Ecommerce Hints for Better Marketing

If you are struggling to understand the best ways to promote your eCommerce site, you aren’t alone. Marketing your online business can be complicated and involve a lot of different avenues and audiences. It can also be time-consuming and require a good amount of self-education to do it effectively. 

ROAS eCommerce language stands for “return on ad spend”. This is an important marker for evaluating if your marketing strategy is working. If you are experiencing a low ROAS, it could be the result of many different factors, like expensive ad campaigns or marketing to the wrong audience. Here are some things to focus on when trying to increase the ROAS of your business.

Use Effective Call-to-Action Phrases

Every ad and piece of writing should end with a call to action. The call to action is the phrase you use to incite a specific response, tell your readers what you want them to do, and inspire action. One of the best things about a call to action is that you can include it in informative or value-add posts and updates. While you don’t want to advertise more often than you inform, you can use a call to action in both types of posts. 

If you are writing a helpful blog post, filming a tutorial, or updating your business’s social media, you can always add a call-to-action phrase near the end to support a current goal or campaign. This shouldn’t always be focused on making a sale, though. In value-add posts that are designed to inform the reader, effective calls to action might be focused on building email lists and increasing followers on social media, rather than getting sales.

Offer Value to Your Followers

One way to ensure that you don’t attract a lot of followers or a large audience is by focusing on advertising alone. If you don’t want to turn away prospective clients then make sure that most of your posts are giving value to the reader. This means your posts and updates need to be informative, entertaining, humorous, or educational. If you aren’t sure how to do this, create a posting strategy that outlines the posts you want to write and when you will write them.

Perhaps plan a marketing and posting campaign that works together and shares a common theme. Or consider creating a series of informative tutorials on how to use your products effectively. If you are still unsure about what topics to write on, consider hiring a marketing or content manager that can help you develop a marketing strategy. You can also hire someone to write the content itself if you feel that you are better served by focusing on other areas of your business. 

Utilize Social Media for Free Advertising

If you aren’t using your social media following for free advertising, then why do you even have those accounts? In order to use your social media pages in this way, you have to remember some guidelines. First, don’t drive your followers away with too many ads. Remember to preserve that healthy ratio of value-add content to advertisements. However, many business owners go too far. They are afraid of annoying their followers, so they don’t use their accounts effectively. If you are having a sale, promotion, or bringing out a new product, tell your followers! Don’t be afraid to remind them about it several times, too. Sales and promotions are value-add opportunities for customers who want to save money. 

In addition to using your social media for direct advertising, you can also use it as indirect advertising by helping to develop your brand recognition and keep your products at the forefront of people’s minds. That is how your value-add posts can still be considered advertising. 

In order to do any of this effectively, you have to have followers. Building your social media audience is an important way to increase your reach and impact. Encourage people to follow your social media accounts in your calls to action to help increase your audience. Once you have those followers, treat them well. 

Build an Email List

Build an email list of dedicated or interested customers. There are a few ways to do this. One of the best is by having people add their email to your list as a way to get a free product, sale coupon, or another incentive. This is called gated content. If you use this method, make sure that you follow applicable laws and that the content you are offering is valuable and a true incentive. As you build your email list, continue to send emails that are informative and add value to this audience. Don’t forget to advertise to them, especially to promote sales or other opportunities, and keep the ratio of content to advertisements healthy.

Start a Video Channel

By starting a video channel, you give yourself one more way to reach potential customers. There are people who prefer to read articles, those who prefer to stay in contact over social media, and those who would rather watch informative videos. You can increase your potential audience by utilizing several different platforms to reach people. Don’t miss out on the growing number of people who get their information via video platforms. Whether you focus on short or long-form videos can depend on your style, your product, and your audience, but you should have some form of video content. As an added bonus, you can share that content on your social media platforms and on your website, potentially increasing your followers on several avenues at once.

Hire a Marketing Manager

If all of this seems overwhelming or time-consuming, consider hiring a marketing manager who can handle the social media, website, and advertisement end of your business. The money you spend on a good, qualified marketing or social media manager will be repaid in increased sales and a larger audience. Plus, you will be able to keep doing whatever business tasks you are best at, thereby increasing the value of your time in your business and simplifying your life.

Conclusion

Don’t neglect the marketing aspect of your business or your sales and revenue will suffer. The more competitive your business, the more you need to focus on marketing. If you don’t feel competent to handle this important side of your business, find someone who is. Marketing and building a social media presence can be your business’s vital lifeline to connect it to the world.