E-commerce(electronic commerce) is a business model that facilitates the exchange of exchange of goods and services and the transmission of funds and data over the Internet. E-commerce ultimately relies on technology and digital platforms. It is fundamentally buying and selling products via the Internet.
E-commerce has 4 main types: Business-to-Consumer(B2C), Bussiness-to-Business(B2B), Consumer-to-Business(C2B), Consumer-to-Consumer(C2C). One can participate in e-commerce anywhere they can establish a stable internet connection and a gadget. The main goal of an e-commerce seller will be to drive online sales using excellent marketing strategies.
6 Essential Steps For Winning E-commerce Marketing Strategy
Step 1- Layout Your Business Goals
There are abundances of online business platforms out there and with competition. Before you plan your e-commerce strategy, be clear about the objectives. Prepare an outline of your expected goals and things you aim to achieve from the e-commerce platform. For example: target an X amount of sales by a certain date, Fix a standard revenue to be achieved by the end of the financial year
Step 2- Identify Your Target Audience
The target audience is the 90% of the users who engage and access your service. Identifying the target audience by monitoring their age group, gender, geographical references, occupation etc, will help you build a solid ground for your business, allowing it to cater to the user’s needs.
The business strategy must establish a systematic data frame on the target audiences. The variations in their engagement must be tracked and the changes should be tailored to meet your customer’s needs.
Step 3- Recognize Your Competitors
Once you have entered the e-commerce business platform, it is essential to study your competitors online. The key is to outperform them by building unique business strategies.
Research more on their performances over the years, and identify strengths, weaknesses and threats, this will help understand more about how to modify your business virtually. Make it equally important to analyze your competitor’s activity regularly, thus making you aware of new trends and updates.
Step 4: Determine Your Marketing Channel
Determining your online channels is like finding a suitable platform to exhibit your products. As with any other business, the accessibility of the audience is of prime prerogative here. Once the business strategy is developed it must be executed to the consumers through these platforms.
Here is where the understanding of the target audience comes into play. As there are dozens of social media platforms choosing the accurate channel and working on it helps in social media visibility. Connecting to your audience using these mediums, will ensure the opportunity to grow your market and ultimately achieve your business goals.
Work on how you will initially reach them, here are some considerations you can reflect upon:-
- Social media channels such as Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, etc
- Design your website where customers can interact with you directly.
- Exhibit in web host/e-commerce stores such as popular marketing stores like Amazon, eBay, Flipkart Alibaba, etc.
- PPC Advertising is a particular type of advertising where advertisers pay a fee each time their ads are accessed or clicked.
- Email services can be used to promote the brand and let customers stay updated about new offers and updates of your company. It can capture the attention of buyers if used in the best way.
- Develop your mobile application like an online store for your business.
Step 5: Choosing Your Pricing model And Brand positioning
Technological advancement has made it much easier to compare and evaluate products. Having the right price model will be a significant factor behind your rewarding e-commerce marketing strategy.
Monitoring through all the data you have collected so far, the business strategy must be to entice the customers to your products and services. For that, it is much more relevant to execute a significant brand face/ brand positioning in the digital market. This way owners can navigate the business without overly cutting down the price to look inexpensive and attract the audience.
Thus it is extremely important, to keep a balance between brand positioning and price models. If you have high-quality brand positioning it permits you to set a product-worthy price accordingly far up than those of your competitors, but the brand value comes from keen customer satisfaction and service quality hence, it must outlined strategically.
Also, Read: Top 7 Open Source E-Commerce Platforms List
Step 6: Regularly Monitor Your Business Strategy And Measure Your Success
This last step is where the consistency of building your business strategy matters. How you follow through with all the steps and develop an e-commerce marketing plan, ready to be implemented. As the evolution is reflected on the practical side, monitoring all the strategies consistently is important.
There should be room for further changes, examining and comprehending the competition around, varying needs of the consumers and implementing new approaches accordingly, etc. New opportunities will come your way which can capitalize on or find a mode to optimise and improve your success. Thus it is important to what metric you use to measure your business strategy and hit the goal you set in step 1.
