E-commerce is a rapidly growing and increasingly competitive segment of the retail industry. Keeping up in this fast-paced marketing environment requires responsiveness and forward-thinking strategies. As consumer needs and expectations change over time, and new platforms and technologies become available, it’s critical that your e-commerce marketing strategies continue to evolve and adapt as well.
Global retail e-commerce sales are expected to reach $4.8 trillion by 2021 according to a report by Statista. Though this translates to an immense opportunity for brands, new challenges are constantly arising. Digital ad costs are increasing (5x faster than inflation), influencers are charging more while reaching less, and competition is on the rise.⁶ So, how will your brand stand out from the crowd? What e-commerce marketing strategies will you employ to establish and maintain a competitive advantage in 2019 and beyond?
In our e-commerce marketing guide, we focus on the top 5 strategies that your brand can deploy in 2019 to increase consumer engagement, build trust and loyalty, and boost sales and ROI. Our primary focus areas include customer-centric content marketing and SEO, leveraging technology to boost ROI and conversions, social selling and video marketing, Amazon advertising, and mobile.
Customer-Centric Content Reigns & SEO Evolves
Content continues to wear the crown in 2019 as it plays a critical role in every successful e-commerce marketing strategy. If you feel like you’ve been left behind in the heated race to become content creation champion, now’s the time to dive in. Here are a few ways to optimize your strategy or get started from scratch:
Launch your blog or increase blog production
Blogs help to build a loyal, long-term audience, while creating an entertaining experience for your customers. Beyond providing a terrific opportunity to connect with consumers and build trust, posting blogs regularly helps keep your site fresh, which is essential to boosting SEO.
Optimize online content for search engines and consider voice search.
Quality on-page SEO increases rankings and attracts new visitors to your website. Though search engine algorithms are constantly evolving, three factors remain important to rankings: consistency, quality, and relevance.
The first step to good SEO is establishing a keyword strategy. Identify keywords that make sense for your company and products, and remember that in the modern age of voice technology, you must also consider the way that people search when speaking to Alexa and Siri. As Susan Engleson of ComScore stated, “Voice technology is poised to permeate all aspects of our lives—at home, at work, and on the go.” ComScore also predicts that 50% of all searches will be made via voice by 2020.⁸
Once you select your keywords, find a natural way to incorporate them into your blogs, web pages, and other searchable content, paying special attention to titles and headings. However, the days of over-stuffing pages with keywords are over (and punishable by poor rankings). So, ensure that your words flow and that your content continues to be enjoyable for your readers.
It’s also critical to create original content throughout your website—even on product descriptions. Pages that are too similar may be considered duplicates, which would split the SEO value and result in lower rankings for both pages.
Create content that speaks to your buyer personas at all stages of the sales funnel.
In addition to attracting site visitors and building interest in your brand, fresh website content helps to move consumers through the sales funnel. When developing and updating your website, ensure that you have interesting content that speaks to the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel.
Capture lead information with enticing, high-value content offers.
Once your new blogs and web pages attract visitors, it’s critical to capture those leads so you can nurture them through to sale. Identify the types of content that interests your audience and gate it behind a wall that gathers email addresses and other information about your website visitors. Also, consider what format your content offering should take to appeal to your customers. Should forms live on certain pages as CTAs? Should you use lead generation pop-ups? What about exit inquiries? The list goes on.
Leverage Technology to Enhance Customer Experience and Boost ROI
To encourage online sales, it’s important to embrace features that increase buyer confidence and make it quick and easy to find the products they’re looking for—like adding filtering options & improving searchability.
E-commerce brands that can overcome the downsides of purchasing online will surpass competitors. By leveraging technologies like interactive product visualization (IPV) that enable zooming into details and viewing products from 360°, your brand can help consumers eliminate the guesswork involved in shopping online, make informed decisions, and increase conversion rates.
Product demo videos can also support this process by showing how products work. For example, watching a video of a model wearing a particular outfit helps consumers visualize how an outfit might fit, move, and cling to the body during normal use. 52% of consumers say that watching product videos makes them more confident in their online purchasing decision.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is having its moment in 2019. Though it may sound futuristic and intimidating to many brands, AI is the secret weapon to staying competitive in the modern era of marketing. The term “AI” encompasses a wide range of technologies that substantially increase efficiency and provide meaningful and actionable data—which marketers can use to dramatically increase revenue and ROI.
Modern marketing must leverage data to continually improve and meet the ever-changing needs of consumers. AdRoll enables marketers to launch complex campaigns across multiple channels, then leave the platform to do the work for them. The AI tools continually analyze the effectiveness of campaigns across ad types and channels and automatically adjust bids to maximize ROI and optimize for campaign goals. With machines doing much of the manual and complex data analysis, your team is free to pursue other aspects of your marketing strategy.
In 2019, AI will continue to grow and expand in its application, improving everything from the tracking of customer traffic online to inventory management and even automation. E-commerce brands can use AI to see which products appeal to which consumers, analyze how consumers engage with their websites, and determine which types of products are more likely to convert each individual consumer. AI is the key to skyrocketing ROI results and getting the most value out of your marketing budget.
Retargeting
92% of first-time website visitors are not ready to buy and leave without making a purchase. Those opportunities and any related advertising dollars are wasted if these visitors disappear forever. However, retargeting enables e-commerce brands to capture these opportunities and market to them until a sale is made by following visitors across the web on all of their favorite sites—including social media. Visitors are reminded of items they expressed interest in, and receive recommendations of similar items they are likely to enjoy.
If retargeting is not part of your current marketing plan, it should become a primary strategy in 2019, as it runs automatically and requires little effort from your team. However, it carries the immense potential to significantly increase ROI.
Automate your email marketing workflow.
91% of consumers check their email on a daily basis; making email the number one communication channel.³ When done well, email converts more successfully than any other marketing method and results in higher average value per sale. For every $1 spent on email marketing, you can expect an average return of $38.
Though email automation is not a new technology, it is a necessary one. By automating your workflows, you can nurture leads and strengthen customer relationships while you work on other aspects of your marketing strategy. By letting the software work for you, you save time and resources, while getting more for your money.
Social Selling and Video Marketing
We can’t talk about marketing in 2019 without including social media. Social media is quickly taking over as the primary method for communicating with consumers, attracting new audiences, and selling products. The ability to shop directly on Instagram has changed the game for e-commerce and has made Instagram a top-priority platform for brands.
To step up your social media efforts in 2019, consider adding more video content, leveraging user-generated content, and launching influencer campaigns and collaborations with other brands. Partnering with companies that share a similar audience to you to create giveaways and run contests can help to increase page likes and followers through cross-promotion.
Personalized video messages and 360° video can also deepen engagement with your audience. Forbes predicts that live streaming will become even more popular this year, so consider experimenting with live video on Instagram and Facebook. Remember that every audience is different, so continue to experiment, analyze, and revise until you strike the right balance of content type and frequency of posts for your particular audience.
Amazon Advertising
New reports indicate that 68% of American shoppers head directly to Amazon when browsing for products. In addition, 80% of shoppers who plan on purchasing from a different site still visit Amazon first to read reviews and check prices. Amazon’s ability to attract eager shoppers at their first search attempt is why experts are predicting that the future of advertising is at Amazon and the future of Amazon is advertising. In order to increase visibility, your brand may want to include Amazon in its advertising plans.
Mobile
Experts predict that by the end of 2019, the majority of all purchasing may tip toward mobile. In fact, 2016 saw the majority of e-commerce sales made on mobile devices, and eMarketer estimates that 72.9% of online purchases will be made on a mobile device by 2021.⁸ Add to these predictions the fact that shopping through social media platforms like Instagram is quickly becoming the norm, and you can safely say that mobile is a critical focus for e-commerce now and into the future.
As consumer behaviors, social platforms, and technologies continue to evolve, your marketing techniques will need to adapt as well. Though there are many approaches you can take, by focusing on the critical components in this e-commerce marketing guide, you will be well on your way to taking your brand to the top in 2019 with responsive and successful marketing strategies.
