brand A, it does not mean it would yield the same results for you. The marketing strategy depends on your niche, the type of product you carry, the form of advertising your target audience is interested in, and in particular situations, the regulations governing marketing.

One of the benefits of the eCommerce business model is that it makes room to reach a wider audience than traditional stores. With more people shopping online, the eCommerce industry is growing fast. A strategically and expertly executed eCommerce marketing plan will ultimately actualize the following goals:

• An increase in website traffic
• An increase in the conversion of leads to sales or call-to-action (CTA)
• An increase in the average number of executed orders

Types of Marketing Strategies for Starting an eCommerce Store

A simple Internet search of a marketing strategy for an eCommerce startup will result in thousands of articles insisting that a marketing strategy can be one size fits all. The truth is that such a strategy does not exist. The best you can do is be aware of the types of marketing strategies and decide which to include in the business plan for your eCommerce startup. The following are common marketing strategies that eCommerce startups use.

1. Email Marketing Strategies

If you are looking for a direct hotline for your audience, then an email marketing strategy is ideal. Email serves as a channel to introduce brands, promote new products, and also inform them of sales and discounts. The goal of using email is to address your audience directly and eventually turn leads and increase sales.

• Content Marketing Strategies

The focus of this marketing strategy is to create relevant, creative, and entertaining content that will increase customer engagement rates. eCommerce startups that use content marketing strategies do so to build a loyal customer base.

• Social Media Marketing Strategies

Social media marketing for eCommerce combines well with content marketing but can also operate alone. Social media opened up businesses to an unlimited audience, and thus using this strategy increases awareness. This strategy stands increasing the engagement rate of the business and ultimately convert likes and comments to sales.

• Search Engine Marketing Strategies (SEM)

This marketing strategy purely advertises your brand on search engines. The chance of your business appearing randomly at the top of a search engine result is low, but with SEM, the odds are higher. Most SEM advertising for exposure is calculated based on the number of clicks your ad receives (pay-per-click).

• Search Engine Optimization Strategies (SEO)

SEO strategies optimize the web content of your business using keywords that relate to what a user searches for as a foundation. Unlike SEM, SEO is purely organic.

• Influencer Marketing Strategies

As social media evolved, influencer marketing was created. Influencers are authority figures with a large and often loyal social media following. These figures can promote your eCommerce startup to an audience that will ultimately purchase products based on the support of the influencer they love.

7. Affiliate Marketing Strategies

This approach involves linking an eCommerce startup that has products to sell with a marketer who promotes the product (however they choose). This strategy is an inexpensive marketing strategy, and affiliates only get paid when their promotion directly results in a sale or turns a lead.

How to Choose the Best Marketing Plan?

Every eCommerce marketing strategy may not work for just any business. For an eCommerce startup searching for the ideal marketing strategy, the most crucial step is research. Experts often encourage eCommerce startups to research their customers to better understand them and their online behavior. The question then becomes finding how to accurately predict components of consumer behavior like personalization, user experience, and other result-oriented strategies that work for you.

1. Personalization Strategies

These strategies involve creating a personal experience for customers/visitors on your eCommerce website. The content, product recommendations, and offers are often tailored to the browsing and purchase history alongside the personal data of that individual.

• User Experience Strategies

The user experience is the overall experience a user has after interacting with your website. It includes the emotions and ease of movement they felt/ experienced while on the site. How easy it is to carry out the desired action often determines whether a user would pay a return visit to the website.

• Result-Oriented Strategies

Choosing a result-oriented strategy means that the marketing strategy of your eCommerce startup is tied to a particular goal. An eCommerce business can have different goals they are set on achieving. These can increase awareness, email lists, content engagement rates, increase sales, etc. A strategy is then selected based on the pre-established result the brand aims to achieve.

How to Determine the Best Marketing Plan?

Developing an effective marketing plan has to come along in the beginning stages and not as an afterthought. And the best plan is one that brings all elements of the eCommerce brand together to work in unison. Here are some of the top considerations eCommerce brands need to make when drawing up a marketing plan.

1. Determine Goals and Objectives

Every successful business has definite goals and objectives. Goals and objectives stand as essential evaluators in determining the success of a business. When determining the goals and objectives of your eCommerce startup, they should be measurable, specific, and have a time frame of accomplishment.

• Determine Target Customers, Personas, And Markets

This process involves deciding who your target audience is in terms of sex, location, family size, shopping behavior, and many more. This description should ultimately create and perfect a mirror image of people who would want, use, and purchase your product.

• Determine the Brand Position

A brand position refers to how different a particular brand is from its competitors. It also refers to its order of importance or relevance in the mind of its customers.

Conclusion

eCommerce is a fast-growing retail market that is increasingly becoming as competitive as it is lucrative. The key to succeeding in this field is being visible and known to your audience. Fulfilling these ideals is what a successful marketing strategy does. Although there is no one-size-fits-all marketing strategy for success, the above tips guarantee that you find the right one for your business.

For eCommerce startups searching for the most suitable way to execute their marketing strategy, AllValue is the perfect tool to do so.

AllValue is a SaaS tool that caters to all eCommerce businesses irrespective of size or location, and our features include:

• Lightning speed creation of websites tailored for your business.
• Ability to create the perfect mobile shopping experience platform
• Utilizing the power and presence of social commerce to increase brand traffic and awareness.
• Integrated marketing strategies that combine suitable marketing strategies for each platform to provide the best results.

AllValue is much more than a tool but rather an extension of your business! For more information, visit www.allvalue.com!