Running an online store means consistently looking for ways to boost traffic to your website, earn new customers and drive more sales.
To maximize their reach and increase their potential customer base, many e-commerce business owners avail themselves of online marketplaces like Amazon Seller UAE, where they can set up a storefront, list their products, and expose their brand to a global audience — an excellent marketing strategy, especially since the platform offers different selling plans, fulfillment strategies, and advertising tools suited to every company’s niche and budget requirements.
However, in terms of amplifying your brand’s online presence, that’s just one medium. And as powerful as it is, you can’t let it do the heavy lifting all by itself — not with 11.11 million shoppers expected to be viewing and buying products online in the UAE by 2025, according to the World Bank.
So, what else can you do to promote your e-commerce store? Read on to find out.
3 Strategies for Promoting Your Online Store
There are all sorts of marketing strategies that e-commerce business owners can adopt, but not all of them apply to each one’s industry, target market and budget. A good place to start is to learn all you can about your customers so that you can zero in on the platforms and tactics that will grab their attention and lead them to your store.
That said, here are three of the most effective routes to enhancing your brand’s online visibility:
1. Social Media Marketing
The best thing about social media is how ubiquitous, cost-effective and targeted it can be. Here, you can personalize your brand’s message to suit whichever platform you use and, more importantly, the audience you want to reach. A few best practices to maximize your social media marketing potential include:
- Familiarizing yourself with each social media platform’s key demographics. For example, if your company is a wholesale distributor of cleaning supplies with B2B as your primary target audience, it makes sense to pool your resources into LinkedIn marketing. Alternatively, if your niche is women’s clothing, such as summer dresses, beachwear and accessories, a visually centric medium with a high female user base like Pinterest might serve you better.
- Diversifying your content. Would you want to follow a page that posts links to their blog all the time? The same goes for videos, infographics, and other types of content. People tend to gravitate towards pages that give them something fresh, useful and entertaining to consume, so try to mix it up.
- Engaging with your followers and replying to their DMs and comments consistently. Such an effort on your part shows that your business cares about its customers, not to mention the insights you’ll be able to gather about their preferences, as well as product feedback and suggestions that you can use to improve your brand.
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is the process of optimizing your store’s website to score a higher ranking on search engines like Google and, as a result, attract more organic traffic.
According to eCommerce DB, 44% of online shopping journeys begin with an internet search, so it’s safe to say that your store showing up on the first pages of search results for the keywords your audience uses massively impacts your chances of being discovered.
There are several SEO techniques you can employ, including:
- Embedding high-traffic, low-competition keywords that are relevant to your niche into your product descriptions, blog posts, landing pages and more.
- Improving your site’s loading speed, navigation and mobile responsiveness — all the things that make for a better user experience.
- Building a network of quality backlinks that boost the credibility and authoritativeness of your website in Google’s eyes. You can do this by collaborating with influencers and guest posting on websites in your space.
3. Email Marketing
Another effective strategy that opens the lines of communication between your business and its customers and keeps your brand top-of-mind is email marketing.
Through newsletter sign-ups and opt-in pages, and of course, when customers place an order, you can collect their email addresses and use them to:
- Update subscribers about new products, promos, sales and company news.
- Offer exclusive deals, discounts or freebies to your email list.
- Request feedback and send surveys that you can use to enhance your business’s offerings and keep a pulse on what people think of your brand.
What’s more, Statista revealed that a whopping 70% of online shopping carts were abandoned in 2023, another area where email marketing can step in and turn those missed sales into conversions.
Sending emails, either by integrating specialized software into your e-commerce platform or utilizing reputable marketplaces like Amazon’s built-in capabilities, you can retarget your customers with personalized, branded emails (maybe with a discount code) reminding them to complete their purchase.
Strengthen Your Brand’s Online Presence
Whether you are still at the beginning of your e-commerce journey or a veteran of the online selling world, relentlessly and consistently promoting your brand’s offerings should always be part of your strategy.
You now know three of the best ways to spread awareness about your products and services and connect with prospective customers, but don’t let this be it.
Learn where your customers are and the right way to communicate with them, study the mediums and channels where you can make the most impact and always be ready to change and adapt your marketing techniques.
