Launching a new Shopify store is a big deal! You deserve to feel good about it and bask in the excitement. Marketing your Shopify store doesn't have to be daunting.
In the guide below, Thruways will explore various strategies and tactics to help you reach your target audiences and take your Shopify store to new levels of revenue growth. We at Thruways know that building an effective eCommerce marketing strategy is the key to unlocking your store's potential and connecting with your target audience.
Let's dive in and start driving your eCommerce store to new heights with marketing!
Content Marketing for your Shopify Store
The Content Marketing Institute defines "Content Marketing" as "a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action."
Content marketing is one of the most cost-effective and versatile ways to communicate with your target audience. This is why content marketing should be a vital component of any larger strategy for marketing your Shopify store.
Here are some content marketing techniques that countless other successful Shopify store owners use to market their eCommerce business. These strategies will boost visibility, engage visitors, and drive growth.
Blogging
Anyone can blog, including you!
You can start a blog directly on your Shopify store, where you can share tips and guides or even behind-the-scenes sneak peeks about your product.
Consistency is key! It's important to publish regularly. Engaging with your audience frequently will help establish you as an expert in your field.
Keep SEO (search engine optimization) in mind as you draft your content. Research the best keywords for your eCommerce business and weave them organically into your content. This will help you rank higher in search engine queries, driving new customers to your Shopify store.
Guest Blogging
Blogging doesn't need to be confined to your own eCommerce website. Many eCommerce and general business blogs (including Thuways) are happy to accept guest contributions. You can reach out with multiple ideas for pieces/posts and allow them to select the topic they feel will best match their focus. Guest blogging is a great way to grow your network and allow your Shopify store to reach new audiences.
Video Marketing
Video marketing is an incredibly valuable tool for driving traffic to your eCommerce Shopify store. Back in 2010, Troy Olson and Jeff Loquist of ShoppersChoice.com underscored the importance of video marketing. "If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is worth a million."
So how can you use video to promote and market your new Shopify store?
First, you can create compelling videos that showcase the best and most popular products sold in your Shopify store.
Secondly, you can share your videos across various platforms such as YouTube, and social media. Sharing your videos across different marketing channels increases brand visibility and also attracts a wider audience, and helps boost traffic; leading to more sales!
According to Hubspot, audiences in 2022 spent an average of 19 hours a week watching videos online.
There are many types of videos that can drive engagement and conversion for your Shopify store. Moreover, promoting video tutorials about your products can drive both engagement and conversion. Per Hubspot, 55% of consumers use videos for purchase decisions. Additionally, 73% are more likely to purchase after watching a product video.
Social Media Marketing for your Shopify Store
These platforms offer immense opportunities to connect with your target audience and promote your products. Interestingly enough, nearly 60% of the world is on social media. However, when narrowing the focus exclusively to those online (which is 100% of your Shopify store audience), the percentage of individuals on at least one social media platform surges to nearly 93%.
Therefore, social media marketing ought to be a pivotal component of your Shopify store marketing strategy, given its unparalleled potential to help you connect with your target audience and promote your products. So with that in mind, here are some tips to maximize your effectiveness:
Choose The Right Platforms
To chose the right platform, it’s important to know who your audience is and what social media platforms they regularly use.
If your audience demographic doesn't engage with Instagram, focus on other platforms. LinkedIn may be the optimal platform for connecting with your target audience and promoting your eCommerce store if your product is workplace-related. On the other hand, Instagram might be more of a priority if your offering is more consumer-related.
Create Compelling Profiles
So how important is a profile? As Will Rogers said, "You never get a second chance to make a good first impression." Be sure to use high-quality photos and images and take the time to write a crisp, compelling description. Also, include links to drive additional traffic to your eCommerce store!
Most importantly, remember that a business profile has different aims than a personal social profile. When creating a profile for your Shopify store, you aim to attract customers and grow revenue so your profile should focus on achieving those objectives.
Engage With Your Audience
As noted above, consistency is key! Regularly post engaging content, including product updates and industry news. It is critically important that you or someone from your team responds promptly to any comments and messages.
When a customer offers meaningful feedback, it's essential to make them feel heard. This is because recognizing their input encourages them to continue providing constructive comments in the future. Most importantly, being responsive not only spurs loyalty but also plays a significant role in reducing churn for your eCommerce store. In turn, this proactive approach aids in growing brand recognition and reinforcing customer loyalty.
Run Social Media Ads
Running social media ads is an integral part of marketing your Shopify store. Specifically, platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter offer robust advertising tools that allow you to precisely target your ideal audience based on demographics, interests, and online behaviors.
By crafting compelling ad content and visuals, you can capture the attention of potential customers and drive them directly to your store, increasing traffic, sales, and brand awareness.
This may require experimentation with different ad formats and messaging to discover what works best for your audience.
We'll dive deeper into paid advertising best practices below.
Influencer Marketing
Influencers are individuals who have a large following within your target market audience. In recent years, influencer marketing has emerged as a powerful strategy that unites influencers and brands to create compelling marketing campaigns. To emphasize, when influencers boast a large and engaged following, they are particularly well-positioned to effectively champion your eCommerce store to an audience that's notably eager and receptive. Here's how you can incorporate influencer marketing into your Shopify store marketing strategy:
Identify & Build Relationships With Relevant Influencers
Research and identify influencers who align with the values of your Shopify store product brand and have an engaged audience that matches your target market. A recommended plan of action is to search on social media while utilizing hashtags that align with your eCommerce store and brand.
Reach out to these influencers and build genuine relationships with them. Secondly, offer them the opportunity to sample your products for free and provide exclusive discounts to promote your eCommerce store. Also, check out this piece from Flowbox that includes tips directly from influencers themselves.
Sponsored Posts And Reviews
Collaborate with influencers to create sponsored content. Examples may include social media posts, blog reviews, and YouTube videos showcasing your products. Driving traffic with sponsored influencer content is crucial for marketing your Shopify store. Over 99.9% of customers turn to reviews when shopping online. Furthermore, a significant 49% of consumers place their trust in these reviews, valuing them just as much as personal recommendations from friends and family members.
Affiliate Programs
Setting up an influencer marketing affiliate program creates a win-win situation that drives remarkable results.
How do affiliate marketing programs work? Influencers are provided with a unique referral link through which they earn a commission for every sale generated. As a result, this motivates them to promote your products to their dedicated followers and audience.
Consequently, your brand not only gains increased exposure, but with the trusted endorsement of influential personalities, your products also tap into a much broader customer base. The ROI benefits of Affiliate Marketing are solid and well-documented. Affiliate-related spending accounts for 16 percent of all online orders. Moreover, the average online order is 31 percent higher with affiliate marketing customers.
Email Marketing for your Shopify Store
While email marketing may have been around for a while, it's worth noting that it still stands as one of the most effective ways to nurture leads. Additionally, it's instrumental in building customer relationships and driving repeat sales.
Over 90% of businesses believe email marketing is essential to success. It's not surprising, considering the return on investment (ROI) for email marketing is so lucrative. For every $1 companies spend on email marketing, they make an average of $36 back. Moreover, the average ROI can be as high as $45 in eCommerce.
Here are some email marketing strategies worth considering for your Shopify store:
Build An Email List
Collecting the email addresses of interested customers gives you a direct and personalized way to communicate with them. To start, encourage Shopify store visitors to subscribe to your newsletter. You can also increase your email subscription rates by offering a compelling lead magnet. This can be offered as either an exclusive discount or a free resource.
Then, as your list of engaged subscribers grows, you'll be poised to send targeted and well-converting email campaigns that spotlight your latest products, seasonal offers, and enticing promotions. This approach drives repeat traffic to your store, nurtures customer loyalty, and boosts sales by turning potential customers into repeat buyers. Did you know that repeat buyers can average 45% of an eCommerce customer base?
Segment Your Email List
Don't just treat your email list as a single static entity!
Divide your subscribers into segments based on their interests, purchase history, and demographics. This allows you the flexibility to send targeted and personalized emails that resonate with each segment.
Send Welcome Emails And Abandoned Cart Emails
Set up automated email sequences to welcome new subscribers and remind customers about their abandoned carts. Personalized emails are more likely to be opened and read, and their utilization can significantly increase the conversion rate of your Shopify store.
Create Newsletter And Promotional Emails
Regularly send out newsletters featuring new products, promotions, and valuable content. Ensure your emails are visually appealing, mobile-friendly, and contain clear calls to action. To drive more conversions, you can design email newsletters using themes based on the time of year (e.g., Labor Day, Thanksgiving).
Crafting compelling and visually appealing emails does more than just drive emails; it also helps aid in brand recognition for your Shopify eCommerce store! It helps ensure that your emails stand out in crowded inboxes, leaving a lasting impression and keeping your brand at the forefront of customers' minds throughout their purchasing journey.
Paid Advertising for your Shopify Store
Paid advertising can be an effective way to quickly generate traffic and increase brand visibility for your Shopify store. Here are some examples of strategic paid advertising options:
Google Ads
There's a reason why businesses use it. Roughly 80% of Internet users see ads through Google's Display Network daily. Additionally, setting up Google Ads campaigns to target relevant keywords increases your chances of appearing in search engine results. To make your marketing even more effective, you can run display ads on websites within your niche using the Display Network.
Facebook's robust ad platform allows small businesses to create highly targeted campaigns based on demographics, interests, and behaviors. You can easily expand your eCommerce store's reach with Facebook Ads. Also by running A/B tests and experiments with different ad formats and audience groups, you can start driving additional sales. carousel ads.
Instagram Ads
Since Facebook and Instagram advertising are a part of the Meta Business Suite, it’s even easier to run ads on both platforms! Additionally, Instagram's visual nature showcases the products found in your Shopify store and engages with your target audiences. Instagram offers multiple ways to communicate with your followers, including posts, stories, and reels, each with advantages. A good overview of the pros/cons of each is available here. In short, Stories are good for timely content, Reels for entertaining content, and Posts for generic content.
Retargeting Ads
Many ads are designed to spread both product and brand awareness. However, a retargeting ad specifically targets previous visitors who landed on your Shopify store to push them to make a first or repeat purchase.
Retargeting campaigns are a great way to reach these potential customers. Retargeting ad campaigns are used to keep both your products and brand top of mind. Research shows that 75% of online buyers pay attention to retargeting ads. Moreover, using display ads for retargeting can lead to a 70% conversion rate!
Marketing Your Shopify Store With Thruways
Living in an era of big data is simultaneously exciting and daunting! Your data library will grow with every campaign you run and each email you send. The challenge will be extracting valuable data (or signals) from the noise. Thruways was built to be your copilot on this journey for you and your eCommerce store.
Many dashboards provide a good snapshot of where you are. Thruways delivers actionable insights designed for you to achieve new levels of revenue growth.
Conclusion
Successfully marketing and promoting your Shopify store requires a combination of strategies and tactics! Some strategies may be more effective than others, and the result can vary significantly based on your target audience and industry.
Be sure to track and analyze your marketing efforts. These will help to identify what works best for your store and allow you to make better data-driven decisions.
Employing the above strategies can increase brand awareness, drive traffic, and grow your online business.
