People now are running their own eCommerce business like never before. In 2018, the number of marketplace sellers reached over 5 million on Amazon, 1 million of which being new sellers that year.

Today, everyone wants to start an online store. There are many success stories out there when it comes to eCommerce businesses, be it on Amazon or somewhere else online, with several true case studies of 6-figure businesses being established within short spans of time.

You may want to sell your online shop or are interested in what your eCommerce store could be worth since eCommerce is soon on the verge of becoming a trillion dollar business in the US alone. In fact, it is expected to reach over $3.4 trillion in sales worldwide in 2019. It’s so popular and mainstream that many buyers and investors are now interested in buying these businesses, regardless of their size.

That said, for every success story, there are hundreds of eCommerce businesses that crash and burn – often within the 6-12 months of operation. One of the main differences that set the success apart from failures is strong marketing strategies.

Below are the top seven eCommerce marketing strategies you can use to grow your business online and be one of those success stories.

1. Email Marketing

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that email marketing is an effective marketing strategy for any type of business, especially eCommerce. After all, as an online vendor, your audience is poised and ready to follow through the sale whenever they receive your email.

If you keep a database of previous clients and use it to reach out with engaging content that converts them to instant sales, it will help to grow your business exponentially.

For Amazon sellers, it’s crucial to note that Amazon owns the consumer email lists, which is essential for marketing to old customers and encouraging repeat business, along with building your consumer base.

2. Content Strategy

A content strategy can be an extremely effective tool for increasing your online sales. After all, by leading the pack in content and proving that you are able to speak professionally and competently to your audience.

Any content strategy that you engineer for your brand will need to be focused on showing how you can generate unique value through your goods and services. It will also need to be consistent. After all, how will anyone trust your brand if you cannot even commit to publishing your content consistently. There are a lot of different tools that can help with this, such as the one here. Tools like it can help you stay organized and on track as you go about marketing your business.

3. Competitor Analysis

From product development to marketing strategies and keyword research, competitor analysis is critical in many parts of the business and marketing cycle.

Detailed competitor analysis allows you to see what’s working for your competition and what isn’t, enabling you to reverse engineer the most effective aspects to apply to your own strategy while avoiding the pitfalls.

Competitor analysis is especially effective when used for deep keyword research and other top-notch SEO strategies. There are tools like Ahrefs that let you check the top performers in the business and see which keywords they’re using, so you know which keywords should work for your niche. Other similar tools like Ahrefs can show you the backlink profile of your competitors’ sites, helping with your link building strategies.

4. Incentives

Incentives are one of the best ways to build an email list. A large, engaged email list is crucial to successful email marketing. You can, of course, encourage your audience to sign up to your email list in other ways like generating interest in your upcoming product launch or distributing useful content.

However, offering incentives to sign-ups actually increases their motivation to do so. Some common incentives include giveaways (e.g., discounts, free products, samples, etc.) and contests (e.g., to win free items from you or a 3rd party product or service).

To take this step even further, you can offer sign-ups an incentive in order to get others to sign-up. For instance, once a new user signs up for your list, they’re directed to a thank you page where they will find a unique link that can be used to get others to sign up.

They’ll receive a prize in return for a certain number of sign-ups. This type of approach can significantly grow your mailing list as more people will be sharing the link within their networks.

5. Product Listing Optimization

Creating an excellent product listing means higher conversion rates on your products, as well as more sales, and better word-of-mouth marketing.

Product listing optimization involves a number of factors, most notably the listing copy, product title, and images. Listing copy needs to be relevant, engaging, and integrate sales tactics to convince users to buy your products.

It’s also necessary to include as many details as you can about the products to encourage users to purchase them. Make sure to add dimensions, secondary functions, materials, bonus features, and accessories.

That said, before your site visitors even read your perfectly written bullet points and description, you must convince them to click on your listing and hang around for more than 2-3 seconds. This is where the product title and images show up. Both of these are extremely critical for conversions as the majority of prospects avoid reading through the entire listing before deciding whether or not to purchase.

Ensure that your title is perfect and engaging. It needs to be “clickable” and should contain as many keywords as possible, while at the same time explaining the benefits and features of the product.

Keep in mind that your images should be engaging too. They should contain value-added elements in order to demonstrate the features and benefits of the product and be mobile-friendly.

6. Amazon Ranking Strategies

For eCommerce businesses that operate through Amazon, there are certain techniques for ranking on the search results of Amazon. An actionable Amazon marketing strategy will include the majority of the strategies explained in this post, as well as those specific for improving Amazing rankings.

As an Amazon eCommerce business, ranking your product at the top of Amazon’s search results is the best thing you can do to boost traffic to your listing, and thereby improving sales.

Amazon rankings are based on a unique algorithm, similar to the one that Google uses to rank its results. Unlike Google though, Amazon’s A9 algorithm is based on one specific thing: sales.

Amazon is highly interested in promoting products that are likely to make money for them. Hence they rank only those with an effective sales and conversion record.

Driving sales is clearly the best thing you can do to boost your Amazon rankings. This strategy, in a way, ties back into several other eCommerce marketing strategies. By generating organic traffic and boosting sales through marketing tactics, you’ll enhance your rankings on Amazon, and thereby driving more sales.

7. Split Testing

Also known as A/B testing, split testing is one of the most underrated marketing strategies. It can be highly effective in developing products that are more likely to sell and help you refine your marketing strategies.

A/B testing is the practice where you present two nearly identical items that have one key difference. Once enough time has passed, you can examine the data to identify which item achieved your goal most successfully.

Let’s say you already have a dedicated domain name that your website lives on. Now, you need to find a new domain name that you’ll be testing as a potential alternative. This way, you can identify how much traffic the new domain sends to your existing website, which will then decide if it’s a solid replacement to your old one.

Similarly, split-testing means testing several different variations of a product or a marketing campaign by exposing each of the variants to specific segments of your audience.

For instance, you could promote several versions of your eCommerce product listing to various segments of your email list, and test which one performs the best.

8. Create an Amazon Promo

If you’re selling on Amazon, consider creating a promotion via the platform.

There are several options to do this, all of which you’ll find in the Amazon fulfillment center right under “Advertising” and then “Promotions.” These are especially great for boosting visibility and helping your products rank in the critical first seven days of your listing.

Amazon promos give you the option to choose between various percentage off options. The higher the discount, the more sales you’ll generate. However, it’s typically not recommended to go over a 50% discount unless part of a unique strategy.

Wrapping Up

Whether building an eCommerce business on Amazon or elsewhere, putting effective marketing strategies into practice is essential to not only having your online business thrive but survive.

Add a combination of on-platform and off-platform online marketing strategies to drive more people to your listings, boost conversion rates, and eventually grow your profits.