If you are running a progressive offline business, you are no stranger to marketing. However, the world of digital marketing works differently, and that is a must to conquer. Establishing an online business comes with a lot of legwork, but the real struggle begins when you create a strategic plan to generate revenues.
Today, the market is progressing at a faster pace; new trends are surfacing, with advancements in tech shaping the digital world. So, don't stay left behind and learn some easy tips to promote your online business.
What Is An E-commerce Store?
E-commerce is known by different names - internet commerce, online commerce, and electronic commerce. It's a business model involving sales and purchases of products online. e-commerce business sales reached $4.8 trillion in 2021. The industry achieved an enormous boom during the COVID-19 pandemic, where many businesses adapted to establish a digital presence.
To run an e-commerce business, owners must establish an online store with displayed products, a shopping cart, and a checkout terminal. There are many ways to do that; you can create an e-commerce store online or set up a shop on Facebook to display your products.
How To Start An E-commerce Store
Starting a brick-and-mortar store is way different than setting up an e-commerce store; however, there are some similarities as well. What majorly differs is how you market your store; the techniques, platforms, and strategies are some key areas you need to be mindful of. Check out the guide below and learn about the basics to open your e-commerce store
01 - Find Your Niche Product
There are a whopping 12 to 24 million e-commerce stores around the world. Hence, to penetrate the market, you need to look for your niche product. You have to make sure your product is unique and offers value to the customers. Here’s a tip, you can even start your store with just 5 good quality products as well.
02 - Know Your Market And Competitors
Before you jump to hire a digital marketing company in Dubai, you must be aware of your market and the competitors. You should have a complete understanding of how your rivals are operating and functioning. It's imperative to evaluate the potential of the market for your niche product and how deep you need to penetrate to get good returns You can seek an expert’s advice to help you get an in-depth understanding of the market.
03 - Know Your Primary Audience
It's important to know your audience’s pain points. You must get connected with their problems to successfully place your products as a solution. Get emotionally and practically aware of how you can help in overcoming their problems and what value they expect from your product. Understand their needs and preferences as it helps in shaping your marketing campaigns.
04 - Create A Brand Identity
Creating a brand identity helps in positioning your business in the over-saturated marketplace. You create a personality that can stick at the back of customers' minds with a meaningful logo, a customer-centric e-store, and a unique tone and voice. For that, you must have a vision scope in your mind.
05 - Establish an e-Store
When it comes to establishing an e-commerce store, you must keep in mind the aspects a customer wants. Your goal should be to make online shopping a pleasant and convenient experience for your visitors. Design a user-friendly interface that is easier for customers to navigate through. Create a highly secure checkout terminal with multiple payment methods. Make sure to optimize your platform to offer fast speed and smooth transitions from pages to tabs.
How To Promote Your Online Store
Now that you are through the basics focus on ways to promote your store. A strategic marketing funnel can engage a huge volume of traffic to your store, making it rank at the top in the search engine. Here are some proven inbound and outbound marketing techniques for you to follow.
01 - Build And Update Your Email List
The best email marketing company in the UAE can help you create a strong marketing strategy. You have to collect the addresses and details of your customers to keep them notified about any latest updates. It's important to stay connected to your customers for a long-term relationship. Email marketing lets you directly engage them and share information about your products and services. Create a regular, valuable, informative email segment to increase lead generation.
02 - Boost Your Social Media Presence
The top social media platforms in the UAE are Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram. You need to take over these platforms and create a consistent marketing strategy. Around 98.99% of the UAE's population spends a good amount of time on social platforms. Hence, you need to penetrate these platforms and showcase your products and services with engaging content. Many tools are there to automate your postings. You can create and schedule weekly posts and monitor the performance efficiently.
03 - Optimize SEO
Search engine optimization, especially local SEO, is highly recommended to boost your online store's conversion, digital visibility, and lead generation. Although the turnaround time is over 6 months, with SEO you invest in long-term progress. It's estimated that around 46% of traffic comes from Google searches to the online store. There are three key areas in SEO to focus on, on-page, off-page, and technical SEO. Each of these works by having a result-oriented strategy in place, which involves targeting the most-searched keywords.
04 - Offer Discounts Vouchers
Discounts, vouchers, and promo codes are something that never fails to fascinate buyers. Offering “Buy 1 Get 1 Free” vouchers and discounted deals can bring a heavy volume of traffic to your site. You simply need to trigger ‘FOMO’ - the fear of missing out, and you’ll be surprised to cater to the huge traffic that will come sweeping to your platform. According to the statistics, the growth of mobile redeeming coupons is expected to go beyond 56.4% by 2025.
05 - Create Paid Ads
Going for paid ads helps you leap forward in your game of the lead generation. It ensures higher conversion rates and quick returns on investments. However, it's essential to set a budget, have a target, and choose the right digital marketing expert in UAE to create and plan the campaigns.
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PPC Ads
PPC using Google ads is a powerful marketing tool to boost your social, SEO, and content campaigns. It's cost-effective and guarantees promising results. Helping you reach the top spot, these ads reveal comprehensive performance analytics to improvise and monitor growth. As the name indicates, you have to pay whenever a visitor clicks on the ad. These ads are targeted based on region, preferences, and customer segmentation. Hence, ensuring the highest conversion rates.
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Social Media Ads
Social media allows marketers to hyper-target specific users, building a database of prospective customers to generate guaranteed outcomes. Through social media ads, you get better insights about your customers, reach out to new buyers, and get a wide range of formats to penetrate deep into the market. It comes with a low entry cost and helps you accomplish your goals efficiently.
06 - Consider Using Influencers
Influencer marketing is a smart and effective way to engage your target audience. Consumers prefer third-party, lifestyle content over polished promotional ads, so the marketing technique shows great results. If choosing a top-rated influencer does not seem budget-friendly, try micro-influencers. With micro-influencer, you tend to penetrate into a considerably smaller group audience, but the outcomes are far greater than the ones generated through popular influencers. It revolves around a stronger connection between the influencer and the audience.
07 - Go Omnichannel To Attract More Customers
Omnichannel is based on connecting a company's all touchpoints. In this way, customers experience no dead-end while transitioning from one platform (let's say, a social platform) to another (brick-and-mortar store. According to the Core sight report, almost 74% of retailers have opted for an Omnichannel strategy considering the many benefits, which involve better reach, enhanced relationships, increased operational efficiency, and accelerated sales.
08 - Monitor And Evaluate Your Performance Regularly
Evaluation and monitoring are the two essential aspects that one must never overlook while running an e-commerce store. You must be aware of the areas your website lack and the troubles your visitors are encountering. Some top tools like Google Analytics, Matomo, Klaviyo, and Hotjar are commonly preferred for sleek and robust monitoring. You get to know about the inflow of traffic, the heavy traffic regions, the bounce rates, conversion rates, and all the essential aspects to improvise and boost the efficiency of your business, thereby magnifying the growth.
Wrap Up
Standing out looks challenging, but with a targeted strategy in place and a dedicated team at work, you can surpass your competitors in no time. At ConnectIn Digital, a premier digital marketing agency in UAE, we have a hub of marketers with exceptional experience to help brands generate promising results and unmatched growth.
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