Robyn Rivera
When it comes to ecommerce marketing, a little know-how can go a long way. Ecommerce marketing is far from rocket science, but not everything about it is common sense, either.
In fact, there are a lot of misconceptions about ecommerce marketing that are widely believed and that can, unfortunately, end up hurting your bottom line.
If you have a great product, it’s easy to think that it’s all you need to succeed. After all, if your product is superior to the competition, why wouldn’t everyone want to shop with you?
But, the truth is that having great products is just one small piece of the puzzle. You also have to get the word out about your products and let people know how they can benefit from them.
The product itself is just one reason why someone makes a purchase. People also make purchases from brands they know and trust. And, without marketing, they may never know that the product exists in the first place.
Having a great product is a good start and can only help, but it’s actually a small part of ecommerce success.
The whole point of ecommerce marketing is to drive revenue. At the end of the day, getting more “Likes” on social media, making your website more visible, and improving your online reputation all leads to revenue sooner or later.
Because everything eventually boils down to revenue, it’s easy to think that revenue is the only KPI (key performance indicator) you need to be paying attention to. However, your ability to drive that revenue through marketing depends on how effective that marketing is, and in order to measure that, you need to pay attention to the right KPIs.
By monitoring and testing many different aspects of your digital marketing campaign, you can fine-tune that campaign to be more effective. It will give you insight into what is working and what isn’t, which will give you the information you need to change up your strategy.
The common phrase, “if you build it, they will come,” is actually a misphrase from Field of Dreams. Misquote or not, many online retailers are under the misconception that, once they build a website, visitors will come on their own.
Building the right ecommerce website is, without a doubt, a critically important aspect to your success online. However, even if you built the best ecommerce website that’s ever existed, if no one ever sees it, it may as well not exist in the first place.
In addition to building the right website, you need the right digital marketing strategy. That should include search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, social media management, video marketing, search advertising, and more.
There are so many different ecommerce websites you could choose from. And, while there are a lot of great options — and many offer similar features and functionality — it’s important to know that not all ecommerce platforms are made equal.
The right ecommerce platform will be:
A common misconception among ecommerce businesses is that having the lowest price is the most important aspect of making sales online. I have two problems with this kind of thinking.
First, it’s based on a false assumption. Price is undeniably important, and people will do a lot in order to save a few bucks. However, people also want value for their money — even if they’re getting a discount. They want to know that they’re purchasing something that will last, and they want to purchase it from an ecommerce store they can trust.
Second, if your only strategy is to undercut everyone else’s price, it’s going to be exceedingly difficult to make money and keep your ecommerce store afloat. In order to make up for low prices, you need a high volume of sales, which means that you’ll have to constantly work at driving more and more sales in order to make ends meet.
While it’s good to have affordable prices, you shouldn’t drive your prices so low that you can’t make money. Price isn’t everything, and it’s important to understand how it fits into the bigger picture of making sales.
I hope this blog will help to shed some light on some of the more misunderstood areas of ecommerce marketing. If you need help getting it right, Marketing 360® can help.
And, if you’re in the market for a new ecommerce website, start building your own with Websites 360® today. Our templates are fully customizable, professional, and designed to convert. Get started today.