Last year, consumers spent over $600B with U.S. online merchants, up 14.9% from the previous year according to the US Department of Commerce. With the current economic climate and COVID-19 fallout, eCommerce is growing faster than ever. Online retailers are thriving as people in lockdown are shopping for almost everything online.
In an interview for Adweek, Geoff Tanner, Smucker’s Chief Marketing and Commercial Officer commented that the company is seeing its online sales increase by 66% in the last three months. To maintain momentum, Smucker plans to continue building a strong eCommerce strategy. “When the crisis hit, the two opportunities that really emerged for our business were the return to mainstream brands and the growth of online,” says Tanner.
We are currently seeing some of the biggest CPG names go directly to consumers by investing in their brands online, advertising on platforms where people shop, optimizing content, and search engine results.
Consequently, this is a great time to rethink your eCommerce marketing strategy and reevaluate your web experiences. If designed well, your website can become your ultimate sales tool, open to the world 24/7 while driving real business growth and new customer revenues.
To analyze your website, start by examining your business model. It’s imperative to evaluate your key goals, strengths, challenges, and target audiences. Be precise and put together in-depth information about your market positioning.
Your site must have:
- Clear company and brand messaging
- Targeted user segmentation
- Intuitive user experience
- Social integration
- Responsive/mobile design
- Fast and scalable platform or technology stack
As always, a great eCommerce site starts by adding value and creating interest. With the rise of social media, brands are becoming increasingly conversational, presenting themselves with authentic videos, visuals, and animations.
Content is more than just selling your products or stating your mission. It’s presenting the brand in a way that speaks to your core audience. For example, if you’re selling home improvement services, you want to create visuals and stories that speak to homeowners. It’s about adding value by including different perspectives through a variety of useful formats:
- How-to advice
- Editorials
- Practical information
- Tips and tricks
- Videos
- Inspirational visuals
The content you publish helps build your brand name and reputation. It’s through your content that you can create a sense of trust and loyalty between your company and your customers. The richer the emotional content, the more likely a one-time consumer will become a loyal customer.
The ways in which consumers interact with brands has fundamentally changed.
Your fans love storytelling, and they expect to be entertained. This new generation of consumers is looking for engagement, performance, and a creative narrative.
After you’ve created your content, you’ll need to optimize it. Search engine optimization is essential for your customers to find you. The better your content optimization, the higher your website will rank in the search results.
Optimization starts with your keywords but more recently, also assess what commonly spoken questions are being asked to find your products. What are the keywords and questions that best explain your business?
A great place to start your optimization is by evaluating your competition. What content do they target and how high do they rank in SERPs? You can do a quick analysis yourself using a tool like this: Keyword Gap.
A successful eCommerce strategy is about putting your clients first. To do so, you need to know your target customers intimately and understand their wants and needs. It’s also important to be aware of online user behavior and build your website such that your calls-to-actions follow particular user paths. Knowing what your customers want and finding captivating ways to deliver your unique selling propositions is key to every successful eCommerce site.
Designing a stellar website, creating fantastic content, and optimizing your business with SEO are only the top layers of your eCommerce strategy. The next step of a successful eCommerce business is advertising.
Advertising is another major component of online retail and can include multiple strategies, from PPC to social advertising.
If you’re not sure how to set your online marketing in motion, we recommend asking for advice from your digital agency.
Our team would be happy to help you create and deploy your eCommerce marketing strategy and advertising campaigns. To reach us, just say hello@edesigninteractive.com. We’d love to learn more about your business and your growth plans.