How to Create Your First Ecommerce Marketing Plan?

Do I Even Need a Marketing Plan?

On average, consumers see 5,000 ads every single day. Without a strategic marketing plan, your advertisements will drown in an overpopulated sea of content. For an eCommerce business, marketing forms one of the most important revenue drivers.

Operating online provides useful analytics, allowing you to make data-backed decisions that provide results. Digital marketing offers fresh perspectives you may not have considered before when it comes to your target audience and ways of reaching them.

Preparing Your Platform

The average user spends 15 seconds on a website, so it’s important to ensure that your website is user-friendly and eye-catching before you even start thinking about an eCommerce marketing plan. At the very least, this should include website optimization through the user-friendly front and back-end design, as well as crafting technical SEO, mobile SEO, and using attractive visual assets. If possible, it’s always a good idea to get professionals to help you with this foundational step.

How Do I Create a Marketing Plan for Ecommerce?

Your marketing plan is the blueprint of how you’re going to implement your marketing strategy. It outlines how your eCommerce business is positioned, who your target audience is, your core values, and how they inform your marketing. Below are a few steps to consider.

Set an Objective for Your eCommerce Business

While the end objective of every marketing plan is to increase sales, you still need to choose a specific goal as this affects data gathering metrics. Each campaign in a marketing plan might have a slightly different objective, which is why it’s important to define goals. For example, selling a particular product or just driving general traffic to your website can be defined as two separate goals and require different approaches.

Determine the Main Customer for Your Ecommerce Goods

Effective eCommerce marketing is backed by data and targets specific audiences, which is why it’s imperative to know who your main customer group is (which can later be broken into smaller segments). You can define your customer by demographic, location, and online behavioral habits, for example.

Basically, you need to have a clear idea of what you are selling and who you are selling it to from a marketing perspective. Once you’ve determined this, you should pick an appropriate customer relationship platform (CRM). This is a software application that helps eCommerce businesses run their daily operations by maximizing their customer communications and sales efforts.

Make a SWOT Analysis of Your Ecommerce Store

A SWOT analysis is a strategic planning technique used to help businesses identify their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It’s designed to push companies to evaluate their current standing and guide them towards exploring new initiatives, revamp internal policies, and highlight strengths and opportunities that can be leveraged to propel them to greater success.

Every eCommerce store needs to know what their unique selling proposition is and how they plan to stand out from their competition. Knowing how to position your eCommerce store is vital to formulating your marketing plan.

Bring Out the Digital Marketing Toolbox

Digital marketing offers a range of tools and techniques to reach your desired audience. You don’t have to use all of them at once and can slowly integrate them into your overall marketing plan. This is why it’s important to know who your main customer is, as their online behavior will influence how you use these tools.

Search Engine Optimization

SEO is the process of improving online visibility by using specific keywords that users search for to rank higher in search engine results.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising

PPC is an internet advertising model used to increase traffic to websites, whereby the advertiser pays every time their advert is clicked on.

Blogging and Content Marketing

This type of digital marketing involves the creation and publication of sharing videos, blogs, and social media content that stimulates interest in a brand’s products or services.

Email Marketing

Email marketing for eCommerce utilizes email to make customers aware of new products, discounts, and other services and is often considered a softer sell.

Social Media Marketing

SMM is the use of social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and TikTok to promote a product or service.

Keep an Eye on the Progress of Your Marketing Plan

It’s important to bear in mind that your digital eCommerce marketing plan should always be monitored and remain flexible as algorithms, trends, and consumer behavior changes. Real-time data makes it easy to adapt tactics and test which marketing strategies work best. Being agile ensures your eCommerce business will always come out on top.

Conclusion

Digital marketing can feel overwhelming when trying to get your eCommerce business off the ground but forms an integral part of its success. As a full-service web design, developmental, and digital marketing agency, Comrade can help you develop a marketing plan to make you stand out from your competition and increase your leads. Give us a call at (312) 265-0580 or click here to book your free digital marketing consultation.