Breaking into the online marketplace can be a difficult challenge. With so many sites and platforms offering advertising options, all with major companies to compete with, boosting your ecommerce sales does not come easy. Fortunately, a little bit of creativity can go a long way. Consider using these five creative content marketing ideas so that your shop will begin to attract visitors, boost sales, and grow in 2021:
1. Personalized Email Marketing (Emphasis on Personal)
Personal email marketing is awesome because it addresses each customer by their name in the email message, but it also ensures that the message they are receiving is relevant. Customers love the feeling of a personal touch and believe that they are getting an exclusive message or deal. When a user sees that their name is being used in a message about a product they recently spotted on Instagram (learn more about remarketing here) they are more likely to read the rest of the email and click on the products in the message that will take them to your ecommerce site.
When it comes to the actual body of the email, you can get as creative as you want with the message. The most effective way to boost sales is by offering deals and discounts in the email so that potential customers feel that they are getting this personal sale message. Adding on to this, if you offer a discount code that is directly linked to the customer’s name (ex: name20), this makes the offer even more personal and will increase visitors to the site.
2. Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is another fantastic way to grow ecommerce sales. Influencer marketing is a type of social media marketing that uses endorsements and product mentions from influencers, or people that have a social media following within their niche. The reason that influencer marketing is so effective is that users trust the influencers that they follow, so when an influencer is mentioning a brand or a product that they love, their followers immediately hop over to check out that brand or product.
Brands have many different options when it comes to working with influencers, but Instagram is currently the most popular. Within Instagram, you can choose to have an influencer post a picture or video or create a set of Instagram stories with your brand or product. Both options can be highly effective for different reasons:
- A post is a permanent image on the influencer’s feed, which means users can click on it and see your brand at any time.
- Instagram stories only last 24 hours, so customers only have that allotted time to see your brand. However, Instagram stories can be very compelling as they are more personal and give followers a better look into the influencer’s life. Again, these stories give viewers a certain level of personal connection with their influencers and a higher level of trust in them and the products they are using and promoting on a day-to-day basis.
Keep in mind that an influencer in your niche won’t necessarily be a huge celebrity. Still, anyone over 25k followers that is specific to your target audience and/or industry (ideally both!) is beneficial.
3. User-Generated Content (UGC)
Another great option to boost your ecommerce sales is to incorporate user-generated content into your website. User-generated content is created by your previous customers that can be seen in the form of videos, images, testimonials, reviews, etc. When making purchase decisions, users want to know how others have felt about the purchase. According to a Nielsen study, 83% of customers trust customer recommendations, and 66% of consumers trust and rely on online product reviews.
If you can incorporate customer reviews onto shopping pages on your site, users will trust your brand and will be more inclined to make a purchase. One simple and effective way to get started with user-generated content is to ask a loyal customer and see if they would be willing to make a testimonial video. Asking them to give a review on their favorite product or why they trust your company will help future customers feel confident in purchasing from your business. You can put this video up on the website and social media channels to maximize reach. Below is a great example from a real estate agent:
4. Shoppable Blog Posts
Blogging is still a great option to increase brand awareness and drive traffic to your website, even for an ecommerce store. By writing about relevant and engaging topics on your company or products, you will improve your SEO, eventually leading to organic rankings, traffic, and finally sales.
To further increase ecommerce sales with blogging, you should make your blog posts shoppable. For example, if you are writing about the most affordable and fashionable sunglasses, you can include photos, videos, and links to your brand within that article. This way, when a user is reading the blog post and becomes interested, they can immediately click the product to shop.
5. Social Media Shopping
Having your products available to purchase on social media stores will undoubtedly boost your ecommerce sales. Instagram is a great platform because it is solely based on visuals, so it allows your business to show customers how great your brand and products are. You can make each product directly shoppable, meaning that if a user likes how your product looks on Instagram, they can immediately click to buy it. It is a great place to sell because 70% of consumers use Instagram to find new brands and products.
By strategically placing ads on Pinterest, your business will be able to reach new potential customers. Pinterest users are 47% more likely to be introduced to new products and businesses than on any other social platform and 98% of Pinterest users report that they have tried new products, businesses, and activities they found on Pinterest. You can either upload your products as a carousel ad or a shopping ad to boost ecommerce sales:
- A carousel ad features multiple images of the same product for a user to get a whole idea of the product they are considering purchasing.
- A shopping ad features a video or image that connects users to purchase the product directly through Pinterest, like the Instagram shop. Both Instagram and Pinterest are incredible platforms that allow you to directly connect with consumers to increase sales.
Finally, don’t forget your shop on Facebook! You can manually add each of your products to your Facebook Shop, which sends folks directly to your website to book:
Overall, boosting ecommerce sales can seem like a slow burn, but creating content that builds trust and loyalty with your audience and making it easily searchable and accessible will boost your online sales. Let us know what’s worked for you in the past and any questions you have in the comments below!
