Four Digital Marketing Channels Aids In ECommerce Growth

In the mid-1990s, online shopping via e-commerce was in its infancy. But today things have changed and has taken a drastic turn. There is exponential growth in this kind of market and one of the biggest reason is, our encounter with pandemic. Personally I don’t remember going out for shopping in last 2 years. We are six people in our family , all are in different age groups and I can confidently say that online shopping is being popular among all age groups. 

Reasons for Online shopping popularity are :

• Huge variety of products
• Better prices with greater discounts and offers
• Easy shopping and discreet shipping
• Quick and easy replacement and refund of products
• Fast delivery
• Zero Human touch
• Easy Comparison with other similar products
• Detailed description about the products and vendors
• No sales pressure

So, when advantages overpower the shortcomings then why won’t people prefer online shopping?

Ecommerce is growing fast. The rapid adoption of smartphones, easy and affordable access to technology, and the convenience of shopping from anywhere, at any time are the major reasons for the rapid growth of online commerce. In E-commerce business buying and selling completely depends on the internet. Therefore, digital marketing gets into the picture, as it is the only medium to support E-commerce business to grow.

Today customers are not just dependent on content or word of mouth marketing as far as buying a product is concerned, they make sure that they read the reviews about the product and do enough comparison on all the platforms on which the product is listed.

Importance of Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is a valuable asset for any business for its growth and to establish authoritative online presence.

• Better reachability
• More personalized
• Better Return On Investment
• Better trackability
• More affordable
• More interactive

The four main digital marketing channels that can help E-commerce business to grow faster and face various challenges.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is one of the digital marketing channels that uses organic tactics to gain visibility in search engine results pages. As you don’t have to pay for it, the results are considered more valuable and authoritative. There are various SEO tactics but the major ones are

• On-page SEO : Optimizes each individual page and helps search engine understand a page of content and therefore gives higher rank. The strategies used here are keyword research, content creation and keyword optimization.
• Technical SEO : Optimizes the website as a whole. The strategies used here are site speed, mobile friendliness, indexing, site architecture, crawlability and security.
• Off-page SEO : Optimizes website’s reputation by connecting to higher quality websites. The strategies used here are link building, managing local listings and directory profiles.

Therefore, SEO helps in increasing the quality and quantity of traffic to the Ecommerce sites organically by using these strategies.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

The only difference SEO and SEM is, Search Engine marketing uses paid ad campaigns based on keywords to reach the customers who are searching for your website.

SEM uses pay per click (PPC) advertising platforms like  Google Ads and Bing Ad to use the available ad formats to reach target audience and also involves everything from setting up and optimizing paid ads, to managing the account to increase conversions and returns.

SEMs will usually begin a campaign with comprehensive keyword research and competitor insights to create targeted campaigns that place their products and services in front of a target audience. This results in higher click through rate , with better conversions in new markets, and greater ad ROI in the markets.

E-Mail Marketing

An email is sent to promote business’s product and services . Email marketing make the customers on your email list aware of new products, discounts, and other services. It can also be a softer sell to educate your audience on the value of your brand or keep them engaged between purchases. I think it is still one of the powerful tools that small businesses can use to acquire, engage, and retain customers. There are four types of popular email marketing campaigns that can help your business grow, they are Email Newsletters, Acquisition emails, Promotional emails and Retention Emails.

Emails play a vital role in providing a better shopping experience to consumers. Once your order is placed on any Ecommerce platform, immediately you get the confirmation email and also a digital invoice. Users can also email questions about products, your experience, or remind customers of their abandoned shopping cart, or general information requests about the company. Personalized emails help your customers connect with your company well.

Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Social media has revolutionized the world. There is hardly anyone who is not active on social media. Therefore, it has become easier for brands to reach out customers through social media. Now digital market professionals are including paid social media due to strong social media networking and this has become their newest strategy to reach out more customers.

If E-commerce platforms want to grow organically by themselves in a short span of time then it’s only digital marketing professionals who could make it possible by grabbing maximum attention from the target audiences and help out their business to convert those into sales. I am sure, there would be more digital marketing channels popping up in the future, So all the big and small time businesses (MSME) should get a hang of it and get ready for future growth and challenges.