The start of a new year presents an excellent opportunity to revitalize your e-commerce digital marketing strategy, particularly in competitive or crowded markets. Modernizing your marketing tactics will keep your e-commerce store relevant while adapting to current trends and demands as they emerge. Taking the time to evaluate and refresh your e-commerce marketing strategy for the new year could be the key to enhancing your online visibility, expanding your reach, and increasing your sales.
Set Goals and Analyze Key Metrics
Refreshing your e-commerce marketing strategy begins with reviewing last year's performance to better understand which goals and metrics matter to you most. Review customer acquisition costs, marketing campaign results, sales data, and current conversion rates. This will help you to better identify strengths and weaknesses that may be tweaked or enhanced for an even better outcome with future campaigns and/or promotions.
Moreover, setting SMART goals (or Smart, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound goals) is also recommended while enhancing your e-commerce marketing strategy for the new year. Reassessing which growth areas are most important for your e-commerce store can also help, such as reviewing top-performing campaigns or products.
The Importance of Website Optimization
Whether you're running a quaint blog to showcase your artwork or a massive e-commerce store that ships globally, website optimization is vital for performance purposes. A website that operates and loads seamlessly can significantly improve conversion rates and overall customer satisfaction. While optimizing your website's performance, keep the following in mind:
- Mobile Optimization/Responsiveness: Your e-commerce store should be optimized for mobile users, as more users who browse the web today do so with the use of smartphones and tablet devices than ever before. While premium tools are available, there are also testing tools, such as Google's Mobile-Friendly Test tool to preview your e-commerce store as it will appear in various mobile browsers.
- Page Speed: Your e-commerce store's page speed matters. A slow-loading website will likely have a much higher bounce rate. A high bounce rate typically indicates slow loading speeds, difficult navigation, or a poorly optimized template.
Broaden Your Marketing Efforts
Diversifying how you market your e-commerce store and the specific products you intend to promote this year can also help you reach a wider audience. When you diversify where and how you're reaching your online customers, it's also much easier to gain insights into which platforms and subcultures are interested in your store. A few suggested channels to explore might include:
- Influencer Marketing: Signing an influencer is becoming increasingly popular, especially if you're targeting a specific group of consumers who are interested in your product(s). Even if you're working on a limited budget, there's also an opportunity to work with micro-influencers or those who are part of smaller, more niche-focused, communities.
- Content Marketing: Content is still king, whether you're creating TikTok and Facebook Reels videos or if you craft unique, in-depth content that's relevant to your store's products. An ongoing content strategy is a must-have for those interested in driving additional organic traffic to their e-commerce stores.
- Shopping Ads: Break into a brand-new area of marketing by promoting your e-commerce store with search results shopping ads. Platforms such as Google Shopping can help you get started. This process may require A/B testing and trial and error to better understand which users are genuinely interested in the products and/or services you're promoting.
- Social Media Marketing: Social media marketing, or SMM, is another way to showcase products. Even if you're not ready to launch paid marketing campaigns, cultivating a social media following by promoting visually appealing products can drive traffic and sales organically. Consistency is key when using social media. Be sure to update consistently to remain relevant within social media platform algorithms while reaching your desired target audience.
Familiarize Yourself With Retargeting Campaigns
Retargeting campaigns allow you to attempt to re-engage visitors who have visited your e-commerce store in the past, only to leave immediately or leave after adding items to their virtual shopping cart.
When launched successfully retargeting campaigns can increase your conversion rates by up to 70%. When you're integrating retargeting campaigns into your digital marketing strategy, remember the following tips:
- Dynamic Retargeting: Using solutions such as AdRoll or even Google Ads can help you display specific ads that feature various services and products your users have viewed in the past.
- Personalizing Social Media Ads: You can use platforms such as Facebook Ads to promote personalized ads to users or followers who have visited your website previously.
- Email Retargeting: Email retargeting efforts may include reminders of abandoned carts along with discounts or even exclusive offers for subscribers to motivate users to come back to your site and/or complete their purchase.
Refresh Your Existing SEO Strategy
Similar to traditional websites or blogs, e-commerce sites also require a strong SEO strategy, especially when attempting to drive organic traffic. If you're in a highly saturated market, tweaking and updating your SEO strategy may be necessary until you see the desired results. When you're refreshing your e-commerce site's existing SEO strategy, keep the following in mind:
- The Importance of Long-Tail Keywords: Long-tail keywords can help hone in on your target audience based on their specific needs and/or demands. Specific phrases that reflect exact customer searches scattered throughout your content, product descriptions, and pages can naturally significantly boost your site's ranking in top search engines, such as Google, Yahoo!, Brave, and even DuckDuckGo.
- Optimize Products and Category Pages: Each year, it's advisable to take some time to refresh the SEO of your e-commerce store's category and product pages. Adding keyword-rich descriptions to your product categories and individual pages can also significantly boost your site's ranking in search engines. Reassessing existing pages and updating pages according to new product and/or service additions is also recommended as you enter the new year with a refreshed e-commerce digital marketing strategy.
- Internal Linking Improvements: Spend a bit of time updating internal site links throughout your e-commerce site. Start by linking updated and new products on existing pages while also ensuring you promote all internal links as naturally as possible.
- Voice Search Optimization: Voice search optimization is becoming increasingly popular with the use of mobile smartphones and AI search solutions, such as Siri and Alexa. Try creating a FAQ page that's optimized along with conversational keywords to help boost your site's voice search optimization.
Implementing new and refreshed strategies for your e-commerce store this year can drastically improve your viability within search engines and even on social media platforms. Taking the time to reassess and reevaluate your store's needs and the demands of your target audience is a way to ensure you stay on the right track to success in any market, niche, or industry you're in today.
Ashley Nielsen
Ashley Nielsen earned a B.S. degree in Business Administration Marketing at Point Loma Nazarene University. She is a freelance writer who loves to share knowledge about general business, marketing, lifestyle, wellness, and financial tips. During her free time, she enjoys being outside, staying active, reading a book, or diving deep into her favorite music.