Must-Haves of Every Ecommerce Digital Marketing Campaign

The e-commerce industry has become a very important part of our lives today. Most of us have been using some or other e-commerce platform to make purchases and get them delivered to our doorsteps.

E-commerce platforms take convenience to the next level while giving customers plenty of options.

In this post, we will not talk about the usual stuff related to e-commerce and its functioning, etc. Instead will discuss digital marketing. That's right. We will discuss how to curate the right digital marketing campaign for e-commerce businesses. 

Just as every industry is investing in digital marketing, looking at its benefits in this era of digitalization, e-commerce industries have also been investing heavily in it. The digital marketing market is flourishing as e-commerce businesses around the world continue investing in reliable digital marketing agencies.

Before discussing some essential digital marketing practices for e-commerce businesses, let's briefly look at digital marketing and its various components.

A Brief Overview of Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is essential for any business, no matter what industry it represents. Without a reliable digital marketing strategy, it becomes challenging for a company to attract leads. Digital marketing has various components that together constitute the entire marketing campaign, and all of these processes need to be done right for the best results. 

Digital marketing includes advertising the business through digital channels such as social media, video streaming services, emails, etc. 

A digital marketing campaign comprises many elements: content marketing, email marketing, SEO, social media marketing, affiliate marketing, branding, and more. A rightly curated digital marketing campaign focuses on all of the mentioned elements as all of them together decide the future of the campaign.

Suggested Reading: What digital marketing services does your business need to be successful online?

E-commerce Marketing 

Digital marketing for e-commerce businesses is as important as for any other industry. Today there are numerous e-commerce platforms/businesses for shoppers to shop from. In such a level of competition, you must have a rightly curated digital marketing strategy to ensure your business stands out and attracts customers. 

Essentials of Every Ecommerce Marketing Campaign 

There are several factors on which e-commerce marketing campaigns highly depend. Let's discuss some essential elements every e-commerce marketing campaign must have for the best results. 

#1 Loyalty Programs 

Loyalty programs are run by almost every business today to boost customer retention and encourage them to buy more. This program generally involves giving customers rewards, cashback points, and other things to make shopping more enjoyable and pocket-friendly. 

Loyalty programs have proven to be very effective, especially for e-commerce businesses. Customer loyalty management has a separate global market valued at 5.5 billion USD in 2022 and is anticipated to reach 24 billion USD by the end of 2028. 

According to Statista, an average US customer participates in almost 14 loyalty programs of different brands, although they are only actively invested in half of them. The reason is that it takes too long for them to get rewards. 

Hence it's crucial for digital marketers working for e-commerce businesses to have a loyalty program in place and a proper customer loyalty management system that helps customers get their rewards and loyalty points in time. This further strengthens the trust in the business and hence leads to better customer retention.

#2 Personalized Shopping Experience

An e-commerce business flourishes only when its customers are satisfied and happy with their purchases using the business's e-commerce platform. One way that guarantees better customer satisfaction and experience is personalization. 

Sending personalized offers based on the search pattern and shopping carts of customers via email and push notifications has proven to be very effective in luring customers to make purchases. 

Based on a report, around 80% of business leaders believe that a personalized shopping experience makes customers spend 34% more on average. This is a sound indicator for marketers to spend more time and budget providing customers with a personalized shopping experience. 

#3 SEO-Optimized Content 

SEO, aka Search Engine Optimization, is one of the crucial parameters on which the positioning of your e-commerce website on the SERP engine highly depends. Similar to blogs and services pages, for an e-commerce business website, it's essential to appear on the front page and have a better position in the SERP results. 

Let us assume that you are an online wholesaler. Whenever a search is done for wholesalers, a typical buyer tends to go with the pages that appear at the top of the search results. And if your page can't make it on the front pages of the search results, there is a higher chance that it'll get unnoticed, thus reducing your business visibility. 

Hence it is essential to prioritize SEO and work towards creating SEO-optimized content on your website. The infographic attached below suggests practices you must follow for creating SEO-optimized content. 

E-commerce businesses looking forward to hiring SEO specialists must look at Goodtal's list of some of the most trusted SEO companies worldwide.

#4 A Responsive Design 

A responsive design is fundamental, be it for your e-commerce business or a blog. Usually, to provide the best shopping experience to the customers, e-commerce businesses tend to build both websites and mobile apps as their e-commerce platform. 

Regarding e-commerce platforms, responsivity is very important so that no matter if the user uses the website or the app, it must appear and function the same. A bad user experience in e-commerce platforms can be fatal for the business's future. 

In some cases where an e-commerce business operates only as a website, non-responsive web designs cannot be mobile-friendly. This leads to different website views on PC and mobile, and as it has been seen, the UI and UX of such a platform function the worst on mobile. 

Hence if e-commerce businesses want to ensure that their platform is mobile-friendly, thus allowing smartphone users to shop effortlessly, it is essential to have a responsive e-commerce website. 

Suggested Reading: How Can Web Design Make or Break Your Digital Marketing Campaign?

#5 Social Buy Buttons

Adding a social button has proven an important e-commerce marketing tool for businesses. Many times shoppers want to share the things they are about to buy or are willing to buy with their friends and family, often to get their approval or as a suggestion. 

Even I have a habit of sharing items I am willing to buy using social buttons, especially WhatsApp and Instagram, with my family members and sometimes with friends. As a frequent e-commerce shopper, I have made purchases following product recommendations via social buttons by my friends and family. 

Hence, the social share button is one tool that makes shopping and sharing recommendations significantly easier for buyers; therefore, including them in e-commerce platforms is advisable. 

#6 Referral Marketing

Referral marketing somehow relates to the social share button concept we discussed above. As the name suggests, referral refers to referring any service, product, or platform to others who can be friends, family, or colleagues. Referral marketing can also be referred to as word-of-mouth marketing. 

It's a fact that people tend to believe what their friends or families suggest more than any influencer's words. Hence if following a good shopping experience, the customer prefers the platforms to others, there is a good chance that others will follow their lead and visit your platform.

In a survey conducted by Nielsen, it was found that amongst the surveyed customers, approximately 92% said that they believe their friends and family over other advertising methods. 

Usually, people, even with excellent shopping experiences, prefer to refrain from sharing their experiences and platforms with others. For these types of customers, businesses can offer rewards for every person who joins through that particular customer's reference id. These initiatives improve customer interaction with your platform, leading them to participate in referrals. 

Wrapping Up

Digital marketing is an essential practice for e-commerce businesses that helps them improve their online presence and market visibility. With the rise in the number of online e-commerce platforms, the competition for the new ones has become quite challenging. 

In this post, we discussed e-commerce marketing and some factors that significantly affect its quality and success. We discussed six factors that must be handled diligently in every marketing campaign to generate higher leads, boost customer retention, and improve customer experience. These factors can either make or break your marketing campaign; hence it is crucial to handle them carefully.