5 Goal-Crushing eCommerce Marketing Essentials for 2021

Over the past few years, marketing focus has significantly shifted from offline strategies to online strategies. Marketing has also become more accessible, making it imperative for every business to implement the latest strategies to remain relevant in a competitive industry. 

One such industry that’s found it crucial to keep up is eCommerce. By the year 2040, approximately 95% of all purchases are expected to be executed through eCommerce, making it increasingly crucial for eCommerce businesses to explore what tactics are working that result in higher traffic and greater sales.

Let’s take a look at how you can crush your eCommerce marketing goals in 2021:

Capitalize on Customer Loyalty

One of the most important things eCommerce stores need to focus on is ensuring their initial customers make repeat purchases. Research suggests that loyal customers spend 67% more with a brand than new ones. 

This is why building customer loyalty is a critical strategy your business should prioritize. There are multiple ways you can do that. For starters, you can utilize loyalty software that can help you create a loyalty program that encourages people to sign up and keep returning to your brand to avail benefits, such as free gifts and discounts.

Other strategies, including prioritizing customer service to help solve their needs, offering product recommendations and personalized content, and rewarding loyal customers with exclusive sneak peeks into your business, can all skyrocket your customer loyalty.

Instagram Is As Relevant As Ever

Recently, Instagram has soared to become one of the most popular social media sites making it crucial for your eCommerce store to take advantage of it. Due to its visual nature, it’s an ideal platform for eCommerce marketing where brands can use it in the discovery phase of their sales funnel. In fact, today, 71% of US businesses use the app to promote their brands and create awareness around their products and services.

A brand can up its marketing game on Instagram in multiple ways. Firstly, you need to know your target audience inside out and figure out their browsing habits. Once you know the best time to post on Instagram, you should schedule Instagram posts so you can actively plan your feed’s look in advance and create stories and content that fit your aesthetic.

Apart from this, you can also market your eCommerce business by finding Instagram influencers relevant to your brand and collaborating with them with sponsored content. These individuals have an excellent online presence that can help you grow brand loyalty and gain access to new markets.

Go Beyond Basic SEO Tactics

SEO goes hand-in-hand with digital marketing today, and every eCommerce business needs to stay consistent with its SEO game. Keyword research only touches the basics of SEO, and you’ll only get so far with basic strategies. 

To take your eCommerce SEO strategy to the next level, you firstly need to perform an SEO audit on your website to determine where you currently stand and which pages need to do better at attracting traffic and converting target customers. 

You should consider using SEO plugins and tools that can help you optimize your website for search engines and allow you to rank higher in search results and grow your eCommerce business. You should also:

• Include long-tail keywords that can help you target your SEO efforts
• Use schema makeup, which allows you to provide Google with more information about a page
• Analyze current backlinks since building the right ones can reduce the amount you spend on PPC marketing

Harness the Power of User-Generated Content (UGC)

One of the latest digital marketing strategies that have changed the industry is user-generated content. UGC is increasingly becoming many brands’ go-to weapon of choice to connect with their target audiences and prompt them to take action. Consumers value authenticity when deciding which brands they like and want to support.

UGC can help in multiple ways, including creating social proof and encouraging your target audience to purchase from you when they see how other customers are using and benefiting from your product. Additionally, it helps boost brand awareness, and purchase intent and overall helps with customer acquisition. 

There are many ways you can implement a UGC campaign for your eCommerce marketing strategy. Aerie, for instance, encouraged it and posted unedited photos of its users. For every photo posted with #AerieReal, it donates $1 to the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA).

Try Out Lifecycle Email Marketing

While email marketing has been around for some time now, it goes deeper than creating aesthetic emails and writing catchy headlines. You need to lay down a robust marketing foundation that’ll encourage your target audience to take action.

Look at your emails from a larger perspective and consider lifecycle email marketing. It’s an incredible opportunity for you to fulfill any marketing goal, whether that’s selling more products, drawing in old customers, or boosting engagement. Lifecycle emails can help your customers at every stage and create a consistent and holistic user experience that allows you to create value.

Explore lifecycle email types, such as cart abandonment, welcome, new product, birthday, and cross-selling emails. You should also have relevant key performance indicators (KPIs) in place that can help you measure the impact on your conversions and customer lifetime value. It serves as an excellent addition to your marketing arsenal and will prove valuable.

Final Thoughts

The strategies listed above will help you jumpstart your marketing game this year. By complimenting them with other techniques and tracking your performance, you’ll fuel results in no time.

A successful eCommerce strategy will take time to show progress and results. What should remain consistent, though, is your ability to prioritize your customers. By focusing on your customers’ needs and understanding what they’ll respond to, you’ll be able to build an eCommerce marketing strategy that’s bound to boost your business in 2021.