While e-commerce has become a lucrative industry benefiting a great many people, it isn’t an automatic path to success and profit. A lot of strategies come into play when you’re attempting to gain the attention and loyalty of potential customers online. And while a great product or service can sometimes accomplish some of this on its own, or via word of mouth, good marketing is crucial in order to differentiate yourself from thousands of other online sellers.
Because most creatives or small business owners either don’t have experience in marketing or don’t have enough time for it, this aspect of a successful e-commerce operation can be tricky to say the least. So, to help you avoid some of the common difficulties and improve your own initiatives, we’re highlighting seven common e-commerce marketing mistakes your business may be making.
Not Utilizing All Of The Features Of A Social Media App
Social media can be a very useful marketing tool. Despite this, however, many companies may still not be utilizing the various popular platforms to their full potential. For instance, many e-commerce businesses have Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts – but they may not be doing more with them than posting the occasional update. That’s better than nothing, but it causes those businesses to lose out on things like interactive polls on Instagram Stories, or product listings through Facebook Marketplace. These kinds of features can foster significant consumer engagement, and they’re sitting there waiting to be used.
Neglecting To Leverage Social Media Analytics
Again, most modern businesses are at least vaguely aware of the significance of social media, and many maintain accounts on the major platforms. However, in addition to using some of the specific marketing-friendly features noted in the previous point, learning how to observe and leverage social media analytics can drastically improve the benefits you get from using social in the first place. For those who are unfamiliar, Analytics Vidhya explains that social media analytics are essentially sets of quantitative data collected from digital mediums to provide insights on potential clientele. These insights can, in turn, help you to figure out and enact more effective marketing strategies.
Not Using Social Media To Research International Markets
Another common flaw in social media use is that many companies may be unintentionally ignoring a huge customer base by failing to research international markets through the platforms. In order to be successful, e-commerce businesses must make the effort to use social media to better understand and adapt to the global market. The big social media platforms have the almost unique benefit of being global in nature, which can give strategic e-commerce businesses invaluable access to wide-ranging consumer bases. You can use marketing agency software to streamline the management here.
Not Crafting Unique Automated Replies
Not crafting unique automated replies can have a negative impact on how your company’s customer service is viewed. However, in a post on e-commerce trends in 2019, we pointed out that the use of chatbots and automation have become rather trendy as solutions to this problem. While a cheap chatbot or lazily produced automated responses might be irritating, high-end versions of these tools and functions can enable customers to receive informational responses in the timeliest manner. This can be the difference between a sale and a pass.
Neglecting To Update Your Email Lists
Some companies may neglect to update their email lists, due to the simple fact that any site update can seem daunting. These days though, there are ways around some of the complexities involved in site upkeep. Updatable details how tools can be put in place to allow for continual, on-the-go website updates of any kind, without any need to alter code or conduct any sort of cumbersome redesign or maintenance. Services like these are sometimes used to keep SEO content up-to-date with a content marketing calendar, or simplify the addition of new content. But they also show that something vital to marketing, like your email list, can be kept fresh with minimal design requirements or site interruption. Being able to do this means you can keep your email list – possibly one of your best tools for outreach – efficiently up to date. You can do that by regularly verifying email addresses on your list which will help to keep it clean.
Running cold outreach manually
Many businesses decide to implement cold outreach into their marketing strategies. It’s a really good idea, since cold emails still, if written well and personalized properly, deliver great results. However, trying to conduct cold email campaigns manually or using simple automation like connecting Excel files with Word documents and sending emails from an Outlook accounts are not the best of ideas. Use professional lead finder tools for looking up email addresses and cold outreach cold outreach to realize campaigns quickly, efficiently and with the best results possible.
Keeping Marketing Campaigns In-House
It may be tempting for e-commerce companies to keep their marketing in-house. After all, you know your business best, and the more you can do on your own, the less you have to pay for help. However, your company may not even have the resources or expertise necessary to maintain a successful campaign. This is why outsourcing can become a necessity for brand development. More often than not, it is in your best interest to hire experienced professionals that will lead innovative marketing campaigns, at least for certain facets of the effort. It will likely produce better results – and it will allow you to focus on the company itself in the meantime. Don’t be scared of hiring the right digital marketing agency.
